[esalman]

I received my green card in 2023 and I have mixed emotions.

On one hand, I'm so relieved that I have been able to dodge everything that the administration has been throwing at immigrant (legal and illegal alike), trying to see what sticks, like mass deportations, border wall expansion, visa restrictions, asylum crackdown, H-1B cuts, and chain Migration Ban.

On the other hand, we cannot apply for citizenship for 3 more years, even though me and my wife have been in the US for combined 25+ years, and paid over $100,000 in taxes last year alone, and it's jarring to imagine what the administration will come up with next to make the process less straightforward than it seems.

Most disturbing is the fact that a lot of people I know who climbed the same ladder will go out and cheer what the administration is doing.

[Underphil]

I received mine in 2020 and have decided to move back home. The uncertainty in general just keeps me up at night. Feels like the goalposts could move at any moment. I know I'm likely overreacting but it is what it is.

[999900000999]

If anything everyone else is under reacting.

You have ICE officers randomly abducting people off appearance alone and then detaining them for days if not weeks. If you were a citizen the whole time, cool who cares.

No one in America has any rights.

That aside, even as someone who's been in this country for generations, I've been exploring options to leave.

America is behind most of the developed world in terms of standards of living. I was in Asia for a while and I felt a fraction of the fear I constantly do at home.

It's not getting better.

[Underphil]

The reason I think I'm overreacting is because I'm a natively English-speaking straight white guy. If I wasn't I'd have already fled.

[BowBun]

GC holder of 25 years with citizen parents. I agree with you and I stress about this daily. It's always been a shitty deal though - we are taxed with no representation in government.

[joe_mamba]

>we are taxed with no representation in government.

In which country can you emigrate to and be allowed votes in government representation just because you pay taxes? I'm an EU citizen and living in another EU country and am not allowed to vote in that country's government elections, just local ones. If you want to vote at government level then you need to apply and get citizenship which also comes with the responsibility(or obligation more accurately) of military draft.

Everything about this seems pretty fair to me. I'm not sure why not to you. If you're not a citizen you shouldn't be allowed to vote at gov level since you're not subject to a draft, because in case the shit hits the fan militarily, unlike citizens, you can just pack your bags and go back to your home country and avoid dying in the front lines. So why would any country let people who aren't subject to draft vote? Makes no sense. You don't have the same skin in the game as citizens who are draftable just because you pay some taxes.

Now if you're paying taxes in a foreign country where you can't vote, it means you're there voluntarily because you're getting a much better deal than being in your own country where you can vote. Probably you're in the US because you make orders of magnitude more money than in your own country, but nobody in the US dragged you there against your will to work and pay them taxes, you agreed to this situation voluntarily because it also benefits you personally, and you would just as easily leave if it stopped benefiting you.

[doix]

> In which country can you emigrate to and be allowed votes in government representation just because you pay taxes?

There are a few, with varying degrees of residency time (and possibly other conditions) required. New Zealand requires being a resident for a year.

The UK is particularly interesting, if you're a citizen of a common wealth nation you can vote in national UK elections if you're a resident.

Personally, I agree with you though. I didn't vote in the UK despite being able too. Let the citizens decide the future of their nation, I have the privilege to leave (and have done so already). Feels wrong for me to influence the nation when I'm not fully invested in the outcome.

[geodel]

Indeed. Entitlement on immigration issues is through the roof here.

[eschaton]

As a person, why should you not have a say in how things are governed where you live?

The idea that you should be required to swear some loyalty to a government before you get a say in how the place you live is governed is the position that’s actually absurd.

(Yes, I do think there should be a global republic and that there should be full freedom of movement. It’s way past time for that.)

[throw-the-towel]

Genuinely curious why didn't you pursue citizenship though? (No pressure to answer of course, that might be a deeply personal thing.)

[BowBun]

We did not meet continuous residency requirements for 10-15 years due to travel for my dad's work. Afterwards, it took me nearly 5 years to meet that requirement due to the fact that I lived and graduated abroad for highschool. I tried around COVID, was denied based on truthfully admitting I had smoked some weed in the previous 5 years while I lived in Colorado. That reset my clock for another five years. I constantly wrestle with whether I even want to be associated with this country for the rest of my life. I'm prideful and a high earner, there's only so much I'll accept before moving my family and assets somewhere else.

Hope that provides some color. To all the fans of the current immigration policies - you are throwing out the baby with the bathwater.

