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This is a good thing. And I say this as an Indian H1B worker who's actually left the US because of the broken immigration system. I spent 8 years working for

This is a good thing. And I say this as an Indian H1B worker who's actually left the US because of the broken immigration system. I spent 8 years working for a big tech firm, and left the country when I realized that I was essentially never going to get a green card, despite my application being approved 4 years ago. The queue is now decades-long. I worked directly for a giant tech company that you all know, and was paid a very good salary, easily at par with a US Citizen. I know of so many people who gamed the system, working in cahoots with consulting companies that exist solely to scam people. Now I live in Canada, working for the same company, making the same amount of money, but as a Permanent Resident here. Life is so much simpler because I don't need to worry about capricious immigration policy, and being treated with suspicion at the border every time I fly back home. Your system is broken and needs to be fixed. Now, I don't think your current administration is going to fix it, but who knows.

throwaway82729 9y ago
I'm in the same boat as you were. 16 years of being in the US and no green card in sight even though I've been approved thrice over. I could potentially become a permanent resident in 2022 but even that's not guaranteed at the rate the process is going. If I may ask, what was the tipping point that made you decide to move?
- SN76477 9y ago
  I think this is the problem in the USA. If someone wants to come here to work, pay taxes and be a reasonable citizen why not allow it? The system is definitely broken, I want to see change immediately.
- refurb 9y ago
  You won't have a green card until 2022, but you will have permission to stay in the country.
  - throwaway82729 9y ago
    Yes, except that I won't be able to switch jobs easily or grow in my career as fast as I want to. Every time I go to India, I have to do this elaborate dance to get my Visa stamped. I haven't traveled out of the country enough just for this reason. It's very stressful. I have a child who was born here and doesn't want to go back. I'm really stuck here for no other reason than the fact that the immigration system is horribly broken. Every American (white person) in my management chain thinks I'm skilled enough to be here in the country and pay me north of $400k. Terrible state of affairs. I'm a well-paid slave or at least feel like one.
branchless 9y ago
Read the first paragraph and thought"come to Canada!". You delivered. Are you paid/employed in cad or usd? If the latter is it hard with PR?
- trhrowuuo23 9y ago
  I'm paid in CAD. I'm lucky - my employer was sympathetic to my situation, I had built good relationships with senior management, and what I do (I'm not an engineer) is a skill that they don't have in abundance, and I had a global role in any case. All these factors contributed to them moving me to Canada without a major hit to my salary. There is a difference (I get paid about USD 10K less), but that's more than made up in the lack of healthcare costs (I pay absolutely nothing for healthcare coverage in Canada), and most importantly for me, peace of mind. Also, I couldn't realistically switch jobs in the US without tons of paperwork. As a PR, I am treated exactly like a citizen and could easily switch if I got a better offer.
  - branchless 9y ago
    Agreed. I'm about to get PR, same boat. Thanks for the info and enjoy canada!
  - sandworm101 9y ago
    If you are earning good money then you arent paying zero for healthcare. Perhaps your employer is covering it, but canadas health system isnt totally free. In BC i paid a monthly fee, not much but something. Prescriptions and such also arent totally free.
    - trhrowuuo23 9y ago
      Well, if you want to pedantic, sure. I know I pay taxes, and the taxes fund healthcare. Obviously it's not "free". However, my out of pocket costs are zero. My employer pays for prescription drug coverage and dental care, but that isn't deducted from my pay check. It's over and above my salary. In the US, I was paying nearly $600 a month from _my_ paycheck for equivalent healthcare.
the_mitsuhiko 9y ago
> This is a good thing. […] I was essentially never going to get a green card, despite my application being approved 4 years ago Correct me if I'm wrong but as far as I understand the greencard path for H1B workers seems unrelated to the number of H1Bs issued but more to which nationality H1Bs go to. Since Indians are more likely to apply in the first place the wait time will stay ridiculously high unless the actual quota for greencards is increased.
- trhrowuuo23 9y ago
