Visualizing Two Centuries of U.S. Immigration
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Because I am from India, I would never get a Green Card through EB-2 (though I have two approved EB-2 petitions). Yesterday, USCIS denied my EB-1 petition using argument which are against the law. Now I have to leave US :(
I have an approved O-1 (extraordinary ability), but apparently, once you have filed for a Green Card Adjustment of Status, you can't get a visa stamp for anything other than H-1. Not sure if I can come back!
But at this point, wouldn't it just make sense for you to just go to a country which is more welcoming?
p.s. If you are looking for work, I would love to chat with you (simone at fabrica.city), and help you eventually come back to the US (L-1?).
Based on my limited understanding - if you already have a EB-2 petition approved, you should be able to continue working on H1 as long as your employer is sponsoring you unless you're moving out of frustration due to long wait times.
If someone in my situation is forced to do shut down his startup and work for a big firm to stay in US, imagine how difficult it would be for someone else to decide to quit their job to do a startup!
I think big companies have played this well!
1. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Otto_von_Bismarck#Early_legisl... 2. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Emigration_from_Mexico#Recent_....
Being from the UK and having spent time working in the US, I feel like in the last ~10 years it has become harder for Europeans to immigrate to the US.
Does this ring true for anyone?
https://www.quora.com/Why-have-the-final-action-dates-for-th...
If this wasn't done, the vast majority of immigrants to the US would be from China and India at the expense of other countries.
7%, and note that this applies separately to employment-based and family-based immigration, not just in total, which is why the backlogs (and which countries have backlogs) differ between countries.
> If this wasn't done, the vast majority of immigrants to the US would be from China and India
Mexico, actually, by a very, very, very large margin (and that may understate the size of the margin.) The annual quota for family-based immigration is nearly double that for employment-based, and Mexico dominates the waiting list in every family-based category (as well as showing up on the waiting list in several employment-based categories.) Mexico has more people on the waiting to lost for Family Fourth Preference alone than (1) the total annual US immigratiom quota for all categories, (2) twice the number the next two countries have on the waiting list in all categories combined, (3) three times what China has on the waiting list in all categories, combined. They also, aside from waiting lists, have a huge number of immigrants in the unlimited “immediate relative” category (which is uncapped itself, but effects the allocations to the other categories), about 9% of total US immigrant visas of all kinds issued in 2017 were for immigrants from Mexico in that category.
India and China have the most applicants annually in most employment-based categories, but they don't come anywhere close to dominating total applications or total visas that would be issued if the only change was eliminating the per country cap.
If India reformed itself as a union of states, suddenly the backlog of Indian immigrants would be cleared!
It's a perfectly accurate (fraud aside) measure of diversity in country of origin. Whether that's a meaningful kind of diversity is a different question.
> The EU is many countries, but is less diverse than India, a single country.
Less diverse in what?
> If India reformed itself as a union of states, suddenly the backlog of Indian immigrants would be cleared!
That assumes that the sourcing of qualified prospective Indian immigrants to the US is basically uniform across the succesor states India would be a subdivided into.
By displaying the diversity card, you are just keeping people who has high paying jobs worrying about their status all the time, it's not good for them or the economy they are supporting.
The system of defined-in-law preference categories are a system of merit, though of course merit is subjective and one may disagree with the assessment of the merits of particular immigrants that goes into that system.
And yes, not basing it on population side means you are screwed if you come from a big country, but at a huge benefit if from a small country.
What the actual system does is make it so you are screwed if you come from a country with a large number of qualified immigrant applocants in a similar category (employment or family) subject to numerical limits. Population is loosely associated with this, but the biggest negative impact by far, on a country level, is to qualified immigrants from Mexico, and specifically to those in limited, family-based categories. India and China have bigger populations, sure, but much smaller total backlogs of qualified applicants.
And I would go one step further and say that it is probably in the best long term interest to the US to have a large population of ethnic Chinese, for the same reason that Israel has benefitted so greatly by the US having a large and influential Jewish population.
