I don't mean to sound like an evil mean nasty person, but didn't it occur to this guy that these days, overstaying a visa is akin to trying to carry a samurai sword onto a 747? I don't approve of the conditions these people are kept under, but I don't have a lot of sympathy for clueless dorks either...

If I were this guy, I'd be angry at the people who looked like me and then killed thousands of Americans, helping to turn my adoptive country into a police state that targets people who look like me.

Posting No.1 contains ironic self-referencing.


tom
-=W=-

Edited by author 01-07-2003 04:56 PM

Posting No.2 *also* contains ironic self-referencing.


tom
-=W=-

Yeah, what was he thinking? Anybody who overstays their VISA* and voluntarily points it out SHOULD be thrown into jail for five days.

And that goes for anybody who has ever driven over the speed limit, as well: if you can't drive 55, you're driving with Al Queda!

Throw 'em all in jail! Andwhile we're at it, let's not forget jaywalking, MP3 downloading, screwing up your taxes, etc. Say, what was the definition of a police state again--one that has enough laws to throw any citizen in jail at any time for a valid reason? hmmm.....

* oh, crap. VISA is a registered trademark and used here without permission. Where do I turn myself in?

Here's a riddle:
What country has five percent of the world's population, and more than twenty-five percent of the world's prisoners?

let's be fair. programmers *are* dangerous people, often worthy of jailing for the sake of the public good.

oh wait, i'm not doing ui right now.

nevermind.

Let me see if I have this straight. A foreign H1-B visa worker has a contract for a short-term programming job, and is legally required to return home at the end of that contract. But instead, he pulls the oldest visa scam in the book, overstaying and working illegally, taking jobs away from unemployed programmers (like me and a few million others) who cannot get that job because they're undercut by cheap labor from people who are glady willing to work at lower wages just to stay in the US. So he gets arrested. He's lucky he didn't get deported. As far as I'm concerned, at the end of every H1-B contract, the overstayers who have not become US Citizens should be deported instantly.

Overstaying a visa is not the same as jaywalking. Criminy. I don't know if some of you are international jetsetters who traipse all over the world with little more than a suitcase and a smile, but when I travel to foreign countries where I lack citizenship, I make sure I have a passport and I follow the fucking rules. Five days in prison is nothing compared to what illegal occupancy in some countries will get you. Try that bullshit in Singapore sometime.

Edited by author 01-07-2003 11:21 PM
Cowboy_X: it should be pointed out that it appears that
Mr. Farahani *was* taking his residency in the US
seriously, and appears to have been a victim of a
befuddled Terry-Gilliam-like bureaucracy
(cf. the movie "Brazil" and the Tuttle/Buttle mix-up).

Sakusha: no, you don't have it straight.
cf: article


tom
-=W=-

Sakusha;

> As far as I'm concerned, at the end of every H1-B contract,
> the overstayers who have not become US Citizens should be
> deported instantly.

Then he should be OK, because he wouldn't be on an H1-B visa.

Edited by author 01-08-2003 09:35 AM
"Bloated, ineffective bureaucracy" does not equal "police state."

Chris, H1-B is the only visa program this worker would be eligible for. I have friends who are H1-B workers who have trouble renewing their college professorships because the INS system is glutted with slave-wage computer laborers. Look into the H1-B system sometime, you'll be astonished at the abuses. The program was intended to bring in talent that could ONLY be obtained abroad (i.e. language instruction skills) but it's turned into a gravy train for high-tech companies looking for wage slaves. Do you REALLY think there was not ONE SINGLE system administrator of US Citizenship that could fill the job he took? That is the requirement of H1-B program, you're only allowed to use immigrants if there are NO qualified local applicants. It's a huge scam. And unemployed US programmers are the victims. This man should never have been in the US in the first place. So I have little sympathy for his plight.

Edited by author 01-08-2003 11:08 AM
Sakusha;

He's Canadian citizen. (He was *born* in Iran.)

That makes a difference, because of NAFTA. Canadians don't work in the US under H1-B visas, they use TN visas. There are substantially different - and not as onerous - requirements.