[throwaway2037]

    > we are taxed with no representation in government

This is true in most highly-developed democratic nations. If it is so important to you, then you should become a citizen, or return to your home country (so that you may vote). And curiously, does your home country not have the same rule? Do you find that position hypocritical?

[BowBun]

The choice is not so binary, as anyone seriously discussing this topic should immediately recognize. There are indeed ways for foreigners to participate in local politics in many countries, here is some data if you're interested in learning - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Non-citizen_suffrage

My country does in fact provide this right to foreign residents who live a certain amount of time in the country. Even if it didn't, it would not be a hypocritical position to state something is bad. Do you think I wrote the laws? Hardly seems like a good-faith argument or even a sound one!

[fweimer]

It's certainly possible to make different arrangements. Some European countries do that for local elections, for example.

[bubblethink]

>we are taxed with no representation in government

You have representation. Perhaps you mean suffrage.

[gjm11]

Or perhaps they mean the same thing as was meant by the slogan when it was first coined, around the time of the American Revolution, and the same thing as was meant by the women's suffragists who used it in the late 19th century.

Maybe in some sense "no taxation without suffrage" would be more accurate, but it would be a worse slogan. In any case, "no taxation without representation" is a well known phrase, it's been around for over 250 years, and I don't think much is achieved by nitpicking its wording.

[bubblethink]

You do have congressional representatives and senators who represent you and your interests and can take action on your behalf just as they would if you were a citizen. I have had decent luck in getting assistance from them despite not being a citizen.

[matthewdgreen]

This is probably the most embarrassing comment I've ever seen on HN.

[lotrjohn]

Perhaps they live in DC?

[tdeck]

America is also run by a cabal of pedophiles and despite that being pretty out in the open at this point, there have been no consequences for them at all. It's not a good looking situation when even CSA and genocide are met with an "eh, what can you do?" shrug by a populace that has been led to accept worse and worse every year.

[matwood]

Don't forget the blatant corruption at a scale we've never seen. Literal crypto scams are being run out of the Whitehouse, and no one seems to care. Complaining about Hunter Biden being on the board of some company seems so quaint at this point.

[JuniperMesos]

If this was actually true, there wouldn't be so many people from the developed world trying to immigrate to the US, and upset about the US government making this harder.

[anon7000]

That just means the US is better than the place they’re moving from. It doesn’t mean the US is among the best places in the world. Also, public perception of how good things are through US media (Hollywood) is different from reality.

[salomonk_mur]

Many, many people immigrate for an imagination of what life in the US will be. Objectively speaking, the US really is far behind most of the developed world in standards of living .

Also, money. Salaries are simply higher in the US (even if life is worse and less fulfilling overall)

[wyclif]

I'm an American currently living in the Philippines, and that's utter nonsense and I know it. Developing world countries are so far behind the US in infrastructure, clean water, food quality, pollution, overpopulation, waste disposal, cleanliness, littering, open public spaces, and numerous other vectors that your comment blithely ignores.

The only possible way you could write a comment like that with a straight face is that you've never walked through a barrio in a developing world country with brick block contruction and tin roofs with tires holding the roof on, or favelas in Brazil with crowding, unsanitary conditions and resulting disease, drug crime, and gang warfare.

The standard of living in the US is vastly better than in these third-world shitholes, and it requires a stunning amount of out-of-touch suicidal empathy to project that it doesn't.

[xboxnolifes]

They said behind the developed world, not the developing world.

[bvan]

Gave back my green card the moment I left the US. No longer wanted the hassle and ties to an unpredictable regime. Haven’t looked back.

[simonklitj]

I don't think you're overreacting. Received mine in 2020 and decided to move as well.

[brokenmachine]

You're not overreacting in my opinion.

If it looks like 1930s Germany and quacks like 1930s Germany, get as far away from that duck as you can.

[selfmodruntime]

Not every (slightly) authoritarian government is akin to a regime that was responsible for the industrial scale killing of more than 11 million people.

[dmacedo]

Perhaps you should wait to make that case, we're starting to see ramifications from USAID cuts as the worse one, but there's also health and nutrition effects from Medicaid/SNAP reductions, and whatever in the world is happening on immigration and detention with insane ICE behaviour, plus second order effects from abortion and public health changes.

[brokenmachine]

We shall see. I hope you're right.

[garbawarb]

Not just uncertainty, but the apparent speedrunning of making the US an undesirable place to live compared to other countries.

