6 ms·

No country is allowed to get more than 7% of the green cards each year (roughly speaking). This GC-H1B lock-in problem is very unique to Indians (~10 year wait)

by shas3 11y ago

No country is allowed to get more than 7% of the green cards each year (roughly speaking). This GC-H1B lock-in problem is very unique to Indians (~10 year wait), and to a lesser extent, Chinese (~4 year wait). The 7% quota would be illegal were it applied to US citizenship, according to civil rights legislations of the 1960s (prior to which non-whites were discriminated against in naturalized-citizenships via quotas). However, unlike pre-civil rights citizenship quotas, the green card quota seems ok to everyone. This a moral discrepancy, IMO. Unfortunately, it won't be addressed in the near future, because though the population affected may be in the hundreds of thousands, they are not important to any political players. Even on a generally enlightened forum like HN, you routinely encounter hateful comments about H1B workers. I think H1Bs deserve some level of representation in such matters simply because these workers pay the exact same taxes as all Americans. The situation for many people is utterly hopeless and it should be of humanitarian concern, here is a moving account from Seattle: http://www.seattletimes.com/pacific-nw-magazine/while-their-husbands-work-immigrant-wives-often-struggle-in-this-new-land/ http://www.seattletimes.com/pacific-nw-magazine/while-their-... I think the notion that after working (and paying taxes) in the US for 6 years, a person has to wait another 10 years to reap the benefits of permanent residency simply because they were born in a particular country is morally indefensible.

