8 ms·

60 Days to Find a Job or Leave the Country

63 points by taubek 4y ago

communism 4y ago
[flagged]
frank_bb 4y ago
[dead]
hsn915 4y ago
No country other than your country of origin owes you a right to stay. It's not inhumane or something to have visa only for work and not for indefinite residency. If the work visa was defacto a permanent residency visa, no one would give it and no one would get it.
- AdamN 4y ago
  Hopefully we can change that in the future - people have been displaced over the centuries (and worse) but what you're saying is such a 20th century phenomenon that I'd like to see us move forward to better structures.
  - hsn915 4y ago
    Hopefully that does not change in the future. If anyone could just go anywhere that would be a terrible dystopian future.
    - the_af 4y ago
      Why?
      - mantas 4y ago
        There're many small countries where natives could be easily outnumbered by newcomers.
    - the_mar 4y ago
      Right fuck those people who want to live outside of the place they were born in. /s
      - mantas 4y ago
        No, let people in other places live as they're used to and don't get overrun and outpriced of their home.
        the_mar 4y ago
        Your outrage is misplaced. I am an immigrant tech worker, I too can't afford shit in San Francisco. I do not think immigrants are the problem here
        mantas 4y ago
        SF is a problem is we'd consider any non-San Franciscans as immigrants. And, given size of US, it would be correct. I'm really sorry for the old San Franciscans of the old era. It sucks when your city becomes a magnet of big money.
        the_mar 4y ago
        Well, the opposite, as in your city falling in despair sure sucks more. People wanting to live in San Francisco aren’t the problem, housing red tape and nimbys are
  - suddenclarity 4y ago
    How is it a 20th century phenomenon? In the past we had barely no movement in comparison with today and at least here you actually had to apply for permission to move away. The whole welfare system is based on the requirement that it only applies to a selected few and adults today support the elderly so they can retire under the assumption that children will pay the adults for their retirement. If you open up the welfare system for 7 billion people that haven't contributed, it will all collapse.
    - the_mar 4y ago
      Btw people on work visas have no access to welfare, despite paying taxes that fund the welfare just the same. Permanent residents have some access to welfare, but there isn’t a straightforward path from work visa to green card. Who is suggesting US welfare has to support 7 billion people?
      - suddenclarity 4y ago
        > Who is suggesting US welfare has to support 7 billion people? That's the result from advocating free movement or no borders considering stats such as 52% of Africa's youth wanting to relocate to Europe or US. Unless you dismantle the welfare state. But it's possible that I misunderstood what the person meant with the 20th century comment.
        the_mar 4y ago
        No one is advocating for no borders here. Most people are saying that the time given to h1b visa holders to find a new job is too short. Opening US borders for a free-for-all would be of course a disaster. But even that is a bit of a stretch to say that entire world’s population would move to the US.
    - AdamN 4y ago
      > In the past we had barely no movement in comparison with today People used to be highly mobile (and continue to be). The Americas were settled by millions of Europeans and Africans before the United States even became a country. South Asians were moved to Africa during the colonial era en masse. Vikings settled all over Europe and even Istanbul. The Huns, Goths, Romans, were all on the move.
- inertiatic 4y ago
  And your country owes you why?
  - mihaic 4y ago
    That's the general social contract that most people have as their mental model: "If I pay my taxes and do my part, my children will get the standard benefits of citizenship". Honestly, I'm not sure what use you see from asking this question.
    - lordnacho 4y ago
      It's part of the socratic method. It's reasonable to ask why your country of birth owes you anything. Keep in mind not every country gives you citizenship from birth, so it raises the question of whether what you're saying really is correct. I would suggest if someone has worked somewhere for a decent amount of time they should not be disposed of so easily as the person in the article.
      - hsn915 4y ago
        > It's part of the socratic method. But that question wasn't. It was bad faith "gotcha!" question.
        lordnacho 4y ago
        I don't think so. The question is short but it illuminates an angle most people wouldn't think of. Or when they think of it, there's no satisfactory answer immediately apparent. There's why does any country owe you, and why does your country of origin in particular owe you.
    - the_af 4y ago
      I understand your overall point and agree with it, but let me state that "paying my taxes" is such an American, money-centered worldview. Your country owes you citizenship even if you don't pay your taxes. It may punish you in other ways, but not by taking away citizenship.
- kiliantics 4y ago
  What if there is a country which has had a strong influence over turning your country of origin into a place that is very difficult to live in?
- hotpotamus 4y ago
