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Discussion (104 Comments)Read Original on HackerNews

hvb2about 1 hour ago
So for those that don't know, it's quite common for a visa renewal to be required to leave the country. Depending on the visa, you might have to do this every year.

So just imagine, having a normal job in the US and you're asked to leave to renew your visa and this stuff happens.

That's no more appointment, not even a new date and you're now very likely unable to work and possibly can't even enter the country to get your belongings if you were to leave.

Just 'putting a pause' on people with existing appointments with no answer for when they might resume is.... Inhumane

JauntTrooper25 minutes ago
A friend of mine is on a spousal visa and a permanent resident. His wife and child are US citizens.

He's been doing the paperwork to finally become a citizen, and as one of the final steps he was required to leave the country and go to US embassy in the country where he was born (and hadn't been to in 30 years).

It was supposed to be a two week trip. While he was there Trump froze all greencard applicants indefinitely and refused to let him back into the country. He lost his job, his family lost their apartment, and he hasn't seen his little girl in almost a year.

His life is in limbo. The US rejected his application with no rationale or next step. His wife and child aren't citizens of his home country either, so it's not like they can move to be with him. Their lives are shattered.

arjie23 minutes ago
Yeah, this is a pretty big risk. I'm similarly married to an American and we have an American child. Other country seems to have screwed the family, though. Mine (India) offers a fairly indefinite visa called an Overseas Citizen of India. And my wife's other nationality (Taiwan) also permits foreign spouses to live there after some straightforward paperwork. So, in theory, we could live in either of these other places together. I suppose I will only know when push comes to shove.
CincinnatiMan17 minutes ago
> His wife and child aren't citizens of his home country either, so it's not like they can move to be with him. Their lives are shattered.

What would the steps be for this? Hopefully the other country has easier entry and that would be a possible route?

SauciestGNU18 minutes ago
I know revenge is orthogonal to justice, but I hope someday we can inflict proportionate harm on the people instituting these policies. They're monstrous humans seemingly engaged in a campaign of forced displacement in order to build their desired white Christian ethnostate.
assemblyman4 minutes ago
At least for F1 and H-1B visas, one wasn't required to get a new visa physically stamped (for which one would have to leave) to switch schools (undergrad -> grad) or jobs. Is this forced now? Of course, if one wanted the freedom to be able to travel or visit one's home country, a new stamping was required if the old visa expired.

It's not ideal but a lot of us basically didn't leave for several years (even pre-Trump 1) to avoid the hassle of a new stamping.

glimsheabout 1 hour ago
In the mid 2000s, I had to leave the US for renewal while leaving all my hard assets behind. I had a plan in place in case I couldn't go back to the country, which did happen to some people. These people had their interviews, but they got held back outside the US, sometimes for months, waiting for the renewal process to finish. I had an immediate renewal, but was almost held back for some red tape reasons.

This sucks but it isn't new, unfortunately.

prependabout 1 hour ago
I have friends who are expats and they’ve done this for years. I had one family member who left every six months to renew their visa.

It’s a chore, but very common around the world.

yibgabout 1 hour ago
Were they able to come back when they did this?
goodluckchuckabout 1 hour ago
I think the whole point of making someone leave is the possibility that they may not be allowed back in. If staying was a foregone conclusion then there’d be no point in leaving.
BrandoElFollitoabout 1 hour ago
In the EU you do not need to leave to renew your visa. I don't know how common it is elsewhere.
sega_sai39 minutes ago
Sorry, but that is not common around the world. Most countries do not have such a system. I.e. none of the EU/UK/Australia countries have that.
garbawarbabout 1 hour ago
Or imagine if an employee works for you and this happens to them.
nostrademonsabout 1 hour ago
I've had a couple of reports that this applied to. It's incredibly disruptive. "I've got to fly back to India to renew my visa." "Okay, when will you be back?" "I have no idea, it depends when I can get an appointment. It could be next week, it might be in a month." "[State department] We're pausing all visa appointments." "Well fuck."

