H-1B Employer Data Hub

But in the end giving up that valley $$$ is not easy for everyone.

Others have fallen prey to the sunk-cost fallacy ("I've been waiting for 10+ years; it'll feel like I waste if I give up now").

And still others value the ability to work in the US over other countries (though I would judge that value to have decreased in the past couple years).

Some will just still stop at nothing to eventually be able to hold a US passport, especially if they come from a country where their own passport is much less useful internationally.

And I imagine some have also settled down and had kids in the time they've been here, waiting, and don't want to uproot their family.

Even among countries that are often assumed to have broadly similar standards of living by most people (UK is example I am most familiar with), those countries often pay their engineers substantially less. Many of my British colleagues earn very _substantially_ less doing the same job for the same company in the UK as an equivalent US worker.

Of course money isn’t everything, but it’s not like quality of life in California is completely terrible either for a lot of people...

Also when we talk about long waits for Green Cards, we really mean for the large body of Indian technology workers, broadly speaking. For other nationalities the wait is typically a year or less (for those unaware there are effectively country based quotas for green cards). The gap in earning potential is even larger still in the Indian example vs my earlier UK one, so again I’m not surprised few actually move back.

Finally many of these visa workers have had to battle their way to a job. Unlike a US citizen, they’ve had to brave a complex, often uncertain immigration process, finding a job in a foreign country in which they may have no experience, no network etc. If you put in all that effort, it’s maybe not surprising you want to hang around to get the eventual prize.

This is only for certain countries, by the way.

> Why don't the applicants give up and go back to their home countries ?

Have you got any experience in moving to another country? Do you have family?

So you spend years away from your country, getting promoted at work, kid at an american school (speaking English every day, with his american friends), wife going to an university or working(after enduring all the initial difficulties acclimating), for you to suddenly say: "meh, let's throw everything away and go back". Try that and let us know how that goes. Maybe if you are young and single.

Now, if you ask me, should people still try to come, given the current political climate? I am not sure. It's a wonderful country and the allure of the Bay Area is too great, if you are in IT. But the immigration system makes absolutely zero sense and is very demeaning. You need a lot of mental fortitude to endure it – even more so if you are from one of the countries with queues. Make sure you and your family can deal with the uncertainty, for years.

I was in US for 6.5 years working for an Indian company. My employer filed for my green card and it got denied in the first step (see 1 below). Employer appealed and it got approved after 3-4 months. Completed 2nd stage without issues and filed for visa extension. Got RFE from USCIS (see 2 below). Instead of 15 days, it got delayed for another 3.5 months. I couldn't renew my driving license since my previous visa expired by now (see 3 below) and had to rely on Uber/Lyft for 3 months. Finally got my visa approved for 3 more years.

I had enough of this process by now. Even before the green card application denial, I had a tough time living in US (see 4 below). H1B people (who did everything by the book) were always scared to go back to India ever since Trump came to power. There were stories of people going to India for vacation and then can't come back, being grilled at port of entry in US airports for 1 hour before they let you in etc. Thankfully, I never experienced any of that expect for the 'random' checks from TSA which always used to happen to me.

I stayed in US for 1 more month after my visa extension got approved. I gave a 2 weeks notice to my employer, ended up working for another 1-2 weeks while my customer tried in vain for options to allow me work from India, packed up everything and came back. The pain stopped just like that. I am yet to experience it even though life in India is harder than in US and I haven't even started looking for a job yet.

Notes:

1. Green card usually has 3 steps I believe, first 2 gets completed in 1 year or so, 3rd stage gets completed after 10-20 years for Indians. If some reports are to be believed, it takes 150 years for eb2 and 50 years for eb3 Indians. Once we complete 6 years on h1b, we have to file for a green card if we wish to continue in US. Once the first 2 stages of GC are approved, we can apply for visa extension.

2. Request for Extension is when USCIS asks for more evidence to show that I am in speciality occupation. In my case, the document I received from USCIS looked like a copy paste. They had my employer name as one of Target/Walmart/Home Depot/Bed Bath & Beyond. They wanted me to prove that my work require a bachelors degree. It was a given that if you are an Indian working for an Indian company, you get an RFE during 2017-2018.

3. We are allowed to work for upto 240 days (forgot actual number) while an application for visa extension is pending. Driving license in some states is tied to visa with a max of 2 years. It is strange that the state government wouldn't let me drive, but continued to tax me even for the income I earned in India during this period. My employer paid for my Uber, but I hated it. I was like that lady in a Black Mirror episode where everyone gets a rating and trying too hard to please others. I especially hated the need for small talk because I was really miserable. I got so upset when my rating went down the first time (most likely because I told the driver I would tip in app after seeing his note that he accepts tip with a tip jar and some cash), I wrote to Uber customer care asking for refund of the tip which they did! My rating dropped from 4.9 to 4.74 during the first 2 weeks and then came back up to 4.9 once I started tipping in cash.

4. I still don't know what was the psychology behind me wanting to go back to India. I experienced a lot of emotional pain pretty much every day from the 2nd or 3rd year. I used to drive to work with tears in my eyes. At some point, I noticed that I get tears automatically while I am waiting at a particular traffic signal or if I walk through a particular office entrance. Those tears stopped when I took a different route or entrance! I think this whole emotional pain thing probably has a lot to do with

a. being alone in a foreign country

b. the feeling that I had no control over my life because of h1b

c. the hate I used to see for h1bs in Reddit and comment sections of some news sites

Wanting to avoid a demographic shift is an invalid reason to constraint immigration in my eyes, I find arguments like that to be heavily based in strongly bigoted opinions.

The conversation is not about about benefits and services to non-citizens, but about whether enforcement is being targeted at specific immigrant populations based on white supremacist ideologies. It is about the false, widely circulated talking-point that this administration simply seeks to push people toward legal pathways.

>If the guest worker program wasn't being horribly abused it would be worthwhile.

This is a claim that requires justification. Any tiered labor system that does not guarantee a level legal playing field for all workers is abusable.

How does it apply to tech?

The challenge with finding out whether the process was working before is inherently difficult is what I think. Whom is it working for? And for whom it isn't? Again I could be wrong

His _position_ may require more than _minimal_ training. We don't know as we haven't seen the application.