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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

#321

Post by _iofi »

sublupo wrote: post #318

This sounds weird but I've wondered something. Since California is a sanctuary state, can't workers come over with H1B and then simply not leave when the Visa expires?

I would not recommend this.

Couple of issues:

1. You might want to visit your family in home country. How do you enter back.

2. CBP can put a border check point anywhere 100 miles from a border. Which covers most of California (land and sea border) including SF. If you get caught in one, your would be arrested and deported.

3. If you overstay for more than 6 months you are banned from US for 3 years. If you overstay for more than 1 year, you are banned from entering US for 10 years.

4. Government knows that you are overstaying. They can also easily find out about your bank accounts, health insurance, doctor visits, kids going to school. They could apprehend you if they want to. It could start by sending you a NTA (Notice to Appear). Once you get an NTA, you can't even leave the country on your own terms without triggering a re-entry bar.

5. Most good employers won't give you a job without a work authorization.

Sadly, what you had suggested has been the life story of all the undocumented workers in US. And it is really tough. I know H1-B has it bad, but it is nothing compared to what the undocumented workers have been going through. When you live in the shadows and under fear of law enforcement for a big part of your life, it can mess up with your mental health. I wish there is a good outcome for them.

Unfortunately the low skilled undocumented workers don't have much options in life. But I am not sure why someone who is educated and skilled, would subject themselves to such a life. Just go somewhere else!

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

#322

Post by to_bpr »

madmax108 wrote: post #320

One of my friends recently got his Permanent Residency from Canada for a job he has just gotten there. What is the difference between a PR and citizenship? Is there any difference in what the country owes the individual or vice versa in either?

You can't vote in Canada unless you've citizenship. You've to be physically present in Canada 3 years of every five to retain PR, not so with citizenship.

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

#323

Post by _iofi »

sizzle wrote: post #316
_iofi wrote: post #169

I just moved out of US and in process of moving to Canada. Just for background: Worked in leadership roles for startups and Fortune 15 companies, sold a company, advise/invest in bunch of startups. My life's goal is contribute to curing/diagnosing terminal disease using technology. Everything I did in the past 14 years has been towards meeting that goal. I figured, I would need knowledge, network, and financial stabi…

Just wanted to thank you for pursuing such a noble cause. We need more people like you putting their time, energy, resources, and brains towards solving real hard problems in society, such as access to affordable (mental) healthcare, affordable housing, climate change, and ethical ML/AI systems. Keep up the good fight friend, you'll be an asset to any country lucky enough to call you their citizen.

Thanks, for the wishes :)

Need to fix the final missing piece: Find a place to call home. Once that is done, will work for the next 20 years attacking terminal disease!

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

#324

Post by throwaway82729 »

olivierlacan wrote: post #152

I'm curious if anybody here has quality data for USCIS' processing speed on H-1B and other work-based immigration visas. USCIS provides [aggregate statistics for previous years and quarters]( https://www.uscis.gov/tools/reports-studies/immigration-form... ) but it's very difficult to isolate that data to a specific form type (for example I-129 for H-1B). Common known resources like http://visadoor.com and https://www…

This is exactly what I posted a while back about my situation - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=17938307. I turn down VP Eng roles almost every day and internally cry every time I do it. I also know that I won't get these opportunities, to work on cutting edge technology with great peers, in other places.

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

#325

Post by dang »

dghughes wrote: post #105
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.

[flagged]

Regional slurs aren't welcome here, including internecine ones like this. Please don't post like this to HN again.

https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html

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

#326

Post by masonic »

Matthias247 wrote: post #81
CodeSheikh wrote: post #28

While many in the comments are throwing salary/cost of living/taxes numbers left and right but no one is making a case for extreme winters in Canada vs the Bay Area. I can understand that it might not mean a lot to some but for me it can be a deal breaker.

OTOH it might be a deal breaker for others that there is no local skiing in the bay area, no legal mountain biking, etc. Therefore I would consider weather and environment also a bit of a personal preference thing.

  no legal mountain biking
This is ridiculously false.