I have a very nuanced view on immigration and I tend to be more republican in my views. i.e. Curbing illegal immigration and moving to a merit vs. lottery based system. America is strong through diversity, but it needs to be controlled in an intelligent way.
That doesn't seem to follow, unless you left out a “not” before “in the interest of” or meant “China” the first time you used “US”.
(I'm not endorsing the result of either change as a correct statement, just commenting on the internal coherence of the statement, and particularly the disanalogy between the juxtaposed situations as presented.)
They are limited to 14% of, separately, the limited employment and family-based visa categories, not 10% (the per country limit is 7%) and not of total immigration.
You can. For instance, you can set limits to the total share sourced from one country, and create a system alongside that where visas are allocated among preference categories based on assessment of the relative deisrability and need for immigrants in each category.
[edit] My brother moved to Orlando a few years ago, and I love visiting for the weather and Theme parks. I took a greyhound bus from Tampa one day and an immigration officer came on the bus and aggressively demanded to inspect my passport. Pretty crazy. I've never been randomly forced to prove I'm allowed to be in the UK in the nearly 40 years I've lived here. Yet, a few short stays in Orlando and I experience that.
I wasn't so much the visit in Orlando -- it was you using a Greyhound bus, which put you in the "possible illegal immigrant/poor person to abuse" category in the eyes of the cop.
They'd be much less likely to stop and ask you anything if you were just driving there yourself, or merely walking around Orlando.
If you're coming over to work in a knowledge field like tech that's less of an issue, pretty much all of those jobs have decent levels of vacation. This year (my 4th year at the company) I have 31 days off (26 base + 5 rolled over from last year) not counting bank holidays and that's going up again when I hit 5 years.
The portrait of the US as a PTO-less hellscape is very true for retail/sales/blue collar workers but the situation is better in many fields.
Meaning we view other countries through their most disadvantaged and genuinely believe that that could be us one day. If America treats their poorest badly, we believe they'd treat us badly if we ever had a bad run of luck.
The UK used to be a country of strong social safety nets, I'm not sure what it is today -- I don't recognise it (without getting overly political).
My first tech job had 2 weeks vacation, 2 weeks sick leave. Next 2 where 16 days total comp bumped to 18 + 2 floating holidays.
UK has a legal minimum of 28 days off, but as with any minimum many are significantly higher.
The loss of sick days also tends to get people to show up to work sick which is terrible downside IMO.
True though we're 90% hot/hotel seating now so pretty much everyone is setup to work from home if they're sick-ish and don't want to use a day.
Somebody posted about how medieval peasants had way more days off than us today - but it turns out it was about equal, considering everything.
The other half of the US equation is many people don't take their full vacation days either though direct pressure or informal social norms. Working weekends are also very common.
Every 5 years you get an additional month off for that year.
But, as it happens, I have been asked for my passport by British authorities on a train ride once in the early 2000s. Presumably if I’d had a British accent they wouldn’t have expected me to have a passport on my person.
I suspect both of us experienced relatively rare events!
It's embarrassing, and I'm questioned all those days in grade school I repeated the Pleadge of Allegiance.
If I had a do over; I would have high tailed it to Europe, or Canada in my twenties.
This includes tech, engineering and other professions. For instance you can get a graduate mechanical engineering job and start earning ~$70k and live in an area where housing costs ~$150k-$200k for a small, detached, ~2-3 bedroom house with garage and garden (2.85x ratio). You can also get amazing weather :)
Mechanical engineers in the UK start on ~£25k in areas where a small house will cost £300k-£400k. That's a ratio of pay to house price of 16x versus 2.9x in the US. Anecdotal I know but powerful.
One of the big drivers is if your career is something you'd like to maximize. The opportunities here are some of the best in the world as is the compensation. If I had stayed in my home country I would have had pretty limited prospects even at the top of my game.
It also goes to show how the advice from people like Mr. Money Mustache [0] actually works in the US. Even without large salary increases, the US engineer in your example could realistically pay off their $150-200k mortgage in <10 years by living reasonably frugally, and then get to work on building a hefty retirement fund.
If they did get salary increases and/or had a partner earning money too, they could do it much faster.
