Indian tech workers in Silicon Valley protest immigration discrimination | Hacker News Reader

Indian tech workers in Silicon Valley protest immigration discrimination

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40 pointsdonsupreme57 comments

US immigration law limits immigrant visa (i.e. green cards) to no more than 5% of the annual total per year.

It's an effort to add diversity to the immigrant population. Similar to how the green card lottery "discriminates" against immigrants from countries that already have a high immigrant population in the US.

I mean it sucks if you're one of the people who are stuck waiting for a green card, and I agree it's dumb to allow people to start a process they can't reasonably finish, but I don't think the goal of the law is unjust.

In Germany we had a lot of migrant workers from Turkey after the war. The lack of diversity in immigrant populations is still causing problems today. Because there were so many immigrants from the same place, a lot didn't learn German properly because they have enough of their own people to talk to. A parallel society formed. In the big cities you have 3rd and 4th generation children that still don't speak German properly, but probably also don't speak Turkish properly. Of course these youths don't feel at home here, don't get good jobs, and are overrepresented in crime statistics.

This causes problems even for skilled immigrants from Turkey today, since the stereotypes that manifested from this are applied to them as well.

On the other hand I do understand the individual issue here though. It is a bit unfair to never have a proper foothold in the country that asked you to be there. I think it would be better to limit the H1Bs more by the same country of origin metric, so that people aren't given hope only to crush it later on. And there should be a way to get a green card for those that are already here for 5+ years. It's inhumane to never allow them in properly after they spent so much time building a life in the US.

The quota system was set up because of racial and eugenic concerns rather than some progressive notion of diversity. Though it should be noted that eugenics was considered progressive policy at that time. So it would be a very peculiar accident that it happens to resemble sane and forward thinking policy

As to why countries instead of races,

>The question will probably at once arise, why, if this legislation was a response to a demand for racial discrimination, was it expressed in terms of nationality? The answer is simple. As has already been shown, our actual knowledge of the racial composition of the American people, to say nothing of the various foreign groups, is so utterly inadequate that the attempt to use it as a basis of legislation would have led to endless confusion and intolerable litigation. So Congress substituted the term nationality, and defined nationality as country of birth. It is clear, then, that “nationality,” as used in this connection, does not conform exactly to the correct definition of either nationality or race. But in effect it affords a rough approximation to the racial character of the different immigrant stream

https://www.cato.org/policy-analysis/brief-history-us-immigr...

Effectively penalizes countries with a larger population (India and China) systemically, India is similar to the EU in terms of ethnic, religious, linguistic and cultural diversity yet each EU country is treated as a seperate entity. Indian States are not.

Sure it's penalizing India and China. There is no other option if your goal is diversity of country of origin.

And the US immigration system penalizes people all the time. Don't have a formal degree? Sorry, high skilled visa aren't an option. Want to come on an H1-B? Sorry, ran out of visas and now it's a lottery.

Immigration systems need to make choices about who they want to bring in. The outcome of that is some people can't come.

Yes.

Every job posting comes with a federally mandated anti-discrimination statement, and with a federally mandated discrimination immigration system.

Those anti-discrimation laws don’t apply to immigration criteria.

That's the point.

It is actually based country of birth rather than origin / citizenship.

Sure every immigration system as to make choices, but ideally you want to make intelligent choices.

The current system makes no sense unless your goal is to specifically limit Indian / Chinese born from people getting green cards while also letting in large numbers of them to work on H1B indefinitely.

It’s not penalizing India and China. It’s penalizing people born in India and China, who were misled and lied to.

It’s particularly ridiculous because the government will tax those people SS and Medicare, which they don’t have access to, based entirely on the fact that an H1B visa is a path to permanent residency.

They weren’t lied to. Green cards for those countries have been backlogged for decades. Presumably anyone who has filed for a green card since the early 2000’s knew the situation they were getting into? The government is quite transparent about it.

And check out the backlog for extended family green cards for the Philippines. It’s similar.

> It's an effort to add diversity to the immigrant population.

There are many categories of green card applications: family, employment based, diversity, etc. It might make sense to consider "diversity" in family based immigration, but doesn't really make sense in the context of "employment based".

Historically, when US just wanted more people, the diversity might have made sense. But today, if a country wants better skilled immigrants, who are a net positive to the economy and don't put a strain on benefits, then it needs to select for such immigrants.

Can this really be termed as immigration discrimination? If everyone who applied magically got their green cards today, would it be a fair distribution?

The issues they and their families face are totally valid, but surely they apply to a larger body of immigrants of other nationalities too?

I think they are talking about the "group by country_of_origin limit 7%" clause of the green card system. So tiny Monaco and China have the same cap of immigrants per year

nit: its "group by country_of_birth". A person's family could be Monaco citizens living in India, where the person was born, and that person too would have to wait decades.

No they don’t. If you’re born in India and you get approved for your green card (note, this situation arises at the end of the process, after you’ve been approved for the green card), you have to wait 180 years to get it. About 50 years if you were born in China. And immediately if you were born anywhere else.

Your citizenship doesn’t even matter.

It's a bit of a stretch to claim "discrimination" based on the current volume of approved applicants and country-of-birth queues. A policy would have to take into consideration past approvals as well.

If you go by past approvals, people born in countries ex India, China may very well make the case that approvals have been discriminatory against them.

