H-1B: As immigration furor roils Silicon Valley, Canada smooths way for techies • Hacker News Board

Re: H-1B: As immigration furor roils Silicon Valley, Canada smooths way for techies

#101

Post by dilippkumar » Mon, Oct 08, 2018, 7:31 PM UTC

As someone who is contemplating this move, I can share some thoughts.

First, money isn’t the force that’s driving immigrants out of India and into the US, Canada etc. Among the people I know and including myself, the top driving forces are safety, good governance, clean air and water.

While living in the US has the benefit of higher pay, it comes at a significant cost. Here is a short list of things I can not do while on a H1-b visa: Make and sell art, perform for an audience, publish on a blog or a youtube channel that’s monetized, mine dogecoin, tutor students in India or any country online, trade stocks at a frequency that someone might consider “day trading” etc.

It’s true that all of these have a common theme that they all generate some sort of income. However, for most of us, the income isn’t the driving force. All of us have a drive to express ourselves creatively and do fun things once in a while (mine dogecoin), the implications of the current green card wait is that we can’t participate in any of these for decades.

Canada is very appealing because of the hassle free immigration process. Once in Canada, there is liberty to pursue hobbies. These come with benefits of safety, good governance and clean air/water.

The lower pay is a very minor price for getting all of this.

Re: H-1B: As immigration furor roils Silicon Valley, Canada smooths way for techies

#102

Post by jorblumesea » Mon, Oct 08, 2018, 7:32 PM UTC

mabbo wrote: post #84

As an Amazon employee, I really hope this factors in highly in the HQ2 decision. Toronto isn't perfect and the city sure isn't offering much in terms of tax breaks, but if Amazon wants to hire 50,000 more tech workers then they'd better be doing so in a country that will let those 50,000 people work.

Most likely candidate for HQ2 is DC. Bezo just built a mansion there and he needs political cover from both sides of the aisle. His problems are mostly political now and he's a Libertarian with a capital L. Canada is too socialist and taxes are too high.

Re: H-1B: As immigration furor roils Silicon Valley, Canada smooths way for techies

#103

Post by bitL » Mon, Oct 08, 2018, 7:32 PM UTC

MAGZine wrote: post #95

bitL wrote: post #76

Dunno. Salary in Silicon Valley - $300k. Salary in Vancouver - $80k. Rent almost the same. Weather in Silicon Valley - year-round sunny. Weather in Vancouver - 2 months of sun, rest gloomy. Are you sure you want to move to Canada? It used to be that MS/AMZN had a back up base in Vancouver for anyone who didn't make the cut with H1B/O-1.

your salary numbers seem a little off, and, at least in sf rent numbers are not the same. compare new 1bdrm apts between sf and yvr and you'll see. amazon/microsoft just regularly employs people in YVR, not just for L1 purposes. they've been causing salaries (and rents) to rise. anyhow, you're discounting a lot of things about Vancouver because you make a little more and the weather is a little sunnier.

I spent some time in Vancouver, I can compare. And people are extremely upset about rent hike, not sure why would anyone want to go there at the moment to be honest. The same happening in Toronto and Montreal AFAIK.

Re: H-1B: As immigration furor roils Silicon Valley, Canada smooths way for techies

#104

Post by ___cs____ » Mon, Oct 08, 2018, 7:32 PM UTC

Canada/Australia have thriving scene, but somehow the number of jobs is really low.

There was a nice discussion on reddit about brain drain to Australia/Canada.

https://www.reddit.com/r/cscareerquestions/comments/9l1pug/w... https://www.reddit.com/r/startups/comments/9l3ueo/which_coun...

Re: H-1B: As immigration furor roils Silicon Valley, Canada smooths way for techies

#105

Post by dghughes » Mon, Oct 08, 2018, 7:32 PM UTC

Thaxll wrote: post #42

JumpCrisscross wrote: post #24

Isn't compensation, even after adjusting for cost of living and health insurance, much lower in Canada than anywhere in the U.S.?

Most people don't care about money, they want to raise family in a safe environment, I interview a lot of foreigners and there is clear trend that they don't want to go to the US with the current administration.

