111–120 of 404 posts
Most Indians don't. In fact, the default, like he mentions go in the 'Deportation parties'.
Most Indians return, in fact nearly all.
It's the luckier ones who make it even this far. As much as crazy this sound, I envy this guy. It's basically a giant life lottery.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
Let me flip your question too: why do you think it matters?
Because all else being equal, that skew shouldn't exist. There is nothing inherent to Indian people (or any other people) making them better at these jobs, so there is value to understanding why their numbers are so high. And by value, I mean value to US citizens. It could show us how we can improve within the country, or it could expose fraud in the system. Or a mix of both.
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…
That's why the real hack is to live in Canada and work remotely for an American company.
Why Canada ?
- Getting a masters level education is much cheaper.
- Immigration has less hoops to jump through. Specially if you are willing to live in the Atlantic side.
- Great government and social benefits
- I heard people are generally nicer.
Why not Canada -
- TAXES! TAXES! TAXES!
- Canada is essentially the money laundering heaven [0] of North America. So buying a house and being in the so called "middle class" is a nightmare.
- I believe that there is no middle class in Canada but I could be wrong as an outsider. If you are making money within a specified range that supposedly makes you an middle class individual, it is best to find shelter in government assistance programs because the income taxes are so brutal. I could be wrong, and I hope I am wrong.
- American LCOL salary even if you live in Vancouver or Toronto which is HCOL.
- If you want to earn big bucks you have to open an LLC and start contracting, which I believe requires a Canadian citizenship. I don't think you can open an LLC with a PR. Doing contract or remote work often requires an LLC.
[0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Snow_washing
I am happy to hear your feedback though. I personally prefer the whole middle region of America (WY, SD, ND, KS, IA...) than to Canada.
One of the constant dichotomies that i(and maybe other immigrants) live with are these: The privilege of being a model minority [1] [2] yet being on the edge of having to lose it all if the immigration system shits itself. One might be a senior software engineer paying 100K + in taxes and probably drive EVs and own a home, your largest infraction are parking tickets, yet the risks are asymmetric; the whims of bureauc…
This is not to be understated.
I was born a US citizen. Last time I entered the country, officers faked that a dog had alerted "on my anus", forcibly strip searched me, and fabricated a story that plastic baggies that they suspected 'could be drugs' were coming out of my ass.
I was shackled and cuffed and dragged around the state of Arizona for 16 hours while publicly paraded in Hospitals, including the waiting rooms. Officers attempted repeatedly, across two different cities one hour apart, to get medical staff to perform unwarranted and consentless x-rays and/or probing of my body, which I repeatedly refused. Doctors, despite having zero medical evidence I had did anything wrong, wrote on their paperwork I was 'suspicious' because I denied the allegations.
After 16 hours of this harassments I was release, uncharged, with no apologies.
On yet another occasion, I was told by border officials they would not let me in my own country, despite providing full proof of citizenship (immaculate condition passport, plus identifying myself fully). After 4 hours of probing questions including going practically line by line on what's on the IRS 1040, most of which I didn't answer, I was released.
Now imagine this same happening, legally entering the country at the proper port of entry with full authorization -- except as not a citizen or looking like a boring middle-class corn-fed white guy like me. These sick fucks would treat you even worse. A woman (actually a citizen) who went through a few years before me brutally had her orifices probed in a 'search' for 'contraband.'[0]
[0] https://www.courtlistener.com/docket/6451513/cervantes-v-uni...
The wastage works like this - 1. Every country is allocated an equal number of visas per year .
2. However a lot of smaller countries do not come close to utilizing their full visa allocation
3. The remaining visas can be allocated to the backlogged countries (mostly India and China)
4. The law also allows for the utilization of unused family based visas to be given to employment categories if there are backlogs.
5. However the Us government gets a fixed amount of time to make that allocation . If they do not do that allocation in the correct time period then those visas are wasted.
Just as an example last year, USCIS wasted around 50K visas and this year they are on track to almost waste 85K visas.
Looking at these numbers, it looks like a manufactured crisis to keep employment based immigrants in a constant state of flux so as to limit job hopping and limit their pay negotiation options.
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…
If I was born in a country with an extremely bad immigration system, I lose the right to complain about the bad-but-maybe-not-as-bad immigration system in another country that I'm trying to immigrate to?
However, throttling(7% quota) based on country of birth appears to be a bad proxy for diversity as India is a very diverse nation with rich cultural and linguistic distinctions. Designing a new immigration system would be a reduction problem from the existing one but we have seen successful implementations in other countries such as Canada and EU (albeit with their own set of problems)
Earlier quoted context omitted.
And shortly after he entered the country, studied and then worked for many years. Did he have to wait outside for 18 years? No. Was he prevented for working? No. Considering how saturated the system is, I see a working system and a happy person that lived, studied and worked in the US for 18 years.
You keep claiming the system is “at capacity” with no evidence, and the psychological trauma it inflicts as inevitable. How does it strain the system differently to process an Indian applicant than an Australian one?
The actual impact to my life was negligible, as all of the actual work was done by immigration lawyers. The only thing I had to do was submitting some info to the attorneys, a biometrics appointment and a short interview. And paying fees, and presenting a vaccination record.
And the system is at capacity because there are long waiting times, which is the definition of a saturated system. And this is public, published information.
https://egov.uscis.gov/processing-times/
If the guy has anxiety and checks the case status every 1 minute, there are good solutions for that, all of which have nothing to do with the immigration system.
S.386 was introduced in the Senate by Mike Lee in 2019 [1]
There was a unanimous consent on it in 2021 [2] but the bill expired (?) because Dick Durbin, senator from IL wont table it (I dont clearly understand the process in the Senate but some people who follow this had expressed anger at Durbin for not doing anything - https://www.durbinisracist.com/)
It was reintroduced in Congress as Eagle Act [3] but its been stalled ever since. It ironic that people think Democrats want open borders while the same Democrats could not even pass a sane bill for legal immigration (especially for immigrants who contribute a whole lot to the US) with their majorities while immigration was a top agenda for President Biden. Not to mention all the big tech companies with big lobbies cant get this move at all.
[1] https://www.congress.gov/bill/116th-congress/senate-bill/386... [2] https://cis.org/Vaughan/Senate-S386-HR1044-Country-Cap [3] https://eagleact.info