I never understand this argument. If someone leaves their country to migrate, aren't they looking for a better life ? Just because India requires you to live for 12 years, Indian citizens should just shut up/put up with 18+ years of waiting because their country of origin has it worse/same ? This sounds a lot like "We gave you US citizenship. So shut up and stop criticizing the Govt because you came from a 3rd world country even though you are now a citizen of this country". So much for 1st Amendment or does it not apply to naturalized citizens ?

I think it's simply fair to provide context and compare with other countries. While the US immigration process sucks compared to many countries, it very likely is in the top half of the world - most countries are simply worse.

I've lived in places where you have a zero chance of getting permanent residency, let alone citizenship. Even if you marry a citizen.

A friend of mine lives in a similar country. On paper there is a route to permanent residency, but no one gets it unless they're well connected to a senior government official. Lots of people living there for 30+ years who have to renew their status every few years.

In parts of Switzerland, your neighbors will vote on whether to grant you citizenship.

Of course - it is fair to criticize the US immigration process - particularly in regards to Chinese and Indians. It's also perfectly fair to be grateful that their is a path.

I don't think China and India (or literally any other country) ran saturday morning cartoons for decades talking about the fact that their country was built by immigration. There's a disconnect between America's rhetoric and its actions.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5ZQl6XBo64M

That said, as a green card holder, sure, I'm grateful that the US has this process. But I think Americans need to also acknowledge that they've generated trillions of dollars of wealth from immigrants and they could make the paperwork a little bit simpler.

Yes, just because someone is criticizing doesn't automatically mean they are not grateful. But most comments here are basically insinuating that. I am a naturalized citizen and I love the USA. I love the opportunities it has provided me and I am grateful but I also pay taxes, have created jobs (business owner) and I have plenty to criticize (to hopefully improve). Don't tell me to shut up because I was "well came from a shittier country". This is my country as much as yours.

The top comment wasn't telling anyone to shut up.

    I've lived in places where you have a zero chance of getting permanent residency, let alone citizenship. Even if you marry a citizen.

Could your share the places?

I tend not to share personal history, so I'll randomly pick one:

> Another country that is very difficult to receive citizenship is Qatar. There are lengthy continuous residence requirements and not all children or spouses receive citizenship automatically.

> Children born in Qatar to Qatari parents are automatically entitled to citizenship. Any person born with a Qatari father may apply to be a citizen, if they meet eligibility criteria. However, the same is not true for individuals with a Qatari mother.

> People who qualify for permanent residence through naturalisation are those who have lived in Qatar for at least 20 years consecutively (if born outside Qatar) or ten years (if born there).

> Applicants must be fluent in Arabic, hold good character, and be able to support themselves financially during their stay.

> Although there are very generous government benefits available for citizens, the government only grants a maximum of 100 permanent residencies per year.

So if you're male, marry a Qatari woman, your kids won't even be citizens. While there technically is a process to get permanent residency, you can see how limited it is - a max of 100 per year, and I bet the majority of those have government connections. Similar story with nearby countries.

Great follow-up reply! I was not aware of the draconian state of affairs for citizenship/PR for half-native Qataris. Only 100 per year... it just crazy in 2022. It seems now fully insane that they are hosting the FIFA World Cup in 2022. But I guess FIFA is so corrupt that they don't care about the human rights record of Qatar.

Worth noting that you pay no income taxes in Qatar, and visa renewals are quick and do not require traveling outside the country for a new visa stamp.

Many countries in Asia are like this. You are very unlikely to get PR, let alone citizenship, unless you are born there to a citizen parent. e.g. China, most of southeast Asia. Sometimes there is even an ethnicity requirement.

It’s the lack of perspective that annoys me. It’s because America is so accommodating of immigrants compared to the rest of the world that you can talk like your ancestors built the country the minute you take the citizenship oath.