Am I missing some hidden cost, or is this actually quite common?
In the center of tech-job-land (SF/SV), you're looking at a $1M mortgage if you have a family you dont wish to raise in a 640sqft studio. Part of what you're paying for is the pool of jobs and easy availability of work.
Secondly, I lived quite frugally in my early career. This is much harder 10yrs in...because those choices affect my children. What do I give up on? Braces? Health? Here in the US you get nickle and dimed on literally everything, and especially on healthcare.
Finally, you are missing a major hidden cost -- risk. Numerous tech jobs can rarely survive 10yrs. Often, you find yourself out of work in the worse economy finding a new job when prevailing wages are depressed. Tech isnt like government, or teaching, or medicine -- there are harsh cycles. Worse, in those cycles, often your company stock/options are also worth farless/zero.
$300 is the purchase price, not the mortgage.
Salaries around here for skilled software engineers are typically $100-150k, depending on years of experience and field.
A friend of mine in the same area is working remotely for a major SV company making $175k.
For the love of whatever you consider to be holy, don't think that the SV lifestyle and cost of living are representative of the country as a whole.
And sure, it can be tough to find a tech job that lasts 10+ years. But that's true of a lot of jobs. Tech jobs don't have to be in "tech" companies. Lots of businesses have tech jobs in house; insurance, healthcare, etc etc. Unless you have a burning desire to work for the FAANGs of the world, there's a billion tech jobs out there.
I can't complain.
Upper middle class people in the US are so much better off - there is really no comparison. If average Swedes only knew how poor they really are...
In Sweden you can study cost-free. You can get a second, or third, degree from reputable school, even online. That makes it easy to change careers or to stay competitive.
If you are established in Sweden you are going to have very high financial security and low living costs. Almost anyone that is upper-middle class in Sweden can take a year off to, say, start a business without any major consequences.
Just in general upper-middle class people in Sweden have a lot more quality of life and time. 40 hour weeks, employment protection, flat hierarchies, short commute, long vacations, summer homes etc.
I personally have nothing against people moving to the US. Especially if you are middle-class and in your twenties it can be a good idea. But as soon as you have kids your costs are going to rise significantly, your opportunities are going to decrease or both.
I would be interesting to hear what you think is better in the US for someone upper-middle class.
At the same time, you have no need to pay extra costs for security, healthcare, roads, etc. more than average income people.
Thus you enjoy overall good quality of life with no additional payments.
My own opinion is that you will have better life quality in Scandinavia than in US independently on which income group you belong to, but some people may disagree. And don't underestimate the harsh climate - depression and bad mood is not as uncommon during the dark months.
And for the rich, healthcare isn't much of an issue in the US. Either your employer pays most of the bill or you're so wealthy that $20k per year for your families insurance is a rounding error on your income.
The people are nice but the society is acrimonious and divided, and it grates on you.
When I later on in life moved to the US, as an actual immigrant, I’ve felt immediately way more accepted and at home than in the country I was born and raised in. Of course, the US is far from perfect, don’t get me wrong (if I were dark skinned this would probably be a different story) but its mostly merit-based society definitely works for me.
For example, schooling your kids at home is not only absolutely forbidden in Germany - but when I was in Germany, people reacted as if I was suggesting making a terrorist attack. Meanwhile, 9% of students in North Carolina are homeschooled.
Or, I have an German, non-tech acquaintance living in the US South. He loves it. He gets to live on a farm, buy giant sniper rifles, and go to long range shooting competitions. In much of Germany these would be both unaffordable and the sign of deeply dangerous mind.
Wikipedia says Germany has 1.4 million legal gun owners, out of a population of 82 million so it can't be that common.
I assume it's similar to the US where it's more common in certain segments of the population (ex-military, rural, etc).
I mean, I left the US, but my general experience has been that if you work in the dregs (and I've been there) you're better off in Europe, but if you work in a somewhat well-paid field, you'll make more in the US (whether you're "better off" is a more complicated question).
Not sure what opportunities there are for a former MP like yourself though.