  If humans were merely fully replaceable units in the machinery that is a nation (and it seems that this is the goal of many of the elite), then that would make sense. But many humans actually form communities and welcome new residents in. Some of these newcomers become part of the community and even create new members.
- the_gipsy 4y ago
  Why even your country of origin? Okay, they can't just pick another country and shove people there, that's not fair and no country would accept that, but they could maybe dump unwanted people in the ocean. Just a thought.
  - hsn915 4y ago
    Because humans are cooperative creatures, and if a society can't establish cooperation between its members, chaos will ensue.
- unmole 4y ago
  Except for the fact that except for Indians, everyone else can get a green card after a few years on a H1-B.
- krisoft 4y ago
  > It's not inhumane or something to have visa only for work and not for indefinite residency. It is in fact inhumane. It is also "or something" if you mean "unethical" by that. The purpose of the arrangement is to obtain easy to exploit workforce to undercut the one locally available. The fact that it is precarious and exploitative is not an accident, but the goal.
  - hsn915 4y ago
    By your characterization of the problem, the solution would seem to be to abolish work visas all together, and not allow any foriegners to stay for mere work.
- the_mar 4y ago
  Most countries have a path to permanent residency after 5 years of gainful employment in the said country. In the us it is a quota based on your nationality or a lottery system. Why should it matter how many other people from X country applied for a GC that year if I worked in the US for 10 years and paid hundreds of thousands of dollars in taxes?
sokoloff 4y ago
I sometimes wonder what the "right amount of time" for this would be. Surely 30 days is nowhere near enough. 60 days also feels like too little. 90 days is the typical tourist visa duration; that seems more reasonable as a minimum duration to me. Does it need to be 180 days? 364? I just don't know, but 60 seems too low.
- codetrotter 4y ago
  It should increase with time. 90 days if you are let go during your first year of working in the country. 180 days if you have been working in the country for more than a year. 365 days if you have been working in the country for more than three years.
  - tdsanchez 4y ago
    "It should increase with time." Why is that?
    - i2ksbu2b 4y ago
      to avoid hacking
    - ryukafalz 4y ago
      The longer you've been in a place the more established you'll be there. You'll have built relationships, you might own a home, you might have made large purchases that aren't easy to move like a car... etc.
      - em-bee 4y ago
        also, kids in school or have a girlfriend/boyfriend that you may want to marry. you really don't want to rush a marriage just because your visa is about to expire.
    - AdamN 4y ago
      It incentivizes people to invest more. If you know that even after 4 years of time you are still only 60 days away from deportation you likely won't put down as much of an investment in the country.
2143 4y ago
> It was also used by American tech companies, including Amazon, Apple, Google, Microsoft, and Meta, to hire top talent. Do these^ companies hire foreigners via H1B? I don't know if this is true, but I've heard — because of the lottery/uncertainty involved — that these companies instead park foreigners who they want to hire in their offices in other countries (such as Canada/Europe) for a while and then bring them in via L1 visa. Don't know if this is true or common though.
- calderwoodra 4y ago
  Definitely true, I had a few coworkers who spent a year in Germany as a pit stop to the US.
- mportela 4y ago
  Definitely true. The Vancouver offices exist basically for that. But then, a lot of people give up on coming to the US and stay in Canada permanently.
- mortehu 4y ago
  You can change jobs while on H-1B (did it several times myself). There's certainly no lack of H-1B employees at these companies, but I don't know how many are hired directly from abroad.
  - prithsr 4y ago
    1- Was the transfer a complicated process? 2- Unless you're extremely qualified, did the idea of a transfer discourage many potential employers during your job search(es)?
tdsanchez 4y ago
Folks know this can happen when they sign up for H1B visa. It isn't automatically a path to a green card.
- remram 4y ago
  "Folks know this" is not an excuse for ANY harmful behavior.
jmclnx 4y ago
All this proves how broken the US education is. I have worked with many Indian programmers over the years. I only ran into a very small amount who were not brilliant, but were average. The rest where brilliant, and a few I learned some cool tricks from. For young Americans, most were good but none approached the level of smarts most of the Indians I worked with. The US should send observers over to India and study their education system :)
- juskrey 4y ago
  The secret is: you see Indians in the US after the huge gruesome filter
  - the_mar 4y ago
    For real, as a person who had to sift through entry-level candidates for menial off-shore positions on occasion, if you pay peanuts, you get monkeys holds true in pretty much any country
- FredPret 4y ago
  1. start with 1 billion people 2. of the smartest and most motivated people, consider those who are interested in moving to the US 3. allow a tiny percentage of these to do so This is going to result in you encountering near-uniform brilliant people out of the starting population of 1 billion
