Green Card Research Articles

National parliaments as ‘multi-arena players’ in the European Union? Insights into Poland and France

ABSTRACT Have national parliaments become ‘multi-arena players’ in the field of EU affairs? Through the means of cross-country comparison of Poland and France this study probes how national parliaments juggle their activities between domestic and EU-level realms with regard to four EU-oriented arenas: ex-ante scrutiny of national governments, the Early Warning Mechanism for subsidiarity control, the political dialogue with the European Commission, and the ‘green card’ initiative. The paper detects what conditions parliamentary activity in particular arenas and to what extent domestic legislatures act autonomously within them. The findings are counterintuitive and yet clearly demonstrate that what drives parliamentary mobilization in EU affairs is not the institutional strength of a parliament in EU scrutiny, but rather Member of Parliament’s perception of their institutions’ EU-related roles.

How Diversity and Inclusion Strategies Enhance Organizational Readiness for Global Nursing Recruitment

Facing persistent shortages of qualified nurses, Baystate Health partnered with a staffing firm to bring 30 RNs from 10 countries to western Massachusetts. Nurses had passed the licensure exam, demonstrated command of English, and held valid green cards, giving them permanent US residency status. Baystate focused on diversity and inclusion implications, anticipating potential roadblocks to success, and maximizing the value of the international nurses. Prior to the international nurses’ arrival, existing staff were informed and surveyed on their perceptions; based on those perceptions, targeted cross-cultural training was developed and delivered. The effectiveness of the program is being assessed before expansion. Facing persistent shortages of qualified nurses, Baystate Health partnered with a staffing firm to bring 30 RNs from 10 countries to western Massachusetts. Nurses had passed the licensure exam, demonstrated command of English, and held valid green cards, giving them permanent US residency status. Baystate focused on diversity and inclusion implications, anticipating potential roadblocks to success, and maximizing the value of the international nurses. Prior to the international nurses’ arrival, existing staff were informed and surveyed on their perceptions; based on those perceptions, targeted cross-cultural training was developed and delivered. The effectiveness of the program is being assessed before expansion. Yemisi Oloruntola-Coates, MA, MAMC, is chief diversity and inclusion officer at Baystate Health in Springfield, MA. Joshua Schwarz, PhD, is founder of Schwarz Analytics in Annapolis, MD. He can be reached at [email protected] . Gillian Williams, MSN, BSBA, RN, is clinical director at O’Grady Peyton International (USA) Inc. in Savannah, GA. Mark Jones, BSN, RN, is clinical manager at O’Grady Peyton International (USA) Inc. Sinead Carbery is brand president at O’Grady Peyton International (USA) Inc.

Sheltering in Place in a Xenophobic Climate: COVID-19 and Children in Immigrant Families.

* Abbreviations: CIF — : children in immigrant families COVID-19 — : coronavirus disease DACA — : Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals ICE — : Immigration and Customs Enforcement LEP — : limited English proficiency SDH — : social determinant of health TPS — : temporary protected status WIC — : Women, Infants, and Children Program Like many health conditions that disproportionately impact vulnerable populations of color, we expect that the coronavirus disease (COVID-19) pandemic will inequitably affect the health and livelihoods of immigrant families. One in 4 children (>18 million) in the United States lives in an immigrant family, in which the child or ≥1 parent was born outside the United States.1 Among children in immigrant families (CIF), >7 million live in “mixed-status” families, meaning ≥1 parent is not a US citizen.2 Before the COVID-19 pandemic, immigrant families faced increasingly restrictive policies and discrimination. Regardless of legal status, CIF experience increased health and social risks compared with peers in nonimmigrant families, including lower rates of health insurance coverage and higher poverty levels.3 The COVID-19 pandemic amplifies existing inequities and introduces new ones as immigrant families navigate school closures, lack of health insurance and paid leave, and decisions to seek medical care or public services amid ongoing immigration enforcement. Additionally, immigrant families are more likely to live in multigenerational households,4 heightening the risk of COVID-19 for multiple family members. Families with limited English proficiency (LEP) must decipher rapidly evolving public health directives, such as “shelter-in-place” orders and recommendations for mask-wearing, without multilingual and culturally relevant messaging. Underlying these challenges is the implicit presumption of a safe place in shelter-in-place and social distancing directives. For immigrant families seeking safe haven in the United States, “place” may include violence and abject poverty, both in home countries and at the US border. For CIF in US communities coping with persistent fears of immigration enforcement and family separation, … Address correspondence to Rushina Cholera, Duke University School of Medicine, 200 Morris St, 3rd Floor, Durham, NC 27701. E-mail: rushina.cholera{at}duke.edu