  Yes, you're right.The country based quotas are the real issue. However, this issue stems from the fact that the US has no real high-skills immigration path the way Canada, Australia and a bunch of other countries have. Because of this, an H1 worker from a body shop is equal to a rocket scientist from MIT if they're both Indian. Look, I have nothing against the body shop H1 worker who's only trying to make a better life for himself - what I don't like is companies that exploit Indians (and other nationalities) and the American public alike. We all get screwed together, and the US should have sensible immigration policy that works to improve the lives of its citizens. Of course Americans shouldn't be exploited. Of course you should be trying to attract the best and brightest - but also lower skilled workers who can fill jobs that have a low supply of labor (all the illegal immigrants are working away in this space). Immigration is an important aspect of public policy, and by having a broken system, your government is not doing its job.
  - e9 9y ago
    +1 I absolutely agree with you. I've been on H1-B and saw a lot of abuse from both big tech and startups (most abused were people from countries like India because a lot of them will do anything just not to go back). In big tech I saw people being indirectly threatened by not proceeding with their green card so that they work on weekends etc. I wouldn't take that crap so I kept leaving and transferring H1N but others were too scared and it really affected my view of H1B. Startups are also a problem, but more because of ignorance rather than malice. Once I transferred my H1B to a startup who really sold me on everything from being stable and funded to growing fast etc, so I moved my family across the country and on my first day CEO said they have 1 month of money left in the bank...
nonamechicken 9y ago
Quite a few of my friends are now applying for Canadian PR. Having suffered under H1B, its amazing how employee friendly the Canadian system is. I can be in India, apply for PR, get a decision in 3 months or less. Then I can go there, find a job. Never have to depend on an employer, never at the mercy of customer or some random visa officer or a CBP agent or lottery. I get to be in control of my life. If Americans don't want H1Bs, its all fine. Kick all Indians out. But why a nation that claims itself to be the land of freedom, who routinely criticizes other nations including India for human rights violations, allow such a visa system to exist all these years, I don't know.
- syshum 9y ago
  H1B is not about the employee, it is about the employer. I am 100% for more immigration, hell I favor open borders completely. However as much as I am in favor of more immigration, and I am staunchly opposed to the H1B program.
  - timewarrior 9y ago
    Isn't this an oxymoron. Open borders completely, but against H1B program.
    - syshum 9y ago
      Not at all, H1B allows employers to hold immigration status over the head of their employers, threatening them with possible deportation or other effects if they do not accept working conditions, pay or other items that would be unacceptable to a person that did not have their immigration status tied to their employment. I am for individuals, not corporations. Ever wonder why large companies are always pushing for more H1B but never for Full Immigration reform. They like the power in balance H1B creates
      - baursak 9y ago
        Yeah, but you already got hundreds of thousands individuals here in H-1 status, and thousands more wanting to join them, for lack of any other options. Then what?
kylell 9y ago
Isn't India broken too? with all the rape and economic emigration.
wheretolive 9y ago
<From throwaway account to avoid leaking personal info> I feel so great for you! Finally, I am moving out. Enough dealing with the immigration crap here! I waited for 8 years too. Didn't let immigration stall my career. Built a company, sold it to one of the top tech companies in Bay Area. Building another company to solve a really tough problem. But man it has been stressful! USCIS keeps getting hung up on technicality and makes it as difficult as possible to live here. Meanwhile I have paid millions in taxes in US. People who are in the lowest part of the value chain, will always find a loophole - there is too much money at stake and they don't have any other choice! Accomplished people will move out or stop coming! US, keep doing this and eventually H1B will be just be a tool for cheap labor! Best talent from India, doesn't come to US anymore! And most of who are still here will move out! I applied for EB-1. They need 3 criteria. Accepted 2 criteria (extra ordinary contribution to my field and leading role in organizations). They rejected the media and press criteria because most of the press about my company's acquisition, while mentioned me by name, was about the company and not me. And BTW I was Founder of the company and built it from scratch. In any other country, one of the criteria that they accepted would have been enough. If you are talented and from India, don't waste your life in US. Where ever you go, jobs will follow you. Move out as soon as you can! Good bye US!
