When I was growing up, most citizens living under the socialist republic were not allowed to visit abroad, immigrate, or emigrate. The borders were shut tightly, holding everyone inside like a giant maximum-security prison controlled by the Communist Party and its dear leader.
The government had an anti-emigration policy, immigration was suppressed, and travel abroad was tightly controlled and only allowed to those who had a clean record, deemed so by the Communist Party who investigated a person's lineage, political activity, land ownership, real estate, and private property. Emigration, the actual moving and settling permanently in another country was highly discouraged and so was immigration, the temporary movement of people from one country to another.
If the parents and grandparents were considered "objectionable" by the Communist Party, that person never saw any meaningful jobs, promotions, admission to college, free attendance, and other benefits only available to the lapdog apparatchiks.
If a person's ancestors had fought the Communist Party, the Russian Bolsheviks, owned land, a home, were considered bourgeois and undesirable. Few people would want to associate with them or marry them lest they would be marked as well. Their dossiers were compromised for life.
To escape such a prison, one could try swimming across the Danube to Bulgaria, another communist country, or cross the border west into Yugoslavia. A few married foreigners to escape, many attempted defections while on temporary travel abroad, if they could escape their assigned handlers, or were successful in defecting in creative ways. Some were killed or imprisoned for life for such attempts at escaping across the highly militarized border. If they managed to escape, their families left behind were mistreated and even jailed.
An annual quota of 11,000 ethnic Germans and 1,000 Jews were allowed emigration to West Germany and to Israel in exchange for hard currency, German marks, or dollars, paid by West Germany and Israel to the Communist Party coffers.
Studying abroad during the socialist regime was only reserved for the children of the Communist Party members who were higher in the elite hierarchy. Learning English was discouraged as a foreign language, replaced by French and Russian. University students were told "to stay away from the small American Embassy library and to avoid and ignore exchange professors and students" and visitors from other countries.
Approximately 2,500-3,000 Romanians were allowed to emigrate to the U.S. annually in exchange for the most favored nation status (MFN) as part of the trade agreement of 1975. (Pinstripes and Reds, David Funderburk, 1987)
A certain percentage of more recent emigres to the U.S. were winners of an annual lottery. This type of visa is called the "diversity visa lottery" and requires a high school diploma and at least two years of work experience. This visa is also known as the green card visa and 55,000 people are chosen from those who apply. Time Is Running Out For Diversity Visa 2021 Applicants (immigrationdirect.com)
It is interesting to note that the more educated individuals have a harder time getting a visa, while the U.S. immigration policy encourages and allows the flotsam and jetsam of the third world to come to the U.S. illegally through the southern border in hopes that they will augment the Democrat voting rolls.
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You could say that our immigration policy is racist in terms of the number of Caucasians allowed to emigrate and immigrate to the United States. "Between 2010 and 2020 about 97% of all refugees were non-white." Around 10 percent of the immigrants allowed into the U.S. between 2010-2020 were white and Asian.
And there is also the fiancé visa, K-1, the visa made famous by the reality show, "90 Day Fiancé." The prospective foreign fiancé has 90 days to come to the U.S. and get married to a U.S. citizen.
Finally, there are student and tourist visas. Students and tourists overstay their visas and, if they are lucky, they are never returned to their home country. Out of thousands of overstayers, only a few were deported back to their home countries.
The F-1 visa allows foreign nationals to stay after graduation, working for a company in the U.S. for a period of 12-36 months. An article in 2020 stated that some foreign students were actually "working" for fake companies. Thousands of foreign students in U.S. on student visas may have 'worked' for fake companies (nbcnews.com)
In addition to the F-1 visa, there is an M-1 visa for vocational training and a J-1 visa for an exchange visitor program. The longer-term options for such students are H1-B visas and LPR (lawful permanent residence) status. Foreign STEM Students in the United States (congress.gov)
According to the Congressional Service Report of November 1, 2019, "More than 1 million foreign students in the United States on student visas were enrolled in U.S. Of these, almost half (497,413) were studying STEM disciplines. The countries that dominated such STEM disciplines were China, India, Saudi Arabia, South Korea, Iran, Nepal, Taiwan, Vietnam, Kuwait, and Canada." Foreign STEM Students in the United States (congress.gov)
According to the Pew Research, during the Covid-19 pandemic the foreign student college enrollment in the 2020-2021 school year dropped by 15 percent, with less than a million foreign students enrolled online and at U.S. universities. Foreign student enrollment at U.S. universities fell 15% amid COVID-19 | Pew Research Center
The Atlantic authored an article in 2019 claiming that visa overstays are the immigration crisis, not the southern border illegal immigration. Since people on student visas are vetted, including medically, it is hardly credible that such foreign nationals would pose a larger threat than those flooding our southern border every day, unvaccinated and sick, carrying diseases that Americans are not prepared to pay for and deal with in public, in hospitals, and in school settings. The Real Immigration Crisis: People Overstaying Their Visas - The Atlantic
Experiencing a totalitarian regime where nobody is allowed outside the country's borders is oppressive but we have to be careful and not go to the extreme, throwing the borders wide-open to a massive influx of unvetted and detrimental individuals who are going to put a severe strain on our society. It is a dangerous direction and it is no surprise that Governor Greg Abbott of Texas made good on his promise to bus illegal immigrants from Texas to Washington, D.C. The first bus arrived yesterday.
Dr. Ileana Johnson Paugh, Ileana Writes is a freelance writer, author, radio commentator, and speaker. Her books, “Echoes of Communism”, “Liberty on Life Support” and “U.N. Agenda 21: Environmental Piracy,” “Communism 2.0: 25 Years Later” are available at Amazon in paperback and Kindle.
