[callalex]

From a USA perspective, I find that usually when a bureaucratic process is hopelessly broken, it is because a small portion of the population actively hates the people that would benefit from the process and want to harm them. However they cannot legally or popularly discriminate against them so instead they destroy the processes that benefit the hated group. Do you get that impression where you are too?

[thsksbd]

If foreigners are in of the hated groups, my personally lived experience serves a counter point.

During my naturalization I was caught by surprise by how quickly my application had been handled. The agent giving me the exam winked and said: "it's election season".

Whatever that means.

[moomoo11]

Are you highly educated?

My father has only a certificate and no degree or anything like that.

It took him 20 years to get citizenship. We came 3 years after he come here and we all became citizens together.

My friends whose parents were doctors or had masters degree would get their GC and citizenships in like 5 years.

[RamblingCTO]

Of course high education and value to the labour market make you a good immigrant, and the lack thereof a "bad" one with less value. Is this something that surprises you?

[thsksbd]

You're conflating things. GC is different (albeit necessary) from naturalization. I clearly said my citizenship took 6 months. My GC took 6 or 8 years and I got it through my wife.

For those 6 to 8 years I had a student visa then an H1B. Despite having a PhD in the top US program in my field from a top five school.

My wife got her GC through the lottery before she finished university (ie w/ a HS diploma) with 0 years living in the US

[physhster]

Given the amount of immigrants in Europe in general and in Germany in particular, I don't think they are trying to deter people. Or if they are trying it's not working.

The incompetence is not confined to immigration, it's pretty much everywhere. Same goes for France actually.

[chii]

i wonder how much of the "incompetence" is really just under-staffing, and how much is the public servants being paid to essentially do little/no work.

[nicbou]

It plays a major role. That, the increasing number of applicants and inefficient, paper-based bureaucracy are the three major causes, I would say.

[philsnow]

The impression I got from the last time I was in Germany (some ~7 years ago), there's a going concern among at least some people that a certain ethnicity of immigrants is "taking over". This might be a pearl-clutching minority, or I may have completely misread the situation.

[Escapado]

German reporting in. Disclaimer: I am biased as I think immigration is great and I wish the process was easier and faster for those seeking to live in Germany. I think your observation is sadly very correct and this minority is very well measurable and concerningly large and growing in a lot of places. Just look at how many people vote for the AfD. Those are the ones having that concern. Luckily some places(e.g. Hamburg, Berlin) are on average more open to foreigners than others (e.g. Sachsen).

[nicbou]

There seems to be a growing frustration about asylum seekers who moved to Germany and did not adopt German values, a theme you will find in every country.

It's scary because the party that complains the most about it is gaining traction, and it convinces centrist parties to change their stance on immigration. It's not a pearl-clutching minority anymore, but a politically advantageous position.

As an immigrant, I feel like we're about to live a variation of the Niemöller poem. "First they came for the asylum seekers..."

[bluecalm]

Well, when you come to a country you should make an effort to adopt the country's values and customs. If you stay for longer you should also make an effort to learn the language.

If you are not doing any of that is that really that surprising that people are getting fed up with it?

[gunsle]

Agreed, but even here in the states that has been considered a “racist” position for decades, as has securing the borders. Which after doing a lot of international travel confuses me. I wouldn’t illegally move to Japan, expect them to not deport me, allow me to use social services, and also not mind if I brought my own culture with me without attempting to assimilate on some level.

[TacticalCoder]

> There seems to be a growing frustration about asylum seekers who moved to Germany and did not adopt German values, a theme you will find in every country.

I'd like to see white, christians or atheists, germans move to some of the countries those asylum seekers are coming from and see how they'd be treated.

Then we can discuss if it's the same in every country.

[emmelaich]

I love this comment because it's such a Rorschach blot, to be read any way you want.

To properly read this in your intended meaning, do we need to find the political and ethnic makeup of the immigration department? Or society at large?

[vineyardmike]

(as a fellow American) They almost certainly meant this as "politicians, or their voters, have some bias/hate against something, so they destroy the bureaucracy that benefits those people".

Eg. Republicans hate taxes, so they defund the IRS (tax collectors), to make it harder for the government to audit tax evasion.

[callalex]

I wasn’t even speaking specifically to immigration, but I can understand why everyone thought that because of who I replied to.

[roenxi]

This perspective remains kinda crazy. Why do US people keep trying to route control of major parts of their life through a system where they believe people who "actively hates the people who would benefit from the process" have significant influence?

People come up with this from time to time but the logical conclusion is small governments. It has been a few centuries now and there hasn't been any progress in improving the quality of the politicians; it isn't going to change. Every single government, literally, has people in it who would be morally comfortable in a Nazi-style dictatorship. Any plan that involves empowering these people is stupid.

[dgfitz]

Being a white, middle-aged, middle-class male in America I can say I have no productive things to say about how my local, state, or federal government has benefitted myself or my family beyond the things everyone else also benefits from. I don’t get assistance for anything, I don’t get breaks on anything, no free services, etc.

If your first reaction to this is “well you don’t need anything!” you must be one of the people that was astonished at how the 2016 election went.

No I didn’t vote for the guy and I hope he loses this time.

[thsksbd]

Furthermore, I pay for services I don't avail myself of (my kids go to parochial schools). And since I don't live in the city, but a rich suburb, it means that Im subsidizing my neighbor's BMW.

I dont even mind school taxes, actually. I just believe that the monies should follow the student and not the school district.

[vineyardmike]

> Why do US people keep trying to route control of major parts of their life through a system where ..

Because sometimes you don't have a say, or you don't expect to use it. No politician ever campaigned on making the lines at the DMV move faster. But we (mostly) all agree you should be required to get a license before you drive. Most Americans drive, and few have chose to route this "major part of their life" away from the DMV.