bradleyjg 11y ago
Although the per country limits hit India and Chinese born beneficiaries in employment based preference categories the worst, there is also a waiting list for Filipinos in employment based third and other workers. In the family based categories, Mexicans and Filipinos generally have the longest waits, with Mexican family first preference (i.e. unmarried children of US citizens) in December 1994 and Filipino fourth preference (i.e. siblings of US citizens) in June 1992 vs. 2008 and 2003 for those categories generally.
- shas3 11y ago
  Right! There is one across-the-board solution that occurs to me, let's say, the US has an overall cap of 40,000 for employment based preference category, 2800 each are max caps for Indians and Chinese. Because of the 7% quota, I would expect at least some, let's say, M of the 40,000 are left unclaimed. So why can't they take M unfulfilled slots and redistribute that to clear the China/India backlog? You can think of the same for EB3, and family petitions too. This would be more equitable than 7% quotas. Edit: I did back of the envelope calculations based on this data: http://www.uscis.gov/tools/reports-studies/immigration-forms-data/data-set-form-i-485-application-adjustment-status http://www.uscis.gov/tools/reports-studies/immigration-forms... For the last year, there are about 120k applications approved, while 140k is the limit. At the end of the year, the remaining 20k can be split up among people in the queue. This can be made even fairer if you aggregate it over two years, and then tie the number of immigrants to the inflation rate. I estimate it would shave off at least 3-5 years from the current wait times for EB petitions. It can even be tied to the percentage of the country's population that got an H1B. There are some more trends here: https://www.fas.org/sgp/crs/homesec/R42048.pdf https://www.fas.org/sgp/crs/homesec/R42048.pdf
  - bradleyjg 11y ago
    On the current visa bulletin it lists a backlog for EB-3 all other chargeability. Because unused numbers flow from fourth and fifth to first to second to third (but not other workers which are capped), if there is a waiting list for EB-3 that means there likely won't be any extra numbers in the whole employment based category this year. Not a bad idea if there were though. If it were up to me I would eliminate the DV lottery (50k visas) and reassign those numbers to EB as well as eliminating the per country caps. F-2B (26k) and F-4 (65k) are also ripe for elimination IMO. I'd probably also move parents of USC to F-1 from IR.
ulobabacan 11y ago
I'm curious, how long is the lock-in for people from "rest of the world" category for H1B to green card process? It looks like there's almost no backlog these days.
- harichinnan 11y ago
  From December visa bulletin. For India EB3- The priority date for applying for the final phase of Green card is 22APR04. So only people with a date prior to this would be eligible to apply. For EB2 India - 01JUN07 For China, EB3 - 15APR12 EB2 - 01FEB12. Interestingly enough EB1 is current for all countries and is the most abused Employment based visa category. HR /Manager types with an MBA and experience from India eligible to apply for EB1(C) and they get visas in 3 months.
- snotrockets 11y ago
  Currently, there is almost no delay for the rest of the world outside India, Mainland China and The Philippines – by the time the PERM request is approved (which in itself takes at least six months,) there should be a green card visa number ready. Assuming no complications, the full process from LCA to a status change could take as little as a year (but 18-24 months would be a more realistic estimate). http://travel.state.gov/content/visas/en/law-and-policy/bulletin/2016/visa-bulletin-for-november-2015.html http://travel.state.gov/content/visas/en/law-and-policy/bull...
ambrood 11y ago
> I think the notion that after working (and paying taxes) in the US for 6 years, a person has to wait another 10 years to reap the benefits of permanent residency simply because they were born in a particular country is morally indefensible. I came here on a student visa at 17, went on get a CS Masters and now live in SF on a H1B almost 10 years later. America is pretty much the only country I know how to navigate as an adult. The fact that it is mathematically impossible for me to get a GC before 2025 as an Indian used to upset me quite a bit. H1B simply doesn't allow one to live with dignity or take chances. But over this year, I've made my peace with this. I'll continue to work here while I still love my job but eventually go back. Theres no way in hell I'll keep working the same job years on in hopes of a gc.
- jzwinck 11y ago
  If you can get a well-paying job you could move to Singapore, where English is an official language, India is much nearer, and the process from initial entry to permanent residency can be completed within three years (n.b. it is not guaranteed but you can reapply). And if you can navigate in America you'll not have a problem in Singapore.
  - thansharp 11y ago
    The problem is that your kids (male) might have to undergo conscription. I know the situation is changing now, but that was a large deterrant behind a lot of my friends leaving Singapore.
  - ambrood 11y ago
    Well I'm aware there are many other countries I could move to and to be honest India isn't such a bad place either. But its about more than opportunities, most of the people I care about, all my friends happen to live here in America.
- ashwinaj 11y ago
  Well you can change jobs if you have an I140 approved. I've been in the US for 10 years and I honestly don't care about getting a gc. The I140 from my previous employer allows me to get 3 year extensions on my H1B. The downside is that your new employer has to restart the gc process again, which is fine since I get to work on things that I'm interested in rather than getting stuck in the same job for years on end.
lettergram 11y ago
> However, unlike pre-civil rights citizenship quotas, the green card quota seems ok to everyone. One is denying the right of people born in the U.S. with parents that are citizens. The other, is limiting the number of people not born in the U.S. and without parents that are citizens. In other words, its a choice to come here. Not saying it is morally right or wrong, but you may consider distinguishing between the two.
- davidw 11y ago
  Despite some flaws with the country, I'm very happy with my decision to have been born in the US.
  - mandeepj 11y ago
    > I'm very happy with my decision to have been born in the US. What? you decided your country of birth?
    - deleted 11y ago
      [deleted]
    - Swizec 11y ago
      Pssst, that's the sarcasm.
- newjersey 11y ago
  Psst, we should not try to take a moral high ground here given how many times something as straightforward as the DREAM act has failed.
- shas3 11y ago
  > One is denying the right of people born in the U.S. with parents that are citizens. Umm, no. You are mistaken. Racial criteria also applied to naturalized citizenship aspirants. Today, once you have a green card, irrespective of where you were born, it takes you 5 or so years to get your citizenship. So, person of white ethnicity born in Switzerland and a non-white person born in India would have the same wait and the same criteria for citizenship. This was not possible before the INA act of 1965 (and other civil rights acts).
balls187 11y ago
> the US for 6 years, a person has to wait another 10 years to reap the benefits of permanent residency simply because they were born in a particular country is morally indefensible When phrased that way, sure it feels that way. But it's not because you are born in a specific country, it's because your country of origin has a lot of people who are attempting to immigrate to the US, and each country is capped. Imagine if they lifted that policy, then countries like Mexico, India, China would lock out pretty much any other country from immigrating to the US. Add in the Amnesty program for undocumented workers, and you could imagine that nearest neighbors to the US would lock everyone else out. So instead of penalizing Indians (in this case), you've now penalized everyone else. What system, given a fixed number of applicants, would not apply some sort of penalty by proxy? Contrast that to pre-1960's where laws SPECIFICALLY targeted blacks american citizens. The US has no moral requirement to treat non-us citizens 100% the same as it does it's citizens. Yes they have perhaps lived in the US for 6 years, and paid US Taxes. They have also enjoyed a certain level of comfort afforded them, that they presumably would not have had in their native country.
- shas3 11y ago
  > Imagine if they lifted that policy, then countries like Mexico, India, China would lock out pretty much any other country from immigrating to the US. Add in the Amnesty program for undocumented workers, and you could imagine that nearest neighbors to the US would lock everyone else out. You are assuming that they will lock-out without supporting with real data. Already 30% of H1Bs are taken by Indians, and a good percentage of family based immigration is from Mexico. India and China make up around 35% of the world's population. A uniformly drawn sample of immigrants from across the world would consist of 35% Indians and Chinese. Further, Mexico is America's neighbor, and the two countries share a lot of history. The number of Indians has grown from 1.7 million in 2000 to 2.8 million in 2010 in spite of the caps. The numbers are not magically going to explode, most of the people who're in the green card queue will likely duke it out and become citizens in due time. Their children will likely stay in the US too. So, I don't see how the caps are limiting or democratizing the process. You don't have caps at H1B, you don't have caps for citizenship. Only the in-between stage of permanent residency, caps exist. That already makes it an ineffective tool in un-biasing the skew.
baby 11y ago
> No country is allowed to get more than 7% of the green cards each year It works by zones, not by country.