Where did you move to and what are you doing now? (I'd love to hear from anyone else who's left too)

[pixelatedindex]

> and paid over $100,000 in taxes last year alone

Genuinely curious, what does taxes have to do with it? Everyone pays taxes, legal or illegal in some form.

I don’t think paying your dues should make you more likely to get through the pipeline. After all, you paid those taxes because you made good money, which is what people come here for.

[bonsai_spool]

I think the point is that they are contributing to the US, and were the best option for their employer, and are supporting their communities, etc.

All things that we should be supporting if we are indeed wishing our nation to prosper.

A plurality of Americans don’t pay federal income taxes, so we’re essentially turning away someone who is building up our country.

[morpheuskafka]

> A plurality of Americans don’t pay federal income taxes

What does a plurality even mean here? This is a binary question, so plurality and majority are the same thing. And I don't think it is factually correct that the majority of Americans do not pay income taxes.

[bonsai_spool]

I apologize on the wording, but this is an easy thing for you to Google!

https://taxfoundation.org/data/all/federal/latest-federal-in...

I didn't look hard but that's the first thing I found. Famously, Mitt Romney complained that 47% of Americans don't contribute to federal income tax revenue, which is what I was thinking of.

[matwood]

Side note...I hate this stat because it makes it sound like the rich are paying their share of taxes. The reality is that people who make large w2 income pay a large part of federal taxes, and while they would be considered rich they are not the ultra-rich we see in the news every day.

[bonsai_spool]

> .I hate this stat because it makes it sound like the rich are paying their share of taxes

Yes! I agree, I don't mean to sound like I support the status quo. In this particular case, I wanted to clarify that green card-holding immigrants carry a disproportionate amount of tax burden (but that is not to support the current state of things).

[drdec]

People who complain about people not playing income taxes ignore payroll taxes.

[bonsai_spool]

Payroll taxes are just that - payroll taxes!

Income taxes are not payroll taxes

[zeroonetwothree]

Payrolls taxes are a tax based on (some of) your income. So they are a type of income tax in the broad sense.

[drdec]

Yes, technically payroll taxes are not income taxes.

And people who that x number of people do not pay income tax are implying they are paying no federal taxes when that is not true. It is a disingenuous argument.

[ipaddr]

Someone else would have taken that job maybe for a higher salary.

[dnnddidiej]

But then they gave up a tax paying job and thus the net effect is zero.

Looking holistically the person leaving the US (or lets say 100 people to make it easier to see the point) means 1 to 30 less startups and so maybe an entire company or more not being started. That is less revenue for US.

What most people from the "they steal our jobs" mentality (not saying that is you, but this a seperate point) don't get is productive people create jobs by being a customer of many businesses.

[ipaddr]

Then someone lower got a better job and someone out of work ends up in a job.

[konschubert]

This is called the "lump of labour" fallacy:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lump_of_labour_fallacy

[dnnddidiej]

But a jobs worth of GDP was lost due to the lost consumption. Harder to measure for 1 person but imagine 100k people suddenly left a city. That would be felt somewhere. Dry cleaners, cafe, supermarkets etc.

This might be less true if there is resource starvation but we have transport and imports and exports. You can accomodate more people and feed them.

[bonsai_spool]

There are not enough qualified people in any particular country for all the possible new technologies that could be deployed. You're not likely to hire your plumber to program a webapp.

That doesn't mean your plumber isn't qualified—just that people looking for webapps want to hire workers who know how to make them.

[Ntrails]

Those seem like bold assumptions about % of startups created by green card holders?

I feel like the better argument is that the greencard holder was the best candidate and thus will be more productive in the role. It is just efficient resource allocation. That, even without new companies, will drive profit/expansion/more jobs

[konschubert]

More likely there would have been one less job.

There isn't a "lump of labour" that gets distributed in the economy.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lump_of_labour_fallacy

[bubblethink]

Humans tend not to be fungible.

[bonsai_spool]

At a certain point, there aren't enough Americans for these jobs. So the choice is to let other nations absorb these skilled laborers, or simply hire the best people.

It's funny how we forget about meritocracy as soon as the median American is threatened.

[pixelatedindex]

> At a certain point, there aren't enough Americans for these jobs

Is that really true? I’m sure in some fields where you need rare experts I believe it. For the average engineer who is just another cog in the wheel of big corp, I highly doubt it.