Hi Ian,

I think that in the case of the INS 'bloated, ineffective bureaucracy' may have reached the level of a police state.
I would argue that for policy and political reasons that the INS currently operates from the worst impulses of the American Spirit and has crossed the line to full Police State.

The policy reasons are clear, the political issues are CYA. Hell, the INS is such an incompetent overreaching asshole organization that they mailed notices to two of the hijackers months after 9/11.

The blatant and ugly xenophobia of Sukusha and Cowboy_X are just examples of people operating from fear. And that fear drives the culture of the INS. The INS does not fire staff for pissing off non-citizens. At least not yet.

Locking people up who have come in voluntarily to clear up fucking paperwork is only possible in a totally fucked up, repressive, unworthy police state.

For the record, I'm a Canadian citizen here on a work visa.

fear not though, boing boing fans. if cory goes a few days over his paperwork he won't get arrested- 'cause he's white.

I stand corrected, I wasn't aware of the TN program. I investigated the terms and TN appears to be basically identical to H1-B, with the exception that there is no provision that the job must first be offered to US applicants and only offered to foreigners if there is no US Citizen qualified for that job. So the end result is still taking jobs away from Americans and giving them to lower paid foreign workers, it is merely immoral rather than illegal.

Oh.. I missed that bit where I was called xenophobic. Far from it. While I have been hammering on the loss of jobs for US Citizens, I am equally irate about the difficulties faced by the people the H1-B program was originally intended for: foreign language instructors. I have lots of friends who are language instructors, they have extreme difficulty getting their visas, because the program is glutted with foreign programmers abusing the system at the behest of large corporations. For example:
http://www.edu-cyberpg.com/Teachers/H1B.html
As far as Cory, well, I don't know if I consider the EFF gig a job, I always thought of it as a big rant. And he would do that anyway, for free.

Edited by author 01-08-2003 03:53 PM
Hi Rich--

Let us know when the jackbooted representatives of this totally fucked up, repressive, unworthy police state show up at your house and cart you off in the middle of the night for voicing dissent on this website.

Sakusha...I used the word xenophobic advisedly, and in your case, correctly. To argue that 'taking jobs away from Americans' is immoral is almost the textbook definition of xenophobia.

And Ian...if you would like to defend locking people up for trying to deal with _paperwork_, then fine. Personally, I can't come up with words that are sufficiently vile to describe the actions of the INS in this, and many other cases.

The INS is acting in evil ways on 'our' behalf. And I don't like it.

Edited by author 01-08-2003 07:15 PM
Hey Rich: fuck you.

I believe in immigration. The mix of minds from all over the world and their ambitions are responsible for all that is great about this country. When the borders of this country close, it's all over. (I definitely disagree with Sakusha on that mark)

Are you one of those black-and-white thinkers? That I'm critical of a guy who didn't bother to read the pamphlet that came with his visas or the newspapers, you're calling me a xenophobe? I'm calling you a simpleton.

My point was that any non-citizen in the States, who is not carefully following the rules after Sept. 11, is clueless. I didn't say they were unwelcome. I didn't say they got what they deserved (and I am also disturbed by the INS, although I think it is more due to bureaucracy and bungling than "evil"). I said they were stupid.

fear not though, boing boing fans. if cory goes a few days over his paperwork he won't get arrested- 'cause he's white.

No, it's because Canadians aren't plowing laden airliners into buildings and making statements about how America/the West are "the Great Satan" and must either convert to [insert cause here] or die. If Canadian citizens were caught smuggling explosives into the US for purposes of inciting terror, and were making noises about driving the US out of North America and burning US flags, then things might change.

Having said that, I agree that the US government is settling into a police-state mentality, and that the INS' behavior is way, way out of line.

