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- Hacker News
- Devil's advocate: My wife thankfully just got her green card three months ago. She first came on a J-1 and then an F-1. She knows many, many people who come with the intent of staying either without status or via questionable marriage licenses. The vast majority of her acquaintances in the J-1 visa program were young (<25 year old) au pairs with no intention of learning English (they had 'mandatory' English language cultural lessons per J-1). My wife is an extreme outlier in that she learned English in 5 years and just got accepted to veterinary school in USA.
The bottom-line is that she thinks the J-1 / au pair program should be discontinued.
by aabajian - When I studied in the US, a lot of our friends were au-pairs, and they all spoke perfect English.
Your wife's experience is an outlier, not the fact that she speaks English.
by iLoveOncall - That is completely orthogonal. Whether any non-immigrant visa program should or should not be continued is immaterial. The topic at hand is about adjusting status to permanent residency, for which you need to independently satisfy the criteria for permanent residency. The admin is proposing asking people to go out of the US for their interviews as opposed to an interview in the US. The admin can just as easily deny AOS in the US, but people have more rights in the US and can seek legal recourse. They cannot outside the US.by bubblethink
- I hear "I'm not anti immigrant, I'm anti illegal immigrant" a lot. To which there is an easy solution: increase the number of legal immigrants we allow.
Instead we're doing exactly the opposite, cutting down on legal immigration as well. Making it hard for me to believe that it was ever about illegal immigration at all.
by jfengel - It wasn’t ever about illegal immigration. It’s a way to make the position sound logical and tolerable. Now the goal post is moving to make only certain people legal.by rubyfan
- There are plenty of voices explicitly saying that there are too many legal immigrants coming to the US under existing US immigration law, whose presence is not good for the majority of existing Americans despite not being illegal.
E.g. https://www.mediamatters.org/charlie-kirk/charlie-kirk-we-ha...
> And by the way, I want to make – I want to be very clear. I’m not just talking about illegal immigration, we have way too many legal immigrants coming into this country, too. 1.5 to 1.6 million legal people coming – Ilhan Omar came in legally and she hates the country. She’s a sleeper cell infiltrator of the United States representing Congress. She hates the country. She hates the west. She should be deported back to where she came from, Somalia. Go run for City Council in Mogadishu. The country is not enriched by people like Ilhan Omar.
by JuniperMesos - Somewhat ironically many of those most vocal about supporting all this are immigrants.
Those that jumped through all the hoops above bar, paid their dues in a messed up system where they bit their upper lip and got through it, and have been extremely frustrated at others trying to game the system.
by cmiles8 - In my experience, the phrase is just used to mean, "I don't hate immigrants, but..." (which, like the phrase "I'm not racist, but...", you are free to doubt case-by-case). I.e. it is not inherently inconsistent to apply the same disclaimer regarding a belief that legal immigration is too loose, too high, mismanaged, whatever; since that doesn't necessitate a belief that immigration as a concept is bad.
- I'm right there with you, and it's why I go to great pains to articulate the entirety of my position on immigration when I get into these sorts of debates. The simpler someone's position on immigration is, the less they understand it at length or the more extremist their viewpoints tend to be.by stego-tech
- I know this is going to. be contentious, but US mainstream discourse seems to have completely eliminated the distinction between illegal and legal immigration, in the last 10 years. Everyone seems to be a "migrant".by ern
- "an easy solution: increase the number of legal immigrants we allow."
Not really.
The answer is: have a fair, transparent and function system.
Then - yes - you can totally 'increase' (or decrease) as needed.
'Increase a bit' likely the right thing to do - but it's a completely separate question.
But throwing Green Card holders out is completely insane, grabbing people out of church and schools and putting them into detention without oversight is cruel and inhumane.
The national debate is insane.
Just basic, normal, reasonable policy and process.
That's it.
Like DMV level stuff.
Then you can adjust the numbers one way or another.
by bluegatty - Even worse, with changes like this we are taking large swathes of legal immigrants and transforming them into illegal immigrants. It reads to me that a substantial number of green card applicants will now be subject to ICE detention.by cmiles74
- This is insane. I cannot fathom how I, nor educated and talented people I know, could have possibly stayed in the US back in the day if this requirement had been in place then. Applying for a greencard while working on an H, J or O-class visa is extremely common.
