6 ms·

Well you can basically pay to immigrate via an EB-5 visa which grants a green card for the right amount & kind of capital investment. https://www.uscis.gov/eb-

Well you can basically pay to immigrate via an EB-5 visa which grants a green card for the right amount & kind of capital investment. https://www.uscis.gov/eb-5 https://www.uscis.gov/eb-5

winter_blue 11y ago
Are you kidding me? You need to invest at least $500,000 for the EB-5. Most families don't have $500,000 to just invest in order to get their child a green card. A lot of international students I know worked part-time on-campus (permitted on the F-1 student visa) in order lessen the burden on their parents. Their families struggled to put together the money to pay for college in the U.S. I went to Stony Brook University, and between the time I came in and graduated, tuition had risen by over 50% for international students. (State law did not restrict tuition hikes for foreign students.) It's condescending of you to suggest an EB-5. Like "Let them eat cake": https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Let_them_eat_cake https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Let_them_eat_cake
- adventured 11y ago
  You're reacting very strongly in each reply. It's a bit over the top, given you said this: > You are insinuating that "wealthy upper class" can immigrate without obeying visa rules. That is ridiculous. The parent you're replying to never said most families could afford that. The parent was indicating that you can buy your way into America, which you in fact can do. The wealthy upper class can buy their way in, and do this all the time (see: wealthy Chinese buying their way into the US).
  - winter_blue 11y ago
    He was responding to the article, but the WSJ article is not about the super-rich moving here. It is about the vast majority of skilled immigrants who have to go through the H-1B visa as a step in their immigration process.
    - dalke 11y ago
      What neither the article nor the underlying report resolve is, do immigrant founders of $1B+ companies representative of the same population of H1-B visa recipients? For example, many of the founders came to the US to go to school in the US, including Harvard. Is that reflective of the general population of H1-B visa holders? If not, can the conclusions drawn from the very small number of $1B+ startups be used to make policy decisions about the vast majority of skilled immigrants?
      - winter_blue 11y ago
        > do immigrant founders of $1B+ companies representative of the same population of H1-B visa recipients? You make a very good point here. The thing is that it is absolutely impossible to filter or select for future $1B+ startup founders. Most immigrant tech startup founders in the Bay Area first come to the US as foreign students. They then get a job like most people, but also have to go through a long and difficult struggle with the U.S. immigration system in order to get a green card. Only after getting a green card, do most start a company (because self-sponsorship with your own company is prohibited on an H-1B visa). For their first 10 years or so in the U.S., they have no laurels to show, and nothing that sets them apart from a typical good software engineer at Google. There is no data point from which you predict that X person is going to become a future successful startup founder. I am another example of this. Right now, I don't have much to show besides my work experience, some CS research I did in college, and a few GitHub projects. I'd definitely like to start a company some day. I think I am somewhat representative of the general population of H1-B visa holders. That I might some time in the future be far more successful, and a huge blessing to this country's economy, and to its people, cannot be positively predicted based on where I am in life today. > many of the founders came to the US to go to school in the US, including Harvard There is no official data that shows you where H-1B visa holders went for college. But I can take an educated guess. Everyone that I've met that is on an H-1B visa graduated from a US school. I would guess at least half of all H-1B visa holders studied in the US. If you filtered by the ranking of the university that a foreign student attended, and said that only graduates from prestigious widely-famous universities are allowed to stay in this country, and every else from lesser universities, should get kicked out, then I would be kicked out along with them. My guess is that the majority of immigrant startup founders didn't go to Harvard/Stanford/MIT/etc.
- girvo 11y ago
  I don't understand this reply at all; you said "that "wealthy upper class" can immigrate without obeying visa rules. That is ridiculous.", and your parent reply pointed out that it's not ridiculous, it's literally true.
  - winter_blue 11y ago
    I meant to say that he was wrong in characterizing immigrants students and entrepreneurs as coming from a "wealthy upper class". The majority of foreign students come from middle class families, many which probably struggle to pay US college tuition, and cannot afford a $500,000 investor visa.
ambrood 11y ago
Except most immigrants out here in the valley at the very least take the old F1 student > H1B visa route. H1B is practically the only option you have to work in this country regardless of whether you got that PhD at Stanford or came here through an "outsourcing firm".

