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Something that I personally feel unfair about the H1B lottery is that it doesn't consider where you live and what you are currently doing. Students that graduat

Something that I personally feel unfair about the H1B lottery is that it doesn't consider where you live and what you are currently doing. Students that graduate through a STEM degree get to work for 3 years in their OPT (Optional Practical Training). This extends then to them having 3 chances (one per year) at getting the H1B. Now what's unfair is that an employer in the US can apply H1B for employees living oversees. That application then goes to the same pool where H1B application of the employees that are already living in the US go. The very same people that already hold a college or graduate degree, are already living in the US, and are contributing to the US economy. Unfortunately, the lottery is fair. So those that don't get picked up even after their third attempt are kicked out. They leave their life that they were trying to build in the US, potentially their girlfriends and partners, their friends, and their possessions. While that happens, someone who has never stepped foot in the US soil gets to go to the US. So in a sense it's fair for them. And while there is no real metric to measure this, when compared, between the fairness people oversees get and the unfairness people already living in the US experience, I personally think that the later tips the scale by a huge margin.

rtkwe 3y ago
I would expect that to be partially counter balanced by companies being more willing to sponsor someone already in the US over someone currently overseas? Haven't had to go through that process fortunately but seems likely from a practical standpoint.
- deleted 3y ago
  [deleted]
- tivert 3y ago
  [replying to deleted child comment] > Sponsored green cards take like 1.5+ years to process, so someone could be OPT the whole time but the employer would have to get the application rolling quickly after hiring or else risk their employee having to go back to their home country for some period of time when OPT runs out and the green card is approved. Add to that: 1. Some (many?) companies do not file for green cards right away, because they like to keep their employees tied down with an H1-B. I think my employer has a policy of not applying for a green card until the employee has 5 years or service or something. 2. IIRC, there are country-based quotas for employment-based green cards, so it could take very much longer than 1.5 years to get one. E.g. I think it can take 10+ years for an Indian to get one. Though I think having an active application for one is enough to stay in country for H1-B holders (though I'm even less sure about OPT holders).
  - oooyay 3y ago
    I had a friend that was at 12 and counting. He was a pretty talented technologist too.
  - muzaffarpur 3y ago
    It is not 10. It is lifetime.
    - tivert 3y ago
      > It is not 10. It is lifetime. Did some policy change in the last 10 years to cause the wait times to go up? Because I just checked the USCIS backlog, and it looks like they're now processing Indian green card applications from 12 years ago, and I've known people who've gotten employment-based green cards in approximately that amount of time. https://www.uscis.gov/green-card/green-card-processes-and-procedures/visa-availability-priority-dates/when-to-file-your-adjustment-of-status-application-for-family-sponsored-or-employment-based-99 https://www.uscis.gov/green-card/green-card-processes-and-pr... I did scan some Cato institute blog post that claimed the wait is 134 years, but they're a biased advocacy organization (so have reason to exaggerate for political effect) and what they say conflicts with what I've personally seen.
      - ajaynv31 3y ago
        You do not understand how the processing work - the processing dates don’t move in tandem with the calendar days. For instance , by end of 2024 , you’ll find that the priority date has only moved 2 months . So the actual number is somewhere around 100 years at the current gc numbers
terse-broccoli 3y ago
So basically you want to extend the luck/financial privilege that those people have had to be able to study in the US to extend to additional advantages for future visa applications. Not sure that I’d clasify that as fair, personally. As you mentioned, they already get multiple chances at a H1-B already. Side note: my understanding is that there’s already a secondary lottery for people who hold a US masters (the advanced degree petition). If you are not selected in the first lottery, and you meet that condition, you get placed in a second lottery which has much better odds as there are far less people who meet this criteria (it also makes up almost 25% of the total H1-Bs granted). So basically each year you have 2 chances, and there are better odds for one of those chances.
- throwv666 3y ago
  [flagged]
  - malfist 3y ago
    That's a very broad brush you're painting with.
  - tivert 3y ago
    > most of the students who pay these high tutution fees are sons and daughters of corrupt. While there's some of that, at least in regards to China, I don't think that's broadly true. Chinese families are prodigious savers and value education very highly. Middle class households can pay those high tuition fees for their only child.
  - user_7832 3y ago
    In my experience most folks either use their parents' savings or take bank loans. Sample size in the dozens. Stop generalizing this unsubstantiated crap.
  - magnoliakobus 3y ago
    I went to a rural high school where 20% of the “senior” class every year was Chinese exchange students, a large portion of them continued to study in the US for their post-secondary education, exactly 1 of all the people I spoke to has a parent who is even an active member within the party and he is a mid level bureaucrat in a no-name city. It’s not nearly as common as you seem to believe. Many people go into debt to study in America, with their family’s homes used as collateral (which was the case for multiple students I met in college from India).
wing-_-nuts 3y ago
If it were up to me there wouldn't be an h1b. People would be admitted via a points based system like Canada (but stricter) and would then be on a green card path and be granted perm residency after 5y, citizenship after 10. That's of course my pie in the sky 'we can get congress to agree on things' version. If I were president, I would simply make the h1b go to the highest bidder, so the people that enter the US are, supposedly, the cream of the crop. Yeah, that would make students return home vs someone with more skills and experience. The whole point of the h1b is to bring over people with skills we can't find here in the US.
- bedobi 3y ago
  Why stricter than Canada? Why green card eligible after five years (Australia, NZ, Canada and others, you get the PR immediately long as you reach the points requirements) and citizenship after TEN? (again, other countries you become a citizen after four)
  - wing-_-nuts 3y ago
    Because the lax immigration regs of the commonwealth countries are already causing significant issues.
    - bedobi 3y ago
      Lol, how are they "lax? And "significant issues" like what? According to who? You? Those countries are only afloat because of immigration. Their homegrown economies are uncompetitive ones based on resource extraction and the trades, and their populations are uneducated and unambitious.
      - rmccoy6435 3y ago
        > Those countries are only afloat because of immigration. According to who? You? One of the countries you specifically just listed has just tamped down on some immigration efforts [1]. [1] https://www.beehive.govt.nz/release/government-responds-unsustainable-net-migration https://www.beehive.govt.nz/release/government-responds-unsu...
lsllc 3y ago
... if you don't get the H1B after 3 tries, some international companies will send the employee overseas to an office in a more tech-work-visa friendly country, have them work there for a year then bring them back on an L-1 (intracompany transfer).
broknbottle 3y ago
Sounds like it’s working by design. Each one pays into social security for 3 years with no chances of ever drawing from it

