[philipkiely]

Please consider the situation with empathy. A real person, who by all appearances would make a good citizen, is unable to live in the country of his choice because of a single clerical error. Perfection is too high a bar to hold anyone to.

[bagacrap]

If "by all appearances" you mean "according to one autobiographical blog post". My default is empathy because it feels good and costs me nothing, but I don't think authorities have the same luxury when considering the claims of arbitrary individuals who could easily be pathological liars. The Bay Area tech ethos of "disruption" often boils down to bending or flaunting the rules to achieve what you think is a worthy goal, and this guy obviously felt the calling of San Francisco quite strongly. Now you're telling me there's no way a person who spent all those years single-mindedly focused on long term residence in SF would ever check the wrong box on a form if he thought it would somehow improve his chances of achieving a lifelong goal?

[notatoad]

being able to live in your country of choice is a privilege denied to a huge number of people who have never made a clerical error that looks identical to lying about their citizenship.

I understand this guy's problem, and i'm sad for him. but looking at it from the perspective of everybody else who's ever gone through the immigration process, or the people working on the immigration process, i can also understand why this situation couldn't really have any other end result.

[jariel]

"i can also understand why this situation couldn't really have any other end result"

No, this is not true. Mistakes happen all the time, everywhere. This guy had no motivation to lie on a simple form.

If you want to see how this works, check with your bank. Mistakes are made all the time processing money, and usually things can be fixed.

[LorenPechtel]

This has nothing to do with the immigration process. My wife is an immigrant, all our headaches with those idiots didn't involve a single I-9 form.

[redis_mlc]

Please read my comment above and stop being an argumentative pedant.

Form I-9 is primarily an employment document, not an immigration document.

[rumanator]

> Form I-9 is primarily an employment document

The form is a requirement to be able to immigrate to the US. No form, no imigration.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Form_I-9

[sveiss]

You can immigrate to the US without ever filling out an I-9, if you never work as an employee while in the US.

On the other hand, a US citizen who never leaves the country might fill out dozens over the course of a career, depending on how often they switch jobs.

[rumanator]

> is unable to live in the country of his choice

That's not how things work. You don't have a right to pick and choose which countries you enter, let alone live. Emigrating is a privilege that's granted by the host nation. If a nation asks a prospective imigrant to not commit fraud or misrepresent himself while applying for a privilege, no one should be surprised if they reject your application when you are caught providing false information.

[netsharc]

Since he presumably meets the qualifications for many countries (he's a capable manager, who would benefit his employer and improve the host country's tax earnings), there are probably many countries which would welcome him, and in that sense he does have a choice where he can live, does he not.

And is it his fault some idiot ticked the wrong box?

[notatoad]

"some idiot ticked the box wrong" is reading the blog post uncritically. that's obviously the author's perspective here, but it doesn't really make sense.

he signed his name to a blank section of the form. that signature is an attestation that the blank section immediately above it was filled in truthfully. it can't be both blank and filled in truthfully. that somebody ticked off a box in that section later on is beside the point (all the other options appear to require additional information, which was also not provided, so whoever ticked off that box made a decent assumption).

it's a mistake in the same way as signing a blank check is a mistake

[wbl]

And now the US loses another talented individual. Is this really the best system?

[rumanator]

> Since he presumably meets the qualifications for many countries

Actually he doesn't, because one of the very basic requirements is to not commit perjury in the application by providing a document claiming he was an US citizen when he was not.

And I find it highly unlikely that an employee not only forgets to fill in the box attesting his legal status in the US but also an anonymous third party happens to fill it, and fills it the wrongest (and most convenient) way possible.