It took me also ~18 years to get my green card. I went through a very similar (almost identical) route as the blogger and I'm glad he documented this grueling experience. I went to college in the US; graduated in 4 years; worked with OPT for 2.5 years; went back to a PhD program because my then employer wouldn't sponsor me an H1B (according to them, they are a start-up and cannot put up with the legal burden and cost of sponsoring me, who is the only immigrant at the company); earned my PhD and went to work for a Fortune 100 company; got selected in the H1B lottery on the first attempt; waited 2 more years for my employer to decide that I'm worthy of their green card sponsorship; waited 4 years in the green card application process (thanks partly to COVID delays and thanks partly to the immigration law firm, Fragomen, which not only screwed up with my PERM filing once but also was very slow in preparing the application--probably intentionally because there was no one at my company who is holding Fragomen accountable back then; my company since then moved to PwC for immigration matters although I'm not sure if that improves things for the immigrant workers there) to finally get one.

I went back home twice in that 18 years because I was always afraid that I might not be allowed back in the US when I renew my visa (F-1 student visa or H1B work visa) at the local embassy in my home country.

If I could turn back in time, I'd have gone to Canada to not have to deal with this. Or I should have married a US citizen to make my path to green card easier, or even applied for asylum using my country's political situation as a cover (I didn't do either because I thought these are dishonest *for my situation*; there are a lot of people from my country who do either of these things). Legal immigration (including work visa and green card) is very difficult in the US.