When I filed my last DS-160 for my final H-1B renewal before I got my green card, I remember filling in my social media identifiers. In fact, a look at a 2019 document reveals that providing the identifiers has been required since at least back then[0]. Given that the identifiers must be offered, the intent must be that the posts should be read, so this is unsurprising[1].
I suppose one happy fact from this must be that USCIS has never had convenient access to dragnet surveillance. For if they did, they would simply have used the backdoor rather than ask you to make the profile public. For my part, I always assumed that the US Government knew everything I posted.
I'm sure that if they didn't like me for some reason, they'd find a Richelieu accusation to make from what I've written. One would imagine it is like that other self-evident thing in the First Amendment, "separation of church and state", that is also practiced where convenient and not otherwise. Unless born American (and perhaps now, also "to Americans born American") some degree of scepticism for the tenets of the American Civil Religion will serve anyone well.
1: I'm sure someone could construct machinery where a blacklist is produced by one arm of the government with view to posts which is used by another arm that which has no post-access but I think that was unlikely when this was designed
> I suppose one happy fact from this must be that USCIS has never had convenient access to dragnet surveillance. For if they did, they would simply have used the backdoor rather than ask you to make the profile public.
Not necessarily.
One of the very common tactics by federal investigators is asking a question they already know the answer to. That lets them know when you're lying, which can be a crime on its own!
That's a good point. And particularly in immigration (and I think I recall in this very form - the DS-160) which has such questions such as "Are you a communist?" and "Are you a terrorist or have you ever sympathized with them?" which are clearly intended for the purpose you describe: to catch you in a lie and prosecute you for that even if not for something else.
I suppose the analogous technique here is whether you delete content they've already recorded. Though it could be simpler, and they're just trying to cause an unforced error where someone fails to make a profile public, creating an avenue to reject them even if it were perfectly fine otherwise.
Am I a terrorist or have I ever sympathized with them? Does singing old IRA songs after a couple of pints of Guinness count? If so, it's well I'm not filling out a DS-160.
They’re also going to ban you and all of your relatives from receiving a Visa if you’ve previously worked in content moderation, fact-checking, trust/safety. The most free speech hostile administration in modern history.
Your conclusion doesn't seem to follow from your statement. Content moderation, fact checking, and trust/safety as they've been implemented by social media platforms are jobs that employ people to limit the speech of others.
"You, a private company, are not allowed to perform content moderation on your own platform, and if you do, we, the Federal government, will punish you" is a clear First Amendment violation.
> When the White House called up Twitter in the early morning hours of September 9, 2019, officials had what they believed was a serious issue to report: Famous model Chrissy Teigen had just called President Donald Trump “a pussy ass bitch” on Twitter — and the White House wanted the tweet to come down.
> The Trump administration and its allied Republicans in Congress routinely asked Twitter to take down posts they objected to — the exact behavior that they’re claiming makes President Biden, the Democrats, and Twitter complicit in an anti-free speech conspiracy to muzzle conservatives online.
And the Trump administration has leapfrogged all of the 'asking' on 1st amendment issues -- they're actively suing news stations, entering shake-down agreements with colleges about what they're allowed to teach, deporting green card holders for their political opinions, cancelling already-awarded research grants based purely on the topic being studied ... anyone pretending like this is remotely comparable to anything that happened under Biden isn't a serious person.
I think that almost definition implies you didn't post anything that disqualifies you. It's probably really easy to circumvent too if you're committed to (e.g., deactivate your account)
> In the case of an
applicant who has used any of the social media platforms listed on the visa application in the
preceding five years, the associated social media identifier would be required on the visa
application form.
Hopefully a consequence of that will be the rest of the world actively telling its people that america is probably a less healthy regime for them than countries like China and discouraging all recreational, educational and employment travel here, under any circumstances - including the desires and fetishes of unregulated capitalism.
We are currently test driving the arbitrary execution of anyone without due process to see if THAT finally wakes up the population. But it wont.
Hosted some Japanese study-abroad students over Thanksgiving (they often have no where to go over break). A few times when I suggested an activity they asked if it was "safe". Like taking an Amtrak train. Seeing the "Walk of Stars" in Los Angeles.
It was sad to realize that they viewed the U.S. as so dangerous. But I can say for certain that I feel I could walk around Tokyo at night and not have a worry in the world. From time to time I am embarrassed by the U.S.
FWIW, this isn't new. I was an exchange student in Osaka in the early 90's and a girl in my class got picked for an exchange program in Canada and she said she was relieved she didn't have to worry about being shot.
