Please Grant Andrew Sullivan Citizenship
As regular readers know, I’ve interned at The Atlantic and guest blogged for Andrew Sullivan on several occasions. It’s always been a privilege — his audience is huge and exceptionally intelligent, and everything one posts garners intelligent rebuttals from sundry perspectives.
Today this post moves me to write. It reminds me that after all these years, Andrew isn’t accorded status as a United States citizen. Immigration is a fraught subject, but I submit that Mr. Sullivan’s status as an “in limbo” legal immigrant lays bare obvious, nonsensical aspects of the system that we use to grant or deny permanent status to foreigners.
Consider all the qualities one might want in a new citizen. Mr. Sullivan earns a six figure salary, enjoys unusual job security, demonstrably loves the United States, grasps even obscure details of our civic system, and possesses sufficient savings to bankroll his lifestyle even if he is fired tomorrow.
Mr. Sullivan writes:
I’ve been in the US for a quarter of a century, have paid taxes when I was working, am married to an American and have never asked for a dime of public help. But the US – alone among developed nations – still persecutes non-Americans for having HIV and regards my civil marriage as null and void and my husband as a total stranger to me.
Britain doesn’t persecute people with HIV and never has; moreover, Britain would allow my husband and I to relocate together to England at any point. I’m not sure people fully understand what it’s like to build a life with someone and to do all you can to contribute to a society – and yet be vulnerable at any moment to having your family torn apart by the government. But it’s a strain that eventually becomes crippling: you have no security, no stability, no guarantee that you have a future you can count on. And that affects an American citizen, my husband, as well.
Why has America become such a callous outlier on these matters?
Good question.
I couldn’t agree more. But Andrew answers his own question as to why America has become such a callous outlier, where he writes in the post you linked: “The federal government is simply paralyzed with red tape.”
He says the immigration ban on HIV was lifted in July 2008, but it’s still in force because of “the bureaucratic nightmare.”
So it’s still in force because of the blunt instrument we call the federal government.
I suppose that your question is, Conor, when are we going to make all illegals, legal? Because the federal government is big and stupid, we should give amnesty to all illegals. Am I making too big a leap? Please tell me that’s not at all what you’re implying.
Please explain why millions of people who have the good fortune of living just south of the Texas border, should be allowed to cut in line ahead of Andrew Sullivan. Please explain how I’m misrepresenting your position. Seriously.
— jd · Sep 23, 12:01 PM · #
Lies.
Red Tape isn’t isn’t the problem.
jd bragged that Cali was against gay marriage, membah?
Conservative white protestants are homophobes. Until recently they made up the majority of the electorate….so they made the laws.
— matoko_chan · Sep 23, 12:13 PM · #
“Conservative white protestants are homophobes”
Stereotype much?
— tomaig · Sep 23, 02:25 PM · #
Analysis based on empirical data is not stereotyping.
— matoko_chan · Sep 23, 02:26 PM · #
I don’t think this is a problem that will go away.
Andrew’s sin isn’t that he has HIV. It’s just that he can’t vote yet. No one cares about the powerless (illegal or legal).
I’m not very concerned, however, since he is well-connected and pulls a lot more clout than most immigrants going through the same sort of red-tape headaches and process. Andrew will be fine.
Of course, simply opening up the gates to immigrants would be the best thing the government could do for us.
But I don’t see why Sullivan’s credentials should matter so much.
Why not let people enter regardless of earning power or education. We don’t just need professionals, but laborers – (The fact that there are illegals here, jd, means there is a big demand for them – may as well give the market a legal supply, instead of viewing them as illegal substances)
I don’t see why should favor the rich over the poor on this matter. Health status at least makes more sense in terms of consequences and fairness.
But this doesn’t seem to be a priority for Obama, even though it would cement his legacy much more than creating new government agencies. He seems very focused on just one issue right now.
We’ll see, but I suspect Sullivan’s enemy Bush was the last best hope we may have had for any significant (though imperfect) immigration reform for a long time.
— Taury · Sep 23, 03:58 PM · #
My beloved bride is from Canadia. She moved here under a Fiance Visa and, lemme tell ya, it was a bureaucratic nightmare. She and I are both college-educated English speakers and we had NO idea even where to start.
We eventually contacted my congressman and talked to his INS liason (!) and she explained the process, explained where to get forms, explained what forms we needed, what forms we didn’t need, what to include (phone bills! pictures of us holding hands! plane ticket stubs!), and when I should worry if I hadn’t heard back.
Again, she and I are fairly intelligent folks who speak the language and we had to talk to my congressman to navigate the maze.
And this was in the 90’s. I can’t imagine what it’s like post-9/11.
— Jaybird · Sep 23, 04:04 PM · #
taury,
But this doesn’t seem to be a priority for Obama ……..now.
/wicked grin
There is a reason O is doing healthcare first….both to distance it from 2010 and to act while Horrorshow Bush is still fresh in the minds of the electorate.
I believe he plans to execute on immigration reform in 2010, where we liberals will be vastly entertained by the Epic Spectacle of the GOP trying to hispander the demographic timer on non-hispanic caucs while the base chews them a new asshole.
lulz.
— matoko_chan · Sep 23, 04:29 PM · #
You’ll have to forgive m_c, he ghost wrote The Bell Curve and never got the credit he felt he deserved.