Immigration process (as this thread illustrates) sucks. It's also not a process used by voters.

The process to apply for welfare in most parts of the US sucks, but the actual welfare is valuable. People think by making it harder, it will instead result in people who are less reliant upon it. Welfare recipients are a huge political target constantly. They're the individuals who are "actively hated" in this example, and they're entirely dependent on the system in that moment, because thats how misfortune works.

Many cities making construction permits hard to get, because local residents don't want their neighborhood changing, so they petition local politicians to make the process slower/harder/more-expensive. In this example they "hate" the new construction.

If you're not a high schooler and you're applying to a state-funded university, the process to prove you're a local resident can be surprisingly complicated. This is because it's designed for high school students and all the edge cases are optimized to avoid accidentally providing tax-subsidized "in-state" tuition to an out-of-state resident. For example, I wanted to take a for-fun class at a local university and because I didn't have a local high school to vouch for my residency, I needed to provide (among other things) 50+ pages of tax documents. It took 2 semesters (1y) to prove I lived in the state, and the minimum amount of time you need to live in-state is 1 year.

People who live their life in the "happy-path" case often don't deal with the government, and don't understand the struggle of these edge cases. Plenty of activities require the government. No way around it. Sometimes, people who think "small government" is the solution end up making those processes terrible by making it understaffed or convoluted to "avoid waste".

[csomar]

Sure. But why accept these people in the first place? I think if there was a consensus, then they would not be accepted. The US is not shy to refuse them entry or to concentrate camp them somewhere. The reality is that there is two factions; one is for and one is against. So you are in for a wild ride.

[switch007]

Nailed it. Then you get Hanlon's Razor obsessed people rushing to defend the government. It works wonders

[dotnet00]

As the other user said, this is just the conspiracy politcs obsessed partisan weirdos would like for you to believe. After all, if their side is so benevolent and immigrant loving, why haven't they pushed any genuine immigration system reforms instead of just creating a captive subclass in the form of illegal immigrants?

For instance, if Republicans are really so hateful of certain minorities, why do they not properly go after things like H1B mills (which benefits minorities more than the rich white people that they supposedly want to limit immigration to)? or take effective action to seal off the borders and make immigration policy stricter? As an immigrant myself, I'd take even that over the current hellish system where you spend a decent chunk of your life in limbo, unable to fully settle down because of the uncertainty, since at least then there would be the finality of immediately knowing the doors are closed. The only way the current system is bearable is if you approach it with total apathy, where you avoid getting too attached and just convince yourself that you can also make it in any other country.

Rather than negotiate measures to fix the immigration system (in either direction), both sides would prefer to keep expanding the class of people who are one technicality away from being kicked out, for Republicans it gives them the ability to promise stronger borders every election year, and for Democrats it gives the ability to promise aid to specifically illegal immigrants and of course once elected they can just say that the last guy left a mess and they had their hands full fixing just that or any version of "the other side isn't cooperating/compromising".

A particularly glaring example of this being their inability to agree on a stronger path to permanent residency for PhD holders. Considering that PhDs are generally funded by grants, not offering very easy immigration for PhD holders amounts to training foreigners at your own expense and sending them back to compete with you. PhD holders typically fit the "we only want the best of the best" position of the Republicans (even if we accept the conspiracy that they actually hate all minorities, it'd be a convenient way to 'wash' that image, without having to accept all that many minorities), and for Democrats it would be a very easy "look, we're slowly working to fix immigration" action.

[api]

I don’t like to both sides many things but immigration is definitely one case. The system is broken on purpose because US agriculture, construction, and many other labor intensive trades can’t operate profitably without a migrant labor underclass. Nobody wants to fix this. Not Democrats, not Republicans.

Add to that the fact that the Republicans now have a second reason not to fix immigration: they can’t run on it if it’s not broken.

If Trump gets in again he will do a lot of anti immigration theater for his base but nothing will really change. Democrats won’t fix it either. Someone has to pick berries and trim hedges.

[ricardobayes]

In the US, there is a path for PhD holders, to my knowledge, it's called EB-2.

[dotnet00]

EB-2 is technically a path, but from all I've heard it's not that much easier than the regular pipeline, since it involves having 10 years of post-degree experience, thus still leaving you at the mercy of the H1B process in the meantime. That process is also still dependent on the employer's willingness to sponsor, and I've seen several cases of employers refusing to go beyond an H1B sponsorship (of course, they only outright say that right near the end of the H1B's maximum term). 10 years is also still on the order of the time it takes to get permanent residency through the normal lottery.

[Newlaptop]

This is not a USA perspective. This is a conspiracy theory perspective from spending too much time in liberal/progressive echo-chambers that repeat fearful, hateful myths about their political opponents.

[auzjabbajixkf]

I’m glad you can believe this is true, genuinely. I have hope that maybe this means things will change.

But as a white guy from middle American (in that I lived there for 40 years) who has voted Republican and Democrat and has enough conservative ideas that people are often confused about my political leanings, I can tell you there is some truth to this.

I’ve been in the room more than several hundred times when people who were working in the American bureaucracy openly "decried the horrors of the Mexican invasion ". I will admit the majority of that was my ex’s father but it wasn’t only him. I’m certain he did not make things easier on his Mexican applicants (dmv in his case).

I’ve also heard racial slurs used hundreds of thousands of times, very few people engaging in this voted democrat.

I’m sure there are endless stupid conspiracy theories in progressive echo chambers, I hear them from time to time they are just as silly as republican ones and I would love nothing more the above comment to be correct.

In the end, their experience definitely does not match up with mine and we should all be sad.