Edited by author 01-08-2003 07:35 PM
Rich, I can't compress the whole argument into a couple of sound bites without cutting a few corners. So let me enhance that: IMHO it is immoral to use the work visa program to scam jobs away from the people the program was intended to support, which includes the rare legitimate foreign skill which cannot be found in the USA (i.e. native speakers of a foreign language). I am just as concerned about the unemployed Americans who have trouble finding jobs as I am about unemployed foreign language scholars. Go read the link I posted and then tell me if you think that the Visa programs should be the tool of the Microsofts of the world, or of the Universities of the world.
On another point, no, these people were not arrested for trying to deal with the paperwork. They were arrested because they did failed to submit the paperwork before the deadline. They have nobody but themselves to blame. They knew the deadlines, and they knew there could be penalties for failure to comply with the law. If they encountered long lines when they came in to the INS offices at the last moment, they should have gone in earlier. If jail was tougher than they expected, well, guess what: it always is. Visa holders are guests of the State, and it is not the State's responsibility to make sure they comply with the laws, it is the guest's responsibility to comply. That's the deal, take it or leave.

Hard to tell if the ignorance below if willful or accidental, but in either case, it's really shameful.

The people arrested were Canadians.

The rules for visa-holders are not only *far* too complex for a lay-person to understand -- hence the healthy fees commanded by immigration lawyers -- but they are also in constant flux.

These people *went to the INS* to get help with understanding the rules so that they could be in compliance with them. They were terrorized for their trouble.

Who gives a rat's ass what the original intention of the H1B program was? The INS approved every single H1B, based on the true and full testimony of the applicants. This country invited in, screened and accepted every applicant. Take up your beefs with the INS, not the hard-working people who are trying to follow the rules.

I am the child of a refugee -- my father was born in Azerbaijan -- and I am an immigrant. The tenor of this discussion revolts me.

Fair enough. If the rules are too complex and ever-changing (and I say this as a guy who's barely able to file his taxes), then Farahani is off the hook. Rich is still a jerk.

Yes, the rules are too complex, and dis-honest immigration lawyers don't help. Kantor and Siegel (sp?), those original Evil Spammers, were the lawyers of my multi-year girlfriend and her family before they discovered Usenet, and they almost got deported because their attorneys were telling them all was well, while not actually working on cases, but still taking clients money while hiding from the anti-spammers (they were here on the 'start a business' category of visa, even though they were legitimately asylum seekers, as the INS didn't recognize having your mother shot in the head for political purposes, as it wasn't clear if it was the Guatemalan guerillas or the govt. who did it <arg>).

So, while not am immigrant to the US, I have had much frustration with the INS by proxy (it is very stressful to live with someone who's status is in flux!!), hate spammers with a passion (talk about fucking up someones life!), and have no love of immigration lawyers, although the honest one they switched to did get things straightened out.

The shitty class-war type angle to all this is that, as ALL of their lawyers put it, you get a LOT more slack on the paperwork fuckups for the starting-a-business type visa than any others...you're bringing cash!! and making jobs!!

I've also known multiple British citizens who overstayed their visas for YEARS, and got not nary a slap from the INS, even when in trouble with the law...but all this was pre-911, and all of them were white as snow.

Unfortunately, treatment from the INS depends on 1) money and 2) race, at least as far as how strictly they enforce the rules, and only peripherally on 3) citizenship.

So I don't think they were stupid, just not enough of cynical realists to make sure their paperwork was in order well ahead of their visa expiration ("I'm a canadian, it'll be ok....oh, I'm not a WHITE canadian, oops").

If Commonwealth and EU countries made immigration for US citizens easier, I know a lot of geeks who'd be out of here from fear of Mssrs. Ashcroft and Poindexter, but they'd rather have uneducated 3rd worlders, and then they sream "brain drain!" when their own scientists and technicians don't want to stay, and they won't open the flood-gates to left-leaning American geeks...small wonder.

Ack, the whole business sickens me, on ALL sides!

Hey Cowboy X...I may be a jerk, but in fact you made blatantly xenophobic comments. I think that those comments come from fear. Otherwise my criticism would have been stronger.

It was your comment that voluntarily coming in to deal with the paperwork was like carrying a sword onto a 747. And it was your comments about 'following the fucking rules' and 'clueless dork's' that strike me as xenophobic.

Of course, saying 'fuck you' and calling me a jerk because I think that your writings are xenophobic sort of minimizes the strength of calling me a jerk. But whatever.

Rich, I'll be blunt, but use only the profanity you have already used. Your characterization of the US as a "totally fucked up, repressive, unworthy police state" is ignorant.