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Re: H-1B: As immigration furor roils Silicon Valley, Canada smooths way for techies

#106

Post by param » Mon, Oct 08, 2018, 7:33 PM UTC

mywittyname wrote: post #91

param wrote: post #63

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I'm genuinely curious who these experts are that claim that the Paris Accord is useless and why they assert such a claim. Seeing as it was put together with the consultation of hundreds of scientist from all over the world who've spent their career studying climate change, I'm guessing the objections come from political experts, not scientific ones.

Just do a google search.

Even the UN admits it was a fraud: https://www.investors.com/politics/editorials/the-un-admits-...

Re: H-1B: As immigration furor roils Silicon Valley, Canada smooths way for techies

#107

Post by briandear » Mon, Oct 08, 2018, 7:35 PM UTC

briandear wrote: post #94

Bhilai wrote: post #20

I can attest to this. I have three friends who are preparing to migrate to Canada or Australia. Mind you, these are not the typical H1B workers from Infosys. These are smart legitimate people with a masters degree who work at top tech companies. They have no hopes to get a permanent residency in US because of long queues. Renewing H1B is a big hassle. Surely its a big change to pick up your life up and move to a diff…

Why don’t they get an E2 visa which is designed for immigration for those with high skills and advanced degrees? An H visa is a temporary, non-immigrant visa and was never intended as a path to a green card. Frustration around long queues for green cards for H visas doesn’t make any sense because that is, by its very definition, a non-immigrant visa. Expecting permanent residency from a non-immigrant visa is no diffe…

Why is this downvoted? Was anything in or untrue? H visas are temporary, non-immigrant visas.

https://travel.state.gov/content/travel/en/us-visas/employme...

Re: H-1B: As immigration furor roils Silicon Valley, Canada smooths way for techies

#108

Post by paxy » Mon, Oct 08, 2018, 7:35 PM UTC

jszymborski wrote: post #34

otalp wrote: post #16

I suppose my comments from yesterdays thread about "Cheap places to live with a good intellectual atmosphere" is relevant: I did the math for Toronto(which is more expensive than Montreal, and about the same as Vancouver). For a typical software engineer, taxes take away 25% of gross pay in Ontario while it's over 30% in California and New York. Cost of living is much less(by 30-40% if you rent) in Toronto compared t…

Overall, I agree with your points, but I have some points of contention with some of the analysis. I don't think it's quite fair to include tax if you're not going to include savings for things like health care. Furthermore, Toronto's housing market, while less expensive than Cali/NY, is still insane. I know you acknowledge this in passing, but Montreal's housing market is insanely affordable, and we've a great tech/…

Free healthcare is a standard benefit in the tech industry in the US. Even after deductibles and with heavy use, you're going to at the most end up with a couple thousand dollars in out-of-pocket costs.

Re: H-1B: As immigration furor roils Silicon Valley, Canada smooths way for techies

#109

Post by jarsin » Mon, Oct 08, 2018, 7:37 PM UTC

dilippkumar wrote: post #101

As someone who is contemplating this move, I can share some thoughts. First, money isn’t the force that’s driving immigrants out of India and into the US, Canada etc. Among the people I know and including myself, the top driving forces are safety, good governance, clean air and water. While living in the US has the benefit of higher pay, it comes at a significant cost. Here is a short list of things I can not do whil…

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Re: H-1B: As immigration furor roils Silicon Valley, Canada smooths way for techies

#110

Post by pshc » Mon, Oct 08, 2018, 7:37 PM UTC

dilippkumar wrote: post #101

As someone who is contemplating this move, I can share some thoughts. First, money isn’t the force that’s driving immigrants out of India and into the US, Canada etc. Among the people I know and including myself, the top driving forces are safety, good governance, clean air and water. While living in the US has the benefit of higher pay, it comes at a significant cost. Here is a short list of things I can not do whil…

re: crypto mining, that’s funny. I thought a passive activity like crypto mining is allowed as long as one doesn’t actively “work” on it. Maybe the NAFTA/USMCA rules are different?