- unmole 4y ago
  The Indian education system is spectacularly bad. Indian programmers do well despite the education system, not because of it.
- themitigating 4y ago
  You are seeing the best of the best who come over here and or have families with money to support it.
- hsn915 4y ago
  This is like going to the bio tech department of a top university in the US and being so impressed with the people there that you conclude that all Americans are amazing at bio tech.
oblio 4y ago
The US is super weird. It's the only place I know of that doesn't have a clear, fixed-time based, permanent residency program, without quotas. As an example, in all European countries that I know of, permanent residency works like this: - you need to fulfill some prerequisites (usually a civics course/test, a language course/test, no criminal record, be employed or in education) - then you need to be in the country for N years - then you need to apply and you generally get the result in a few months, maximum That's it. For the average person the "hard" requirements are actually: learn the local language up to the required level, spend N years. It doesn't matter where you're from.
- JCharante 4y ago
  Are there any Asian countries besides Japan that give out permanent residency?
  - SenHeng 4y ago
    Singapore gives them out like candy to high earners.
    - deleted 4y ago
      [deleted]
  - yohannesk 4y ago
    Thailand comes to mind
  - throwaway33381 4y ago
    Korea I think.
  - deleted 4y ago
    [deleted]
- deleted 4y ago
  [deleted]
- pshirshov 4y ago
Aachen 4y ago
... in the USA Is missing from the title imo. Since it said "rest of the world" .org, presumably a joke regarding USA-centricity, I was expecting it was about something other than the USA. Joke's on me!
the_mar 4y ago
Story time. I graduated into the recession (2009) and got a grueling EE job on my J-1, after about a year and some change I could not take it anymore. Hundreds of applications and many months later “you are pretty good but we aren’t going to bother with sponsoring your visa” was basically all I got. I was facing the reality of having to go back to “my country”, but I had no surviving family, no money and no support system. I didn’t really have anywhere to go back to. It was scary. Ultimately I ended up having to get married to remain in the country where all my personal belongings were. So I do agree, 60 days is not enough time, it should depend on how long you have been in the country. Second time I felt that way was 2016 when trump became president, my coworker, canadian national of iranian background, also a GC holder was denied entry back to the US after he went to a conference in Canada, because Trump. It was mortifying, that someone could arbitrarily decide you are just not allowed to come back to the place you’ve been living in for years.
AstixAndBelix 4y ago
These people clinging desperately to the US and trying every trick in the book to not go back to their native countries is exactly why the country they left is in shambles. It's a self-fulfulling prophecy of the country not improving because the people who could improve it leave (and not for humanitarian reasons). They may not realize it, but they are actively contributing to the reasons that pushed them to move. I know that it's hard to hear, but if you're not good enough as a programmer for the most wealthy and cut-throat market in the world, you have at least gained enough experience to be a good senior engineer or manager or even founder back home.
blastonico 4y ago
That's the 2nd reason why I don't consider leaving Brazil. Living in Brazil is a pain, but it's mine :D. PS: the 1st reason is family.
deleted 4y ago
[deleted]
galaxytachyon 4y ago
Why should someone be penalized for something they have no control over? What is the differences between a person being of specific race or gender and a person born in a specific country? All of them are not a choice they made. If there is no safety reasons, i.e coming from a hostile country, why should a person born in India get treated completely different from someone born in the US? That is just racial discrimination to me. I read it somewhere and still think it is true: if a native can't compete with a foreigner on their home soil, it just means the native lacks qualifications.
- oaiey 4y ago
  Because it is not a penalty despite it looks like one. They got a privilege they normally do not have (the visa) which has an expiration date. Do not get me wrong, this is hard for every single person and sucks in a general economic turndown where the issuing country is no longer in need of foreign specialists.
  - galaxytachyon 4y ago
    The "privilege" to work should not be a privilege. And there is absolutely a penalty. Every step of hiring is more difficult for a foreigner than a native, down to the interview step. The need for a sponsorship is a barrier for hiring since that is an extra cost. Approving and reporting a foreigner to the IRS is more involved. Requesting an SSN and doing background check on someone from another country is more expensive. Maintaining a foreign hire is risky due to H1B lottery, etc. And yet the companies are legally required to pay these H1Bs the same salary on top of all the extra costs. Those are definitely penalties for hiring a foreigners imposed so that a native hire is more desirable. You can argue those are not meant to be punitive policies, but in effect they are acting as deterrents. And yet everyone is still hiring H1Bs. How many Indian and Chinese do you work with? That should say just how much the US economy depend on these high skill immigrants. Yet they get treated like disposable slaves.