It should be made clear to the new citizens that some citizens are more equal than the others. /s

My wife’s family fought in the American Revolution. Mine came here when Seinfeld had just come on the air. I think that makes a difference—the analogous facts would certainly matter in most other places in the world.

Glad too see that you are in agreement with George Orwell. Some citizens indeed are more equal than the others!

Also, you are talking about your wife's family?!!! You mean her great great grandparents or even earlier ancestors?

I am very intrigued by this inheritance based credit system that you are proposing that goes beyond wealth inheritance?

Do you still get points if your ancestors participated in the revolt but were highly incompetent? How many points do you lose if some of the ancestors fought on the British side? Do you gain or lose points for capturing native American territory and massacring them? Do you also get to keep the points earned by the slaves the ancestors owned or do they go to the descendants of the slaves? Do you gain/lose points for dropping napalm in Vietnam or searching for WMDs in Iraq?

I find this line of argument intriguing. I have soooooo many questions!

> inheritance based credit system

It's not about "assigning points" but rather distinguishing "of a place" from "foreign to a place." I think I win on points--my family was wealthy landowners in Bangladesh, and her's settled the west coast of the US. My family had indoor plumbing way earlier than her's did.

But that doesn't mean I'm "of the U.S." just because I'm a citizen in the same way she is "of the U.S." The U.S. as it exists today reflects the culture that her ancestors handed down to her much more than it reflects the one mine handed down to me.

> I find this line of argument intriguing. I have soooooo many questions!

I have come to the conclusion that most Americans don't understand that culture exists in the same way most can't tell the difference between the national deficit and the national debt. They know the words, but don't actually grasp the concept.

Are foreign peoples entitled to US citizenship? Where is the obligation to make the process easy and open to everyone coming from?

Not saying make it easy. Trust me, it is already extremely hard. But I am replying to GP's argument which is basically saying that you should shut up because you are coming from a country which has worse. 2 different things. And yes, there are people who make the argument that if you become a naturalized citizen, you have no right to criticize the Govt or the country since you came from a much worse place. I am tired of that BS. Google "Amy Wax India" and you will know what I am talking about.

Wow this "professor" is a fine piece of work!

you’re looking at this from the wrong angle.

ask yourself: why would the US allow these people to come and work here in the first place?

it’s because they NEED them. from highly skilled tech workers to “unskilled” low wage workers. Immigration and pumping human capital into our economy is the way the US stays/stayed? dominant and a superpower.

Close the pipeline and in 10-20-30 years innovation is gone ,the edge we have us gone. The American dream fuels the growth. Act shitty toward the fuel, scratch your head why things fall apart.

We've already closed the pipeline. The talent is going elsewhere. We're in decline now.

i would say we have strangled the pipeline. we still have some flow but not for long.

Unless you are a native Indian I am going to assume if your grand parents immigrated to this country and become citizens here, yes?

Not necessarily. My forebears came to this continent before there was a country, roughly 400 years ago.

For what it's worth, 400 years is about 14 generations, and would constitute several thousand direct ancestors (~ 16K). Even accounting for pedigree collapse over the generations, for the vast majority of (non-Native Americans) Americans only a tiny sliver of those ancestors would have been on the continent at the time, if any.

And they massacred the people who lived here before them and started a new country. You must be proud.

You see, countries are formed by white people. What existed before can be safely ignored.

Really shocking how an immigrant describing his decades long naturalization process has triggered so many white men!

When did overt racism become socially acceptable?

You should know, you practice it every day.

And? Personal anecdote has no bearing on the question of whether or not foreigners are ethically or morally entitled to immigration and citizenship, or whether the process should be made easier.

Well, if your ancestors did not go through the immigration process then it was "easy" for them.

Legally, the US doesn't have an obligation to to do anything other than comply with the treaties it signs. It would be within its rights as a sovereign nation to require that everyone within its borders wear a rainbow wig and hop around on one leg. However, that would be a stupid policy that would make people's lives harder for no reason.

Were Europeans entitled to American land 500 years ago? What did Columbus' visa application look like?