Well you can basically pay to immigrate via an EB-5 visa which grants a green card for the right amount & kind of capital investment. https://www.uscis.gov/eb-5 https://www.uscis.gov/eb-5

winter_blue 11y ago

Are you kidding me? You need to invest at least $500,000 for the EB-5. Most families don't have $500,000 to just invest in order to get their child a green card. A lot of international students I know worked part-time on-campus (permitted on the F-1 student visa) in order lessen the burden on their parents. Their families struggled to put together the money to pay for college in the U.S. I went to Stony Brook University, and between the time I came in and graduated, tuition had risen by over 50% for international students. (State law did not restrict tuition hikes for foreign students.) It's condescending of you to suggest an EB-5. Like "Let them eat cake": https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Let_them_eat_cake https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Let_them_eat_cake

adventured 11y ago
You're reacting very strongly in each reply. It's a bit over the top, given you said this: > You are insinuating that "wealthy upper class" can immigrate without obeying visa rules. That is ridiculous. The parent you're replying to never said most families could afford that. The parent was indicating that you can buy your way into America, which you in fact can do. The wealthy upper class can buy their way in, and do this all the time (see: wealthy Chinese buying their way into the US).
- winter_blue 11y ago
  He was responding to the article, but the WSJ article is not about the super-rich moving here. It is about the vast majority of skilled immigrants who have to go through the H-1B visa as a step in their immigration process.
  - dalke 11y ago
    What neither the article nor the underlying report resolve is, do immigrant founders of $1B+ companies representative of the same population of H1-B visa recipients? For example, many of the founders came to the US to go to school in the US, including Harvard. Is that reflective of the general population of H1-B visa holders? If not, can the conclusions drawn from the very small number of $1B+ startups be used to make policy decisions about the vast majority of skilled immigrants?
    - winter_blue 11y ago
      > do immigrant founders of $1B+ companies representative of the same population of H1-B visa recipients? You make a very good point here. The thing is that it is absolutely impossible to filter or select for future $1B+ startup founders. Most immigrant tech startup founders in the Bay Area first come to the US as foreign students. They then get a job like most people, but also have to go through a long and difficult struggle with the U.S. immigration system in order to get a green card. Only after getting a green card, do most start a company (because self-sponsorship with your own company is prohibited on an H-1B visa). For their first 10 years or so in the U.S., they have no laurels to show, and nothing that sets them apart from a typical good software engineer at Google. There is no data point from which you predict that X person is going to become a future successful startup founder. I am another example of this. Right now, I don't have much to show besides my work experience, some CS research I did in college, and a few GitHub projects. I'd definitely like to start a company some day. I think I am somewhat representative of the general population of H1-B visa holders. That I might some time in the future be far more successful, and a huge blessing to this country's economy, and to its people, cannot be positively predicted based on where I am in life today. > many of the founders came to the US to go to school in the US, including Harvard There is no official data that shows you where H-1B visa holders went for college. But I can take an educated guess. Everyone that I've met that is on an H-1B visa graduated from a US school. I would guess at least half of all H-1B visa holders studied in the US. If you filtered by the ranking of the university that a foreign student attended, and said that only graduates from prestigious widely-famous universities are allowed to stay in this country, and every else from lesser universities, should get kicked out, then I would be kicked out along with them. My guess is that the majority of immigrant startup founders didn't go to Harvard/Stanford/MIT/etc.
girvo 11y ago
I don't understand this reply at all; you said "that "wealthy upper class" can immigrate without obeying visa rules. That is ridiculous.", and your parent reply pointed out that it's not ridiculous, it's literally true.
- winter_blue 11y ago
  I meant to say that he was wrong in characterizing immigrants students and entrepreneurs as coming from a "wealthy upper class". The majority of foreign students come from middle class families, many which probably struggle to pay US college tuition, and cannot afford a $500,000 investor visa.

ambrood 11y ago

Except most immigrants out here in the valley at the very least take the old F1 student > H1B visa route. H1B is practically the only option you have to work in this country regardless of whether you got that PhD at Stanford or came here through an "outsourcing firm".