And by the way, comedian and real-life immigrant Felipe Torres Medina recently wrote a great book: America, Let Me In. (It’s available on amazon.com.)
The book tells entertaining stories about the U.S. immigration system and includes information about many types of visas. But first, readers are asked to “Select a Difficulty Level,” to introduce discussions about how difficult legal immigration can be — and four alternatives are listed on page 9. The first one says: To come to America the “easy” way, turn to page 11. And when you turn to page 11 it says:
There is no easy way to move to America….
THE END
RETURN TO PAGE 9
But whether an immigrant’s path is easy, medium, hard, or very hard, every year large numbers of people very much want to come to America. Why? Mr. Medina’s book says this in its final chapter:
I do think that people like me choose to move to America because America is — and don’t cancel me — pretty good. Could it be better? Most things can be, but as of this writing, in 2024, the United States is a decent place to live compared to several — if not most — other countries in the world….
This country is often described as a Great Experiment. It’s kind of enmeshed in its national identity. And the thing about experiments is that there’s stuff that’s gonna go wrong. And then you fix them. Or you try to…. And I think that’s why people move here. Because despite its many, many mistakes, the United States historically has striven to be better. To continue to improve. To experiment and find ways to achieve better things for more people. That’s a good experiment.