Trump Administration and the Politics of Visa Denial to Nigerian Citizens

President Trump on January 31 st 2020 has added six countries to his list of nations facing stringent travel restrictions, a move that will virtually block immigration from Africa’s most populous nation, Nigeria, and from Myanmar, where the Muslim minority is fleeing genocide. Beside Nigeria, three other African countries, Eritrea, Sudan and Tanzania, will face varying degrees of restrictions, as will one former Soviet state, Kyrgyzstan, Myanmar’s. All six countries have substantial Muslim populations. The total number of countries now on the restricted travel list stands at 13. Immigrant visas, issued to those seeking to live in the United States, will be banned from Nigeria, Myanmar, Eritrea and Kyrgyzstan. The ban will also prevent immigrants from Sudan and Tanzania from moving to the United States through the diversity visa lottery, which grants green cards to as many as 50,000 people a year. The paper would uses secondary source of data from relevant publications. The researcher was of the view that most of these countries with US Visa restriction have issues of security problems and are mainly Muslim countries. The paper was of the view that if these countries need to have respect and international recognition the government of these countries must take the issue of insecurity and fighting terrorism as a priority agenda so that they cannot be isolated as unsecured countries among countries of the world. Keywords: Immigrant, Visa, Terrorism and Insecurity. DOI: 10.7176/JLPG/97-11 Publication date: May 31 st 2020

Effectiveness of a French Program to Prevent Suicide Reattempt (VigilanS)

Aim Brief contact interventions (such as letters, green cards, telephone calls or postcards) for reducing suicide reattempt (SR) and suicide have been evaluated since the 1980s, but results have been inconsistent. VigilanS is one of these programs that has benefited patients hospitalized for suicide attempt (SA) after discharge in 2 departments of northern France since 2015. The purpose of this study is to demonstrate its effectiveness in reducing SR. Methods Patients exposed to VigilanS in 2016 were recruited from the medical administrative database of the program, and the nonexposed patients from a database of the medico-surgical ward outside the scope of the program. First, a Cox model was used to compare the probability of SR during the 12-month follow-up period between the 2 groups. Second, a propensity score using the variables sex, age, source, SA history and SA method was used to match the VigilanS-exposed and the nonexposed patients. A Cox model propensity score adjusted analysis was reiterated on the matched data. Results The exposed and nonexposed groups included 3,068 and 3,694 individuals, respectively. In the bivariate analyses, the cumulative probability of SR at 12 months was significantly lower in the exposed group (6.0%, 95% confidence interval (CI): 5.5–6.5%) than in the nonexposed group (16.8%, 95% CI: 15.9–17.7%; p < 0.001). In the Cox model, the hazard ratio of SR was 0.38 in the exposed patients (95% CI: 0.36–0.40, p < 0.001). After matching, the cumulative probability of SR at 12 months was 5.2% in exposed versus 22.2% in nonexposed patients (p < 0.001). In the propensity score-adjusted Cox model, the hazard ratio of SR in the exposed patients was 0.19 (95% CI: 0.14–0.24, p < 0.001). Conclusion The results suggest the effectiveness of this real-life program for reducing SR. However, VigilanS only benefits a portion of the patients hospitalized for SA and therefore could be extended.

Avoiding immigration limbo.

