On like Donkey Kong: Obama Said to Plan Moves to Shield 5 Million Immigrants

Either that or seriously increased enforcement of employment laws, something that the GOP is unlikely to work towards.

 

The rules on acquiring citizenship are actually quite baroque. It is not necessarily true that a child will be able to acquire citizenship through their citizen parent if born abroad.

For example, if the girl had been born abroad between 1952 and 1986 to her USC mother who was legally married to a non-citizen and her USC mother had not lived the requisite amount of time in the United (10 years of physical presence of which at least 5 were after age 14), then the girl would not have acquired citizenship. As to whether it should be like this, I agree - the girl should be a USC, but the laws are all sorts of messed up and eventually you have to draw some bright lines.

So let's say that she didn't acquire citizenship at birth for whatever reason. Maybe the answer is as simple as her mother only had a green card at the time not USC. Either way the kid is born. I guess let's assume that the mother has a green card at the time as it is most likely. The mother could have started a family based petition for her daughter, but the girl would fall under preference category 2A. As of the most recent visa bulletin, they are processing F2A category petitions from Mexico that were submitted in January of 2013 so over a year wait, though who knows what the wait was like back then.

She could petition for her child and live outside the United States with the child while she waits for a visa to become available, but maybe she just wants to get back to the rest of her family in the United States (or maybe even more tragically the mother is USC and does not realize that her kid is not a USC because she doesn't understand the physical presence requirements).

So this girl enters at 2 months - likely on a border crossing card or tourist visa and then overstays. The mother could file a petition after entry, but once the kid has crossed, the kid is going to have to go back to Mexico (where they might not even have anyone to care for them) to fix the situation and they will likely have to stay outside for at least a couple of months.

Even worse, maybe the family is a bit uneducated and decide to wait until the child is 19 before deciding to work on getting the kid status. At that point the kid has over a year of unlawful presence accrued after age 18. The family consults with someone and learns that the second the kid leaves the country to fix status the kid will trigger the unlawful presence bar and be unable to enter the country for a period of 10 years absent a waiver where they show extreme hardship to their USC or LPR parent or spouse. Unfortunately just knowing that your parent will miss you is not typically considered extreme hardship. Maybe the family doesn't think they can show extreme hardship because the mother is working and doing fine with no disabilities. Maybe they decide not to proceed with the petition.

Now, let's say that maybe the family and the girl doesn't realize any of this and at 19 her mother does a petition for her and she goes back to Mexico to try and get status. Not understanding the gravity of the situation she does not get her waiver approved and is stuck outside. Then, knowing nothing other than life with her family in the United States, this girl stupidly decides to cross back illegally. The second she crosses back she has triggered the permanent bar. Now she is basically screwed and will not be getting status through her USC mother ever unless she decides to leave the country for a period of 10 years and then after 10 years try to begin the process anew.

Bottom line is that there are so many practical and legal reasons as to why a USC parent either cannot get or has not gotten their kid onto pathway to legal status. Unfortunately we have an immigration system that punishes kids for the sins of their parents.

You are right, there isn't anywhere close to enough information to judge the situation. It is not necessarily true that someone who is a naturalized citizen will be able to petition for all of her children. Also, even if she was a citizen at the time she gave birth to the kid in Mexico, it is not necessarily true that the kid acquired citizenship at birth. It is specifically these situations that compel a need for immigration reform. There is no reason why our system needs to be this complex and there is no reason that people who have lived here their whole lives should not be able to get on the pathway to a green card.

 

Work permits gives more businesses a crack at the cheap labor market they see other industries feeding off of. Migrant workers won't get them if they don't have them now. Why would they? Undocumented workers will have no motivation to become documented, and newly documented workers will infiltrate other unskilled positions that were previously filled by legal workers. Everyone wins except current unskilled workers who will see further wage stagnation.

 

Haha, not even close to all possible blanks and a lot of assumptions which may or may not be true which is, as you say, the point. Saying that people should have done it the legal way or telling people to get to the back of the line is ridiculous when many times there is no way or no line and/or getting there is too complicated and/or unfeasible.

 

It is really cute how you don't seem to know how to look up words in a dictionary. These days, you don't even have to crack a book, you could know that you don't understand the word "emperor" simply by using Google.

 

Spot on analysis, Commodore. Immigration reform is a clear indicator of the actions of a dictator/emperor. Remember when Hitler was trying to get all of those Jews amnestied in Nazi Germany?

 

Godwin's Law - 6 pages

 

Don't know if its worth mentioning, but Obama has been really restrained as far as executive orders go. In fact, he's on the low end among recent presidents and some presidents in the past have issued over a thousand executive orders.

Additionally, while this speculative executive order may have far reaching effects, provided that Obama's white house can find somewhere to finagle it in legally, I'm not sure why it's any more or less "dictatorial" than the internment executive order during WWII or school/armed forces desegregation executive order, among many other famous executive orders.

 

It's always just a matter of time.

 

Obama disagrees with you:

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I still dont get it. Millions of immigrants enter this country legally. They have waited 5-10 years to even get the paper work cleared/interviewed etc. People who have been law abiding and did things the right way are now getting slapped on the face...When people voted for change, this wasn't the change we as a nation envisioned...On a more personal note, my immigrant parents who did things the right way almost 40 years ago cant stand this...

 

Most legal immigrants can't stand those who do it illegally, especially those who had to wait years for their turn.

 

What could possibly be more meaningless than the number of executive orders issued? If a president issued 100 executive orders declaring the first Friday of September 'Hawaiian Shirt Day', would anyone care? No. What if he issued one order making 5 million people citizens?

 

smh.
my family waited 13 years from the date that my aunt filed for us to come here before they called us for an interview...then another year of gazillion paper works.

once we got here..we had to wait another 5 years to become citizens..

 

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Good thing no one has actually proposed anything of the sort.

 

Hmm...what else is meaningless? I don't know...maybe posters implying that Obama is being dictatorial or is acting like an emperor because he's using his executive powers like all presidents before him.

I also like how you omitted the examples I listed of very impactful executive orders. Forced desegregation affected a hell of a lot more people than 5 million and caused far more lasting social change than this order will. I'm not making a judgment on the merits of his hypothetical executive order, which I highly doubt will grant automatic citizenship to anyone. I was simply addressing the issue of Obama's use of executive order in the context of history.

 

Again, I was not discussing the legality or merits of Obama's hypothetical executive order. I even said in my previous post that I was assuming that he or his staff could find some way to circumvent constitutional issues. Executive orders have been overturned by the Supreme Court (though pretty rarely) before and it's possible this one will too, assuming it is actually given.