US green card facts and figures

(Yes, my last post on the matter...)

Ultimately, if it is anyone's "thesis", then it is yours, so if you do not understand where it is going then I guess I am not sure what anyone could really say to that. Every "place" the exchange has gone has been dictated by your comments and/or data you posted, thus it is really about your thesis, not my thesis.

The original reply was that the yahoo price of $1010 was not factually correct. And, that the article doesn't do much by way of explaining where the new money will go or why so much is needed. But, more importantly, the reply then posited a reason why it is high, and that if it was calculated as other countries calculate similar fees, it would be this high or even higher (even without the pressure from the backlog). The post concluded with a rather simple question/statement on the $1000 cost and that value of such in the host-country economy, implying that it would be interesting to know if, in terms of a case-processor's salary, is the "1/30th" comparable to the cost/salary in Nicarauga.

The cost part seemed to disappear then as your reply dealt only with the wait. I didn't comment on it, but you then added a point - that after the application-spike cases have been handled, the backlog will go back and remain at previous levels and again be 2 years - even though this is not what the article really states/means, and is not what has been proposed. What the proposal was is that the new employees will get the backlog back to previous levels in 2 years, and that this additional staff will then (the yahoo article is not very long and only posts part of the plan) assist with the normal workload further reducing the lengthy process. I merely pointed out that in my time down here (the better part of more than a decade), and I am married into a Latin family, that I don't know many, if any, Central Americans who associate a cedula (easy to get, usually cheap for foreigners though that amount is often beyond the reach of average local people) with a U.S. Green Card (not easy to get and certainly not cheap, and though expensive to some applicants is not necessarily that expensive within the host country), as in these being equivalent documents. The last point was that the number of applicants and level of security involved might have bearing on the cost, and a huge number of people wanting to do it at the same time has bearing on the process time. It is fast in many Latin countries, because it is usually not very secure.

With the cost of the processes still gone from the discussion you started, you then posted a list of rights allegedly tied to a cedula and green card, as if this somehow not only proved that a cedula is everything a green card is but, also (magically, perhaps), proved the statements you had made previously. I simply pointed out that not all the "rights" on your list necessarily come via these processes, and in some cases one does not need the stated process to secure the item (right), and then you did not mention this again.

The only way you could understand the direction of my thesis, is if you understood your own posts. My posts are in direct response to what you have written, regardless of whether or not what you posted is true or relevant to your original post. Your position bluntly stated ignores the obvious points already listed above. That is the real problem. If you are going to ignore the perceived desirability of the comparison countries, the economies and relevant salaries, and the reasons why so many people are always applying, and how many steps there are in the processes and how many agencies are involved, and if the data submiited is preserved electronically and quite a few other things - then of course you have a point: Wealthy and heavily bureaucratic countries take longer and cost more than poor countries (but, the same is true of a haircut or parking ticket and a million other things, so is that really news?), and if that country has not made legal immigration a funding or political priority and was saddled with newly created and understaffed departments following a terrorist attack, the wait might be years not months. Fair enough, if you ignore history, economics, migration, and politics, it might even be a great point. But, why would someone want to do that? As you put it: "Justify all you want, but I have no idea where you are trying to get to." I don't think it is hard to follow or see that the above points are in response to your posts. It is an explanation not a justification of the cost/wait; there is an important difference.

Security? Your point, which is a good one, assumes that the age of the data is the only relevant criterion, and also that the U.S. does no further check on people beyond the original paperwork. The latter is simply not true, though the ability to do an additional detailed check is dependent on the quality and/or presence of electronic data from the applicant's home country. Cases in the U.S. are flagged all the time as last-minute checks reveal a problem or potential problem. The age of data is not the only thing that matters though. Is relevant data from a few years ago worse than new irrelevant or erroneous data? Most Latin country residencia-cedula processes have criteria that can be met with paperwork that doesn't even document when you have been (it is from where you were born or where you last lived inside the U.S. regardless of where you have actually been, etc.), many steps are not tied to one another in a secure way (getting fingerprinted long after key documents were gathered and assumed to be yours based on an up-to 10-year old i.d., etc.), and many steps can simply be bought (paying to have an AIDs test done and receiving a certificate clearing you, or simply paying less and "buying" the certificate "proving " you don't have AIDs, etc.). How old papers are is not the only factor. Security is an issue on two fronts: how much does a government learn about someone as they apply, and how much data about that person does the government preserve and have access to as and after they enter the country. The new Green Card is an example of the latter. Compare the encoded and associated Green Card data to the Nicaraguan cedula data.