Another way to say that:
USA is really mean [to immigrants].
USA is really mean [to immigrants].
So even though h1b folks pay into the system they cannot claim unemployment.
It’s not that hard to stay for extended periods to either settle affairs or find another job.
"An alien admitted or otherwise provided status in E-1, E-2, E-3, H-1B, H-1B1, L-1, O-1 or TN classification and his or her dependents shall not be considered to have failed to maintain nonimmigrant status solely on the basis of a cessation of the employment on which the alien's classification was based, for up to 60 consecutive days or until the end of the authorized validity period, whichever is shorter, once during each authorized validity period. DHS may eliminate or shorten this 60-day period as a matter of discretion. Unless otherwise authorized under 8 CFR 274a.12, the alien may not work during such a period."
This is also what I've been told by my company's lawyers.
If you get fired/company folds/etc. then I think the 60 days things holds.
The I-485 would have to be rejected, or, you lose your job after the I-485 is filed. Even then if you maintain yourself for 6 months after the I-485 was filed and your employer doesn't withdraw the approved I-140, you can find a new job under AC21; or get lucky with no interview request or RFE.
The pain point is that you won't be able to travel after I-485 filing until your Advanced Parole turns up and you'll depend on EADs if you want to change jobs under AC21.
You could have your Green Card before you even win the H1-B lottery.
If you're Indian, you're waiting way longer than that in the US.
However, I think if you're not from India/China/Mexico, the constraint is that getting an H-1B is lottery-bound, and then you'll get the GC easily.
None of that "give us your teeming useless masses from Africa" stuff.
Which other country goes "skilled immigrants RAH RAH!" but also imposes a random lottery instead of going on the basis of some kind of points/job offer based system? In which other country can you have a "manager" in your job title and then get a fast track to PR (L1-A) regardless of whether you are a Technical Account Manager 2 years out of school vs a Director with 20 years of experience?
Which other country imposes arbitrary moving dates for when you can get permanent residency? My understanding is every western democracy has a well defined path to permanent residency from a work visa. In Canada it is 0-3 years, in the EU it is 2-5 years (based on various factors). But once you tick those boxes you know how much time it will take. In the US, it really depends on USCIS's budget, the phase of the moon, which country you are born in, and how many green cards they decide to "waste" in any given year.
I think I've posted about this before, but yeah it's pretty ridiculous. My college girlfriend was a foreign exchange student from India, was here all through highschool, had a fullride to college via a (maybe government sponsored?) academic scholarship, graduated with her degree in electrical engineering 2nd in her class, and got a 6 figure job right of out college. She got kicked out about a year later because she didn't "win" the "lottery" and her visa wasn't renewed. What a sheer fucking waste of talent and time and money educating her just to boot her out of the country like that.
A literal week after she was forced to leave, I was talking to my uber driver who told me of her sister's boyfriend who was also an Indian emigrant, in and out of court/jail for petty theft and various levels of assault/battery, that somehow managed to secure his citizenship a couple of months prior. I know it's just one anecdote among literally thousands of possibly millions of cases, but what a fucking crazy world we live in today where that's how things can play out.
Being young and dumb and in love, I briefly floated the idea of marriage to secure her a greencard, but she talked me out of it and we ended up parting as friends when she left. Lost contact after she got married a few years later and moved to Australia with her new partner so she definitely landed okay and I am so extremely happy where I am today in life and with my current partner, but somedays my mind just wanders and I find myself reminiscing and wondering about what could've been.
Personal opinion: I think the point based systems are unfair.
For example, you get points by merely finishing college. Someone who didn’t have the opportunity to do college is not necessarily a low-skill worker neither are they less intelligent. A fairer thing will be to access people individually on their capabilities.
The US has things like the O1 visa which in my opinion is not random and more fair than most systems. But a random system is also valuable and necessary, so you need both.