- chucksta 4y ago
  >why should a person born in India get treated completely different from someone born in the US? That is just racial discrimination to me That would be nationalism or xenophobia, not racism. Generally speaking it's an organizational issue, determining who can do what on a mass scale.
TradingPlaces 4y ago
For anyone in this predicament, the place I see the most hiring for software developers is large non-tech companies like Walmart. They have 1379 job openings with “software” in the title. Many are in CA, WA or TX, and hundreds were posted in the past few weeks. https://careers.walmart.com/results?q=software&page=1&sort=rank&expand=department,brand,type,rate&jobCareerArea=all https://careers.walmart.com/results?q=software&page=1&sort=r...
ravagat 4y ago
While I understand this would be good publicity for the H1B visa and its notice/grace period. I think if people were more aware (open to see another perspective) that the biggest problem, especially for those who are Indian and Chinese (the top two H1B recipients), is the abuse of sub-contractor companies being set up and using these visa recipients which create the backlogs. Another thing, I've noticed everyone on an H1B already knows the responsibilities of holding this temporary visa. This type of article is nothing but complaining without providing a solution. Yes it sucks, but naivety to your responsibilities as a visa holder and to something that can happen to you is immature. And also risks putting other immigrants and visa holders in a bad light. I've seen more and more of these types of writing regarding the H1B, visas, and the immigration system in light of the layoffs but I feel they are doing more for negativity than any positivity at all. If this could assist in anyway in moving towards seeing what the actual problem is in the system then ok but it didn't read at all like that tbh.
- ravagat 4y ago
  For anyone curious about the top H1B recipients (FY 2019) - https://www.uscis.gov/sites/default/files/document/data/h-1b-petitions-by-gender-country-of-birth-fy2019.pdf https://www.uscis.gov/sites/default/files/document/data/h-1b...
- flashgordon 4y ago
  Wouldn't the actual solution be removing country caps (before bringing up diversity remember that country caps are on your country of birth, not naturalization so tell me how country of birth is not a skin color filter?) Or making this a point based scheme or making this region+comp based instead of a universal category all over? Also can the govt do anything to catch and filter the sub contractor companies or is it allowing it as it is a great revenue source?
  - ravagat 4y ago
    No, I think country caps help in filtering. If removed it would open a pandora's box like experience for anyone in the process and those processing the applicants. Systemizing immigration into a manageable process and system is a hard task. Too many layers. I think modifying the country caps right now would be of benefit rather than stricly removing them. Then a refresh of the filtering process, processing system overhaul, and other parts would need working. But I don't think country caps are of any priority tbh. The government can do something to catch and filter the companies but I think they are partly playing a role in their existence and continued business. When you talk about great revenue sources, do you mean for the gov? If so, probably both directly and indirectly. Probably part diplomacy sprinkled in
nickd2001 4y ago
As someone who worked in US over 20 yrs ago on H1B... It was a great adventure in a great country with great people. However, the temporary nature of the visa, with having to leave swiftly if you lose your job, combined with being sponsored and therefore beholden to one's employer, really restricts your options and can give a feeling of limbo. It can affect friendships and everything, the feeling that ultimately you're likely to have to leave. Of course, in theory you can go for a green card. In practice I heard tons of horror stories of people sponsored for green card for years, and pressure to work weekends etc, and then laid off when they nearly got it. When I quit the last job I did in US, HR offered to sponsor a green card and acted like I was nuts and turning down a great opportunity when I said "Thanks but no thanks". My team lead totally understood though. Even if that company can be 100% trusted that they aren't just trying to get me to stick around a year or two, who knows the future. If they made less money and had to do layoffs, you're back to square one with the green card. I guess to a lot of Indians and Chinese, USA is sufficiently better than back home in certain ways, they feel its worth sticking it out and trying to get a green card. But my gosh, the stress, pressure, uncertainty, possible wasted years, inability to fully put down roots. Nowadays I'm surprised most Indians and Chinese don't just go for Canada or Europe - seems a lot better systems. And the daft thing about all this... if these H1B workers were given more permanent status sooner, they'd contribute to US economy by buying houses, furthering their career, perhaps starting companies and hiring people. Sure some people ultimately do that starting out from H1B, but it really is difficult. But it was a great experience working in USA and I'm thankful for the privilege. :)

