[HN Gopher] My journey through the American immigration system a...
___________________________________________________________________
My journey through the American immigration system as a computer
engineer
Author : whack
Score : 172 points
Date : 2022-05-11 11:24 UTC (11 hours ago)
(HTM) web link (software.rajivprab.com)
(TXT) w3m dump (software.rajivprab.com)
| nisegami wrote:
| I haven't opened the article because I suspect I'm not in the
| right headspace for it, but I wanted to share my thoughts. I did
| my degree in the US and my experience with the immigration system
| was so traumatic that I just gave up entirely and didn't try to
| stay in the US after graduation. I wouldn't say I regret it, but
| it does feel wasteful at the end of the day to have put all that
| time/effort/energy in only to come back to my home country. But
| oh well.
| boredumb wrote:
| Emma Lazarus posted a poem in 1903 and now the US has to bend
| over backwards to make everyone a citizen. The amount of people I
| hear living or working in the US that explain away bureaucracy as
| racist/xenophobic/etc while hailing from countries that literally
| won't allow you to become a citizen unless your genetic parents
| are from there is insane. It's obviously not a monolith of people
| but it does become tiresome hearing about how the US is a
| byzantine of immigration as if there is some obligation for US
| citizens to adopt every nation while the other side of the mouth
| explains how racist the US is and all the while the nations large
| swaths of immigrants are coming from won't let US citizens hold
| their passport unless they are multimillionaire investors.
| chupkarkhotay wrote:
| I recommend reading "This land is our land" by Suketu Mehta:
|
| https://us.macmillan.com/books/9780374276027/thislandisourla...
|
| You cannot compare policies with any random country - most
| immigrants pick the countries that have already hoarded all the
| wealth over centuries by waging and funding wars. In light of
| that history, the US should do a lot more than bend over
| backwards as reparations.
| Aperocky wrote:
| > obligation for US citizens to adopt every nation
|
| The legal immigrants that came here are mostly self-supporting
| people whose taxes and spending supports a lot of US citizens.
|
| Therefore your statement is almost entirely reversed, it is
| beneficial to the country that these people join us here.
|
| Of course, we can kill the H1B program entirely. Businesses
| will find a way, except this time all of the aforementioned
| taxes and spending will happen somewhere else. Sundar Pichai,
| Elon Musk, Sergey Brin, Satya Nadella, they'll all work
| elsewhere, along with millions of other people in the tech
| community.
| gumby wrote:
| what an exhausting but gripping example of how the immigration
| system is Byzantine and absurd.
|
| I am in the grips of it now: my ex and I both filed to renew our
| green card within a week or so of each other in early 2021. She
| received her replacement card in less than six weeks. According
| to the USCIS web site I still have at least another eight months
| to wait.
|
| Meanwhile I can't even get a stamp in my passport to indicate my
| status (so that I can travel): I arranged for such an appointment
| but when they finally called to tell me when it was instead to
| tell me that there are no appointments available.
| kamaal wrote:
| The most important part of this hasn't even been mentioned yet.
| He is lucky to have even gotten this far.
|
| Most Indians don't. In fact, the default, like he mentions go in
| the 'Deportation parties'.
|
| Most Indians return, in fact nearly all.
|
| It's the luckier ones who make it even this far. As much as crazy
| this sound, I envy this guy. It's basically a giant life lottery.
| TheArcane wrote:
| > Most Indians return, in fact nearly all.
|
| Source?
| sct202 wrote:
| I think it's really eye opening to me that he still only got a
| green card so far after 18 years. He's been going thru
| immigration hoops in the US for as long as it would take to raise
| an adult.
| sg47 wrote:
| 20 years here and no GC yet. The immigration system is a
| disaster. Upwards of$2 million in taxes to still be treated as
| a temporary worker.
| lotsofpulp wrote:
| And yet if you had $500k or $1M as a lump sum years ago, you
| could simply have bought your way into the US with an EB-5.
|
| $900k or $1.8M now:
|
| https://www.uscis.gov/working-in-the-united-
| states/permanent...
| 22SAS wrote:
| It got changed to $800K minimum in March 2022.
| lotsofpulp wrote:
| Thanks for the update. Interestingly enough, the targeted
| employment area (TEA) amount was brought down from $900k
| to $800k, but the non TEA amount was brought down all the
| way from $1.8M to $1.05M, with both figures to be
| adjusted per inflation every five years.
| usrn wrote:
| There are multiple groups involved here. Some of us don't
| want that many immigrants, for us the immigration system is
| only a disaster because of the high rate of illegal
| immigration.
| cletus wrote:
| This is a really good account of the immigration system. I've
| gone through this myself. My path was significantly easier. As an
| Australian citizen, I got an E3 instead of an H1B. This is both
| easier to get and has no uncertainty with a lottery. Technically,
| there's a quota (10,000 per year) but that cap has never been
| hit. Also, I'm not born in one of the countries that has a
| ridiculous long wait like the author.
|
| Still, my green card was delayed by a random audit. They do this
| deliberately so people don't learn to game the system. At that
| time, an audit added 18 months to the petition processing so
| overall my green process took almost 3 years.
|
| The author accurate describes just how arbitrary, uncertain and
| punitive this process is. His example of having to go get a visa
| stamp in the Bahamas and potentially not being allowed to reenter
| the country. It's also worth noting that H1Bs have different
| reentry permissions based on your country of origin. IIRC a
| mainland Chinese born coworker told me he could only renenter the
| US on his H1B for the first year of each 3 year H1B.
|
| The author also portrays the necessity that you need to learn an
| awful lot about how the immigration system works. All of what he
| said rang true and I only had one issue with one thing he said.
|
| His move of resigning right when getting his green card is a
| dangerous one. He mentions this and also mentions how you can be
| subject to claims of immigration fraud. In his case it was for
| potentially extending his stay at Amazon. This is true. But
| immediately leaving a job after getting a green card can come
| back to haunt you if you ever apply for US citizenship because at
| that time, possibly years later, they can still view this as visa
| fraud.
|
| So how long do you need to stay in a job to avoid this? Like so
| many things in the immigration system, it's unclear. Many lawyers
| will give you advice to stay for at least six months to
| demonstrate your intent but this is a discretionary test so
| there's no hard-and-fast minimum.
|
| Even looking to change jobs (including founding a startup) while
| your petition is being processed can be a red flag as far as visa
| fraud goes.
|
| So if anyone is in a similar boat, here's my advice to you: don't
| even look for jobs in this stage. Get your green card in your
| hands, celebrate the end of probably a long journey, give it a
| few months and then consider your options.
| [deleted]
| someotherperson wrote:
| Even going to the US as a non-immigrant is totally broken at the
| moment. If you don't qualify[0] for an ESTA (visa waiver) then an
| appointment for a tourist visa in the US can be upwards of 200
| days in some places (i.e Australia or Netherlands). An
| appointment at the consulate in Toronto is 429 days away if you
| were to book today.
|
| That's not the processing time, that's literally just the
| appointment you need to make as part of the application. There is
| additional processing time added to that if it is successful.
|
| You can plug some cities in here[1] to see how long it would
| take.
|
| [0] If you've visited several countries in the MENA region since
| 2011, have ever held one of their passports or are not flying on
| a passport from one of the 40 countries listed here:
| https://travel.state.gov/content/travel/en/us-visas/tourism-...
|
| [1] https://travel.state.gov/content/travel/en/us-visas/visa-
| inf...
| dhruvarora013 wrote:
| And that's if you can find an appointment at all. It's over 150
| days here in Ireland and you have to check the portal pretty
| much daily to try your luck. I've been waiting for two months
| already and can never land one!
| keyme wrote:
| Even _with_ a tourist visa that I got years back it isn 't
| smooth going into the USA anymore (as a shithole-country
| passport holder). I went many times, but last time I got "the
| room", for absolutely no reason, and nothing was asked of me
| but the standard questions. It only took hours in an
| intimidating setting.
|
| USA, you're just another country. Next time I'll take my
| tourist money elsewhere.
| throwaway1183 wrote:
| As a citizen of another shithole-country passport holder
| (living in country other than US) I can't agree more. I don't
| get why people make it as if USA is the only beacon of hope.
| It's just another country.
|
| Now that the world is diversified, globalized and everything
| is connected with the internet, I don't understand why people
| have to cling so much to the American idea of success. Are
| people living outside really that unsuccessful? I don't see
| any problem with what USA is doing. It's their country, let
| them do their thing. As long as US is open to trade and
| exchange, everyone is winning! They made so many great things
| and everyone can reap benefit out of it.
|
| I hypothesize that it's the generational problem that got
| passed to other people because of globalized world. Everyone
| has equal access of information. Just 20 years ago, when
| people had less information, they were probably more content
| with the local things. But the result of globalization is
| people tend to be blinded. They starting ignoring
| opportunities. I realized that even few people from rich
| country think that it's only in the US where they can be
| successful.
|
| I feel it's like how people moved from farms to cities then
| to another countries. Now the time has changed and the new
| city is US. I think every place has their own flaws and
| gains, but life will just keep on going. I believe we should
| learn to be more gratuitous and be thankful for what we have.
|
| On the sidenote, congrats to author getting the card!
| Miraste wrote:
| It's probably working as designed. Most people in ESTA
| countries qualify. The list of country visits that disqualifies
| you is North Korea, Iran, Iraq, Libya, Somalia, Sudan, Syria,
| and Yemen, all places where the US is hostile to the government
| or a major indigenous rebel/terrorist organization. The US
| government won't ban you outright for going there, but they're
| happy to deprioritize you.
|
| Compare with China, a non-ESTA country that makes the US a lot
| of money. The wait time for a visa appointment in Beijing is
| two days.
| dhruvarora013 wrote:
| There are citizens of countries that need visas that live in
| primarily ESTA countries. This is a larger demographic than
| you think!
| smnrchrds wrote:
| > Most people in ESTA countries qualify
|
| Correction: most _citizens_ of ESTA countries qualify. For
| example, approximately three million Canadian residents are
| not citizens of Canada (they have work permit, study permit,
| or permanent residence permit instead). Wait times for a visa
| appointment from Canada are about 1 to 1.5 years now.
|
| Fun fact: permanent residents of the US can visit Canada
| without needing a visa, but this is not reciprocated.
| Permanent residents of Canada need a visa to visit the US,
| unless their country of citizenship is one of the ESTA
| countries.
| nivenkos wrote:
| There's a load of countries that don't qualify for the ESTA
| though.
|
| It's stopped us having conferences in the US because non-EU
| nationals working in Europe can't get US tourist visas in
| time.
| renewiltord wrote:
| The comments here in this thread illustrate why unions are so
| dangerous. So many Americans subscribe to the "we are full" and
| "why should I lower my wages" arguments against immigration. On
| their own, they're flaccid. If unionized they would be powerful.
| Better that software engineer unions never see light lest they
| behave like unions of old did and turn their ire on immigrants.
|
| Read here about the history of existing immigration policy and
| its roots in union anti-immigration policy
| https://core.ac.uk/download/pdf/5124597.pdf
| itissid wrote:
| One of the constant dichotomies that i(and maybe other
| immigrants) live with are these: The privilege of being a model
| minority [1] [2] yet being on the edge of having to lose it all
| if the immigration system shits itself. One might be a senior
| software engineer paying 100K + in taxes and probably drive EVs
| and own a home, your largest infraction are parking tickets, yet
| the risks are asymmetric; the whims of bureaucrats and a border
| guard who is having a bad day. The purchasing power parity of my
| $$ salary affords me secure a comfortable financial future, but
| these are golden handcuffs; You cannot always work for the
| companies you want because if the company goes bust and you
| chance to lose a lot.
|
| These are the dichotomies I(and many immigrants) have had to live
| with. Time is a great healer of things and over time and with
| financial cushions the dichotomy might fade, I am still not sure
| it completely goes away. One can only think of the present and
| make the best of it.
|
| [1] https://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2021/01/the-
| mak... [2]
| https://www.google.com/books/edition/The_Karma_of_Brown_Folk...
| notch656a wrote:
| >a border guard who is having a bad day.
|
| This is not to be understated.
|
| I was born a US citizen. Last time I entered the country,
| officers faked that a dog had alerted "on my anus", forcibly
| strip searched me, and fabricated a story that plastic baggies
| that they suspected 'could be drugs' were coming out of my ass.
|
| I was shackled and cuffed and dragged around the state of
| Arizona for 16 hours while publicly paraded in Hospitals,
| including the waiting rooms. Officers attempted repeatedly,
| across two different cities one hour apart, to get medical
| staff to perform unwarranted and consentless x-rays and/or
| probing of my body, which I repeatedly refused. Doctors,
| despite having zero medical evidence I had did anything wrong,
| wrote on their paperwork I was 'suspicious' because I denied
| the allegations.