“Banks won't give a mortgage loan to someone who is only going to be in the country for 1 year,” declared the real estate agent. His remark shocked me. I was a tenure-track faculty member at the time, but I was deemed unworthy to receive a line of credit because of my visa situation. I'm a citizen of the Philippines, and the visa that my U.S. institution obtained for me had to be renewed each year. So, on paper it looked as though I only had permission to be in the country for 1 year. My wife and I encountered many such hurdles because of my visa—and they ultimately drove me to quit my faculty position and leave the country. ![][1] ILLUSTRATION: ROBERT NEUBECKER > “Don't sign … until you know that you'll have what you need in your new country.” In hindsight, I didn't take the visa application process seriously enough when I was negotiating my job offer. I was so excited about landing a tenure-track position that I didn't take time to think through what kind of visa and accommodations I would need to make my personal life work. I also assumed that the university had a system in place to deal with foreign hires. I said yes to the job offer and signed on the dotted line. The first sign of trouble came when I tried to buy a house in our new city. I had moved there ahead of my wife and 1-year-old daughter so that I could look for a neighborhood where we could settle down. But as the real estate agent predicted, mortgage lenders didn't want to gamble on someone with a 1-year visa. I signed a lease for an apartment instead. After my wife joined me, we needed a car because our sprawling community didn't have a strong public transportation system. But we had trouble securing credit for that, too. In the end, we had to put down more than $3000 as a down payment. The third, and final, straw came when my wife wanted to return to her work as a nurse after her maternity leave. Prior to our move, she had obtained a license to practice nursing in the United States. But she couldn't apply for jobs because of legal restrictions associated with my visa. That left her feeling frustrated and isolated, unable to establish a professional life in a new country. Stress ran high in our small one-bedroom apartment. The logical fix to our problems was for me to secure permanent residency status, otherwise known as a green card. But that just brought more problems. I pleaded with my department chair, dean, and provost to support my green card application. But it took 6 months for the university to agree to sponsor my application, and I didn't know how long the review and approval process would take on top of that. Exasperated by the entire ordeal, I applied for jobs in countries that I thought would be more supportive of foreign workers and their families. I was offered a faculty job in the Netherlands and, within 3 months, my family and I moved across the Atlantic. That was 1 year ago, and we've been much happier ever since. My wife, who is allowed to work in the Netherlands, is completing a course toward a nursing certification while our daughter, now 3 years old, is at government-subsidized day care. We are renting a nice house and are looking for one to buy. And we've been helped by a government policy that grants a 30% tax exemption for foreign hires for a period of 5 years. I'm glad we've ended up where we are. But when I look back, I wish that I'd been more prepared and proactive when negotiating my first faculty position. I could have asked the university to apply for a multiyear visa—which, I later learned, is what human resources staff had done for other faculty hires. I could have also requested a guarantee that the university would sponsor my application for permanent residency within a certain period of time and would pay for some immigration-related expenses, such as green card application fees. I hope that other immigrant scientists take heed from my tale. If you land a job, don't sign on the dotted line until you know that you'll have what you need in your new country. [1]: /embed/graphic-1.gif

Favoring co-partisan controlled areas in central government distributive programs: the role of local party organizations

We analyze the non-contributory health insurance program (“green cards”) in Turkey with RDD (Regression Discontinuity Design) and show that more citizens receive green cards in municipalities controlled by the national incumbent party, AKP (Adalalet ve Kalkinma Partisi). Our explanation for the finding emphasizes the role of local party organizations and sub-national incumbency. Local government control provides additional resources to the party to strengthen its organization, which then helps the party to target the beneficiaries of central government programs like green cards more effectively. Theoretically, we join the literature that uncovers the significance of incorporating local actors into the analysis of central government programs. Our contribution lies in depicting the mediating role of political parties and their local organizations. Even in a highly centralized context like Turkey, parties’ informal role affects program implementation. Unequal access to free healthcare results from the asymmetry between national and opposition parties in how their local organizations interact with the central government.

Suicide during Transition of Care: a Review of Targeted Interventions.

The risk of suicide is significant during the transition of care; the highest in the first few weeks after discharge from a healthcare facility. This systematic review summarizes the evidence for interventions providing care during this high-risk period. In January 2019, PubMed and Scopus were systematically searched using the search terms: Suicide AND (Hospital OR Emergency department) AND Discharge. Articles relevant to interventions targeting suicidal behaviors during the transition of care were selected after the title and abstract screening followed by full-text screening. This review article included 40 articles; with a total patient population of 24,568. The interventions included telephone contacts, letters, green cards, postcards, structured visits, and community outreach programs. An improvement in the engagement of patients in outpatient services was observed but the evidence for suicidal behaviors was conflicting. The reviewed interventions were efficacious in linking patients to outpatient services, reducing feelings of social isolation and helping patients in navigating the available community resources. For patients with repetitive suicidal behaviors, psychosocial interventions such as dialectical behavioral therapy can be helpful. Patients should be followed by targeted interventions based on risk categorization of the patients by using evidence-based tools.

