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Comment by fijal | Hacker News Reader

Well, while a step in the right direction, it definitely does not answer most serious questions. The points that stand out for me:

* High bureaucracy levels while dealing with it, which means cost, which means most small companies won't do it.

* You can't just quit your job and live in the US for a while, while looking for another one (or not). IT salaries make it absolutely possible to take a year off if you feel like it.

* No cleaning of the path to greencard. It's possible, especially when you come from a country with a large number of applicants, like India, that you won't receive a greencard before your second visa expires and you have to go back "home" for a year.

* Just like above, the limit of 2 applications.

Overall a very mellow step, which does not make me any more inclined to come and work in the states. Greetings from the beautiful city of Cape Town, where immigration procedures took me a few days and 60 euros.

Cheers, fijal

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The H1B is a temporary work visa. It's not a "sit around for a year and find yourself" visa, nor is it a "get on the path to citizenship" visa.

If you want to expand those visas or reallocate them, advocate for it. I'm hugely in favor of eliminating nepotism based immigration (what we have now) and replacing it with something favoring high skilled individuals [1].

But that doesn't mean there isn't a place for temporary work visas.

[1] This is, however, a political non-starter. Bush's amnesty bill was killed because someone slipped this in as a poison pill.

Well. It's really the only work visa that's really available to anyone who is a highly skilled professional and wants to move to states. It's a de-facto "get on the path to citizenship" visa and it's the only possibility for people like me to live and/or work in states permanently or semi-permanently.

The article title claims "comprehensive high-skill immigration reform".

As a highly-skilled South African (which, interestingly enough, appears to be where parent ultimately decided to emigrate), the effort, duration and uncertainty involved in acquiring US citizenship makes it a non-starter option for me.

I'm better off remaining in South Africa where I don't have to work non-stop for years and years unless I want to risk being deported, don't have to play a different game in the job market, can stop working at any time to go full speed on my startup, etc.

Eventually I hope to be successful enough that emigration through business and wealth is a simpler and more direct option. Of course by then I may very well have a family and other commitments that again make emigration a non-option.

Assuming I'm the sort of person this reform is meant to entice into the USA (a country I very much admire), it certainly isn't comprehensive, which appears to be parent's point.

Actually, if you have had a labor certification application filed for at least a year (and still active), then you can renew an H1b indefinitely. Similarly, if you have an approved I140 and you are awaiting adjustment in status, you can renew your h1b on an annual basis indefinitely.

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