|
| After 16 hours of this harassments I was release, uncharged,
| with no apologies.
|
| On yet another occasion, I was told by border officials they
| would not let me in my own country, despite providing full
| proof of citizenship (immaculate condition passport, plus
| identifying myself fully). After 4 hours of probing questions
| including going practically line by line on what's on the IRS
| 1040, most of which I didn't answer, I was released.
|
| Now imagine this same happening, legally entering the country
| at the proper port of entry with full authorization -- except
| as not a citizen or looking like a boring middle-class corn-fed
| white guy like me. These sick fucks would treat you even worse.
| A woman (actually a citizen) who went through a few years
| before me brutally had her orifices probed in a 'search' for
| 'contraband.'[0]
|
| [0] https://www.courtlistener.com/docket/6451513/cervantes-v-
| uni...
| ROTMetro wrote:
| I was super upset after visiting China and returning to the
| USA. Our immigration people were so much more authoritarian
| scary than the Chinese had been. And the Chinese had this
| cool smiley computer interface where you rated the chinese
| immigration official for their interaction on the spot. So
| China was not only friendlier and more welcoming, but also
| more accountable. We really need to check ourselves in
| America. Our Federal Government is out of control (I say this
| as someone who was failed by the Courts only to have them
| completely reverse themselves with respect to their rulings
| against me when COVID came because it would have been
| inconvenient to follow their precedent because people would
| die so they finally had actually follow the law, not the
| Bureau of Prison's Court supported 'interpretation' of the
| law, and as someone who was abused (I guess we no longer use
| the torture term) while incarcerated).
|
| I can't imagine the horror of having the Feds have so much
| power over my life as an immigrant does. Or the fact that you
| can loose it all in a heartbeat (as happened to my friends in
| the bay areas in the 90s when they lost their jobs and their
| VISA sponsors).
| tablespoon wrote:
| > I was super upset after visiting China and returning to
| the USA. Our immigration people were so much more
| authoritarian scary than the Chinese had been. And the
| Chinese had this cool smiley computer interface where you
| rated the chinese immigration official for their
| interaction on the spot. So China was not only friendlier
| and more welcoming, but also more accountable.
|
| I've seen those machines at Ikea in the US, though they did
| seem more common in China.
|
| However, it's almost unbelievably superficial to rate
| "authoritarianess" by the anecdotal cheeriness of front
| like officials.
| foogazi wrote:
| > And the Chinese had this cool smiley computer interface
| where you rated the chinese immigration official for their
| interaction on the spot.
|
| TBH I think I would click the smiliest smiley in any
| foreign country
| daniel-cussen wrote:
| Yeah I don't know most of the TSA was just doing their job
| the best they could. I've come to respect their mandate a
| lot, reading the history of aviation and how it's all a
| crazy game to not go splat. It's not the fact of traveling,
| it's the fact of traveling ON AN AIRPLANE. Everything about
| it. The basic nature of aviation is it's closely tied to
| suicide. It's like interwoven with suicide. They are the
| two threads of one fabric, that give it a color in between,
| like cloth woven with gold. It's really goddamn dangerous
| to fly, you're relying on so many parts to work right,
| despite letting random guys on the street in their pijamas
| on board with their cellphones, and asking for fucking
| internet connectivity, no.
|
| I'm completely with Louis CK on this one. We should all fly
| strapped down completely, upright, I guess with slightly
| bigger windows as a compromise, realizing the fact of
| flight and being like "I am flying through the air at
| nearly the speed of sound, crossing continents and oceans
| in a mere matter of hours". Just respect it a fuck of a lot
| more, if flying were easy we'd have flown much sooner. In
| fact rockets are much older and easier to make than flying
| machines, rockets got started a little after gunpowder,
| about the time of the Mongol invasion, and flying machines
| date to the turn of the century. People think rockets are
| harder because the space race came after the big
| improvement in plane speed, nah. Well they're studied
| together, aero-astrophysics. Basically not going splat.
|
| So 9/11 was about going splat. That's literally what it
| was, Muhammad Ata and his conspiracy of Al-Qaeda Sunni
| Muslims decided, let's all go splat with a big plane, at
| the same building, at the same time. And they did! Because
| the whole difficulty of flying is not going splat, going
| splat on purpose is easy (although they were artistic about
| it, did a lot of difficult maneuvers). Suicide and
| aviation, interwoven.
|
| So back to TSA, I don't know they actually respond well
| when you ask them about anything, or thank them for keeping
| the planes from falling out of the sky. It's not a
| transportation or border thing, it's an aviation thing.
|
| And one time, when I was repatriating to the states, an
| agent asked me like what company did you work for, I never
| heard of that company. As though it mattered, resumes are
| irrelevant to citizenship once you have it. So yeah there
| are moments that are rougher. I think I've had good luck.
| ddorian43 wrote:
| Why did you deny an x-ray? I understand anal probing but
| don't understand x-ray?
| notch656a wrote:
| "Why wouldn't you just consent to an intimate unwarranted
| and unjustified search of your body that is completely
| medically unnecessary, with the expectation that the
| hospital will probably send you the bill afterwards?"
|
| Every single 'search' along the way was used to fabricate
| evidence against me. Remember these people are professional
| psychopathic liers so every inch you give them, they just
| use it to justify something even worse.
|
| 1) The dog -- never alerted -- they lied and said it
| alerted on my anus (WTF!?!). Used to justify a scan of my
| body with some x-ray looking machine at the border.
|
| 2) The "machine" (IDK what it was, but looked like a body
| scanner type thing) -- there was nothing, but then someone
| claims they "Saw something" which turned out to almost
| assuredly to have been my belt buckle.
|
| 3) The machine was used to justify strip searching me.
|
| 4) Fabricated evidence from the strip search was used to
| justify dragging me to hospitals for an x-ray.
|
| Now what was to be expected next? It just doesn't end. I
| did nothing wrong.
| jka wrote:
| I believe it, and that's a heinous series of events.
| Perhaps someone got confused, or there was an identity
| mismatch, or something. They're no excuse, but clearly
| something happened.
|
| It's understandable (and not necessarily wrong) to vent
| here, and I'm not going to ask whether you have done this
| already, because it's not useful to draw out an answer,
| but: if you can, find the relevant anti-corruption agency
| and report the events to them.
|
| There's a chance that doing so might increase the
| likelihood of harassment again in future -- I have no
| idea how these things show up on border entry systems --
| so it's your choice, but the key idea is to get a paper
| trail in place that will show up if (and hopefully when)
| investigations are later taking place.
|
| I haven't worked in law enforcement, but I imagine that
| the same way that good policework involves collecting
| statements and records of events to put together a case,
| internal (or independent) investigations into misconduct
| require similar records. The ability for individuals to
| get away with bad conduct is, I'd guess, based on people
| believing that it's not worthwhile to file reports
| against them. They do get caught when they are.
| notch656a wrote:
| Appreciate the advice.
|
| >There's a chance that doing so might increase the
| likelihood of harassment again in future
|
| I'm probably already at max likelihood already. I am
| detained 4+ hours everytime I enter the country. In 2015
| I fought alongside the Kurdish militia YPG in northern
| Syria against ISIS, and ever since the CBP has targeted
| me. There is a flag on my passport that basically says
| 'harass him' as best as I can tell.
|
| >if you can, find the relevant anti-corruption agency and
| report the events to them.
|
| Still in the process of filing the complaints against the
| relevant medical professionals who violated patient
| consent. I am currently working in order of operations
| from where I expect justice to be most likely (complicit
| medical workers) to where I expect justice to be
| impossible (CBP officers).
| jka wrote:
| You're welcome. That's a tough situation; I don't know if
| there's much I can say.
|
| Sounds like you've got a good, considered approach, so
| keep up the work to improve the environment and keep in
| mind other ways you can develop (and enjoy) your time is
| probably the best platitude I can offer (and one you
| probably already understand).
| ROTMetro wrote:
| Maybe 20 years ago the system worked, but it does not
| work currently. While I was incarcerated all of the
| decent COs quit or descended into drug/alcohol abuse if
| they had to keep the job. One was like 2 years from
| retirement and he just couldn't work in such a messed up
| system anymore. We had one counselor who actually helped
| people. They demoted here to a horrible work situation
| because she was helping people with COVID release
| paperwork because we had no access to the law library due
| to COVIDE. It was actually part of her job description to
| provide that help with copies (and optionally charge us
| per copy depending on if we were indigent), but that
| didn't matter. She was too helpful so she had to go.
| notch656a wrote:
| It's also worth noting that the COs you refer to are part
| of a jobs pipeline that feeds into immigration related
| officers. Immigrants will be treated by the same COs you
| met while incarcerated, and this time there is not even
| the pretense there has been a 'justified' conviction.
|
| Criminal 'justice' in US is in dire need of overhaul, and
| an actual plan on how to get our imprisonment rate down
| to other first world nations.
| ROTMetro wrote:
| Don't forget the 'good faith' deference that the Courts
| give to these people. They can lie, you can have actual
| evidence to show they are lying, but the court will
| extend 'good faith' to their testimony and hold it above
| the facts you demonstrate. Reality can literally be
| trumped by their lies. The USA has gone crazy in its
| support of the authorities. Oh, what, your evidence
| wasn't kept secure, and no one filled out any of the
| required logs of who took it out? Well, we'll throw out
| all of the rules and still accept it, because we extend
| 'good faith' to the officers. Why even have rules then if
| the officers aren't required to follow them and they know
| they will be given an excepts because of 'good faith'
| gumby wrote:
| The commenter had done nothing wrong, and anyway had no
| need for gratuitous exposure to radiation.
|
| If you look at your comment, apart from the 4th amendment
| issues, it's kind of like a "have you stopped beating your
| spouse?" kind of question.
| tablespoon wrote:
| > The commenter had done nothing wrong...
|
| Honestly, I'm not so sure about that, given the
| commenter. IIRC, in a couple of previous threads they've
| taken pretty strong positions that they'll do what they
| want regardless if the law says it's illegal and they're
| risking jail. Given that, I wouldn't be surprised if
| there was some suspicious or belligerent behavior on
| their part that they left out of the story.
| notch656a wrote:
| You know it all don't you, even though you weren't there?
| Care to use your 'belligerence behavior' to embellish
| more tales?
|
| >they'll do what they want regardless if the law says
| it's illegal and they're risking jail
|
| So go ahead and quote that, assuming it was said, and go
| on and explain where it creates articulable probable
| cause for an x-ray.
|
| I honestly can't believe I'm even responding to this
| victim-blaming garbage. Try reading Ms. Cervantes
| complaint, who's circumstances were incredibly similar to
| mine but she was treated even worse, and think again
| about your opinion here.
|
| https://storage.courtlistener.com/recap/gov.uscourts.azd.
| 985...
| tablespoon wrote:
| > You know it all don't you, even though you weren't
| there? Care to use your 'belligerence behavior' to
| embellish more tales?
|
| The situation is this: I don't know what happened, but I
| also don't trust your account of what happened.
|
| >> they'll do what they want regardless if the law says
| it's illegal and they're risking jail
|
| > So go ahead and quote that, assuming it was said,
|
| Here you are advocating that convicted felons should
| manufacture guns that would be illegal for them to
| possess: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=29985376
|
| Here you are claiming that you would continue to trade
| cryptocurrency from a prison ass-phone, in a hypothetical
| world were it was illegal:
| https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=29922956
|
| > and go on and explain where it creates articulable
| probable cause for an x-ray.
|
| Why? I never claimed that at all.
| notch656a wrote:
| 1) A felon can in fact legally manufacture certain
| firearms, such as working replica black powder rifles and
| pistols. These are not covered under federal law.
|
| 2) I stand by my belief that felons ought to be able to
| protect themselves with firearms of any type.
|
| 3) My belief that felons have 2nd amendment rights is not
| probable cause of having drugs.
|
| 4) There's no nexus by which officers inventing an alert
| or falsifying evidence is justified by my exercising of
| my first amendment right regarding belief in second
| amendment right of felons.
|
| >Here you are claiming that you would continue to trade
| cryptocurrency from prison, in a hypothetical world were
| it was illegal:
| https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=29922956
|
| Again not probable cause of possessing drugs.
|
| Your whole argument is a red herring. None of this is
| probable cause for possessing drugs.
|
| >Why? I never claimed that at all.
|
| So how is this even relevent? None of this first
| amendment protected activity and opinions provide any
| legitimacy to falsely accusing someone of having drugs up
| their ass.
