Lone Candle
Champion of Truth
We should allow the skilled people that come over on H1-B visas to come and work, but we should also give them citizenship and the full labor rights of an American citizen so they cannot be exploited.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=d3mQHG9Cdfc
“Less than 1% of immigrants deported last fiscal year were kicked out of the U.S. for crimes other than immigration violations.”
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“To deport millions of “criminals,” Trump would have to consider all undocumented immigrants as criminals. But being in the U.S. illegally is a civil violation, not a criminal one.”
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“Those millions would have to include agricultural, construction and service workers, students and others who are unauthorized to be in the U.S. but have no criminal backgrounds, according to legal specialists and an Axios review of federal immigration data.”
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“”There are not millions of people with criminal records to deport,” Nicole Hallett, director of the Immigrants’ Rights Clinic at the University of Chicago, tells Axios.”
https://www.axios.com/2025/01/27/undocumented-immigrants-crime-deportations-trump
“Many churches and other places of worship rely on foreign-born religious workers to provide services, particularly as fewer native-born Americans enter the vocation. “From 1970 to 2020, the number of priests in the U.S. dropped by 60%, according to data from the Georgetown [University Center for Applied Research in the Apostolate],” reported the Associated Press in 2021. “This has left more than 3,500 parishes without a resident pastor.”
Foreign religious workers come to the U.S. on R-1 visas, which provide a temporary pathway for “ministers and non-ministers in religious vocations and occupations.” The R-1 visa is valid for five years, at which point the holder must either petition for permanent residence status or leave the country for at least a year and apply for a new R-1 visa.
Following a spring 2023 State Department change in green card allocation, religious workers began facing long wait times. The Biden administration started processing neglected and abused immigrant kids in the same green card queue as religious workers, meaning they were competing for the same limited number of green cards—just 10,000 per year. Roughly 100,000 immigrant kids joined the pool. As of this August, the A.P. noted, the backlog “stands at more than 3.5 years and could increase”—potentially up to a decade or more.”
https://reason.com/2024/12/23/foreign-born-religious-workers-are-trapped-in-a-green-card-backlog/
Coercion may work against smaller countries on issues that don’t hurt them too much, but that doesn’t mean it will work against stronger countries. Trump’s first term trade war with China was a failure.
https://www.axios.com/2025/01/28/trump-foreign-policy-deportations
“The new law will require the detention of undocumented immigrants accused of certain crimes such as theft. Federal immigration officials have warned it could impact 60,000 people.”
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“ICE warned Congress that the Laken Riley Act could require detention for 60,000 people, and that the agency would need billions of dollars and thousands more detention beds to comply with the law, Axios reported.”
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“The federal government has prioritized deporting immigrants with criminal records since the Obama administration”
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“Study after study has indicated that immigrants — those in the U.S. legally or undocumented — commit crimes at lower rates than U.S. citizens, Axios’ Russell Contreras reports.”
https://www.axios.com/2025/01/29/laken-riley-act-what-to-know-trump-immigration-law
“the United States is far from alone in offering birthright citizenship. As of 2022, 60 countries had a provision in their legal codes or constitutions that provide at least some pathway to citizenship by jus soli, according to data from the Global Citizenship Observatory.* And more than half of those nations have a mostly unrestricted version akin to the United States’ longstanding formulation, whereby nearly anyone born in that country is guaranteed access to citizenship. (Others may provide for birthright citizenship subject to additional requirements, such as parental descent, period of residence and/or membership of a certain racial or ethnic group.)
Overall, unfettered birthright citizenship is mainly found among countries in the Americas, many of which — including the U.S. — have lengthy histories of immigration from other parts of the globe.”
https://abcnews.go.com/538/make-trumps-attempt-end-birthright-citizenship/story?id=118023941
“President Donald Trump on Sunday announced retaliatory tariffs on Colombia after its president blocked US military deportation flights from landing, the first instance of Trump using economic pressure to force other nations to fall in line with his mass deportation plans since he took office last week.
Hours after Trump’s announcement, Colombian President Gustavo Petro said he ordered the commerce ministry to raise tariffs on US imports by 25%.”
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“Earlier in the day, Petro announced he had blocked two US military flights carrying migrants heading toward the country and called on the United States to establish better protocols in its treatment of migrants. Petro also left the door open to receiving repatriated migrants traveling on civilian planes.
Following Petro’s initial announcement, Trump criticized him on social media while announcing a slate of new sanctions and policies targeting Colombia, including “emergency 25% tariffs” on all imports from the country that will be raised to 50% in a week, a “travel ban” for Colombian citizens, and a revocation of visas for Colombian officials in the US along with “all allies and supporters.”
“These measures are just the beginning. We will not allow the Colombian Government to violate its legal obligations with regard to the acceptance and return of the Criminals they forced into the United States!” Trump wrote on Truth Social.”
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“The US Embassy in Colombia suspended visa processing in retaliation for Colombia’s refusal to accept repatriation flights, a State Department official told CNN on Sunday evening. The suspension applies to immigrant and non-immigrant visas, which typically number in the thousands each day.”
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“Secretary of State Marco Rubio said in a Sunday statement that Colombian officials had approved two military flights carrying migrants to Colombia and then revoked the authorization once they were en route”
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“Petro disputed that he had given authorization, writing on X after the secretary of state’s statement, “I will never allow Colombians to be brought in handcuffs on flights. Marco, if officials from the Foreign Ministry allowed this, it would never be under my direction.””
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“The US began using military aircraft to return recent border crossers back to their countries of origin last week.”
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“The Department of Defense “has helped administrations before, but not at this level. So it’s a force multiplier, and it’s sending a strong signal to the world. Our border’s closed,” Homan told ABC News.”
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“Mexico also appeared to turn around a military flight heading for the country last week.
Brazil joined Colombia on Sunday in condemning the Trump administration’s handling of repatriated migrants on deportation flights, denouncing the treatment of Brazilian nationals who arrived in the country Friday as “degrading.”
Brazilian authorities said they found 88 handcuffed deportees on a US flight headed to Belo Horizonte, Brazil, that landed in Manaus due to a “technical error.” Brazilian officials did not authorize the plane to continue on due to “the use of handcuffs and chains, the poor condition of the aircraft, with a faulty air conditioning system, among other problems,” and the migrants were transported to Manaus on a Brazilian Air Force flight.”
https://www.cnn.com/2025/01/26/politics/colombia-tariffs-trump-deportation-flights/index.html
Is asylum in the United States currently dead?
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aZImq6TGqgk
“order outlined two categories of individuals born in the U.S. who do not automatically receive citizenship, in the White House’s view. The first is a baby whose mother was unlawfully present in the U.S. and whose father was not a U.S. citizen or lawful permanent resident at the time of that baby’s birth. The second is a baby whose mother’s presence in the U.S. “was lawful but temporary” and whose father was not a U.S. citizen or lawful permanent resident at the time of that baby’s birth.
In other words, the order doesn’t just apply to children born to undocumented immigrants. “Lawful but temporary” status includes people “on a student, work, or tourist visa,” according to the White House.
Some visa holders maintain a “temporary” presence in the U.S. for decades.”
https://reason.com/2025/01/21/trumps-birthright-citizenship-order-doesnt-just-apply-to-undocumented-immigrants/
“Trump has repeatedly said he might use the military to suppress a domestic protest, or to raid a sanctuary city to purge it of undocumented immigrants, or possibly defend the Southern border. Some in the military community say they are especially disturbed by the prospect that troops might be used to serve Trump’s political ends.”
https://www.politico.com/news/magazine/2025/01/12/trump-military-immigration-domestic-deployment-00195609