Immigration

Author: Danielle

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#1
Danielle
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Nativist: It's fine for people to immigrate, but it must be done legally! 

Me: It is legal to seek asylum. 

--5 seconds of awkward silence--

Nativist: Well they're  not really in danger; they just want a better life. We need to change the asylum law.


It's important to note that people making these "just do it legally" arguments are not doing so in good faith. If you insist immigrants come here legally, but also endorse a system that makes legal immigration impossible for the vast majority of would-be migrants, then it's obviously not the law they're concerned about. 

For the vast majority of humans on earth, there is no viable pathway to immigrate to the U.S. There is no "process," there is no "line," there is no "legal way." They are simply excluded by the very nature of their birth.  Any immigration restrictionist who doesn't understand or account for this doesn't know enough about our system to have a credible opinion.

That said, I would be interested in exploring the arguments against increased immigration a bit more. I already know the basics: that diversity is bad (disagree); that immigration drives down wages (disagree, and if there is an impact on wages, it's negligible); increased crime (wrong); immigrants send money home (don't care - they still pay taxes here and participate in our economy - plus a lot of rich people keep their money overseas and nobody says boo); terrorism concerns (which are mitigated through background checks, and I don't see why immigrants would be immune to the surveillance state). Etc. Are there any other major points you can think of for restricting immigration? I might not necessarily argue them here but just want to look into them and research them out of personal curiosity. 

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Consider the current unemployment rate is at 3.9%, just .3% shy of record lows from 2019. We currently have rising wages and a ton of job openings, especially in low-wage jobs. Some have even called it a "labor shortage" though it's unclear if that's accurate or not because I haven't looked into the numbers myself, and I never accept those kinds of reports at face value. If unemployment is not an issue and people are pissed that many places are understaffed, do you think there will be more acceptance of low-skill  immigration? (Many high-skill immigrants are often designated to low-skill jobs here to boot.) 

Another question: if lockdowns and mask mandates = tyranny, why aren't laws that prevent the free movement of people or trade considered tyrannical? It seems weird to me that the idea of harming small businesses is unforgivable when it comes to something like social distance policies or capacity restrictions, but forcing a small business owner to hire more expensive workers is somehow okay even if that hurts their business.

How does it make sense to say we don't have an obligation to do things in consideration of others (i.e. vaccinations or lockdowns to protect the elderly or immunocompromised) but we somehow have an obligation to prioritize Americans over foreign workers? Why is authoritarianism "for the good of the country" okay when it comes to restricting immigration, but not other kinds of restrictions? I can think of like one or two reasonable arguments at best and they're not very strong. Perhaps I'm missing something. 

#2
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@Danielle
I think immigration 'can strengthen a nation,

"Shang Yang enacted policies to compensate for the shortage of manpower in Qin. As Qin peasants were recruited into the military, he encouraged active immigration of peasants from other states into Qin as a replacement workforce; this policy simultaneously increased the manpower of Qin and weakened the manpower of Qin's rivals."

On the other hand, some people argue that later mishandling of immigration, was one of the many reasons for Romes decline.
"in the fifth century the Romans lost control of the immigration process.  Armies were sent to the Middle East to counter a hostile, newly invigorated Persia, leaving the West open.  The Germanic tribes were allowed in, but once inside the empire they were not assimilated but retained their cultural and political identities, eventually combining to form armies within its borders that the Romans could no longer overcome."

Though some point out Rome's success in offering citizenship as it conquered.
"According to tradition, the once-great and formerly welcoming city of Rome had been founded in the eighth century B.C. as an asylum, a Latin word meaning “sanctuary for refugees.” As Rome grew from monarchy to humble republic to unrivaled empire, the Roman people developed a winning formula for ending wars, fostering stability and achieving widespread, lasting economic success: They extended citizenship to non-residents of the capital.
By any conservative account, Rome’s government did so three times by Claudian’s day: first, in its wars of Italian conquest in the first century B.C.; then, during its aggressive period of colonial expansion in the first and second centuries A.D.; and finally, in 212 A.D., when Emperor Caracalla granted citizenship rights to every free-born person in Rome’s orbit."

Personally,
I was fine with immigration when I was younger, and even 'now I don't much care, though more due to apathy.
But for individuals who 'care about their tribe, people, blood, history, forebears,
Mass immigration seems to me, daft.

. . .