Meanwhile I've got a tech lead who is 12 hours away from the rest of the team. He was at least willing to work US-East hours while in India (basically staying up all night and sleeping during the day), but there was a huge amount of management overhead and inconvenience for the employee involved.

black631 minutes ago
The consequence of choosing to not hire a citizen.
garbawarb26 minutes ago
Of not violating the law? Under the Immigration and Nationality Act, a company can't use a candidate's citizenship in hiring decisions.
Varelion19 minutes ago
Inhumane is every choice made by this country under this regime. The "bothsides" and "no politics" crowds are equally as complicit in this as Trump voters.
apercuabout 1 hour ago
In Canada I had to leave and re-enter for my permanent resident status to complete. It’s not that uncommon - but it’s a pain.
smnrchrdsabout 1 hour ago
In Canada you never have to leave to renew or change status; it's just sometimes faster to do so. It's always the applicant's choice. I went through the whole work permit to PR to citizenship pipeline without ever having to leave the country.
sansworkabout 1 hour ago
I'm not sure if its the same in Canada but when I went through the process for Australia it depended on where you started the process. I started the process while outside the country so to activate my visa I had to leave and come back but if I had filed while in the country I could have stayed.

I do remember Canada telling my partner she wouldn't be guaranteed reentry while they were processing her PR visa until it was finalised if we left the country though so we just ended up doing the Australian half first and I never went back.

euio75731 minutes ago
> I went through the whole work permit to PR to citizenship pipeline without ever having to leave the country.

You're comparing apples to oranges.

People going from non-immigrant visa (H1B, F1 etc.) to Green card via i485 "adjustment of status" do not need to leave the country either.

Only consular processing (ds 260) are in scope of this pause

https://www.ellis.com/resources/immigrant-visa-pause-2026

Has more details than the paywalled article

PierceJoyabout 1 hour ago
OP isn't criticizing the practise of leaving to renew. He's criticizing the this new policy of not letting you back in when you leave.
ck234 minutes ago
everything this administration does daily is from one of three boxes

     [CHAOS]  [CORRUPTION]  [CRUELTY]
this is a little from the first box and the last box

imagine what's tomorrow or next week

meanwhile let's all enjoy the billion spent on making statues gold plated in DC and the ballroom and the arch and his drapes and his reflecting pool and 100 foot banners of his face on federal building and his face on gold coins, passports, park passes and the $250 bill

it's surreal

timmytokyo26 minutes ago
You forgot [INCOMPETENCE]
eviks20 minutes ago
That's the foundational box for the actors, not a property of the actions
erkt30 minutes ago
Inhumane maybe, but our government should owe its first allegiance to our citizens wellbeing, not imported workers.
mcmcmc28 minutes ago
The first responsibility is to protect the rights of all people in the country. Citizenship is not required for protected rights
9x3911 minutes ago
Why be a citizen at all if non-citizens have all the benefits and none of the responsibilities?
dzongaabout 1 hour ago
the current admin are working hard to destroy the U.S as if they're foreign agents.

not only are they making it hard & unbearable for families of US citizens & PR holders to be together.

while at the same time - discouraging talent to come to the US at a crucial time when talent is at a premium due to A.I development.

last the backwards energy policy of banning renewable energy.

sinecure17 minutes ago
This was never about talent. It's about companies hiring foreigners on h1b visas at below market wages where their life in the USA is contingent on their job performance forcing them to work harder and longer than their peers to remain in the country. It's a situation that only benefits companies, while harming US citizens who have to compete with the lower wages of foreigners.
slowinabout 1 hour ago
> the current admin are working hard to destroy the U.S as if they're foreign agents.

