I'm so put off by the immigration process in the US that I have decided to leave the US permanently. Don't worry - i still work for the same US based company remotely from a more cost effective nation. I just don't pay your taxes anymore.
Really sucks.
But yea. That is what probably happened.
Then again, I guess it makes sense. Both the US and China have made it much harder to leave China and enter the US now.
That is not great if we are in a talent Cold War with a near peer.
Which policies do you think create this?
It could be entirely probable the Chinese just don't find it attractive to live and work in the US after getting their college degrees here.
Turns out, just about every Chinese STEM program will get a military grant, the same way just about every American STEM program will get a DoD grant.
On the Chinese side, they put a cap of $50,000 on money or assets you can bring outside of China each year [1]. Tuition is included in that cap. That means most American universities are out of reach for Chinese students, and immigrating from China to the US with your entire family is a pain (you need some money to land on your feet).
Also, during 2019-2022 there was this small policy called Zero COVID that severely restricted ingress and egress.
Also, US Consulates and Embassies paused visa processing for almost 2 years during the pandemic.
[0] - https://www.federalregister.gov/documents/2020/06/04/2020-12...
1. Is that why they give special virtually uncapped visa classes to Australia, Singapore, Canada and Chile while everyone else has to deal with h1B?
2. Do you think there are country based limits when admitting people through the southern border or granting refugee status?
What is "virtually uncapped"? Do you have a source explaining how Australia, Singapore, Canada and Chile are treated differently? And as an FYI, I see no problem with Canada having a special regime.
BTW Mexico gets the same special regime as Canada under NAFTA.
No clue what parent meant by virtually uncapped.
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/H-1B1_visa
Counted separately but included in the overall cap.
Another interesting difference is that H1B1 seems to not be dual intent, contrary to H1B. Definitely not the panacea that was hinted at in this thread.
Today if you're an illegal migrant and claim asylum, you get +inf points. If you're born in certain countries with long wait time, you get -inf points.
Clearly the system today is working within your definition.
Re-read the parent comment again. They say "point-based system [...] regardless of national origin", which implies that the origin country wouldn't have any effect aka point-value (neither negative nor positive) attached to it.
> if you're an illegal migrant and claim asylum, you get +inf points
Bringing up the asylum visa category makes zero sense, because it was obvious from the context (both the parent comment and the entire thread) that the conversation was about a point system in the context of employment-based visas. Having a point-based system go cross-category or even used at all in most categories doesn't make sense.
So no, the system you described isn't working with their definition at all.
All I was trying to say that the point of the comment i was replying to was making a faulty statement “well, the way you explain it is already how it works under conditions XYZ” with a “those XYZ conditions you mention directly contradict the premise you are addressing.”
Short-term: Perhaps.
Long-term: A more-stable LATAM (and world) economy is in America's interest.
It's a fantastic deal for us because they're not immigrating here and therefore driving prices of housing, social services, etc. to the unsustainable levels we're seeing now. Outsourcing over the past decades has been a huge boon for the US. They're generating value for US companies and we're able to take advantage of that. The US needs to grow its own families and social networks organically. Every country should.
>but the one thing it doesn't do is optimize for the interests of America.
Generating wealth for US companies and providing stability to their home countries is a win/win. This is optimal for US interests.
Housing prices are a big problem, but the fix isn't depopulation; it's fixing zoning and building rules.
If that means our tech and financial sectors look more like Europe, that would probably be a good thing too. The tax base thing is a trap. Having seen the influx of tech workers and rich immigrants move into Virginia, I don’t think it was a win for the median person who was already there.
2. American immigrants feel a very high amount of affinity with the US and the opportunities afford to them by the country, regardless of how much affinity they feel towards their neighbours. I think the main problem is that native born Americans feel a fairly low amount affinity towards each other - and that has little to do with immigration.
3. I think having a low immigration, stagnant tech and finance sectors is probably beneficial to the median person who is already in the US and doesn't really wanna work that hard and compete with immigrants. I agree with you there. If you go to Australia the ones who are getting the highest grades, becoming doctors and lawyers, buying expensive properties are all immigrants (usually East Asian / South Asian). If you want to relax and just enjoy life without working hard Europe is absolutely ideal for you.
America is great because it was founded by rule following British people with a long tradition of self governance. What’s come after that is debatable. It’s certainly made America rich, I’ll give you that.
> 2. American immigrants feel a very high amount of affinity with the US and the opportunities afford to them by the country, regardless of how much affinity they feel towards their neighbours.
Yes, but what is the “US” they feel affinity for? I think the “US” they have affinity for us a very shallow concept. It’s not like say the French or Chinese that have a thousand years of shared history they identify with. My whole family is immigrants. My parents just got back from visiting family in Canada and Australia and were complaining about how much better America is. But what is America to them? They don’t care about Appalachians, or the constitution, etc. They like that you can make a lot of money and live in much bigger houses than in Australia or Canada.
> I think the main problem is that native born Americans feel a fairly low amount affinity towards each other - and that has little to do with immigration.
I think the two things are directly correlated. The vast majority of people don’t want to leave their home countries. That means the ones that immigrate tend to be the ones that have weaker social ties. And I strongly suspect that persists for at least a couple of generations within family cultures—if only because it takes longer than that to really develop deep and broad family networks in the country. But most Americans are just a couple of generations away from those initial immigrants. (None of Donald Trump’s grandparents were born in America.)
> 3. I think having a low immigration, stagnant tech and finance sectors is probably beneficial to the median person who is already in the US and doesn't really wanna work that hard and compete with immigrants. I agree with you there. If you go to Australia the ones who are getting the highest grades, becoming doctors and lawyers, buying expensive properties are all immigrants (usually East Asian / South Asian).
I agree. So I think where we differ is on whether that’s a good thing or not. A bunch of my family is exactly that kind of immigrant to Australia. They’re doing well individually. But does that make the country better for the median Australian that’s already there?
Their love of rules and self-governance was so great they had to leave their rule-following, self-government-enjoyer country where they called them 'non-conformists'. This doesn't really add up.
But this is what the US is encouraging with its immigration policy so you reap what you sow.
Or another way that if US company has decided to not employ US born local at least those got employed overseas will not compete for housing, schools and other services for which they easily out compete locals if they are employed in US. Means another win. That would be pro-nativist argument. I know they are not much loved here but that's that.
If tax dollars are the issue, just tax the company.
Or the software engineer with a US college degree paying $>50k / year in income taxes to state and federal government?
Because you know that they are only restricting the latter type of immigrant.
Because anyone else employed for that role/ income would've not paid income tax or any other tax at all. Its to immigrants credit that they pay taxes when they could simply chose not to.
The right believes in either no immigration or immigration based on an impossibly high bar with caps preventing immigration from undesirable origins.
My view is that in the long run immigration policy simply does not matter because we will have figured out how to educate, recruit, train, and exploit the high quality remote labor from any country. The most talented folks around the world will find a way to reap the rewards of the American economy either by residing within the US or doing it from afar. The after tax wage spread is margin that can be exploited.