[csmpltn]

Your family had to leave everything behind, risking a weeks-long journey at sea costing them everything they ever had, going into the unknown - at a time where nobody could travel. The US was not as rich, or built, or anything.

People today get a 50$ plane ticket and move straight to the Bay Area.

You don't see why things need to change?

[hn_acker]

> People today get a 50$ plane ticket and move straight to the Bay Area.

> You don't see why things need to change?

Are you asserting that the current system of legal immigration needs to change, with an unsubstantiated example of a rare $50 dollar plane ticket as if people can easily move to the US by plane? Do those people leave behind most of their belongings, or do they instead make multiple plane trips to move them? And what about all of the paperwork and approval and unpredictable waiting [1]?

[1] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46912126

[csmpltn]

I'm talking about maintaining an immigration system which is consistent with the realities of the time we live in.

[hn_acker]

I took issue with the specific example you used ("get a 50$ plane ticket and move straight to the Bay Area") because it was too reductive (and unsubstantiated) to represent "the realities of" the immigration system "of the time we live in" in a way that would let me "see why things need to change". I think you should have fleshed out your example or chosen a better one.

[astura]

Where can I buy a international plane ticket for $50 ?

[hagbard_c]

With Ryanair, Easyjet and other similar carriers. Not to the Bay area though, at least not yet.

[tclancy]

Buddy, what are you on about? This sounds just like all those welfare queens in Cadillacs GHW Bush was telling us about.

[hn_acker]

> This sounds just like all those welfare queens in Cadillacs GHW Bush was telling us about.

I don't think George H. W. Bush did that. Do you mean Ronald Reagan [1]?

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Welfare_queen#Origin

[tclancy]

Interesting. I think the senior Bush must have used it during the '84 campaign at the RNC? My memory is slipping plus I would have been like 8. But I was a nerd who followed politics for a while before that.