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The current wait time for a green card for an Indian is on the order of 100-120 years. One of my reports, an engineer from Chennai, doesn’t want to renew his H

The current wait time for a green card for an Indian is on the order of 100-120 years. One of my reports, an engineer from Chennai, doesn’t want to renew his H1B in two years time and is considering either working from our office in Bangalore or beginning a startup in India. The dynamics have changed in the country. The startup scene and the maturity of mobile networks has made India a far more attractive place to live and work than it did 10 years ago. Most developed nations are going to regret the end of this brain drain.

Tade0 4y ago
Same here in Eastern Europe. I was on a contract in Switzerland in 2020 and while the pay was awesome, it wasn't sustainable - permanent employees in the same company make around 2-2.5x of what I do back home, but the cost of living (especially real estate) is 3-4x, so I have no incentive to migrate there. I mean, Switzerland is nice, just not that nice when you're an immigrant. I don't recall anyone from my former team staying either, despite getting job offers.
- haspok 4y ago
  Except if you come from the EU and you have a job in Switzerland, you get a permit, more or less _by default_. You are even allowed to stay for 3 months just looking for a job! Good luck trying that in the US. Side-note: Having watched a number of "Benefits Britain" episodes recently, I realized that the main reason why the Swiss insist on a permit (for which a job is necessary - or a lot of money) is because certain folks from the East would immediately come and take advantage of the benefits system, as they did in the UK before Brexit. This behaviour was so alien to me that initially I did not understand the permit situation - why have it if I get it "automatically"? That's why.
  - Tade0 4y ago
    I hear this a lot but I'm yet to meet a person who travelled this far just to be on welfare. I'm sure they exist, but it sounds like such a weird reason to go, considering the abundance of jobs and generally better labour laws in the west.
    - deleted 4y ago
      [deleted]
  - chownie 4y ago
    For what it's worth you're probably no more clued in on British benefit dynamics after watching those episodes than you were before, they're propaganda and not even particularly enlightening.
satvikpendem 4y ago
Great for India though. I'm Indian and immigrated to the US when young so didn't necessarily have a say in the matter, but I've always thought that it's a shame that the best people there are simply going to other countries, not helping to actually improve their mother country. So I'm glad to see more people improving India through startups and entrepreneurship in general.
- candiodari 4y ago
  A country is supposed to help it's people, and get loyalty in return. A country does not have a "right" to people.
  - MomoXenosaga 4y ago
    Works both ways. Indians don't have a right to migrate to America or Europe.
    - Hizonner 4y ago
      They used to call it "God's Green Earth". Did you check with God about whether anybody had the right to tell people where they could live on it?
    - ben_w 4y ago
      I think the term "right" is misleading — all rights are granted by governments, none are natural things which would exist without governments (no matter how much my inner anarchist wishes otherwise), government can create the right for others to enter as easily as the right to vote or the right to a fair trial, and that means American and European national governments can if they wished create a right for Indians in general to do just that. They haven't, but they could.
      - kelipso 4y ago
        I mean if we're going to base the rights of humans off of what their respective countries say their citizens have, then with equal strength a country can declare that it has the right to keep its citizens in its own territory.
rhaway84773 4y ago
I’m passionate about this. I’ve already lost 2 of my best reports (1 Indian and 1 Chinese) to our Canadian office. The few remaining people we have on the H1 pretty much had the current lane duck session as their last hope for reform, but with Republicans controlling the House and then low hopes for Democrats in 2024, I think we’re gonna lose them all. Especially if the UK implements the immigration reform they’ve been promising by switching to a Canada like points system.
- foogazi 4y ago
  > I’ve already lost 2 of my best reports (1 Indian and 1 Chinese) to our Canadian office. With remote work did you really lose them ?
sometimes_all 4y ago
I moved back to India almost 4 years ago. I haven’t regretted it one bit; I have sacrificed nothing except maybe relatively cleaner air. Most of the smart folks (engineers or otherwise) who would’ve targeted the US don’t consider it any more. For software folks, Bangalore/Hyderabad/Gurgaon offer salaries which are objectively the best outside NY/CA/Seattle. The current visa process is an insult to talented people. There is no need to go through that mental torture, there are way better options available.
raincom 4y ago
In a way, it is good for the developing countries in the long run.
908B64B197 4y ago
To be completely honest, a lot of that backlog is completely self-imposed thanks to the way (mostly Indian) body shops game the H1B system. Keep in mind that If I want to hire: A smart graduate from EPFL, Polytechnique or ETH Zurich who interned at CERN and has contributed to the Linux kernel for a software engineering job at a unicorn startup or A grad from a second tier "technical college" in India with a visa refusal rate of ~90% for a job doing manual UI testing and QA for a body shop [0]. my only path forward is H1. They'll both be listed as "computer related occupations" and apply for the same visa in the same quota. Does that make any sense to anyone? Of course, my odds of getting a lottery spot for the former are dramatically lower, since we all know body shops and consulting firms won't hesitate to file 4-5 applications per seat they plan to fill out (so one can hopefully get a spot in the lottery and not get any RFE). Let's be real for a moment here: if the people applying fraudulently were to simply respect the law and only use these visas for real specialty occupations the backlog would clear itself in a few years. Thankfully, the previous administration started issuing more RFEs and catching fraudulent applicants [1]. [0] https://www.nbcbayarea.com/news/local/silicon-valleys-body-shop-secret/78781/ https://www.nbcbayarea.com/news/local/silicon-valleys-body-s... [1] https://www.huffpost.com/entry/trump-h-1b_b_5890d86ce4b0522c7d3d84af https://www.huffpost.com/entry/trump-h-1b_b_5890d86ce4b0522c...