Trump is an Israeli asset:

https://www.commondreams.org/news/adelson-trump-four-more-ye...

ajmurmannabout 1 hour ago
Even if this was true how would it be in Israel's interest to weaken the US of all countries?
9x398 minutes ago
Weakened so it can be controlled as a golem of sorts to carry out agendas like paving over the Middle East for them, not necessarily destroyed.
slowin26 minutes ago
Israel is trying to stoke anti-immigrant policies, specifically they want to exacerbate Islamophobia. They're also well aware that the US is about to become staunchly anti-Israel once the baby boomers are gone.
saturn860119 minutes ago
There are many possibilities. The conspiracy theorists like to talk about how the people pushing the "pro Israel" actions in the U.S. are more loyal to Israel than they are to the US and so their end goal is to make Israel a regional superpower in the Middle East and to them in the end, it doesn't matter what happens to the US. I mean if you are loyal to Israel and not the US I could see this. Each country acts in their own interests and these people have been able to exploit the weakness of money in politics for their benefit. I personally don't fully buy that, but that's one theory.

Another theory is that the leadership in Israel is not really thinking long term. They are suffering from the same issues that other poor leaders like Trump are suffering from. They're just looking at themselves and what benefits them in the short term, so the moves that they're making are beneficial in the short term but very detrimental in the long term.

It's possible that they think that the US decline is inevitable due to uncontrolled spending, the decline in development in its people and other issues etc. and so they are grabbing as much as they can before it collapses and then afterwards they align with the next superpower there have been some moves in that direction to open up to China although small. Its a risky move because China may not treat them anywhere near as well so Israel has to work harder to earn its seat at the table but if the US decline is out of their full control then the next best move is to grab as much as you can before it comes crashing down and then move on.

unselect5917about 1 hour ago
You'd have to ask them:

“Once we squeeze all we can out of the United States, it can dry up and blow away.”

—Benjamin "Netanyahu" Mileikowsky

rayinerabout 1 hour ago
> the current admin are working hard to destroy the U.S as if they're foreign agents

The U.S. had a draconian restrictive immigration policy from 1921-1965. That worked fine. How can you say with a straight face that someone must be a “foreign agent” to think doing the same thing again will have the same result? Surely the burden is on you to prove the opposite, right?

adjejmxbdjdn31 minutes ago
And the U.S. has been doing even better since 1965. So really the question goes back to you.

Either way, your whataboutism isn’t even relevant since those were congressional changes.

This is the executive trying to undermine the law.

retvrn26 minutes ago
Oh god I hope this lie is part of an attempt to get right-wingers on board with a “let’s roll immigration policy back to what we had in 1950!” push.

I hope this because it’d be hilarious if they got what they wanted and realized that meant actual open borders with most or all of the Americas.

profdevloper22 minutes ago
Before Hart-Cellar we had national origin quotas, it wasn't a free-for-all.
CincinnatiManabout 1 hour ago
I wonder if this has to do with the current economy and job market. Anecdotally I have found it very tough to find a new job (software engineering), though my previous employer continues to post job listings for green card applications as part of the required labor market test.
izacus36 minutes ago
Are you... genuinely this naive and ignorant to what's happening in USA?
moomoo1120 minutes ago
didn't big tech co's layoff thousands of people here and then filed for thousands more h1b ?
miltonlostabout 1 hour ago
I'd say it's on the Trump administration being full of racists and white nationalists and wanting to deport immigrants.

Why do you wonder if it's economic instead of the Trump administration's announced policies of stopping immigration, including unconstitutionally removing birthright citizenship?

trgn15 minutes ago
I think many (if not most) countries in the developed world should reduce immigration, and usa in particular should abolish birthright citizenship.

The first because a lower supply of labor is going to create breathing space for an entire working population who will see tremendous job upheaval due to AI automation. A lower aggregate demand on houses, services will also be welcome to take the fuel out of inflation, and maybe we'll regain some of that experience of true affluence, where scarce things (e.g. access to cabin in the woods, a rowhome in a walkable city, ...) are in abundance. There is also the import of an idle, criminal element that has very clearly reduced quality of life and safety in many places.

Birthright citizen should be abolished because birth tourism and illegally crossing the border to have anchor babies are a vector for foreigners to participate politically and claim imho undeserved welfare benefits.