Path Analysis of the Impact of “Green Finance” on Clean Energy in Yunnan Province

During the Two Sessions of 2018, Ruan Chengfa, the governor of Yunnan Province, proposed for the first time in the “Government Work Report” that the future development of Yunnan Province should rely on carrying out the “three green cards” strategic plan, in which the development of clean energy has obvious advantages in Yunnan Province. This paper aims to present the challenges and opportunities encountered in the development of major clean energy projects in our province, and to analyze the main impact of various forms of green capital injection on the clean energy sector by statistical analysis with reference to the index data in the “Statistical Yearbook of Yunnan Province” from the different investment perspectives of policy finance and commercial finance under “Green Finance”. In view of the current situation of clean energy development in our province, this paper puts forward relevant recommendations to provide a reference for government sectors, financial sectors, enterprises and other relevant subjects in Yunnan Province at the initial stage of formulating policy routes, so as to make timely adjustments to the problems in the development process to promote the development of “Green Finance” and “three green cards” strategic plan in Yunnan Province.

Guest Workers on Farms Stand in the Eye of the Covid Storm

32 | International Union Rights | 27/1-27/2 FOCUS | UNIONS, WORKERS’ RIGHTS, AND THE COVID-19 PANDEMIC Guest Workers on Farms Stand in the Eye of the Covid Storm On April 21 President Trump announced in a tweet that, while stopping almost all kinds of legal immigration for at least two months, he was placing no limits on the continued recruitment of H-2A guest workers by growers. Trump claimed the spreading COVID-19 pandemic made his order necessary, but he cited no evidence to show that a ban covering all forms of family-based migration would stop the virus’ spread, while leaving employer-based migration unchanged would not exacerbate the pandemic. Trump has repeatedly declared his support for the guest worker program. In a 2018 Michigan speech he told a grower audience, “we’re going to let your guest workers come in, because we have to have strong borders, but we have to let your workers in ... They’re going to work on your farms ... but then they have to go out. But we’re gonna let them in because you need them ... We have to have them”. Agriculture Secretary Sonny Perdue explained the apparent contradiction. He wants Trump “to separate immigration, which is people wanting to become citizens, [from] a temporary, legal guestworker program. That’s what agriculture needs, and that’s what we want. It doesn’t offend people who are anti-immigrant because they don’t want more immigrant citizens here. We need people who can help US agriculture meet the production”. This promise is more than election-year politics. It is a big step towards creating a captive workforce in agriculture, based on a program notorious for abuse of the workers in it, and for placing them into low-wage competition with farmworkers already living in the US. It is also a step into the past. Family preference migration, in which immigrants can get residence visas (green cards) based on their family relationships, was won by the civil rights movement. Bert Corona, Cesar Chavez and others convinced Congress to end the bracero program in 1964. They fought for an immigration policy based on family unification, instead of one based on growers’ desire for a low-wage labour supply. Especially for immigrants coming from Asia, Africa and Latin America, this new system made it possible to unite families in the US, settle down and become part of communities. Before that watershed step, people could come from Mexico to work as braceros, but not to stay, and not with families. Immigration quotas favouring white migration from Europe made it very hard for families in general to come from non-European countries. When President Trump said, in a 2018 meeting with Senator Dick Durbin (D-Ill.), “why do we want these people from all these shithole countries here? We should have more people from places like Norway”, he was voicing his nostalgia for that precivil rights past. Trump has now suspended the family preference system. Whether it will be reinstated at some point is anyone’s guess. And the H-2A program, which is growing rapidly, is a direct descendant of the old bracero regime. It will continue, given its support in a Congress that is much more conservative than the one in 1964, which abolished the bracero program and established the family migration system. Even Democrats in the current Congress have introduced legislation that would greatly expand H-2A. Although growers have claimed the coronavirus has created a labour shortage making the H-2A program vital, the program was mushrooming long before the pandemic hit. Last year the US Department of Labor gave agribusiness permission to fill 257,667 jobs with workers brought almost entirely from Mexico, with H-2A visas. That amounted to 10 percent of all the jobs in US agriculture. The program is five times bigger than the 48,336 jobs certified under George W Bush in 2005. In some states H-2A certifications now make up more than 10 percent of farmworker jobs. In Georgia growers fill a quarter of all farm labour jobs with H-2A workers. An agricultural system in which half the workforce would eventually consist of H2-A workers...