63 points by taubek 4y ago

communism 4y ago

[flagged]

frank_bb 4y ago

[dead]

hsn915 4y ago

No country other than your country of origin owes you a right to stay. It's not inhumane or something to have visa only for work and not for indefinite residency. If the work visa was defacto a permanent residency visa, no one would give it and no one would get it.

AdamN 4y ago
Hopefully we can change that in the future - people have been displaced over the centuries (and worse) but what you're saying is such a 20th century phenomenon that I'd like to see us move forward to better structures.
- hsn915 4y ago
  Hopefully that does not change in the future. If anyone could just go anywhere that would be a terrible dystopian future.
  - the_af 4y ago
    Why?
    - mantas 4y ago
      There're many small countries where natives could be easily outnumbered by newcomers.
  - the_mar 4y ago
    Right fuck those people who want to live outside of the place they were born in. /s
    - mantas 4y ago
      No, let people in other places live as they're used to and don't get overrun and outpriced of their home.
      - the_mar 4y ago
        Your outrage is misplaced. I am an immigrant tech worker, I too can't afford shit in San Francisco. I do not think immigrants are the problem here
        mantas 4y ago
        SF is a problem is we'd consider any non-San Franciscans as immigrants. And, given size of US, it would be correct. I'm really sorry for the old San Franciscans of the old era. It sucks when your city becomes a magnet of big money.
        the_mar 4y ago
        Well, the opposite, as in your city falling in despair sure sucks more. People wanting to live in San Francisco aren’t the problem, housing red tape and nimbys are
- suddenclarity 4y ago
  How is it a 20th century phenomenon? In the past we had barely no movement in comparison with today and at least here you actually had to apply for permission to move away. The whole welfare system is based on the requirement that it only applies to a selected few and adults today support the elderly so they can retire under the assumption that children will pay the adults for their retirement. If you open up the welfare system for 7 billion people that haven't contributed, it will all collapse.
  - the_mar 4y ago
    Btw people on work visas have no access to welfare, despite paying taxes that fund the welfare just the same. Permanent residents have some access to welfare, but there isn’t a straightforward path from work visa to green card. Who is suggesting US welfare has to support 7 billion people?
    - suddenclarity 4y ago
      > Who is suggesting US welfare has to support 7 billion people? That's the result from advocating free movement or no borders considering stats such as 52% of Africa's youth wanting to relocate to Europe or US. Unless you dismantle the welfare state. But it's possible that I misunderstood what the person meant with the 20th century comment.
      - the_mar 4y ago
        No one is advocating for no borders here. Most people are saying that the time given to h1b visa holders to find a new job is too short. Opening US borders for a free-for-all would be of course a disaster. But even that is a bit of a stretch to say that entire world’s population would move to the US.
  - AdamN 4y ago
    > In the past we had barely no movement in comparison with today People used to be highly mobile (and continue to be). The Americas were settled by millions of Europeans and Africans before the United States even became a country. South Asians were moved to Africa during the colonial era en masse. Vikings settled all over Europe and even Istanbul. The Huns, Goths, Romans, were all on the move.
inertiatic 4y ago
And your country owes you why?
- mihaic 4y ago
  That's the general social contract that most people have as their mental model: "If I pay my taxes and do my part, my children will get the standard benefits of citizenship". Honestly, I'm not sure what use you see from asking this question.
  - lordnacho 4y ago
    It's part of the socratic method. It's reasonable to ask why your country of birth owes you anything. Keep in mind not every country gives you citizenship from birth, so it raises the question of whether what you're saying really is correct. I would suggest if someone has worked somewhere for a decent amount of time they should not be disposed of so easily as the person in the article.
    - hsn915 4y ago
      > It's part of the socratic method. But that question wasn't. It was bad faith "gotcha!" question.
      - lordnacho 4y ago
        I don't think so. The question is short but it illuminates an angle most people wouldn't think of. Or when they think of it, there's no satisfactory answer immediately apparent. There's why does any country owe you, and why does your country of origin in particular owe you.
  - the_af 4y ago
    I understand your overall point and agree with it, but let me state that "paying my taxes" is such an American, money-centered worldview. Your country owes you citizenship even if you don't pay your taxes. It may punish you in other ways, but not by taking away citizenship.
kiliantics 4y ago
What if there is a country which has had a strong influence over turning your country of origin into a place that is very difficult to live in?
hotpotamus 4y ago
If humans were merely fully replaceable units in the machinery that is a nation (and it seems that this is the goal of many of the elite), then that would make sense. But many humans actually form communities and welcome new residents in. Some of these newcomers become part of the community and even create new members.
the_gipsy 4y ago
Why even your country of origin? Okay, they can't just pick another country and shove people there, that's not fair and no country would accept that, but they could maybe dump unwanted people in the ocean. Just a thought.
- hsn915 4y ago
  Because humans are cooperative creatures, and if a society can't establish cooperation between its members, chaos will ensue.
unmole 4y ago
Except for the fact that except for Indians, everyone else can get a green card after a few years on a H1-B.
krisoft 4y ago
> It's not inhumane or something to have visa only for work and not for indefinite residency. It is in fact inhumane. It is also "or something" if you mean "unethical" by that. The purpose of the arrangement is to obtain easy to exploit workforce to undercut the one locally available. The fact that it is precarious and exploitative is not an accident, but the goal.
- hsn915 4y ago
  By your characterization of the problem, the solution would seem to be to abolish work visas all together, and not allow any foriegners to stay for mere work.
the_mar 4y ago
Most countries have a path to permanent residency after 5 years of gainful employment in the said country. In the us it is a quota based on your nationality or a lottery system. Why should it matter how many other people from X country applied for a GC that year if I worked in the US for 10 years and paid hundreds of thousands of dollars in taxes?

