Immigration

[Daniel]

I want to move to New Hampshire and help you all make a stand for freedom, and I want to do it as soon as possible.  But I'm scared of the immagration police.  I was born and currently live within the borders of Canada, I have no citizenship in the USA.

I looked into the immagration process, and I may be able to get a temporary work visa as part of NAFTA, but I'd have to give it up (and also give up my job) in order to apply for a green card, or citizenship, or a regular work visa, which apparently requires a 4 year degree or equivalent, which I don't have.  (I just went from high school, into the IT feild, and I'm now a very successful professional for my age, with tens of thousands of customers relying on my system administration... none of which will matter to the authorities, I would venture to say.)

Essentially, I'm basically locked out of the immagration process, unless I can find a crafty lawyer to help me, and even then the legal fees and government 'fees' would be a pretty crippling burden on someone who's trying to move away and start a new life for himself, so I'm considering becoming an illegal alien, and simply finding work, and a home, and just living in New Hampshire trying to make a difference.

Which brings me here.  Can anyone give me advice?  Would I even be able to get a job without a social security number?  And would I be able to get a social security number without citizenship?  Would an employer have to register me for tax purposes, and then get a letter back saying 'Don't hire him, he's one of those stinking forigners here to take our jobs!'

I don't know.. I feel frightened and discouraged, even though I really want to go to New Hampshire and try to help the cause.  Can anyone out there give me advice or encouragement?

[penguins4me]

When it comes to working for the vast majority of businesses in the USA, a Social Security Account Number (SSAN/SSN) is mandatory - it may be possible to find a business with some flexibility on this, but then other issues may arise.

One option which you may be opening to consider is to simply go into business for yourself. It may be difficult/impossible to get all the paperwork the state wants you to complete without having a SSN or other "official" documents, but that would only matter to the people who actually look up said paperwork - home users almost never bother, since if you can do what you claim you can do, they couldn't care less, and many small business owners don't have a love of paperwork nor procedures, either.

As for the other issues, I'm sorry that I can't be of much use.

[Daniel]

Do landlords ask for SSNs when renting out?

Does anyone here know of any free staters who might be interested in the services of a server specialist illegal alien? :p

[error]

Do landlords ask for SSNs when renting out?

Many will ask for it, in order to check your credit history.

You may, of course, refuse.

The landlord isn't so much concerned with who you are as whether you will pay the rent.

[CNHT]

Daniel,

No one will bother you I wouldn't think.. They are trying to pass  a law that says locals can't enforce federal immigration laws.
When a local law officer caught some people for minor things, he tried to turn them in but ICE wasn't interested. So if you are coming here for the right reasons, I wouldn't think you'd even be noticed but that's just my guess.

Just don't ask me to give you my land back. 

[aries]

If you become a student or get a visa you can easily come

I don't know about permanent residency but accoring to the Quebec government's website, I'm eligible to apply for permanent residency once I have a degree, so maybe our policy with Canadians is just as lax?

By the way - http://206.162.174.213/dpi/index.jsp?languageCode=en it was from that

[Rochelle]

You might also try applying for the Diversity visa. It's for countries that have sent fewer than 50,000 immigrants to the US in the past 5 years. It's probably your best option if your goal is to live here permanently. You'll have to check first though and make sure Canadians qualify for it.

I would not recommend coming to the US illegally if your end desire is to stay here. If they catch you, you'll be deported and denied entry for at least the next 5 years, if not longer. Being denied entry to the US once can put you on the fast track to denial for any other visa in the future as well.
If your end goal is to live in the US for the rest of your life, I would recommend coming here legally. Unfortunately,
that's rather difficult at the moment and will remain so until we reform our immigration laws

Edit: Doh, just checed it out and Canada is excluded. Sorry, guess the gubermint is afraid the Canucks are going to take over .

Anyway, your other options include employment based, investment based, marriage based or....well, that's it. I love how their motto at USvisa is "Secure borders. Open borders." Those two things strike me as mutually exclusive.

[Daniel]

If you become a student or get a visa you can easily come

I don't know about permanent residency but accoring to the Quebec government's website, I'm eligible to apply for permanent residency once I have a degree, so maybe our policy with Canadians is just as lax?

