The recruiting at a typical research university has an woke dimension to it - and I am reporting my personal experience, not hearsay:

Out of five scores each student was graded on, three were basically pure wokism like: describe how you overcame a difficult prejudice in life, or talk about how your presence will contribute to an inclusive environment ... only one was probing actual skills ...

PS: I have nothing against immigration - I am an immigrant myself ... a former immigrant student at that ...

I am against the selection process that ignores talented, skilled people and replaces them with mediocre people with some (probably made-up) nice woke story.

Emmanuel Goldstein: An exiled academic in hiding with a death-sentence over his head for criticizing the despotic government.

You: "People like myself who actually read 1984 know that Trump is basically Goldstein! Not any other character. The parallels are impossible to ignore."

If you really read the book, then that's tragic, because all you learned was how to embody doublethink.

I do remember Canada telling my partner she wouldn't be guaranteed reentry while they were processing her PR visa until it was finalised if we left the country though so we just ended up doing the Australian half first and I never went back.

You're comparing apples to oranges.

People going from non-immigrant visa (H1B, F1 etc.) to Green card via i485 "adjustment of status" do not need to leave the country either.

Only consular processing (ds 260) are in scope of this pause

https://www.ellis.com/resources/immigrant-visa-pause-2026

Has more details than the paywalled article

This seems to have changed in the past 3-4 years, but as the GP said, the original process did involve leaving.

The main constraint is re-entry into the US and being able to travel outside the US. If one stayed here, there was no problem switching schools, programs, jobs, adjusting status to permanent residency or naturalization. On the other hand, for re-entry, one needs a valid visa stamped on a passport which necessitated a trip to one's home country. This stamping visit could be unpredictable.

Ideally, one would like to travel freely to see family and friends but I see a lot of comments implying that one is forced to leave. It might be true now but a lot of comments here are conflating several issues together.

But that's the point, isn't it? Some foreign workers who "worked the US for the benefit of the US" are now unable to come back to the US. Isn't that bad for the US too?

From the article:

"Updated guidance and training were being put in place to ensure that visa applicants don’t become a public charge under U.S. law or depend on government benefits intended for Americans in need, a spokesman for the department said Wednesday."

/s (poe's)

It’s like saying that it’s “cruelty” to remove someone who uses a 2 hour parking spot as their permanent car parking.

I have a Republican friend who appreciates the Supreme Court Justices, and then suddenly has zero clue about any news story involving the administration, and shrugs off the war. This despite meticulously following Benghazi hearings when it was someone he wanted to dislike. He would rather Trump be Romney, but he's not going to do anything about it whatsoever.

I blame myself for teasing my Italian friend in college over Silvio Berlusconi, and now I've found myself in the same position :(

Tradeoffs exist.

I feel like I’ve said it a few times but - Yes, exactly. The country wants you to leave and then get’s to decide if you can come back. That’s how it’s designed. On purpose.

You’re approaching it from a perspective where you’re being asked to leave and your reentry is a right. It’s not. They never said, if you leave you can come back. They said, leave and we’ll see. The risk of being blocked out is inherent by anyone residing in a country that has this similar process; there are many.

I think it is helpful to remind folk that these policies are not universally hated. Indeed a majority of voters voted specifically for them, and they were explicitly laid out.

This is democracy in action. The majority (of those who care enough at all) get to rule over the minority (and the apathetic). Obviously not all actions will be universally loved, but no govt action can ever be universally loved.

Better for whom? People are struggling to afford groceries largely because the dollar is worth 1/165th of its 1913 value and the minimum wage hasn't been raised in 17 years.

I found a job that pays in BTC and I'm super hopeful about that one because my effective salary won't go down by 3-8% every year but instead will appreciate relative to what things are priced in.

https://wtfhappenedin1971.com/

It's not exactly an unbiased selection but it is interesting.

It’s strong evidence that immigration restriction isn’t economically destructive. If you think economic circumstances have changed and the result would be different this time, then I think you have the burden to prove it.

For some visa classes, the law says you should hire an American citizen if they can do the job - not if they rank first at whiteboards or fizz-buzz.

> If tomorrow you were to tell (let say) Google they now need to hire only US citizens, would they lower their hiring bar

Does it really matter? To a point, obviously, but a lot of people are good enough for the role without being the world's best. The bar for getting into Google has dropped since its early days, and Google keeps breaking profit records quarter after quarter.

This entire "hire the best or nothing" mindset has led to a dysfunctional hiring process that's a pain to both employers and employees, and is prima facie unachievable.

Respectfully, this sounds terribly naive.

Yes, at the lowest wages they can get. Increase supply -> lower prices (wages) -> more corporate profits!

However, there are those who believe that corporate profits are not the highest good. Some of us also care about the earnings of American workers.

Also, "best candidates" alone does not "best company" make. You need people who can work well together—which requires some degree of culture fit. Immigration restrictions help preserve the cultural homogeneity that makes collaboration and social trust possible.

Google (and friends) famously have teams composed of a single national origin (or caste...). What does that say about their hiring bar?

Google (and friends) are already expanding the Shanghai and Zurich offices.

But really, immigrating to any country is quite complex. It's far from "just fill out a form" for pretty much every western country.

Every economic analysis I have ever seen shows that there's economic surplus from immigrants entering a local economy; more jobs and more wealth is created, per person, than if those people had not come. In particular I'm thinking of some studies of local economy in Miami when there have been bursts of immigration.

you have a kid like billions of other people in the world, nothing special tbh besides it is "your" kid

you just want a subscription pass to a country, and i think people like that are useless freeloader people who want none of the stakes and all of the benefits

cool you can code and get hired by some company, or maybe you start a company. so what?

Regarding your concerns, I don’t see why it is unreasonable to simply renounce citizenship later or just simply double check your travel itinerary during the late stages of a pregnancy. This seems like at best an unfounded concern.

If it were really part of a coherent anti-inflation, pro-housing strategy, then, well, a lot of other policies would be different... (Including signing the ROAD act, not starting trade wars, or driving up the price of oil)

The change would require 2/3 of all states to approve a constitutional amendment. It won't ever pass. Most of us are only citizens because someone up the chain was born under this rule.

My family came here in the early 1700s and fought in the revolution. It would be a disgrace for me to do anything other than support immigrants.

very consistent correlations between migrants being net positive economic providers, more law abiding then native citizens, and just straight up regurgitating racist myths

mass deportations won’t solve anything economic when it’s the same admin hamstringing prices and rates with tariffs, war, and defacto support of the oligopoly

i really wish basement dwellers like you though of something original now and then

I'll concede that this statistic is cold comfort if you fall into that 5% category, but the point is that work visa almost always means non-immigrant.

For 95% of human history we were hunter gatherers living in extremely sparsely populated areas.

Fish Fails to Detect Water

The easiest way to see it is look at Japanese portrayals (outsider perspective). Cowboys, horses, guns, pride in our military and our free speech, fireworks and BBQs.

Just because you look down on the culture doesn't mean there isn't one.

Nobody is banning legal immigration. It's being restricted. The headline itself says "pauses". Do you think no legal immigrant will be let into the US until 2028?

> some sort of program where people apply for permission

Yes, and if that program is being abused (just ask people here on HN about H1Bs to see how they feel), then you pause it until you figure out how to solve it.

American Police officers are famous for not actually living in the cities they work in.

In each country I have lived in, I was a guest. With that knowledge, I carefully designed my life so uprooting would not be a painful inhumane process.

If you throw a party and a guest refuses to leave, you wouldn't declare forcing them to leave your home in-humane.