sokoloff 4y ago

I sometimes wonder what the "right amount of time" for this would be. Surely 30 days is nowhere near enough. 60 days also feels like too little. 90 days is the typical tourist visa duration; that seems more reasonable as a minimum duration to me. Does it need to be 180 days? 364? I just don't know, but 60 seems too low.

codetrotter 4y ago
It should increase with time. 90 days if you are let go during your first year of working in the country. 180 days if you have been working in the country for more than a year. 365 days if you have been working in the country for more than three years.
- tdsanchez 4y ago
  "It should increase with time." Why is that?
  - i2ksbu2b 4y ago
    to avoid hacking
  - ryukafalz 4y ago
    The longer you've been in a place the more established you'll be there. You'll have built relationships, you might own a home, you might have made large purchases that aren't easy to move like a car... etc.
    - em-bee 4y ago
      also, kids in school or have a girlfriend/boyfriend that you may want to marry. you really don't want to rush a marriage just because your visa is about to expire.
  - AdamN 4y ago
    It incentivizes people to invest more. If you know that even after 4 years of time you are still only 60 days away from deportation you likely won't put down as much of an investment in the country.

2143 4y ago

> It was also used by American tech companies, including Amazon, Apple, Google, Microsoft, and Meta, to hire top talent. Do these^ companies hire foreigners via H1B? I don't know if this is true, but I've heard — because of the lottery/uncertainty involved — that these companies instead park foreigners who they want to hire in their offices in other countries (such as Canada/Europe) for a while and then bring them in via L1 visa. Don't know if this is true or common though.

calderwoodra 4y ago
Definitely true, I had a few coworkers who spent a year in Germany as a pit stop to the US.
mportela 4y ago
Definitely true. The Vancouver offices exist basically for that. But then, a lot of people give up on coming to the US and stay in Canada permanently.
mortehu 4y ago
You can change jobs while on H-1B (did it several times myself). There's certainly no lack of H-1B employees at these companies, but I don't know how many are hired directly from abroad.
- prithsr 4y ago
  1- Was the transfer a complicated process? 2- Unless you're extremely qualified, did the idea of a transfer discourage many potential employers during your job search(es)?

tdsanchez 4y ago

Folks know this can happen when they sign up for H1B visa. It isn't automatically a path to a green card.

remram 4y ago
"Folks know this" is not an excuse for ANY harmful behavior.

jmclnx 4y ago

All this proves how broken the US education is. I have worked with many Indian programmers over the years. I only ran into a very small amount who were not brilliant, but were average. The rest where brilliant, and a few I learned some cool tricks from. For young Americans, most were good but none approached the level of smarts most of the Indians I worked with. The US should send observers over to India and study their education system :)

juskrey 4y ago
The secret is: you see Indians in the US after the huge gruesome filter
- the_mar 4y ago
  For real, as a person who had to sift through entry-level candidates for menial off-shore positions on occasion, if you pay peanuts, you get monkeys holds true in pretty much any country
FredPret 4y ago
1. start with 1 billion people 2. of the smartest and most motivated people, consider those who are interested in moving to the US 3. allow a tiny percentage of these to do so This is going to result in you encountering near-uniform brilliant people out of the starting population of 1 billion
unmole 4y ago
The Indian education system is spectacularly bad. Indian programmers do well despite the education system, not because of it.
themitigating 4y ago
You are seeing the best of the best who come over here and or have families with money to support it.
hsn915 4y ago
This is like going to the bio tech department of a top university in the US and being so impressed with the people there that you conclude that all Americans are amazing at bio tech.