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

#327

Post by beerlord »

Australia has already shown the way for Canada:

Mass-immigration of people with dubious qualifications, as long as they work cheap.

Resultant huge downward pressure on wages, particularly in IT. Companies throw bodies at problems instead of innovating or designing projects and systems carefully and smartly.

The mass influx of people then puts pressure on housing and public services, but juices the economy through the extra consumption of extra people.

Meanwhile socially, the migrants are predominantly males, with poor attitudes towards women, and backwards practices such as female foeticide. Soon inner-city work and social areas become gender-imbalanced: dominated by Indian men. Businesses then put into practice gender-selective hiring and promotion which harms all men, including locals.

All of this might very well work if the male ratio of visas per country of origin was capped to 50% in the first place. If Canada wants to pursue a Parliamentary gender quota, why not start with an immigration gender quota?

Be careful, Canadians.

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

#328

Post by sublupo »

_iofi wrote: post #321
sublupo wrote: post #318

This sounds weird but I've wondered something. Since California is a sanctuary state, can't workers come over with H1B and then simply not leave when the Visa expires?

I would not recommend this. Couple of issues: 1. You might want to visit your family in home country. How do you enter back. 2. CBP can put a border check point anywhere 100 miles from a border. Which covers most of California (land and sea border) including SF. If you get caught in one, your would be arrested and deported. 3. If you overstay for more than 6 months you are banned from US for 3 years. If you overstay…

Thank you for that information

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

#329

Post by martin_iden »

3pt14159 wrote: post #317
martin_iden wrote: post #289

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Are we comparing apples to apples? You can also find a room on peninsula for 1200-1500 with one housemate. A 2 bedroom apartment in Toronto in a neighborhood similar to where I live here in SV is going to be 2800/3000 CAD, I am paying 3K USD now. Car insurance $70 per month for 2 cars here, I used to pay $380 per month in Canada. My PGE bill is $50-70, in Toronto hydro/gas are going to be at least twice that. My brot…

Dude I just got into a new place at Dovercourt and Dundas. I'm on the second floor of desirable house paying $850 CAD ($650 USD). Yes you can spend $3k CAD on a shiny new two-bedroom midrise condo if you want to, but that's the exception. Most people live in places that cost between $600 to $1200 per person. Max $2k ($1.5k USD) if you live alone. Nobody I know is paying $400 in heating. That's northern Ontario electr…

OK, so 2K for a single person if living along. I guess for a family of 3, you'd need to up that budget by at least 500. My brother is a real estate agent who does a lot of rentals downtown and midtown. He says you'd need to budget around 4.20CAD per sq.ft. It can go higher depending on the layout and views. Rents have risen significantly in the last couple of years. We can back and forth about beer/food costs, I'd lived in Toronto for 8 years (North York - 3 years, Downtown - St.George/Bloor - 4 years and 1 year on Eglington/Younge so I know what I talking about). Can you name 3 companies in Toronto that pay 200K+ in real money (salary, bonus, stock that you can actually sell)? My friends are telling me 110-115K is a VERY decent salary, maybe they are just working for wrong companies.

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

#330

Post by abrichr »

3pt14159 wrote: post #317
martin_iden wrote: post #289

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Are we comparing apples to apples? You can also find a room on peninsula for 1200-1500 with one housemate. A 2 bedroom apartment in Toronto in a neighborhood similar to where I live here in SV is going to be 2800/3000 CAD, I am paying 3K USD now. Car insurance $70 per month for 2 cars here, I used to pay $380 per month in Canada. My PGE bill is $50-70, in Toronto hydro/gas are going to be at least twice that. My brot…

Dude I just got into a new place at Dovercourt and Dundas. I'm on the second floor of desirable house paying $850 CAD ($650 USD). Yes you can spend $3k CAD on a shiny new two-bedroom midrise condo if you want to, but that's the exception. Most people live in places that cost between $600 to $1200 per person. Max $2k ($1.5k USD) if you live alone. Nobody I know is paying $400 in heating. That's northern Ontario electr…

> You're missing my point. I was making $200k+ at 27 in 2012.

In Toronto? I hope you don't mind my asking: doing what?

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