Of your arguments,
I 'do suppose that people here due to asylum, 'ought have better living conditions than what we saw with Trump.
But I simply cannot agree with just letting someone immigrate or stay too long due to asylum.

I don't really care if there's a shortage of workers for bad jobs in America,
Maybe we ought pay more, eliminate some jobs.

Of free movement compared to lockdown,
One is an action a community takes on itself,
The other is an uninvited guest.
#3
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@Danielle
Me: It is legal to seek asylum. 

--5 seconds of awkward silence--

You can’t seek asylum for economic reasons. I read some statistic where it says only a very small minority (~1%) of people who come to the Southern border qualify for asylum. 

The rest are just economic migrants who should be deported.
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@ILikePie5
Exactly. Canada per capita deports something like 5 times the amount of bogus economic asylum claims than the USA does. Why are we so much less concerned about sovereignty than Canada?
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#5
Danielle
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@ILikePie5
You can’t seek asylum for economic reasons

Sure,  but asylum seekers should not be met with threats, punishment, detention or immediate expulsion rather than a fair chance to make their case. 
#6
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@Danielle
Sure,  but asylum seekers should not be met with threats, punishment, detention or immediate expulsion rather than a fair chance to make their case. 
The process would be streamlined if there weren’t so economic migrants applying for asylum. I have no problem with granting hearings, but they can wait in Mexico.
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Danielle
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@Greyparrot
How is Canada's immigration policy supposed to be relevant? Are you suggesting we should model our government to be like Canada's, or that because Canada is more egalitarian  we're supposed to assume they're right on immigration... but wrong on everything else? 

A better argument would probably consist of looking at countries with more immigration and see what negative impacts it has had if any. Of course that still doesn't answer why it's outrageous to force a business to close for 2 months but not force them to spend more on labor which could equally hurt their profitability or opportunity to succeed, but I digress. 
#8
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serious question. What good does it do America to except asylum seekers
#9
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@Danielle
Are you suggesting we should model our government to be like Canada's, or that because Canada is more egalitarian  we're supposed to assume they're right on immigration... but wrong on everything else? 

I think in many ways Canada benefits on many levels from operating as a sovereign nation of established laws that also enforces its laws. America's immigration policies generally operate on the fringes of chaos and disorder, and comparing the rates of convictions of bogus asylum cases are just one metric of that trend. Libertarianism tends to operate unrestrained regarding immigration with zero actual regulations, and the country is definitely seeing problems with it, from a lack of civic responsibility to actual national security and health concerns such as a huge surge in unscreened infected people adding to the Covid infection rates. Canada sensibly has restricted immigration on the basis of health concerns while America dithers.

Would you like to debate that point?
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@ILikePie5
I don't see why they should have to wait in Mexico. Many of them are vulnerable and forced to wait in unsafe circumstances there with limited access to humanitarian aid.  But I'm glad we can discuss this example of where some humans have very limited rights in this country based solely on what latitude and longitude they exited their mother's vagina and nothing more. Just more proof that we as a nation make shit up about which humans are eligible for certain rights per arbitrary standards that we can and do change on a whim. 

(Also, just think about it for a second. How does it make sense to find abortion immoral regarding a clump of cells with zero understanding of what is happening at all whatsoever, but think sure, send the people and children who trekked 1,000 miles on foot with nothing but the clothes on their backs back to Mexico so we can make sure they are really in danger and not just desperately poor. You're saying that people who literally risk their lives, implying at the very least a life of severe hardship, do not deserve to seek a better life for themselves no matter how desperate they are just because too bad, tough shit? The morality of ya'll is truly baffling to me but I digress). 

I'll just repeat that any immigration restrictionist who doesn't understand or account for this doesn't know enough about our system to have a credible opinion. And if they're not willing to significantly change these barriers and make it a lot easier to immigrate, then the platitudes about "just following the law" are a crock of shit. Some people are more honest about hating/fearing foreigners or wanting the U.S. to become some sort of white ethnostate like the people in Trump's administration, and thett3  who admits he does not like diversity and prefers homogeny. I was asking if there were actually any good reasons to oppose immigration as opposed to the bad reasons I don't care about in the OP. I'm sure there are some. The only ones coming to mind now have to do with infrastructure and welfare. Illegal immigrants shouldn't qualify for social services but legal ones would. 
#11
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I don't see why they should have to wait in Mexico.

Because actual political asylum seekers (not economic refugees) are required by international law to register in the 1st country they enter.

