4 ms·

As a European, who’d love to move to the US, I perfectly agree. (Except about the points system, because it’s completely arbitrary, imho the only qualification

As a European, who’d love to move to the US, I perfectly agree. (Except about the points system, because it’s completely arbitrary, imho the only qualification should be either an advanced degree, or a lined up job offer, subject to annual per country cap, because otherwise it could get completely out of hand) Going through the L1B or H1B route is below me (as you’re tied to an employer with all the issues that entails, not to mention the H1B lottery, or the fact that to even qualify for a L1B I’d have to already work for the same employer for a year, and then hope they are willing to transfer me is absolutely ridiculous). And basically nobody is going to sponsor me for a EB-2 outright. So we’re just applying for the DV lottery every year. If we win, we’ll move to the States. Otherwise we’re not going through the meat grinder that is the US immigration system. I’m actually not sure what the latest rules are, but what I recall that H1B spouses can’t even get a work permit until there’s an approved I-140 (Green card petition), so H1B route is a complete showstopper. How desperate do you have to be to go through that?

qaq 4y ago
Well EU is not exactly the worst place in the world...
- sgjohnson 4y ago
  My point exactly. The US is completely incapable of competing for non-top-level talent from the EU. Very few Europeans in their right mind would consider going through the meat grinder that the US immigration system is, not least of which is the bad rep the US gets for not having a single payer healthcare system (not that it should have one, it’s just that Europeans also have to justify giving that up) Personally, I love the United States. But the US basically can’t compete for me as an employee, because I’m going to take the offer that makes the most rational sense, which, with as things stand, is extremely unlikely to come from an employer in the US.
  - qaq 4y ago
    It doesn't really deprive US companies of anything since all major ones have EU presence. Does deprive US of tax revenue though
    - sgjohnson 4y ago
      It does deprive the US companies that don’t have EU presence from access to a major talent pool.
      - qaq 4y ago
        In IT space most major ones do though.
  - thoms_a 4y ago
    Why not work remotely? I can't see any benefits to living in the USA. I assume you already have experience living here, and for the life of me cannot fathom why anyone would choose the USA over most of Europe. I could list all of the benefits of Europe, but I'm sure you know them as a resident. The USA is a very strange and highly dysfunctional (healthcare, social strife, violence, etc.) country. Most predictions for the future of the US are not optimistic, and there are good reasons for this.
    - sgjohnson 4y ago
      > and for the life of me cannot fathom why anyone would choose the USA over most of Europe. Because I'm weird like that. I don't care about my "free" healthcare, because what you can get for free either has an extremely long wait times or is absolutely sub-par. I've never had "free" healthcare nor in the UK (except for that one time that made me go fully private), nor in my home country. I'm aware that it'd be more expensive in the US. I'm also a gun enthusiast, having my hobby in the EU is almost getting more difficult by the day, and I'm from a EU country that has relatively lax gun laws (when compared to other EU countries) I haven't lived in the US, but I've spent a lot of time there.
    - whimsicalism 4y ago
      > Why not work remotely? I can't see any benefits to living in the USA. Pay? Unless you work in Switzerland you're not going to get anything close to what you can get on the US west coast.
Swizec 4y ago
You can sponsor your own EB-2. I did. Takes some effort, lots of time, and a smol pile of money for lawyers. I wrote a pretty long article about how I managed to pull this off, if you’re interested. https://swizec.com/blog/how-i-used-indie-hacking-to-sponsor-my-own-greencard/ https://swizec.com/blog/how-i-used-indie-hacking-to-sponsor-...
- sgjohnson 4y ago
  I highly doubt that I’m extraordinary enough to qualify for the EB-2 NIW. I’m just a competent software engineer with a lot of experience. > If the relationship falls apart, you have 10 days to leave the country unless you stay married. By the way, this is not true. If you prove that the marriage was bona fide, you keep your green card. Which you don’t really even have to prove if it lasts longer than 2 years.
  - Swizec 4y ago
    I wasn’t either when I started on this path. Nice thing is that building your career to qualify for this also greatly helps your career. Like extra leverage on your efforts.
filoleg 4y ago
> Going through the [...] H1B route is below me (as you're tied to an employer [...]) You aren't tied to your employer with H1B. Once you got an H1B, you can switch employers. There is only a minor amount of H1B transfer paperwork involved, but no more lottery or quotas or uncertainty about whether you are gonna get it or not. > H1B spouses can't even get a work permit until there is an approved I-140 (Green card petition) Sadly, this is still the case. Good news is that processing times for I-140 with H1B is currently sitting at about 1yr. > We're just applying for the DV lottery every year From someone whose parents went almost through the exact same process (which included that one year [iirc 2011 or 2012] when USCIS had a bug and sent the DV lottery winner email to those who didn't actually get selected, which my family fell under), I genuinely wish you the best of luck. This was extremely stressful for everyone involved, and we ended up just going through the H1B process without ever really winning the DV lottery. And I still, to this day, have occasional nightmares of losing it all and being kicked out of the country. Which makes me scream in my sleep, and I feel really guilty for my partner being woken up by this. Happens at least once every few months, despite me being a US citizen for a while at this point. Though in my case, I think it was fueled by my extremely strong distaste for living in my country of origin (which isn't in EU), not the process of getting permanent residency in the US. Legit, I am rooting for you, and I hope things work out in your situation, regardless of whether you get it through the DV lottery or whichever other way.
- deleted 4y ago
  [deleted]
runarberg 4y ago
A US migrant from a Schengen country here, that moved here for family reasons, and I absolutely concur. I’m currently on my third application for a permanent residency. First one got obsolete, second was denied because of a technical error, and the current one was filed in last August and is still pending. I have been in active process since April 2020. I have close to a thousand pages of filing documents, several thousand dollars, countless stressful moments, a couple of missed weddings of siblings back home, etc. I am currently waiting for a my I-131 and am not allowed to travel back home unless I can prove it is an emergency (and then only for 3 weeks), and I am not allowed to work (though, rumors have it that illegal work is not enforced for spouses of citizens). You file an I-765 for work authorization which is handled along your I-131. The current average waiting period for that is 10.5 months... I’ve waited 9. I don’t recommend this for anybody.
- flavius29663 4y ago
  and you got it the easiest way possible: by marrying a citizen...