Far from a loophole, applying from inside the US is the only reasonable way to apply for a greencard. Depending on the country of origin, there may not even _be_ a US consulate, and where it exists, the wait can stretch into years, and the odds of approval much lower. You can't reasonably get a job at a US firm while being physically located somewhere else and on the other side of an uncertain and greatly attenuated greencard application process. That's just not how this works.
Whoever thought of this is either intentionally malevolent or inexcusably incomprehending of the immigration process.
by abalashov - This.
I cannot be this calm about the administration that is all about the chaos and harm. Thank you for writing what I can't.
by susiecambria - These are all non-immigrant visa classes. The understanding is that you are temporarily immigrating to the United States. Why should it be surprising then that it is hard to become a permanent resident/immigrant if you explicitly came on a non-immigrant visa?by confuseddesi
- The cruelty is the point. They want people to leave so they can refuse to allow them back in. That's the goal. It's not more complicated than that.by TehCorwiz
- It’s intentional malevolence that’s a given from this adminby hibgymnb
- I don't think it applies to folks on H or L visas. Wording from the site:
"Nonimmigrants, like students, temporary workers, or people on tourist visas, come to the U.S. for a short time and for a specific purpose. Our system is designed for them to leave when their visit is over. Their visit should not function as the first step in the Green Card process. "
by radsj - When you're in your visa or green card process it's not uncommon to be advised not to travel out of the country...
Yep. You're kind of in jail.
It doesn't mean that you cannot, it just means that it might complicate your already complicated application. So if a family member dies, maybe... But that's it
by hvb2 - "intentionally malevolent" -> Stephen Miller's second name. The cruelty is and always was the point.by rajup
- Unfortunately, I think this is the point. They want to push the needle so that even legal immigration is restricted or difficult (unless you happen to pay them directly)
https://www.nytimes.com/2026/05/23/us/politics/trump-legal-i...
by cloche - This is a bit extreme. On the other end of the spectrum the existing system is heavily abused and hard to defend. For example many if not most PERM applications in tech are a complete sham. Putting tiny job adverts burred deep in a newspaper hoping nobody applies to try and say there are no skilled workers in the US is just one example of current abuse of the system.by cmiles8
- So punish/disincentivize employers. This is a burden on the presumptive legal immigrant.by mpalmer
- Exactly this. The difference in the pitch to voters (labor market test) vs the actual implementation (box checking sham), just shows how dishonest the whole tech industry and immigration lobby is about this. The actual solution is somewhere in the middle, but it will likely never happen because those with political capital and high social status benefit enormously from low wage h1b/opt/l1 workers. The people who are hurt by these immigration programs don't have high social status so nobody cares.
Ironic that liberals turn into libertarian boot likers for mega corps when it comes to immigration.
by nceqs3 - Isn't the correct response to the sham hirings to regulate that jobs are posted on a gov-run board for some period of time, ~30 days, before you can claim no qualified workers? That seems more reasonable than turning the spigot off entirely.by hellojesus
- Not anymore. My PERM was cancelled for this exact reason. The job advert was put on LinkedIn and the company's website like any other job. They didn't hire the local worker either because they didn't pass the interview but my perm had to be cancelled bc a skilled local worker with "minimum qualifications" existed.
What you are saying used to happen but not anymore.
by dwa3592 - This is just reckless without any responsibility.
A number of people, especially in tech sector, legally stay in US while their GC is being processed. They have kids born in the USA. If such people were to leave USA to seek green card:
- the kids must first get visas to their parent's countries
- once reaching the other country, consular offices now have multi year wait lines for getting an appointment with a office to even hear your case.
- parents may stay in that country but what if kids run out of their visa? A number of countries offer citizenship via parents e.g. Indian parents can obtain Indian citizenship for their kids but it also means letting go of the kids' US citizenship. And what if the parent's country does not have such mechanism?
It's completely illogical that a person must first stay in a country for 5 years to become eligible for a green card and then leave for x years to get a green card to come back !! this is just a tactic to get non-immigrant visa holders out of the country.
by seshagiric - > the kids must first get visas to their parent's countries
In this situation, wouldn't the kids already have citizenship of their parents countries?
by nairboon - > It's completely illogical that a person must first stay in a country for 5 years to become eligible
This is wrong. There is no minimum time in the country for a green card. You are thinking of citizenship. That is different.
- Birthright citizenship is on the chopping block too. It’s only a matter of time.by randyrand