Whither the American Dream
July 4, 2007 10:37 AM   Subscribe

Happy fourth of July! One thousand people "realize the dream of becoming United States citizens" during a naturalization ceremony at Walt Disney World. Meanwhile, thousands of legal immigrants are prevented from filing green card applications because of a last minute flip-flop by USCIS. The chairwoman of the Subcommittee on Immigration, Citizenship, Refugees, Border Security, and International Law, Zoe Lofgren, writes that the action "seriously undermined the stability and predictability of U.S. immigration law". The American Immigration Law Foundation (AILF) has been authorized to file a class action lawsuit on behalf of the affected petitioners. God bless America.
posted by crazycanuck (17 comments total) 1 user marked this as a favorite
 
Oh FFS, get over yourself. Immigration is hard and unpredictable and costly. The USCIS could be improved in many ways. There's no need to get all GOD BLESS AMERICA about it.
posted by thirteenkiller at 10:54 AM on July 4, 2007


Some background: Every month the Department of State issues a visa bulletin that announces what the current priority dates are for the coming month. For the first time, they've contradicted themselves by issuing a new bulletin that's supposed to override the previous. This has never been done before, and there's no preexisting protocol to allow it. Here's the "update" to July's visa bulletin. Note this text:

The sudden backlog reduction efforts by Citizenship and Immigration Services Offices during the past month have resulted in the use of almost 60,000 Employment numbers. As a result of this unexpected action it has been necessary to make immediate adjustments to several previously announced cut-off dates.

Translation: "When we said that everybody can file now, we never expected that everybody would try to file now!"

We who are involved in immigration law are not happy about this.
posted by Faint of Butt at 10:54 AM on July 4, 2007


This is so funny, they shut down applications due to a back log. Ok then, so how is Mr Bush's (I used to call him President Bush) Amnesty plan supposed to work if the illegals already here are supposed to register? Talk about a back log!! LOL!!!!
posted by BillsR100 at 10:55 AM on July 4, 2007


The day I became a US citizen was a pretty happy day. It was a long, arduous process. I hope applicants get their problems worked out.
posted by Blazecock Pileon at 11:04 AM on July 4, 2007


"realize the dream of becoming United States citizens'"

Damn what kind of desperation/oppressive regime one needs to live under to ever THINK about going to U.S. ? Eldorado my ass !
posted by elpapacito at 11:04 AM on July 4, 2007


I have a green card. I was eligible for naturalization last year in August. I'm embarressed to admit that i'm contemplating giving up eldorado. Does this make me a bad person when so many are struggling for these very pieces of plastic, paper, biometrics, fingerprints and retina scans?
posted by infini at 11:07 AM on July 4, 2007


That first link is way too many kinds of disturbing.
posted by Alex404 at 11:17 AM on July 4, 2007


My wife's an immigration lawyer and the past week has been...interesting. She spent hours getting paperwork organized, worked all weekend at least 12 hour days. People spent a small fortune getting medicals done, paperwork filed, and finding couriers to deliver the packages. You can't just drop this stuff off.

Then, Monday morning comes along and the government says, too bad, we were kidding. This seriously disrupted the lives of countless people.

It's annoys me to no end that with all the talk around the Immigration Bill recently, not much was directed towards the total mess legal immigration can be.
posted by beowulf573 at 11:31 AM on July 4, 2007


Translation: "When we said that everybody can file now, we never expected that everybody would try to file now!"

Like when they said everyone needed a passport to travel, and then OMG all these people started applying!!!
posted by ThePinkSuperhero at 11:33 AM on July 4, 2007 [1 favorite]


"The chairwoman of the Subcommittee on Immigration, Citizenship, Refugees, Border Security, and International Law, Zoe Lofgren"

AYFKM? Really? That's not a joke, is it?
posted by majick at 2:16 PM on July 4, 2007


He has endeavoured to prevent the population of these States; for that purpose obstructing the Laws for Naturalization of Foreigners; refusing to pass others to encourage their migrations hither, and raising the conditions of new Appropriations of Lands

Interesting. I've been seeing parallels with the Grievances Against King George for some time. But it hadn't quite occurred to me that the White House was using it as a checklist.
posted by aeschenkarnos at 3:03 PM on July 4, 2007 [1 favorite]


"You've just received American citizenship! Now what are you going to do?"

"I'm going to Disney World!"

unbefrigginlievable.
posted by misha at 6:10 PM on July 4, 2007


AYFKM? Really? That's not a joke, is it?

Why would it be? I don't get it.
posted by goodnewsfortheinsane at 4:51 AM on July 5, 2007


I'm not seeing what's wrong with Zoe Lofgren either. Her voting record on immigration looks pretty good to me. Maybe there's a pun I'm not getting.
posted by Faint of Butt at 6:48 AM on July 5, 2007


Well, that's sort of the point. The chair of a congressional committee actually knowing something about a subject (and being in a position to actually represent the interests of the constituents of a district for which the committee's activities are relevant) is a bit unheard-of, isn't it? I'm astonished to see a person in power who isn't a complete moron.

How'd she get there?
posted by majick at 7:49 AM on July 5, 2007


How'd she get there?

Ah, now I get it. Sorry. But you're right, her competence really does seem out of place. We'd better shut up before somebody notices.
posted by Faint of Butt at 11:16 AM on July 5, 2007


FYI, the government reversed it's decision and will allow the filings. And they've extended the date a couple weeks to make up the time.
posted by beowulf573 at 6:52 AM on July 20, 2007


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