- rvo 9y ago
  >I applied EB-1. They need 3 criteria. Accepted 2 criteria (extra ordinary contribution to my field and leading role in organizations). They rejected the media and press criteria because most of the press about my company's acquisition, while mentioned me by name, was about the company and not me. And BTW I was Founder of the company and built it from scratch. That is such BS. I was gonna try (I have some publications and stuff) but that's about it. Now I feel like I am rotting away here.
  - wheretolive 9y ago
    Going for EB-1 has been one of the worst decisions of my life. I wasted 2 years collecting paper work, getting letters, wasting money and waiting! It really a luck thing. And if you have to go premium. You will find out sooner!
rvo 9y ago
Same here man. I'm getting sick and tired of immigration in this country. The whole country is worried about illegal aliens and no one cares about us. And this is not new with trump. Been on h1b for years. It just got worse over time under obama. Americans dont care about indians. Either we don't get our voices heard too much, or we are just a slightly wrong shade of brown ("people of color" - ha!). Go care about illegals.... I'm just tired of dealing with immigration and then getting shat on by "pro immigration" people who dont care about Indians (and frankly Chinese). To my american friends, you dont realize how racist the immigration system is currently. Forget refugees and "muslim bans". Those are really nothing compared to how Indians and Chinese are treated. I'll show you: https://travel.state.gov/content/travel/en/legal/visa-law0/visa-bulletin/2018/visa-bulletin-for-march-2018.html https://travel.state.gov/content/travel/en/legal/visa-law0/v... Do a search for "FINAL ACTION DATES FOR EMPLOYMENT-BASED PREFERENCE CASES" See that table. There are a few salient points: 1. That table shows where the queue pointer is right now. "C" means at the head of the queue (no entries, everything being processed). If it is a date, that is the date that is currently being processed (for all intents and purposes). 2. Notice the special columns for the different nationalities. So they discriminate based on national origin. But, only 5 to 7 countries are special cased. Everyone else (including all refugee countries, muslim countries, etc) fall under "Rest of World" ("All chargeability areas.."). 3. Now notice the INDIA column. The date is 01Jan07 for EB3. This means, for someone with a Bachelors degree, they have to process people who applied 11 years ago. Let that sink in. No other race has to face this discrimination. EB2 (masters or phd) is not much better either. You have to be a genius (EB1) to get a greencard 'now' without a queue ... at the same level as a Bachelors graduate from Iran, Saudi, Somalia, whereever. . Anyway, hopefully you can empathize a little bit with Indians and Chinese who did things by the book and stop focussing so much on illegals.
- indemnity 9y ago
  If there was zero discrimination no-one from any other country would stand a chance due to the sheer population size of India & China. Would have thought this was obvious. It’s fairer to the rest of us.
  - bradleyjg 9y ago
thathappened 9y ago
You felt untrusted as a foreigner but imagine being born here and feeling the same way and vise versa. Luckily we sell this place well enough people still think the American dream is more than a dream.
bradleyjg 9y ago
> Your system is broken and needs to be fixed. I couldn't agree more. The solution here should be to lift the per country cap on each visa category, which is a remnant of the pre-1965 overtly racist national origin system, and increase the overall number of employment based permanent visas. EB-2 and EB-3 (not including other workers), which are the main categories for high skilled workers, are only allocated around 70,000 visas per year. Compare that to the lottery system at 50,000 or siblings of US citizens at 65,000 per year. While I am totally in favor of permanent resident visa programs being fixed, and am in general in favor of increased immigration including of high tech workers, the H1B is being abused. Not just by the Indian BPO companies like Infosys and Tata but also by multinational consulting companies like IBM and Accenture. If and when the EB2 and EB3 backlogs were cleared, I'd support: 1) eliminating the exemption rules for determining H1B dependent employers, 2) barring H1B dependent employers from filing any further H1B petitions until they were no longer dependent, and 3) apply the attestation requirements to any employer regardless of size that files at least 1000 petitions in a visa year.
- walshemj 9y ago
  Isn't this just unfair to say bright young people from Africa who don't have an industry turning out graduates
  - bradleyjg 9y ago
    How are they any worse off under what I propose than the status quo?
- dahdum 9y ago