In the absence of enough funding and employees at USCIS to be able to individually assess people, having some kind of cutoff criteria is better than a lottery. Don't let perfect be the enemy of the good.
Isn't that exactly the same for the US ? If anything, because of the lottery, having a job offer is only gives you a 30% chance to actually get the visa. The USA (practically) has no path to permanent residency if you are Indian.
Even just getting to the job offer needs you to be on an F1-OPT which usually implies between $100-200k of college tuition just to apply for a job permit.
In that sense, the US needs both significant wealth & a job offer all while giving no pathway to permanent residency if you're born in the wrong country.
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For tech workers: Canada, the EU (through France, Ireland) and Australia are certainly easier to immigrate to. (wages are another question). Singapore & Dubai/UAE are popular destinations for working, though PRs can be awkward or impossible.
Even supposed harder to immigrate countries look easier, if you think about how every country needs you to be fluent in the local language. That everyone learns English is a testament to the political dominance of the USA & the UK over the last 300 years, and not a foregone conclusion.
I’m sympathetic, but it’s not really feasible for the US to accommodate everyone in the world and it’s not like the US owes it to anyone to just let anyone live there just because they’d like to.
They are asking for one or multiple of :
1. Use of lapsed green cards slots from other categories to be used for pending green cards.
2. Removal/Relaxing of the 7% rule, which uniquely inconveniences Indians. (If the idea is diversity, then in almost every way India is more diverse than arbitrarily formed culturally homogeneous tiny nations around the world.)
3. More humane work permit rules for those who have a PR in the waiting. Eg: relaxing the insane 60 day unemployment rule, reducing need to restamp visa incredibly often, allowing secondary sources of income or starting a startup.
4. More stable processing times and predictions on how long PR waiting time actually are. Current estimates vary from 20-100 years. That is simply unacceptable as a range.
Everybody loves diversity until it’s not them.
USA hands out a million green cards, but only 150k for employment based. For all the talks of immigrants bringing skills, we are really not preferred. They'll hand out 50k "diversity visas" by lottery, but God forbid more than 10k indians come into the country for their skills. And even the skills based visas barely prefer more skilled or in demand immigrants. That's what they call "abuse" by H1B/eb1 but also oppose any wage based or PhD preferring rules. Hypocrites hiding their true racist intentions.
USA hands out a million green cards every year. But only 150k are employment based. These are capped at 7% for each country. Only 10k out of a million green cards are assigned per year for Indian immigrants based on their employments.
For all the talk of meritocracy, looking beyond skin color, and valuing high skilled immigrants, USA definitely has policies that discriminate on national origin and actively encourage low skilled immigration (2 million unauthorized border crossings, policies allowing rampant "abuse" in h1b/eb1c visas whenever high skilled immigrants are concerned, constant opposition to making it easier for PhDs to get a green card or say putting wage rules on h1b/eb1,2,3).
The easier path to low skill admission is all about rural interests. We need bodies working farms, we packing meat, etc.
it’s not like the US owes it to anyone to just let anyone live there just because they’d like to
That aside, I would agree that Canada is easier.
For the last couple of decades, a US university degree -> STEM job is the only way known legal way for an Indian to come to US on their own merit. I specify STEM, because none of the other professions get the STEM-OPT (3 tries at the low-probability h1b lottery vs 1 try for normal students), so most US employers blanket reject candidates in non-STEM professions.
I love the US, lived there for a decade and would love to go back to California. But I'd never go on H-1B and I don't see anyone sponsoring me a green card again (returned mine seven years ago). So there's that.
TL;DR: The US is not easy to (legally) immigrate to compared to many other places.
Canada has policies that prefer high skilled immigrants coming for employment, and does not discriminate on where they come from.
So yeah, USA has more difficult for immigrants from big countries who want to contribute with their skills, while Canada welcomes those.
Honestly, I don't see why a country would prefer people to bring in all their distant cousins, rather than a bunch of highly skilled professionals who contribute a lot to the economy.