rtkwe 3y ago

I would expect that to be partially counter balanced by companies being more willing to sponsor someone already in the US over someone currently overseas? Haven't had to go through that process fortunately but seems likely from a practical standpoint.

deleted 3y ago
[deleted]
tivert 3y ago
[replying to deleted child comment] > Sponsored green cards take like 1.5+ years to process, so someone could be OPT the whole time but the employer would have to get the application rolling quickly after hiring or else risk their employee having to go back to their home country for some period of time when OPT runs out and the green card is approved. Add to that: 1. Some (many?) companies do not file for green cards right away, because they like to keep their employees tied down with an H1-B. I think my employer has a policy of not applying for a green card until the employee has 5 years or service or something. 2. IIRC, there are country-based quotas for employment-based green cards, so it could take very much longer than 1.5 years to get one. E.g. I think it can take 10+ years for an Indian to get one. Though I think having an active application for one is enough to stay in country for H1-B holders (though I'm even less sure about OPT holders).
- oooyay 3y ago
  I had a friend that was at 12 and counting. He was a pretty talented technologist too.
- muzaffarpur 3y ago
  It is not 10. It is lifetime.
  - tivert 3y ago
    > It is not 10. It is lifetime. Did some policy change in the last 10 years to cause the wait times to go up? Because I just checked the USCIS backlog, and it looks like they're now processing Indian green card applications from 12 years ago, and I've known people who've gotten employment-based green cards in approximately that amount of time. https://www.uscis.gov/green-card/green-card-processes-and-procedures/visa-availability-priority-dates/when-to-file-your-adjustment-of-status-application-for-family-sponsored-or-employment-based-99 https://www.uscis.gov/green-card/green-card-processes-and-pr... I did scan some Cato institute blog post that claimed the wait is 134 years, but they're a biased advocacy organization (so have reason to exaggerate for political effect) and what they say conflicts with what I've personally seen.
    - ajaynv31 3y ago
      You do not understand how the processing work - the processing dates don’t move in tandem with the calendar days. For instance , by end of 2024 , you’ll find that the priority date has only moved 2 months . So the actual number is somewhere around 100 years at the current gc numbers