  "lift the per country cap on each visa category, which is a remnant of the pre-1965 overtly racist national origin system" I understand that pre-1965 it was used in a racist way, but isn't a per country cap a good way maintain a diverse group of immigrants today? I'd keep that, and add a gender cap, forcing a relatively equal distribution. I'd also greatly increase skilled immigration overall.
  - 9y ago
refurb 9y ago
A lot of the reason for the difference between the US and Canada is simply demand. Both target an immigration rate of about ~1% of the population. The demand to immigrate into the US far exceeds that limit while in Canada there are many years where they don't even hit the limit.
- jellicle 9y ago
  Hah, no. The USA typically allows about 0.3% per year. Canada is around 0.8%. Per capita, Canada allows many more immigrants than the USA. (Since the USA's population is so much larger, USA allows more in absolute numbers.) About 21-22% of Canadian residents are immigrants. About 14% of American residents are.
  - refurb 9y ago
    Where did your numbers come from? Did you pick peak years? Canada is higher but slightly. It still stands that the waitlist is way longer for the US than Canada.
  - DrScump 9y ago
    The USA typically allows about 0.3% per year. That statistic omits those who enter/overstay illegally.
    - refurb 9y ago
      Good point. There are ~20 millions people in the US illegally, so that adds another 6-7% to those numbers.
      - TheCoelacanth 9y ago
        20 million is an estimate of the total number currently present, not the number that immigrate illegally each year. There are about 400k new illegal immigrants per year[1] joining a population of about 320 million so that is about 0.1% joining the population each year. [1] https://cis.org/Report/25-Million-Join-Illegal-Population-under-Obama https://cis.org/Report/25-Million-Join-Illegal-Population-un...
fogzen 9y ago
Why is this a good thing? Wouldn’t the good thing to be able to get a work visa if you want to work?
- crpatino 9y ago
  The perfect is the enemy of the good.
kamaal 9y ago
>>I know of so many people who gamed the system, working in cahoots with consulting companies that exist solely to scam people. It's sort of strange you even write this. Almost all engineers from India 'gamed the system' in some way both back home and in the US to do anything they have done in the US. The only thing not surprising to me is the way you talk. All Indians/ex-Indians I met while I was in US believed they deserved to be there and others do not. Therefore they should go back, giving them a chance. And of course everybody thought, everybody else should go back and only they deserved to stay. Not surprising, because Indians live the crab mentality day in and out. Also the 'consulting company' bogey is so broken to repeated in these situations. Why do you think you deserved to be there and they don't?
thrwwy142857 9y ago
+1 I'm writing this form a throw away for obvious reasons. The H1-B system or the green card system does not distinguish between TCS/Infosys/etc.. and bay area engineers making a lot of money. I made over $300k+/year at one of the large tech firms. Because the US limits green cards from people born in a single country to 7% (same upper limits to India / China and Montenegro), me and many of my friends have to wait 70+ years. (https://www.cato.org/blog/no-one-knows-how-long-legal-immigrants-will-have-wait https://www.cato.org/blog/no-one-knows-how-long-legal-immigr...) I paid a lot of money in taxes for a long time. Over a decade, this was taxation without representation. Many of my american friends could not believe how bad the system was. It took several beer chats with hours of question answering before they realized that you had no way around this if you were born in India. Before anyone says EB-1, remember that EB-1 was meant for nobel laureates and requires a lot of luck to work out. It's ridiculous - a person I used to lead in my job who was born in Spain got their green card in under 2 years because of where they were born, while I had already waited a decade. Life is short and there's no point waiting for 70+ years paying taxes without representation. I'm back in India starting a company. The access to venture capital here is improving, and it's so much easier to be creative without having to worry about immigration status. If I hadn't move back to India, I would have moved to Canada. They have really got their immigration system right.
- thirdsun 9y ago
  > the US limits green cards from people born in a single country to 7% (same upper limits to India / China and Montenegro) As someone who doesn't know a lot about american immigration laws, that sounds surprisingly insane. Probably a stupid idea, but might it be preferable to become a citizen of another country - let's say Estonia, which seems to embrace immigration - just to use that citizenship to apply for a US green card?
  - tsycho 9y ago
    You can't. The Green card quotas are based upon country of birth, not country of citizenship.

