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> The sword of Damocles hangs over our heads - lose your job and you have 10 days to find a new one, or get out

No, you don't even have 10 days -- it's zero days. You are immediately out-of-status (or in more common parlance, an "illegal immigrant") as soon as your H-1B employer terminates you.

USCIS has an official FAQ / Q&A on this: https://www.uscis.gov/tools/ombudsman-liaison/practical-immi...

I'll quote them here: "If the employment ends, this condition is no longer satisfied and the individual is no longer in a lawful nonimmigrant status and may be subject to removal proceedings." and "There is no automatic 10-day or other grace period for terminated employees holding H-1B status".

The employer is required, by law, to notify USCIS as soon as your employment ends. So USCIS does know immediately, that you are out-of-status.

Indeed. There are ways to get USCIS to grant you a few days, but again, nothing is certain. Living as a legal immigrant isn't as stressful as being an illegal one - but it's not too far off.

My job is fairly secure, but who knows, right? I have a range of worst-case-scenario strategies, including how to quickly sell everything I have and move to Canada (which is far more welcoming of highly skilled people - I qualify).

I wish I didn't have to think of all this though. I shouldn't have to. I do everything according to the letter of the law, work hard, pay my taxes. None of that matters. Lose my job - and bye-bye life in the US.

I know people who don't make as much as I do and aren't getting job offers. They are even worse off and often complain of feeling like slaves to their employers. My company doesn't treat me any different to a US citizen - but smaller companies routinely abuse their H1 workers, because they know they have them over a barrel.

> Living as a legal immigrant isn't as stressful as being an illegal one - but it's not too far off.

True, whether USCIS chooses to act on a sudden unexpected layoff you might have, and begin "removal proceedings" against you -- or in other words, send ICE agents to your home, arrest you, throw you in a detention center ("jail") for an indefinite amount of time, until you are put on a plane back to India (forcibly), is up in the air.

The likelihood is that, as someone who came to this country on a skilled visa, you are probably not on the top of their priority list. There is also, prosecutorial discretion. If you get laid of suddenly, and if you find another willing sponsor super-fast (in let's say, 10 days), they can basically ask USCIS for forgiveness for the fact that you were out-of-status. They'd have to write a letter explaining that the circumstances were outside your control. However, prosecutorial discretion, is completely at the discretion of the officer reviewing your case.

However, another thing to be much more wary about is, if you were let's say driving in Alabama, where police officers can stop you[1] on suspicion that you are illegal (for which the sole, if not primary criteria is race/appearance), they can and do contacted the federal government to check if you are in the country legally, and you could be dragged and chucked into an ICE detention facility by the local police.

Alabama law requires local police to do this. But I've heard of stories of police in upstate New York doing this unilaterally (not because state law directs them to). NY driver licenses show the expiration date of your visa. This person had overstayed their F-1 student visa, and the upstate NY officer after seeing the visa expiration date on the driver license, dragged him over to ICE and handed him over. What's interesting is that NY doesn't have any state law[2] that requires the police to do this. With Indian people being frequently confused for Hispanic people, you are at high risk in any rural part of this country, or really any part of the U.S. with low immigrant populations.

[1] Alabama has a statute that allows them to do that: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Arizona_SB_1070 It was much harsher, as originally you would have been made guilty of criminal felony (under state law) for not having legal status, but the Supreme Court overturned most of it, except for the ability of local police to randomly stop you because of "reasonable suspicion" that you lack legal status: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Arizona_v._United_States

[2] But the local laws of New York City expressly prohibits this. The local laws of the "sanctuary cities" in the U.S. all expressly prohibit the police from inquiring about your immigrant status. Even if they can know from just looking at your driver license that you are illegal, the sanctuary cities prohibit the police from taking any action based on this. More on this: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sanctuary_city

One more thing: the President has the power to make a rule saying that all H-1B visa holders receive X days of guaranteed prosecutorial discretion, if they are laid off / terminated.

We could petition the President and ask him to create such a rule, but we'd need a lot of people, and a lot of support. If you are interested in working on this, feel free to get in touch with me at the email address listed on my GitHub profile (which is linked to on my HN profile).

I agree it's not easy. I also was an H-1B, and in the exact same situation.