[bonsai_spool]

> Is that really true? I’m sure in some fields where you need rare experts I believe it. For the average engineer who is just another cog in the wheel of big corp, I highly doubt it.

Have you ever hired someone before? Did you decide to take the best person you found or did you pick an American?

[ipaddr]

With AI taking a percentage of jobs there will be enough people to fill those positions and more. Why bring in workers when productivity is taking away positions.

[bonsai_spool]

> With AI taking a percentage of jobs there will be enough people to fill those positions and more. Why bring in workers when productivity is taking away positions.

Have you ever hired someone before?

[jaharios]

So we should strive to maximize companies profits over the citizens?

[rjbwork]

>It's funny how we forget about meritocracy as soon as the median American is threatened.

What meritocracy? This is a myth pushed to justify a kind of "just world" interpretation of our social ills. Nepotism is increasing, social mobility decreasing. To believe in meritocracy in the face of this is to deny reality.

[light_hue_1]

Or it would have moved overseas forever.

I can already on the ground see the effect of the Trump policies. So many tech jobs that would have been in the US are being lost. And companies are learning how to be effective with overseas teams.

[ozgrakkurt]

It is questionable if US has the education system or people capital to support all the science based sectors it has IMO.

Immigrants doing a very large portion of tech work can't be just because they get paid less

[hunterpayne]

"Immigrants doing a very large portion of tech work can't be just because they get paid less"

It is solely about that. Remember, immigrants didn't really play a role in the US tech industry for half of its existence and didn't play a major role until a decade ago. This is despite the fact that US colleges openly and actively discriminate against US citizens for grad school spots for 2 or 3 decades now.

[ModernMech]

> This is despite the fact that US colleges openly and actively discriminate against US citizens for grad school spots for 2 or 3 decades now.

Can you provide a citation for this specific claim? I used to do admissions to a grad program in the US, and we ended up admitting mostly foreign students soley because very few US citizens actually applied (probably only 10% of apps). Whether that's because they were not qualified or couldn't afford it I do not know. But it's not because they were openly and actively discriminated against.

[ytoawwhra92]

> Remember, immigrants didn't really play a role in the US tech industry for half of its existence and didn't play a major role until a decade ago.

Bell, Wang, Fairchild, Intel, Sun...

[mlnj]

>US colleges openly and actively discriminate against US citizens for grad school spots for 2 or 3 decades now.

Isn't this just because foreign students pay more than citizens? Isn't this just capitalism and the free market efficiently allocating resources?

Something about 'having the cake and eating it too'.

[convolvatron]

I've been involved in .. applied CS for 40 years, and the industry has been filled with people of a wide variety of backgrounds for that entire time. Even during the time I worked for the US DOD many of the people I worked were international.

[dukeyukey]

> and didn't play a major role until a decade ago

Sergey Brin? Paul Graham? Elon Musk?

[qaq]

You do realize every major tech company has offices in EU and in India. You make it hard here they will hire more there

[parineum]

> So we’re essentially turning away someone who is building up our country.

They're not being turned away. There's a requirement to be in the country for 5 years with a green card before citizenship. It seems to me that they are just upset that they have to follow the rules which aren't hurting them at all.

[bonsai_spool]

> They're not being turned away.

They are actually in fact being told to return to their country before completing a process that previously - legally! - could be done in the US. That = being turned away

> There's a requirement to be in the country for 5 years with a green card before citizenship.

That is absolutely irrelevant to the discussion at hand.

Until next week, or whenever the current system is again upended haphazardly.

> It seems to me that they are just upset that they have to follow the rules which aren't hurting them at all.

It seems to me that they were all following the rules. The rules are now being capriciously changed with sly marketing words to confuse everyone.

[harimau777]

> which aren't hearting them at all.

They are effectively being ruled by a system that they have no say in. That's incompatible with America's democratic values. Of course it's reasonable that we don't allow non-citizens the vote; the problem as I see it is that if someone has worked here for 25 years for all intents and purposes they are a citizen, the government just doesn't formally recognize the reality of their situation.

[peyton]

I strongly disagree. That person retains the option of returning to their origin country and having a say there.