| tablespoon wrote:
| > 1) A felon can in fact legally manufacture certain
| firearms, such as working replica black powder rifles and
| pistols. These are not covered under federal law.
|
| That thread was not discussing "replica black powder
| rifles." It was discussing stuff like the FGC-9
| (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/FGC-9), under the
| assumption that guns like that were illegal for felons to
| possess.
|
| > Your whole argument is a red herring. None of this is
| probable cause for possessing drugs.
|
| I never said nor thought it was "probable cause for
| possessing drugs." It's evidence of an attitude, and
| attitude affects the probability of certain behaviors
| that you may have not reported in your account.
| notch656a wrote:
| 1) I never directed a felon to manufacture a FGC-9,
| although I would be pleased to find out they had. At
| various times I have praised the idea of felons and
| prohibited possessors carrying, which by the way can be
| done completely legally for example by carrying a black
| powder six shooter that will work as good as any other
| revolver.
|
| 2) Felons can in fact legally own and manufacture modern
| firearms after having their rights reinstated.
|
| 3) Felons can in fact own firearms legally by leaving the
| jurisdiction of the united states.
|
| 4) None of this first amendment protected opinions
| provide any justification at all for CBP officers faking
| a dog alert or manufacturing evidence during a strip
| search.
|
| >It's evidence of an attitude, and attitude affects the
| probability of certain behaviors that you may have not
| reported in your account.
|
| Ergo illegal detention and causeless strip searches
| (which even at border require PC) are justified?
| lmarcos wrote:
| And that's another reason I will never visit the USA.
| daniel-cussen wrote:
| I know an intellectual, talking about Harvard inviting him
| to go talk there, and he was like nah, traveling to the
| States is too hard. Too much security, too painful, flying
| hurts. It's not the same America it was back then, either,
| the Rolling Stones in New York type of thing. A lot of
| anymosity.
| Maursault wrote:
| Me either. That's why I live in the Commonwealth of
| Virginia where I enjoy strong mental health patients'
| rights. Of course, this also means living without 4th or
| 5th Amendment protections.
| mistertester wrote:
| No one cares
| vpl0512 wrote:
| I am sailing in the same boat. Except that I am still waiting to
| be liberated with a Green Card. Its outrageous that there is
| still a big racism on the name of "Per-country" caps for a
| common-sense high skilled immigration system in the country like
| USA who makes a tall claim of being "Equal-Opportunity" country.
| A Pizza-delivery guy from Non-India/Non-Chinese place of birth
| can get his citizenship before atleast a decade than the person
| of Indian/Chinese original who filed on the same day. Its 2022, 4
| administration went away since 2007 who made claims of changing
| the immigration system. Let's see how long do we wait to suffer.
| geodel wrote:
| LOL. I could sympathize otherwise.
|
| But here this could be case of of person less talented the
| pizza delivery person, having very classist attitude, looking
| to settle in explicitly racist country by their own admission.
| ab_testing wrote:
| One thing the author did not mention is that there is a huge
| wastage of green cards every year by US immigration authorities.
| That wastage compounds the problem faced by immigrants.
|
| The wastage works like this - 1. Every country is allocated an
| equal number of visas per year .
|
| 2. However a lot of smaller countries do not come close to
| utilizing their full visa allocation
|
| 3. The remaining visas can be allocated to the backlogged
| countries (mostly India and China)
|
| 4. The law also allows for the utilization of unused family based
| visas to be given to employment categories if there are backlogs.
|
| 5. However the Us government gets a fixed amount of time to make
| that allocation . If they do not do that allocation in the
| correct time period then those visas are wasted.
|
| Just as an example last year, USCIS wasted around 50K visas and
| this year they are on track to almost waste 85K visas.
|
| Looking at these numbers, it looks like a manufactured crisis to
| keep employment based immigrants in a constant state of flux so
| as to limit job hopping and limit their pay negotiation options.
| gumby wrote:
| > Looking at these numbers, it looks like a manufactured crisis
| to keep employment based immigrants in a constant state of flux
| so as to limit job hopping and limit their pay negotiation
| options.
|
| Occam's razor suggests that, given how fucked up DHS, and USCIS
| in particular is, private sector pay negotiations is well below
| their noise floor.
| programmertote wrote:
| It took me also ~18 years to get my green card. I went through a
| very similar (almost identical) route as the blogger and I'm glad
| he documented this grueling experience. I went to college in the
| US; graduated in 4 years; worked with OPT for 2.5 years; went
| back to a PhD program because my then employer wouldn't sponsor
| me an H1B (according to them, they are a start-up and cannot put
| up with the legal burden and cost of sponsoring me, who is the
| only immigrant at the company); earned my PhD and went to work
| for a Fortune 100 company; got selected in the H1B lottery on the
| first attempt; waited 2 more years for my employer to decide that
| I'm worthy of their green card sponsorship; waited 4 years in the
| green card application process (thanks partly to COVID delays and
| thanks partly to the immigration law firm, Fragomen, which not
| only screwed up with my PERM filing once but also was very slow
| in preparing the application--probably intentionally because
| there was no one at my company who is holding Fragomen
| accountable back then; my company since then moved to PwC for
| immigration matters although I'm not sure if that improves things
| for the immigrant workers there) to finally get one.
|
| I went back home twice in that 18 years because I was always
| afraid that I might not be allowed back in the US when I renew my
| visa (F-1 student visa or H1B work visa) at the local embassy in
| my home country.
|
| If I could turn back in time, I'd have gone to Canada to not have
| to deal with this. Or I should have married a US citizen to make
| my path to green card easier, or even applied for asylum using my
| country's political situation as a cover (I didn't do either
| because I thought these are dishonest *for my situation*; there
| are a lot of people from my country who do either of these
| things). Legal immigration (including work visa and green card)
| is very difficult in the US.
| renewiltord wrote:
| Fragomen is junk. We used them for a guy and they goofed half
| the information. It was an easy fix, but come on, just work in
| the first place.
| BeetleB wrote:
| I don't mean to annoy you, but it sounds like it took you 6
| years once you actually got a permanent job (although even 6
| years is too much!). The years as a student don't really count.
| burtness wrote:
| This reifies the view of the system. Particularly the time
| spent as a PhD would be spent doing meaningful work
| contributing to the country. This is if we accept that the
| time spent as a student living in America making connections
| with people as your life develops as a young adult deserve to
| be waived away. Yes the system doesn't count them but we
| shouldn't count the cruelty of a system just on its own
| terms.
| rayiner wrote:
| Most of my family went to Canada and Australia instead of
| following us to the US. Vastly better process.
| polotics wrote:
| Stockholm syndrome much? What a horrible sad story. I felt pain
| each time the author mentioned being elated or joyful. One hard
| working Asian gets mistreated by the Land Of the Free, the mother
| of his child subjected to completely needless stress in the worst
| possible months of her pregnancy, and for what?
| quantumwannabe wrote:
| Note that India requires prospective citizens to live in the
| country for 12 years before applying for naturalization, and
| China doesn't allow non-ethnic Chinese immigration at all (only
| ~1500 naturalized citizens/10,000 permanent residents in the
| whole country of over a billion people). Something to keep in
| mind when people from those countries complain about the American
| immigration system (doesn't apply to the Singaporean author of
| this article, but does apply to some of the other commenters).
| magtux wrote:
| Are you responsible for everything your Government does ? I
| would hope not. People need to be treated individually. I
| thought that was the entire point of liberal democracy.
| bbarnett wrote:
| Yes! You are responsible, but more like responsible for the
| actions of your child, or, an object you own like a house.
|
| You are not at _fault_ , if you are a good parent, or if you
| maintain your house well.
|
| So if the child breaks the law, or damages something, if the
| house has a weakness not known but someone gets injured, you
| are responsible.
|
| But the due dilligence, such as disciplining, teaching, and
| trying to instill good values in a child, or inspecting and
| maintaining your house, are key.
|
| With a democracy, participating, voting, being an activist on
| vital matters, working to keep your democracy responsible and
| behaving correctly is that same due diligence.
|
| We're always responsible, but are we at fault? Did we do our
| best?
|
| Or did we decide that taking care of the child was too much
| bother, and disappear from their lives?
|
| Did we _try_ , at least?
|
| And twitter posts, facebook this and that don't count here.
|
| Because, would that be how you raise a child? Deriding them
| on twitter? Yelling at other parents because it was their
| fault?
| guerrilla wrote:
| Alright bro then I'm holding you personally responsible for
| everything on this list: https://github.com/binka/essays/bl
| ob/master/us_atrocities.md
| magtux wrote:
| My man, I hope you're not American because the world has a
| laundry list of complaints against America. People care
| about different things to different degrees. You compromise
| on who you think is the closest to your positions. In a
| country of 1.3B people, there is always divergence of
| opinion and in fact nearly no-one would have even thought
| about immigration as a concern when voting.
|
| There is a difference between the personal things you can
| influence and being the 1/13000000th voice of the people.
| rayiner wrote:
| As an immigrant to the US, I hate the double standards applied
| to Americans. Oh, you think Americans are racist for wanting to
| restrict immigration? How would people in India react to
| massive immigration from Africa?
| random314 wrote:
| Lots of loaded statements here.
|
| Immigrant describes his immigration situation.
|
| Your response
|
| 1. How dare you complain
|
| 2. I am going to pretend you called Americans racist.
| (Wattabout Indians being racist)
|
| You or your parents being immigrants is no excuse for your
| crude behavior.
| spyremeown wrote:
| Yea, but the USofA is supposed to be the land of the Free, all
| kinds of free, not just "you were not born here"-type free. The
| whole "give me your sick, your poor..." etc vibe.
|
| It's a little ironic at the very least that it's so hard to get
| into the United States, given its history.
| foobarian wrote:
| I think the times of unclaimed land up for grabs are long
| over, and people need to get used to a steady state
| environment that the rest of the world has been in for
| millenia.
| random314 wrote:
| There has never been a steady state. The "unclaimed land"
| you speak of was actually claimed by native Americans, who
| have now been eliminated.
| [deleted]
| codegeek wrote:
| I never understand this argument. If someone leaves their
| country to migrate, aren't they looking for a better life ?
| Just because India requires you to live for 12 years, Indian
| citizens should just shut up/put up with 18+ years of waiting
| because their country of origin has it worse/same ? This sounds
| a lot like "We gave you US citizenship. So shut up and stop
| criticizing the Govt because you came from a 3rd world country
| even though you are now a citizen of this country". So much for
| 1st Amendment or does it not apply to naturalized citizens ?
| BeetleB wrote:
| I think it's simply fair to provide context and compare with
| other countries. While the US immigration process sucks
| compared to many countries, it very likely is in the top half
| of the world - most countries are simply worse.
|
| I've lived in places where you have a zero chance of getting
| permanent residency, let alone citizenship. Even if you marry
| a citizen.
|
| A friend of mine lives in a similar country. On paper there
| is a route to permanent residency, but no one gets it unless
| they're well connected to a senior government official. Lots
| of people living there for 30+ years who have to renew their
| status every few years.
|
| In parts of Switzerland, your neighbors will vote on whether
| to grant you citizenship.
|
| Of course - it is fair to criticize the US immigration
| process - particularly in regards to Chinese and Indians.
| It's also perfectly fair to be grateful that their is a path.
| throwaway2037 wrote:
| I've lived in places where you have a zero chance of
| getting permanent residency, let alone citizenship. Even if
| you marry a citizen.
|
| Could your share the places?
| BeetleB wrote:
| I tend not to share personal history, so I'll randomly
| pick one:
|
| > Another country that is very difficult to receive
| citizenship is Qatar. There are lengthy continuous
| residence requirements and not all children or spouses
| receive citizenship automatically.
|
| > Children born in Qatar to Qatari parents are
| automatically entitled to citizenship. Any person born
| with a Qatari father may apply to be a citizen, if they
| meet eligibility criteria. However, the same is not true
| for individuals with a Qatari mother.
|
| > People who qualify for permanent residence through
| naturalisation are those who have lived in Qatar for at
| least 20 years consecutively (if born outside Qatar) or
| ten years (if born there).
|
| > Applicants must be fluent in Arabic, hold good
| character, and be able to support themselves financially
| during their stay.
|
| > Although there are very generous government benefits
| available for citizens, the government only grants a
| maximum of 100 permanent residencies per year.
|
| So if you're male, marry a Qatari woman, your kids won't
| even be citizens. While there technically is a process to
| get permanent residency, you can see how limited it is -
| a max of 100 per year, and I bet the majority of those
| have government connections. Similar story with nearby
| countries.
