At the moment, so-called liberals whatever reason are more concerned about ILLEGAL immigrants than legal immigrants.
Do you know how many legal immigrants' green cards got delayed the last time there was an amnesty program for illegals? Do you think the US govt. will hire more immigration dept. workers if illegals start getting legalized. They don't even hire people in the patent office! Every legal immigrant in the green card queue hopes that an amnesty program won't get passed until he/she gets the green card.
IMHO, there are practical reasons why gdilla is concerned about illegals getting preferential treatment.
I wish I could be in business of approving/rejecting immigration petitions. That would be a very profitable enterprise.
The problem is that US society is not culturally ready to stop unfair discrimination toward immigrants.
I'm sure Jose Vargas is ready to pay for getting his legal status.
But immigration quotas should be removed (or at least significantly increased).
You think I have sympathy for you, Vargas? I married my wife, who was on H1B while I was on Greencard. She got laid off. Were we permitted to live together as a family in the USA? Nope. Even though she'd been here close to 10 years herself - doing grad school and then working. Yes, legally, and paying taxes all the long. You would think America would try to make it easy for english speaking, educated (in the US, no less), LEGAL immigrants who waited in line. Nope. Our son was even born in America. Proof to all the stupid republicans and teabaggers that there's no such thing as "anchor babies", not like we gave a fuck about that. Kids can't sponsor their parents till 21 years of age. So my wife and son had to go to Canada, to live with my parents, while I sorted shit out. I'm sponsoring her - but the waiting list is fucking what, 4 years long?!! Ya, the short wait times for sponsoring a spouse only applied to citizens. I have to wait till sept 2012 before I can apply for that. Jesus christ. America rocks. So now my wife visits on a vistor visa, with our American son, good for only 3 months at a time. Each time she's interrogated for an hour when she crosses the border because of this fucked up situation (US immigration are supposed to keep out visitors who they think are trying to live in america). She's been warned to not push it and not to come back too often. This is fucked up. I'm ready to fucking give up if it wasn't for all the shit we've been through to get here. I've always got my eye on potential opportunities back in Canada or abroad. I've got a good gig here that I actually like, but fuck, is it worth all the hurdles and bool shit of being separated from family and crossing borders every other weekend? Just to be LEGAL? My wife could have stayed here illegally. But we're not like that. We followed the fucking law and basically got fucked. So screw off vargas. No tears for you.