Understanding the US - Again

[Amber G.]

^^^ Yes, but ETA for US citizens to enter UK is very new (starting in 2025, as I recently found out... I have travelled to UK many times before).

[vera_k]

New, but for everyone not requiring a visa. Mainly impacts European travelers. Those who need a visa like Indian citizens do not need to get an ETA.

[Vayutuvan]

^^^ Yes, but ETA for US citizens to enter UK is very new (starting in 2025, as I recently found out... I have travelled to UK many times before).

@Amber G. ji, you are missing the point that there are a lot of terrorists who are in the US too who travel Pakistan, get radicalized, and blow up airplanes in Canada. Also Heathrow is the most visited transit point from/to North America and Asia/Africa/WANA/and ofc eastern Europe.

I was transiting through Heathrow once. This was back in 1990s. Days before, there was bomb in one of the terminals (I think the international one). Either IRA or somebody carried it out. I don't remember now.

It is very important that they do the checks even for the so-called close allies. Case in point - Tawahur Rana - who wreaked havoc on Mumbai.

[Vayutuvan]

UK citizens need an ETA for US

Rightly so. Lot of British/European Islamists go to Shittistan, get trained by ISI of TSPA, and come to the US to create mayhem. Canadian route would still be available to them but Canadian immigration is much tougher on everybody than the US immigration.

[Vayutuvan]

What a difference Trump's new policies make!!!

Trump or Oct 7?

I am not trolling you sire. but this is the kind of knee jerk reaction that marks one as a Dimwitocrat partisan.

[vera_k]

Neither Trump nor Oct 7. ETA for UK was announced 2023ish. But that just replaced a different system that targeted Muslim origin countries.

Both track their origins to US ESTA, which was implemented in 2008 following a recommendation from the 9/11 commission.

Can be seen that US DOGE needs to be adopted worldwide if its taking 25 odd years since 9/11 for this to go into effect!

[KL Dubey]

https://www.nbcnews.com/news/latino/tru ... rcna193811

I am trying to understand this "gold card" scheme floated by Trump's commerce secy Lattu.

He says he will replace the EB-5 visa (green card through investment of $1M and creating 10 fulltime jobs) with the "gold card" which provides a "green card with a pathway to citizenship, based on a $5M investment and creating 10 fulltime jobs".

So basically, it seems that Lattu is providing the same product (green card, which already creates pathway to citizenship) for 5 times the price and much more selective vetting. He has claimed that that since there are 200,000 people currently waiting for EB-5 green cards, these people would be willing to pay the $5M instead and thus raise $1 trillion in revenue.

[Vayutuvan]

Gold Card is immediate. $1 M path is still open but people have to wait for the PR Card to come through.

[drnayar]

Neither Trump nor Oct 7. ETA for UK was announced 2023ish. But that just replaced a different system that targeted Muslim origin countries.

Both track their origins to US ESTA, which was implemented in 2008 following a recommendation from the 9/11 commission.

Can be seen that US DOGE needs to be adopted worldwide if its taking 25 odd years since 9/11 for this to go into effect!

Eligible countries can also use US pre-clearance to "smoothen" their travel hiccups to the cherished land of milk and honey.

[drnayar]

Gold Card is immediate. $1 M path is still open but people have to wait for the PR Card to come through.

well the 5 mil is non refundable as i see it, its not an investment option. Why would you pay 5 million for the privilege of getting taxed on your global incomes ?!! Ridiculous.

[Vayutuvan]

Why would you pay 5 million for the privilege of getting taxed on your global incomes ?!! Ridiculous.

If your global income is not reported a la panama papers or you have an Isle of Man corporation.

[KL Dubey]

well the 5 mil is non refundable as i see it, its not an investment option. Why would you pay 5 million for the privilege of getting taxed on your global incomes ?!! Ridiculous.

The UK also has the shady "commonwealth citizen" and "right to remain" schemes that allows rich people to set up in the UK (or flee from the law in their countries).