I think it's part of the reason the SCOTUS told Biden to fuck off.
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@Wylted
I'd have to think more about it other than the obvious moral reasons and fact that the U.S. is supposed to be a beacon of hope and opportunity for immigrants. But to me the question is also about what right someone / government has to prevent individuals from trading property or labor with whomever they damn well please. If I own a house and feel like renting it out to a Guatemelan, it's none of anyone else's business and they shouldn't be able to stop me. The same thing goes if I open a restaurant and feel like hiring a Mexican bus boy. 

This brings me to the other question in the OP which it seems like nobody feels like answering. Why is it wrong to force a business to close for 2 months thereby affecting their profitability, but okay to prevent a business from hiring cheap labor which impacts their profitability? If the answer is "because we have to do what's best for Americans as a whole" then why not create laws for mandatory exercise and regimented diets? The question I asked in the OP is why is authoritarianism "for the good of the country" okay when it comes to restricting immigration, but not other kinds of restrictions? Thoughts? 
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@Greyparrot
Because actual political asylum seekers (not economic refugees) are required by international law to register in the 1st country they enter.

I think it's part of the reason the SCOTUS told Biden to fuck off.

True but that's just saying what the law is, not justifying it.  I suspect the people fleeing really are in some kind of serious hardship. Whether its dire poverty or domestic violence, people don't just get in teeny tiny rafts or cross the hot desert knowing how many people die trying to get here just for funsies. They literally risk their lives and/or pay tens of thousands of dollars to coyotes, sometimes sending just their children and risking their children's lives. It's fucked up of the people who shame those who are that desperate. I mean unless you think immigrants are barbarians who don't care about their kids, obviously they're in some kind of dire need to go along with some of the decisions they make. 

It's fine to reserve asylum for people fleeing violence and persecution. I think you should be able to immigrate for economic reasons without having to claim asylum. 

Re: Canada, are you asking if I want to debate the merit of mandating health checks for immigration purposes? I've always said health and security checks are imperative to immigration. I'd be a lot harsher on illegal immigration if legal immigration were easier. I'm not for open borders although I do admittedly find the libertarian arguments for it to be pretty interesting.
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@Danielle
 I think you should be able to immigrate for economic reasons without having to claim asylum. 

This is a great point. What would legislation look like if you were to propose something workable people could agree on?

#15
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@Danielle
I don't see why they should have to wait in Mexico. Many of them are vulnerable and forced to wait in unsafe circumstances there with limited access to humanitarian aid.  But I'm glad we can discuss this example of where some humans have very limited rights in this country based solely on what latitude and longitude they exited their mother's vagina and nothing more. Just more proof that we as a nation make shit up about which humans are eligible for certain rights per arbitrary standards that we can and do change on a whim. 
It matters in terms of sovereignty of states. If you can convince every nation to get rid of borders then maybe your argument holds merit. However, I’m sure you can see the consequences of eliminating borders outright.

(Also, just think about it for a second. How does it make sense to find abortion immoral regarding a clump of cells with zero understanding of what is happening at all whatsoever, but think sure, send the people and children who trekked 1,000 miles on foot with nothing but the clothes on their backs back to Mexico so we can make sure they are really in danger and not just desperately poor. You're saying that people who literally risk their lives, implying at the very least a life of severe hardship, do not deserve to seek a better life for themselves no matter how desperate they are just because too bad, tough shit? The morality of ya'll is truly baffling to me but I digress). 
I’m not going to debate abortion. I will say that there are tens if not hundreds of millions of people who want to come to the United States. Not just from Latin America, but India and Southeast Asia. They make the the journeys too to seek a better life for themselves. There’s only one question: how many do we accept before we say enough? Let’s say 100 million. Well that doesn’t solve the moral dilemma of the 100 million other immigrants. What’s the moral of the story? Everyone wants to be nice but we don’t have the resources to accept everybody and it’s immoral per your own argument to discriminate against people living in India vs Latin America.