My stepmother taught in eastern Africa at the beginning of the 1960s. When she was getting ready to return to the US, her students collectively expressed their concern at her returning to such a dangerous place.
Don't know if you've been paying attention, but that's the intention. Many in the U.S are willing to sacrifice the country's GPD to inflict cruelty upon others and preserve "heritage Americans".
Yeah, I would rather just abolish the H1-B visa altogether. If someone can, legitimately or otherwise, put together a clean social media presence to get legal residency in country, this still doesn't guarantee that their natural born citizen children won't try to work against the interests of heritage Americans using whatever tools are available a generation from now.
It's not cruel to want to keep your country from changing irreversibly. Foreigners don't have a right to immigrate. Americans are allowed to decide who they want to let in.
A country may vet entrants according to any criteria it chooses, just like I may enforce any limits I wish unto who may enter my house. If the criteria are too egregious for the gain the applicants might get by being in that country, the talented immigrants who have options may go elsewhere and the country may need relax the criteria to recapture the market for bright minds.
> A country may vet entrants according to any criteria it chooses…
Sure. But said country may have set rules for itself, like the First Amendment, that limit what's permissible beyond what international law and sovereignty alone permit.
(To extend the house analogy, you may not actually be able to "enforce any limits I wish unto who may enter my house". It is, for example, generally unlawful for you to evict your minor child. If you rent out a room, that tenant has rights you can't violate, too. You can't keep out a cop with a valid warrant, either.)
I don't think anyone would argue with that - the problem here is that the requirements are being changed thru a process that involves no public or congressional input.
The other issue is that the vetting will likely not just look for terroristic or other 'illegal' social media content - it will look for whatever the administration decides to look for - again without oversight.
This is a silly comment. The legality isn't really in question. It's whether or not it's a good idea. And citizens of a country will debate whether it's a good idea or not. If we citizens decide it's a bad idea, we'll vote out the government currently in power.
Countries have that right, and people have the right to criticize them for their policies and agitate to change them. This is a concept known as “politics”.
If companies were looking for talent, 80% of H1B’s wouldn’t be from India, but from a much more diverse set of countries.
The fact is that India culture is much more so subservient, willing to work more for less pay, won’t unionize, don’t follow major US/Euro holidays, don’t care about work/life balance..etc. Like it or not, it’s nothing more than exploitation as cattle to increase bottom line and sold as increased output.
India is also very nepotistic and it might well be Indian managers already present in the US pushing for entry of their relatives, schoolmates and friends.
No no, your observation is that a large amount of (per your assessment) low-quality people are already being brought in.
This is completely unrelated to the question of whether the highest quality people are being brought in.
By analogy: "New York City doesn't have a lot of the greatest restaurants in the country because 90% of the restaurants in New York City are not that great."
It's just logically invalid.
And divorced from reality. There's a reason the top students in the world overwhelmingly come to study in the US (at least up until recently). The US's dominance on this and its downstream effects is absolutely unambiguous and it's frankly silly to suggest otherwise.
"We also have a lot of underqualified Indian H1Bs" is completely irrelevant.
Since they are going to treat the Constitution like a piece of toilet paper, couldn't they at least have the decency to stick it to Trump's shoe so that perhaps one of the people that have to clean up him will get bored and start reading it? signed, an actual American that still believes in individual Liberty.
When I filed my last DS-160 for my final H-1B renewal before I got my green card, I remember filling in my social media identifiers. In fact, a look at a 2019 document reveals that providing the identifiers has been required since at least back then[0]. Given that the identifiers must be offered, the intent must be that the posts should be read, so this is unsurprising[1].
I suppose one happy fact from this must be that USCIS has never had convenient access to dragnet surveillance. For if they did, they would simply have used the backdoor rather than ask you to make the profile public. For my part, I always assumed that the US Government knew everything I posted.
I'm sure that if they didn't like me for some reason, they'd find a Richelieu accusation to make from what I've written. One would imagine it is like that other self-evident thing in the First Amendment, "separation of church and state", that is also practiced where convenient and not otherwise. Unless born American (and perhaps now, also "to Americans born American") some degree of scepticism for the tenets of the American Civil Religion will serve anyone well.
0: https://travel.state.gov/content/dam/visas/Enhanced%20Vettin...
1: I'm sure someone could construct machinery where a blacklist is produced by one arm of the government with view to posts which is used by another arm that which has no post-access but I think that was unlikely when this was designed
> I suppose one happy fact from this must be that USCIS has never had convenient access to dragnet surveillance. For if they did, they would simply have used the backdoor rather than ask you to make the profile public.
Not necessarily.
