My cousin lives in Chicago well after his visa expired. While I ordinarily do not condone flaunting the law, he is here because he sees opportunity to have a career here, which in poland would be difficult. While Poland has come a long way, the economy still sucks compared to here, especially for tech sector jobs. He is brilliant and like most Poles, a very hard worker. The BS he had to go through just to come visit was ridiculous. He eventually had to get a J1 visa and participate in a work program which was demeaning for him. But he wanted to experience the USA. While in Poland and about to come over to Canada on a visa (he could not get a tourist visa here), the terrorists attacked us and the airlines were shut down and he could not fly to Toronto from Berlin. He only intended to stay for a short time in Canada, and we were going to meet him in Niagara Falls. While he has overstayed his welcome from an INS standpoint, he is a productive member of society, pays his taxes, and works hard for decent wages. He wants to go to school here and maybe live here. Because of his status he can't go home and be able to return. Poland is right to be outraged. We do not require visas for many other countries. Poland has gone out of its way to prove its loyalty and friendship to the USA and what they are asking for is not much. I doubt there are many Muslims living there. Unlike France and Germany.
Poland has gone out of it's way for the United States and we shouldn't treat our friends this way.
Before EU extension in Western European countries tabloids wrote that workers from Eastern Europe in the number of few thousands of them flood European job market. In effect only few old EU members like UK open their job market from Eastern workers. Now we know that this case was exaggerated to the maximum and nothing special happened, some peoples went work there, but this not change drastically situation in job market. Whole EU afraid of that and in fact three or four countries which didn’t closed their markets manage it calmly.