[zaptheimpaler]

This is so confusing. What does GC -> citizenship have to do with this? The rules work fine now because they apply for the change of status and keep on working until its accepted and leave if not. This new rule means they have to leave the country they are living and working in for anywhere from 1 month to 2 years, probably losing their job and majorly disrupting their lives for seemingly no reason at all. People who have lived in the US for a decade with a job, mortgage, family and children randomly need to leave to years, and what does that accomplish for anyone? If the govt. wanted to deport them, they could do it at any moment. The govt. can process their change of status paperwork exactly the same whether they're in or out of the country. So what is the point of any of this?

[imajoredinecon]

Taxes are supposed to pay for public services. An efficient visa system is a public service. If you pay tons of taxes but don’t get a public service that’s personally very important to you, it’s natural to feel let down

[pixelatedindex]

Yeah that’s fair, I feel let down all the time with how my taxes are (ab)used. Not a surprise, It’s been like this as long as I can remember.

[jezzamon]

You have to do a lot when you get a green card to prove you won't be a burden on the US tax payer. It's a big part of the system and a big part of the anti-immigrant rhetoric

[matwood]

> Genuinely curious, what does taxes have to do with it?

It's popular trope from the GOP that immigrants are an economic drain on the US. They get free <insert whatever you want>, so the US must throw them out to save money.

[JuniperMesos]

Just because someone pays some taxes (it's hard to avoid paying sales tax if you buy a thing in a store, regardless of your citizenship), doesn't mean they're a net economic benefit to the country they live in, depending on exactly what taxes they pay and what taxpayer-funded services they get.

Immigrants come to the US with a variety of financial situations. Some immigrants are blatantly scamming welfare systems designed for poor Americans or are outright committing fraud (this is much of what is going on with the federal investigation and charges of Somalis in Minnesota). Other immigrants are paying taxes comparable to what American citizens would pay (this is probably the case for most people on H1B visas in the tech industry).

[tybstar]

A lot of the anti-immigrant rhetoric involves some version of the lie that immigrants don't pay taxes.

[cush]

Citizenship is tied to the right to vote and Taxation without Representation was literally the driving force for the creation of America itself

[lurk2]

> Taxation without Representation was literally the driving force for the creation of America itself

The issue of taxation without representation had far more to do with the founders’ status as Englishmen and British subjects than their status as taxpayers. Paying taxes by itself was not a sufficient qualification for political representation. Felons, minors, and women were also required to pay taxes in the 1770s, despite not being able to vote. Immigrants who believe that the taxes they pay entitle them to this representation have bought into a falsified version of American history that was popularized during the Civil Rights Era.

United States Congress, “An act to establish an uniform Rule of Naturalization,” March 26, 1790:

> Be it enacted by the Senate and House of Representatives of the United States of America, in Congress assembled, That any Alien being a free white person, who shall have resided within the limits and under the jurisdiction of the United States for the term of two years, may be admitted to become a citizen thereof on application to any common law Court of record in any one of the States wherein he shall have resided for the term of one year at least, and making proof to the satisfaction of such Court that he is a person of good character, and taking the oath or affirmation prescribed by law to support the Constitution of the United States, which Oath or Affirmation such Court shall administer, and the Clerk of such Court shall record such Application, and the proceedings thereon; and thereupon such person shall be considered as a Citizen of the United States.

[_pdp_]

> I don’t think paying your dues should make you more likely to get through the pipeline. After all, you paid those taxes because you made good money, which is what people come here for.

https://www.trumpcard.gov/

[throw-the-towel]

One can reasonably argue that not paying your dues should exclude you from the pipeline.

[wiseowise]

> After all, you paid those taxes because you made good money, which is what people come here for.

You mean they’ve contributed generously for the compensation they’ve earned?

[adi_kurian]

Uncle Sam likes tax payers.

[array_key_first]

To show that they're not freeloaders. A lot of right-wingers have a belief that immigrants are implicitly freeloaders, and therefore getting rid of them will make the economy better.

Of course it's just not true. Like most current Republican talking points, it's plainly fabricated; it's an outright lie. But, since a lot of people believe it, it's useful to reminder everyone that its not the case.

[atoav]

A very common xenophobic narrative is that foreigners do two things at the same time (1) steal your jobs and (2) drain your social systems. Another even more vile one one would be anything to do with coming for your daughters and women, but for this you will have to favtor in race. Because a rich white Frenchman coming your daughter doesn't have the same ring to it for bigots.

If the US, a country with a too low birthrate, throws out even the best kind of migrant (namely the kind that generates a lot of value for the country), you're going to be in deeper shit than ever before for decades to come.

Now I agree that paying taxes or not should have nothing to do with it.