I think largely these are the stated reasons of the administration too.

goodluckchuck38 minutes ago
Birthright citizenship is so weird, because when I think of my son’s birthright, I imagine things he’s entitled to because he’s my son. He’ll inherit from my estate, he’ll enjoy my love and encouragement and support, etc. The location of the hospital where he was born doesn’t really have anything to do with it, but now I have an entirely new fear about foreign countries claiming my child if my wife happens to give birth early while on a vacation. Like, I want to go to Israel, but don’t they have compulsory military service? I wouldn’t want the baby to accidentally become an Israeli citizen and forced to serve for some foreign army. Same with China. I’d love to see the country, but they’ve had some weird and draconian laws like the one child policy. For all I know they take some children to be raised by the state. Whatever their laws are… I don’t think they should apply to my children.
inkysigma14 minutes ago
This is rather weird framing since usually an additional citizenship (especially one in a country like the US) is considered a valuable thing to have for your child. Usually people claiming birthright citizenship are weird are doing it because they also see it as valuable. It’s also woven into the traditions of New World countries.

Regarding your concerns, I don’t see why it is unreasonable to simply renounce citizenship later or just simply double check your travel itinerary during the late stages of a pregnancy. This seems like at best an unfounded concern.

mcmcmc27 minutes ago
You can always relinquish citizenship. No one is forcing your child to be a dual citizen if they are born abroad.
moomoo1118 minutes ago
go make your own anarchist nation then

you have a kid like billions of other people in the world, nothing special tbh besides it is "your" kid

you just want a subscription pass to a country, and i think people like that are useless people who want none of the stakes and all of the benefits

unselect591744 minutes ago
Conflating not wanting to compete with foreigners for jobs in your own country with racism is bad faith bullshit. Foreigners of the exact same race are equally unwanted competition.
yaloginabout 1 hour ago
This one doesn’t mention tourist visas, so I am guessing they will be issued? I don’t get what benefit they see by inconveniencing and potentially harming folks that are already in the country legally to just live their lives. I get that this administration’s goal is to completely shut down all immigration and potentially even remove folks here legally too but there will be a cost to bear for the country because of that. It will be slow to come and so they will be able to blame it on the next administration
HippoBaroabout 1 hour ago
This is specifically for immigrant visas. USCIS distinguishes two broad categories of visas: immigrants and non-immigrants. Tourists are part of the latter group.
Razengan11 minutes ago
Not just immigration, seems like travel in general is becoming difficult too.

It's a real shame that just when we have the tech and infrastructure to allow people to travel anywhere in the world within a day, for a single person to be able to explore the entirety of this awesome planet for the first time in human history,

that the worst among us have to enforce artificial borders and deny everyone this basic freedom.

Travel should be codified as a human right.

If someone can support themselves and doesn't harm anybody, what ethical justification does anybody have for denying a person from living where they want?

anonym2917 minutes ago
This is really frustrating. I'm (native-born US citizen) naviagting the visa process with my future wife. She has no intentions of working (enjoys being NEET) and there's zero risk of her becoming a public charge (our hh gross income is closer to 7 digits than it is to 5 digits), very frustrating that we're getting screwed by this under the justification of labor market competition and public charge risk.
OutOfHereabout 2 hours ago
BatFastardabout 1 hour ago
What will be next in Trump's destruction of the American Economy?

So far he has driven away allies, put huge tariff on our most loyal allies. Driven away manufacturing by tariff policies. Driven away immigrants and academics. Pushed a last century oil based economy. Shown us how our exquisite weapon tech will fail (this might actually be good in the long run). Along with crippling our cybersecurity and state departments.

Jareabout 1 hour ago
Well at least you're healt... oh wait.
cft28 minutes ago
It's a temporary, presumably short, pause to train the consular staff on the economic viability (or liability) of immigrant visa applicants. Why is it unreasonable?
sadengineer2214 minutes ago
Yes, we should assume good faith, the Trump administration has a clear track record of being reasonable and sticking to their word.
mcmcmc23 minutes ago
Because if that were the case they should have just kept the existing staff that already had the requisite knowledge instead of letting DOGE fire 400 people from DHS who did this kind of thing. You have no backing for your presumption either. The Iran war was supposed to be short. The Trump admin is full of pathological liars. Stop giving them the benefit of the doubt.
FireBeyond13 minutes ago
What, were they untrained before? Is there a reason this training would take more than (at most) 16 hours?