| codegeek wrote:
| Yes, just because someone is criticizing doesn't
| automatically mean they are not grateful. But most comments
| here are basically insinuating that. I am a naturalized
| citizen and I love the USA. I love the opportunities it has
| provided me and I am grateful but I also pay taxes, have
| created jobs (business owner) and I have plenty to
| criticize (to hopefully improve). Don't tell me to shut up
| because I was "well came from a shittier country". This is
| my country as much as yours.
| BeetleB wrote:
| The top comment wasn't telling anyone to shut up.
| guyzero wrote:
| I don't think China and India (or literally any other
| country) ran saturday morning cartoons for decades talking
| about the fact that their country was built by immigration.
| There's a disconnect between America's rhetoric and its
| actions.
|
| https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5ZQl6XBo64M
|
| That said, as a green card holder, sure, I'm grateful that
| the US has this process. But I think Americans need to also
| acknowledge that they've generated trillions of dollars of
| wealth from immigrants and they could make the paperwork a
| little bit simpler.
| lbrito wrote:
| Its called Reciprocity and its a pretty well-established
| concept in diplomacy: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Reciproci
| ty_(international_rel...
| rayiner wrote:
| It's the lack of perspective that annoys me. It's because
| America is so accommodating of immigrants compared to the
| rest of the world that you can talk like your ancestors built
| the country the minute you take the citizenship oath.
| random314 wrote:
| It should be made clear to the new citizens that some
| citizens are more equal than the others. /s
| twofornone wrote:
| Are foreign peoples entitled to US citizenship? Where is the
| obligation to make the process easy and open to everyone
| coming from?
| guyzero wrote:
| the standard response here is to ask which native american
| tribe you're a member of.
| BeetleB wrote:
| The standard counter to that is "come and invade".
| mirceal wrote:
| you're looking at this from the wrong angle.
|
| ask yourself: why would the US allow these people to come
| and work here in the first place?
|
| it's because they NEED them. from highly skilled tech
| workers to "unskilled" low wage workers. Immigration and
| pumping human capital into our economy is the way the US
| stays/stayed? dominant and a superpower.
|
| Close the pipeline and in 10-20-30 years innovation is gone
| ,the edge we have us gone. The American dream fuels the
| growth. Act shitty toward the fuel, scratch your head why
| things fall apart.
| formerkrogemp wrote:
| We've already closed the pipeline. The talent is going
| elsewhere. We're in decline now.
| random314 wrote:
| Were Europeans entitled to American land 500 years ago?
| What did Columbus' visa application look like?
| twofornone wrote:
| So because this land was colonized 500 years ago (as it
| was before Europeans arrived as well by the way, native
| Americans were not pacifists), we shouldn't enforce
| borders?
|
| How much time must pass after a land is conquered before
| nations are morally justified in enforcing sovereignty
| over borders? Particularly when the border belongs to a
| welfare state with finite resources and a host of
| internal issues that require fixing.
| random314 wrote:
| We are talking about a less than 2 decade time horizon
| for citizenship for immigrants who are propping up your
| welfare state of birthright citizens with 100K$+ payments
| in income tax every year.
| car_analogy wrote:
| So present-day immigration is a punishment for the
| founding sin of the USA?
| random314 wrote:
| Immigration is what is propping this country's economy
| up. It is a tremendous gift, not a punishment- unless you
| are alluding to some wierd racial monoculture thing.
|
| The idea is to not look at a gift horse in the mouth. And
| stop punishing the most productive people in your
| economy. You don't want brexit thinking if you want to
| have an economy.
| twofornone wrote:
| >Immigration is what is propping this country's economy
| up.
|
| That's debatable.
|
| >It is a tremendous gift, not a punishment- unless you
| are alluding to some wierd racial monoculture thing.
|
| Immigration is not free. There are social costs which are
| being dismissed with shallow accusations of bigotry as an
| alternative to engagement (as you are implicitly doing
| with your monoculture reference). All peoples are
| entitled to preserve their cultures, that a particular
| nation happens to have a predominantly white population
| does not erase this entitlement.
|
| Cultures clash. Immigrants vote and potentially originate
| from countries with incompatible cultures, many of whom
| have no interest in assimilating, yet their votes
| influence the laws that natives are obligated to follow.
| If democracy is meant to represent the will of the
| people, then it is unfair to dilute representation with
| immigration from nations with totally different value
| systems. Case in point is the ubiquitous middle eastern
| treatment of women; how much influence do you want such
| beliefs to have over your laws and cultural norms? Not
| even getting to the statistically proven increase in
| sexual assaults that native women have to suffer on
| behalf of immigrants in certain European countries.
| Consider it the paradox of tolerance.
| Bhilai wrote:
| Unless you are a native Indian I am going to assume if your
| grand parents immigrated to this country and become
| citizens here, yes?
| Longlius wrote:
| Not necessarily. My forebears came to this continent
| before there was a country, roughly 400 years ago.
| valarauko wrote:
| For what it's worth, 400 years is about 14 generations,
| and would constitute several thousand direct ancestors (~
| 16K). Even accounting for pedigree collapse over the
| generations, for the vast majority of (non-Native
| Americans) Americans only a tiny sliver of those
| ancestors would have been on the continent at the time,
| if any.
| twofornone wrote:
| And? Personal anecdote has no bearing on the question of
| whether or not foreigners are ethically or morally
| entitled to immigration and citizenship, or whether the
| process should be made easier.
| pgcj_poster wrote:
| Legally, the US doesn't have an obligation to to do
| anything other than comply with the treaties it signs. It
| would be within its rights as a sovereign nation to require
| that everyone within its borders wear a rainbow wig and hop
| around on one leg. However, that would be a stupid policy
| that would make people's lives harder for no reason.
| chupkarkhotay wrote:
| https://us.macmillan.com/books/9780374276027/thislandisourl
| a...
| twofornone wrote:
| >Written 'in sorrow and anger,' this is a brilliant and
| urgently necessary book, eloquently making the case
| against bigotry and for all of us migrants
|
| If you have to hide your arguments behind accusations of
| bigotry, you don't have a very good argument. Border
| enforcement is about far more than blind xenophobia. Such
| accusations are reductive appeals to ethos over logos.
| codegeek wrote:
| Not saying make it easy. Trust me, it is already extremely
| hard. But I am replying to GP's argument which is basically
| saying that you should shut up because you are coming from
| a country which has worse. 2 different things. And yes,
| there are people who make the argument that if you become a
| naturalized citizen, you have no right to criticize the
| Govt or the country since you came from a much worse place.
| I am tired of that BS. Google "Amy Wax India" and you will
| know what I am talking about.
| goodpoint wrote:
| > people from those countries complain about the American
| immigration system
|
| People do not get to choose where and when to be born.
| valarauko wrote:
| > India requires prospective citizens to live in the country
| for 12 years before applying for naturalization
|
| Yes, for citizenship, as opposed to Permanent Residency - the
| author of the article must wait another 5 years at the very
| least to be eligible for citizenship if he desires it.
| polotics wrote:
| Thank you we just got here a perfect example of whataboutism!
| What some countries do to some people has nothing to do with
| what the US of (pardon me) Assholes does to someone who lived
| there most their lives!
| rajup wrote:
| Those may be true, but I always assumed that the US of A
| aspires to do better, American exceptionalism, land of
| opportunity and all that jazz.
| car_analogy wrote:
| This is assuming that more immigration equals better. And
| even if one _does_ think so, then the USA _is_ doing
| "better" - by orders of magnitude. The Chinese and Indians
| are not set to become minorities in their own countries, are
| they? But thanks to immigration, white Americans practically
| already are [1], yet it is _they_ that are called xenophobic.
| Double-standards doesn 't begin to describe it.
|
| [1] https://www.brookings.edu/research/less-than-half-of-us-
| chil...
| rajup wrote:
| Also I'm not sure what the race or being a minority or
| majority demographic has to do with being xenophobic?
| Pretty sure there are Indian and Chinese xenophobes in the
| USA as well.
| polygamous_bat wrote:
| In what part of the US Constitution are the white Americans
| identified as the essential majority for the country? This
| is a country that was founded through immigration, unlike
| China or India, so turning around and crying about becoming
| a minority just as you are enjoying the benefits of your
| ancestors migrating seems hypocritical.
| quantumwannabe wrote:
| Appealing to the history of immigration in the country
| doesn't diminish the GP's point as the US has
| discriminated against the origins and identities of
| immigrants since its founding.
|
| >The Naturalization Act of 1790 (1 Stat. 103, enacted
| March 26, 1790) was a law of the United States Congress
| that set the first uniform rules for the granting of
| United States citizenship by naturalization. The law
| limited naturalization to "free White person(s) ... of
| good character", thus excluding Native Americans,
| indentured servants, slaves, free black people and later
| Asians, although free black people were allowed
| citizenship at the state level in a number of states. [1]
|
| Race based citizenship remained the law until United
| States v. Wong Kim Ark (1898) [2] where the Supreme Court
| interpreted the "subject to the jurisdiction thereof"
| clause of the 14th Amendment to meant that anyone
| physically born in the country was automatically granted
| citizenship. Race-neutral naturalization wasn't enacted
| until the Immigration and Nationality Act of 1952 [3] and
| racial discrimination and national original based
| immigration (not permanent residency as should be
| obvious) controls weren't banned until the Hart-Celler
| Act in 1965 [4].
|
| [1]
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Naturalization_Act_of_1790
|
| [2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_v._Wong_K
| im_Ark
|
| [3] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Immigration_and_Nationa
| lity_Ac...
|
| [4] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Immigration_and_Nationa
| lity_Ac...
| pyuser583 wrote:
| I'm confused by this ... doesn't "national origin
| discrimination" make sense in an immigration context.
| It's reasonable to treat people from Canada different
| from people from, say, Litchtenstein.
|
| I'm sure there's some distinction I'm missing.
| quantumwannabe wrote:
| What the 1952 law says is that you can't ban _people_
| from immigrating because of what country they come from.
| It doesn 't ban the creation caps on the number of people
| immigrating from a specific _countries_ , which the law
| also enacted. The 1965 Act repealed country based quotas
| and replaced them with hemisphere based quotas, which
| were then themselves repealed and replaced with country
| based quotas again in the Immigration Act of 1990, which
| created the modern Diversity Immigrant Visas (as well the
| modern employment based visas).
| rajup wrote:
| Again, if you want to resort to whataboutism that's ok but
| I just want to point out that it's hypocritical to then go
| around the world exporting "freedom" and "values" from an
| alleged high ground.
| car_analogy wrote:
| That's a strange definition of "freedom". Do countries
| that don't practice mass immigration not have "freedom"?
| To be free, one must allow one's national identity to be
| diluted into nothing?
| rajup wrote:
| Not sure how you make the jump from sane immigration laws
| to "dilution of national identity". If anything the USA
| does a fantastic job of assimilating a wide gamut of
| cultures without a lot of friction. Of course if your
| idea of "national identity" is that it consists only of
| white people, then I'm sorry but your views are racist
| and not based on factual history or current reality.
| yangikan wrote:
| The whole point is that if you were born anywhere else (except
| India or China), it is a fairly simple process which would take
| less than a year (one can file both I-140 and I-485 together).
| vgatherps wrote:
| If I was born in a country with an extremely bad immigration
| system, I lose the right to complain about the bad-but-maybe-
| not-as-bad immigration system in another country that I'm
| trying to immigrate to?
| weatherlite wrote:
| In a lot of people's eyes yes. Many people resent immigrants
| complaining even if the complaints are justified.
| tut-urut-utut wrote:
| > Many people resent immigrants
|
| FTFY
|
| Many people don't need a reason to resent immigrants, they
| just use anything they can use as an excuse.
| ROTMetro wrote:
| Can you imagine anything more un-American and yet ironically
| American than "welcome to the USA, now shut up. Also,
| draconian Kafkaesk rules now govern your life for the
| entirety of the immigration process"
| lgbrandon wrote:
| Exactly. I love hearing the people "complain" but try and
| make the journey or stay. With remote work and automation
| becoming the norm. Soon we won't need to leave our respective
| countries and can all co-exist.
| random314 wrote:
| Yes, nobody should complain.
| throw0101a wrote:
| ilrwbwrkhv wrote:
| That's why the real hack is to live in Canada and work remotely
| for an American company.
| anyfactor wrote:
| I have a pro-cons list about immigrating to Canada.
|
| Why Canada ?
|
| - Getting a masters level education is much cheaper.
|
| - Immigration has less hoops to jump through. Specially if you
| are willing to live in the Atlantic side.
|
| - Great government and social benefits
|
| - I heard people are generally nicer.
