<story><title>My Life as an Undocumented Immigrant</title><url>http://mobile.nytimes.com/2011/06/26/magazine/my-life-as-an-undocumented-immigrant.xml</url></story><parent_chain><item><author>haberman</author><text>I have no beef with this guy who was basically forced into breaking the law before he could have responsibility for his actions.&lt;p&gt;But overall I just feel that the compassion about immigration is misplaced.  I don&apos;t understand why all the pro-immigration people say &quot;look at these poor undocumented immigrants -- we should make life better for them.&quot;  I think the people we should have compassion for are the people who are trying to do things the right way but running into headaches.  &lt;i&gt;Those&lt;/i&gt; are the people we should make things easier for, not the people who are willing to break the law to get what they want.&lt;p&gt;I really don&apos;t think we want a situation where breaking the law is the best way to get ahead.  If I was waiting to get into the US, I would be pretty upset to see all the benefits going to the people who cut in line.&lt;p&gt;I don&apos;t understand why it&apos;s so controversial among the pro-immigration crowd to say that people shouldn&apos;t come here illegally.  Naturally more leniency should be extended to children.&lt;p&gt;EDIT: It is stories like this that I feel we should be solving with immigration reform: &lt;a href=&quot;http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=2685261&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=2685261&lt;/a&gt;</text></item></parent_chain><comment><author>tokenadult</author><text>Spouse of first-generation immigrant to the United States here. And back in the 1990s I used to be an immigration lawyer for a small law firm on the west coast. Yes, the personal story of Jose Antonio Vargas is rough on him personally, but a better basis for setting the policy of immigration in the United States would be the stories of the many people who patiently wait in line to be admitted to the United States through legal channels. Look at their stories, and figure out what change of rules and incentives would bring in what subset of those people to become new Americans.&lt;p&gt;Every country on the planet appears to have restrictions on immigration. Most of the time we don&apos;t discuss the policies of countries other than the United States in new submissions to HN, even though HN is an international forum, because most countries are lousy enough to be entrepreneurs in and lousy enough to live in that no one on HN wants to immigrate to those countries. (Instead, most people on HN discuss how to get OUT of dozens of other countries around the world, and in many cases how to immigrate to the United States.) When we consider that the actual number of legally authorized immigrants to the United States each year is one of the highest such numbers in the world (does ANY country have more legal immigrants each year?), it&apos;s hard to make a case that the United States is missing out on immigrants by its current policies. Perhaps there are some policy changes to be made on the margins, and on my own part my policy preference would be to make immigration to the United States legally easier and much more commonplace, but the way to make the case for policy reform is to show law-abiding Americans that the policy changes help their lives. The Americans I know, including many law-abiding first-generation immigrants, want policy reform that makes like better in general for all people already in America, as well as for people intending to immigrate here.</text></comment>
<story><title>My Life as an Undocumented Immigrant</title><url>http://mobile.nytimes.com/2011/06/26/magazine/my-life-as-an-undocumented-immigrant.xml</url></story><parent_chain><item><author>haberman</author><text>I have no beef with this guy who was basically forced into breaking the law before he could have responsibility for his actions.&lt;p&gt;But overall I just feel that the compassion about immigration is misplaced.  I don&apos;t understand why all the pro-immigration people say &quot;look at these poor undocumented immigrants -- we should make life better for them.&quot;  I think the people we should have compassion for are the people who are trying to do things the right way but running into headaches.  &lt;i&gt;Those&lt;/i&gt; are the people we should make things easier for, not the people who are willing to break the law to get what they want.&lt;p&gt;I really don&apos;t think we want a situation where breaking the law is the best way to get ahead.  If I was waiting to get into the US, I would be pretty upset to see all the benefits going to the people who cut in line.&lt;p&gt;I don&apos;t understand why it&apos;s so controversial among the pro-immigration crowd to say that people shouldn&apos;t come here illegally.  Naturally more leniency should be extended to children.&lt;p&gt;EDIT: It is stories like this that I feel we should be solving with immigration reform: &lt;a href=&quot;http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=2685261&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=2685261&lt;/a&gt;</text></item></parent_chain><comment><author>nick-dap</author><text>How is living in limbo for a decade, with literally no single piece of paper identifying you as a human being is &quot;cutting in line?&quot;&lt;p&gt;And why can&apos;t we tackle these problems at the same time? Why can&apos;t we even tackle these problems _one_ at a time? The Dream Act has been under review since 2001. It is a bill that can be voted on and passed in literally two days. Why not? ... I&apos;ll answer. Our impotent Congress, two year election cycles, and media that no longer holds anybody accountable.</text></comment>