USA is very friendly to immigrants - it is not a homogeneous society, and there is mutual respect of all religions, faiths, and languages. On contrast, I find many populations in EU to be actively hostile towards immigrants (in Germany one will have a difficult time not knowing German, for example).
As a result, it is a demand and supply problem. Compare how many are wanting to immigrate to, say, Germany, Austria or Switzerland, as opposed to US.
No, that couldn't be farther from the truth. I lived in Germany, and have friends there who still don't know German after 10+ years and never have any problems. If you work in a non-office industry you need German, but in office/tech workplaces nobody knows German.
Integrating into a society can mean many things but the FIRST step of that should be learning the local language to be able to talk to locals.
By the way, I’m American. Anyone who lives here for that long without learning English is what I’m talking about.
For example, almost all Government locations in the Bay Area make every document available in several languages, including posted signs, forms etc.. And they have staff who can speak multiple languages. Also, many elders of Chinatown in San Francisco do not speak English, have spent almost all of their life here, yet are reasonably integrated into the American society (their kids generally know English).
[] Friendly needs explanation: US is friendly once you immigrate, not while you are immigrating. This is simply the demand-supply forces at play (too many people wanting to immigrate).
I may be mistaken, but I don't think any EU country makes an active and conscious effort to be "immigrant friendly".
Also, by "immigrant" I mean those who immigrate legally. American media clubs both legal immigrants and illegal aliens into the "immigrant" category, which can be hella confusing.
Clearly you can manage but I stand by my original opinion that I would not approve of hearing such a story from an immigrant.
I've been a tourist in Germany too. Basically, if the German person you're talking to is university-educated, they speak English, and probably extremely well. If they aren't (like the cashier at the supermarket), they probably don't speak English much at all.
Maybe they just there to save some amount of money and go back to their country?
Not hard? Which foreign languages did you learn as an adult?
Way to cut out the part where I said “it’s not hard to learn a foreign language” and just drop the time scale. It’s of course a lot of work but it is NOT difficult with such an opportunity to absord and practice.
“That's not an excuse for not integrating into a culture with the bare minimum amount of effort. It is not hard to learn a language with 10 years of immersion.”
Is it hard to learn a language in a year? Yes! That is not what I said. I said that not making the modicum of effort required over 10 years of practice and immersion required to achieve functional fluency is not difficult. It simply is not. The passive input alone is absolutely enormous, and it’s the least you can do to a country that’s graciously accepted you into its own borders.
I'm sorry? Maybe more like "invited to prop up ponzi-pyramid of welfare state that the ageing local population can't sustain anymore"?
Do you truly believe someone not capable of speaking English is not being discriminated in the US? Seriously now?
To be rational, I work in academia and I shouldn't need to worry too much about job safety and/or visa applications, but I still semi-regularly woke up at night from nightmares of my visa expiring, not being renewed, suddenly being deported, or similar stuff.
I got my permanent residence earlier this year and all of it stopped. It gives you some sense of stability/security. It also makes one feel a bit more accepted in society by not needing to leave it if a work agreement (for whatever reason) ends.
I'm qualified to apply for a permanent residence in 4 months.
The worst thing is that if I get laid off, the 5-year clock resets, and it would waste almost 5 years.
Technically, it takes 45+ days to lay off someone. However, the application requires a letter from the employer to confirm I'm still needed at a job, which means the lay-off just a few days before the application could invalidate the application and has a potential to reset the clock.
https://worldpopulationreview.com/country-rankings/immigrati...
https://www.visualcapitalist.com/cp/mapped-immigration-by-co...
Surprised to see it higher than Canada, U.S., and any major country in Europe...
Edit: Depending on the type of visa you're kicked out of the country much sooner than 60 days.
It is stupid, but it's apparently how Americans want it.
>We want smart skilled people to immigrate, not make it hard on them.