by shas3 11y ago

bradleyjg 11y ago

Although the per country limits hit India and Chinese born beneficiaries in employment based preference categories the worst, there is also a waiting list for Filipinos in employment based third and other workers. In the family based categories, Mexicans and Filipinos generally have the longest waits, with Mexican family first preference (i.e. unmarried children of US citizens) in December 1994 and Filipino fourth preference (i.e. siblings of US citizens) in June 1992 vs. 2008 and 2003 for those categories generally.

shas3 11y ago
Right! There is one across-the-board solution that occurs to me, let's say, the US has an overall cap of 40,000 for employment based preference category, 2800 each are max caps for Indians and Chinese. Because of the 7% quota, I would expect at least some, let's say, M of the 40,000 are left unclaimed. So why can't they take M unfulfilled slots and redistribute that to clear the China/India backlog? You can think of the same for EB3, and family petitions too. This would be more equitable than 7% quotas. Edit: I did back of the envelope calculations based on this data: http://www.uscis.gov/tools/reports-studies/immigration-forms-data/data-set-form-i-485-application-adjustment-status http://www.uscis.gov/tools/reports-studies/immigration-forms... For the last year, there are about 120k applications approved, while 140k is the limit. At the end of the year, the remaining 20k can be split up among people in the queue. This can be made even fairer if you aggregate it over two years, and then tie the number of immigrants to the inflation rate. I estimate it would shave off at least 3-5 years from the current wait times for EB petitions. It can even be tied to the percentage of the country's population that got an H1B. There are some more trends here: https://www.fas.org/sgp/crs/homesec/R42048.pdf https://www.fas.org/sgp/crs/homesec/R42048.pdf
- bradleyjg 11y ago
  On the current visa bulletin it lists a backlog for EB-3 all other chargeability. Because unused numbers flow from fourth and fifth to first to second to third (but not other workers which are capped), if there is a waiting list for EB-3 that means there likely won't be any extra numbers in the whole employment based category this year. Not a bad idea if there were though. If it were up to me I would eliminate the DV lottery (50k visas) and reassign those numbers to EB as well as eliminating the per country caps. F-2B (26k) and F-4 (65k) are also ripe for elimination IMO. I'd probably also move parents of USC to F-1 from IR.

ulobabacan 11y ago

I'm curious, how long is the lock-in for people from "rest of the world" category for H1B to green card process? It looks like there's almost no backlog these days.

harichinnan 11y ago
From December visa bulletin. For India EB3- The priority date for applying for the final phase of Green card is 22APR04. So only people with a date prior to this would be eligible to apply. For EB2 India - 01JUN07 For China, EB3 - 15APR12 EB2 - 01FEB12. Interestingly enough EB1 is current for all countries and is the most abused Employment based visa category. HR /Manager types with an MBA and experience from India eligible to apply for EB1(C) and they get visas in 3 months.
snotrockets 11y ago
Currently, there is almost no delay for the rest of the world outside India, Mainland China and The Philippines – by the time the PERM request is approved (which in itself takes at least six months,) there should be a green card visa number ready. Assuming no complications, the full process from LCA to a status change could take as little as a year (but 18-24 months would be a more realistic estimate). http://travel.state.gov/content/visas/en/law-and-policy/bulletin/2016/visa-bulletin-for-november-2015.html http://travel.state.gov/content/visas/en/law-and-policy/bull...

ambrood 11y ago

> I think the notion that after working (and paying taxes) in the US for 6 years, a person has to wait another 10 years to reap the benefits of permanent residency simply because they were born in a particular country is morally indefensible. I came here on a student visa at 17, went on get a CS Masters and now live in SF on a H1B almost 10 years later. America is pretty much the only country I know how to navigate as an adult. The fact that it is mathematically impossible for me to get a GC before 2025 as an Indian used to upset me quite a bit. H1B simply doesn't allow one to live with dignity or take chances. But over this year, I've made my peace with this. I'll continue to work here while I still love my job but eventually go back. Theres no way in hell I'll keep working the same job years on in hopes of a gc.