It's a bullshit excuse that's barely more palatable than the truth, brought to you by the same people who paused immigration for almost all of Africa except for "Caucasian South Africans".

gnuplustoejamabout 2 hours ago
> closed for training

So like the DMV then?

dyauspitrabout 1 hour ago
50% of all American unicorns were started by immigrants. This is sheer stupidity to prevent the best of what the world has to offer when they are knocking at your door.
geodel24 minutes ago
And now they can be more evenly distributed all over the world. I'd call it a net win even if administration did not think it this way.
antonvs27 minutes ago
It’s unquestionably bad for the United States, but it will be good for the rest of the world. Time for US dominance to end, and Trump is doing a good job of that.
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kylehotchkissabout 1 hour ago
Same ruling class that goes on a bunch of tangents about birth rates stops immigrant visa processing for US citizens who married abroad.
Dig1tabout 1 hour ago
This is classic goomba fallacy.

Right wing oligarchs want infinite immigration because they get a larger labor pool and lower wages. Right wing normies want less immigration because they don't want to compete with the entire world for a job and don't want to become a minority in their own country.

Spend some time on X and you can see the two parts of the right wing attack each other over this issue.

kylecordes23 minutes ago
Ultimately, there is some value in each position, and in a corresponding set of positions on the left. Unlike many issues in US politics, in the long run this one is not well left-right aligned, and there is no single correct number for how much immigration is best. It's a bunch of trade-offs, which should be made democratically and end up somewhere around the number that the median person wants, such that roughly half of us are unhappy because too many immigrants come in and roughly half unhappy because too few. Arriving at that number and changing it slowly would be far better than wild swings.
ajmurmannabout 1 hour ago
geodel27 minutes ago
Huh, this is rather useless argument. People in US already how companies, sport teams extract exorbitant tax breaks to move or stay put in particular state/city etc and nonetheless still end up moving because someone offered even better incentives. The jobs that are moving will not stay here for long even if all hurdles removed for immigration.
Dig1t38 minutes ago
Most right wingers are fine with that. As the recent GTA 6 leak shows, companies that embrace offshoring too eagerly learn the hard way that not all jobs can be sent to the other side of the planet.
majorchordabout 1 hour ago
> don't want to become a minority in their own country.

Yet in the next thread over, people are crucifying DHH for saying the same thing, except they are spinning it as "denying their right to exist"... somehow.

Dig1tabout 1 hour ago
It's an obvious thing that anyone can understand, any group of people on the planet would behave the same way. It is natural to oppose becoming a minority, minorities are treated poorly and marginalized, by dint of human nature. The data showing it's happening are undeniable, the only way to defeat the argument is to shut it down by labeling the people who make it as hateful.
totallygeekyabout 2 hours ago
The US seems hellbent on destroying its own economy, immigrants have always played a key part in it. Looking forward to Trump yelling about how the radical left has somehow undermined the US economy in a few months.
bakies26 minutes ago
Most damage will be realized after he's dead
FireBeyond11 minutes ago
And in the interim he's positioning his family and cronies to benefit from any rebuilding. Just as he literally sat in the White House and said, verbatim, "My children insider trade all the time".
Terr_about 2 hours ago
Looking forward? He never stopped. It's been 10+ years of narcissistic scapegoating, even for times when he was President, even while Republicans controlled congress, and even over trade-deals, policies, and laws that he took-credit for and bragged about. (e.g. USMCA in 2020.)

> Without words said, a wave of understanding rippled through the crowd. Oceania was at war with Eastasia! The next moment there was a tremendous commotion. The banners and posters with which the square was decorated were all wrong! Quite half of them had the wrong faces on them. It was sabotage! The agents of Goldstein had been at work!