I'll just repeat that any immigration restrictionist who doesn't understand or account for this doesn't know enough about our system to have a credible opinion. And if they're not willing to significantly change these barriers and make it a lot easier to immigrate, then the platitudes about "just following the law" are a crock of shit. Some people are more honest about hating/fearing foreigners or wanting the U.S. to become some sort of white ethnostate like the people in Trump's administration, and thett3  who admits he does not like diversity and prefers homogeny. I was asking if there were actually any good reasons to oppose immigration as opposed to the bad reasons I don't care about in the OP. I'm sure there are some. The only ones coming to mind now have to do with infrastructure and welfare. Illegal immigrants shouldn't qualify for social services but legal ones would. 
That flow chart is a great way to navigate the system currently. My parents navigated it without even knowing English when they first came here. Hell they didn’t even know what mushrooms were on pizza when they ordered a veggie pizza. If my parents can do it, so can everyone else. They don’t deserve to cut the line because my parents did everything legally.

But let’s not forget the national security reasons of having a pourous border too. Just recently CBP caught terrorists at the border. Eliminate borders and the drug trade skyrockets with cartel violence seeping across the border.

I have no problem with legal immigration. You can go through the process like millions have before. Millions that mind you also suffered in hardship. I have a heart, but I also know that reality restricts us.
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@Danielle
Why is it wrong to force a business to close for 2 months thereby affecting their profitability, but okay to prevent a business from hiring cheap labor which impacts their profitability? I
I would say it's because exploiting people by paying them $2 an hour, while you pay whites minimum wage is unethical, and while I disagree with government over reach during the pandemic, at least the attempt at keeping people safe is honorable, while businesses pushing for lax border security so they can exploit and abuse immigrants is unethical. 
#17
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@Danielle
I'd be a lot harsher on illegal immigration if legal immigration were easier
This is actually what Trump stated many times he wanted to do. He may have clothed it in tough rhetoric, but his plan was to make legal immigration a lot easier, while simultaneously preventing illegal immigration.  
#18
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The whole idea of citizenship and immigration exists because that's what a nation is - it's both a geographic area and the people who inhabit it. Humans on average tend to have a strong drive to improve their surroundings in order to pass it on to their posterity. There are incredibly strong sentimental attachments to this - termed oikophilia, or 'love of home' - that are pretty universal. All other things held equal, people feel most comfortable and happy among what they consider home - they like their own culture, their own architecture, their own food and customs. They may like to try other things, but something like moving to live permanently in an entirely foreign culture comes with a great deal of stress and long-term discomfort. When Abd al-Rahman III fled from the slaughter of his family at Damascus to the ends of the earth, settling in Cordoba, he felt this deeply. Though he was an exiled prince ruling a foreign land, one of his most treasured possession was a palm planted in the courtyard which was native to Syria, and he wrote a poem about it:

'A palm tree stands in the middle of Rusafa
Born in the West, far from the land of palms
I said to it, “How like me you are, far away and in exile!
In long separation from family and friends
You have sprung from soil in which you are a stranger
And I, like you, am far away from home”'

I think this epitomizes what I'm talking about, which is why I mention it - it's a deeply seated very human set of emotions. And the reason why it's so important is that we are living in a time of great aberration in this regard. There have always been wars, displaced peoples, political unrest and economic stagnation. Migration isn't new. But it was typically an ebb and flow, slow, and over relatively short distances. The sense of dislocation that an Arab moving to Egypt feels is much less than that of a Chinese man moving to Africa or an Englishman to India. What we have, economically, is a situation that's completely novel; the flow of resources is all going to a few places, and especially to America. I don't think most people who want to move here are in love with what might be called traditional American culture. I'm friends with many immigrants, and a lot of them have disdain for our ideas about things like freedom. They come here for the promise of a better life, and that promise exists because of that resource flow. This map is a good proxy: https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/f/f4/Energy-consumption-per-capita-2003.png. Energy is the fuel of any economy, and we're in the upper reaches of consumption - this means that primarily fossil fuels are predominantly flowing into this country, where they are burned and yield energy that people in this country can use to achieve their aims. That, at the bottom of it, is the power behind American prosperity that drives people to come here. We also have other benefits, like huge tracts of arable land. Politburo member and influential Chinese political scientist Wang Huning's writings about his time in America devote a whole chapter to marvelling over the great plains. Two oceans to provide political stability (as long as America remains a united polity). These things make everyone want to move here, even at the risk of cultural dislocation, because to them America means a better life.