So present-day immigration is a punishment for the founding sin of the USA?

Immigration is what is propping this country's economy up. It is a tremendous gift, not a punishment- unless you are alluding to some wierd racial monoculture thing.

The idea is to not look at a gift horse in the mouth. And stop punishing the most productive people in your economy. You don't want brexit thinking if you want to have an economy.

>Immigration is what is propping this country's economy up.

That's debatable.

>It is a tremendous gift, not a punishment- unless you are alluding to some wierd racial monoculture thing.

Immigration is not free. There are social costs which are being dismissed with shallow accusations of bigotry as an alternative to engagement (as you are implicitly doing with your monoculture reference). All peoples are entitled to preserve their cultures, that a particular nation happens to have a predominantly white population does not erase this entitlement.

Cultures clash. Immigrants vote and potentially originate from countries with incompatible cultures, many of whom have no interest in assimilating, yet their votes influence the laws that natives are obligated to follow. If democracy is meant to represent the will of the people, then it is unfair to dilute representation with immigration from nations with totally different value systems. Case in point is the ubiquitous middle eastern treatment of women; how much influence do you want such beliefs to have over your laws and cultural norms? Not even getting to the statistically proven increase in sexual assaults that native women have to suffer on behalf of immigrants in certain European countries. Consider it the paradox of tolerance.

> That's debatable.

No, its not.

> votes influence the laws that natives are obligated to follow

Natives? You might want to think again before using that word. Trust me, none of the new immigrants have any violent intentions or intent to steal from earlier immigrants or native Americans.

> Not even getting to the statistically proven increase in sexual assaults that native women have to suffer on behalf of immigrants in certain European countries.

I thought we were discussing US immigration. Columbus was an accomplished rapist too. Or do rapes by white men not count?

> Case in point is the ubiquitous middle eastern treatment of women; how much influence do you want such beliefs to have over your laws and cultural norms?

The post is by an Indian Hindu. Keep in mind that not all brown people are the same. Especially considering the kind of racist violence some white men inflicted on the Jews in Germany in the 1930s and 1940s. Perhaps, it is unsafe to let white people dominate a culture. The risk of holocaust and genocide is ever present. It's great if some non white culture is introduced in the society to keep the keep the genocidal tendencies of "white" culture in check.

> shallow accusations of bigotry as an alternative to engagement

You can do your part by not making the bigotry so easy to spot. A highly productive brown immigrant describing his 2 decade long naturalization process really really ticked you off, innit?

Nothing in the realm of socioeconomics is settled science. It very much is up for debate. Look at where our current economic framework has taken our present economy.

>Keep in mind that not all brown people are the same. Especially considering the kind of racist violence some white men inflicted on the Jews in Germany in the 1930s and 1940s. Perhaps, it is unsafe to let white people dominate a culture. The risk of holocaust and genocide is ever present. It's great if some non white culture is introduced in the society to keep the keep the genocidal tendencies of "white" culture in check

Your post is predictably combative so I don't know if you're being ironic here or if you are acknowledging these increasingly common and overt intentions, but in any case you are generalizing all of Europe and today's culture based on the actions of Germany 80 years ago. This is textbook racism. I'd remind you that some 50MM+ white european allies died opposing the nazis.

>You can do your part by not making the bigotry so easy to spot.

This poor substitute for an argument demonstrates my point.

>I thought we were discussing US immigration. Columbus was an accomplished rapist too. Or do rapes by white men not count?

Again, textbook racism. Generalizing all of modern day Europe based on the actions of a small minority from a selection of countries. In any case this is another deflection and says nothing about the modern day increase in documented rapes and assaults. An academic who tried to report on it was placed under investigation [0], so it seems that institutions really do share your fervor in denying inconvenient truths. Almost like people are using equality as a trojan horse for petty revenge.

You're missing the source for [0] - I'd like to know more.

