I'm from one of the countries on the list. Not only is there no way to legally immigrate to the US anymore, but just visiting US once requires me to give an interest-free loan of up to $15k to the US government. Yeah, no, thank you.
I never considered illegal immigration, nor will I ever - I value predictable outcomes.
But looking at these new rules, I can't help but think that it really punishes people who want to play by the rules and sets the price for ones that don't to approximately $15k.
My country is not in the list (Mexico, not that we need to... Americans hate us), but I just cannot comprehend why people would go through all the pain for the immigration process in the US.
Actually, it kind of make sense why only the most desperate try to get into the US , people who have something to lose are naturally repelled by the bureaucracy.
We love to paint the US in broad brushstrokes of color, but it more of a muddy brown across the entire country. Washington State doesn't have huge expat communities of Mexicans, but what about if I'm Chinese going to school in Spokane? Or Somali in St Paul, MN? or Pakistani in Chicago? Some "average Americans" seem to hate these people in every locale.
EDIT: Wash. is actually a top 8 destination in the US for Mexican immigrants, with an estimated population of 250-300K people, so not huge but definitely sizeable!
I dunno. The southern parts of SW WA can be pretty racist (Lewis County and south). Rural, much more red, but without the extensive farming more pervasive on the east side.
I don't mean to minimize any negative experiences you've had. But as a lifelong American, I've never heard anyone make a negative comment about Mexicans. Even in online spaces like X where there is a lot of racism, it's usually not directed at Mexicans.
If you look at Trump's famous comment about Mexicans in his speech from 2015, he actually points to Mexicans in the audience and refers to them as Mexico's best people. The media cut that part out, of course. (I'm not a Trump supporter.) https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=apjNfkysjbM#t=3m25s
TRUMP: "When Mexico sends its people, they're not sending their best -- they're not sending you [points at unidentified people off-camera] -- they're not sending you -- they're sending people that have lots of problems, and they're bringing those problems with us. They're bringing drugs; they're bringing crime; they're rapists and some, I assume, are good people."
There is no apparent indication in that video that the people he's pointing at are Mexican.
Among other issues, countries are not generally 'sending people' to immigrate to other countries. Most countries are in general keen to avoid emigration.
>There is no apparent indication in that video that the people he's pointing at are Mexican.
But it seems like the most natural interpretation.
The most obvious, good-faith interpretation of this quote is that Mexico has a mix of good and bad people, like every country, and the ones immigrating illegally tend to be bad. The fact that the media didn't even consider this common-sense interpretation contributed a lot to Trump's popularity.
TRUMP: "They're all crooks. The Somalians are -- what they've done to Minnesota -- the Somalians. They're crooked as hell. Ilhan Omar. Crooked as hell. They're all crooks. And we got 'em."
> But as a lifelong American, I've never heard anyone make a negative comment about Mexicans.
What an absurd statement on its face that comes from a place of extreme privilege. I am a brown-skinned man in America and I lost count of all of the times people that look like me have been denigrated and lambasted in this country.
>What an absurd statement on its face that comes from a place of extreme privilege.
Oh boy, here we go again. I even said "I don't mean to minimize any negative experiences you've had" and I'm still getting the privilege discourse. You are really determined to prevent the Democrats from winning elections, aren't you?
Even assuming I am privileged, then what I'm telling you is that privileged white people like myself aren't shit-talking Mexicans behind their back. Wouldn't that be relevant information? Why would it be an absurd statement?
>brown-skinned
That's not the same as Mexican.
When was the most recent time this happened to you in person? A recent, representative concrete example would be a lot more compelling that performative outrage.
I've always thought I'd end up in the US at some point, but as someone who prefers to make things rather than spend years at some faceless megacorp (writing up cover sheets for TPS reports), it never seemed hugely viable, even starting out from a first-world country.
Now it doesn't seem viable at all. Meanwhile, anyone who shows up illegally is merely "undocumented", and half of US politics consists in coddling them (the other half in enforcing existing immigration laws capriciously). Even for someone who's quite pro-immigration like myself, that's just bizarre. There's no way this is a functional system.
Most of the people in my circles don't want to go to the US anymore. I suppose I'll ride it out and see what comes next (after 2028 at minimum). If I ever make it, I'll have spent many of my productive years outside the US, since I wasn't welcome during those. Weird system.
I never considered illegal immigration, nor will I ever - I value predictable outcomes.
But looking at these new rules, I can't help but think that it really punishes people who want to play by the rules and sets the price for ones that don't to approximately $15k.