One of the very common tactics by federal investigators is asking a question they already know the answer to. That lets them know when you're lying, which can be a crime on its own!
That's a good point. And particularly in immigration (and I think I recall in this very form - the DS-160) which has such questions such as "Are you a communist?" and "Are you a terrorist or have you ever sympathized with them?" which are clearly intended for the purpose you describe: to catch you in a lie and prosecute you for that even if not for something else.
I suppose the analogous technique here is whether you delete content they've already recorded. Though it could be simpler, and they're just trying to cause an unforced error where someone fails to make a profile public, creating an avenue to reject them even if it were perfectly fine otherwise.
Am I a terrorist or have I ever sympathized with them? Does singing old IRA songs after a couple of pints of Guinness count? If so, it's well I'm not filling out a DS-160.
They’re also going to ban you and all of your relatives from receiving a Visa if you’ve previously worked in content moderation, fact-checking, trust/safety. The most free speech hostile administration in modern history.
https://www.reuters.com/world/us/trump-administration-orders...
Your conclusion doesn't seem to follow from your statement. Content moderation, fact checking, and trust/safety as they've been implemented by social media platforms are jobs that employ people to limit the speech of others.
"You, a private company, are not allowed to perform content moderation on your own platform, and if you do, we, the Federal government, will punish you" is a clear First Amendment violation.
Was it a First Amendment violation when the Biden admin leaned on Facebook and Twitter to censor speculation about the origins of Covid?
Thus far, per SCOTUS (Barrett, joined by Roberts, Sotomayor, Kagan, Kavanaugh, Jackson), no.
https://www.lawfaremedia.org/article/supreme-court-rules-in-...
https://www.scotusblog.com/2024/06/justices-side-with-biden-...
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Murthy_v._Missouri
(Nor was it illegal when the Trump administration did the same thing. https://www.rollingstone.com/politics/politics-news/elon-tru...)
> When the White House called up Twitter in the early morning hours of September 9, 2019, officials had what they believed was a serious issue to report: Famous model Chrissy Teigen had just called President Donald Trump “a pussy ass bitch” on Twitter — and the White House wanted the tweet to come down.
> The Trump administration and its allied Republicans in Congress routinely asked Twitter to take down posts they objected to — the exact behavior that they’re claiming makes President Biden, the Democrats, and Twitter complicit in an anti-free speech conspiracy to muzzle conservatives online.
Asking is legal. Punishing non-compliance is not.
And the Trump administration has leapfrogged all of the 'asking' on 1st amendment issues -- they're actively suing news stations, entering shake-down agreements with colleges about what they're allowed to teach, deporting green card holders for their political opinions, cancelling already-awarded research grants based purely on the topic being studied ... anyone pretending like this is remotely comparable to anything that happened under Biden isn't a serious person.
How does this work if you don't have social media accounts?
I think that almost definition implies you didn't post anything that disqualifies you. It's probably really easy to circumvent too if you're committed to (e.g., deactivate your account)
"deactivate your account"
They thought of that. https://travel.state.gov/content/dam/visas/Enhanced%20Vettin...
> In the case of an applicant who has used any of the social media platforms listed on the visa application in the preceding five years, the associated social media identifier would be required on the visa application form.
You don't even have to deactivate it, just say you don't have one.
Congrats, you're off to jail now.
https://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/text/18/1001
Not having a social media account sounds like something only a freedom hating terrorist would do.
/s
Hopefully a consequence of that will be the rest of the world actively telling its people that america is probably a less healthy regime for them than countries like China and discouraging all recreational, educational and employment travel here, under any circumstances - including the desires and fetishes of unregulated capitalism.
We are currently test driving the arbitrary execution of anyone without due process to see if THAT finally wakes up the population. But it wont.
Hosted some Japanese study-abroad students over Thanksgiving (they often have no where to go over break). A few times when I suggested an activity they asked if it was "safe". Like taking an Amtrak train. Seeing the "Walk of Stars" in Los Angeles.
It was sad to realize that they viewed the U.S. as so dangerous. But I can say for certain that I feel I could walk around Tokyo at night and not have a worry in the world. From time to time I am embarrassed by the U.S.
FWIW, this isn't new. I was an exchange student in Osaka in the early 90's and a girl in my class got picked for an exchange program in Canada and she said she was relieved she didn't have to worry about being shot.
My stepmother taught in eastern Africa at the beginning of the 1960s. When she was getting ready to return to the US, her students collectively expressed their concern at her returning to such a dangerous place.
Shanghai is a very exciting city and the Chinese actually WANT European visitors. Would recommend.