throwaway82729 9y ago

I'm in the same boat as you were. 16 years of being in the US and no green card in sight even though I've been approved thrice over. I could potentially become a permanent resident in 2022 but even that's not guaranteed at the rate the process is going. If I may ask, what was the tipping point that made you decide to move?

SN76477 9y ago
I think this is the problem in the USA. If someone wants to come here to work, pay taxes and be a reasonable citizen why not allow it? The system is definitely broken, I want to see change immediately.
refurb 9y ago
You won't have a green card until 2022, but you will have permission to stay in the country.
- throwaway82729 9y ago
  Yes, except that I won't be able to switch jobs easily or grow in my career as fast as I want to. Every time I go to India, I have to do this elaborate dance to get my Visa stamped. I haven't traveled out of the country enough just for this reason. It's very stressful. I have a child who was born here and doesn't want to go back. I'm really stuck here for no other reason than the fact that the immigration system is horribly broken. Every American (white person) in my management chain thinks I'm skilled enough to be here in the country and pay me north of $400k. Terrible state of affairs. I'm a well-paid slave or at least feel like one.

branchless 9y ago

Read the first paragraph and thought"come to Canada!". You delivered. Are you paid/employed in cad or usd? If the latter is it hard with PR?

trhrowuuo23 9y ago
I'm paid in CAD. I'm lucky - my employer was sympathetic to my situation, I had built good relationships with senior management, and what I do (I'm not an engineer) is a skill that they don't have in abundance, and I had a global role in any case. All these factors contributed to them moving me to Canada without a major hit to my salary. There is a difference (I get paid about USD 10K less), but that's more than made up in the lack of healthcare costs (I pay absolutely nothing for healthcare coverage in Canada), and most importantly for me, peace of mind. Also, I couldn't realistically switch jobs in the US without tons of paperwork. As a PR, I am treated exactly like a citizen and could easily switch if I got a better offer.
- branchless 9y ago
  Agreed. I'm about to get PR, same boat. Thanks for the info and enjoy canada!
- sandworm101 9y ago
  If you are earning good money then you arent paying zero for healthcare. Perhaps your employer is covering it, but canadas health system isnt totally free. In BC i paid a monthly fee, not much but something. Prescriptions and such also arent totally free.
  - trhrowuuo23 9y ago
    Well, if you want to pedantic, sure. I know I pay taxes, and the taxes fund healthcare. Obviously it's not "free". However, my out of pocket costs are zero. My employer pays for prescription drug coverage and dental care, but that isn't deducted from my pay check. It's over and above my salary. In the US, I was paying nearly $600 a month from _my_ paycheck for equivalent healthcare.

the_mitsuhiko 9y ago

> This is a good thing. […] I was essentially never going to get a green card, despite my application being approved 4 years ago Correct me if I'm wrong but as far as I understand the greencard path for H1B workers seems unrelated to the number of H1Bs issued but more to which nationality H1Bs go to. Since Indians are more likely to apply in the first place the wait time will stay ridiculously high unless the actual quota for greencards is increased.

