Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

My journey through the American immigration system as a computer engineer

software.rajivprab.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

61–70 of 404 posts

Re: My journey through the American immigration system as a computer engineer

#61

Post by codegeek »

quantumwannabe wrote: post #38

Note that India requires prospective citizens to live in the country for 12 years before applying for naturalization, and China doesn't allow non-ethnic Chinese immigration at all (only ~1500 naturalized citizens/10,000 permanent residents in the whole country of over a billion people). Something to keep in mind when people from those countries complain about the American immigration system (doesn't apply to the Sing…

I never understand this argument. If someone leaves their country to migrate, aren't they looking for a better life ? Just because India requires you to live for 12 years, Indian citizens should just shut up/put up with 18+ years of waiting because their country of origin has it worse/same ? This sounds a lot like "We gave you US citizenship. So shut up and stop criticizing the Govt because you came from a 3rd world country even though you are now a citizen of this country". So much for 1st Amendment or does it not apply to naturalized citizens ?

Re: My journey through the American immigration system as a computer engineer

#62

Post by yardie »

thatfrenchguy wrote: post #37
vsskanth wrote: post #25

The interesting part here is he finally got his green card after 18 years only because he married an Australian citizen and wasn’t blocked by the county quota anymore. Imagine how frustrating it must be being qualified, living in the country for decades and still blocked from residency all because you were born somewhere, it’s something you have no control over

I mean, anywhere you immigrate to, you have less rights than someone born there despite the fact that they didn’t do anything to get that citizenship. It’s pretty atrocious though that people born in India have to wait in line for decades or, like that person and many of my colleagues, have to marry someone who is not born there, while all the French people I know in the US got their green cards in 1-5 years.

One is a developing country of 1.2B people with limited opportunities. The other is 80M people with high living standards. There aren't even that many French greencard seekers so the quota goes unfulfilled almost every year. Meanwhile, Congress has instituted hard limits on greencards that India and China have the largest share of and manage to hit the limits every year, for decades.

Re: My journey through the American immigration system as a computer engineer

#63

Post by UncleMeat »

fallingknife wrote: post #34
throw123123123 wrote: post #13

US immigration is in the biggest crisis in decades - between rhetoric & admin burden from Trump, covid, and ossified bureaucracy, it is the worst time in history for a tech worker to migrate to the US. Each time a developer works for the US from abroad, the US economy loses up to 50% o salaries in taxes for gov funding, and up to 80% of the reminder in spending within the economy. An argentine developer making 150k f…

So I should want companies to be able to import cheaper workers from abroad and drive down my salary via supply and demand, and all so the government can get more tax revenue? No thanks.

There are more developers in the US than ever before. Pay has never been higher. Developers create jobs for other developers.

Re: My journey through the American immigration system as a computer engineer

#64

Post by programmertote »

It took me also ~18 years to get my green card. I went through a very similar (almost identical) route as the blogger and I'm glad he documented this grueling experience. I went to college in the US; graduated in 4 years; worked with OPT for 2.5 years; went back to a PhD program because my then employer wouldn't sponsor me an H1B (according to them, they are a start-up and cannot put up with the legal burden and cost of sponsoring me, who is the only immigrant at the company); earned my PhD and went to work for a Fortune 100 company; got selected in the H1B lottery on the first attempt; waited 2 more years for my employer to decide that I'm worthy of their green card sponsorship; waited 4 years in the green card application process (thanks partly to COVID delays and thanks partly to the immigration law firm, Fragomen, which not only screwed up with my PERM filing once but also was very slow in preparing the application--probably intentionally because there was no one at my company who is holding Fragomen accountable back then; my company since then moved to PwC for immigration matters although I'm not sure if that improves things for the immigrant workers there) to finally get one.

I went back home twice in that 18 years because I was always afraid that I might not be allowed back in the US when I renew my visa (F-1 student visa or H1B work visa) at the local embassy in my home country.

If I could turn back in time, I'd have gone to Canada to not have to deal with this. Or I should have married a US citizen to make my path to green card easier, or even applied for asylum using my country's political situation as a cover (I didn't do either because I thought these are dishonest *for my situation*; there are a lot of people from my country who do either of these things). Legal immigration (including work visa and green card) is very difficult in the US.

