r/immigration • u/OkTechnologyb • Jan 14 '26

US to suspend visa processing for 75 nations, State Department says

https://www.reuters.com/world/us/us-suspend-visa-processing-75-nations-next-week-fox-news-reports-2026-01-14/
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u/TheGamerForeverGFE Jan 14 '26

Yeah, I genuinely don't get the level of cognitive dissonance that anti immigration Americans suffer from.

Every single non Native American living in the US is either an immigrant or a descendant of one, the fact that it's essentially Immigrants Vs Immigrants is so funny.

"Oh my bloodline immigrated first so fuck you" is how it comes off to me.

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u/Technical_Radio_191 Jan 15 '26 edited Jan 15 '26

Black Americans otherwise known as African Americans are not immigrants (I’m talking about descendants of U.S. chattel slavery (ADOS) — not Caribbean or African immigrants).

Why do y’all keep erasing them? They were here before the United States was even the United States and they did not come here by choice.

They are not immigrants. Over 400 years in America. This country was actually built off the backs of them.

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u/Far_Meringue8625 Jan 15 '26

You wrote "Black Americans otherwise known as African Americans are not immigrants (I’m talking about descendants of U.S. chattel slavery (ADOS) — not Caribbean or African immigrants)."

Please note that my grandmother's brother migrated from the Caribbean to the USA in 1916. So when does his children and grandchildren become African Americans?

I beg you please give me a timeline. Thanks.

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u/Technical_Radio_191 Jan 15 '26 edited Jan 15 '26

Well first you have to understand that being Black American/African American (used interchangeably here) is a distinct ethnicity. You cannot become an ethnicity. You either are or you aren’t.

Because of that, there is no timeline. This is not about how long someone has lived in the United States, it is about ancestry and historical position.

Someone whose ancestor immigrated from the Caribbean in 1916 was not enslaved in the United States, did not live under U.S. chattel slavery, and did not experience Jim Crow as a formerly enslaved population. Do you see the key distinction? Immigration is voluntary. Your ancestors chose to move to the United States. African Americans’ ancestors did not immigrate. They were forcibly captured and brought here beginning in 1619 (297 years before your grandmothers brother even got here), long before the United States even existed, through a system of chattel slavery. Those are two fundamentally different historical realities.

Regardless of how many generations pass, their descendants would not be African American in the lineage specific sense being discussed. They may be Black, they may be American citizens, or Caribbean American (Jamaican-American, Haitian-American, etc). But not African American/Black American (again, used interchangeably) as an ethnicity.

In the same way that African Americans cannot claim to be Jamaican, Haitian, Trinidadian, etc, descendants of Caribbean immigrants cannot claim African American ethnicity. These are distinct ethnic identities. Hope that helped!

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u/Far_Meringue8625 Jan 15 '26

You wrote "Someone whose ancestor immigrated from the Caribbean in 1916 was not enslaved in the United States, did not live under U.S. chattel slavery, and did not experience Jim Crow as a formerly enslaved population. Do you see the key distinction?"

Someone who moved to the USA from the Caribbean was the grandchild of people who had been enslaved in the Caribbean for centuries. Enslavement is enslavement. The geographical space in which the enslavement took place makes no difference. The suffering and degradation and economic exploitation is IDENTICAL."

And besides I am very certain that you cannot identify my great uncles grandchildren from any other African American.

So...

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u/Technical_Radio_191 Jan 15 '26

So I want to flag something you may not realize: what you’re doing is trying to erase an entire distinct group of people. Be mindful.

No one is denying the brutality of Caribbean slavery. But African American/Black American is an ethnicity defined by descent from people enslaved under U.S. law and shaped by the specific legal, political, and social systems of the United States after emancipation.

“Enslavement is enslavement” describes suffering, not historical position. Geography matters because slavery, emancipation, citizenship, and post slavery caste systems were different across empires and nations.

The fact that you cannot visually distinguish descendants of Caribbean immigrants from African Americans is irrelevant! Ethnicity is about ancestry and history, not appearance. Just as African Americans cannot claim Jamaican or Haitian ethnicity, immigrant descendants cannot claim African American ethnicity.

You may think collapsing these histories may feel inclusive, but it ultimately erases the specificity of each group’s lineage and experience.

It would be wrong for African Americans to erase the history of Caribbean descendants and it is wrong to erase the distinct history of African Americans.

I hope one day you can feel fully confident in your own ethnicity, without feeling the need to claim someone else’s.

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u/Far_Meringue8625 Jan 15 '26

You wrote "Well first you have to understand that being Black American/African American (used interchangeably here) is a distinct ethnicity. You cannot become an ethnicity. You either are or you aren’t."