|
| Why not Canada -
|
| - TAXES! TAXES! TAXES!
|
| - Canada is essentially the money laundering heaven [0] of
| North America. So buying a house and being in the so called
| "middle class" is a nightmare.
|
| - I believe that there is no middle class in Canada but I could
| be wrong as an outsider. If you are making money within a
| specified range that supposedly makes you an middle class
| individual, it is best to find shelter in government assistance
| programs because the income taxes are so brutal. I could be
| wrong, and I hope I am wrong.
|
| - American LCOL salary even if you live in Vancouver or Toronto
| which is HCOL.
|
| - If you want to earn big bucks you have to open an LLC and
| start contracting, which I believe requires a Canadian
| citizenship. I don't think you can open an LLC with a PR. Doing
| contract or remote work often requires an LLC.
|
| [0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Snow_washing
|
| I am happy to hear your feedback though. I personally prefer
| the whole middle region of America (WY, SD, ND, KS, IA...) than
| to Canada.
| geodel wrote:
| I don't know if you care to be consistent:
|
| > Great government and social benefits
|
| > - TAXES! TAXES! TAXES!
|
| are one and same thing. Unless you think benefits can just
| appear out of thin air. Or just that others must pay for all
| good stuff that you looking to get.
| anyfactor wrote:
| I believe Canada could find a better way to provide social
| benefits without alienating the middle class.
|
| First of all levying higher taxation or regulation for
| money laundering. I think that alone will reduce the tax
| burden on the middle class people.
|
| Taxation is a long controversial discussion that often
| leads to no where.
|
| But the gist is that, for the 60k+/year roles, if you are
| employed in America, from what I heard, your medical
| coverage is the same as the public health coverage by the
| Canadian government.
|
| In America you can buy a house within a smaller time frame
| at a more reasonable financial burden compared to Canada.
|
| The cost of Canadian taxation is reasonable to a limit.
| TheArcane wrote:
| > I don't think you can open an LLC with a PR
|
| This isn't true. Canadian PRs can start a business
| anyfactor wrote:
| Thanks! I asked someone they were apprehensive about
| opening a business.
|
| I found out that PRs can do essentially everything except
| for vote and run for office.
|
| Thanks again.
| pcthrowaway wrote:
| > - If you want to earn big bucks you have to open an LLC and
| start contracting, which I believe requires a Canadian
| citizenship. I don't think you can open an LLC with a PR.
| Doing contract or remote work often requires an LLC
|
| I'm a citizen, but I work as a contractor without having to
| do anything to create a legal entity. I'm considered self-
| employed, and a de facto business of one.
| anyfactor wrote:
| Can you give me a bit more info or tell what to google?
| Like taxes, accounting and stuff? I am trying to do
| something like that for a while.
| kirankp89 wrote:
| Google Sole Proprietorship
| anyfactor wrote:
| Thank you
| nikanj wrote:
| The real hack is getting a Canadian PR+citizenship (well under
| a decade), then entering the US as a TN2
| daemoens wrote:
| Yep. A lot of Somali students I know are doing this by going
| to Uganda, than to Canada, and finally the US.
| 29athrowaway wrote:
| How many people in India had exactly the same idea at the same
| time?
|
| If 1 billion people suddenly all wanted to go to the same
| restaurant, or do anything that involves certain form of
| capacity, that system would collapse.
|
| Then, companies want to keep people under H1B as long as possible
| because H1B is a form of control.
| goodpoint wrote:
| ...then the restaurant would simply book you a table in a FIFO
| manner.
|
| Once and for all. Be it tomorrow or in a month or in 12 years.
|
| Then you can decide to wait or cancel.
|
| Very simple.
| shuckles wrote:
| Two great American universities chose to admit this man. This
| isn't some story about thundering hoards -- he was invited to
| the country.
| 29athrowaway wrote:
| And shortly after he entered the country, studied and then
| worked for many years.
|
| Did he have to wait outside for 18 years? No. Was he
| prevented for working? No.
|
| Considering how saturated the system is, I see a working
| system and a happy person that lived, studied and worked in
| the US for 18 years.
| Aloha wrote:
| Even if all that were true, why is this process so
| _complicated_ it makes no sense.
| shuckles wrote:
| You keep claiming the system is "at capacity" with no
| evidence, and the psychological trauma it inflicts as
| inevitable. How does it strain the system differently to
| process an Indian applicant than an Australian one?
| 29athrowaway wrote:
| I went through the same process as this man, so I am
| speaking from experience.
|
| The actual impact to my life was negligible, as all of
| the actual work was done by immigration lawyers. The only
| thing I had to do was submitting some info to the
| attorneys, a biometrics appointment and a short
| interview. And paying fees, and presenting a vaccination
| record.
|
| And the system is at capacity because there are long
| waiting times, which is the definition of a saturated
| system. And this is public, published information.
|
| https://egov.uscis.gov/processing-times/
|
| If the guy has anxiety and checks the case status every 1
| minute, there are good solutions for that, all of which
| have nothing to do with the immigration system.
| shuckles wrote:
| This person had to plan vacations with 4 month
| contingencies for two decades of their life, so you
| clearly didn't go through the same system they did.
| valarauko wrote:
| > I went through the same process as this man, so I am
| speaking from experience.
|
| Did you go through an EB2 application as an
| Indian/Chinese? If not, then it's not the same process.
| For every other national, you know your status in a
| couple of months, not decades. Children do not age out of
| the application as happens for Indians/Chinese.
| 29athrowaway wrote:
| No, I did not.
|
| But then, that aging you described happened while
| residing in the US where you were making money hand over
| fist same as a US national. And your US-born kids are
| citizens.
|
| So in the end the only difference is the inconvenience of
| the paperwork that you worked on very rarely. The rest of
| the time you were enjoying life in the US.
|
| So, this story of 18 years of suffering is really
| nonsense. The guy had a great time working at great
| companies and making millions of dollars in salary,
| bonuses and stock while being midly bothered by some
| paperwork that was mostly prepared by an attorney.
|
| The average small business owner is bothered by the
| government 1000x more and won't have the prosper life of
| a MAANG engineer.
| valarauko wrote:
| > So in the end the only difference is the inconvenience
| of the paperwork that you worked on very rarely. The rest
| of the time you were enjoying life in the US.
|
| I'd disagree with that assessment. The issue really isn't
| the amount or the effort of paperwork - for most people
| it's the uncertainty. There's the very real possibility
| that at the end of that very long process you do not get
| a green card. The making money hand over fist also only
| applies to a certain proportion of Indian applicants,
| especially in tech. There are plenty of other Indian
| applicants who make nowhere near as much money and face
| just as much (if not more) of an uphill task. For
| example, I'm an Indian working as a postdoctoral
| researcher in Developmental Biology & cancer and yet make
| probably less than a tenth of what this guy does. Nor
| does the US offer substantially better pay in this field
| as compared to say, Europe (worse in some ways). Yet for
| me it still feels worth it because the work here is just
| better in my field, but at some level the system feels
| incredibly unfair. My European colleagues are able to
| apply and get an EB3 green card in a few months that's
| very little paperwork while the only reasonable pathway
| for me is an EB1 petition that's exponentially harder and
| a lot more paperwork. My European colleagues could go
| directly from a J1 visa to an EB3 visa simply because
| their petition will be processed in a few months. For an
| Indian in my position that's not possible - I must first
| secure an H1B/O1 before I can think of an EB1/2 petition.
| All the Indians I know in my field who have green cards
| have had to make EB1 petitions while none of the
| Europeans have had to.
|
| Here's the practical considerations - very few companies
| in my field offer immigration support. The Europeans tend
| to apply for an EB3 after about a year or two of
| postdoctoral experience and move into industry with their
| prompt green cards. For Indians and Chinese postdocs,
| they tend to work for an average of 6 years before
| they've accrued enough publications to wrangle an EB1
| petition. That's 6 years of grueling work at very very
| low pay and a very uncertain future at the end of it -
| but only for the Indians/Chinese.
| renewiltord wrote:
| Seems like a nonsensical system. I could then say
| "considering how saturated the system is, I see a working
| system" about an immigration system that has exactly one
| immigration agent working exactly once every 3 decades.
| That system would also be "working". Which makes what
| you're saying rather comedic.
| 29athrowaway wrote:
| You use Hacker news. Hacker news rate limits requests and
| throttles some activity like commenting.
|
| Do they do it because they hate people? Because they have
| an evil political affiliation? No.
|
| They do it because of simple common sense and I agree
| with it. Same with the immigration system which is
| similar to the one from my country of origin.
|
| The guy in the article is definitely a the type of
| immigrant any country wants, sure. But he comes from a
| country where you have jerks like Infosys and Tata
| submitting 10 copies of the same application for every
| employee, DoSing the USCIS. And where there are fake
| universities with 24/7 phone numbers and websites and
| fake photos. And a world of cheating in every aspect
| imaginable.
|
| This has resulted in higher skepticism not only from the
| USCIS but from every governmental immigration agency on
| the planet.
| 0xcafecafe wrote:
| But if that same restaurant started having different wait times
| for something as arbitrary as country of birth, we would have a
| problem.
| [deleted]
| anmalhot wrote:
| this story resonated a lot with me. Have been in States for a
| decade and still waiting on GC.
|
| However, throttling(7% quota) based on country of birth appears
| to be a bad proxy for diversity as India is a very diverse nation
| with rich cultural and linguistic distinctions. Designing a new
| immigration system would be a reduction problem from the existing
| one but we have seen successful implementations in other
| countries such as Canada and EU (albeit with their own set of
| problems)
| zolosa wrote:
| Indians account for 73.9 percent out of the total number of H1B
| visa holders in the USA.
|
| Now i wouldn't want anyone to be discriminated but still it makes
| sense to limit green card based on nationality
| robinsoh wrote:
| > Now i wouldn't want anyone to be discriminated but still it
| makes sense to limit green card based on nationality
|
| You're saying you want people to be discriminated by
| nationality. Correct?
| np- wrote:
| Not the op, but to be pedantic, every single international
| border crossing in the world is an official government
| "nationality discrimination" department. That's what
| passports are for. (Not saying I necessarily agree with this,
| but it is the world we live in)
| robinsoh wrote:
| I'm just trying to understand the meaning of "I wouldn't
| want anyone to be discriminated" in the context of "Now i
| wouldn't want anyone to be discriminated but still it makes
| sense to limit green card based on nationality". I just
| think it is unclear. If we want to discriminate by
| nationality then we should just admit it and say we're
| going to discriminate by nationality instead of being
| covert about it.
| thunkshift1 wrote:
| My theory: green cards only go to christian nations
| tarentel wrote:
| If there's a demand for certain roles, which clearly seems to
| be the case, what difference does it make where the people
| filling those roles comes from?
| fallingknife wrote:
| Well, I would prefer them to come from the US instead of
| allowing companies to import cheaper workers from abroad.
| sdfhdhjdw3 wrote:
| Why is that?
| jaywalk wrote:
| The US government is supposed to first and foremost take
| care of US citizens, not just allow them to be pushed out
| of jobs because corporations would rather import cheap
| labor.
| zamalek wrote:
| Oh, this tired talking point.
|
| In the tech labor market (as per the post) the labor
| simply isn't available. We don't generally see American
| software engineers languishing and unable to find jobs.
|
| I guarantee that the like of Microsystems, Google, and
| Amazon were not paying the poster a pittance.
| illplaythatgame wrote:
| Not sure who you hang out with, but black, hispanic, and
| latino US citizens have a very hard time getting jobs
| despite having software engineering degrees. They end up
| in GS-5 equivalent military tech "careers" or crappy geek
| squad jobs.
| renewiltord wrote:
| If you have friends in each of these categories who are
| skilled, I'll interview them. Job is onsite in San
| Francisco. Interview is leetcode style plus software
| design.
|
| Since it isn't based primarily on past experience, it
| won't matter that they haven't had opportunity if they do
| have the skills.
|
| I'm in HFT. Only hire people I'd consider capable and I'm
| comfortable with our interview process. If they knock the
| interview off the hook they'll be in. Let me know.
| 22SAS wrote:
| I am in HFT too. Your firm, Cutler Group by any chance?
| nebula8804 wrote:
| Nobody wants to work for your crappy startup. What you
| are asking for requires a lot of sacrifice and investment
| (living in an overpriced dump called SF, leetcode
| interviews, dealing with people like you) for not enough
| benefits hence thats why you rely on outside "help".
| sdfhdhjdw3 wrote:
| zamalek wrote:
| > Nobody wants to work for your crappy startup.
|
| I rest my case.
| nebula8804 wrote:
| >We don't generally see American software engineers
| languishing and unable to find jobs.