By the way - http://206.162.174.213/dpi/index.jsp?languageCode=en it was from that

Yeah it looks the same way to get a visa or live in the 'states, according to the little bit of research I've done.  You have to have a four year degree, which is pretty wild in my case because I have more than four years professional experience in network systems administration.  Going to school would be a step backward.  An expensive, boring, lengthly step backward.

But to be honest, I don't have any desire to feed their system with my application 'fees'.  I'm tired of asking permission to go where I please and do what I want with my own property and with the consent of the people I'm dealing with.  I just want to go find a job and be happy with other consenting people wherever I want, which is why I posted this in the civil disobedience forum.  I feel that if I go through the motions of immagration, then I'm tassetly endorcing their system.  (And tangibly endorcing it, in the form of paying up substantial fees).

I'm left with a really ugly choice, if I were to move to the free state project...  a) Go to New Hampshire to fight against tyrany, and make my first ongoing act to feed that tyrany by mailing it cheques and submitting to its intimidation... or b) Go to New Hampshier to escape tyrany, only to be subjected to the threat of being thrown out of my new home any time, and shipped away to Canada... which is tyrany in its own right.

*sigh*

[CNHT]

My aunt was here for 40 years and never was bothered.

[Rochelle]

I'm left with a really ugly choice, if I were to move to the free state project...  a) Go to New Hampshire to fight against tyrany, and make my first ongoing act to feed that tyrany by mailing it cheques and submitting to its intimidation... or b) Go to New Hampshier to escape tyrany, only to be subjected to the threat of being thrown out of my new home any time, and shipped away to Canada... which is tyrany in its own right

I know It's a really bad situation. I'm currently trying to get my husband over here and it's more depressing than you'd like to think

It would seem as though nowadays the poem on the statue of liberty is no longer
"Give me your tired, your poor,
Your huddled masses yearning to breathe free,
The wretched refuse of your teeming shore.
Send these, the homeless, tempest-tost to me,
I lift my lamp beside the golden door!"

But "give me your rich, your wealthy
Well educated masses who will pay our taxes
and leave the wretched refuse on your own god damn teeming shore.
Cause we don't want them."

Okay, so it doesn't rhyme. But it's true.

[Daniel]

Yeah I have many american friends on the internet, and I make sure I read every one of them that poem, because the "Escaping to the american dream, to make a better life for yourself" history of the country is still part of popular culture.  There are many movies and TV shows I've seen where americans will proudly brag about how they brought freedom to the world.

I'd just like to remind them that stopped happening a century ago.  Maybe that will finally convince people that whatever freedom exists in the united states isn't there because of its government, it's there in spite of it.

[KBCraig]

Crafty lawyers will take all your money---no solution there.  You may want to buy a bride.

Rochelle's husband didn't "buy" her, and being married hasn't helped with the visa process.

[SpeedPhreak]

I'm in a similar situation... except I am trying to get out of the US.

If NH were to take it as far as secession then neither of us would have to worry

& to be honest I am hoping for that.

[Rochelle]

I'm in a similar situation... except I am trying to get out of the US.

Well, do what I did and marry a Finn. You get an automatic right to live in Finland if you're married to a citizen there. All you have to do is go to the police station there, fill out some paperwork and give them a (european) passport sized picture and in you go!
Of course, then you also have to deal with more press censorship (a newspaper refused to publish an ad the finnish piracy organization paid for because it might negatively affect the careers of career politicans) and more government interference in your life, but you won't be in the US.

Don't know her hubby's situation.

Read http://www.stabu.net/ruminations/?p=103 and http://www.stabu.net/ruminations/?p=110. My husband is also a member of the FSP and we've been married for nearly three-quarters of a year so far.

As for immigration lawyers, definitely don't get one of those. They're scumbags. They take your money and then usually hand your case to a secretary to fill out and file. Since they don't have a personal interest in it at all, they mail things off slowly, make mistakes and generally screw you over. The immigration hurdles aren't impossible to overcome, even if they are very difficult. Better to save your money for the visa fees and to build wealth for the affidavits of support than to hand it over to a lawyer...

I'm currently also posting on a visa forum and it's quite depressing. Any time I try to point out how ridiculous and wrong this situation is, people immediately say "well, you don't have a right to immigration, it's a priveledge give you by the government." "We just have to wait and hope things turn out for the best" "yes, it sucks, but what can we do?" Drives me nuts 

[lordmetroid]

what other forum?