The American electorate believes unemployment is caused by an improper ratio of people to jobs, and it can be solved both by increasing the number of jobs and decreasing the number of people.

In this theory, your friend's expulsion was a victory for the American who took over her job, and for the unemployed person who entered the labor market (if not directly, then via a domino effect).

We are comparatively loose with immigration statuses that don't permit work. Tourist, student, etc. visas are relatively trivial to obtain. We have programs that allow work which doesn't compete with Americans, such as international performing arts groups on tour. We even have programs to fill jobs that Americans aren't available to fill (H1B for highly skilled labor, seasonal farm workers, etc).

The moat is built around statuses that permit competition with Americans for jobs in general. It remains this way because Americans do not generally consider or believe Econ 101 ideas like that trade necessarily benefits both sides of the exchange (or they would not make it), more workers also means more consumers, cheaper labor => cheaper goods and services => higher standard of living, etc.

It's not at all clear this violates "Econ 101". Supply and demand set prices, and wages are basically the price for labor. Increasing the supply of labor should necessarily decrease wages, and vice versa.

Imagine the extreme, worst case scenario. If the US opened it's borders completely, and imported every poor worker in the entire world into its borders. Do you really believe that average American worker would be better off? That they could compete with that, and be able to demand a decent wage?

>trade necessarily benefits both sides of the exchange

True, but extremely misleading. E.g. f you move factories overseas for cheaper labor, the local workers lose out, even though other classes may gain. The benefits of trade are not distributed among the entire population.

>cheaper labor => cheaper goods and services

Sure, but if everyone is making proportionally less money, they can't afford the cheaper services, and on net they are poorer.

Increasing the supply of labor also increases the demand for other goods. Workers have to eat! If you kick someone out of the country, you reduce demand for food, clothes, etc., eliminating the local jobs that would have gone towards satisfying that worker's needs.

Not that I'm arguing against the possibility of more workers lowering wages. They might, to some degree (studies are unclear on to what degree they do), but it's not a zero-sum game, here.

This assumes everyone is taking jobs and noone is creating them. America has a strong tradition of immigrants building businesses.

Analogies to the enclosure movement come to mind.

That's a weird statement, I feel like you lack wider context. As an Australian, pretty much the only place in the western world where I need a visa /at all/ to be a tourist is the USA. In something like 50% of the the world, I can just show up at the border whenevs and they'll let me in on the promise that I'm going to leave in a few weeks.

Your standards are actually pretty anal compared to almost everywhere else. China and Russia are really the only comparable places.

I really wish everyone could be as enlightened as yourself.

I think it's more complicated than that. My gf has lived more than 10 years in France now and she has to renew her visa every year, they never granted her the 10 years visa, let alone citizenship (she was discouraged to apply for it...).

On the other hand, I have a bunch of friends that obtained their US nationality quite easily. They started as illegal immigrants, got married, which gave them a green card and after a few years they obtained their citizenship.

These are just anecdotes, just to say that it's not so clear that it's harder to get US citizenship.

A green card is what establishes permanent residency. (I don't think we have permanent visas, but I could be wrong.)

I can only speculate how your friend was allowed to live in this country that long without ever obtaining permanent residency, but regardless, it's an example of the system failing, and that's a really terrible thing to happen to someone.

I don't know the ins and outs of immigration but that's because I'm a citizen. If I wasn't, I'd sure as hell know what I needed to do in order to stay in the only country I'd ever known as home.

According drinchev, I can assume that when his/her friend turned 18 she would have had to go through the process to apply for green card just as if she never lived in the US.

I know someone who was in a similar situation, grew up in America, his parents were diplomats, when he turned 21 he could not longer be a dependent of his parents' status, and the amount of time he lived legally had no benefit in giving him eligibility to apply for a green card.

Why are we so quick to blame the USA, or blame our own country when these things actually aren't all that difficult. There are forms for everything. And where there are challenges, there are lawyers. Can't afford a lawyer or figure it out yourself? Guess what you just proved you're not prepared to bring over an immigrant regardless of their age.

Sucks for some yes because they don't take care of business. But it also sucks when we don't have protective measures in place. And it's both unfair and extremely difficult to have exceptions for everything subjectively.