jzwinck 11y ago
If you can get a well-paying job you could move to Singapore, where English is an official language, India is much nearer, and the process from initial entry to permanent residency can be completed within three years (n.b. it is not guaranteed but you can reapply). And if you can navigate in America you'll not have a problem in Singapore.
- thansharp 11y ago
  The problem is that your kids (male) might have to undergo conscription. I know the situation is changing now, but that was a large deterrant behind a lot of my friends leaving Singapore.
- ambrood 11y ago
  Well I'm aware there are many other countries I could move to and to be honest India isn't such a bad place either. But its about more than opportunities, most of the people I care about, all my friends happen to live here in America.
ashwinaj 11y ago
Well you can change jobs if you have an I140 approved. I've been in the US for 10 years and I honestly don't care about getting a gc. The I140 from my previous employer allows me to get 3 year extensions on my H1B. The downside is that your new employer has to restart the gc process again, which is fine since I get to work on things that I'm interested in rather than getting stuck in the same job for years on end.

lettergram 11y ago

> However, unlike pre-civil rights citizenship quotas, the green card quota seems ok to everyone. One is denying the right of people born in the U.S. with parents that are citizens. The other, is limiting the number of people not born in the U.S. and without parents that are citizens. In other words, its a choice to come here. Not saying it is morally right or wrong, but you may consider distinguishing between the two.

davidw 11y ago
Despite some flaws with the country, I'm very happy with my decision to have been born in the US.
- mandeepj 11y ago
  > I'm very happy with my decision to have been born in the US. What? you decided your country of birth?
  - deleted 11y ago
    [deleted]
  - Swizec 11y ago
    Pssst, that's the sarcasm.
newjersey 11y ago
Psst, we should not try to take a moral high ground here given how many times something as straightforward as the DREAM act has failed.
shas3 11y ago
> One is denying the right of people born in the U.S. with parents that are citizens. Umm, no. You are mistaken. Racial criteria also applied to naturalized citizenship aspirants. Today, once you have a green card, irrespective of where you were born, it takes you 5 or so years to get your citizenship. So, person of white ethnicity born in Switzerland and a non-white person born in India would have the same wait and the same criteria for citizenship. This was not possible before the INA act of 1965 (and other civil rights acts).

balls187 11y ago

> the US for 6 years, a person has to wait another 10 years to reap the benefits of permanent residency simply because they were born in a particular country is morally indefensible When phrased that way, sure it feels that way. But it's not because you are born in a specific country, it's because your country of origin has a lot of people who are attempting to immigrate to the US, and each country is capped. Imagine if they lifted that policy, then countries like Mexico, India, China would lock out pretty much any other country from immigrating to the US. Add in the Amnesty program for undocumented workers, and you could imagine that nearest neighbors to the US would lock everyone else out. So instead of penalizing Indians (in this case), you've now penalized everyone else. What system, given a fixed number of applicants, would not apply some sort of penalty by proxy? Contrast that to pre-1960's where laws SPECIFICALLY targeted blacks american citizens. The US has no moral requirement to treat non-us citizens 100% the same as it does it's citizens. Yes they have perhaps lived in the US for 6 years, and paid US Taxes. They have also enjoyed a certain level of comfort afforded them, that they presumably would not have had in their native country.

shas3 11y ago
> Imagine if they lifted that policy, then countries like Mexico, India, China would lock out pretty much any other country from immigrating to the US. Add in the Amnesty program for undocumented workers, and you could imagine that nearest neighbors to the US would lock everyone else out. You are assuming that they will lock-out without supporting with real data. Already 30% of H1Bs are taken by Indians, and a good percentage of family based immigration is from Mexico. India and China make up around 35% of the world's population. A uniformly drawn sample of immigrants from across the world would consist of 35% Indians and Chinese. Further, Mexico is America's neighbor, and the two countries share a lot of history. The number of Indians has grown from 1.7 million in 2000 to 2.8 million in 2010 in spite of the caps. The numbers are not magically going to explode, most of the people who're in the green card queue will likely duke it out and become citizens in due time. Their children will likely stay in the US too. So, I don't see how the caps are limiting or democratizing the process. You don't have caps at H1B, you don't have caps for citizenship. Only the in-between stage of permanent residency, caps exist. That already makes it an ineffective tool in un-biasing the skew.

baby 11y ago

> No country is allowed to get more than 7% of the green cards each year It works by zones, not by country.