Re: My journey through the American immigration system as a computer engineer

#65

Post by meowtimemania »

0xcafecafe wrote: post #27
zolosa wrote: post #5

Indians account for 73.9 percent out of the total number of H1B visa holders in the USA. Now i wouldn't want anyone to be discriminated but still it makes sense to limit green card based on nationality

Why though? If Google is hiring an engineer, it doesn't make a distinction and does so purely on skill. Why should it matter if said engineer is from Argentina (arbitrary example) instead of India? The US issues roughly 1 million green cards each year. 86% of those go to family based immigration. The rest 14% are for employment based immigration. Even in there the dependents (spouse + kids) are counted against that q…

Benefit is greater diversity. Rather than have majority of immigrants from hugely populated countries like China or India, immigrants are more evenly distributed from all around the world. The system obviously has big downsides to individuals from India/China. If it can be proved to US citizens that it’s in their interests to get rid of the cap, I think it will be gone.

Re: My journey through the American immigration system as a computer engineer

#66

Post by yardie »

PuppyTailWags wrote: post #40
vsskanth wrote: post #25

The interesting part here is he finally got his green card after 18 years only because he married an Australian citizen and wasn’t blocked by the county quota anymore. Imagine how frustrating it must be being qualified, living in the country for decades and still blocked from residency all because you were born somewhere, it’s something you have no control over

This is a big reason to have children who are american citizens. The children can then pay several tens of thousands of dollars once they're adults to sponsor their parents. Two decades is a shorter wait.

My boss made sure to have his kids in the US before going back to his home country where the extended family can help raise them.

Re: My journey through the American immigration system as a computer engineer

#67

Post by vsskanth »

thatfrenchguy wrote: post #37
vsskanth wrote: post #25

The interesting part here is he finally got his green card after 18 years only because he married an Australian citizen and wasn’t blocked by the county quota anymore. Imagine how frustrating it must be being qualified, living in the country for decades and still blocked from residency all because you were born somewhere, it’s something you have no control over

I mean, anywhere you immigrate to, you have less rights than someone born there despite the fact that they didn’t do anything to get that citizenship. It’s pretty atrocious though that people born in India have to wait in line for decades or, like that person and many of my colleagues, have to marry someone who is not born there, while all the French people I know in the US got their green cards in 1-5 years.

Immigrants understand they have less rights and if they want to go there or stay permanently they have to earn their place through whatever qualifications the host country mandates.

The primary complaint here is the massively different waiting period for the same employment based green card category (qualifications) between a potential immigrant born in India (multiple decades) versus let’s say Germany (maybe a year). It’s an immutable qualification.

Re: My journey through the American immigration system as a computer engineer

#68

Post by goodpoint »

quantumwannabe wrote: post #38

Note that India requires prospective citizens to live in the country for 12 years before applying for naturalization, and China doesn't allow non-ethnic Chinese immigration at all (only ~1500 naturalized citizens/10,000 permanent residents in the whole country of over a billion people). Something to keep in mind when people from those countries complain about the American immigration system (doesn't apply to the Sing…

> people from those countries complain about the American immigration system

People do not get to choose where and when to be born.

Re: My journey through the American immigration system as a computer engineer

#69

Post by valarauko »

quantumwannabe wrote: post #38

Note that India requires prospective citizens to live in the country for 12 years before applying for naturalization, and China doesn't allow non-ethnic Chinese immigration at all (only ~1500 naturalized citizens/10,000 permanent residents in the whole country of over a billion people). Something to keep in mind when people from those countries complain about the American immigration system (doesn't apply to the Sing…

> India requires prospective citizens to live in the country for 12 years before applying for naturalization

Yes, for citizenship, as opposed to Permanent Residency - the author of the article must wait another 5 years at the very least to be eligible for citizenship if he desires it.

Re: My journey through the American immigration system as a computer engineer

#70

Post by raverbashing »

0xcafecafe wrote: post #27
zolosa wrote: post #5

Indians account for 73.9 percent out of the total number of H1B visa holders in the USA. Now i wouldn't want anyone to be discriminated but still it makes sense to limit green card based on nationality

Why though? If Google is hiring an engineer, it doesn't make a distinction and does so purely on skill. Why should it matter if said engineer is from Argentina (arbitrary example) instead of India? The US issues roughly 1 million green cards each year. 86% of those go to family based immigration. The rest 14% are for employment based immigration. Even in there the dependents (spouse + kids) are counted against that q…

The purpose is twofold: diversity of origins and the fact that there are 1.3Bi Indians for 300Mi Americans

Diveristy actually means not getting everybody from the same place, being that inside or outside the US

Post reply on HN