The Fixer: Visa Lottery Chronicles by Charles Piot and Kodjo Nicolas Batema

Reviewed by: The Fixer: Visa Lottery Chronicles by Charles Piot and Kodjo Nicolas Batema Cati Coe Charles Piot with Kodjo Nicolas Batema, The Fixer: Visa Lottery Chronicles. Durham: Duke University Press, 2019. 224 pp. The Fixer tells a dramatic story of creative and innovative forms of trickery generated by US immigration policy. Its overt focus is a single charismatic and thoughtful Togolese broker, Kodjo Nicolas Batema, who carefully studies the US Diversity Visa lottery process in order to coach his clients to successfully receive a green card. The book details the ways through which brokers learn about the lottery interview practices and prepare their clients for the different questions (Chapter 2), the kinship practices and microeconomies generated by the lottery (Chapters 3 and 4), the machinations of embassy staff to catch fraud (Chapter 5), a peaceful protest by visa applicants in front of the US Embassy in Lomé (Chapter 6), an incident which landed Mr. Batema temporarily in prison (Chapter 7), and the lives of successful visa applicants in different regions of the United States (Chapter 8). Piot argues that the Diversity Visa lottery is a source of cultural production, generating new marriage practices and state documentation processes. Piot calls the cultural production of the visa lottery "border games." Building on the Comaroffs' arguments about the signal role of the imposter in runaway capitalism (Comaroff and Comaroff 2016), Piot argues that the distinction between fake and authentic seems to dissolve in these games. "Fake" marriages—that is, marriages arranged for the purpose of papers—can become real, in the sense that they can turn into sexual relationships and long-term partnerships as couples live together in order to pass the scrutiny of consular and immigration officials. Similar to marriages arranged for emigration purposes, marriages considered real often have economic or bureaucratic reasons for their documentation or state [End Page 559] legalization. Furthermore, in Togo, identity and marriage documentation can be secret, manipulated, and multiple, beyond emigration contexts. Piot argues that the visa lottery and its cultural production is a "textbook illustration" of extraversion and the hybridity and improvisation of Atlantic African economies (39). The virtue of this book is in its details and liveliness. It reads incredibly quickly, almost like a novel, with well-written and exciting chapters. Impressive access was given to Piot by both Mr. Batema and consulate officials, which struck me as quite amazing given my own difficulties convincing consular officials to meet with me. In addition to its details based on Piot's high degree of access with key persons, another strength is that it is excellent on the economics of the visa lottery process, arguing convincingly that a major reason for "fake" marriages in Togo is because of the high lottery fees (Chapter 4). Given the exorbitant fees and the large number of applicants every year, millions of dollars have been redistributed from Togolese individuals to the US government. Many remittances from the diaspora are used to fund emigration plans. Piot makes a strong case for the unfairness of Diversity Visa fees being set worldwide, without consideration for local incomes. Let me explain this relationship between "fake" marriages and high fees. Unlike his competitors, Mr. Batema charges no fees to applicants, instead raising the funds for those chosen to be interviewed (at the second stage of the lottery process) from those in the diaspora, who can add their own loved ones to the applicant's request. The relationships formed to raise the funds for the process then require new marriage and birth certificate documents which can easily be back-dated by Togolese state officials willing to enable with these ruses. Extensive coaching by Mr. Batema makes it extremely difficult for consular officials to determine whether marriages were "real" or not. (If a marriage is made real by legal documentation, these marriages are, of course, real, since official documents certified the marriage.) Because of their paranoia about what they called "pop-up marriages," US embassy officials went above and beyond the law in hiring Togolese investigative personnel to track applicants in their homes and workplaces and asking questions that were overly intrusive and unfair, through which long-term marriages sometimes failed to convince consular officials of...

