[Please trim the digest before replying to it. --Goanet Admin] From: Jules Fausto Mendonca de Sa <faustodes...@hotmail.com> To: "goanet@lists.goanet.org" <goanet@lists.goanet.org> Date: Wed, 1 Feb 2017 14:46:34 +0000 Subject: Re: Goanet Digest, Vol 12, Issue 68
Dear Jim, Thank you for your message. If you had bothered to read through you would have realised that I had only made a passing remark about the US and instead spoke mainly about the issues in the UK. Now that you have tried to be sarcastic, you are probably ignorant to the fact that your beloved President's mother is said to have been one of those illegal Immigrants known to have jumped of the ship. We will never know whether welfare payments enabled her and her husband to build on and put their son in the highest office. You also seem to be very ignorant of the establishment of the US by conveniently forgetting those individuals from the old world (known to have jumped of the ships) and made America their home and in the process wiping out the Native American population. Good for you that you were a legal immigrant to the US. Would you elucidate as to how this came about? Were you accepted as an entrepreneur applying through a business Visa or did you come through the legal loophole of being a student or being sponsored by a family member who happened to have used the same student visa system or an overstaying tourist. I happen to know many Goans in the US (living there since the 1950s) - many of whom travelled there on tourists or student visas, overstayed. These availed of work permits and green cards and eventually became naturalised US Citizens, who then in turn sponsored immigration of their immediate relatives back home. There were other Goans who were there on tourist visas - known to visit hospitals to meet with terminally ill people (offer them sums of money in return for a paper marriage) and become residents. This fad was popular in the 1970s and was even depicted in the film 'Green Card' starring Gerard Depardieu. One of the cases was of a Goan man marrying an African American woman in the 1970s to stay in the USA. Once he got his stay - he divorced her and married someone of his choice. His mother who was sponsored to emigrate to the US was a proud Catholic lady and refused on principle as she had appreciated this African American woman and instead decided to spend her years in Goa. A lot of Goans living and working illegally in the US would apply for regularising their stay when Amnesty was issued. The same goes for Canada. The people moving in the 1950s and 1960s moved there on tourists visas and stayed on. In those days a handful emigrated on entrepreneur visas. The exodus in 1972 to Canada of the Goans and people of Indian origin from Uganda fleeing the tyranny of Idi Amin was allowed by then Canadian Government. They were in essence refugees. Why did they not chose to return en masse to India (their actual homeland) The trickle in the 1980s and 1990s attracting people from the Subcontinent and the Middle East was facilitated by Immigration Consultants for a fee of course, who would arrange to manipulate facts and qualifications and accordingly assist people to process their applications. Cities in India, Pakistan and the Gulf were considered more difficult as they required higher points systems. Colombo in Sri Lanka was considered to be of Medium difficulty and Rome was used for the week cases. I know of hundreds of families (who might have not qualified legally) availing of this system. These people are now well settled in Canada and are a success in their fields. If they were not allowed these loopholes they would possibly have remained in their homelands. >From what I see - you appear to be a very selfish individual, who instead of helping people wants to keep them away. You are very much like a few of the Goans that I met in the aftermath of the Brexit vote. These so called brown Englishmen (who arrived in the UK from Africa) very proudly indicated to me that they had retired in their early 50s as they did not want to pay taxes to support needy people claiming benefits. Later I came to learn that these individuals never actually paid their taxes in the UK but used legal loopholes to retain their earnings in offshore accounts and yet they are sponging of the medical system for which my wife and I have paid into since we moved to the UK 15 and 20 years ago respectively. I don't begrudge people who are poor availing of these services but dislike these 'self righteous Goans' doing so. Finally humanity and our Christian faith was propagated through movement of people. Regards Jules