— Erik Siegrist · Sep 23, 04:30 PM · #
Jaybird, I’m going through the same process now with my Mexican wife, and it is miserable. Just a ridiculous situation. She has a tourist visa, but she’s not allowed to enter the US until her spouse visa comes through, because that would for some reason constitute fraud (two different lawyers told me that, the idea being she can’t come in as a tourist if she is married to American. If you fail to catch the logic in that assumption, you are not alone). The whole thing is supposed to take ten months, but of course that’s just an estimate, it could be longer, which makes it very hard for us to plan to move to the States with any advance. I’m using a lawyer, who I’m not 100 percent convinced is on top of the situation, but will wind up being quite expensive. The whole thing is just a disgrace, why should this take ten months? I’m not a private enterprise for everything guy, but can you imagine a business taking ten months to basically conduct one interview and a routine background check?
— pc · Sep 23, 04:31 PM · #
/sigh
Erik, chan means young lady.
I didnt’ write the Bellcurve, but I did kill the Puppetmaster and help Batou to bring down the Locus Solos Corporation.
My german born riding trainer recently married an american equine dentist. They had to provide all the proof that jaybird cites and they have to go back every two years and prove they are still married, for 10 years.
I guess if they divorce INS will deport her.
;)
— matoko_chan · Sep 23, 04:39 PM · #
Amazing that eight years of Horrorshow Bush has resulted in deterring high IQ professionals from immigrating to the states, encouraging high IQ professionals to emmigrate because of our shitty healthcare system, and importing millions of low to middle IQ illegals.
How about them apples, Sailer?
Reverse brain drain.
— matoko_chan · Sep 23, 05:11 PM · #
The US should be welcoming to all. A handshake and a retinal scan for everyone at the door.
— Kristoffer V. Sargent · Sep 23, 05:39 PM · #
“Why not let people enter regardless of earning power”
Because we have trillion budget deficits even without the new health entitlement. If the health plan passes people with poor earning power will receive far more in government benefits then they will pay in taxes.
— Mercer · Sep 24, 01:40 AM · #
Conor: You seem somewhat confused about the citizenship process. It sounds like Sullivan has been unable to secure lawful permanent resident status. I agree that some of the reasons for that are lamentable. Normally, one must be a lawful permanent resident for 3 or 5 years, depending on the situation. Time spent in the United States on other types of visas (work permits, investor visa, etc.) doesn’t count. Source: USCIS
— RW Rogers · Sep 24, 03:41 AM · #
Where’s Steve Sailer when you need him?
IIRC, whether a potential immigrant would be a net positive to the US is not a major factor in determining immigration status, so the fact that it is in the US interest to keep both Sullivan and, presumably, Mr. Sullivan doesn’t really enter into the equation.
With that said, I totally agree that gay marriage should be legalized and should count towards immigration status.
I also mostly agree that HIV status should not count, although as we move towards public health care, I would want to think about the implications some more before I finalized my opinion on that issue.
— J Mann · Sep 24, 02:14 PM · #
“Married to an American?” Not in my state Andrew. Also, he borders on crazy a lot of the time, and he smokes marijuana in violation of the law…and gets special consideration when doing so. So, do pomocons believe we need more drug taking, social leftists, who careen wildly from one position to another and take advanatage of their special position to avoid prosectuion? The Kennedy family is enough.
— jjv · Sep 24, 03:28 PM · #
jjv, the issue isn’t how good a guy Andrew Sullivan is, or what good he’s done or not for the U.S.A.—(P.S. I’d give him a shoutout for once upon a time rallying public opinion towards getting rid of the Hussein dynasty!)
Rather, the question concerns a) specific laws and bureacratic rules, one which concerns HIV, b) gay marriage, and c) INS backload/incompetence and what to do about it c1) collectively, and c2) as it effects individual cases.
But do note how Andrew and Conor both attempt to conflate all of these distinct issues. It’s almost as if they didn’t know (Aristotle 101) that when you have laws, sometimes they are going to to be blunt instruments that do harm in specific cases, but that you can’t simply over-rule them on the basis of those cases unless you want to do without the rule of law. It’s almost as if they didn’t know (Madison 101) that having the reps of democratic majorities write and decide your laws gives you some pretty mediocre and bad laws.
Nah…it’s Obama-talk for them, i.e., SURELY THIS IS SUCH A SCREWED UP SITUATION THAT A READY-AT-HAND ANSWER TO FIX IT RIGHT NOW, (as NOW is ever the time) MUST BE AVAILABLE. (And note the shame-shame “last developed nation” trope so typically turned to…)
In sum, I’d say to Mr. Sullivan, use your personal example to push for specific changes, by all means, but please do it like an adult who understands that LAWS and DEMOCRACY are facts of life, and they often are more problematic facts of life when you live in country that doesn’t put a board of experts in charge of every damn decision. Were it up to me, I’d certainly grant Andrew citizenship, but all “were it up to me” talk is quasi-monarchical. Let’s debate the actual rules here, one at a time. Or would that be “callous”?
— Carl Scott · Sep 25, 07:09 PM · #
Go to NRO today for a link (couldn’t do here…I plead incompetence) to a recent Reader’s Digest poll indicating that 52% of French persons polled would like to move to the U.S. if “no political or economic” barriers to doing so existed.
It’s facts like that that force us to have LAWS that might treat people “callously” from time to time.
— Carl Scott · Sep 25, 08:02 PM · #
I’m surprised that Sullivan’s sickening toadying to The Anointed One hasn’t gotten him granted citizenship by now. I guess the DoJ figured squashing his Federal bust for smoking dope in a National Park was sufficient payback.
— Sam · Oct 1, 08:19 PM · #