oblio 4y ago

The US is super weird. It's the only place I know of that doesn't have a clear, fixed-time based, permanent residency program, without quotas. As an example, in all European countries that I know of, permanent residency works like this: - you need to fulfill some prerequisites (usually a civics course/test, a language course/test, no criminal record, be employed or in education) - then you need to be in the country for N years - then you need to apply and you generally get the result in a few months, maximum That's it. For the average person the "hard" requirements are actually: learn the local language up to the required level, spend N years. It doesn't matter where you're from.

JCharante 4y ago
Are there any Asian countries besides Japan that give out permanent residency?
- SenHeng 4y ago
  Singapore gives them out like candy to high earners.
  - deleted 4y ago
    [deleted]
- yohannesk 4y ago
  Thailand comes to mind
- throwaway33381 4y ago
  Korea I think.
- deleted 4y ago
  [deleted]
deleted 4y ago
[deleted]
pshirshov 4y ago

Aachen 4y ago

... in the USA Is missing from the title imo. Since it said "rest of the world" .org, presumably a joke regarding USA-centricity, I was expecting it was about something other than the USA. Joke's on me!

the_mar 4y ago

Story time. I graduated into the recession (2009) and got a grueling EE job on my J-1, after about a year and some change I could not take it anymore. Hundreds of applications and many months later “you are pretty good but we aren’t going to bother with sponsoring your visa” was basically all I got. I was facing the reality of having to go back to “my country”, but I had no surviving family, no money and no support system. I didn’t really have anywhere to go back to. It was scary. Ultimately I ended up having to get married to remain in the country where all my personal belongings were. So I do agree, 60 days is not enough time, it should depend on how long you have been in the country. Second time I felt that way was 2016 when trump became president, my coworker, canadian national of iranian background, also a GC holder was denied entry back to the US after he went to a conference in Canada, because Trump. It was mortifying, that someone could arbitrarily decide you are just not allowed to come back to the place you’ve been living in for years.

AstixAndBelix 4y ago

These people clinging desperately to the US and trying every trick in the book to not go back to their native countries is exactly why the country they left is in shambles. It's a self-fulfulling prophecy of the country not improving because the people who could improve it leave (and not for humanitarian reasons). They may not realize it, but they are actively contributing to the reasons that pushed them to move. I know that it's hard to hear, but if you're not good enough as a programmer for the most wealthy and cut-throat market in the world, you have at least gained enough experience to be a good senior engineer or manager or even founder back home.

blastonico 4y ago

That's the 2nd reason why I don't consider leaving Brazil. Living in Brazil is a pain, but it's mine :D. PS: the 1st reason is family.

deleted 4y ago

[deleted]

galaxytachyon 4y ago

Why should someone be penalized for something they have no control over? What is the differences between a person being of specific race or gender and a person born in a specific country? All of them are not a choice they made. If there is no safety reasons, i.e coming from a hostile country, why should a person born in India get treated completely different from someone born in the US? That is just racial discrimination to me. I read it somewhere and still think it is true: if a native can't compete with a foreigner on their home soil, it just means the native lacks qualifications.

oaiey 4y ago
Because it is not a penalty despite it looks like one. They got a privilege they normally do not have (the visa) which has an expiration date. Do not get me wrong, this is hard for every single person and sucks in a general economic turndown where the issuing country is no longer in need of foreign specialists.
- galaxytachyon 4y ago
  The "privilege" to work should not be a privilege. And there is absolutely a penalty. Every step of hiring is more difficult for a foreigner than a native, down to the interview step. The need for a sponsorship is a barrier for hiring since that is an extra cost. Approving and reporting a foreigner to the IRS is more involved. Requesting an SSN and doing background check on someone from another country is more expensive. Maintaining a foreign hire is risky due to H1B lottery, etc. And yet the companies are legally required to pay these H1Bs the same salary on top of all the extra costs. Those are definitely penalties for hiring a foreigners imposed so that a native hire is more desirable. You can argue those are not meant to be punitive policies, but in effect they are acting as deterrents. And yet everyone is still hiring H1Bs. How many Indian and Chinese do you work with? That should say just how much the US economy depend on these high skill immigrants. Yet they get treated like disposable slaves.
chucksta 4y ago
>why should a person born in India get treated completely different from someone born in the US? That is just racial discrimination to me That would be nationalism or xenophobia, not racism. Generally speaking it's an organizational issue, determining who can do what on a mass scale.

