> The general feeling I get from talking to people who've visited the States, on working permit (or whatever), is that indeed it can be a royal pain to get a Visa for living in the U.S. One of my friends was scouted by a major biotech company and has been working in the Midwest for 6 years -- in a city with the "highest proportion of Ph.D's in America." Last time I talked to her, she had an immigrant status Visa which positively turned heads at the border. Even though she's Canadian, and thus covered by the NAFTA agreement, her U.S. registered status was "ILLEGAL ALIEN WITH PAROLE." Get that. What a mouthful! Sounds daunting, not to mention highly discouraging, and deliberately so. :-(
>
> I've heard similar stories from people who were fortunate enough to know high-ranking officials in a diplomatic Embassy, who could stamp their U.S. Visas for four years instead of the usual probation period. Natural-born American citizens have *no idea* of the hassle and rigmarole that visitors coming to the States for extended periods have to go through. Sting wasn't joking when he sang that song about alienation.

Apparantly, it's easier for Brits to get a US citizenship than people from pretty much any other nation on Earth (or elsewhere, for that matter). My Aunt married an American about 5 years ago, and has been resident in California with a steady job since then. She just got her Green Card through a couple of months ago.

She seemed quite impressed that it had happened so quickly.

[snip]

> Okay, ignoring the implicit xenophobia, I'll say that Yes, I can understand his fears that Americans may not be "science literate" enough to make decisions in complex but crucial technological issues. This is a growing problem in many countries world-wide. But his immigrant analogies are flawed. Good grief. Having such a large proportion of foreign nationals in U.S. colleges and grad schools is A GOOD THING. I can't emphasize that enough. It's where you get the best and the brightest young minds from the ENTIRE world beating a path to your door -- and this fact is considered "undesirable"??? Out of the fear of stealing jobs from Americans, he really doesn't seem to "get it," and see how much these "aliens" will surely contribute to the continuing U.S. dominance in the world market, among other things. Sheesh. The whole set of U.S. alien classifications, the entire mentality of modern anti-immigrant feeling, can be really discouraging and draining to citizens of other countries. At least that is the impression I have been getting from people with *legitimate* reasons for going to work in the States -- never mind illegal aliens.

As a non-American, I sometimes have difficulty undertanding why (some, vocal) Americans have such a problem with immigrants.

The two reasons normally given are overcrowding (in the country with the lowest population density in the western world) and "taking jobs" away from Americans (in a country where minimum-wage unskilled jobs can't attract any US citizen applicants).

As Bill Bryson once said, America without any immigration wouldn't be a nation of the unemployed, but a nation of dirty plates.

winter"Not that I have any right to join this discussion"mute