Say, an average tech Joe from Munich is getting home only 3 to 4 thousands of dollars after taxes (48%, it includes social security, etc.), but renting a studio costs almost the same as in San Fran. All other costs are similar or more expensive in Europe.
Even healthcare is more expensive in Germany: if both parents are getting more than 3k USD after taxes each, then each of them need to pay around $900 (!!!), thus $1800 per month HEALTH INSURANCE per family. Good thing is that your employer pays around 50% of that costs, but even $900 health insurance is not as cheap in comparison with USA, right?
Day care, kindergarten - costs depend on your income. The more you earn the more you pay. On average it's around $800-$1000 per month/child for public kindergartens (assuming your net monthly income is over 3k USD) or $2000-$3000 private.
That said, I've just emigrated from the UK to Australia, and we didn't really even consider the US when we were picking countries.
And regarding the food culture, you'd get many, many bewildered stares from my French and Italian colleagues with that statement :)
As far as I know taxes, especially on fuel, are almost always higher in the EU compared to the US.
And this works both way, you can find US food (or Indian, or whatever) in Europe. It’s not the 1930’s anymore :)
Fuel is expensive but cars are smaller and generally much more fuel efficient. People move around just fine :)
A while back, I was looking for data to quantify the distinction of "Ellis Island"-style open application immigration, vs. the precondition-gated system we have today. I was also trying to understand the socioeconomic differences between employment/skill-based immigrants (of various admission categories) and family-based immigrants. But official government sources are spread across multiple agencies, and the cohorts are set in a way that isn't helpful in disaggregating superficially similar people with very different outcomes.
In my observations, pro-immigration groups tend to publish data that is difficult to disaggregate (example: this data sheet on 'Profile of the Unauthorized Population: California' [1] by the Migration Policy Institute), while groups that want to restrict immigration (Center for Immigration Studies, The Heritage Foundation) have better cohorts with more practical relevance, but the less flattering data is used by them to justify their various restrictive policies, and their bias raises concerns about their veracity. It's a challenge to find a source that hits the middle ground.
[1] https://www.migrationpolicy.org/data/unauthorized-immigrant-...
[1] https://www.dhs.gov/immigration-statistics/yearbook/2016/tab...
One thing missing is migration out of the United States. For much of the video, the largest source of immigrants is Canada. Surely the US Canadian border is a two way street. I'd expect migrations between the US and Canada to roughly balance out.
And as much as we Americans like to think of ourselves as living in the promised land, there are a significant number of immigrants who arrived on US shores, decided after a few years that it didn't live up to expectations, and then went back to their country of origin.
Often it wasn’t that people were disappointed in the USA, it’s that they only planned to be there temporarily. That is a pretty common story in the Balkans. Great-grandfather went to the USA, worked his ass off for a couple of decades max, and then came back to the old country and built a mighty house in his native village. And while in the USA, great-grandfather did some terribly isolated job like shepherding, or lived solely in an immigrant bubble, which meant that he never did learn English.
Has there been any significant American emigration to e.g. Canada?
It would be good to show the slavery, and also somehow colourize the US itself by what origins make up the population.
In recent history, Vietnam War draft dodgers[0]. Estimates range between 20,000 to 30,000 men fled to Canada to avoid the draft.
[0] - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Canada_and_the_Vietnam_War#Dra...
From 1986-2006, 445,000 Canadians immigrated to the US, or ~22,000 per year.[2]
So it would appear to be a net outflow from Canada.
[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Immigration_to_Canada#Sources_... [2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Immigration_to_the_United_Stat...
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/African_immigration_to_the_Uni...
https://github.com/axibase/atsd-use-cases/tree/master/Expatr...
The country colors get much brighter from the 70's on, making it tough to distinguish the effects of recent immigration trends from the global population growing from 4 to 7.5 billion over that time.
Soviets introduced exit visa back in 1925, so probably that was a reason of that drop.
So it doesn't give the full picture.
Slavery and illegal immigration are both big parts of how the U.S. population came to be, like it or not, and they are such big parts that, although I sympathize with the difficulties of estimating them, not estimating them seems like a bigger problem.
But, it's a cool article nonetheless.