trhrowuuo23 9y ago
Yes, you're right.The country based quotas are the real issue. However, this issue stems from the fact that the US has no real high-skills immigration path the way Canada, Australia and a bunch of other countries have. Because of this, an H1 worker from a body shop is equal to a rocket scientist from MIT if they're both Indian. Look, I have nothing against the body shop H1 worker who's only trying to make a better life for himself - what I don't like is companies that exploit Indians (and other nationalities) and the American public alike. We all get screwed together, and the US should have sensible immigration policy that works to improve the lives of its citizens. Of course Americans shouldn't be exploited. Of course you should be trying to attract the best and brightest - but also lower skilled workers who can fill jobs that have a low supply of labor (all the illegal immigrants are working away in this space). Immigration is an important aspect of public policy, and by having a broken system, your government is not doing its job.
- e9 9y ago
  +1 I absolutely agree with you. I've been on H1-B and saw a lot of abuse from both big tech and startups (most abused were people from countries like India because a lot of them will do anything just not to go back). In big tech I saw people being indirectly threatened by not proceeding with their green card so that they work on weekends etc. I wouldn't take that crap so I kept leaving and transferring H1N but others were too scared and it really affected my view of H1B. Startups are also a problem, but more because of ignorance rather than malice. Once I transferred my H1B to a startup who really sold me on everything from being stable and funded to growing fast etc, so I moved my family across the country and on my first day CEO said they have 1 month of money left in the bank...

nonamechicken 9y ago

Quite a few of my friends are now applying for Canadian PR. Having suffered under H1B, its amazing how employee friendly the Canadian system is. I can be in India, apply for PR, get a decision in 3 months or less. Then I can go there, find a job. Never have to depend on an employer, never at the mercy of customer or some random visa officer or a CBP agent or lottery. I get to be in control of my life. If Americans don't want H1Bs, its all fine. Kick all Indians out. But why a nation that claims itself to be the land of freedom, who routinely criticizes other nations including India for human rights violations, allow such a visa system to exist all these years, I don't know.

syshum 9y ago
H1B is not about the employee, it is about the employer. I am 100% for more immigration, hell I favor open borders completely. However as much as I am in favor of more immigration, and I am staunchly opposed to the H1B program.
- timewarrior 9y ago
  Isn't this an oxymoron. Open borders completely, but against H1B program.
  - syshum 9y ago
    Not at all, H1B allows employers to hold immigration status over the head of their employers, threatening them with possible deportation or other effects if they do not accept working conditions, pay or other items that would be unacceptable to a person that did not have their immigration status tied to their employment. I am for individuals, not corporations. Ever wonder why large companies are always pushing for more H1B but never for Full Immigration reform. They like the power in balance H1B creates
    - baursak 9y ago
      Yeah, but you already got hundreds of thousands individuals here in H-1 status, and thousands more wanting to join them, for lack of any other options. Then what?

kylell 9y ago

Isn't India broken too? with all the rape and economic emigration.

wheretolive 9y ago

<From throwaway account to avoid leaking personal info> I feel so great for you! Finally, I am moving out. Enough dealing with the immigration crap here! I waited for 8 years too. Didn't let immigration stall my career. Built a company, sold it to one of the top tech companies in Bay Area. Building another company to solve a really tough problem. But man it has been stressful! USCIS keeps getting hung up on technicality and makes it as difficult as possible to live here. Meanwhile I have paid millions in taxes in US. People who are in the lowest part of the value chain, will always find a loophole - there is too much money at stake and they don't have any other choice! Accomplished people will move out or stop coming! US, keep doing this and eventually H1B will be just be a tool for cheap labor! Best talent from India, doesn't come to US anymore! And most of who are still here will move out! I applied for EB-1. They need 3 criteria. Accepted 2 criteria (extra ordinary contribution to my field and leading role in organizations). They rejected the media and press criteria because most of the press about my company's acquisition, while mentioned me by name, was about the company and not me. And BTW I was Founder of the company and built it from scratch. In any other country, one of the criteria that they accepted would have been enough. If you are talented and from India, don't waste your life in US. Where ever you go, jobs will follow you. Move out as soon as you can! Good bye US!

rvo 9y ago
>I applied EB-1. They need 3 criteria. Accepted 2 criteria (extra ordinary contribution to my field and leading role in organizations). They rejected the media and press criteria because most of the press about my company's acquisition, while mentioned me by name, was about the company and not me. And BTW I was Founder of the company and built it from scratch. That is such BS. I was gonna try (I have some publications and stuff) but that's about it. Now I feel like I am rotting away here.
- wheretolive 9y ago
  Going for EB-1 has been one of the worst decisions of my life. I wasted 2 years collecting paper work, getting letters, wasting money and waiting! It really a luck thing. And if you have to go premium. You will find out sooner!