|
| That was me from 2016 to 2018. Trust me, there are
| weirdos like me out there in the country that can't get a
| job. I decided to go all in on this exciting tech stack
| called Ruby on Rails. I heard all the cool kids were
| doing it. Spend all my life savings trying to get in on
| the action. What I didn't realize is that they were all
| unemployed......as a result I don't think Matz is so
| nice.
|
| I'm ok now, wasting my life writing one line of code a
| day on software that does not make one lick of difference
| in this world (and no its not in ruby on rails): The
| American dream(tm)
| mtoner23 wrote:
| Yes but these people and their children could also be US
| citizens why should they not be prioritized?
| jaywalk wrote:
| I'm not understanding how people imported from abroad
| could be US citizens.
| sdfhdhjdw3 wrote:
| I agree with that.
|
| Do you agree that should be weighted by the need of the
| country to remain competitive, say in the hypothetically
| scenario where we came to the conclusion that the average
| american is lazy, and that that's the core reason why
| immigrants replace them?
| jaywalk wrote:
| The entire reason we have this system is so that the
| country can remain competitive, which is an important and
| valid reason. But it was never meant to be what it has
| become, which is just a way to import cheap labor. It
| needs to get back to what it was supposed to be, which is
| a way to bring in highly-skilled labor that simply can't
| be found in the US, at the same pay US citizens would
| receive.
| sdfhdhjdw3 wrote:
| You have it backwards. Not importing cheaper labor would
| make it less competitive.
| meowtimemania wrote:
| The country shouldn't act in the interests of the
| "country" but rather in the interests of its citizens.
| "Replacing" the citizens (sounds a little genocidal) is
| not in the citizens best interests.
| tarentel wrote:
| I agree with your first statement. I've never felt
| threatened by imported cheap labor in my role though. I
| think our immigration laws should protect US citizens but
| what they seem to be doing is allowing companies to hire
| people for cheap but not giving a very good path for
| those people to become US citizens even though they're
| contributing to US companies and the US economy as a
| whole.
|
| If you're worried about losing your job to cheap labor
| that's an issue with our immigration system not a problem
| with immigration in general. You should be asking
| yourself why companies are allowed to pay non-US citizens
| less for the same jobs we're doing.
| jaywalk wrote:
| I, personally, have zero fear of being replaced by cheap
| labor. I've climbed high enough in what I do and I know
| how valuable my skillset is. But I see it all over the
| place, and it still concerns me.
|
| > You should be asking yourself why companies are allowed
| to pay non-US citizens less for the same jobs we're
| doing.
|
| I would ask myself this, but I know the answer. It's
| because these companies have our lawmakers in their
| pockets. That is the problem that really needs to be
| solved, which would take care of this and many other
| issues.
| jaywalk wrote:
| I'll flip your question on its head: why are the people
| filling these roles so heavily skewed to one country?
| 22SAS wrote:
| Most of the people who are interested in moving to the US,
| as expat workers, are mostly from India. Let's break this
| down piece by piece:
|
| 1. Canadians have TN visas, so they prefer to use that
| since there is no lottery for that and it's a simple
| process of taking your offer letter and have CBP stamp a
| 3-year TN visa. Even though it is not dual intent, people
| can and do apply for green cards on TN status since for
| Canadians the wait times are current and they can get a
| green card before they need to renew their TN visa.
|
| 2. Australians have E-3, so that is what they will use.
|
| 3. The Chinese use H1B's but the numbers have dropped as
| more Chinese prefer to stay in China or return there after
| their foreign education since a lot of big Chinese tech
| companies have sprung up.
|
| 4. Europeans either do not want to move to the US, they
| sometimes don't try to have a prospective employer sponsor
| for H1b visas since a lot of them seem to believe that
| Indians have a monopoly on those visas.
|
| You're left with mostly Indians, most of who study STEM
| subjects in college, overwhelmingly come to the US for
| studies and then hop on to work visas post-graduation. Most
| of the highest paying tech employers in India are American
| companies even then many Indians still want to move to the
| US since there are still a lot of socio-political and
| quality of life issues in India.
|
| Take all these points and that's how so many H1B's go to
| Indians.
| d3nj4l wrote:
| Let me flip your question too: why do you think it matters?
| jaywalk wrote:
| Because all else being equal, that skew shouldn't exist.
| There is nothing inherent to Indian people (or any other
| people) making them better at these jobs, so there is
| value to understanding why their numbers are so high. And
| by value, I mean value to US citizens. It could show us
| how we can improve within the country, or it could expose
| fraud in the system. Or a mix of both.
| codegeek wrote:
| So what about Basketball ? Should there be more whites ?
| Is that skewed by design ? Have you ever thought about
| the various factors behind why a certain group dominates
| certain fields or you just think it is unfair and on
| purpose ?
| jaywalk wrote:
| It's funny that you bring up sports, because one of the
| hot topics in the sports world right now is that there
| should be _less_ whites in many positions, from coaching
| to ownership.
|
| It's supposed to be accepted as fact that if there are a
| lot of non-whites somewhere, it's simply because they're
| better. But if there are a lot of whites somewhere, it's
| because of racism.
| codegeek wrote:
| You didn't answer my question though and deflected. I am
| not talking about whites being discriminated (thats a
| separate topic). I am discussing the "skewed" comment you
| made. Why do you think Basketball has less whites ? Let
| me add a few more. Why do you think a lot of Gas Stations
| are owned by Asians ? Why do you think a lot of
| Landscapers are hispanics/Latinos/South Americans ?
| valarauko wrote:
| > There is nothing inherent to Indian people (or any
| other people) making them better at these jobs, so there
| is value to understanding why their numbers are so high.
|
| Their numbers are so high simply because they represent
| almost a fifth of humanity - there are almost as many
| Indians as there are people in Europe, South & Central
| America put together.
| enriquec wrote:
| This is just obviously and factually wrong. Even average
| age differs greatly between countries. Why would they
| have the same degrees/skills/value? You just want to chop
| down the forest because trees are different heights -
| you're optimizing for nothing based on nothing.
| illplaythatgame wrote:
| >>>> Let me flip your question too: why do you think it
| matters?
|
| Sure, it matters because there are tens of millions of
| black, hispanic, and latino US citizens -- numerous with
| CS/STEM degrees -- who cannot get into FAANGs. Many end
| up in retail or as best buy tech squad reps or tmobile
| store salespersons.
|
| Yet we're told that someone from a foreign country is a
| better candidate for these FAANG jobs. In my experience,
| half the foreign workers cannot even speak english
| legibly.
|
| Do Americans and the US Government owe at least some
| chance to local citizens who are being passed over for
| jobs generation after generation?
| amf12 wrote:
| > Sure, it matters because there are tens of millions of
| black, hispanic, and latino US citizens -- numerous with
| CS/STEM degrees -- who cannot get into FAANGs.
|
| FAANGs aren't discriminating against black, hispanic and
| latino US citizens. If someone can't get into FAANG its
| not because of their "race" or "citizenship", it's
| because they can't pass the hiring bar -- whether hiring
| is broken is another question, but hiring isn't biased
| against blacks latinos and hispanics.
|
| > Many end up in retail or as best buy tech squad reps or
| tmobile store salespersons.
|
| This comparison is disingenuous. Had you said they
| therefore have to work in the government sector as
| software engineers, I'd say you might have a point. But
| your comment reads as: "because they can't get a job as
| at FAANG they work at t-mobile as salespeople.
| enriquec wrote:
| So you're saying the hiring process is racist?
| screye wrote:
| The hiring process is racist all-right. But, the
| direction of that discrimination might not always align
| with the most commonly held intuitions.
| frontman1988 wrote:
| Surely there must be something the profit driven FAANG
| companies are seeing that they prefer hiring broken
| English speaking Indians over American hispanics/blacks
| with tech degrees?
| 22SAS wrote:
| With FAANG companies it is not as much profit driven as
| much as it is that they get an employee who will have to
| work harder than others due to keeping their visa, and
| will stay for longer at least until their green card
| processing is complete and they have their I-140.
| cuteboy19 wrote:
| It's a combination of factors
|
| 1. India is poor but not too poor
|
| 2. It has a huge population
|
| 3. A lot of upper class Indians already have family in the
| US
|
| Of course, it is not clear why any of this should matter.
| Why should it be capped by country (as opposed to
| continent, zipcode or planet?)
| rlewkov wrote:
| IMHO it matters because of the "D" word ... diversity
| cuteboy19 wrote:
| Considering that the people who have the easiest time
| with this system are from Europe/Canada or Australia
| maybe the D word ought to be discrimination
| muzaffarpur wrote:
| Do you know what discrimination means? This is literally
| discrimination. Yes, it is encoded in law, still is
| discrimination. Imagine this, next time you getting interviewed
| by someone, and he rejects you,because you are not
| chineese/Indian. Then you'll be discriminated and that would be
| acceptable, per law. I'm sure your definition of discrimination
| won't change then.
| throw123123123 wrote:
| What doesn't make sense is putting limits whatsoever.
| meowtimemania wrote:
| Why does it not make sense? Imagine you have factory workers
| making 15$ an hour and a company decides to import labor to
| work at 10$ an hour because there's "no limits" to
| immigration. The government should act in the interests of
| its citizens.
| throw123123123 wrote:
| It's in the interest of citizens to get their goods at the
| cheapest price. Thats why you have imports, which is no
| less than importing the produce of labor.
|
| With people, you have the added benefit that if people
| working within your country they spend and consume in your
| country.
|
| Countries all over the world fight each other for talent,
| and the US immigration system is doing to itself what other
| countries spend money to prevent.
| 0xcafecafe wrote:
| Why though? If Google is hiring an engineer, it doesn't make a
| distinction and does so purely on skill. Why should it matter
| if said engineer is from Argentina (arbitrary example) instead
| of India?
|
| The US issues roughly 1 million green cards each year. 86% of
| those go to family based immigration. The rest 14% are for
| employment based immigration. Even in there the dependents
| (spouse + kids) are counted against that quota. So net effect
| is close to 5% employment based immigration if we count only
| primary applicants. What purpose is discrimination by country
| of birth serving here?
| tablespoon wrote:
| >> Now i wouldn't want anyone to be discriminated but still
| it makes sense to limit green card based on nationality
|
| > Why though? If Google is hiring an engineer, it doesn't
| make a distinction and does so purely on skill. Why should it
| matter if said engineer is from Argentina (arbitrary example)
| instead of India?
|
| Because the priorities of the system don't have to be the
| same as Google's. Specifically, the US decided it prefers to
| get immigrants from everywhere rather than letting a couple
| big countries flood the queue.
| meowtimemania wrote:
| Benefit is greater diversity. Rather than have majority of
| immigrants from hugely populated countries like China or
| India, immigrants are more evenly distributed from all around
| the world. The system obviously has big downsides to
| individuals from India/China. If it can be proved to US
| citizens that it's in their interests to get rid of the cap,
| I think it will be gone.
| 0xcafecafe wrote:
| Diversity can be preserved for 86% of the green card quota.
| Why does need to be there for the other 14%?
|
| Already this is forcing companies to make investments in
| offshore centers as it is difficult to hire here. There is
| enough proof this is bad for Americans but the current
| political climate makes any change impossible.
| valarauko wrote:
| Doesn't the country cap also apply for family sponsored
| greencards?
| deltree7 wrote:
| Indians and Chinese make 40% of the global population, but
| only 1% of US population.
|
| So, clearly the diversity of US isn't representative of the
| global population.
| screye wrote:
| What makes arbitrary geographic borders markers of
| diversity ?
|
| The language, religious practices, food, festivals and
| traditions change every 100 miles in India. It is an old
| civilization with as much or more diversity than all of
| Europe.
|
| Small countries like Belgium, Netherlands and Austria can
| balkanize and claim diversity over minor differences. Yet,
| Indians are clumped together under 1 umbrella ? How does
| that make sense ?
| geodel wrote:
| What makes skin color marker of diversity ? This is world
| we live in.
|
| India can have diversity claims if they let individual
| states in India their passports, languages, flags and so
| on. It's on them to show diversity before expecting
| others to appreciate it.
| screye wrote:
| It gets even more ridiculous if we try to use 'physical'
| differences. It then becomes about genes.
|
| Guess what ? Everyone who lives out of Africa has a
| common-ish ancestors as far as 80k years ago. So,
| Africans are significantly more diverse than the rest of
| the world combined.
| yangikan wrote:
| You get enough diversity from the 85% of people who come in
| through family based immigration. So, the majority of
| immigrants are not coming from countries like China or
| India irrespective of whether this discrimination persists
| or not.
