621–630 of 965 posts
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The pause is for immigrant visas so most visas like H1 or H2 or O visas aren't affect this time. But it's definitely part of the US admin's overall theme of ratcheting up visa restrictions and making any immigration or travel to the US extremely difficult.
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The cruelty is the point.
It’s not “cruelty” to have and enforce rules. The words “temporary” and “nonimmigrant” is plastered all over the laws that govern these visas. People shouldn’t have treated them as permanent immigration visas. And employers shouldn’t have mislead employees into thinking these were permanent immigration visas. It’s like saying that it’s “cruelty” to remove someone who uses a 2 hour parking spot as their permanent car…
Legally, there's very little the state can't do, there could be a bill passed tomorrow revoking all immigrant visas. But businesses, and by proxy the nation, benefit from work done by these workers.
Sudden unilateral moves like this are stupid on a social level (cause damage to businesses and communities), and on a moral level. "First do no harm" is a principle just as suited to government as medicine. Even if there is a broad consensus for reducing or eliminating H1B visas, why punish people who followed the system as it exists and contributed? It's perfectly possible to pass a bill, stop handing out new visas, and sunset renewals after some 1-2 year timeframe.
It's legal to invite a bunch of guests over and kick them all out after you open the wine, but you're going to lose friends. And ultimately it will be businesses and individuals paying the cost for these needlessly volatile course changes. Tourism and high skilled immigration rates will face lasting harm.
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American immigration laws are designed to have a small stream of permanent immigration, both to protect american jobs and to protect american culture from foreign influence. That’s what people voted for over decades. The New York Times did a good podcast on the issue. https://youtu.be/xgDdTV7A57w . If you want to define “xenophobic” to encompass that then that’s your choice. I don't think that's a sensible or useful…
I know a lot of people that support these cruel and chaotic changes to our immigration laws and they are mostly xenophobic - they don’t like people speaking languages other than English at the store, they don’t like religions different than their own, they don’t like family traditions different than their own.
US immigration can be very slow and bureaucratic (even pre-Trump). I hesitate to say but generally, it's not as arbitrary as people think. If things are clearly above board, it works out.
The US still is a destination in very high-demand. There are a huge number of qualified and unqualified people, who would come here in a heartbeat (and it goes without saying, there are a huge number of people who have no interest in moving here).There are clearly agents like the H-1B body shops who have exploited the system. Similarly, masters programs were launched effectively to trade full tuition for an opportunity to enter the US labor market (e.g. all the masters in financial math programs). This doesn't mean we don't get amazing people on H-1Bs or in masters programs but these pathways have been exploited.
Many people desire a sane immigration policy and experience. One that allows promising candidates into the country. The exact definition of a "promising candidate" was outsourced to universities and companies sponsoring these visas. A lot of people have lost trust in those institutions. I don't know what a good solution is but the rise of these policies is a symptom that the current system is not working.
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I'm an American that lives abroad. I have first-hand experience how other countries treat 'immigrants'. H1B is a temporary non-immigrant visa. I could never imagine myself buying a home in a country where I don't have permanent access to that real estate. I am not opposed to voting to prevent non-PRs from owning real estate in order to keep housing prices lower for residents and prevent non-immigrants from shooting t…
There are arguments from the other side too. Many H1B folks do keep one foot back in the country they are from. But then a lot of backlash on specifically Indian folks for sending most of their salary back home. They know that this is transient state, many of them have rented housing, but still these visas are not like weekly visas, they are for 3 years, people would build somewhat of a life in that time and uprootin…
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Maybe if legal immigration were more achievable we wouldn't have so many illegal immigrants.
I've legally gone through this process in at least 5 countries and the US was the most expensive, but far from the worst.
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Or imagine if an employee works for you and this happens to them.
I've had a couple of reports that this applied to. It's incredibly disruptive. "I've got to fly back to India to renew my visa." "Okay, when will you be back?" "I have no idea, it depends when I can get an appointment. It could be next week, it might be in a month." "[State department] We're pausing all visa appointments." "Well fuck." Meanwhile I've got a tech lead who is 12 hours away from the rest of the team. He…
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Maybe if legal immigration were more achievable we wouldn't have so many illegal immigrants.
So for those that don't know, it's quite common for a visa renewal to be required to leave the country. Depending on the visa, you might have to do this every year. So just imagine, having a normal job in the US and you're asked to leave to renew your visa and this stuff happens. That's no more appointment, not even a new date and you're now very likely unable to work and possibly can't even enter the country to get…
Does it suck? Yes. Is this unexpected? Not really, no.
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Or imagine if an employee works for you and this happens to them.
I've had a couple of reports that this applied to. It's incredibly disruptive. "I've got to fly back to India to renew my visa." "Okay, when will you be back?" "I have no idea, it depends when I can get an appointment. It could be next week, it might be in a month." "[State department] We're pausing all visa appointments." "Well fuck." Meanwhile I've got a tech lead who is 12 hours away from the rest of the team. He…