So because this land was colonized 500 years ago (as it was before Europeans arrived as well by the way, native Americans were not pacifists), we shouldn't enforce borders?

How much time must pass after a land is conquered before nations are morally justified in enforcing sovereignty over borders? Particularly when the border belongs to a welfare state with finite resources and a host of internal issues that require fixing.

In this context of legal immigration, the point here isn't about sovereignty. It's simply documenting one persons experience - I don't see it as a call for open borders. Also, does the US recognize a country's sovereignty when it conducts its foreign affairs? It constantly meddles in the internal affairs of other countries, not to mention the countless military interventions over the years.

We are talking about a less than 2 decade time horizon for citizenship for immigrants who are propping up your welfare state of birthright citizens with 100K$+ payments in income tax every year.

the standard response here is to ask which native american tribe you're a member of.

The standard counter to that is "come and invade".

The immigrants are here in the millions already. Look around you - unless you are in some bumfuck county with no economy.

>Written ‘in sorrow and anger,’ this is a brilliant and urgently necessary book, eloquently making the case against bigotry and for all of us migrants

If you have to hide your arguments behind accusations of bigotry, you don't have a very good argument. Border enforcement is about far more than blind xenophobia. Such accusations are reductive appeals to ethos over logos.

Its called Reciprocity and its a pretty well-established concept in diplomacy: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Reciprocity_(international_rel...

Maybe immigration should not be frictionless?

If I was born in a country with an extremely bad immigration system, I lose the right to complain about the bad-but-maybe-not-as-bad immigration system in another country that I'm trying to immigrate to?

In a lot of people's eyes yes. Many people resent immigrants complaining even if the complaints are justified.

> Many people resent immigrants

FTFY

Many people don't need a reason to resent immigrants, they just use anything they can use as an excuse.

Can you imagine anything more un-American and yet ironically American than "welcome to the USA, now shut up. Also, draconian Kafkaesk rules now govern your life for the entirety of the immigration process"

Exactly. I love hearing the people "complain" but try and make the journey or stay. With remote work and automation becoming the norm. Soon we won't need to leave our respective countries and can all co-exist.

Yes, nobody should complain.

> India requires prospective citizens to live in the country for 12 years before applying for naturalization

Yes, for citizenship, as opposed to Permanent Residency - the author of the article must wait another 5 years at the very least to be eligible for citizenship if he desires it.

Yea, but the USofA is supposed to be the land of the Free, all kinds of free, not just "you were not born here"-type free. The whole "give me your sick, your poor..." etc vibe.

It's a little ironic at the very least that it's so hard to get into the United States, given its history.

I think the times of unclaimed land up for grabs are long over, and people need to get used to a steady state environment that the rest of the world has been in for millenia.

There has never been a steady state. The "unclaimed land" you speak of was actually claimed by native Americans, who have now been eliminated.

Are you responsible for everything your Government does ? I would hope not. People need to be treated individually. I thought that was the entire point of liberal democracy.

Yes! You are responsible, but more like responsible for the actions of your child, or, an object you own like a house.

You are not at fault, if you are a good parent, or if you maintain your house well.

So if the child breaks the law, or damages something, if the house has a weakness not known but someone gets injured, you are responsible.

But the due dilligence, such as disciplining, teaching, and trying to instill good values in a child, or inspecting and maintaining your house, are key.

With a democracy, participating, voting, being an activist on vital matters, working to keep your democracy responsible and behaving correctly is that same due diligence.

We're always responsible, but are we at fault? Did we do our best?

Or did we decide that taking care of the child was too much bother, and disappear from their lives?

Did we try, at least?

And twitter posts, facebook this and that don't count here.

Because, would that be how you raise a child? Deriding them on twitter? Yelling at other parents because it was their fault?

My man, I hope you're not American because the world has a laundry list of complaints against America. People care about different things to different degrees. You compromise on who you think is the closest to your positions. In a country of 1.3B people, there is always divergence of opinion and in fact nearly no-one would have even thought about immigration as a concern when voting.