| amf12 wrote:
| > Benefit is greater diversity.
|
| There are other "diversity" visas. One is a literal
| diversity lottery and a family permanent resident visa.
| Does it not make more sense to look at qualifications for
| employment petitions.
| raverbashing wrote:
| The purpose is twofold: diversity of origins and the fact
| that there are 1.3Bi Indians for 300Mi Americans
|
| Diveristy actually means not getting everybody from the same
| place, being that inside or outside the US
| 0xcafecafe wrote:
| We are talking about 14% of the total annual green card
| quota, 140,000/1,000,000.Everybody is not coming from same
| place and it will be a pure FCFS system if these archaic
| quotas are gone.
| valarauko wrote:
| Why do you suppose that is? Indians are forced to remain on H1B
| visas for decades while other applicants move onto Green Cards.
| 29athrowaway wrote:
| In other words, a brain drain, which is the real problem to
| fix.
|
| There is no amount of money that can make you truly happy being
| away from your friends, family, your culture, etc.
|
| If there were good opportunities in India, people would be
| happier there.
| cletus wrote:
| This is an emotional subject. I've gone through this but come
| from a country that has a relatively easy path.
|
| The source of the huge delay for Indian-born people is these
| four facts:
|
| 1. India has a population exceeding one billion;
|
| 2. Green cards have a diversity rule that no more than 7% of
| applicants can come from a single country;
|
| 3. Your category is based solely on country of birth not
| country of citizenship; and
|
| 4. H1B visas have no per-country caps or quotas (beyond the
| total annual quota).
|
| The companies that are really ruining this for anyone are the
| bodyshops like Tata and Infosys who direclty benefit from the
| situation. As the article mentions, if you have a pending I140
| petition you can stay beyond the 6 year limit and changing jobs
| is dangerous. So employes get to hold this over employees
| creating an indentured servant type situation for 10+ years.
| These bodyshops flood applications and create the lottery
| problem.
|
| There are numerous problems with all of this and (I really do
| hate to say this but it's true) the only administration who
| even made noises about reforming the H1B system was the Trump
| administration like basing H1B on salary (these bodyshops pay
| low for software engineers). None of this came to pass.
|
| Here's one big problem: children ageing out of the system. If
| an Indian national has a pending green card petition and their
| child is born outside the US and that child gets to age 18
| before the petition is approved, they are no longer eligible to
| receive a green card as part of their family's petition. Given
| how long Indian delays are, this may mean deporting someone to
| a country they left when they were 6 months old and have no
| memory of. They may not even speak the language.
|
| Prior to the pandemic a couple of bills floated around to fix
| this backlog, most notably S369 [1]. These all ultimately went
| nowhere and (IMHO) had a lot of problems. For example, this
| didn't really increase the annual caps (it did, kinda, by only
| counting the petitioner and not their family against the quota)
| and eliminated the per-country cap. But what this would've done
| is made things terrible for everyone else for a transition
| period of years.
|
| [1]: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=31338329
| 0xcafecafe wrote:
| Attributing all the problems to those bodyshops is a bit
| disingenuous IMO. Yes they are part of the problem. Even
| Chinese nationals face 5+ years backlog for their green
| cards. Limiting immigration from populous countries based on
| arbitrary country caps for employment based immigration makes
| no sense. As it is it is a small piece of the overall
| immigration pie (14% and if we count only primary applicants,
| ~5%).
|
| What is happening due to this is all advocacy to fix this has
| to be done by the folks in backlogs (Indians & Chinese) and
| the rest of the world folks can happily go about business as
| usual. Yes, H1 reform is needed but green card reform is
| needed yesterday.
| cletus wrote:
| All of the factors I listed apply to China. But even though
| both countries have similar populations, around two-thirds
| of H1B applicants are Indian nationals. Bodyshops are a big
| factor here. This flood of H1B applications is a big factor
| in everyone having to go through a lottery.
|
| So if two-thirds of the H1B applicants are Indian nationals
| but the current system caps per-country green cards at 7%
| (per category), you see why Indian nationals have a much
| longer wait time than anyone else.
|
| In saying that I'm not denying others (eg China, Mexico,
| the Phillipines) don't have long wait times too.
| huy-nguyen wrote:
| This is a great point that is rarely mentioned. China has
| larger population than India yet has a much shorter
| backlog so is it really the fault of the US immigration
| system that India has a long backlog? The Indian
| outsourcing industry and India's lower level of economic
| development are parts of the problem.
| 22SAS wrote:
| I am an H1B holder and an Indian national. The bodyshops
| alone did not screw this up. A TON of Indians come here for
| graduate school, the main motive being that it is an easier
| path to getting a job here in the US. A lot of them also end
| up on H1B's and have their companies sponsor them for
| residency permits. A lot of those students have zero passion
| in what they're studying but it's all ok for them for a
| chance to work here.
|
| A family friend's kid just arrived here for his MS CS. He
| told me upfront that he plagiarized all through his undergrad
| and couldn't write basic programs. I was like "why on earth
| would you purse an MS in CS then?". I saw a lot of folks like
| that.
| Bhilai wrote:
| Sigh, I tried to follow what US Government was doing about this
| and eventually gave up but here is a short history:
|
| S.386 was introduced in the Senate by Mike Lee in 2019 [1]
|
| There was a unanimous consent on it in 2021 [2] but the bill
| expired (?) because Dick Durbin, senator from IL wont table it (I
| dont clearly understand the process in the Senate but some people
| who follow this had expressed anger at Durbin for not doing
| anything - https://www.durbinisracist.com/)
|
| It was reintroduced in Congress as Eagle Act [3] but its been
| stalled ever since. It ironic that people think Democrats want
| open borders while the same Democrats could not even pass a sane
| bill for legal immigration (especially for immigrants who
| contribute a whole lot to the US) with their majorities while
| immigration was a top agenda for President Biden. Not to mention
| all the big tech companies with big lobbies cant get this move at
| all.
|
| [1] https://www.congress.gov/bill/116th-congress/senate-
| bill/386... [2]
| https://cis.org/Vaughan/Senate-S386-HR1044-Country-Cap [3]
| https://eagleact.info
| throwaway_1928 wrote:
| The history of this bill goes back further. It passed the House
| in 2011 as HR 3012 [1].
|
| Note that we are told that Trump is racist and his opponents
| are not, but a lot of lawmakers with an axe to grind against
| Indians with 150-year immigration wait times [2] are prominent
| democrats.
|
| [1] https://www.congress.gov/bill/112th-congress/house-
| bill/3012
|
| [2] https://www.cato.org/blog/150-year-wait-indian-immigrants-
| ad...
| vsskanth wrote:
| The interesting part here is he finally got his green card after
| 18 years only because he married an Australian citizen and wasn't
| blocked by the county quota anymore.
|
| Imagine how frustrating it must be being qualified, living in the
| country for decades and still blocked from residency all because
| you were born somewhere, it's something you have no control over
| UncleMeat wrote:
| I know a professor of computer science at arguably the best cs
| program in the world who is an Indian citizen and was only able
| to get a green card because he is married to a citizen of a
| western european country. The system is _completely fucked_ for
| Indian and Chinese citizens. Absolutely egregiously so.
|
| This is one of the reasons why I find the "just wait in line"
| argument so disingenuous. If it takes a world expert in a high
| importance topics literal decades to get a green card then
| there simply isn't a legitimate path available to people.
| valarauko wrote:
| > If it takes a world expert in a high importance topics
| literal decades to get a green card
|
| For what it's worth, sounds like the professor would have
| qualified under the EB1A/B scheme, which even for Indians is
| "Current". The qualifications are not very hard to meet for
| someone working as a professor, or even a postdoctoral
| researcher.
| thatfrenchguy wrote:
| I mean, anywhere you immigrate to, you have less rights than
| someone born there despite the fact that they didn't do
| anything to get that citizenship.
|
| It's pretty atrocious though that people born in India have to
| wait in line for decades or, like that person and many of my
| colleagues, have to marry someone who is not born there, while
| all the French people I know in the US got their green cards in
| 1-5 years.
| yardie wrote:
| One is a developing country of 1.2B people with limited
| opportunities. The other is 80M people with high living
| standards. There aren't even that many French greencard
| seekers so the quota goes unfulfilled almost every year.
| Meanwhile, Congress has instituted hard limits on greencards
| that India and China have the largest share of and manage to
| hit the limits every year, for decades.
| vsskanth wrote:
| Immigrants understand they have less rights and if they want
| to go there or stay permanently they have to earn their place
| through whatever qualifications the host country mandates.
|
| The primary complaint here is the massively different waiting
| period for the same employment based green card category
| (qualifications) between a potential immigrant born in India
| (multiple decades) versus let's say Germany (maybe a year).
| It's an immutable qualification.
| PuppyTailWags wrote:
| This is a big reason to have children who are american
| citizens. The children can then pay several tens of thousands
| of dollars once they're adults to sponsor their parents. Two
| decades is a shorter wait.
| yardie wrote:
| My boss made sure to have his kids in the US before going
| back to his home country where the extended family can help
| raise them.
| PuppyTailWags wrote:
| Yep, unfortunately this is a known strategy so if one is
| pregnant and trying to go to the states (like a vacation or
| business, unrelated to birth) immigration will give you a
| ton of shit.
| [deleted]
| rohith2506 wrote:
| One of the sane decisions I have made five years ago. Go to US
| for masters and stuck in the long immigration process with no
| uncertainty or move to Europe with a well paying job. I choose
| the latter and I couldn't have been happier. In the last five
| years, I dealt with immigration twice and that too just renew my
| resident permit. Last year, I went through civic integration
| procedure and gonna get an European passport along with OCI card
| which makes me visa free travel to almost all parts of the world.
| It's just a breeze and it's not just me. Most of my friends have
| similar stories and we barely hear people complaining about
| immigration issues. So, anyone who's looking for an alternative,
| Europe, especially Netherlands.
|
| The salary barrier is also reducing a lot now a days. When I
| moved, I used to make high five figures which was quite good for
| European salaries but now, almost low to mid six figures.
| dzdt wrote:
| A really good in depth take on how the U.S. immigration system
| works for a highly skilled technology worker
| (Intel,Google,Amazon,Startup) from the point of view of that
| person.
| netsharc wrote:
| At first read of your comment, I read "works" as "it works!"
| i.e. as a synonym for "succeeds", but maybe you just meant how
| it works as in how the gears of bureaucracy turned.
|
| From the point of view of someone who immigrated from a
| developing Asian country to a EU country, geez, I had it a lot
| easier than he did. The country's law doesn't seem to allow
| refusal without concrete grounds as long as the applicant meets
| all the requirements, whereas in the US, even if you meet all
| the requirements, the decision is still arbritary.
| lbrito wrote:
| Given the reality of remote work, one might hope the allure of
| immigrating to the US for the jobs might diminish. Sure, you
| probably won't make half a million working remotely as a software
| engineer, but you probably don't need that in most of the world
| anyway.
|
| I can't fathom waiting almost two decades for a permanent
| residency status. It was excruciating just reading the post, yet
| alone living it. Mad kudos to the author for enduring the
| process. Personally I'd never go for it.
| throw123123123 wrote:
| US immigration is in the biggest crisis in decades - between
| rhetoric & admin burden from Trump, covid, and ossified
| bureaucracy, it is the worst time in history for a tech worker to
| migrate to the US.
|
| Each time a developer works for the US from abroad, the US
| economy loses up to 50% o salaries in taxes for gov funding, and
| up to 80% of the reminder in spending within the economy.
|
| An argentine developer making 150k from the US pays 0 taxes and
| spends 80%+ in argentina. If he moves to the US he pays 60k in
| taxes and spends 80%+ in the US.
|
| US is shooting itself in the foot so hard. The solution is the
| easiest - remove H1b caps.
| newaccount2021 wrote:
| fallingknife wrote:
| So I should want companies to be able to import cheaper workers
| from abroad and drive down my salary via supply and demand, and
| all so the government can get more tax revenue? No thanks.
| DeWilde wrote:
| Think of it this way, more people in your country means more
| economic activity, and a larger tax base.
|
| If you work a laptop job currently then assume that it can be
| done by anyone anywhere in the world. Wouldn't you want that
| person to buy US products, US services, and pay US taxes?
| UncleMeat wrote:
| There are more developers in the US than ever before. Pay has
| never been higher. Developers create jobs for other
| developers.
| throw123123123 wrote:
| Companies still do that by hiring abroad and importing goods
| from abroad. You will surprised to know most of the things
| you consume in the US are imported.