But, what I think that advocates for immigration miss, is the fact of whether or not these people getting their wish actually would fulfill that wish. Of course it appeals to typical American arrogance to think that it's this nation (its people and land) that make it so great. If that's the case, we just need to bring these people here and turn them into Americans. But I think that's a ridiculous proposition. Americans aren't drawing disproportionate carbon reserves into the country and burning them for energy, like a giant tick, because being an American is inherently better. It's our imperial reach that secures the flow of oil and ultimately backs our currency, which we use to reinforce our global hegemony. I think that the reality that undergirds America is far more brutal: it's our strength as an empire that allows us to consume energy, that buys our citizens a good life, and is the root of our power.

If you believe that it's the people or the land then it makes sense to bring in as many people from around the world as possible and make them into Americans - after all, the more Americans, the more great we are and the better our lives will be. But I think that if you understand that this is a system that is quite brutal and extractive at its core, then you face a pretty nasty conundrum. If immigration does make America stronger, then it will use that strength to squeeze the rest of the world harder, to extract more raw resources, and to give its citizens the very 'better life' that people immigrate to America for. This will further immiserate the rest of the world, reinforcing the very conditions that make the rest of the world's people willing to abandon their own homes to escape from the suffering inflicted on them. If more people come, the problem will just be compounded in an endless feedback loop. If immigration makes us weaker, then as more immigrants come in our ability to extract resources will wane as both our population and internal cultural dividing lines multiply. This will lead to an falling standard of living and an inability to provide the very 'good life' that immigrants have sacrificed so much to attain. This situation is a tinderbox that will lead to the opposite feeback loop: the country will tear itself apart among sectional lines. Before the fall of Rome, the city was being defended against the barbarian army of Alaric by another general of barbarian origin: Stilicho. For a time he was successful, defending the city and repelling the invaders. But as the ruling class of Rome felt their influence slipping and saw that Stilicho's star was rising, they butchered him, his son, and his soldier's families. The remaining soldiers went over to Alaric and Rome was razed. The morality of any of these actions isn't important, just that it's human nature to reinforce and dig in along pre-existing cultural and ethnic fracture points during lean times. A situation in which you saw large influxes of foreigners and a dropping standard of living would end the same way as Rome did - in recrimination and blood.

So overall I think that the industrial revolution and the advent of fossil fuels has led to a dynamic that's on a runaway course and can't really be stopped. It's lead to huge gaps in who has access to energy, raw materials, and so the fruits of a modern life. This drives people to want to migrate to those countries which possess higher access to those resources, but to see migration as a solution is insane - squeezing everyone who wanted to live in America and reap the benefits of her geopolitical dominance would just make America a more crowded and angry place, and it would either require America to become more exploitative in order to supply a rising standard of living to this swelling population, or it would cause America to collapse in on itself and allow another power to rise in the vacuum. We're past the point where wealth was made off of the land and people could migrate from place to place and not see huge swings in wealth or power. Now wealth is sucked out of the ground and shipped by pipe or tanker to what's called the first world, where it is burned to produce level of energy and productivity that would boggle the minds of people living centuries ago. We're all living in this mirage, in a world built on energy that can't last, but we refuse to give it up and always demand more, like a morphine addict. People who want a taste of this life stream into the western world and then feel displaced and immersed in an alien country. Can they all come? If they do, what will happen when the pie shrinks - not only due to the dwindling geopolitical dominance of the West, but the rise of an oligarchy which isn't as eager to share spoils? I think the West in general is in for a rude awakening, and that if we really wanted to solve the problem we'd stop sucking up all of the world's resources and allow wealth to build in other countries. But we will never take that hit to our own standard of living until circumstances force us to.


#19
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@Greyparrot
Not your typical legal parlance.

I hereby tell the defendant to fuck off.
#20
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@zedvictor4
They probably said "Let's go."
#21
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I basically agree with Res. The trickiest part about it is that you can't really ever do a quantifiable good with things like this either way. Like Res says, if immigration makes America stronger, the rest of the world is worse off. If not, America dies. And that's the Holy All of it. I'd nearly throw morals out the window altogether with an idea instead to wring every last bit of technological innovation out of whatever empire currently is. That's an evolutionary escape. Raising someone up is chopping someone down. I don't really have much else to say about it. 
#22
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I think China's going to get rich and we're all going to be naked. Who's making our clothes for us for pittance then? We'll move the sweat shops to Africa and we'll be back to the good old days. The world of progress is one big balancing act. We need a super rich and a super poor, otherwise nothing much gets done. I did the maths on it on here before. Elon Musk's hour's work pays a sweat shop wage that builds 14 great pyramids. We'll send the immigrants to Mars. 
#23
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If I’m being perfectly honest most of my intense opposition to immigration has always come from the viewpoint that people who I know for a fact have an intense hatred of people like me have been openly enthusiastic about using immigration as a bludgeon against us for my entire life. In reality it’s a far more complicated than that, as immigrants are people with their own goals and viewpoints and little interest in being a mere tool in someone else’s culture war. So I don’t really think of it that way anymore, but I know a lot of people do (even if they don’t realize it themselves)