There is a difference between the personal things you can influence and being the 1/13000000th voice of the people.

Alright bro then I'm holding you personally responsible for everything on this list: https://github.com/binka/essays/blob/master/us_atrocities.md

Those may be true, but I always assumed that the US of A aspires to do better, American exceptionalism, land of opportunity and all that jazz.

This is assuming that more immigration equals better. And even if one does think so, then the USA is doing "better" - by orders of magnitude. The Chinese and Indians are not set to become minorities in their own countries, are they? But thanks to immigration, white Americans practically already are [1], yet it is they that are called xenophobic. Double-standards doesn't begin to describe it.

[1] https://www.brookings.edu/research/less-than-half-of-us-chil...

In what part of the US Constitution are the white Americans identified as the essential majority for the country? This is a country that was founded through immigration, unlike China or India, so turning around and crying about becoming a minority just as you are enjoying the benefits of your ancestors migrating seems hypocritical.

Appealing to the history of immigration in the country doesn't diminish the GP's point as the US has discriminated against the origins and identities of immigrants since its founding.

>The Naturalization Act of 1790 (1 Stat. 103, enacted March 26, 1790) was a law of the United States Congress that set the first uniform rules for the granting of United States citizenship by naturalization. The law limited naturalization to "free White person(s) ... of good character", thus excluding Native Americans, indentured servants, slaves, free black people and later Asians, although free black people were allowed citizenship at the state level in a number of states. [1]

Race based citizenship remained the law until United States v. Wong Kim Ark (1898) [2] where the Supreme Court interpreted the "subject to the jurisdiction thereof" clause of the 14th Amendment to meant that anyone physically born in the country was automatically granted citizenship. Race-neutral naturalization wasn't enacted until the Immigration and Nationality Act of 1952 [3] and racial discrimination and national original based immigration (not permanent residency as should be obvious) controls weren't banned until the Hart–Celler Act in 1965 [4].

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Naturalization_Act_of_1790

[2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_v._Wong_Kim_Ark

[3] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Immigration_and_Nationality_Ac...

[4] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Immigration_and_Nationality_Ac...

I’m confused by this … doesn’t “national origin discrimination” make sense in an immigration context. It’s reasonable to treat people from Canada different from people from, say, Litchtenstein.

I’m sure there’s some distinction I’m missing.

What the 1952 law says is that you can't ban people from immigrating because of what country they come from. It doesn't ban the creation caps on the number of people immigrating from a specific countries, which the law also enacted. The 1965 Act repealed country based quotas and replaced them with hemisphere based quotas, which were then themselves repealed and replaced with country based quotas again in the Immigration Act of 1990, which created the modern Diversity Immigrant Visas (as well the modern employment based visas).

And this +1

>But thanks to immigration, white Americans practically already are [1], yet it is they that are called xenophobic

Why does it matter if a particular race is the majority or minority of citizens? What concerns do you have about it?

Also I’m not sure what the race or being a minority or majority demographic has to do with being xenophobic? Pretty sure there are Indian and Chinese xenophobes in the USA as well.

Again, if you want to resort to whataboutism that’s ok but I just want to point out that it’s hypocritical to then go around the world exporting “freedom” and “values” from an alleged high ground.

That's a strange definition of "freedom". Do countries that don't practice mass immigration not have "freedom"? To be free, one must allow one's national identity to be diluted into nothing?

Not sure how you make the jump from sane immigration laws to “dilution of national identity”. If anything the USA does a fantastic job of assimilating a wide gamut of cultures without a lot of friction. Of course if your idea of “national identity” is that it consists only of white people, then I’m sorry but your views are racist and not based on factual history or current reality.

As an immigrant to the US, I hate the double standards applied to Americans. Oh, you think Americans are racist for wanting to restrict immigration? How would people in India react to massive immigration from Africa?

