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

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

#121

Post by en4bz »

jszymborski wrote: post #52
en4bz wrote: post #33

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This assumes you live in the highest CoL areas in the US. If you live outside of the Bay Area or NYC you take home significantly more than in Canada. In Canada you NEED to live in high CoL areas like Vancouver, Toronto, Montreal to get work.

Montreal is significantly cheaper to live in than either Vancouver[0] or Toronto[1]. I'm not sure what low CoL areas in the US are commanding high wages, but CoL is way lower in Montreal if you compare to places like Boulder, CO [2] or Dallas, TX,[3] which apparently have good tech scenes [4]. [0] https://www.numbeo.com/cost-of-living/compare_cities.jsp?cou... [1] https://www.numbeo.com/cost-of-living/compare_cities.…

Not really because provincial income tax is 10-15% higher than Ontario and BC. Numbeo does not include taxes IIRC.

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

#122

Post by paulgb »

param wrote: post #120
mywittyname wrote: post #117

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I wanted to hear directly from you, rather than guess at what you may be referencing. The argument being made there is that the Paris Accord doesn't go far enough. That doesn't mean that we shouldn't give it our best shot. We have to remember that the Paris Accord is basically the minimum that we should strive for and that we have to keep in mind the politics -- if we push too hard then people may just give up.

Yep, it doesn't go far enough - even if all countries did everything in the accord we wouldn't change anything. If this was a business setting, a proposal like this would be laughed out of existence. Somehow, when it is a Dem/progressive policy people still take it seriously.

Whether or not that's the case, conflating "is a fraud" and "doesn't go far enough" is intellectual dishonesty.

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

#123

Post by TechieKid »

briandear wrote: post #107
briandear wrote: post #94

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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...

It's downvoted because you, like your profile says, are "opinionated, inconsistent, irrelevant, irreverent and incontrovertible", and regardless of the number of times you are told that you are wrong and that H1Bs are dual-intent visas, keep parroting the same trash in every immigration related thread. Please quit proliferating nonsense untruths.

And here, for future reference, because short of a citation of the law, and probably even then, you won't quit spreading junk knowledge:

Better reference: https://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/text/8/1184

b) Presumption of status; written waiver Every alien (other than a nonimmigrant described in subparagraph (L) or (V) of section 1101(a)(15) of this title, and other than a nonimmigrant described in any provision of section 1101(a)(15)(H)(i) of this title except subclause (b1) of such section) shall be presumed to be an immigrant until he establishes to the satisfaction of the consular officer, at the time of application for a visa, and the immigration officers, at the time of application for admission, that he is entitled to a nonimmigrant status under section 1101(a)(15) of this title.

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

#124

Post by bgee »

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…

Disclaimer: I'm not a lawyer.

E2 visa is employment-based, which means the applicant needs to be employed by the time they applies (usually through OPT or H1B).

So it's not an "either-or" situation.

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

#125

Post by NTDF9 »

WisNorCan wrote: post #98
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.?

As more of the best engineering talent moves to Canada (or decides not to come to the US in the first place), it should: 1) increase salaries in the Bay Area in the short-term as their a shortage of engineers 2) decrease salaries in Canada in the short-term as their is a surplus of engineers The more interesting thing to consider is whether US tech companies will begin to build out more aggressively in Canada instead…

More importantly, with more and more talent present in Canada, more and more startup funding will move there.

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

#126

Post by Bhilai »

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…

E2 Treaty Investors visa is nonimmigrant and requires substantial capital. Source: https://www.uscis.gov/working-united-states/temporary-worker...

So not sure what your comment implies.

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

#127

Post by briandear »

sudopratt wrote: post #97
puranjay wrote: post #65

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> And it's only two years until the next election anyways. At this point with 50% approval rating, I doubt you'll see an incumbent lose 2020

Not sure you are looking at the right source but have not seen an approval rating that high on any polls.

http://m.rasmussenreports.com/public_content/politics/politi...

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

#128

Post by [deleted] »

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…

[deleted]

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

#129

Post by adventured »

jorblumesea wrote: post #78

I wonder how much of this is just the political winds. Under the George Bush days there were similar sentiments and attitudes, but it never went anywhere and SV still remained dominant. Canada has long tried to capitalize on the US political situation with mixed results. Salaries are low, most of Canada has poor weather and unaffordable housing prices in the major cities. I guess if you're willing to stick it out you…

The US hands out one million green cards per year. There has not been a meaningful reduction in how much immigration is allowed into the US nor in how many green cards are issued. You'll notice something entirely missing from the article: there are no actual figures supporting its claims anywhere to be found, only a few individual anecdotes.

What's happening is Canada is trying to become more aggressive in the pursuit of tech immigrants that are tired of waiting for US citizenship. It's a sensible plan on their part, and the US can afford the loss. The US isn't suffering from a tech employee deficit, despite the propaganda out of the big tech companies that want cheaper labor. The tech giants are all generating obscene profits, and they can all afford to pay very high salaries.

Microsoft + Google + Facebook + Amazon + Intel + Apple = ~$165 billion in likely 2019 profit. Excuse me while I cry over their labor costs.

The Trump Admin + Republican Congress have barely changed anything in relation to immigration. The major immigration legislation speaks for itself: there hasn't been any. And the Democrats are about to take back to the House.

The biggest complaint you'll see, is that there's a long wait time, which illustrates the extreme demand for US citizenship, as the rate of green card issuance hasn't declined.

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

#130

Post by NTDF9 »

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.

> As an Amazon employee, I really hope this factors in highly in the HQ2 decision.

Seems like a natural hedge against anti-tech, anti-modern US establishment.

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