My position now is basically that actual culture comes from stability, and mass immigration necessarily upends that stability and remakes the culture into something else. “I like things the way they are” is a perfectly valid reason to oppose the mass movements of peoples and it’s essentially my reasoning. I also don’t think it’s as simple as saying immigration is good and or bad for the economy because there are different kinds of immigrants. The 145 IQ Silicon Valley engineer from Bangladesh obviously contributes a great deal to the economy, but that isn’t at all the same situation as a day laborer who doesn’t speak English, who brings his wife and three kids along who all get on welfare in a couple of years. 

A solution for potential manual labor shortage is a guest worker program that’s actually enforced (ie the workers *actually* leave after a year or two and don’t bring their families along.) If we need workers and people want to come and send money back to their families that’s fine. 

That said, I’ve always been skeptical of the narrative that Americans can’t do the job, though. The unemployment rate is low partly because the labor force participation is far below the historical norm. There are parts of the country where there are hardly any immigrants and fields that are immigrant dominated in other parts of the country still get done. Where I live now has tons of immigrants but I guess the few miles around me doesn’t because all the fast food restaurants and stores are staffed by white teenagers, which is something I was told wasn’t possible. We really should try harder with our existing population before bemoaning a labor shortage 
#24
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Im generally opposed to immigration because i think assimilation among foreigners are pretty rare. I don’t believe in integration. Immigrants have an obligation to assimilate, or they can return to their original home. Id grant exceptions on refugees but thats about it. Immigrants owning multiple homes in different countries really differ from refugees, and immigrants need to assimilate imho.
#25
oromagi
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I think we should make more of a distinction between immigrant labor and citizenship.   
  • We should be able to fulfill our labor needs without necessarily offering a pathway to citizenship for every migrant laborer. 
  • Because of our very long shared borders, I think Mexico, the US, and Canada should form a single border security/asylum claim/migrant labor processing entity run by all 3 nations.
    • All Mexican, Canadian, and American citizens should be eligible and legal to accept any job legally within this trade agreement zone.
    • We might consider a single minimum wage/labor law agreement for all members of this zone.
  • Legal ports of entry  for migrant labor should be limited and prepared to house and feed large numbers during processing- think 4 or 5 Ellis Islands for legal labor entry to North America.
  • Illegal immigration should be treated as crime committed by employers and criminal enforcement should concentrate on illegal employers rather than illegal employees.  This would rapidly eliminate illegal immigration as a social problem.
  • Some people may choose to work their whole careers successfully in the US without seeking citizenship and with the intention of retiring to birthplace.  This should be just fine.
We should maintain a high standard for a path to citizenship but the total number of annual, eligible citizens should be more of economic decision than a political decision.

  • Prioritize, actively recruit, highly talented/educated migrants seeking a new homeland.
    • Recruit more based on individual skill sets,  less based on family connections
  • 6+ years military service should be a fast track to citizenship.
  • 20+ years as a legal labor migrant with no criminal history should also be prioritized

#26
FLRW
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Republicans have set the standard for immigration. If you are a stripper born in a Communist country, you can be a Republican First Lady.
Well, that's if you apply for an Einstein visa.
#27
Greyparrot
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@FLRW
Trump was a registered Democrat at the time Melania became a US citizen. Rofl.
#28
FLRW
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@Greyparrot
As usual, someone who believes in god doesn't spend too much time on detail. Trump's political party affiliation has changed numerous times. He registered as a Republican in Manhattan in 1987, switched to the Reform Party in 1999. Melania first came to the United States on a B-1/B-2 visitor visa in 1996, when Trump was registered Republican.
#29
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@FLRW
As usual, the 30 percenters do not know what the word "citizen" means. ( hint, green card doesn't make you a citizen) 

Someone apparently needs to take "Einstein" back to Harvard to relearn Civics.
#30
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@Greyparrot

That doesn't have anything to do with how she got into our country.