The US is hypocritical (most countries are) and meddles with the internal affairs of other countries. Expecting the world to care about US sovereignty is only going to get a few chuckles, nothing more. Certainly no country is in the position to go to war with the US, so we can be thankful for that.

>Oh, you think Americans are racist for wanting to restrict immigration? How would people in India react to massive immigration from Africa?

It's my view that people, in any country, should seize political power to fight for and implement changes they wish to in a legal, peaceful and non-violent manner. Whether it's about healthcare/internal policies/laws/immigration/foreign policy or whatever. If legal immigrants wish to fight for changes to the immigration system, then they should use all the legal rights they are afforded to under the current law. The previous arcs of history are all irrelevant, people should use the power they have in the here and now.

Lots of loaded statements here.

Immigrant describes his immigration situation.

Your response

1. How dare you complain

2. I am going to pretend you called Americans racist. (Wattabout Indians being racist)

You or your parents being immigrants is no excuse for your crude behavior.

Double standards or higher standards? I'm pretty sure people in India would react horribly to such a hypothetical situation. But if that's the standard you want to hold Americans and the American government to that's fine but perhaps then the USA should stop preaching to the world and exporting its "values" and "freedoms" and taking the moral high ground in pretty much every conflict around the world.

> perhaps then the USA should stop preaching to the world and exporting its "values" and "freedoms" and taking the moral high ground in pretty much every conflict around the world.

As a Gore/Kerry supporter I agree. And I don’t know if you’ve noticed, but there’s been a broad repudiation of George W. Bush’s vision for an evangelical role for America in spreading democracy among his own party.

I think Americans have many great virtues. But they’re not aliens, and America isn’t a science experiment. I don’t begrudge any American who wants a country of their own, just like Indians and Bangladeshis do.

> I don’t begrudge any American who wants a country of their own, just like Indians and Bangladeshis do.

Setting aside the fact that your reply had no relevance to OPs argument, I have other questions.

Do you consider your presence in this country impugning on an Americans desire to have a country of their own? Just like Bangladeshis do? Perhaps there is a more appropriate country on this planet that you should call as a country of your own. Why are you treating America as some kind of science experiment?

This clayton bigsby schtick is only funny the first time around.

> Do you consider your presence in this country impugning on an Americans desire to have a country of their own? Just like Bangladeshis do?

Of course! My presence changes the country, because I can’t help but bring my foreign values and beliefs with me. People who were already here; and maybe like things the way they were, are entitled to not like those changes.

People back in Bangladesh would certainly complain if my wife’s family headed over there and brought with them all their individualism, social liberalism, notions of gun rights, antipathy to social hierarchy, etc! Different societies around the world are different, and in particular the differences between immigrants and native born go much more than skin deep, because even the ones born here are typically raised and socialized by parents who come from a different culture.

Under international law, distinct peoples are entitled to say “I want a country for people who look like me and have my culture and speak my language.” My home country of Bangladesh exists because of that principle, as do many other countries. Why should I begrudge those Americans who feel the same way?

> Perhaps there is a more appropriate country on this planet that you should call as a country of your own.

As an ethnic Bangladeshi my kids and I have a right of return. I can obtain Bangladeshi citizenship any time I want.

> Why are you treating America as some kind of science experiment?

I try not to! My family was invited here by Americans on certain terms, and nobody has ever really complained. But I think they have every right to complain if they wanted.

> This clayton bigsby schtick is only funny the first time around.

I point out that I hold Americans to the same standard as people from my own country, and you respond by accusing me of self hatred? I hope you realize how incredibly racist that is.

> I don’t begrudge any American who wants a country of their own, just like Indians and Bangladeshis do.

Neither do I, but between "open borders let everybody in" and the Kafkaesque legal immigration process highlighted in the article above, pretty sure we can come up with something in a happy medium that is more useful and less stressful to everybody involved.

> I don’t begrudge any American who wants a country of their own, just like Indians and Bangladeshis do.

