Obama's Immigration speech

You honestly have no idea what you are talking about.

Do you think you would personally have the balls to qualify for an Eb-5?
Are you ready to write that check for 1 million dollars? create 10 full time jobs?

All for 2 years of conditional residence?

No wonder people aren't lining up for that.


EB-5 visa - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

How about an H1-b? You better have a graduate degree, experience and luck on your site. They give 65,000 out a year, does that sound like a lot? Sure, except that 160,000 + apply for it. That gets you a whopping 3 years in the united states.

I had no idea it was that difficult to get a visa....

Ask me if I give a shit how many get it, the million dollar one is for the people that can afford it.

My girls boss, his wife just became a citizen, it was from a country other than Mexico and she didn't have any problems. I think Citizenship, if you want it, you better earn it.

It's not suppose to be an open gate

Another friend, who has starred in several feature adult films just got her's. She's from near Prague. t took a few years, she worked on Visa's the whole time, but she's a citizen now.

Both of these people are not millionaires, so blow that out your ass.

Did you read that In the past budget year, more than 68,361 children were apprehended.

Kinda puts a different light on your number, we can't take them all, our economy can't handle that many.

Maybe not an "open gate", but it shouldn't be something that is so hard to do.

As I keep saying...if your family had to go through this kind of crazy process to go through Ellis Island, you wouldn't be here.

Entry to this country should be accessible to any man who wants to come here and be a part of it. Why not? It's what made this country great.

To me this is clearly a political power play.

If he really cared about passing immigration reform he could have tackled it years ago when they held all three houses, but I think he and the democrats knew this was a sensitive issue for republicans and they kept it in their pocket as a secret weapon.

There was a great article in the New York Times yesterday that talked about how some republican leaders are quietly very worried about this. They now have a fine like to walk. After the last presidential election they realize that they need to get a larger percentage of the minority vote if they are going to win the White House. If they come out too strongly against what Obama is doing it can turn off those Hispanic voters. If they don't come on strong enough it can turn off members of their base. They are in a rough situation here.

Right now Obama is pretty much a lame duck. He will likely spend the next two years defying the republicans and doing everything he can to hurt them and their chances in the next election.

It is all part of a bigger sad story that tells the tale of what our country has become. Our leaders no longer really seem to care about actually doing good things for the country, they seem to care about hurting each other so they can win the next election.

Annually, the United States grants lawful immigrant status to more than 1.1 million aliens, isn't that enough?

Yes it did, and many had to go thru a quarantine on Ellis Island.

Not as easy as you might think, I remember my history teacher in high school talking about this


Waiting and Long Lines

When ships arrived in harbor, inspectors boarded the ship to perform a cursory inspection of first- and usually second-class passengers. The government thought that passengers who could afford a first- or second-class ticket they were less likely to become a burden to the public. These passengers were only sent to Ellis Island if they failed the cursory health or legal inspection. Meanwhile, lower-class passengers were transported from the pier where their ship had docked to Ellis Island on barges or ferries, often in very crowded conditions. Passengers would often have to wait for hours on these barges to enter Ellis Island, lacking food, water, toilets or protection from the elements.

Health Inspection

As immigrants filed through Ellis Island's large registry room, doctors would briefly scan each immigrant for obvious physical or mental health issues. Doctors or nurses used chalk to write letters on an immigrant's clothes to indicate possible health problems. An "H" indicated a possible heart condition while "LCD" meant loathsome contagious disease. Eventually, these rapid-fire physical health inspections came to be known as "six-second physicals."

A Barrage of Questions

The Immigration Service collected arrival manifests from incoming ships. The manifests contained passenger names as well as answers to several questions. An inspector, usually accompanied by an interpreter, asked each passenger a series of questions about potential destinations and job prospects.
Detention and Hearings
If immigrants failed the medical or immigration inspection, they were placed in detention until they could have a hearing in front of the Board of Special Inquiry, composed of inspectors. According to the National Archives at New York City, about 10 percent of immigrants had hearings, where evidence about the immigrant's medical health, economic conditions and beliefs was provided. Exclusion was often reversed if someone posted bond for an immigrant or an aid society took responsibility for the immigrant. Only about 2 percent of immigrants were deported, usually because they were considered a "likely public charge" on medical or economic grounds.

Paying the Way

Until 1909, immigrants entering the United States had to pay a head tax of 50 cents per person. This money contributed to the funding for the Office of Immigration. Ellis Island also hosted food vendors, immigrant aid societies and railroad ticket offices. When immigrant was detained, often for weeks, unscrupulous food contractors, money changers and sometimes even federal employees preyed on the vulnerable immigrant hopefuls.

What Process Did Immigrants Go Through When They Arrived at Ellis Island in the Late 1800s? | The Classroom | Synonym

Totally agree, but if the republicans can work together and the only thing that is holding up things getting done is Obama, then that will hurt Hillary's chance. Time will tell!

It all depends on what the republicans are working together on. If they are trying to pass laws that the democrats see as bad and Obama blocks them it will help the democrats in 2016.