qaq 4y ago

Well EU is not exactly the worst place in the world...

sgjohnson 4y ago
My point exactly. The US is completely incapable of competing for non-top-level talent from the EU. Very few Europeans in their right mind would consider going through the meat grinder that the US immigration system is, not least of which is the bad rep the US gets for not having a single payer healthcare system (not that it should have one, it’s just that Europeans also have to justify giving that up) Personally, I love the United States. But the US basically can’t compete for me as an employee, because I’m going to take the offer that makes the most rational sense, which, with as things stand, is extremely unlikely to come from an employer in the US.
- qaq 4y ago
  It doesn't really deprive US companies of anything since all major ones have EU presence. Does deprive US of tax revenue though
  - sgjohnson 4y ago
    It does deprive the US companies that don’t have EU presence from access to a major talent pool.
    - qaq 4y ago
      In IT space most major ones do though.
- thoms_a 4y ago
  Why not work remotely? I can't see any benefits to living in the USA. I assume you already have experience living here, and for the life of me cannot fathom why anyone would choose the USA over most of Europe. I could list all of the benefits of Europe, but I'm sure you know them as a resident. The USA is a very strange and highly dysfunctional (healthcare, social strife, violence, etc.) country. Most predictions for the future of the US are not optimistic, and there are good reasons for this.
  - sgjohnson 4y ago
    > and for the life of me cannot fathom why anyone would choose the USA over most of Europe. Because I'm weird like that. I don't care about my "free" healthcare, because what you can get for free either has an extremely long wait times or is absolutely sub-par. I've never had "free" healthcare nor in the UK (except for that one time that made me go fully private), nor in my home country. I'm aware that it'd be more expensive in the US. I'm also a gun enthusiast, having my hobby in the EU is almost getting more difficult by the day, and I'm from a EU country that has relatively lax gun laws (when compared to other EU countries) I haven't lived in the US, but I've spent a lot of time there.
  - whimsicalism 4y ago
    > Why not work remotely? I can't see any benefits to living in the USA. Pay? Unless you work in Switzerland you're not going to get anything close to what you can get on the US west coast.

Swizec 4y ago

You can sponsor your own EB-2. I did. Takes some effort, lots of time, and a smol pile of money for lawyers. I wrote a pretty long article about how I managed to pull this off, if you’re interested. https://swizec.com/blog/how-i-used-indie-hacking-to-sponsor-my-own-greencard/ https://swizec.com/blog/how-i-used-indie-hacking-to-sponsor-...

sgjohnson 4y ago
I highly doubt that I’m extraordinary enough to qualify for the EB-2 NIW. I’m just a competent software engineer with a lot of experience. > If the relationship falls apart, you have 10 days to leave the country unless you stay married. By the way, this is not true. If you prove that the marriage was bona fide, you keep your green card. Which you don’t really even have to prove if it lasts longer than 2 years.
- Swizec 4y ago
  I wasn’t either when I started on this path. Nice thing is that building your career to qualify for this also greatly helps your career. Like extra leverage on your efforts.

filoleg 4y ago

> Going through the [...] H1B route is below me (as you're tied to an employer [...]) You aren't tied to your employer with H1B. Once you got an H1B, you can switch employers. There is only a minor amount of H1B transfer paperwork involved, but no more lottery or quotas or uncertainty about whether you are gonna get it or not. > H1B spouses can't even get a work permit until there is an approved I-140 (Green card petition) Sadly, this is still the case. Good news is that processing times for I-140 with H1B is currently sitting at about 1yr. > We're just applying for the DV lottery every year From someone whose parents went almost through the exact same process (which included that one year [iirc 2011 or 2012] when USCIS had a bug and sent the DV lottery winner email to those who didn't actually get selected, which my family fell under), I genuinely wish you the best of luck. This was extremely stressful for everyone involved, and we ended up just going through the H1B process without ever really winning the DV lottery. And I still, to this day, have occasional nightmares of losing it all and being kicked out of the country. Which makes me scream in my sleep, and I feel really guilty for my partner being woken up by this. Happens at least once every few months, despite me being a US citizen for a while at this point. Though in my case, I think it was fueled by my extremely strong distaste for living in my country of origin (which isn't in EU), not the process of getting permanent residency in the US. Legit, I am rooting for you, and I hope things work out in your situation, regardless of whether you get it through the DV lottery or whichever other way.

deleted 4y ago
[deleted]

runarberg 4y ago

A US migrant from a Schengen country here, that moved here for family reasons, and I absolutely concur. I’m currently on my third application for a permanent residency. First one got obsolete, second was denied because of a technical error, and the current one was filed in last August and is still pending. I have been in active process since April 2020. I have close to a thousand pages of filing documents, several thousand dollars, countless stressful moments, a couple of missed weddings of siblings back home, etc. I am currently waiting for a my I-131 and am not allowed to travel back home unless I can prove it is an emergency (and then only for 3 weeks), and I am not allowed to work (though, rumors have it that illegal work is not enforced for spouses of citizens). You file an I-765 for work authorization which is handled along your I-131. The current average waiting period for that is 10.5 months... I’ve waited 9. I don’t recommend this for anybody.

flavius29663 4y ago
and you got it the easiest way possible: by marrying a citizen...