The EB-5 program provided a trickle of green cards (about 7,000 per year), with processing time averaging 2 years. So perhaps the only "selling point" of the "gold card" could be to provide it in a shorter period of time, although Lattu does not tout that. In such a case, it may indeed be something like the UK scheme for rich people that need to leave their countries quickly ?

[vera_k]

Overthinking it. The motivation is to reduce all types of immigration to the USA, legal or otherwise. With carveouts for favored types of course. None of this is new agenda. Just that people pushing the agenda haven't been in a position of influence yet.

[drnayar]

Why would you pay 5 million for the privilege of getting taxed on your global incomes ?!! Ridiculous.

If your global income is not reported a la panama papers or you have an Isle of Man corporation.

No isle of man Corporation doesn't require you to pay local / /uk taxes.. you still need to report your income s if US citizen and pay taxes there !.. Recently HSBC was fined for apparently not enforcing such details

[bala]

Another huge scam by Bidenwa and Kamala - DOJ probe into 20 B green bank grants (not a loan). There is Greenhouse Gas reduction fund 27 B. 20 B was given to 8 nonprofits all tied to Obama and Biden weeks before DJT took office. Citibank accounts were used. EPA Administrator Lee Zeldin is going to revoke this slush fund.

EPA Advisor Brent Efron exposed this fraud.

Some names of the non-profits:

Coalition for Green Capital
Climate United fund
Power forward Communities
Opportunity Finance Network
Inclusiv
Justice Climate fund.

Looks like bonanza times with the green initiative hoax in the US. Cyrano and Vayu saars please note.

This is the technique - come up with great sounding names for a cause and siphon of money without any squealing. And the US is pulling up Adani enterprise for corruption! Bidenwa and Kamala need to visit US jails soon.

youtube.com/watch?v=pK52yM9y6oE

[chetak]

Indians should see this

Columbia University expelled students who supported Hamas

It even took away degrees

In USA, establishment does not tolerate nonsense

Liberals support saying "Bharat ke tukde" only in India

Now V-Dem will give USA another promotion in Democracy Index

[Mort Walker]

^^^I’ll bet all of the Ivys, MIT, Univ of Chicago & Stanford will do the exact same thing.

[Vayutuvan]

No isle of man Corporation doesn't require you to pay local / /uk taxes.. you still need to report your income s if US citizen and pay taxes there !.. Recently HSBC was fined for apparently not enforcing such details

Yeah, I remember that. But those who want to avoid taxes probably can do so, I am sure. How can one create 10 jobs with USD 1 million? Only businesses open for them are some fast food franchise or gas station where the created jobs are low paying. USD 5 million is for those who made money in tech area and want to move here. I think big companies also can buy these to hire top talent from MIT/Stanford/Berkeley/UIUC/CMU. For each such hire, they can easily create ten jobs in a newly created group. $ 5 million is really a good deal. They will get that person to stay till their stocks are vested at least, i.e. four years. Then there are several bright folks who made money want to move from failing Europe/authoritarian China/two-system HK/Rigid Singapore/Red Tape Bharat to the US.

Personal tax rates in Europe and even Canada are much more than in the US, especially in up and coming states like NC, IN, TN in addition to the old favorites - TX, AZ, and FL.

[Cyrano]

If the funds are squeezed they will.

[Vayutuvan]

Looks like bonanza times with the green initiative hoax in the US. Cyrano and Vayu saars please note.

This is the technique - come up with great sounding names for a cause and siphon of money without any squealing. And the US is pulling up Adani enterprise for corruption! Bidenwa and Kamala need to visit US jails soon.

We are all "MAGA morons" you see. Even @Cyrano who is not even American, AFAIK. Why? We are asking for accountability of how our tax money has been spent.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Boondoggle

Dynamics

The term "boondoggle" may also be used to refer to protracted government or corporate projects involving large numbers of people and usually heavy expenditure, where at some point, the key operators, having realized that the project will never work, are still reluctant to bring this to the attention of their superiors. Generally there is an aspect of "going through the motions"—for example, continuing research and development—as long as funds are available to keep paying the researchers' and executives' salaries.