rvo 9y ago

Same here man. I'm getting sick and tired of immigration in this country. The whole country is worried about illegal aliens and no one cares about us. And this is not new with trump. Been on h1b for years. It just got worse over time under obama. Americans dont care about indians. Either we don't get our voices heard too much, or we are just a slightly wrong shade of brown ("people of color" - ha!). Go care about illegals.... I'm just tired of dealing with immigration and then getting shat on by "pro immigration" people who dont care about Indians (and frankly Chinese). To my american friends, you dont realize how racist the immigration system is currently. Forget refugees and "muslim bans". Those are really nothing compared to how Indians and Chinese are treated. I'll show you: https://travel.state.gov/content/travel/en/legal/visa-law0/visa-bulletin/2018/visa-bulletin-for-march-2018.html https://travel.state.gov/content/travel/en/legal/visa-law0/v... Do a search for "FINAL ACTION DATES FOR EMPLOYMENT-BASED PREFERENCE CASES" See that table. There are a few salient points: 1. That table shows where the queue pointer is right now. "C" means at the head of the queue (no entries, everything being processed). If it is a date, that is the date that is currently being processed (for all intents and purposes). 2. Notice the special columns for the different nationalities. So they discriminate based on national origin. But, only 5 to 7 countries are special cased. Everyone else (including all refugee countries, muslim countries, etc) fall under "Rest of World" ("All chargeability areas.."). 3. Now notice the INDIA column. The date is 01Jan07 for EB3. This means, for someone with a Bachelors degree, they have to process people who applied 11 years ago. Let that sink in. No other race has to face this discrimination. EB2 (masters or phd) is not much better either. You have to be a genius (EB1) to get a greencard 'now' without a queue ... at the same level as a Bachelors graduate from Iran, Saudi, Somalia, whereever. . Anyway, hopefully you can empathize a little bit with Indians and Chinese who did things by the book and stop focussing so much on illegals.

indemnity 9y ago
If there was zero discrimination no-one from any other country would stand a chance due to the sheer population size of India & China. Would have thought this was obvious. It’s fairer to the rest of us.
- bradleyjg 9y ago

thathappened 9y ago

You felt untrusted as a foreigner but imagine being born here and feeling the same way and vise versa. Luckily we sell this place well enough people still think the American dream is more than a dream.

bradleyjg 9y ago

> Your system is broken and needs to be fixed. I couldn't agree more. The solution here should be to lift the per country cap on each visa category, which is a remnant of the pre-1965 overtly racist national origin system, and increase the overall number of employment based permanent visas. EB-2 and EB-3 (not including other workers), which are the main categories for high skilled workers, are only allocated around 70,000 visas per year. Compare that to the lottery system at 50,000 or siblings of US citizens at 65,000 per year. While I am totally in favor of permanent resident visa programs being fixed, and am in general in favor of increased immigration including of high tech workers, the H1B is being abused. Not just by the Indian BPO companies like Infosys and Tata but also by multinational consulting companies like IBM and Accenture. If and when the EB2 and EB3 backlogs were cleared, I'd support: 1) eliminating the exemption rules for determining H1B dependent employers, 2) barring H1B dependent employers from filing any further H1B petitions until they were no longer dependent, and 3) apply the attestation requirements to any employer regardless of size that files at least 1000 petitions in a visa year.

walshemj 9y ago
Isn't this just unfair to say bright young people from Africa who don't have an industry turning out graduates
- bradleyjg 9y ago
  How are they any worse off under what I propose than the status quo?
dahdum 9y ago
"lift the per country cap on each visa category, which is a remnant of the pre-1965 overtly racist national origin system" I understand that pre-1965 it was used in a racist way, but isn't a per country cap a good way maintain a diverse group of immigrants today? I'd keep that, and add a gender cap, forcing a relatively equal distribution. I'd also greatly increase skilled immigration overall.
- 9y ago

refurb 9y ago

A lot of the reason for the difference between the US and Canada is simply demand. Both target an immigration rate of about ~1% of the population. The demand to immigrate into the US far exceeds that limit while in Canada there are many years where they don't even hit the limit.