Don't know if you've been paying attention, but that's the intention. Many in the U.S are willing to sacrifice the country's GPD to inflict cruelty upon others and preserve "heritage Americans".
Yeah, I would rather just abolish the H1-B visa altogether. If someone can, legitimately or otherwise, put together a clean social media presence to get legal residency in country, this still doesn't guarantee that their natural born citizen children won't try to work against the interests of heritage Americans using whatever tools are available a generation from now.
The US is more than simply an "economic zone".
It's not cruel to want to keep your country from changing irreversibly. Foreigners don't have a right to immigrate. Americans are allowed to decide who they want to let in.
It's not what you want, it's what you're willing to do that's cruel and disgusting, newfriend
Being more strict about immigration law is not "cruel and disgusting".
A country may vet entrants according to any criteria it chooses, just like I may enforce any limits I wish unto who may enter my house. If the criteria are too egregious for the gain the applicants might get by being in that country, the talented immigrants who have options may go elsewhere and the country may need relax the criteria to recapture the market for bright minds.
> A country may vet entrants according to any criteria it chooses…
Sure. But said country may have set rules for itself, like the First Amendment, that limit what's permissible beyond what international law and sovereignty alone permit.
(To extend the house analogy, you may not actually be able to "enforce any limits I wish unto who may enter my house". It is, for example, generally unlawful for you to evict your minor child. If you rent out a room, that tenant has rights you can't violate, too. You can't keep out a cop with a valid warrant, either.)
> But said country may have set rules for itself, like the First Amendment
Probably better to think of these as rules that the ruled people have for their rulers.
No, we have no rulers but ourselves.
I don't think anyone would argue with that - the problem here is that the requirements are being changed thru a process that involves no public or congressional input.
The other issue is that the vetting will likely not just look for terroristic or other 'illegal' social media content - it will look for whatever the administration decides to look for - again without oversight.
We can't require public or congressional input on everything. As such, we need to elect a competent administration.
- When you say “a country” this vetting may not in fact be what the majority of citizens want.
- I suspect there is racism and xenophobia behind this
- What kind of weak-ass people cannot tolerate dissenting opinions from visitors?
The People elected the current executive to represent them.
You are free to suspect anything you want - that doesn't make it true.
Americans are tired of their country being abused.
This is a silly comment. The legality isn't really in question. It's whether or not it's a good idea. And citizens of a country will debate whether it's a good idea or not. If we citizens decide it's a bad idea, we'll vote out the government currently in power.
Countries have that right, and people have the right to criticize them for their policies and agitate to change them. This is a concept known as “politics”.
lol @ talented. I think you wanted to say "cheap".
No, they’re saying the talented ones, the ones with the most optionality, will be the first to select alternative destinations.
Typical adverse selection problem.
If companies were looking for talent, 80% of H1B’s wouldn’t be from India, but from a much more diverse set of countries. The fact is that India culture is much more so subservient, willing to work more for less pay, won’t unionize, don’t follow major US/Euro holidays, don’t care about work/life balance..etc. Like it or not, it’s nothing more than exploitation as cattle to increase bottom line and sold as increased output.
India is also very nepotistic and it might well be Indian managers already present in the US pushing for entry of their relatives, schoolmates and friends.
Not sure how that’s relevant to my comment.
You’re just saying there’s variance in quality and asserting your opinion about where quality exists/doesn’t exist.
Fine.
The fact there is any variance at all means the highest quality people will be deterred first. Adverse selection.
Highly relevant as it makes your point mute.
The highest quality of talent is already not being brought in. A very specific pool of people are, and not for reasons of talent.
No no, your observation is that a large amount of (per your assessment) low-quality people are already being brought in.
This is completely unrelated to the question of whether the highest quality people are being brought in.
By analogy: "New York City doesn't have a lot of the greatest restaurants in the country because 90% of the restaurants in New York City are not that great."
It's just logically invalid.
And divorced from reality. There's a reason the top students in the world overwhelmingly come to study in the US (at least up until recently). The US's dominance on this and its downstream effects is absolutely unambiguous and it's frankly silly to suggest otherwise.
"We also have a lot of underqualified Indian H1Bs" is completely irrelevant.
P.S. It's "moot" not "mute"
Honestly I never expect to visit NYC ever again unless they secede. It is on the same list as Pyongyang and Moscow lol.
Since they are going to treat the Constitution like a piece of toilet paper, couldn't they at least have the decency to stick it to Trump's shoe so that perhaps one of the people that have to clean up him will get bored and start reading it? signed, an actual American that still believes in individual Liberty.