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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

#211

Post by emptybits »

b1tr0t wrote: post #118
zeroxfe wrote: post #2

As horrible as it sounds, in this specific respect, the current US administration has been really fantastic for Canada. More and more new grads are choosing to stay in the country and work with local tech companies, and we're experiencing a reverse brain-drain like never before.

From a Canadian viewpoint, the last couple of years of populism has been a bit like discovering your favorite Uncle has a probably lethal opiate addiction. But, you're going to get to inherit his Corvette.

Canadian here also. I like your analogy. Opiates don't stop at national or socio-economic boundaries.

So a prediction I hope I'm wrong about: We temporarily enjoy driving the bully uncle's Corvette but soon find ourselves chasing the same dragon in it.

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

#212

Post by _iofi »

techie128 wrote: post #206
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…

I have 3 offers to write books. I, unfortunately, cannot do that due to the H-1B visa restriction. I have been in US legally for over a decade, making 350K+ annually. Our HH income is 700K USD. Before someone jumps in and say but why don't you apply for a EB5 greencard, it's not so simple either. It is 600K (500K + legal and other fees) of my hard earned money down the drain with ZERO certainty of a greencard for YEA…

This was a good decision ref EB-5.

Currently, if there is any crazy possibility, USCIS will reject your petition. EB-5 will take 2-3 years and you don't know how things will be then or even if the program will be around then. USCIS will refund your fees, but you will be out lawyer fees and investment.

Move to Canada. You can start your own company in Canada. Salaries are lower and government gives back a good chunk of developer salaries to the company.

You will also get some stability in life. As you get older, it is more difficult to immigrate to other countries.

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

#213

Post by martin_iden »

jonny_eh wrote: post #174
mywittyname wrote: post #54

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't think it's the primary reason. The Canadian tech sector doesn't make nearly as much money as their US counterpart does. The country has very few dedicated software companies, and none the caliber of the FAAMGs. For comparison, the largest software company in Canada by revenue earns $1.7B, Google is in the neighborhood of $120B a year. Google/Microsoft/Facebook/Apple/etc are each individually orders of magnitu…

> Google/Microsoft/Facebook/Apple/etc are each individually orders of magnitude larger than the entire Canadian software industry combined We just need one of those companies to get fed up and move their HQ north. Canada's tech sector would double overnight. I can even see that happening if the next couple US elections go the wrong way.

Fed up with what? They care about nothing but making money. It's very infantile to think otherwise.

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

#214

Post by chrisweekly »

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…

>"Mind you, these are not the typical H1B workers from Infosys. These are smart legitimate people..."

That's a pretty broad brush you're smearing with there, amigo.

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

#215

Post by sheepmullet »

3pt14159 wrote: post #196
dominotw wrote: post #184

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> preparing to migrate to Canada or Australia. I know lot of ppl who have been dreaming of this for years but money and opportunity here in US is too good to pass up. 99% of ppl on H1B are not starting companies. Most ppl just don't have the appetite to slash their income by half. "preparing" doesn't count as a example.

The half-of-salary thing is a bit rich. Tech people unknowingly push up their second or third sigma downside in America and cost of living is hard to compare. In America you're more likely to get violently harmed. More likely to become truly poor. More likely to develop life-long medical conditions. Don't have actuarially balanced government pension (SS accounting is off book, CPP is fully funded). Higher net-debt-to…

> In America you're more likely to get violently harmed

As far as I can tell this is not really true. There are small areas in the US with extreme violence and it skews the overall statistics.

> More likely to become truly poor

Again I’m not sure this is true for a programmer - every year I save 2-3 years worth of living costs.

> earning at the very least $120k in Toronto

What is the cost of a decent 3-4 bedroom house in Toronto fairly close to work?

If it’s anything like Vancouver then $120k is not enough.

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

#216

Post by _iofi »

b1tr0t wrote: post #118
zeroxfe wrote: post #2

As horrible as it sounds, in this specific respect, the current US administration has been really fantastic for Canada. More and more new grads are choosing to stay in the country and work with local tech companies, and we're experiencing a reverse brain-drain like never before.

From a Canadian viewpoint, the last couple of years of populism has been a bit like discovering your favorite Uncle has a probably lethal opiate addiction. But, you're going to get to inherit his Corvette.

Hi, can you please clarify this. I didn't get the context. I am planning to move to Canada and would love to get multiple view points.

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

#217

Post by sheepmullet »

mywittyname wrote: post #117
param wrote: post #106

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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

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.

> That doesn't mean that we shouldn't give it our best shot

Can you unpack that a bit?

I’d argue a fake solution like the the Paris Accord is actively harmful.

It’s the equivalent of banning the use of guns for 4 hours on a Tuesday morning punishable by a $100 fine and thinking that it’s going to help reduce gun violence.

At best it will convince people you have no clue and can be safely ignored.

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

#218

Post by qaq »

vthallam wrote: post #131
___cs____ wrote: post #104

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...

Usually, jobs follow. Big companies already use Canada as a bench for foreign workers who couldn't get the H1-B through lottery. In the last couple months, I heard 2 big announcements, Microsoft establishing their Canada HQ[0] in Toronto, Uber [1] is investing big time. [0] - https://www.huffingtonpost.ca/2018/09/11/microsoft-canadian-... [1] - https://techvibes.com/2018/09/13/uber-expands-canadian-prese... [2] - htt…

Yep my friend in Ukraine got an offer from one of US tech giants the process is if they can't secure H1B they just move people to Canada.

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

#219

Post by kwoff »

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…

Good luck in your move out of the US!

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

#220

Post by d1zzy »

btowngar wrote: post #69
dpatriarche wrote: post #31

Earlier quoted context omitted.

One downside of getting US citizenship is that if you later move to another country (your original country or a third country), you will obligated to continue to file US income tax returns, and potentially pay US income taxes. Depending on your circumstances, your tax filing might be trivial or it might be complicated, and you may or may not actually owe taxes to the US. So this might be a minor annual hassle, or it…

If you move to another country and you still hold a Green Card, you must file US income tax returns as well - it's not just for citizens. https://www.irs.gov/individuals/international-taxpayers/freq... "if you are a U.S. citizen or a resident alien living outside the United States, your worldwide income is subject to U.S. income tax, regardless of where you live"

Yes, but terminating your GC status is much more easier than relinquishing your citizenship. After all, the visa is designed for that (to be something that you hold on to while in the US and give up when not maintaining permanent residency status anymore).
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