Rather than recognize the problem for what it is--which is, in fact, exactly what I characterized it as...no need to assume Evil Fascist Dictators under every rock--you respond with ill-considered, reflexive, trite assertions that have foundation only in your propagandized mind.

You clearly have no idea what it means to live in a police state.

You clearly have no concept of what the term means beyond its use by various overwrought leftists.

You clearly know nothing about totalitarianism's place in history, or what a real police state looks like and how the people who live in such a state suffer on a massive scale.

You don't like what the INS is doing on "our" behalf? Good, you shouldn't. But spouting the tired, knee-jerk trope that any failure or idiocy on the part of any governmental authority is full evidence of totalitarian oppression does nothing except expose you as a fully-involved member of the chattering class of this country, with nothing to offer except your complaints.

The INS was a vast web of crap before 9/11; it's even more so now, and we desperately need it to do its job.

Instead of indulging your simple paranoia, try recognizing the real problem: how can we meet the very real security needs of this country while maintaining the liberty that makes it so attractive to immigrants in the first place?

One of my friends was in almost exactly the same jam with a short deadline, incomprehensible paperwork and difficulty getting processing finished before the date he could be deported. He paid $1000 for expedited handling, he paid it TO THE INS, not to scummy lawyers. It is possible to deal with the system on its terms. And you damn well better. Is that $1000 such a huge sum, compared to a trip through the INS detention center? Or deportation? If you don't have the $1000, maybe the US isn't the Golden Mountain that the snakeheads (including MS, etc) promised.
Cory, it IS directly relevant what the intent of the visa programs is. Sure they approved everyone. Microsoft and other megacorps pressed for fastly higher numbers of visas so they could have more microserfs, and professional organizations like the IEEE fought back to keep the numbers low. Otherwise there would be no professional programmers left in the US. If you want to come down on the side of this argument that supports MS trying to manipulate the laws to further their exploitation of both US and foreign workers, then it is my turn to be disgusted.
You seem to be under the impression that the US owes you a job. They don't. You're lucky to have found a sponsor like the EFF that allows you to sit around your American home and write all day (sometimes even for the EFF). Give me a week, I'll line up a dozen unemployed people who can do the job better than you and with better professional and academic credentials. Face it, you're getting a free ride, you're no poster boy for immigrants, and you're no spokesman for the downtrodden masses.

Ian...Wow!! What a lot of response for my message (#15). I stand by my words in this thread. My most 'inflamatory' statement is "Locking people up who have come in voluntarily to clear up fucking paperwork is only possible in a totally fucked up, repressive, unworthy police state."

You appear to disagree with that statement. I stand by it. And I'll go further to assert that those who would defend institutions that perpetuate such basic violations of freedom in the name of 'protecting' freedom have lost site of what our country means.

But...like Sakusha and Cowboy_X, I excuse this and accept it as coming from a position of fear.

Sakusha:

I imagined that Cory was a bit too much of a good host to do so, so I was going to answer your snippy little post with a long description here of the nineteen-hour day that I regularly see Cory work, starting at five to blog for free for you, slipping in a couple of hours for the next novel, going down to the office at the EFF and working like a maniac for ten hours (when he's not fucking up his back in Economy, hustling for the cause) all at a fraction of the market salary, and then to bed, stopping only to blog some more stuff for free for you, answer your objections in this forum, and then hit the sack for five hours sleep.

Then I just got a mail, and deleted it all, because I've got the best answer to your post in the world.


Cory's book is out! He's a goddamn real-life mother-of-God novelist and is about to have one of the best days of his life.

I'm having a beer right now and saluting our kind co-host. Care to join me in a toast?

I second the toast! Cory's made great contributions at this site, worked hard for what he believes in, and gotten his book finished and published. I'm sure he's happy to see passionate discussion here even if peoples' viewpoints may be strongly opposed to his, but for his sake let's not let things devolve into a flamewar today.

My town is full of published PhDs who are driving cabs and washing dishes. They'd all love to have a real job.

Oh for heaven's sake, Sakusha, we weren't saying Cory was necessarily better or harder working than your neighbors. We were just saying that he does work hard, and maybe we could all take a deep breath and calm down a little out of respect for one of our hosts.