Anyone who is a citizen is already an American. Or do you mean only white Americans are "real" Americans?

> Anyone who is a citizen is already an American. Or do you mean only white Americans are "real" Americans?

Who said anything about white people? I’m talking about distinct cultural communities with roots in the country, who live in places which are deeply reflective of the culture of those people. Some of those people are white (like my wife’s family who settled the Oregon coast), some are Hispanic (Mexican Americans in Texas), many are Black, many are American Indians. Conversely, many white people lack deep roots in the country, and no part of the country really reflects their cultural heritage.

One of the most fundamental aspects of democracy is drawing the boundaries of the body politic. My parent’s generation went to war to create a country where the body politic would be mainly Bangla-speaking people, instead of sharing a body politic with Urdu-speaking Pakistanis. Why would I begrudge a descendant of Germans in the Midwest or a Tejano in Texas for having the same impulse?

>Who said anything about white people?

When you mention Germans below are you talking about the Chinese origin Germans?

>One of the most fundamental aspects of democracy is drawing the boundaries of the body politic.

You're conflating legal immigration and demographic shifts to open-borders. Those are not the same.

>My parent’s generation went to war to create a country where the body politic would be mainly Bangla-speaking people, instead of sharing a body politic with Urdu-speaking Pakistanis. Why would I begrudge a descendant of Germans in the Midwest or a Tejano in Texas for having the same impulse?

I don't know what impulse you're referring to. Please expand on that.

> When you mention Germans below are you talking about the Chinese origin Germans?

I gave several examples of people who could point to a part of the country and say that their ancestors built those communities and those places reflect the unique culture that’s been handed down to them from their ancestors. Some of those examples were “white” and others were not: Mexicans in the southwest or Black people all over the south.

I lived in Atlanta for many years, a city that’s distinctly shaped by the culture of southern Blacks, and which continues to attract Black people for that reason: https://www.nytimes.com/2021/01/08/opinion/georgia-black-pol....

What Charles Blow talks about in the article above is an especially poignant example of a universal impulse: the desire to live among and be governed by people from one’s own cultural community. Nobody suffers more for not having a “country of their own” than Black and indigenous people in America, but the underlying impulse to want that is universal.

> You're conflating legal immigration and demographic shifts to open-borders. Those are not the same.

I’m not talking about “open borders.” I’m talking about having to share political power over your own community with people from a different cultural background. With the example of Bangladesh and Pakistan, there was no immigration involved. My parent’s generation fought a war against Pakistan because we didn’t want to be in the same body politic as Pakistanis.

> I don't know what impulse you're referring to. Please expand on that.

The impulse for people from distinct cultural groups to govern themselves. Bengalis didn’t want Pakistanis to have control over the laws that applied to them. They wanted their own country that they could run the way they wanted.

Notions of governance are deeply intertwined with culture, and having people from distinct cultures try to govern each other leads to tremendous animosity. One concrete example: my family comes from a part of the world that’s had government and civilization for thousands of years. We’re farmers going back to before anyone can remember. My wife’s family, by contrast, settled the frontier of the United States, living off the land, and not being able to count on established governments to help them (because there were not any).

This leads to extremely divergent world views between my dad and my wife. My dad said the other day that he doesn’t see why anyone needs a gun because “nobody hunts for food.” This is true to him—nobody has hunted for food in Bangladesh as long as anyone can remember. Meanwhile my wife grew up hearing people refer to “store bought meat” because it was the exception until her parent’s generation. She grew up eating meat that her grandfather had hunted. It’s a completely different acquired understanding of not only the role and purpose of guns, but more generally the relationship between and among people, the land, and authority.

I look at those interactions and think: if someone from rural Oregon is mad at people like my dad coming to America from Bangladesh, who thinks “nobody hunts for food,” and voting to take away his guns, why isn’t that justified? Why can’t he be mad that people who aren’t acculturated into the cultural underpinnings of his community have so much power in deciding how that community should now be governed? Why would I begrudge him that sentiment when my uncle fought in a war over the same exact impulse?