The ridiculously longer wait period is absurd though. It's equivalent to a rejection, but having it so probably allows a policy change in the future to fast-track them in queue order.

If they are being targeted disproportionately among their foreign counterparts I see a case for this.

Otherwise I don't see an issue, this is the case for all work visas in any country.

Trying to change the immigration laws because you don't like them is one thing but this isn't a nationality issue.

Simple question: Why don't they just stay?

There are an estimated 10 million undocumented immigrants in the United States, mostly from Central America.

Main reason I've heard from mostly Latin/south American people on visa who consider staying past the expiration is that you can then never leave to visit family or visit any other country.

It's definitely common to just 'stay' but you better be prepared to stay the rest of your life.

Note this is from talking to people who enter legally but then consider staying illegally, not those who enter illegally.

Legal immigrants mostly in white-collar jobs. If you get out of status, you cannot be employed legally.

I think Indian tech workers have plenty of representation in Silicon Valley.

Marching for the right to citizenship in a country you weren’t born in is a funny 2022 development. I’m Canadian working and living in the US on TN, but I don’t think I’d be taken very seriously if I walked around holding a sign about how I’m discriminated against as an immigrant to have only residency and not citizenship.

To be fair, your Canadian citizenship and passport offers you far more privileges in the US and around the world than people with Indian passports, so of course you don't understand their struggle, when you can just walz in anywhere with your Canadian passport, but I doubt you'd feel the same if you had the same restrictions of Indian nationals.

What concrete, legislative privileges do I get as a Canadian immigrant living in the USA that an Indian immigrant living in the USA would not? That's unquestionably what's under discussion here, so please be as specific as possible, Chuck.

If you were to get an H1B visa you would have become a permanent resident within a few years, as opposed to 180 years for Indian born people.

Also, this is a misconception. This has nothing to do with your passport. The separation is based on your country of birth.

So if you were a Canadian citizen born in Canada, got an H1B visa, applied for and were approved for a permanent residency which is your right as per the H1B visa, you would get your permanent residency immediately.

If you were a Canadian citizen born in India, got an H1B visa, applied for and were approved for a permanent residency which is your right as per the H1B visa, you would get your permanent residency approximately 180 years from now.

The ability to get a green card in 1-3 years (instead of 20 years) because you’re not part of the India/China quota (if your country of birth is neither). The ability to get NAFTA statuses like the TN at the border if you’re in a NAFTA profession. The relative ease of switching jobs and reapplying for a new TN adjudicated at the border. Visa free entry to the US without having to do visa runs to restamp. The ability to repatriate retirement funds due to joint agreements. There are so many privileges afforded to Canadians in the US that most other nationalities do not enjoy. It’s good to have empathy for folks who may not have what you have. Source: am Canadian.

Canadians kind of get the best of both worlds (at least for dualies) living in the US. You can max out your 401k on a pre-tax level; IIRC, you pay taxes both ways when investing in an RRSP.

If you have a Nexus card and live close to the border, travel between the two countries becomes a non-issue.

When you hit retirement age, you can move back to Canada and get provincial health care.

As of today, $1.00 USD == $1.36 CAD.

I will probably be depositing a lot more money back into my Canadian savings account over the next few years, just because I'll probably move back at some point in my life.

So yeah, Canadians in the US definitely get a lot of advantages over other immigrants. The only trade off is filling a 1040 every year, but even that is reduced to one additional form when residing in Canada.

Are you approved for permanent residence already but being told to wait 180 years?

Are you paying additional taxes, the benefits of which you cannot receive, entirely on the basis of the fact that you are eligible to get a permanent residency (small text: 180 years later).

Also? The H1B visa is explicitly a “dual intent” visa. The TN visa isn’t.

https://www.nolo.com/legal-encyclopedia/what-are-dual-intent...

The entire intention of the H1B visa, set at its outset, is to allow people to become permanent residents. The same isn’t the case for the TN visa, which is explicitly a short term work visa.

But this isn’t even talking about people applying to get the visas. This is about people who were on those visas, and have applied for a green card and have been approved for a green card.

It’s an administrative sleight of hand. “Yes, you’re approved for the green card as we’re promised, but unfortunately, since you were born in China, we just don’t have the paper to print it out on for right now…Why don’t you come back 50 years later…ok now get out, I need to hand the paper I don’t have for you to the guy born in Greece behind you who has been waiting all of 2 days”.

Finally, if you’re a Canadian with an intention of moving to the US as a permanent resident you can absolutely apply as an H1B. Just make sure you meet all The skill requirements, none of which exist for the TN visa, convince a company to hire you, with the condition that it will take them at least a few months to know whether you can actually work for them as the govt approves the visa, convince them to pay for the legal costs and processing fees because you legally cannot, and then convince them to renew that process every 1-3 years. Then you need to convince them to apply for your permanent residency, in a 3 stage process that involves proving that no one else born in the U.S. can do the job as wel as you, after having spent at least 6 months advertising, then spending another stage of applications proving you will contribute to the US’s benefit, and then finally getting approval for you to be a green card holder.

Now, congratulations. As a Canadian citizen were you born in Canada, because then you will be shipped your green card tomorrow. But as a Canadian citizen were you born in China? Well, I guess 50+ years later we might ship you your green card. India? 180+ years.

Oh, as an aside if you were in the latter 2 categories, do keep in mind that the 2 and 4 year old kids will have no path to remaining in the US once they turn 21.

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