terse-broccoli 3y ago

So basically you want to extend the luck/financial privilege that those people have had to be able to study in the US to extend to additional advantages for future visa applications. Not sure that I’d clasify that as fair, personally. As you mentioned, they already get multiple chances at a H1-B already. Side note: my understanding is that there’s already a secondary lottery for people who hold a US masters (the advanced degree petition). If you are not selected in the first lottery, and you meet that condition, you get placed in a second lottery which has much better odds as there are far less people who meet this criteria (it also makes up almost 25% of the total H1-Bs granted). So basically each year you have 2 chances, and there are better odds for one of those chances.

throwv666 3y ago
[flagged]
- malfist 3y ago
  That's a very broad brush you're painting with.
- tivert 3y ago
  > most of the students who pay these high tutution fees are sons and daughters of corrupt. While there's some of that, at least in regards to China, I don't think that's broadly true. Chinese families are prodigious savers and value education very highly. Middle class households can pay those high tuition fees for their only child.
- user_7832 3y ago
  In my experience most folks either use their parents' savings or take bank loans. Sample size in the dozens. Stop generalizing this unsubstantiated crap.
- magnoliakobus 3y ago
  I went to a rural high school where 20% of the “senior” class every year was Chinese exchange students, a large portion of them continued to study in the US for their post-secondary education, exactly 1 of all the people I spoke to has a parent who is even an active member within the party and he is a mid level bureaucrat in a no-name city. It’s not nearly as common as you seem to believe. Many people go into debt to study in America, with their family’s homes used as collateral (which was the case for multiple students I met in college from India).

wing-_-nuts 3y ago

If it were up to me there wouldn't be an h1b. People would be admitted via a points based system like Canada (but stricter) and would then be on a green card path and be granted perm residency after 5y, citizenship after 10. That's of course my pie in the sky 'we can get congress to agree on things' version. If I were president, I would simply make the h1b go to the highest bidder, so the people that enter the US are, supposedly, the cream of the crop. Yeah, that would make students return home vs someone with more skills and experience. The whole point of the h1b is to bring over people with skills we can't find here in the US.

bedobi 3y ago
Why stricter than Canada? Why green card eligible after five years (Australia, NZ, Canada and others, you get the PR immediately long as you reach the points requirements) and citizenship after TEN? (again, other countries you become a citizen after four)
- wing-_-nuts 3y ago
  Because the lax immigration regs of the commonwealth countries are already causing significant issues.
  - bedobi 3y ago
    Lol, how are they "lax? And "significant issues" like what? According to who? You? Those countries are only afloat because of immigration. Their homegrown economies are uncompetitive ones based on resource extraction and the trades, and their populations are uneducated and unambitious.
    - rmccoy6435 3y ago
      > Those countries are only afloat because of immigration. According to who? You? One of the countries you specifically just listed has just tamped down on some immigration efforts [1]. [1] https://www.beehive.govt.nz/release/government-responds-unsustainable-net-migration https://www.beehive.govt.nz/release/government-responds-unsu...

lsllc 3y ago

... if you don't get the H1B after 3 tries, some international companies will send the employee overseas to an office in a more tech-work-visa friendly country, have them work there for a year then bring them back on an L-1 (intracompany transfer).

broknbottle 3y ago

Sounds like it’s working by design. Each one pays into social security for 3 years with no chances of ever drawing from it