Comment by shas3 | Hacker News Reader

Comment by shas3 | Hacker News Reader

The US legal immigration system is perfectly described by the adjective, Kafkaesque. In terms of the arbitrariness of bureaucracy, it has more in common with what I saw in the socialist days of India and what one reads in books by Solzhenitsyn and Kafka. The iniquities have been discussed repeatedly in popular press, with almost no changes wrought in the process. Many years ago (yes, 2011 was 4 years ago) Newsweek ran a story about how irrational bureaucratic delays derailed a guy's career in a consulting firm: http://www.newsweek.com/story-one-mans-immigration-ordeal-66...

I know at least 6 other people who have had similar experiences: well qualified people in great skill-specific jobs who were caught up in bureaucratic nightmares. Unlike the subject of the Newsweek article, these people had employees who could afford to keep them on the payroll.

New York Times also ran an article on this issue, of a Google employee who had to move to Canada because of arbitrary bureaucratic rules concerning the work visa. http://www.nytimes.com/2009/04/12/business/12immig.html?page...

Further, green card applications have country quotas, which, in the context of citizenship were deemed unconstitutional during JFK/LBJ's civil rights actions.

In spite of such iniquities, there seem to be no political efforts to fix the system.

Part of the problem with improving the system is that there's simply no incentive. Immigration reform almost entirely centers on managing undocumented/illegal immigrants. Law Makers don't have to listen to petitions from people outside of the country let alone their own jurisdictions.

The other part is that people who've suffered through the process don't turn around and try to fix it, I remember when my wife was going through the process almost 2 decades ago (and it took us something like 2-3 years to get through it), not one of the employees in immigration we dealt with were obvious former immigrants. If people who finally made it in turned around and went into government service and tried to fix the hellscape they went through, it would probably be better. But most people seem to be glad to get through the process and then get as far away from it as possible.

All that being said, people who I know who've gone through the process recently report a vastly simpler and streamlined process from the one we went through. So there is improvement being made.

For better or worse, the difficulties around immigration come purely from limiting the number of immigrants. If immigration entry was virtually unlimited, these stories wouldn't happen. I'll leave it up to you to decide if unlimited immigration is a good or bad thing.

Even if the objective is to limit immigration, the rules are arbitrary. Like bureaucracy in general, it is also counterproductive to the economy. Skilled immigrants, after all aren't like industrial pollution or worker safety or pharmaceutical drugs to be deliberately doomed to bureaucratic labyrinths.

I would strongly support massive expansion of the lottery system (and the reserve on advanced degrees), and have written my local congresspeople about it in the past.

I do this knowing that it may even result in driving down wages in STEM fields. Because I think it's too important over the long-term.

The simplest solution is to shorten the H1-B time to a year and auto-convert to green card.

More tech immigrants. No indentured servitude.

Everybody wins. Except for the tech corporations who are suppressing wages--which is all of them--which is why it never happens.

> Except for the tech corporations who are suppressing wages--which is all of them

This is not true. I'm on an H1B, and I can change jobs freely. Employers can't prevent you from changing jobs. Employers have zero power to suppress wages if you have an H1B -- because you can get a better paying job. (This is unlike the L-1, which locks you to your employer.) The only thing preventing someone from getting a better paying job is how good they are at what they do.

What's funny is that a lot of the engineers that outsourcing companies (like TCS, Infosys) bring over, end up leaving their poorly-paying sponsor soon after getting to the US (usually in 6 months), for a higher-paying job elsewhere. The only people left behind are those who can't find a better job...

> This is not true. I'm on an H1B, and I can change jobs freely.

To another employer willing to sponsor your H1-B. Correct?

However, doesn't this cause timeline issues? There were lots of problems with changing companies resetting your timeline. When did that change?

You might be thinking of people whose companies have started the greencard process.

If your company hasn't applied for a greencard for you, there really is nothing tying you to them.

If they do apply for your greencard, you are tied to them for about one (or two) years.

> If people who finally made it in turned around and went into government service and tried to fix the hellscape they went through, it would probably be better.

I suspect that people who are persistent and qualified enough to get through that legal system have opportunities to pursue better job opportunities. And at the other hand, I wouldn't expect them to be wealthy and successful enough to easily sacrifice their careers to work for a public cause full-time.

Also, many of those government service jobs could require security clearances, making it harder for naturalized immigrants to apply.

Part of the problem is identifying the actual abusers of the visa-system applicable to skilled workers, i.e. what makes someone "skilled" with "specialized knowledge". The public debate in elections may make the biggest noise about undocumented immigrants, but there is behind-the-scenes discussion about the H1-B and L-1 system. This August, the USCIS will announce its decision on expanding the L-1 definition of "specialized knowledge". The L-1 class, the lesser-known brother of the H1-B, is a 3-year non-immigrant visa that is extendable for up to 5 years (7 years for the L-1A) and can be reissued if the employee in question leaves the US and works for the sponsoring company for another year. People are eligible to apply for the L-1 if they have worked for a US company abroad or will be opening and running US-branch office for a foreign company (other cases apply, just not available off the top of my head. The L-1A is for execs and managers, the L1-B for specialized knowledge workers). No degree or education requirement is necessary for the L-1B by the way. No quota either, like with the H-1B. About a third of applications are rejected though, biased towards India. Abusers of the H1-B and L-1 system are the blue-chip, non-tech companies who use out-sourcing IT companies like Cognizant, Infosys, Tata, Wipro to cut costs in their tech departments. Talking about immigration reform is not so much about lack of incentive as it is about the emotions arising from the stories of Disney IT workers being fired and having to retrain their H1-B replacements who are getting paid lower wages. Another aspect not discussed is whether expanding the H1-B system perpetuates ageism in the Valley -- why not push out older workers at the expense of getting fresh foreign grads? No large change can happen when fear is present.

I had to get finger-printed 3 times because they INS/BCIS/USCIS kept losing my prints - or perhaps the FBI did. I'll never know, and now no longer care

Which country recognizes a universal right to naturalize as a citizen of that country?

How is this question germane to my comment or OP? I am not advocating any universal right. Just bureaucratic efficiency.

All the emotionally charged language you used (like "iniquities") belies this claim. Obviously you do not feel this is simply a matter of inefficiency. Now you are moving the goalposts.

Svalbard, effectively.

Isn't that only for signatories to the Svalbard Treaty, though?

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Svalbard_Treaty#/media/File:Sv...

Argentina.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com