The situation can be allowed to continue for what seems like unreasonably long periods, as senior management are often reluctant to admit that they allowed a failed project to go on for so long. In many cases, the actual device itself may eventually work, but not well enough to ever recoup its development costs.[citation needed]

One example is the RCA "SelectaVision" video disk system project, begun in the early 1960s and continuing for nearly 20 years, long after cheaper and better alternatives had come to market. RCA was estimated to have spent about $750 million (1985 dollars) (equivalent to $1.65 billion in 2014 dollars) on this commercially nonviable system, which was one of the factors leading to its sale to GE and later breakup in 1986.

Balanced literacy, a theory of teaching reading and writing the English language that arose in the 1990s, was prominent in early literacy curricula across the United States until the 2020s after decades of overall low reading achievement and a persistent racial gap. One publisher of balanced literacy materials, Heinemann made at least $1.6 billion in sales during a ten-year period between 2012 and 2022.[11] Supporters of balanced literacy claim there is no reading crisis because the scores on the National Assessment of Educational Progress (NAEP) were mostly flat for decades,[12] with 37 percent reading below Basic level.[13] However, at least 18 states are considering new laws to remove balanced literacy and instead use methods aligned with cognitive science research about how children learn to read.[14]

The F-35 Joint Strike Fighter program has suffered massive cost and schedule overruns and the fighter's military utility is the subject of heated controversy, yet the program continues to be the highest priority procurement activity for the United States Department of Defense.[15]

The Zumwalt-class destroyer and Littoral combat ship have been described similarly.[16][17]

The Berlin Brandenburg Airport opened eight years after its original scheduled completion at a cost of 7 billion euros, almost three times its original budget. One of the more glaring causes of its overruns was a fire safety system intended to vent smoke downward, against its natural flow. This system was devised by one of the project's designers who falsely claimed to be an engineer.[18][19] (ed. Reminds me of some BRF posters who keep referring to "smart people who looked deeply at climate change models, Green Hydrogen, ... )

Target Canada opened 133 stores starting in 2013 but shut down completely after two years, producing a write-down for its parent company of over 5 billion US dollars.[20][21] The fiasco was set into motion by Target acquiring almost $2 billion worth of leases from the defunct retailer Zellers, which compelled Target to hurriedly open more than 100 stores without a working supply chain in place.[22]

The Lower Churchill Project in Newfoundland and Labrador, slated for completion in 2021, overran its initial Can$6.2 billion budget by more than 6 billion. Current Nalcor Energy CEO Stan Marshall has described the project as a boondoggle.[23]

The California High-Speed Rail has also been criticized as a boondoggle due to major cost overruns and long delays in construction.[24] When originally proposed in 2008, the project cost was estimated to be $40 billion with a proposed completion date in 2022. The projected cost has since increased to as high as $98 billion with rail service not projected to begin until 2029 at the earliest.[25] (ed. Dimwitocrats are considering this nepokid Newsome to be one of their last best hope to save their party)

Since 2014, the US Public Interest Research Group has documented 58 highway boondoggle projects that have been planned, cancelled or constructed. In all, these 58 projects cost US Taxpayers $135 billion in capital costs, as well as constantly increasing maintenance costs.[26]

I am sure a lot more will be added to this list by the time DOGE is done with it's auditing of GOTUS spending.

[Vayutuvan]

If the funds are squeezed they will.

Bulls eye. Columbia would have lost $1 billion funding per annum. Most of that funding actually helps STEM research. Humanities folks take a free ride and also they cause these kinds of problems for a university which is one of the top places for STEM, and Financial Engg.