>The impulse for people from distinct cultural groups to govern themselves. Bengalis didn’t want Pakistanis to have control over the laws that applied to them. They wanted their own country that they could run the way they wanted.

Americans of German, English, Irish, Italian, Swedish origin are not all seeking to maximize the number of individual ancestral cultures being represented in the government. Inside Europe, the Italian culture is completely different to German culture. Being American is not the same as being Italian or being German. Which is why I asked if you were lumping everyone seemingly white as having the same culture.

>if someone from rural Oregon is mad at people like my dad coming to America from Bangladesh, who thinks “nobody hunts for food,” and voting to take away his guns, why isn’t that justified? Why can’t he be mad that people who aren’t acculturated into the cultural underpinnings of his community have so much power in deciding how that community should now be governed? Why would I begrudge him that sentiment when my uncle fought in a war over the same exact impulse?

If people can't convince others and get consensus on their ideas, then those ideas should die out. Tough shit. We managed to clear out the idiots objecting to giving civil rights to minorities and voting rights to women. A country is not static, the laws are not static and should never be. The laws are something we made up to serve our needs. It's a democracy, and all citizens get to vote and make decisions. What you're describing sounds anti-democracy.

Edit: The guns issue is a hot-button but you can draw parallels to anything that one group of people want to "preserve". Well if you want to preserve it - go make the effort of convincing people who aren't convinced. I can appreciate guns from an engineering perspective, but I think owning guns and killing defenseless animals from a distance is not something I would personally do. But I am not "taking it away" from anyone I am simply exercising my right as a citizen.

The whole point is that if you were born anywhere else (except India or China), it is a fairly simple process which would take less than a year (one can file both I-140 and I-485 together).

China is a different story, let's exclude that.

India's requirement is 12 years seems a lot, but practically Indian citizen's path to citizenship in US is more than that(~10 years to get GC + mandatory 5 years after GC). EB1 might be an exception, which will also come around 6-8 years. But most end up waiting more than 15 years to become US citizens.

US restricts employment visas with a specific time limit. L1(7 years) and H1(6 years). After that period, you have to stay out of the country for 12 months, before you can reapply again. The other option is to apply for Green Card (Permanent Residency). So most of them end up applying GC rather than move out of the country for an year.

US has weird rules that inherently makes difficult even for employment based visas. E.g. If your visa is near expiry, then you can apply for extension. But the extension processing times takes up months. You can't travel out of the country during that period. Even if your petition is approved, then you have to go to US embassy in your country of citizenship to get visa stamped in your passport. Unless you have a visa stamped in your passport, you can't reenter US. Practically there is no visa appointment slots available at US embassies in India at this time. You are in a soup if you have to travel on an emergency

https://twitter.com/debarghya_das/status/1520966725210042368

https://twitter.com/USAndChennai/status/1517067638584664064

If a foreigner works in India on an employment visa, I don't think they have to run into issues what someone faces with the US immigration system. Just see what Curl's author Daniel Stenberg experience with US Visa process,

https://daniel.haxx.se/us-visa.html

> Note that India requires prospective citizens to live in the country for 12 years before applying for naturalization

Ok, but the article doesn't even talk about naturalization? It's talking about permanent residency.

And for those commenting "why does country of origin matter," certainly there is something which made one system of governance preferable for outcomes and perhaps too quickly importing from a single culture brings along things which are out of place in the new country.

To wit: https://www.reuters.com/article/us-cisco-lawsuit/california-...

> Note that India requires prospective citizens to live in the country for 12 years before applying for naturalization

Note that India does not have a kafkaesque renewal process for work visas like America does.

> people from those countries complain about the American immigration system

People do not get to choose where and when to be born.

Thank you we just got here a perfect example of whataboutism! What some countries do to some people has nothing to do with what the US of (pardon me) Assholes does to someone who lived there most their lives!