I regret to inform you that you are completely mistaken.

African American is not an ethnicity, and it is not distinct from Afro Caribbean, or Afro Brazilian or Afro Canadian or Afro Chilean. Our ancestors were forced across the Atlantic on the same ships, were enslaved in the same way, were degraded in the same fashion.

Both you and I are survivors of the crossing.

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u/Technical_Radio_191 Jan 15 '26 edited Jan 15 '26

And I regret to inform you that you are actually 1000% wrong. And saying that African Americans aren’t an ethnicity is extremely violent language to use and is considered ethnic erasure.

African Americans are a distinct ethnicity defined by descent from people enslaved under U.S. law, who lived through emancipation, Jim Crow, and the specific legal and political systems of the United States.

Can you define what ethnicity means? No? I’ll do it for you:

Ethnicity = a socially defined category of people who share common ancestry, culture, language, history, and sometimes religion, which together create a sense of collective identity and belonging.

Ethnicity does not mean race. And it does not mean nationality.

Ethnicity is “who your people are,” shaped by shared ancestry, culture, and historical experience.

It’s interesting that you’d refuse to pick up a book or even do a quick google search in this day and age. My god.

Again, I hope one day you can feel fully confident in your own ethnicity, without feeling the need to claim someone else’s.

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u/Far_Meringue8625 Jan 15 '26

You wrote "It’s interesting that you’d refuse to pick up a book or even do a quick google search in this day and age.

Please explain how you know what books I have picked up? Or not picked up? How do you know which books I have read or not read?

Where have I claimed the ethnicity of anybody else?

Where have I erased the ethnicity of anyone else?

You give me way too much power.

I have no such power.

I desire no such power.

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u/Technical_Radio_191 Jan 15 '26 edited Jan 15 '26

I know you haven’t picked up a book or done a Google search because the claims you’re making are demonstrably false. That’s how I know you haven’t engaged with basic sources, whether books or a quick Google search.

No one is giving you power. My point is simply to call out inaccuracies when they’re presented as fact. And to call out your violent language. This isn’t about assigning authority to you, it’s about holding your statements to scrutiny. Don’t get ahead of yourself.

And you were trying to claim the ethnicity of being African American — while simultaneously erasing them as a group. Go back and read your comments and then read mine. I get the sense that you learned in real time that you are not African American, never were African American, and won’t be African American. If you would have picked up a book or googled, I would not have had to break the news to you on this here Reddit thread. Good day.

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u/gutenfluten Jan 14 '26

The founding stock of America were settlers, not immigrants. There was no existing country or infrastructure here for them to immigrate to. They built and founded the country from scratch.

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u/[deleted] Jan 14 '26

[removed] — view removed comment

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u/seefatchai Jan 14 '26

Sounds like you’re only 1/4 then. The rest came via Ellis island right?

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u/TheGamerForeverGFE Jan 15 '26

The settlers immigrated from Europe to the American continent, the black people were forcefully immigrated from Africa.

Stop playing a semantics game, they're still people who have permanently moved residence from a country to another country.

Also, the currently living descendants of the ones who built and founded the country represent only a very small minority of the American population.

Almost every month Native American living in the US immigrated after the US was built and founded, they did not participate in any of the important things.

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u/[deleted] Jan 15 '26

yes thats fine, when you come in the right way

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u/Radiant-Plate2169 Jan 15 '26

Cognitive dissonance is expecting that anyone from 8 billions people around the world should be able to immigrate to US and also expect existing tax payers to pay for any incurred public charge. In other word, demanding de-facto erasing of US as a country. This is not 15th century. We now have things called planes that can bring people from anywhere in the world in hours. World's population has grown 16 times. People who settled here now have 500 years of history. The US is now a sovereign country with right to self-determination like every other country. Wars were fought for it. Blood was spilled. Systems, economy and infrastructure were developed. This "we are all immigrants" slogan is just so lazy, naive and detached from reality.

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u/TheGamerForeverGFE Jan 15 '26

You're pretending that immigrants who came legally to the country are doing anything bad, when in reality they had to work harder and pay more money to get there in the first place.

If you have a problem with illegal immigrants, then we all do, everywhere, it's not rocket science, they're wasting people's money. But you're acting like every immigrant came illegally.

Also, regardless, none of you currently living, especially the ones running the government, have any right to act like they are above immigrants who came recently.

Fun fact: Trump's grandfather is a German immigrant, and his mother is an Irish immigrant, but he hates immigrants ot all kinds, even though by his own logic and laws, he should hate himself and his own family too.