No, you want that. American voters don't seem to agree with you, or at least, not enough of them to make a change. Meanwhile, in other countries, smart skilled people have a relatively easy time immigrating. I'm in Japan and it couldn't get much easier for skilled professionals than this.
>Can you imagine living with the threat of being kicked out lingering over you? I would never feel secure or set down real roots in a country that might kick me out in 60 days.
Yeah, me neither. I'm not sure why people want to torture themselves by going to such a country. There are other places looking for skilled professionals, and that make the immigration process pretty painless and easy. People need to get over this mythical idea of the US being some great welcoming haven for immigrants; it really isn't these days.
If tech companies were in charge, the borders would be mostly open, especially (or perhaps only) for skilled professionals. Obviously, this isn't the case, so the corporate lobbyists are not the ones responsible for America's anti-skilled-immigrant policy, the American voters are. It doesn't get "fixed" because it's politically unpopular to do so.
Nobody's really campaigned on "the H1B system should be a byzantine nightmare" but somehow that's what we got.
Wrong. The issue is immigration, period. Trump's voters are too stupid to tell the difference between high- and low-skilled immigrants. They're nativists: they want only "real Americans" (i.e., white Christians) in America, and not more people who don't fit that mold.
>Nobody's really campaigned on "the H1B system should be a byzantine nightmare" but somehow that's what we got.
You got that because the system, just like any long-running software system that gets hacks upon hacks and never gets a proper refactor, turns into a jumbled mess over time. The system was never fixed because there is no political will to do so. Other countries have leaders that aren't always fighting with each other over every single thing, and decided together that they want more high-skilled immigrants to help their economies because they recognize the value such immigrants bring (they can look at America's 20th century history to see this, after all: look how many tech companies were started by immigrants, for instance), so they cleaned up their immigration policies to achieve this goal. That's how it is here in Japan: immigrating as a skilled worker is extremely easy. It wasn't like this 20 years ago at all. Since the leaders wanted it, and the people weren't opposed in any great way, it got done. America can't do that: the leaders are too divided, and the voters will punish anyone who tries. The Dems can try it, but the Reps will oppose it. Any Reps who don't will be voted out by the MAGAts. This is why things are the way they are in America.
Similar situation is in US work ethic, where CEO is something akin to a feudal lord.
We even have laws about this, that's why there's a whole eviction process and it applies to people living with you as much as to normal tenants.
It was never intended as “come here permanently”.
You’re basically expecting something it never promised.
It's like giving a home plumber access to your yard and then you move but he still hang around your yard.
And no, that's not treating them as animals. But you are not exactly a proper host either.
Society is a sacred part of what makes human beings human, it is why we are such a successful species. It requires cultural indoctrination and nationalism and things that definitely have an ugly side, but are also important to our function.
Your viewpoint basically assumes people have no loyalty, nationalism or responsibility to their society so they can be freely swapped with anybody.
Because you won't let them.
> and why can't I jump to another one?
You can. People do sometimes, if their birth family is bad enough.
Immigrants are, by definition, people with more loyalty to another country than to the one they were born in. Why deny them that?
We are successful as a species because we socialize, and there is no reason to limit that only to people who were born in specific geographic areas; that doesn’t make any sense.
It would make a lot more sense to group by shared goals and beliefs, with free movement as your goals and beliefs change.
Blind nationalistic loyalty is in no way a requirement for a successful human society.
Blind nationalism is bad, but absolutely no responsibility towards the society and the people that raised and support you is a crazy take. You're ideal would only work if we had 0 social programs and people were 100% responsible for providing for themselves and their loved ones, including education.
That just doesn't involve excluding others from that society. They deserve, just as much as you, to participate (and improve!) in your society as you do.
My country only exists because people came from many other societies and brought the best parts of those societies together to create my country and its culture. I want that for everyone, if they want it for themselves.
Especially given that the ability for global communication is newer than most existing countries.