Media discourse on women in politics: The first Muslim woman of colour in US Congress

This analysis is a part of a bigger study on the presentation of Muslim women in the media. The focus here is on Ilhan Omar, the first Muslim Somali-born woman in American Congress, and more specifically on the latest publications on Omar which delve into her personal family life and the alleged marriage she has entered into with her brother, so that she can provide him with a green card for the USA. The topic presents a cross-section of several major fields of study such as feminism, media studies, and culture studies as the emphasis is on the biased media representation intended to diminish the real worth of a woman politician who is a carrier of several different identities, namely: gender, religious, ethnic, and class. The corpus for this study consists of 42 articles published in various online media over a period of four months from January 2020 to April 2020. The paper argues that first, the presentation Ilhan Omar enjoys is gendered and second, that it is subjected to the stereotypical image of Muslim women as submissive and silent, being of a lower status than men, especially in a male-dominated field such as politics. In addition, it is also argued that although Omar breaks the existing stereotypes of Muslim women, the way media present her actually reinforces the preconceived ideas she refutes. To prove the above, the main methods of analysis applied are Critical Discourse Analysis along with Multi-modal analysis when the non-verbal part of the presentation on the image is concerned.

Fly Above

Fly Above Laura Fernandez (bio) The Affairs of the Falcóns: A Novel Melissa Rivero Ecco www.harpercollins.com 288 Pages; Print, $16.99 Although set in early 1990s New York, Melissa Rivero's debut novel, centered on the life of the undocumented Peruvian immigrant, Ana Falcón, has never felt timelier. In his New York Times article, "An Undocumented Woman Struggles to Root Her Family in New York City," John Williams interviews Falcón, asking her why someone should read The Affairs of the Falcóns, and she states, If you want to read about a determined and complex human being who loves her family and would do anything for them and for her dreams, then you should read this book. And then maybe think about who you end up electing into office. Given the current political climate where (Latin American) immigrants, whether documented or not, are being vilified by the highest office in the nation, Rivero's novel stands as a testament to the everyday struggles these immigrants face in order to achieve the so-called American "Dream." The story of Ana and her family is all the more telling in its groundedness. Rivero does not cast her characters as the paragons of morality, instead they undergo many of the same struggles that many undocumented immigrants face upon entering the US's race-based social hierarchy. Rivero's characters are relatable because they are real; they make mistakes and suffer the consequences. Despite the devastating cliff-hanger ending, which I admit, had me gasping out loud—while I am an easy weeper to a tragic tale, I am not one given to dramatic outbursts; this is one of the few times I can recall exclaiming out loud, "NO!" upon realizing a story was over and flipping desperately to see if there was more to the story—as Ana remarks in the final paragraph, the reader is still left with the sense of hope knowing that, just as her surname, Falcón, implies, one could "Fly above whatever she couldn't force her way through." Rivero's novel follows the life of Ana and her family and the various sacrifices Ana continually has to make in order to keep her family afloat. Given that she acts as the primary wage-earner, working as a seamstress in a factory that amounts to little more than a sweatshop, since her husband, Lucho, lost his job months prior, Ana is forced to balance working long hours with being a mother while also facing constant micro-aggressions from Lucho's cousin, Valeria, who has been allowing them to live with her and her husband and son after the Falcóns became homeless with the loss of Lucho's work. Ana's story is one of constantly fighting to keep her family together, despite numerous suggestions from friends and relatives to send her children back to Peru in order for Lucho and her to afford a better living. Ana's life becomes one of sacrificing her own body and self, echoing her deceased mother's most powerful lesson: "You're going to love and have to do things for love. Sacrifice is a part of life." For Ana that means: working non-stop in a factory and seeking out the local loan shark, Patricia (aka Mama to the women she "helped"), and yet none of that is enough, forcing Ana to accept the sexual advances of Don Beto, Mama's husband, in exchange for cash. While sacrifice comes to be one of the major themes of the novel, always lurking in the background is the question of immigration. Ana struggles more so because of her undocumented status, which leaves her vulnerable to deportation and exploitive working and living situations. Despite her feeling somewhat at ease given that in a city such as New York she and her family are "merely four of millions," her lack of green card is an ever-present dark cloud that looms on the horizon. She is forced to be constantly on alert, whether it means to know the fastest way to reach the escape door at her workplace or blaming herself when Valeria calls the...