[Saline9515]

It's not just a narrative and has been proven true, at least for (2).[0]

For (1), I think that a good discussion with any business owner in a migrant-dominated field will tell you that hiring foreigners is done to keep costs low and avoid Baumol's law. As a result, locals don't want to work in such fields, reinforcing the need for migrants.

[0] https://scanalyst.fourmilab.ch/uploads/default/original/2X/9...

[atoav]

So what you're saying is that people arriving in a country don't earn as much as people with established ties there? Cool. I wonder how that could be? /s

Hours worked: https://cphpost.dk/2025-06-18/business-education/career/inte...

[Saline9515]

> people arriving in a country don't earn as much as people with established ties there

Not true as Europeans are not concerned.

> how that could be

It doesn't have to be like this; for instance, you could require that migrant workers earn at least 2x the median salary to get a visa. It would avoid the whole exploitation of third-world workers paid a subsistence salary to save on costs.

Do you know a country that does this? ... Danemark! https://www.nyidanmark.dk/pl-PL/You-want-to-apply/Work/Pay-l...

[taytus]

Signaling.

[frogperson]

Have you tried being white? The trump admin is rolling out the red carpet for white south Africans.

I'm being facetious of course. I hate what maga is doing to our wonderful melting pot.

[noncoml]

Don’t listen to this op, you don’t need to change your race.

If I was you I’d choose to be a multi-billionaire instead and keep my race.

[catlikesshrimp]

"Most disturbing is the fact that a lot of people I know who climbed the same ladder will go out and cheer what the administration is doing."

I always joke that all naturalized (citizens) immigrants automatically become republican. I say it in earnest because effectively all naturalized people who I know side with anti-immigration, except agaisnt people they know, but none of them take my "joke" seriously.

[moosedev]

Even those still halfway up said ladder: https://x.com/flowersslop/status/2058161240350794165?s=20

[Der_Einzige]

This shit is sadly true.

[lovich]

Not entirely safe even if you naturalize as they are now making noise about stripping citizenship[1]

[1] https://www.nbcnews.com/politics/immigration/trump-administr...

[QGQBGdeZREunxLe]

They're doing this on the basis that crimes were committed before naturalization so therefore the N-400 submitted was fraudulent.

[tflinton]

If it makes you feel any better, and I’m sure it won’t. There are US citizens outraged by this as well. And I’m one of them.

[cloche]

I got mine in 2019 and feel the same way. I'm actually in the process of applying for citizenship and my application seems to have stalled - it's been nearly 10 months when the USCIS processing times page says I should expect 7 (it was 5-6 when I applied). There's been some articles that the government is going to force everyone to retake fingerprints again although there's been nothing official about that yet. I really wish I had applied for citizenship as soon as I was eligible.

[QGQBGdeZREunxLe]

I was approved 2 weeks ago. The process took 4 years end to end. I've been updating my paperwork (SSN, Global Entry and CA DL). I saw this news and immediately thought that it would've impacted me and I wouldn't've been able to maintain my job until a consular interview.

Also a consular interview has no appeal process. A denial stands unlike AOS.

[AdrianB1]

I am paying taxes in US for over 20 years, don't hold a green card, not interested in ever getting one and not complaining that I don't have the right to vote. How are these things related?

[testing22321]

I’m An immigrant, so I can relate. Not in the US.

I left my home country for a better life.

If the country I moved to was going downhill, I’d be looking to move again. I already did it, so I know it’s worthwhile.

[bamboozled]

Same is happening in Japan because the politics here loves to copy the USA. It’s fucking lame.

[geodel]

What's with tax thing? Is it only paid in US? Are they not supposed to pay taxes when they have taxable income?

If one paid 100K+ in taxes I assume one had opportunities to make such high income by being in US which one can be thankful for.

> On the other hand, we cannot apply for citizenship for 3 more years, ...

I am sorry but I am just seeing too much of an entitlement here.

[esalman]

I'm also seeing a lot of broken promises here.

[root_axis]

> me and my wife have been in the US for combined 25+ years, and paid over $100,000 in

Sounds like you may be a good candidate for Trump's gold card.

I'm being fecitious of course, but I'm just pointing out that thinking of citizenship worthiness in monetary terms is something the president has already considered.

[cybercatgurrl]

i’m fairly confident the gold card is the only kind of immigration they want to encourage now. you either pay up or go home and cross your fingers