Western societies all value liberty, and liberty is incompatible with exclusion based on geographic origin.
When women couldn't vote most men couldn't either. Just landholders. Slavery was an improvement on killing entire populations and authoritarian monarchy were better than savages like Genghis Khan. Whatever trouble you have with recent history go back.. things were worse.
What would happen if Canada decided to do this. Couldn't China send in 15 million people who vote to join Canada.
Huge red flags.
I guess all I can say is that I just don’t see how you can be so cruel to others like this.
Slavery is not a white/black issue although it might be for your location but the Arab slave trade was so massive and went on for so long it overshadows the trans Atlantic slave in size/scope and present day effects.
Things are not perfect today but they replaced things that were worse. That keeps happening. Why we vote for someone when we could introduce direct voting to me seems like a relic of the past that future generations will look negativity at.
Funny though how money is still allowed to go anywhere in the world, while people are trapped in their own countries (for better or worse). Those with money can make more money, taking advantage of labor and other resources that can't move, often to the detriment of labor at home and the environment abroad.
Except that ~zero prehistoric people had access to the resources / skills / knowledge / etc. to actually travel really long distances.
And if they tried moving, at scale, into an already-inhabited area - well, whether or not the people in the destination qualified as a "state", I suspect that pretty universally resulted in violent push-back.
Merchants activity was often regulated, with passports for commercial activity and other customs controls. But not people. The opposite of today.
I acknowledge that there would be concerns like you mention, like violent push-back from the natives, same as there are today. Some peoples are raised in insular cultures, some are welcoming, sometimes migrations cause understandable problems, etc.
I don't think the way we do things today is optimal. We've changed things so that money is given more freedom than people. And too many people are taught that foreigners are scary.
[0] https://www.nationalgeographic.com/travel/article/a-history-...
It's the same way every other right exists. Property rights don't exist as a law of the universe. Rather, "the people" decided they like the stability of having "permanent" control over things so, as a group, decided to enforce those rights.
* didn't buy my house, I inherited it,
* the people I inherited it from stole it from other people who
* also still live in the house somehow but just in the not-as-nice parts, and
* the house is gigantic and can easily fit literally billions more people without even coming close to exhausting the resources of the house, in fact
* bringing more people into the house would in fact substantially increase the house's shared ability to operate and provide for the members of the house.
So yeah, if we want to use this analogy in a meaningful way, nothing at all entitles me to my house!
Of course, one could be motivated to make such impassioned outpourings by a guilt regarding an ultimately comfortable existence, a fear of lacking virtue, and a thrill of proselytizing the nonbelievers, rather than a compulsion to achieve material socioeconomic outcomes for the postcolonial working class of the world. But I'm sure, dear interlocutor, you are motivated by nothing of the sort, and your intentions are of course, impregnable and wholly pure.
But it’s not, and I did buy this home with money rather than inherit it through theft, so instead of my home I will continue to vote and donate in ways that return the US to a pre-eugenics immigration policy.
This would give those refugees a much fairer chance at their own American dream, the one I was given because my ancestors oppressed and stole from the people who didn’t look like them.
You can’t own progress, you can’t own a society, and you definitely can’t own the concept of freedom (can’t believe that isn’t clear).
Your ancestors were thieves and oppressors, and took things that didn’t belong to them, which means the resulting better society isn’t yours or theirs to give or take. It’s free for whoever comes and helps grow it.
Honestly I wish we had some mechanism to cast out the entitled and let in the hopeful. People who believe as you do don’t deserve the gift of a progressive society.
You are a self-loathing, little person.
I personally think their statement has a high likelihood of being valid, at least in part, and only on a probabilistic basis.
Your response indicates they hit a nerve.
Also any reason to point out Chimpanzees have wars including patrolling land borders and recon missions :)
“Animals do it” is not a compelling argument for humans to participate in… well, anything. We know better!