Two Million Fewer Americans Have Health Insurance as States Tighten Medicaid Rules

Two Million Fewer Americans Have Health Insurance as States Tighten Medicaid Rules

Tell Me How It Ends: An Essay in Forty Questions by Valeria Luiselli (review)

Reviewed by: Tell Me How It Ends: An Essay in Forty Questions by Valeria Luiselli Marcus Embry Valeria Luiselli. Tell Me How It Ends: An Essay in Forty Questions. Coffee House Press, 2017. Valeria Luiselli's Tell Me How It Ends: An Essay in Forty Questions is very timely in subject matter, but also in terms of our current critical moment. Luiselli is Mexican, a legal resident of the US who lives in New York, and the recipient of a 2019 MacArthur Fellowship. She is already known and celebrated for her novels, but this book displays the full power of her critical insight and writing skillset. Titled "An Essay," it is written on many levels that weave the reader into the text alongside the author and the asylum-seeking unaccompanied children who Luiselli interviews. She begins the essay in the midst of her family's green-card application process. The reader is suspended through the text, waiting for the process to reach its conclusion. But, that is the outer layer of process that structures this text. While waiting, the reader journeys with Luiselli's family on vacation. As we all move away from New York, we become aware of the humanitarian crisis unfolding on the southern border of the US in 2014. Over sixty thousand unaccompanied children seeking asylum have been swept into the system, and as Luiselli and the reader get closer to the southern border, Luiselli finds herself also swept into the system, her Spanish language skills vital for interviewing the children and filling out their paperwork for asylum. Each section of the book is structured around the forty questions on the form Luiselli fills out for the children she interviews. From the beginning, she focuses on the dissonance between the formality of the written questions and the answers of the children. The questionnaires dictate the form of the answers, but the children's narratives cannot conform. In question seven, for example, Luiselli must ask if anything happened on the child's "trip" that "scared or hurt" the child? The children's answers cannot begin to encompass the fact that eighty percent of migrant girls and women are raped along the way from Mexico to the US. In answer to the question "Why did you come here?" a little girl replies, "because I wanted to arrive" (99) a heartbreaking update of "When we Arrive" in Tomas Rivera's [End Page 219] Beyond the interplay of the information Luiselli provides through the unique structure of the book, which many previous reviews have mentioned, I want to highlight the interplay Luiselli creates between the various narrators in her work. Of course, the children being interviewed are the primary narrators, but Luiselli simultaneously weaves the book through her wait for her green card long after her immediate family members have received theirs. As we proceed through the text we wait alongside Luiselli, just as the children in the detention centers wait for the words that Luiselli transcribes to bring resolution to their plight. As Luiselli locates herself, the undocumented children, and the reader in this place of waiting, she weaves in her own daughter's reactions to the entire process: Luiselli's daughter asks the question, "So how does the story of these children end?" (55). This book, however, is not a story, nor is it a novel or a testimonio. Rather, it is an essay, and Luiselli demands that we consider the boundaries of what an essay can be in our contemporary world. On page 41, she presents a graph of information that one child provides to a question about home. As we puzzle through the paradigmatic and syntagmatic meanings evident in the graph, we realize that home for this child is not a place of origin but rather a destination, the family that the child naively and impossibly hopes to join somewhere in a vast country that has swallowed the child in the machinery of its border. So has the machinery of the border swallowed the author and the text itself: on page 62, for example, Luiselli translates the child's responses in sometimes first person, sometimes third, the child, the author, and the reader lost in a hopeless...

U.S. Visa Policies and STEM PhD Employment in Technology Startups

Visa policies to retain United States-trained STEM PhDs are of central importance to national innovation and economic competitiveness. There is also growing interest in “startup” visas that stimulate entrepreneurial activity and job creation, particularly in technology sectors. However, there is little understanding of how visa policies might influence foreign PhDs’ employment in technology startups. This study investigates differences between 2,324 foreign and US PhDs from US research universities using a longitudinal survey of individuals’ preferences and characteristics during graduate school and their subsequent employment in a startup or established firm. Among PhDs whose first job is industrial research & development, 15.8% of US PhDs work in a startup compared with 6.8% of foreign PhDs. Foreign PhDs are as likely as US PhDs to apply to and receive offers for startup jobs, but conditional on receiving an offer, they are 56% less likely to work in a startup. This disparity is partially explained by differences in visa sponsorship between startups and established firms and not by foreign PhDs’ preferences for established firm jobs, risk tolerance, or preference for higher pay. Foreign PhDs who first work in an established firm and subsequently receive a green card are more likely to move to a startup than another established firm, suggesting that permanent residency facilitates startup employment. These findings suggest that US visa policies may deter foreign PhDs from working in startups, thereby restricting startups’ access to a large segment of the STEM PhD workforce and impairing startups’ ability to contribute to innovation and economic growth.

