scrubbedexpat099

Huh

Who is separating who?

carcajou

They are not innocent, if they overstayed. It's minor if they overstay a few days (or a week or two). It's not minor if they overstay for months or years.

While a few cases may be minor - when viewed in isolation - one of the issues is that then spreads, and you are then looking at hundreds of thousands of cases "in isolation." That is when the "stuff that" theorem kicks in. Why have immigration law at all then, if the law is only going to apply to people following it, but gets waived if someone chooses not to and says "stuff that?"

It isn't about "punishment" but also about protection - both for the migrant and the country.

Pulaski

This happened to a woman (from Singapore) in Britain a few weeks ago. .... It in that case, like this one, when there are several routes to a satisfactory and legal outcome, it is a mystery why the immigrant didn't take a route freely available to them (though perhaps with a related cost) and instead chose to stick their head in the sand for many years?

jkeller

And a lot of illegals have anchor babies hoping the US government feels the same way.

quiltman

It happens in the UK as well. There have been a couple of well publicised cases recently - one a UK guy married to a Singaporean lady, been in UK off and on for 29 years, I think,. She never applied for citizenship as it meant giving up her Singaporean citizenship Woman sent back to Singapore despite 27-year marriage - BBC News
Another was a family that failed to meet the financial requirements when applying for FLR - they knew the rules but spent most of the savings they used for the original application and did not earn the required amount so their earnings, plus the allowable portion of savings took them below the minimum. Sorry, cannot find the link at this moment. The point is as others have said, it is up to you to be aware of the rules and make sure you can meet them. Yes, there should perhaps be some leeway for specific cases but not for blatant ingnoring of the law. At least the US/Canada/UK and others allow you to apply for citizenship after a specific period of time so if you intend staying why not do this?

quiltman

Sorry Pulaski, you posted whilst I was typing!

nun

I read about that case....of course the people in Lowell were taking the official steps to normalize their residence status...they were at a Green Card interview and were taken into custody afterwards.

Pulaski

That would be all fine and dandy if that had been the illegal immigrant's first contact with the enforcement arm of USCIS, but it wasn't and he had already reached the point of having had a removal order issued against him. ... Most people, who had one or more legal avenues open to them, would have moved swiftly to legalize their status*, whereas in this case he apparently delayed taking the sensible route until it was already too late. Then he expects sympathy!

* In fairness, I would suggest that "most" people follow the rules and don't even have a first contact with the ugly end of USCIS!

carcajou

Yeah. She applied how many times and got rejected each time, and then said "stuff that, I'm going to come back anyways."

Unfortunately, as the Government cannot comment on specific cases due to privacy regulations, we don't actually know why she kept getting rejected. We just get this woman's side of the story which was apparently good enough for BBC. One hole I see immediately: She cannot provide evidence of contact with her family because of Yahoo messenger and pre-paid phone calls? There were no visits, no weddings, no graduations, no gifts, no hand-written cards?

Not that I am saying privacy laws should be changed - but be wary of accepting 100% people's stories when the other side can't respond.

scottyvisa

I presume you mean that if someone breaks immigration law, they can expect consequences? I'm pretty certain that living outside the law doesn't void your legal protection, criminals have human rights after all.

morpeth

I would assume part of the reason for such ICE actions is considered in the public interest is that by taking such actions it sends a message to those who are or considering over-staying their visas. This is similar to IRS- I have always noticed in the two months leading up to April 15 it seems IRS taking actions and publicizing them than in other ties of the year,

Yes it is cruel to break apart families, and it seems that the symptom rather than the cause of the problem is being addressed- lack of efficient border control, and how easy it is in the USA to live as an illegal for many years.

I still do not understand why the USA there is even a debate about border control.

az2014

I'm surprised AOS while on a B visa wasn't the first thing that was stopped.

The sooner that loophole is scrapped the better.

mikelincs

New one in the UK this morning,

https://uk.yahoo.com/news/popular-no...110400817.html

civilservant

So paying taxes changes the fact he has been in the UK illegally for 18 years?

nun

Border control is a fairly new concept, particularly in the SW.