Same is happening with Northwestern which has same kind of endowment as Columbia. Yearly costs at NW are upwards USD 95K but their Medical Sciences programs are some of the top in the country and ofc Kellogg School. They have large and well regarded Journalism program but I don't think they bring as much as money as their STEM. Just like others, they also take large amounts of money from Qatar.

[Kati]

In Milwaukee since she was an infant, a 37-year-old Hmong American woman has been deported to Laos. What to know.

https://www.jsonline.com/story/news/loc ... 415744007/

[Kati]

B.C. woman detained at U.S. border, sent to Arizona in chains, to be transferred Friday

Jasmine Mooney, 35, has been detained in inhumane conditions since March 3 but could be released this weekend.

https://vancouversun.com/news/bc-woman- ... ase-update

[Kati]

^^^

Overall, things are pretty messy, and ham-handed....
There will be a massive backlash soon. However, in the coming four years Unkil will cease to exist as the Unkil we have known all along. The deep state will be dismantled to some extent, but a lot of ordinary people will be collateral damage - so much so that the Dumbocrats will come back roaring.

[Tanaji]

The ICE, CBP, police etc have been ham handed and subjecting non whites to inhumane treatment for a long time now, irrespective of whether it’s a Rep or Dem in office. It’s only now in focus as whites have been caught up in it….

[Vayutuvan]

B.C. woman detained at U.S. border, sent to Arizona in chains, to be transferred Friday

Jasmine Mooney, 35, has been detained in inhumane conditions since March 3 but could be released this weekend.

https://vancouversun.com/news/bc-woman- ... ase-update

I had quite a bad experience in Montreal in 1993. I already had a US green card and was a PhD three years into my PhD. I had to make quick trip to India for my mom's brain surgery. I went via Montreal to take my sister and family with me. My ride, a friend of ours of Indian origin who had been a Candian citizen for a decade already was waiting outside. I was kept waiting for 30 mins outside a room then taken into that room by two immigration officials and was grilled for one hour.

Maybe it was because I have an Indian passport? I am still unable to figure out. I did take visa for Canada. Even then they treated me like dirt. My friend was getting worried as to what had happened to me. She was surprised at the treatment meted out to me.

It goes both ways. I had bad experiences both in Canada and UK.

[Vayutuvan]

The ICE, CBP, police etc have been ham handed and subjecting non whites to inhumane treatment for a long time now, irrespective of whether it’s a Rep or Dem in office. It’s only now in focus as whites have been caught up in it….

Tanaji ji, see above. Non-whites get treated worse in UK and Canada. Once we were visiting Toronto. We were in a city-hopper that double decker bus. Myself, SHQ and two kids. The tour guide started asking everybody to say where they are from. She was all smiles with everybody. When our trune came she had no smile on her face. We said we are from Illinois, USA. She had absolutely no expression and moved on. I could see the disappointment in my children's faces. The next were a young couple from Australia. Tour guide got very excited and started babbling something like "We Canadians and you Australians get along very well". Everybody was jolly. That ruined my day for me. Canadian food is terrible even though they have the same restaurants as in the US. Extremely bland same as British boiled meatloaf bland.

I find the US to be the least racist country among the five countries I had visited/lived for some time - The Netherlands, Switzerland, UK, Canada, and the US. In the US, east europeans are more racist towards Indian origin folks than even the so called "red necks" midwesterners who actually are quite nice.

[sanjaykumar]

Before the Islamic fear set in, I was one of the boys in the US. At least in the cities. Since 2001, people are more guarded. I am not even sure I can blame them. It is like the average Indian interacting with a dude with bushy beard sans moustache. At any rate I really loved being in the US then.


The east Europeans are hilariously racist for a people who were outside the pale ( pun intended). Of course it is because they were and are not accepted as true Europeans that drives this behaviour.

Things are still largely good in Canada. The influx of Sikhs has definitely affected attitudes. There is a wariness.

It is much easier if one is westernised in appearance and speaks English without a strong accent. A chip on the shoulder doesn’t
work with Canadians or I dare say with any people.