Let's not forget, the republicans blocked everything Obama and the democrats tried to do when he first took office. The democrats got frustrated and started using technicalities and loopholes to get things passed and that obstruction helped the republicans win back the house.

By blocking the republican agenda Obama can help fired up the liberal base for whoever may run in 2016 (likely Hilary).

Vendzilla...I don't think that having to go through a medical quarantine, answer some questions and pay 50 cents is the same as what our govt. forces people to do today.

I'm an American citizen...and when I drive down to Mexico I get waved on in. When I come back to the United States it's like I'm entering the Soviet Union in 1950! Searched, questioned, treated like a criminal.

And that's what happens to ME as a U.S. citizen.

You can only imagine how a Mexican citizen must see it trying to drive into San Diego.

Anyway, I digress.
I don't think it should be up to what we think as far as the amount of people who come to the U.S. to be citizens.

I'm not even sure that the U.S. allowing "lawful immigrant status to more than 1.1 million aliens" is even applicable to this discussion.

"lawful immigrant aliens" aren't the same as becoming a U.S. citizen is it?

Is that what your family wanted to be when they came here through Ellis Island?
"Hey, let's travel from Europe with nothing but the clothes on our back looking for a better life and become...lawful immigrant aliens"

See what I'm saying? Bureaucracy is out of control in our govt.
They create these problems and then spend years "fixing" them when the answer is ludicrously simple: Stop making it so hard for people to come to the United States.

Not quite true Kane. The Democrats had a big advantage of seats in the House, and a super majority 60 seat caucus in the Senate. They could have done anything and everything they wanted to do. The Republican had absolutely zero power to stop anything at all in Congress. That changed when Senator Kennedy passed away, and was replaced by Scott Brown to give the Dems only 59 seats, and no longer the super majority they enjoyed for nearly 2 years.

Then the Republicans had a way to filibuster in the Senate, which is why the Democrats did the around the bout, hack job rush bill with the Reconciliation maneuver.

Then in Jan 2011, the new congress took hold where the Republicans then had the House again, and more seats in the Senate. That is when you saw the House start to block the Senates moves, and the Senate start to shelve all bills from the House that Obama didn't want to veto or deal with. That is when the full on grid lock truly started.

Did the Republicans want to block and slow down Obama the first 2 years? Of course they did. They just were absolutely powerless to do so.

Democrats didn't pass all their dream projects and ideas those first 2 years, for one reason only. They wanted to be reelected. Healthcare was going to take all the political capital they could get away with, and still have Obama win in 2012. If they went full bore on EPA, Immigration, Healthcare etc in those first 2 years, he would have been a one and done.

Funny how Immigration wasn't a massive, urgent, must fix at any costs issue those 2 years

Robbie, while I agree that the immigration situation must be repaired and fixed, I think you have to be very careful with just how lose you make your requirements. If not for all the massive entitlement programs in the Country, I'd agree more with you about more of an open gate per say. But the nation is all about entitlement payments these days, and if you flood the country with too many poor, uneducated and worse than that, lazy people, you risk serious issues on all levels of government funding with these bloated entitlement programs.

I have a feeling those first few years the democrats felt like they were going to be in power for a while. They had swept into office and there was a strong anti-republican feel in the nation.

The super-majority didn't stop the republicans from filibustering. From 2007-the first few months of 2010 there were at least 142 filibusters and votes for cloture. The democrats had the 60 votes to pass things, but since there were actually 58 democrats and 2 independents it was't a 100% guaranteed thing that they could get 60 votes on ever bill. not to mention the stalling tactics the republicans used in the house to delay things.

To me both parties during that time laid down a blueprint on how to cause problems for the other party. The republicans showed that if you are the minority and you just adopt the "Say no to everything" attitude you can be rewarded during the election. The democrats showed that there are ways to get around the filibuster and stall tactics so you can still do what you want. Both of those plans can come back to bite you if the roles are reversed.

I won't be shocked to see the democrats trying to block anything and everything republican based over the next two years and I won't be shocked to see the republicans use some of the same tactics they slammed the democrats for using to get around it.

Already hearing how the republicans are changing their approach to everything, we'll wait and see.

By blocking everything the republicans on every turn, it will piss off more people than fire up any base. Then Obama can't blame everything on the republicans

The last time we had a Clinton in office and a republican controlled congress, the nation as a whole did pretty good, I'm all for that

Bingo!

It's no longer about doing what's right. It's about blocking the other party.

Obamacare is the perfect example. It's Romneycare. If it was Romney passing that same bill when he was in the White House, the Republicans would have loved it.

I have a little different opinion on the amount, I live in LA, Los Angeles County is over 50% hispanic now. Caucasian makes up around 27%. And the traffic just gets worse. We don't need more people here.

Maybe if the government in Mexico wasn't so corrupt and we didn't give the cartels guns, we wouldn't have so many immigrants coming here?

I have no problem with the ones that are here legally and become citizens, they are usually the hardest working people in the group and make the best friends.