| PuppyTailWags wrote:
| More tech people means more tech business means more tech
| demand. I don't see the problem. Immigrants tend to be much
| more entrepreneurial and create disproportionate
| opportunities for business.
| selimthegrim wrote:
| he's paying 60k on the 150k, is that driving down your
| salary?
| codegeek wrote:
| How is 150K cheaper unless you are in Bay Area may be.
| Companies will always find ways to reduce cost so you cannot
| do much about it. GP's point is that someone is getting paid
| 150K working for an American company in Argentina so that
| means they are not only NOT adding any tax revenue for US but
| they are still taking away your job (based on your argument).
| So which one is better ? a 150K remote worker in a foreign
| country who doesn't pay any US tax OR a 150K worker in the US
| who also pays taxes and contributes to the economy. In both
| cases, the job is not going to you anyway.
| melony wrote:
| Doesn't the US have tax agreements with most countries? You
| still have to pay tax on US income.
| throw123123123 wrote:
| No you don't. It would be a tariff to do so.
| frozenlettuce wrote:
| Not if the employee is hired from a proxy company in the
| target country.
| circlefavshape wrote:
| It's not US income if you don't live in the US. You pay
| income tax based on where you live, not where you employer
| lives
| xyzzyz wrote:
| US taxes all income you earn anywhere in the world. It's
| not that bad in practice, as first $100k or something
| earned abroad is exempt, and there are anti double taxation
| treaties with many countries, but overall, if you're a US
| citizen abroad, you might owe US taxes.
| valarauko wrote:
| Does that apply in the context of this thread? Presumably
| the person hired in Argentina is a Argentinian national,
| not a US citizen living in Argentina.
| circlefavshape wrote:
| I'd guess that most people living in Argentina are not,
| in fact, US citizens. If an Argentinian did a contract
| for an American company while living in Argentina, I'd
| expect them pay Argentinian rather than US income tax on
| that
| amf12 wrote:
| > US taxes all income you earn anywhere in the world
|
| US taxes all income you anywhere in the world _for US
| residents_.
| mintiquity wrote:
| Incorrect. It taxes all income anywhere jn the world for
| US citizens and green card holders, _regardless_ of where
| they reside or the source of their income.
| throwaway2037 wrote:
| Holy sh-t. What kind of country will you create with "zero
| taxes"? A sh-tty one! No one likes to pay high taxes, but there
| are almost no highly developed non-microstate nations with low
| taxes. (Even the Switzerland argument still has a bunch of
| holes when you look at the aggregate and include _all_ levels
| of taxation.) How else can you pay for (subsidised) child care,
| health care, education, unemployment insurance, and national
| (old-age) pension? It costs a pretty penny.
|
| And what Argentine devs are making 150K USD? Few.
| asdf_snar wrote:
| I can only say this sounds extremely accurate based on my own
| experience of F-1, OPT, H1B. The anxiety resonates as well. I
| remember getting my work authorization card and noticing that my
| first name and last name were switched. I remember sitting down
| at a train station and nearly breaking down into tears, because I
| was certain this mistake wouldn't be tolerated, that I'd lose my
| job, and have to leave the country.
| thawaya3113 wrote:
| USCIS famously sent a whole bunch of RFCs to people renewing
| their work authorizations in 2021 because a bag of application
| fee checks was untouched in a corner of a basement. And the RFC
| meant delays that compounded existing delays, which meant
| people with completely legal status, with no other issues had
| to quit their jobs and sit around doing nothing for 12-18
| months, for the simple reason that USCIS was too incompetent to
| renew a work authorization that they had already renewed
| several times and couldn't keep track of the paper checks they
| insist you send in.
|
| In 2021 (I believe they are changing this now...I don't know
| when it will be implemented) USCIS only accepted payment via
| paper checks.
| omitmyname wrote:
| what is the end of the story?
| asdf_snar wrote:
| I didn't even notice the mistake at first -- my name is not
| misspelled, so I figured if I didn't say anything I would be
| able to get away with it. I knew my EAD card would have to be
| photocopied or scanned at some point when I first arrived at
| the office, so I crafted some inane plan to tell an engaging
| story while the HR person was taking care of my documents, in
| the hopes they wouldn't see. In the end no one ever noticed,
| I ended up getting H1B a few months later. But I don't think
| my worrying was unfounded; I'd heard stories of a single
| character being wrong (or, missing an accent, and therefore
| not matching their passport) and someone's entire life
| changing (they had to go back to their home country).
|
| I should also note that the guidelines for filling out CPT
| and OPT are also completely nebulous. I forget what the
| specific issue was, but I remember the administrator at my
| university being unsure of how to answer some question, them
| having no recourse, and me having nobody to ask.
|
| I'm on my 4th year of H1B and I need to figure out how to
| apply for a GC. The time investment in putting together all
| the documents is significant. Not to mention exiting the
| country to go see loved ones is always a pain.
| csomar wrote:
| I think the name switch is unlikely to get you into
| trouble. My country has the reverse of the US (First name
| is last name and last name is first!). I've been switching
| regularly and this only confused people who wanted to
| address me by my "first name".
| gorbachev wrote:
| Agreed.
|
| When I was getting my green card, USCIS actually lost the one
| they had already printed. A very kafkaesque situation for which
| there didn't appear to be a clear process to resolve. I knew I
| didn't have to leave the country over it like you, but I had no
| idea if I'd be able to start in my new job, which came with a
| very significant, almost life changing, pay raise. The USCIS
| officer I went to see about the situation basically told me
| "not my problem", and nothing else.
|
| It all turned out ok in the end, but the week or two I didn't
| know what would happen were the most stressful days of my
| entire life.
| bckygldstn wrote:
| My green card had my name correct but someone else's face
| printed on it! Unfortunately they didn't look at all like me,
| it took ages to get fixed. I wonder if someone else got my face
| on their card, or if they use a grumpy bald man as a
| placeholder in their card template.
|
| My name is also misspelt on my social security card. I didn't
| bother to have that corrected and so far there have been zero
| repercussions.
| lakkal wrote:
| That's interesting that your card made it to you with the
| wrong photo on it. There was a visual inspection process that
| compared what the printed card looked like, to what it's
| supposed to look like, and cards were supposed to be ejected
| and reprinted if there was a mismatch. I worked on the
| machine/system that prints those cards in the late 90s. When
| was your card issued? I heard somewhere (and find it easy to
| believe) that the entire system we built was replaced with
| something much smaller and simpler a few years later as
| technology improved.
| bckygldstn wrote:
| Interesting! This was ~2018.
|
| My memory is a little hazy, but I remember having the photo
| taken at USCIS, walking over to a photo booth which asked
| to confirm some information like name or number and maybe a
| fingerprint too? Anyway, it wasn't a polaroid paperclipped
| to my forms: it seemed like a different system that would
| have to be linked to my application.
|
| The images are very different: same gender, but different
| race, and off by about 30 years and 1 head of hair!
| bckygldstn wrote:
| One more story. When applying for an Amex card they had my
| name as "Andre" instead of Andrew (this one is probably a
| typo on my end).
|
| Before approving the application, the Amex agent did a 3-way
| conference call with me and an agent from my bank to confirm
| the details in my application.
|
| Amex: "Can you confirm the customer's name is Andre?"
|
| Bank: "Yes, I confirm the customer's name is Andrew."
|
| Amex: "Thank you for confirming, Andre your application has
| been approved"
| [deleted]
| rdl wrote:
| I'd definitely like our immigration system to be better executed
| even under the current overall goals; the arbitrary/capricious
| CBP officer at the border seems pretty bad.
|
| Most of H1B could be fixed if we could get rid of Wipro/etc.
| staffing agency abuse (almost entirely of people from India, but
| there are lots of Indian H1B who work for other companies and are
| fine); the process seems relatively non-abused by actual end-user
| tech employers, with the biggest problems for smaller companies
| being the "can't work here because if company fails you lose
| status (in 30 days now, thankfully, not immediately)" and "hassle
| of the process".
|
| I'm not sure how legally to ban the Wipro style use of H1B while
| preserving the rest. I'd also always prefer fees vs. delays;
| there are jobs for which $200k/yr fee paid to US Treasury would
| still be worth it for ~instant processing, and it's
| inefficient/bad for everyone to not have that as an option.
| valarauko wrote:
| I thought the Wipro visa misuse was L1, not H1B?
| Zanneth wrote:
| As someone who was born in the U.S. nothing makes me more
| grateful to be a citizen than hearing stories like this from my
| colleagues. Fascinating story, and a wonderful happy ending!
| Swizec wrote:
| For an alternative approach and path - it took me 7 years from
| landing in the country on a B-1 business visa to a EB-2 greencard
| via 2 separate O-1 visas. And I thought _that_ was grueling!
|
| Just received my card in the mail two weekends ago.
|
| Here's a full writeup linking to 2 previous visa writeups, if
| anyone's interested: https://swizec.com/blog/how-i-used-indie-
| hacking-to-sponsor-...
|
| caveat: I'm from a small country that's well under quota and
| there is no wait time beyond the usual processing times.
| Longlius wrote:
| The complaints about national quotas are strange. The prevailing
| assumption that everyone outside of the US should ideally have an
| equal opportunity to receive permanent residency. But that's not
| a goal of US immigration policy.
|
| US immigration policy is built around maintaining a diverse pool
| of immigrants and focusing on family reunification. Skilled labor
| is obviously a plus but it's of secondary concern.
| ROTMetro wrote:
| This right here. It is a desired feature of our system, not a
| bug.
| valarauko wrote:
| Everybody understands the stated goals of US immigration
| policy. They just don't necessarily agree with it, and are
| pointing out ways in which the current policy is detrimental to
| US interests in ways that likely supersede the value gained by
| diversifying the country of birth of potential immigrants.
| corderop wrote:
| I guess it's almost impossible to emigrate as a Junior to US
| being European, but I would like to know the opinion of someone
| that has experience in that. I would like to work there in my
| first years (don't want to spend my life there) but I see normal
| that no company would like to support a VISA for a Junior having
| a lot in the US.
|
| I know that some companies hire you for 1 year in Europe and then
| offer you move to America, but they are usually big companies
| where it's difficult to get hired.
| throwaway2037 wrote:
| If you are a European passport holder (yes, I know that is
| broad), you should try for the Diversity Immigrant Visa -- aka
| the Green Card Lottery. I had a German co-worker once who
| applied and got it. For wealthy European nations, it is not
| /super/ difficult to win this lottery, as there are so few
| applicants.
|
| Ref: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Diversity_Immigrant_Visa
| corderop wrote:
| Ouh, I didn't know about this program. It's so interesting to
| see a country like USA doing this. I will read more about the
| program, it seems interesting, I will read more about it.
|
| > it is not /super/ difficult to win this lottery, as there
| are so few applicants.
|
| I see in the Wikipedia article that 13M people applies. I
| guess that you mention that not so many people emigrate from
| Europe to the US, that's why it's more likely to get this. I
| will consider this, it's so interesting.
| shmde wrote:
| At what point of time does this process become dehumanising ?
| lotsofpulp wrote:
| From the very beginning, when they do not allow you to sell
| your labor to whoever you want.
| geodel wrote:
| "Given that managers are a dime a dozen in any country, it seems
| odd to put managers in the same category as people of
| "extraordinary ability," but I digress."
|
| This is really important point in case anyone missed. The gross
| misuse of this rule to bring in project managers, account
| managers (L-1 based) and such have really made things worse for
| non L-1 immigrants by hogging most of green cards awarded per
| country basis.
| valarauko wrote:
| I'm not sure that's a fair comparison - the rant about managers
| is concerning their special status in the highest priority EB1
| category for Employment Based Green Cards, not L1 work visas.
| Or are you referring to L1 managers eventually working their
| way to EB1 Managers?
| geodel wrote:
| I am talking about L1A , people who are brought in as
| "International Managers" where in reality they are just some
| IT project managers doing daily scrum and crap. See here [1]
| for "Certain Multinational manager or executive" . Here is
| the definition:
|
| "You must have been employed outside the United States for at
| least 1 year in the 3 years preceding the petition or the
| most recent lawful nonimmigrant admission if you are already
| working for the U.S. petitioning employer. The U.S.
| petitioner must have been doing business for at least 1 year,
| have a qualifying relationship to the entity you worked for
| outside the U.S., and intend to employ you in a managerial or
| executive capacity. "
|
| Using this criteria, IT body shops are running wholesale
| scam.
|
| 1. https://www.uscis.gov/working-in-the-united-
| states/permanent...
| valarauko wrote:
| I'm confused - you're referring to L1A non-immigrant
| temporary work visas but the link is for EB1 immigrant
| applications?
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