Are we also expected to pass with an A+ everyone who had good faith that they knew course material? Are we supposed to loosen up all regulation as well because we 'trust' a company will handle things fine because somebody's cousin owns the company?

You know when somebody leaves the scene of an accident, they sometimes do it because they don't realize they are supposed to stay, sometimes they don't even realize they knocked a cyclist down nearly killing them. Guess what, they still get charged with leaving the scene of an accident even if they were completely oblivious.

You do have some points, but your examples aren't so good.

1. In your test example, the students didn't know the course material, they just thought they did. They don't actually qualify for an A+. 2. In the scene of the accident, the rule there is in place because there is an incentive to leave the scene of the accident. Ideally, someone who didn't know the law would get a less harsh penalty than someone who did (so intent matters).

In the case above, there is something special happening. The rights of citizenship are on a much higher more protected plane than other rights (as other fundamental rights, voting, residency, amongst others are derived from them). We are allowed to use strict liability for leaving the scene of an accident because it's a shitty thing to do regardless of the law and because while it does affect the fundamental rights of liberty, it is based on something that the person did to deserve a punishment.

In the case of citizenship, if they technically qualify and act as though they do, that should be enough to at least give them the option of taking it retroactively. It's too fundamental for the most simplistic interpretation of bureaucratic rules to suffice.

And sometimes, these sentiments are easy to say when you are 30, but not so easy to see these things when one is 18, not so easy during the next 4 years as they are in college... and suddenly, crisis.

This stuff is common sense for most agencies to deal with. Lived over 24 years here, born a baby - lets solve this.

Its tragic to be honest. More than anything else, seeing that crumble is disheartening. More than wars, more than Trump.

In some ways it isn't: merely being born here grants citizenship. That's no longer the case in any EU country: Ireland repealed birthright citizenship years ago.

It means that simply flying to the US on a tourist visa before your baby is born will grant it citizenship. But living in the US on a work visa for 18 years after your baby is born? That doesn't grant anything.

[1] https://www.uscis.gov/us-citizenship/citizenship-through-nat...

[2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Naturalization#.C2.A0United_St...

We've got a lot of racist assholes, basically. Particularly ironic for a country that was founded on immigration. These laws, and their heavy-handed enforcement, are mainly targeted at keeping out Mexicans. European and Asian immigrants are collateral damage, essentially.

Europe, unfortunately, is starting to go the same way. I think it was Switzerland that denied citizenship to a couple of teenage Muslim girls because they didn't want to swim with boys in mandatory co-ed swim class. They've also banned minarets on mosques, apparently--I have no clue how they pretend to justify that. Xenophobia makes people do ridiculous things.

Wanting to keep national character is respecting culture. Switzerland is right to defend equality

As of the story breaking at the end of June, they had not yet been expelled from Switzerland, but we both know what "denied citizenship" means.

So, TL;DR: a family, actively, defiantly, on purpose, failed one of citizenship tests and were not granted citizenship.

Citizenship is not something that guests are entitled to. It's practically an award by the host. Mind you, I am not a Swiss, nor US citizen, nor an EU citizen. I would like to be, since it would benefit my situation considerably, but I was born in another country. So, why any of these countries would be obligated to grant me their citizenship?

Ping me when Saudi Arabia allows Jews to become citizens.

It was a decision of the girls ( or their father ) [1] not to be naturalized. They could've just did the swim with the boys and they would've got their citizenship.

On the other hand my friend had NO CHOICE in her 24 year stay in the U.S. to get a citizenship ( although she followed all the rules / laws of the country ).

[1] http://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/europe/switzerland-c...

If the patriarchy family understood the idea of education better, maybe they would've thought their children that the law > father word.

If they do understand that idea, but don't like it. Well they should vote on their next election for someone that doesn't support it.

What they should not do is go against the law and do something on their own. Because that's what makes us all citizens.

No-one does irony as well as the Brits.

> http://www.bbc.com/news/uk-politics-37190357 "In such a febrile atmosphere Whitehall is likely to recruit some negotiators from other countries."

Depends on the level of behaviour. But largely yes that is a fairly racist sentiment.

Is this a trick question?