DHS plans to use credit-scores to judge who may become a citizen

Many visa applicants are already living here. Plus this would affect marriage based green cards. Since the “being a public charge” disqualifier applies even to the spouses and immediate family of citizens.

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Everyone say “CHINA” in their best Trump voice. :joy:

This doesn’t even work by internal MAGA logic – great entrepreneurs might not have such great credit ratings, especially if they are younger…

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If you have a large enough down-payment it is probably a better idea to avoid an FHA loan entirely. FHA loans are burdened with mandatory loan insurance payments which pretty much negate any other benefits of the loan.

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i’m teaching a financial math course to high school juniors and seniors which has a personal finance component and acceptable business practices component. the personal finance part is covered by the dave ramsey “foundations in personal finance” workbook/video series. his recommendations are that one should never, ever use debt and that he and his wife, with a combined net worth of $50-100 million, have nonexistent credit scores. i suppose this means they wouldn’t be allowed in.

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Citizen or Green Card? I’m a bit confused as the article linked to says Legal Resident, which is different from the applications to become a citizen as Cory’s headline states… It’s not great either way, but I’d like to know which is more accurate.

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Both.

The requirement of “not likely to be a public charge” is also part of a number of family based visas which lead to permanent residence and are a path to citizenship, including foreign spouse of a US citizen.

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No, its a magnification and exaggeration of a pre-existing requirement to a visa.

The requirement is that “a person is not likely to be a public charge”. This is a bare minimal requirement that one will be living above the poverty line and unlikely to be on welfare. It is entirely based on income of the sponsor. The idea of using a credit score is to pretend that it is relevant to that requirement ne’s credit score and one’s income are entirely different thing. The whole point here is to make the legal immigration process unnecessarily more complicated and difficult for its own sake.

Pretty much the rest of the world doesn’t do immigration in a sane or effective fashion.

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We have never really agreed on what we’re looking for in immigrants. Some people think we should import according to workforce needs and qualifications. Some think it should be charitable. Some think it should be cultural. Or some combination thereof. But one thing is certain, we don’t agree and honestly it’s nearly impossible to come up with criteria that puts the numbers in a moderate area somewhere between open-border and closed-border and is logically consistent.

It’s insane to me that vastly expanded work visas while restricting citizenship hasn’t been more seriously floated as a compromise way forward. Workers can work without dealing with breaking the law, employers still get labor, while still vulnerable workers would have better protections than illegal, and both their families and the US communities they work in can be more stable. Everybody wins.

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(Trump lifts his limp lump beside the golden toilet.)

Yup, that thing that Bill Kristol argues as justification for starting civil wars in other people’s countries .

OTOH, see thread:

https://twitter.com/isgoodrum/status/975536363364696064?s=21

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Here is the problem, its not just illegal alien labor which needs to be revamped, but also employment visas. The entire notion of importing labor to displace American workers is obsolete. If your job could be replaced with an illegal alien doing menial labor, you are a failure of our education system.

Manual labor visas would solve most of our issues with undocumented workers, but it doesn’t allow conservatives to employ bigoted panicky appeals for political support. So it is of no use for the current white supremacist dominated GOP.

As for employment visas, our system is broken and exploitative. They are exclusively for white collar work and designed to keep workers chained to their employer (and at lower than market rates for salaries). The majority of employment visas these days are foreign companies bringing over their staff. Investment in the nation.

Employment visas which are based on the worker, not their employer would allow for greater economic benefit for the nation for skilled workers already here. But that system is bogged down with outdated fear that American workers are being displaced by foreign workers. The reality is Americans may not have the skillset or language skills for working for many foreign companies investing here.

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This is a dystopia straight out of Cathy O’Neill’s chilling and sadly non-fictional Weapons of Math Destruction book (How Big Data Increases Inequality and Threatens Democracy)
https://g.co/kgs/8Td9H5

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What next? Are we going to privatize the FBI by hiring Pinkertons, privatize the courts with Judge Jeanie Inc.? How does Equifax judge the credit of a Bulgarian immigrant, or an Indian immigrant, or Chinese? This is more Trump crap law that will fail, but take too many innocents with it before the courts rule against the WH yet again (current success rate < 5% - no wonder he hates judges :wink:

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chicken and egg is difficult to ascertain.

one of the great advantages of undocumented labor are the unsafe, unsanitary, sub-minimum wage jobs they allow.

arguably, white supremacy arose out of randomized historical advantage. its used to enforce the position of power that the existing white elite has. not necessarily out of racism per se – but out of the desire to hold and grow money, power, and status.

skin color is a great marker for exploitable labor.

racism is the justification after the exploitation.

i agree. and that’s of no use to the employers , nor to the politicians those employers donate money to.

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They are.

Are there any? More relevantly - are there any countries where the usual credit scoring countries don’t operate where coming from there wouldn’t automatically scupper your citizenship chances (or at least require you to go through some special, extra checks). Say North Korea for example.

So you’ve got to get in and immediately start racking up debt as quickly as possible? :smiley:

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I find it interesting that so many boingboingers on this thread do not use credit.

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What about the significant proportion of the population who are not up for intellectually demanding work, either by temperament or by ability?

Now, that said, I support our minimum wage increases to $15 (Cdn), which is also has a disemployment effect on those only capable of menial labour. The difference is that I acknowledge whose future I sacrifice with my preferred policy rather than attribute the cost to a “failure” that can somehow be cured.

(Case in point, we lost two long standing mentally handicapped employees of our local grocery store (and they added self-checkouts). That is a cost that I acknowledge for the greater good of a substantial increase in the minimum wage.)

If a policy is worth it, then it’ll survive acknowledging the human toll it will exact rather than trying to pretend there aren’t any trade-offs. Surely we owe the victims of our policies at least that.

That 20 minutes in the future keeps getting closer.

In the world of Corporate control, there’s one crime you better dare not commit:

Cheviot: “Credit fraud?! My God, that’s worse than murder!”

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I’m non-judgmental on how others choose to handle their own finances, but for me personally, I look at credit cards in much the same way that most people look at the payday loan industry: It’s a high-interest profit-seeking enterprise that may be necessary for some folks who find themselves in difficult situations, but in most cases it’s best to avoid if possible. And given the existence and convenience of visa debit cards, I’ve just truly never seen the appeal of using a credit card if you’ve got cash in the bank. I know there are ways to game the system, pay off your balance every month and get different rewards benefits without ever paying interest, but to me that’s just too much extra work and stress to be worthwhile. But your mileage may vary!

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