I have not had problems at the US border so far. They have a job to do. I let them do it. If anything, they have been polite to the point of being friendly. Or is that in the manual too. Hehe. To ferret out trouble makers.

It is not fair but a wealthier, educated presentation with a complexion that is more Mediterranean help.

Ethnic dress, religious marks on the forehead and strong cooking odours may hinder. Again can’t say I blame them, human nature i e subconscious biases.

[Kati]

^^^

Agree 100%

[Kati]

This moron should know that OCI is a privilege, not a right.

US journalist sues Indian government after losing his overseas citizenship
https://www.theguardian.com/world/2025/ ... itizenship

[Kati]

Before the Islamic fear set in, I was one of the boys in the US. At least in the cities. Since 2001, people are more guarded. I am not even sure I can blame them. It is like the average Indian interacting with a dude with bushy beard sans moustache. At any rate I really loved being in the US then.


The east Europeans are hilariously racist for a people who were outside the pale ( pun intended). Of course it is because they were and are not accepted as true Europeans that drives this behaviour.

Things are still largely good in Canada. The influx of Sikhs has definitely affected attitudes. There is a wariness.

It is much easier if one is westernised in appearance and speaks English without a strong accent. A chip on the shoulder doesn’t
work with Canadians or I dare say with any people.

I have not had problems at the US border so far. They have a job to do. I let them do it. If anything, they have been polite to the point of being friendly. Or is that in the manual too. Hehe. To ferret out trouble makers.

It is not fair but a wealthier, educated presentation with a complexion that is more Mediterranean help.

Ethnic dress, religious marks on the forehead and strong cooking odours may hinder. Again can’t say I blame them, human nature i e subconscious biases.

In Sanskrit there is a saying - "Yashmin Deshey YaadaChaar..."
If the Desi Mango-Public show up at the western gates with their exotic appearances then can't blame the hosts showing a squeamish attitude.

[Kati]

Rubio declares South African ambassador to US ‘persona non grata’ over Trump comments

https://thehill.com/policy/internationa ... non-grata/

[Kati]

We are living through an exciting time .....
It would be a great opportunity to mock NYT, WaPo, etc on X with the above published incidents why these guardians of democracy and Hooman-Risghts are lying so low.

[Kati]

We are living through an exciting time .....
It would be a great opportunity to mock NYT, WaPo, etc on X with the above published incidents why these guardians of democracy and Hooman-Rights are lying so low.

[Kati]

We are living through an exciting time .....
It would be a great opportunity to mock NYT, WaPo, etc on X with the above published incidents why these guardians of democracy and Hooman-Rights are lying so low.

[Kati]

DOJ Memo Bad News For Employers Of H-1B Visa Holders And Other Immigrants

https://www.forbes.com/sites/stuartande ... -1b-visas/

[drnayar]

Ranjani Srinivasan, an Indian student studying in US & was involved in activities supporting Hamas uses U.S. Customs and Border Protection Home App to Self Deport: US home land security statement

[drnayar]

We are living through an exciting time .....
It would be a great opportunity to mock NYT, WaPo, etc on X with the above published incidents why these guardians of democracy and Hooman-Risghts are lying so low.

ah that did slip under the radar for most people.. best to lie low or get smacked left and right .. i dont think the maga crowd is in a forgiving mood for any of their pearls of "wisdom"

[vimal]

DOJ Memo Bad News For Employers Of H-1B Visa Holders And Other Immigrants

https://www.forbes.com/sites/stuartande ... -1b-visas/

Entire article was filled with illegal immigration with a small section about H1B with no new regulations. Stop spreading fud. Democrats love to conflate legal and illegal immigration to spread confusion.

[saip]

Bhutan is placed on the Trump's red list along with Afghanistan. No visas. Do they even know where Bhutan is? Pakistan is on Orange list. These appear to be preliminary.
NY Times