I have heard contradictory things from various lawyers about whether I could continue a green card process if I changed employment. Even if there is a correct interpretation of the law, you can't rely on them applying it to you because as a non-US citizen you're at the mercy of the bureaucracy. Big companies can get what they want, not individuals.

I wasn't happy with where I was working, and though they were willing to sponsor me for a green card, all the advice I got was that I would have to wait ten years or more. I didn't want to wait a decade to be more entrepreneurial, so I left instead. Also I was just sick of all the hoops I had to keep jumping through, scary experiences at the border, trivial screw-ups from lawyers meaning unexpected stays out of the country.... but most of all, how it made me a much more compliant person in my day-to-day work. I survived some difficult situations (and did jump employers once) but it was never easy.

Other people in my situation, who are tired of being some company's indentured servant, sometimes do different visas. The O-1 is surprisingly popular, even though it's written like you have to be Stephen Hawking to qualify. But I guess I didn't have the werewithal to do that.

In the original article, the congressperson commented about how the visa program doesn't attract entrepreneurial people. That was crazy. Lots of us are entrepreneurial! The H-1B visa is designed to stop us from doing that.

Can't you switch jobs easily once your I-140 is approved, without worrying about losing your spot in the line (priority date)?

I've known people at my company with approved applications, that left to work elsewhere.

In theory, yes. You can switch jobs, but you have to reapply for a new PERM with the details of the new job, and your previous priority date.

However, if USCIS decides to deny the new PERM, or ask for additional evidence, or who knows what else - you could lose your spot AND lose your ability to work and have to leave immediately. There are many things that could go wrong - the lawyers could screw up, Congress might change the rules, your new company might decide to withdraw the I-140.

It's a risk, and the question is your willingness to take that risk. If I get offered a job where I'm getting paid more that $220K, I might take that risk. Below that, it's simply not worth it for me. And I'm not alone in this.

The elected federal government officials need campaign contributions to stay in office, and most campaign financing comes from the businesses. Until we curtail this, you will not see any meaningful reform to the H-1B visa.

Actually, I doubt restricting campaign spending by businesses will help the OP in his case.

The OP was talking about how restrictive and capricious the skilled immigration laws were on him. A person elected by nativist populist voters will likely try to take away the OP's freedom (and ability to stay here), and make his life worse.

One organization working for the OP's benefit, and the benefit of all skilled immigrants, as well the as the many undocumented is Fwd.us: http://www.fwd.us/ They're funded by Bill Gates, Mark Zuckerberg, etc. Just as a note, many of these people have signed the Giving Pledge, so they're not the evil billionaires people like to make them out to be: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Giving_Pledge

Other pro-immigration organizations, like the Chamber of Commerce, are also funded by big businesses. The Koch brothers are pro-immigrant, and have said they support legalizing the 11-12 million undocumented here. There is a lot of broad support in the business sector for making our laws more immigrant-friendly.

The OP's life would have been a lot better had the 2013 "Gang of 8" Senate immigration bill (S.744, 133th Congress) passed: https://www.govtrack.us/congress/bills/113/s744

It would have made our immigration system a couple of order of magnitudes better, and made life for skilled immigrant especially better.

It didn't pass, not because of business opposition to it, but because of right-wing tea-partyer grassroots nativist sentiment, and congressmen who were beholden to them.

Just as a note, the "evil billionaire" reputation comes from how the billions were earned, not how they are spent later on. Future good cannot "greenwash" present evil, but given the fait accompli, we also shouldn't let past misdeeds taint present good.

I don't want to start a big off-topic thread about philanthropy, just point out some nuance that was missed by your note.

I am curious if you have checked to see if you can qualify for O visa?

Yes, I have checked. I don't think I do. O visas require clear proof of exceptional ability - and in my field, I'd have to show multiple international publications, awards won, a SJD, etc.

O visas are easy to get if you're an author, celebrity, renowned professor, and so on.

I'm not in that category. I have publications in international journals and corporate awards - but an O visa would be a stretch.

It's easier for me to leave the US for a year, and come back and reapply under the EB1 classification, and this is something that I am seriously considering. It depends on what new rules the USCIS makes this year - and also on the outcome of the upcoming Presidential election.

Lots of people seem to be getting O visas anyway. I don't really know how, but ask a lawyer.