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How Immigration Uncertainty Threatens America’s Tech Dominance

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Re: How Immigration Uncertainty Threatens America’s Tech Dominance

#11

Post by losvedir »

Hm, maybe. It's always been uncertain, though. I know plenty of international students when I was at MIT who weren't sure how the visa situation would play out and if they'd have to go back home or what.

I'm a little hopeful that the discussed H1-B reforms may actually help countries obtain particularly niche talents more than the outsource-lottery played now.

But I think the real threat to our tech dominance is privacy concerns. The U.S. owns the cloud with AWS, GCP, and Azure, but if other countries can't use their services due to US government overreach, then I'm sure strong competitors will pop up elsewhere.

Re: How Immigration Uncertainty Threatens America’s Tech Dominance

#13

Post by ricardonunez »

Brajeshwar wrote: post #7
tomp wrote: post #2

Immigration has been uncertain for a long time. YCombinator founders have been working on their startups on 3-month visitor visas. Top graduate students can stay in the US for a year, then they need to enter a lottery to be allowed to stay for another few years. Trump changes barely anything. Unpaywalled: http://archive.is/BHfyN

Totally unrelated to the article, and perhaps a dumb question - How do you get the archive link of a URL?

Go to https://archive.org/web/ There's an option there.

Re: How Immigration Uncertainty Threatens America’s Tech Dominance

#14

Post by henson »

The current system is in dire need of reform. I was fortunate enough to get a visa to live/work there for a year, but now I remote work from London, and I strongly prefer it to living in the Bay Area. The immigration process was consistently unreliable and unpleasant. Would rather not have a lottery dictate my future plans, and as the article says, remote working is on the up - a lot of people I know who were in my position agree and are doing the same. American bureaucratic faff aside, the tech sector always finds a way!

Re: How Immigration Uncertainty Threatens America’s Tech Dominance

#15

Post by krapp »

jacquesm wrote: post #3
tomp wrote: post #2

Immigration has been uncertain for a long time. YCombinator founders have been working on their startups on 3-month visitor visas. Top graduate students can stay in the US for a year, then they need to enter a lottery to be allowed to stay for another few years. Trump changes barely anything. Unpaywalled: http://archive.is/BHfyN

Trump changes plenty, in the past it was assumed that the USA would honor visa once they were issued, now it turns out not to be the case. Essentially this is breach of contract.

>Essentially this is breach of contract.

Trump has altered the deal. Pray he doesn't alter it any further.

Re: How Immigration Uncertainty Threatens America’s Tech Dominance

#17

Post by yummyfajitas »

jacquesm wrote: post #3
tomp wrote: post #2

Immigration has been uncertain for a long time. YCombinator founders have been working on their startups on 3-month visitor visas. Top graduate students can stay in the US for a year, then they need to enter a lottery to be allowed to stay for another few years. Trump changes barely anything. Unpaywalled: http://archive.is/BHfyN

Trump changes plenty, in the past it was assumed that the USA would honor visa once they were issued, now it turns out not to be the case. Essentially this is breach of contract.

It is not a breach of contract. A visa is not a guarantee of entry even though many people assume it is.

[Edit: Please don't interpret my comment as suggesting I think this is a good idea. If you check my posting history, you'll discover I'm an outspoken proponent of open borders.]

Re: How Immigration Uncertainty Threatens America’s Tech Dominance

#18

Post by artificial »

tomp wrote: post #2

Immigration has been uncertain for a long time. YCombinator founders have been working on their startups on 3-month visitor visas. Top graduate students can stay in the US for a year, then they need to enter a lottery to be allowed to stay for another few years. Trump changes barely anything. Unpaywalled: http://archive.is/BHfyN

In addition type O visas have no cap and are what people incorrectly attribute the H1b is for - geniuses instead of pushing out local talent.

Re: How Immigration Uncertainty Threatens America’s Tech Dominance

#20

Post by dominotw »

in my experience

> Its borerline impossible to find someone who will sponsor your visa in April for a job that begins in October

> you can be rejected by h1b visa lottery

> if you win the lottery, your visa application can be denied

> you can be rejected by immigration official at visa interview

> You can be turned around at port of entry

> you visa might not renew after 3 yrs, forcing you to go back.

so on... . These things happen all the time even to the most well qualified/well prepared .

Immigration uncertainty is not new

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