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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

#241

Post by phakding »

sheepmullet wrote: post #205
phakding wrote: post #111

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> That sounds great. Come to USA after college, make a million dollars in a few years, move back home, get married, and build the Indian economy LOL. Your comment doesn't even pass smell taste. How many people working as developers will make million dollars in few years after paying payroll taxes? Federal, state, social security, medicare on top of paying for housing, car insurance, health insurance, renter/house own…

> Even with extreme level of penny pinching, 40% rate of saving is almost unachievable. Hah that’s a wealthy American point of view. When I first moved to the US I was saving 85% of my after tax income. Most (non-scam) Indian H1B holders I know are saving 6 figures a year.

I am one of those and almost everyone ( with exception of one or two every class) in my masters programs we're on F1 Visa. Most of my friends work six figure jobs in cities nowhere close to as expensive as Bay area. I know for a fact, nobody has accumulated million dollars in cash. Close to million in worth? Yes if you count real estate with mortgage, but not that kid of cash. Math doesn't add up.

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

#242

Post by dmode »

adventured wrote: post #129
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 pursui…

That's not quite true. US legislating branch gives the Executive branch significant power to "interpret" legislation and Trump admin has taken full advantage of that in order to screw legal immigrants. For reference look at the "Hire Ameican" executive order. Many of the requirements for legal immigration are intentionally vague and is left at the mercy of a exec branch leader to interpret, and that happens to be a MAGA guy. Even worse, most legal statutes are actually at the mercy of individual USCIS officers to interpret with wide latitudes. For example, a single USCIS officer determines if you have the qualification to do a job that you have been hired for. It's very arbitrary

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

#243

Post by phakding »

gspetr wrote: post #225
phakding wrote: post #111

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> That sounds great. Come to USA after college, make a million dollars in a few years, move back home, get married, and build the Indian economy LOL. Your comment doesn't even pass smell taste. How many people working as developers will make million dollars in few years after paying payroll taxes? Federal, state, social security, medicare on top of paying for housing, car insurance, health insurance, renter/house own…

The "google truck engineer" story proves otherwise: https://www.businessinsider.com/google-employee-lives-in-tru...

One story doesn't make a pattern.

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

#244

Post by dominotw »

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. More likely to become truly poor.

all these only apply to lower income ppl in US not to ppl on h1b, they can simply move back to higher middle class in India if things go wrong.

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

#245

Post by sumedh »

martin_iden wrote: post #138
Thaxll wrote: post #42

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

That sounds great, I welcome less competition on the job market. Btw I've lived in Toronto before, have a family there and know the tech scene pretty well. If people didn't care about money and job satisfaction, you would not have that many Canadians here in SV. Most of the ones I talked too would like to go back at one point, but career prospects are very bleak. One would need to take a massive paycut and face fierc…

> you would not have that many Canadians here in SV.

You are talking about Canadian citizens not immigrants who want to live in a developed country.

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

#246

Post by stevenwoo »

eloff wrote: post #177
r00fus wrote: post #143

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Well, most of the US is more temperate than most of Canada. So better like the cold/snow. Given the current US administration it might be a good trade. Of course, the great Canadian conspiracy of promoting global warming to equalize that benefit may turn the tables in a couple of decades or so... /snark

Canada is super environmentally conscious. I don't know where you get the idea from that we promote global warming, except as being a petroleum exporter (the US is a much bigger petroleum producer.) I can think of one glaring example of climate change denial among developed nations, however...

Which part of Canada and what kind of environmentally conscious? The mining companies in Canada don't seem too particularly environmentally conscious according to the older Canadian news article that aligns with my memory. https://www.thestar.com/news/canada/2010/10/19/canadian_mini... Also, the a large majority of wells in Canada are now fracking wells so fresh water contamination is a consideration as well, it seems to be regulated on a province by province basis.

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

#247

Post by overlords »

jorblumesea wrote: post #236
overlords wrote: post #199

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Canada does not have "a far less valuable citizenship compared to other western countries". It's standard of living is (size of house, consumer spending power) is better than any large country except the USA. And the weather is not that different to Boston, Chicago, New York (for Toronto) and Seattle (for Vancouver). Canada won't develop a racism problem because 20% of the country are already immigrants and Canada do…

> Canada does not have "a far less valuable citizenship compared to other western countries". I disagree, it really does. Obviously for someone from India they don't care that much, their standards are much lower for what a "good country" means. Don't get me wrong, Canada is a nice place to live. But it's not Europe or the US. > And the weather is not that different to Boston, Chicago, New York (for Toronto) and Seat…

I'm sorry, but that doesn't compute for me. Canada is USA lite, can hardly notice a difference.

I've lived in both europe (UK) and canada, and hands down Canada beats any european country in standard of living.

It has less social welfare benefits than europe, but higher standard of living.

Canadians prefer Toronto weather to Vancouver, and as I said, Toronto is no different to Chicago or Boston in weather at all.

There are pockets of racists everywhere, but Canada is literally the least racist country on earth. It's like saying California or New York will turn racist and become pro-trump.

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

#248

Post by zaptheimpaler »

btilly wrote: post #151
fjsolwmv wrote: post #51

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Green Card has a risk of deportation that citizenship does not. But the current administration is working to make citizenship revocable.

But the current administration is working to make citizenship revocable. I firmly believe that the current administration would love to change the rules on citizenship. However the 14th amendment is extremely clear on this, and the courts have consistently ruled for decades that Congress and the President do not have the right to change the laws to strip citizenship from people. (This was extensively litigated over l…

The US has a history of stripping people of their citizenship when things get bad, regardless of what the law says. It has happened before with Mexicans, it is happening again right now [1].

[1] https://www.vox.com/2018/8/30/17800410/trump-passport-birth-...

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

#249

Post by 3pt14159 »

dominotw wrote: post #244
3pt14159 wrote: post #196

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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. More likely to become truly poor. all these only apply to lower income ppl in US not to ppl on h1b, they can simply move back to higher middle class in India if things go wrong.

I can't tell if this comment is ironic or not. But I'll bite anyway.

The choice is between H1B in Canada vs H1B in US. Presumably permanent residency is the plan, so "simply moving back to India" isn't the plan if things go wrong 5 years later.

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

#250

Post by zaptheimpaler »

csomar wrote: post #227
otto2 wrote: post #157

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Your visa is essentially a visitor visa. You are not authorized to work in USA - you can visit for business while being paid by foreign entity. It is very different from H1B visa that is tied to a specific employer.

I understand that. But my point is that the process was way easier, faster and better than most European countries, Canada or the UK. For the same type of visa.

Getting a green card or citizenship is much much harder in the US than Canada. It may very well be easier to get a tourist visa, but that doesn't mean anything in the context of green cards.
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