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Comment by ng12 | Hacker News Reader

What is "wrong" about that? It's a simple reality: there are way more people desiring to immigrate to the USA than the government thinks it can handle.

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Per country of origin cap makes little sense.

Canadian immigration process assigns points for various qualities and qualifications legislature deemed desired and every couple of weeks x top scoring applicants get an immigration visa (pr).

The US does have a system like that. The EB Visa is a permanent visa for high-skilled workers: EB1 is the highest-priority for advanced degree holders, EB3 is lower-priority for generally skilled workers.

H1-B is designed to just be a pool to temporarily fill labor shortages in the US. It's not intended to be the path for PR hence why it's admittedly arbitrary.

> H1-B is designed to just be a pool to temporarily fill labor shortages in the US. It's not intended to be the path for PR hence why it's admittedly arbitrary.

I think that is incorrect. It is expected for F-1 students to move to an H1-B (which allows intent to immigrate) and then move to PR (usually via an EB)

It's not set up that way. It's only easier by virtue of already living in the US and having qualifications gained in the US system.

You do realize, even in the EB system, there are per-country caps based on the country of birth?

Which means, if you are from India and are waiting in the EB2 queue, you have to painfully maintain H1-B status for 15-20 years.

I did not.

It seems to me then the real problem is India's brain drain. I don't see how lifting the cap would be good for American workers or the Indian economy.

I am working through an EB-1 visa because H1B was untenable (I'm a bootstrapped company cofounder AND an Indian citizen). It has been an extremely stressful, constraining process with numerous hoops, large financial costs, several delays, requests for evidence (which they accepted basically with rewording the original petition), etc., and has taken over 1.5 years already, and I just received a final approval last week.

I still haven't received the actual card, and have been given no date, no tracking#, no interview, nothing. Just "your petition was approved..go back to your stressful wait because it doesn't mean much until you get the document."

In the meantime I'm not eligible for coverage under ACA, cannot be unemployed over 90 days, cannot leave the country, cannot work on anything to do with a defense contract, cannot risk commenting on politics on social media, etc. All this after I acquired a coveted O1A visa to move back in the first place, after 2 years of working on my company remotely while I was out of status.

This hasn't been "dead simple" as gp implies Canadian merit-residencies are. Not in the slightest. It has been expensive, time consuming and stressful. It's been a constant distraction from my work for longer than the lifespan of most startups in Silicon Valley.

> Per country of origin cap makes little sense.

If you want immigration due to diversity (which Canada dos) then it would make sense to limit based on country of origin, no? Otherwise you wouldn't get as much diversity.

Yeah, but why not make it merit based? Currently it uses an arbitrary value of where you are born.

This forces people from India to stay on H1-B for 15-20 years, and prevents them from easily changing jobs or opening a business.

There are lots of merit-based immigration programs (EB1, EB2, EB3, O1, etc). H1-B is a lottery by design; it's supposed to be the "labor pool" visa.

I don't think you understand. EB2 actually has per-country caps. Once you are in the Eb2 queue, you have to wait 15-20 years if you were born in India. That is what needs to be fixed.

The process should be completely merit based.

> EB2 actually has per-country caps. Once you are in the Eb2 queue, you have to wait 15-20 years if you were born in India. [...] The process should be completely merit based.

Because... can I ask why, exactly?

why what? Not sure which part of that quote you are referring to.

I'm asking why you think the immigration process should be merit based. What objective would it optimize for?

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