Selling Ghana Greener Pastures: Green Card Entrepreneurs, Visa Lottery, and Mobility

Abstract Since 1994, people in Ghana have eagerly registered for the United States Diversity Visa lottery, an annual program that makes immigrant visas available to residents of countries that historically sent few immigrants to the United States. Although the green card lottery was not created to facilitate immigration from Africa, Ghanaians embraced the lottery enthusiastically. The program dovetailed with the growing popularity of international migration—framed as seeking “greener pastures”—since the country’s adoption of neoliberal economic reforms beginning in the 1980s. In particular, the lottery in Ghana was amplified by urban visa entrepreneurs whose self-interested efforts marketing the program drove demand for diversity visas and related migration services. Examining how and why visa entrepreneurs disseminated information about the lottery and found paying customers eager for assistance, this article historicizes how Ghanaians thought about citizenship, mobility, and their place in the world, illuminating how people navigated structural adjustment and neoliberal logic in Ghana in the 1990s and 2000s. The United States became a prime destination for contingent reasons related to transformations of Ghana’s economy and politics that made permanent emigration more desirable and spurred urban residents to set up and expand small-scale enterprises. In a context of heightened global migration restrictions in the 1990s and 2000s, the visa lottery, a migration program that operated as a game of chance, took root in Ghanaians’ imaginations.

Recent Immigrants and Public Charge: Access to Coverage and New Legal Arrivals’ Employment, Self-Employment, and Health Insurance After Medicaid Expansions and the Marketplace

This article uses data from the American Community Survey from 2009 to 2016 to identify the effect of Medicaid expansions and the creation of the ACA Insurance Market Exchange (Marketplace) on low-income recent immigrants’ employment, self-employment, and health coverage. There is increasing interest in the connection between public coverage and employment outcomes among low-income documented immigrants after the current administration proposed to include the use of Medicaid as a potential reason for denying green card and citizenship applications based on the public charge criteria. The article finds little evidence on reduction of employment among those who are eligible in nongenerous states. We find evidence of an increase in the likelihood of being self-employed in generous states that expanded Medicaid before the implementation of the Marketplace. The findings suggests that low-income immigrants are likely to be employed regardless of their years in the country and that access to public coverage only affects the likelihood of having public versus private coverage.

Pathways to Permanence: Legal Status Transitions as a Key Mechanism in Skilled Migrant Selection and Settlement.

Despite impassioned debates about immigration reform brewing in the U.S. government, researchers know remarkably little about how immigration policy shapes migration behavior. There is still much to learn about the composition of specific classes of admission, how long migrants stay in the United States, and the legal channels they follow to permanent residency or emigration. This paper takes a life course perspective on skilled migration to examine the micro-level processes and various pathways that lead to permanent settlement and emigration, and identifies legal status transitions as a key sorting mechanism in processes of immigrant selection. I find that migrants who successfully underwent a previous legal status transition were more likely to pursue permanent residence, but also saw a wider array of avenues to obtain a green card. The mismatch in some migrants' permanent settlement intentions and temporary legal status can lead to feelings of alienation and frustration in the immigration system and the U.S. labor market, driving some to emigrate or seek channels outside of the skilled migration program to procure a green card. The findings of this paper deepen our understanding of the processes that shape selection effects among immigrants and highlight the need for more robust and granular longitudinal data on legal status indicators.

Repealing H-4 Visa Work Authorization: A Cost-Benefit Analysis

In 2015 the Obama Administration authorized temporary work permits for the spouses of H-1B visa holders who were awaiting green cards. Over 90,000 of these H-4 visa holders have since received a work permit,1 known as an Employment Authorization Document (EAD), and three-fourths of them are gainfully employed. In 2017 the Trump administration announced that it intends to repeal the rule providing this work authorization. This February the administration followed through on that announcement with a notice of proposed rulemaking. The administration’s stated reason for repealing the rule is that it would create more jobs for U.S. citizens. We believe a thorough benefit-cost analysis, as required under Executive Order 12866, would find this justification unfounded. Ending the ability of these workers – who are, by and large, well-educated and high-skilled – to hold jobs in the United States would at best have no net effect on U.S. citizens’ employment and likely would reduce their employment and wages. Further, ending EADs would hurt the U.S. economy and U.S. taxpayers.