jellicle 9y ago
Hah, no. The USA typically allows about 0.3% per year. Canada is around 0.8%. Per capita, Canada allows many more immigrants than the USA. (Since the USA's population is so much larger, USA allows more in absolute numbers.) About 21-22% of Canadian residents are immigrants. About 14% of American residents are.
- refurb 9y ago
  Where did your numbers come from? Did you pick peak years? Canada is higher but slightly. It still stands that the waitlist is way longer for the US than Canada.
- DrScump 9y ago
  The USA typically allows about 0.3% per year. That statistic omits those who enter/overstay illegally.
  - refurb 9y ago
    Good point. There are ~20 millions people in the US illegally, so that adds another 6-7% to those numbers.
    - TheCoelacanth 9y ago
      20 million is an estimate of the total number currently present, not the number that immigrate illegally each year. There are about 400k new illegal immigrants per year[1] joining a population of about 320 million so that is about 0.1% joining the population each year. [1] https://cis.org/Report/25-Million-Join-Illegal-Population-under-Obama https://cis.org/Report/25-Million-Join-Illegal-Population-un...

fogzen 9y ago

Why is this a good thing? Wouldn’t the good thing to be able to get a work visa if you want to work?

crpatino 9y ago
The perfect is the enemy of the good.

kamaal 9y ago

>>I know of so many people who gamed the system, working in cahoots with consulting companies that exist solely to scam people. It's sort of strange you even write this. Almost all engineers from India 'gamed the system' in some way both back home and in the US to do anything they have done in the US. The only thing not surprising to me is the way you talk. All Indians/ex-Indians I met while I was in US believed they deserved to be there and others do not. Therefore they should go back, giving them a chance. And of course everybody thought, everybody else should go back and only they deserved to stay. Not surprising, because Indians live the crab mentality day in and out. Also the 'consulting company' bogey is so broken to repeated in these situations. Why do you think you deserved to be there and they don't?

thrwwy142857 9y ago

+1 I'm writing this form a throw away for obvious reasons. The H1-B system or the green card system does not distinguish between TCS/Infosys/etc.. and bay area engineers making a lot of money. I made over $300k+/year at one of the large tech firms. Because the US limits green cards from people born in a single country to 7% (same upper limits to India / China and Montenegro), me and many of my friends have to wait 70+ years. (https://www.cato.org/blog/no-one-knows-how-long-legal-immigrants-will-have-wait https://www.cato.org/blog/no-one-knows-how-long-legal-immigr...) I paid a lot of money in taxes for a long time. Over a decade, this was taxation without representation. Many of my american friends could not believe how bad the system was. It took several beer chats with hours of question answering before they realized that you had no way around this if you were born in India. Before anyone says EB-1, remember that EB-1 was meant for nobel laureates and requires a lot of luck to work out. It's ridiculous - a person I used to lead in my job who was born in Spain got their green card in under 2 years because of where they were born, while I had already waited a decade. Life is short and there's no point waiting for 70+ years paying taxes without representation. I'm back in India starting a company. The access to venture capital here is improving, and it's so much easier to be creative without having to worry about immigration status. If I hadn't move back to India, I would have moved to Canada. They have really got their immigration system right.

thirdsun 9y ago
> the US limits green cards from people born in a single country to 7% (same upper limits to India / China and Montenegro) As someone who doesn't know a lot about american immigration laws, that sounds surprisingly insane. Probably a stupid idea, but might it be preferable to become a citizen of another country - let's say Estonia, which seems to embrace immigration - just to use that citizenship to apply for a US green card?
- tsycho 9y ago
  You can't. The Green card quotas are based upon country of birth, not country of citizenship.