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My journey through the American immigration system as a computer engineer

software.rajivprab.com

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

#231

Post by quantumwannabe »

pyuser583 wrote: post #226
quantumwannabe wrote: post #207

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Appealing to the history of immigration in the country doesn't diminish the GP's point as the US has discriminated against the origins and identities of immigrants since its founding. >The Naturalization Act of 1790 (1 Stat. 103, enacted March 26, 1790) was a law of the United States Congress that set the first uniform rules for the granting of United States citizenship by naturalization. The law limited naturalizati…

I’m confused by this … doesn’t “national origin discrimination” make sense in an immigration context. It’s reasonable to treat people from Canada different from people from, say, Litchtenstein. I’m sure there’s some distinction I’m missing.

What the 1952 law says is that you can't ban people from immigrating because of what country they come from. It doesn't ban the creation caps on the number of people immigrating from a specific countries, which the law also enacted. The 1965 Act repealed country based quotas and replaced them with hemisphere based quotas, which were then themselves repealed and replaced with country based quotas again in the Immigration Act of 1990, which created the modern Diversity Immigrant Visas (as well the modern employment based visas).

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

#232

Post by burtness »

BeetleB wrote: post #184
programmertote wrote: post #64

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…

I don't mean to annoy you, but it sounds like it took you 6 years once you actually got a permanent job (although even 6 years is too much!). The years as a student don't really count.

This reifies the view of the system. Particularly the time spent as a PhD would be spent doing meaningful work contributing to the country. This is if we accept that the time spent as a student living in America making connections with people as your life develops as a young adult deserve to be waived away. Yes the system doesn't count them but we shouldn't count the cruelty of a system just on its own terms.

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

#233

Post by amf12 »

xyzzyz wrote: post #148
circlefavshape wrote: post #23

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's not US income if you don't live in the US. You pay income tax based on where you live, not where you employer lives

US taxes all income you earn anywhere in the world. It’s not that bad in practice, as first $100k or something earned abroad is exempt, and there are anti double taxation treaties with many countries, but overall, if you’re a US citizen abroad, you might owe US taxes.

> US taxes all income you earn anywhere in the world

US taxes all income you anywhere in the world for US residents.

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

#234

Post by valarauko »

29athrowaway wrote: post #119
shuckles wrote: post #108

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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?

I went through the same process as this man, so I am speaking from experience. 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 time…

> I went through the same process as this man, so I am speaking from experience.

Did you go through an EB2 application as an Indian/Chinese? If not, then it's not the same process. For every other national, you know your status in a couple of months, not decades. Children do not age out of the application as happens for Indians/Chinese.

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

#235

Post by TheArcane »

anyfactor wrote: post #114
ilrwbwrkhv wrote: post #9

That's why the real hack is to live in Canada and work remotely for an American company.

I have a pro-cons list about immigrating to Canada. 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 buy…

> I don't think you can open an LLC with a PR

This isn't true. Canadian PRs can start a business

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

#236

Post by anyfactor »

geodel wrote: post #201
anyfactor wrote: post #114

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I have a pro-cons list about immigrating to Canada. 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 buy…

I don't know if you care to be consistent: > Great government and social benefits > - TAXES! TAXES! TAXES! are one and same thing. Unless you think benefits can just appear out of thin air. Or just that others must pay for all good stuff that you looking to get.

I believe Canada could find a better way to provide social benefits without alienating the middle class.

First of all levying higher taxation or regulation for money laundering. I think that alone will reduce the tax burden on the middle class people.

Taxation is a long controversial discussion that often leads to no where.

But the gist is that, for the 60k+/year roles, if you are employed in America, from what I heard, your medical coverage is the same as the public health coverage by the Canadian government.

In America you can buy a house within a smaller time frame at a more reasonable financial burden compared to Canada.

The cost of Canadian taxation is reasonable to a limit.

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

#237

Post by anyfactor »

kirankp89 wrote: post #173
anyfactor wrote: post #127

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Can you give me a bit more info or tell what to google? Like taxes, accounting and stuff? I am trying to do something like that for a while.

Google Sole Proprietorship

Thank you

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

#238

Post by daniel-cussen »

ROTMetro wrote: post #172
notch656a wrote: post #115

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>a border guard who is having a bad day. 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…

I was super upset after visiting China and returning to the USA. Our immigration people were so much more authoritarian scary than the Chinese had been. And the Chinese had this cool smiley computer interface where you rated the chinese immigration official for their interaction on the spot. So China was not only friendlier and more welcoming, but also more accountable. We really need to check ourselves in America. O…

Yeah I don't know most of the TSA was just doing their job the best they could. I've come to respect their mandate a lot, reading the history of aviation and how it's all a crazy game to not go splat. It's not the fact of traveling, it's the fact of traveling ON AN AIRPLANE. Everything about it. The basic nature of aviation is it's closely tied to suicide. It's like interwoven with suicide. They are the two threads of one fabric, that give it a color in between, like cloth woven with gold. It's really goddamn dangerous to fly, you're relying on so many parts to work right, despite letting random guys on the street in their pijamas on board with their cellphones, and asking for fucking internet connectivity, no.

I'm completely with Louis CK on this one. We should all fly strapped down completely, upright, I guess with slightly bigger windows as a compromise, realizing the fact of flight and being like "I am flying through the air at nearly the speed of sound, crossing continents and oceans in a mere matter of hours". Just respect it a fuck of a lot more, if flying were easy we'd have flown much sooner. In fact rockets are much older and easier to make than flying machines, rockets got started a little after gunpowder, about the time of the Mongol invasion, and flying machines date to the turn of the century. People think rockets are harder because the space race came after the big improvement in plane speed, nah. Well they're studied together, aero-astrophysics. Basically not going splat.

So 9/11 was about going splat. That's literally what it was, Muhammad Ata and his conspiracy of Al-Qaeda Sunni Muslims decided, let's all go splat with a big plane, at the same building, at the same time. And they did! Because the whole difficulty of flying is not going splat, going splat on purpose is easy (although they were artistic about it, did a lot of difficult maneuvers). Suicide and aviation, interwoven.

So back to TSA, I don't know they actually respond well when you ask them about anything, or thank them for keeping the planes from falling out of the sky. It's not a transportation or border thing, it's an aviation thing.

And one time, when I was repatriating to the states, an agent asked me like what company did you work for, I never heard of that company. As though it mattered, resumes are irrelevant to citizenship once you have it. So yeah there are moments that are rougher. I think I've had good luck.

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

#239

Post by valarauko »

geodel wrote: post #222
valarauko wrote: post #205

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm not sure that's a fair comparison - the rant about managers is concerning their special status in the highest priority EB1 category for Employment Based Green Cards, not L1 work visas. Or are you referring to L1 managers eventually working their way to EB1 Managers?

I am talking about L1A , people who are brought in as "International Managers" where in reality they are just some IT project managers doing daily scrum and crap. See here [1] for "Certain Multinational manager or executive" . Here is the definition: "You must have been employed outside the United States for at least 1 year in the 3 years preceding the petition or the most recent lawful nonimmigrant admission if you…

I'm confused - you're referring to L1A non-immigrant temporary work visas but the link is for EB1 immigrant applications?

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

#240

Post by anyfactor »

TheArcane wrote: post #235
anyfactor wrote: post #114

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I have a pro-cons list about immigrating to Canada. 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 buy…

> I don't think you can open an LLC with a PR This isn't true. Canadian PRs can start a business

Thanks! I asked someone they were apprehensive about opening a business.

I found out that PRs can do essentially everything except for vote and run for office.

Thanks again.

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