-- 1984

unselect591725 minutes ago
The parallels between Emmanuel Goldstein and Trump Derangement Syndrome are impossible to ignore for anyone who's actually read 1984.

To borrow from Baum (The Wizard of Oz): today there's not only a curtain with men behind it, but a man in front of the curtain that everyone is pointing to (a la Goldstein). And if he stops being useful they'll replace him. This has happened several times already while the men behind the curtain and long standing policies he people hate remain unchanged.

reaperducerabout 2 hours ago
Everything is someone else's fault. The buck never stops with him.
nielsbotabout 2 hours ago
I’d guess Miller is the main driver of this given what we know about that loser (and freak).
timcobb38 minutes ago
Huge freak
dogsgobork29 minutes ago
I often think about how far the Republican party has fallen from Truman with his "The Buck Stops Here" plaque on his desk to Trump's "I don't take any responsibility at all" response to poor Covid testing in 2020.
FireBeyond10 minutes ago
Meanwhile, just this week, he's taking credit for Biden's legislative efforts on cost reductions for pharmaceuticals that every single Republican voted against, and Trump campaigned against.
geodelabout 2 hours ago
Well, others can bent in other direction and boost their economy by taking in all immigrants that were US bound.
forgetfreemanabout 2 hours ago
And they are. I read somewhere a few days ago that France is vacuuming up academics and advanced students that have been displaced by various recent policy changes that have proven to be hostile towards academia and research.
dnauticsabout 1 hour ago
As a former academic scientist, I suspect it's not gonna work out like they think it will--the process will self select for mostly lemons.
geodelabout 1 hour ago
Ah, vacuuming academics and advanced students is same as taking million immigrants for low skill jobs.
DataDiveabout 1 hour ago
I don't know about vacuuming good students ... you probably have no idea what kind of students get hired in the USA nowadays.

The recruiting at a typical research university has an woke dimension to it - and I am reporting my personal experience, not hearsay:

Out of five scores each student was graded on, three were basically pure wokism like: describe how you overcame a difficult prejudice in life, or talk about how your presence will contribute to an inclusive environment ... only one was probing actual skills ...

PS: I have nothing against immigration - I am an immigrant myself ... a former immigrant student at that ...

I am against the selection process that ignores talented, skilled people and replaces them with mediocre people with some (probably made-up) nice woke story.

OutOfHereabout 2 hours ago
As noted clearly in the article, this is a temporary pause while personnel are brought up to speed on the protocols. The real question is how just or unjust the refusals will be once it is unpaused. It's bad enough that the process is excruciatingly slow.

Users keep downvoting my comment even though it is the most literal and obvious interpretation, without any evidence to the contrary. I would rethink only if it lasts over three months.

Note also that courts would easily overrule Trump if the pause became unreasonable.

eviks13 minutes ago
You're obviously wrong, it obviously doesn't make sense to close down instead is implementing the training for the new protocols in parallel. And the current disruption is just as real of a question as the future refusals. And obviously courts couldn't do it easily.

By the way, you also haven't provided any evidence for your opinion, why would you burden type replies with it?

OutOfHere3 minutes ago
> you also haven't provided any evidence for your opinion

Huh. Do you have an elementary reading difficulty? The evidence is the title and the content of the article. Consider going back to a place of education for lessons in basic English.

DataDiveabout 1 hour ago
Or as the saying goes: nothing is more permanent than a temporary solution.
FireBeyond5 minutes ago
Consular staff are trained on this as-is. It is hard to imagine a re-training on process that could take any more than two days.

And yet we have an entirely open-ended "We have nooooo idea how long this will take!"

Garbage. This is the same administration that paused all immigration from Africa except for "Caucasian South Africans" who were classified as refugees by default, regardless of their motivation on immigration.

This is just Stephen Miller doing exactly what he said he intended to do, and exactly what Project 2025 said the government should do (meanwhile, Trump, "What's that? Never heard of it").