Tade0 4y ago

Same here in Eastern Europe. I was on a contract in Switzerland in 2020 and while the pay was awesome, it wasn't sustainable - permanent employees in the same company make around 2-2.5x of what I do back home, but the cost of living (especially real estate) is 3-4x, so I have no incentive to migrate there. I mean, Switzerland is nice, just not that nice when you're an immigrant. I don't recall anyone from my former team staying either, despite getting job offers.

haspok 4y ago
Except if you come from the EU and you have a job in Switzerland, you get a permit, more or less _by default_. You are even allowed to stay for 3 months just looking for a job! Good luck trying that in the US. Side-note: Having watched a number of "Benefits Britain" episodes recently, I realized that the main reason why the Swiss insist on a permit (for which a job is necessary - or a lot of money) is because certain folks from the East would immediately come and take advantage of the benefits system, as they did in the UK before Brexit. This behaviour was so alien to me that initially I did not understand the permit situation - why have it if I get it "automatically"? That's why.
- Tade0 4y ago
  I hear this a lot but I'm yet to meet a person who travelled this far just to be on welfare. I'm sure they exist, but it sounds like such a weird reason to go, considering the abundance of jobs and generally better labour laws in the west.
  - deleted 4y ago
    [deleted]
- chownie 4y ago
  For what it's worth you're probably no more clued in on British benefit dynamics after watching those episodes than you were before, they're propaganda and not even particularly enlightening.

satvikpendem 4y ago

Great for India though. I'm Indian and immigrated to the US when young so didn't necessarily have a say in the matter, but I've always thought that it's a shame that the best people there are simply going to other countries, not helping to actually improve their mother country. So I'm glad to see more people improving India through startups and entrepreneurship in general.

candiodari 4y ago
A country is supposed to help it's people, and get loyalty in return. A country does not have a "right" to people.
- MomoXenosaga 4y ago
  Works both ways. Indians don't have a right to migrate to America or Europe.
  - Hizonner 4y ago
    They used to call it "God's Green Earth". Did you check with God about whether anybody had the right to tell people where they could live on it?
  - ben_w 4y ago
    I think the term "right" is misleading — all rights are granted by governments, none are natural things which would exist without governments (no matter how much my inner anarchist wishes otherwise), government can create the right for others to enter as easily as the right to vote or the right to a fair trial, and that means American and European national governments can if they wished create a right for Indians in general to do just that. They haven't, but they could.
    - kelipso 4y ago
      I mean if we're going to base the rights of humans off of what their respective countries say their citizens have, then with equal strength a country can declare that it has the right to keep its citizens in its own territory.

rhaway84773 4y ago

I’m passionate about this. I’ve already lost 2 of my best reports (1 Indian and 1 Chinese) to our Canadian office. The few remaining people we have on the H1 pretty much had the current lane duck session as their last hope for reform, but with Republicans controlling the House and then low hopes for Democrats in 2024, I think we’re gonna lose them all. Especially if the UK implements the immigration reform they’ve been promising by switching to a Canada like points system.

foogazi 4y ago
> I’ve already lost 2 of my best reports (1 Indian and 1 Chinese) to our Canadian office. With remote work did you really lose them ?

sometimes_all 4y ago

I moved back to India almost 4 years ago. I haven’t regretted it one bit; I have sacrificed nothing except maybe relatively cleaner air. Most of the smart folks (engineers or otherwise) who would’ve targeted the US don’t consider it any more. For software folks, Bangalore/Hyderabad/Gurgaon offer salaries which are objectively the best outside NY/CA/Seattle. The current visa process is an insult to talented people. There is no need to go through that mental torture, there are way better options available.

raincom 4y ago

In a way, it is good for the developing countries in the long run.

908B64B197 4y ago

To be completely honest, a lot of that backlog is completely self-imposed thanks to the way (mostly Indian) body shops game the H1B system. Keep in mind that If I want to hire: A smart graduate from EPFL, Polytechnique or ETH Zurich who interned at CERN and has contributed to the Linux kernel for a software engineering job at a unicorn startup or A grad from a second tier "technical college" in India with a visa refusal rate of ~90% for a job doing manual UI testing and QA for a body shop [0]. my only path forward is H1. They'll both be listed as "computer related occupations" and apply for the same visa in the same quota. Does that make any sense to anyone? Of course, my odds of getting a lottery spot for the former are dramatically lower, since we all know body shops and consulting firms won't hesitate to file 4-5 applications per seat they plan to fill out (so one can hopefully get a spot in the lottery and not get any RFE). Let's be real for a moment here: if the people applying fraudulently were to simply respect the law and only use these visas for real specialty occupations the backlog would clear itself in a few years. Thankfully, the previous administration started issuing more RFEs and catching fraudulent applicants [1]. [0] https://www.nbcbayarea.com/news/local/silicon-valleys-body-shop-secret/78781/ https://www.nbcbayarea.com/news/local/silicon-valleys-body-s... [1] https://www.huffpost.com/entry/trump-h-1b_b_5890d86ce4b0522c7d3d84af https://www.huffpost.com/entry/trump-h-1b_b_5890d86ce4b0522c...