
The Immigration Iliad - benbreen
https://medium.com/matter/the-immigration-iliad-6727955ae085#.vk8ml1vbf
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vaishaksuresh
>But I have many feelings, not all of them charitable, about those who scream
that undocumented immigrants are not law-abiding. I challenge these screamers
to fill out the same paperwork I’ve had to fill out for the past few years and
experience the same anxieties and fears I’ve felt. I’m sure they would wilt
under the pressure

With all due respect, the author's case is unique. The screamers are not
talking about people like the author. Also, a perfectly legal immigrant from
India/China goes to ivy league schools, does the same amount of paperwork and
waits for the same time, all the while paying taxes like a citizen. You don't
hear anybody helping their case.

~~~
jacalata
How is it unique? It's the situation the DREAM act was supposed to address and
plenty of screamers are about that.

~~~
vaishaksuresh
It is unique because his parents over-stayed a visa and not jump a fence. It
is unique because the author actively tried to rectify his situation instead
of just expecting to be handed a citizenship. Also, AFAIK, a lot more people
are opposed to giving citizenship to _every_ illegal immigrant than to giving
it to people who qualify for the DREAMer act.

~~~
jacalata
A significant percentage of undocumented residents over-stayed a visa -
perhaps 40%. You think the people spending years campaigning for the DREAM Act
are just 'expecting to be handed a citizenship'? They're more involved
politically than almost any American citizens are. There are a lot of people
who've made huge efforts to get themselves legalized, and I think your
comments are made out of complete ignorance and you should spend more time
researching and less time spreading uninformed opinions.

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dunkelheit
How is that possible - living in the country for years and even enrolling in a
prominent institution of higher education, all the while being effectively
non-existent as far as the legal system is concerned? I can't get my head
around it.

~~~
mrtksn
You are not non-existent, you are just taking another path where some things
are "easier"(from locals perspective, it's usually easier to get a spot at a
good school) to achieve they are actually much harder to hold because you are
out of the safety net. Other things are incredibly laborious and some things
are effectively out of your reach.

From techie perspective, think of it as dirty and quick hack. You are
basically quick fix at the system, you don't conform to predefined interfaces
and you do not fell in any of the object categories but you still can interact
with other objects. Because you don't go from all the checks, some things are
easier to you and you can run faster but at the same time you are out of any
error checking mechanism. If you fail, you fail dirty and you can't recover.

So when you are an illegal in a country, you usually have access to some
things like education and healthcare(sometimes easier than the locals) but you
may have incredibly hard time to open a bank account and anything that depends
on you having a bank account(the things that are easy and hard depend on the
country). It all depends on what paperwork is needed, sometimes you hack your
way to obtain certain paperwork(I know a guy who is taking the metro for free,
so he would be fined and they will send him a mail with the fine and he will
use that mail as proof of address to open a bank account).

Being illegal in a country is very interesting beast. Some people, like the
person with the most upvoted comment make it look lşke it's a privilege but
it's not. Do you fancy to be an illegal? Burn your documents and pretend that
you are somebody else.

~~~
dunkelheit
Interesting metaphor but I still don't fully understand. I imagine it is easy
to go around doing ordinary cash transactions, hard but possible to find a
place to live and work (you have to find landlords and employers who are
willing to engage in sketchy things). But going to public school? enrolling in
Princeton? Do these institutions seriously not care who you are?

Also, if illegal immigrants are not non-existent to the state, why are they
tolerated and not getting deported?

~~~
mrtksn
studying is probably one of the easier tasks for an illegal immigrant.

states don't want to have much illiterate and skilless people around and don't
want to block those who want to get educated so usually they have all kind of
exemptions to enable people get education. also, because the education on the
planet is not uniform things like maths tests can go long way instead of paper
work.

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aggieben
> The attorney patiently explained to me that returning to Santo Domingo was
> far too risky. Because I’d overstayed my tourist visa as a child, I’d be
> subject to a ban on reentry; it was also extremely likely that I’d be denied
> a student visa.

Well, why can't we just fix _that_ , instead of completely ignoring the law
for 20 million people (while in the meantime, millions more wait in line the
legal way without the privileges that this guy's family took illegitimately)?

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vonnik
It should be Iliad with one 'l', as the author spelled it in the post.

~~~
dang
Ugh. Hate missing those. Thanks.

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yueq
Not being offensive here -- but how about imagine if the author is a
terrorist, and this terrorist is studying in an Ivy and pretending to be a
student.

~~~
bonobo3000
You could ask the same question of any student, immigrant or not.

~~~
intortus
Imagine the commenter is a reactionary, pretending to not be offensive.