TradingPlaces 4y ago

For anyone in this predicament, the place I see the most hiring for software developers is large non-tech companies like Walmart. They have 1379 job openings with “software” in the title. Many are in CA, WA or TX, and hundreds were posted in the past few weeks. https://careers.walmart.com/results?q=software&page=1&sort=rank&expand=department,brand,type,rate&jobCareerArea=all https://careers.walmart.com/results?q=software&page=1&sort=r...

ravagat 4y ago

While I understand this would be good publicity for the H1B visa and its notice/grace period. I think if people were more aware (open to see another perspective) that the biggest problem, especially for those who are Indian and Chinese (the top two H1B recipients), is the abuse of sub-contractor companies being set up and using these visa recipients which create the backlogs. Another thing, I've noticed everyone on an H1B already knows the responsibilities of holding this temporary visa. This type of article is nothing but complaining without providing a solution. Yes it sucks, but naivety to your responsibilities as a visa holder and to something that can happen to you is immature. And also risks putting other immigrants and visa holders in a bad light. I've seen more and more of these types of writing regarding the H1B, visas, and the immigration system in light of the layoffs but I feel they are doing more for negativity than any positivity at all. If this could assist in anyway in moving towards seeing what the actual problem is in the system then ok but it didn't read at all like that tbh.

ravagat 4y ago
For anyone curious about the top H1B recipients (FY 2019) - https://www.uscis.gov/sites/default/files/document/data/h-1b-petitions-by-gender-country-of-birth-fy2019.pdf https://www.uscis.gov/sites/default/files/document/data/h-1b...
flashgordon 4y ago
Wouldn't the actual solution be removing country caps (before bringing up diversity remember that country caps are on your country of birth, not naturalization so tell me how country of birth is not a skin color filter?) Or making this a point based scheme or making this region+comp based instead of a universal category all over? Also can the govt do anything to catch and filter the sub contractor companies or is it allowing it as it is a great revenue source?
- ravagat 4y ago
  No, I think country caps help in filtering. If removed it would open a pandora's box like experience for anyone in the process and those processing the applicants. Systemizing immigration into a manageable process and system is a hard task. Too many layers. I think modifying the country caps right now would be of benefit rather than stricly removing them. Then a refresh of the filtering process, processing system overhaul, and other parts would need working. But I don't think country caps are of any priority tbh. The government can do something to catch and filter the companies but I think they are partly playing a role in their existence and continued business. When you talk about great revenue sources, do you mean for the gov? If so, probably both directly and indirectly. Probably part diplomacy sprinkled in

nickd2001 4y ago

As someone who worked in US over 20 yrs ago on H1B... It was a great adventure in a great country with great people. However, the temporary nature of the visa, with having to leave swiftly if you lose your job, combined with being sponsored and therefore beholden to one's employer, really restricts your options and can give a feeling of limbo. It can affect friendships and everything, the feeling that ultimately you're likely to have to leave. Of course, in theory you can go for a green card. In practice I heard tons of horror stories of people sponsored for green card for years, and pressure to work weekends etc, and then laid off when they nearly got it. When I quit the last job I did in US, HR offered to sponsor a green card and acted like I was nuts and turning down a great opportunity when I said "Thanks but no thanks". My team lead totally understood though. Even if that company can be 100% trusted that they aren't just trying to get me to stick around a year or two, who knows the future. If they made less money and had to do layoffs, you're back to square one with the green card. I guess to a lot of Indians and Chinese, USA is sufficiently better than back home in certain ways, they feel its worth sticking it out and trying to get a green card. But my gosh, the stress, pressure, uncertainty, possible wasted years, inability to fully put down roots. Nowadays I'm surprised most Indians and Chinese don't just go for Canada or Europe - seems a lot better systems. And the daft thing about all this... if these H1B workers were given more permanent status sooner, they'd contribute to US economy by buying houses, furthering their career, perhaps starting companies and hiring people. Sure some people ultimately do that starting out from H1B, but it really is difficult. But it was a great experience working in USA and I'm thankful for the privilege. :)