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Comment by josefresco | Hacker News Reader

Honest question: If the author "had come to America to attend Yale." didn't they also research the requirements for citizenship or an extended stay? Did they decide the benefits outweigh the cons or did they just "hope" things would work out? Maybe they made the decision after attending Yale - was this decision not well informed?

I think criticism of the immigration system is warranted and valid, just that potential immigrants need to understand the flaws in the system before they invest in a new life within America's borders.

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It is very unusual for 18-year-olds to accurately plan for what they will when they are 33.

Most people don't plan their lives out like you are suggesting. They take opportunities as they come, and build their life as it comes along. He attended Yale, liked America, stayed, worked and built a life for 15 years. I find this reasonable, and consider it unrealistic to expect him to, at any point during that time, to just abandon his current life because he might not be able to stay.

Right, but what happened between 18 and 33. At some point the author must have realized "the system is fucked" but decided (for multiple reasons) to risk continuing to work and live with the US.

It's one thing to attend university for 4 years, get a job and then head home. Quite another thing to base/commit your entire life/career in the US without a clear path to citizenship.

I'm not saying the author should "suck it up" but rather it seems many take this risk, knowing the dangers and therefore shouldn't be surprised or shocked to eventually have to leave (given a gap in employment)

I am in the situation you are suggesting.

People like the author and me are not surprised, but rather disappointed (and sad).

I should add, sad because it is very hard to build and plan a life where you do not know where you will be in 3 or 6 years. For example, why would you try to buy a house if you don't know what will happen? Because of all this I am probably considering to not even bother with H1B.

The GC application should follow the H1B immediately. Don't accept an offer from an employer that cannot promise you that they will do that. Either they don't know what they are doing or they can't imagine you still working there several years later.

The problem is that you generally don't realize "the system is fucked" until you've spent several years in the system and you suddenly drop into a kafka-esque black hole because someone put one wrong date on a 50 pages filing.

Also due to the duration of time involved changes in the law can both screw you up or make it possible. Can you predict what the legal system will be like 6 years down the road ?

Basically, the rule is that your first job after college should be with an employer that will sponsor your green card application. I knew that when I graduated and it was my number one criterion when looking for a job. Most of my foreign-born friends knew it too and they did the same. Most, but not all. The ones who didn't due to naivete, carelessness, or limited job opportunities ran into problems later. You have only 6 years on an H1B and time flies quickly. US society is in general very welcoming to immigrants, especially highly-skilled ones, so it's easy to forget that you are just a guest here subject to the vagaries of the system. Getting the green card should be the absolute priority when selecting an employer, no compromise.

Read the article. The author mentions that he repeatedly requested his employer to sponsor his GC. They made him wait and eventually declined. He tried to change employers at that stage because he knew he needed a path to GC, but was unlucky and got screwed at that stage.

There is not much more he could have done.

I have friends from Europe who went to graduate school in the USA. They had to go back to Europe after a decade in school here because they didn't get jobs. They had another friend who was in a similar situation. They knew is was hard for international students to manage to get hired in my field but, like all of us, thought they would beat the odds. They didn't and now have had to rebuild their lives back in their home country.

Even when we know the odds are against us we want to think we will be special and make it even if we know it isn't realistic.

The Yale degree is still valuable even if the author can't stay in the United States.

Yup. There's quite a bit of white privilege dripping from this article. I'm supposed to feel sorry for a Ivy League lawyer? What if this was written by a 33-year old Haitian who went to Cal State Fullerton? Would it get the same reaction on HN? Or would it even be published by vox?

The author isn't white. Maybe don't have a knee jerk reaction and using white as a near epithet.

Vox has other articles on those from mexico/latin America.

You imply people and organization are racists without even knowing the facts. Maybe check your own bias.

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