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My Immigration Story

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Re: My Immigration Story

#81

Post by shalmanese »

rglullis wrote: post #70

Ok, for others who might be interested in immigrating, a few other things that I learned from my experience: - If you already are done with your studies, look for jobs at educational institutions. Universities, research laboratories, think tanks. They are exempt from the quota and can hire at any time of the year and outside of the quota. There a few downsides. First, most of the openings at these institutions will r…

The Australian work visa is even friendlier than the Canadian one. I'm not sure how the Australian citizenship process works but it used to be you could apply for permanent residency shortly after going there for University. I think it's a bit stricter now but worth looking into.

Re: My Immigration Story

#82

Post by rglullis »

shalmanese wrote: post #81
rglullis wrote: post #70

Ok, for others who might be interested in immigrating, a few other things that I learned from my experience: - If you already are done with your studies, look for jobs at educational institutions. Universities, research laboratories, think tanks. They are exempt from the quota and can hire at any time of the year and outside of the quota. There a few downsides. First, most of the openings at these institutions will r…

The Australian work visa is even friendlier than the Canadian one. I'm not sure how the Australian citizenship process works but it used to be you could apply for permanent residency shortly after going there for University. I think it's a bit stricter now but worth looking into.

Yeah, Australia also has a very good immigration policy. I seriously consider applying after I finished college in Brazil.

But the hack I described is as a way to possibly end up living in the US. Being an Australian citizen doesn't help much there, while being Canadian does.

Re: My Immigration Story

#83

Post by dragonwriter »

cylinder wrote: post #79
DigitalSea wrote: post #8

This was a great read and hits close to home for me. Not many people realise that getting a visa to live and work in the USA is extremely difficult, if not possible. I recently did some contracting work for a US based startup. I am based in Australia and the startup was in Seattle. I am in this weird area because I am self-taught and have no college/university degree and fall just under the 12 years required experien…

Nope, the US does not have a skills based migration system. It's entirely family based. Opposite of Australia, which is built around skilled migration and does not give preference to family members. It's ridiculous, we turn our backs on the highly skilled in order to admit someone because they are the parent or sibling of a US citizen. Why should we import parents with no guarantee they will do anything but need expe…

> Nope, the US does not have a skills based migration system. It's entirely family based.

This is false. The US has both economic and family-based components of the immigration system, and the former part includes subcomponents for which special skills are a key factor.

> Why should we import parents with no guarantee they will do anything but need expensive Medicare and Social Security in old age?

Social Security eligibility and benefit levels are based on payments made into the system during working years.

Re: My Immigration Story

#84

Post by bane »

Through my wife (a Korean immigrant), I've learned about how hard immigration to the U.S. is. We have our own insane story and the short of it is that immigration is an absolute mess.

Considering how many smart and hard working people I've met who came here for college, and considering the outsized success the ones who managed to immigrate here have had, it seems kind of insane that we don't do more to keep them here. The lost tax revenue I can think of from personal connections alone is in the millions of dollars per year -- imagine how much economic activity that is!

Re: My Immigration Story

#85

Post by ceasarby »

honest_joe wrote: post #29
throwaway9324 wrote: post #24

Earlier quoted context omitted.

When it comes to visas everyone wants to be special. Unfortunately the international recognized way of being special is having a bachelors degree. If that wasn't a requirement it would probably be even harder skilled workers to get visas. It sounds like if you work a couple of more years you can apply for an E-2 visa and hopefully avoid the H1-B lottery. That is not a bad position to be in. Considering the outlook fo…

BC degree is a bullshit you can literally buy it in many countries. By buying i mean you pay for tuition and you visit the school for 2 years and then you get a degree. But not only is that very expensive for most of the people in post-soviet countries but also worthless. They will not teach you anything useful. Not even when you apply for CS. They exploit the post-soviet system. And there are many good people in the…

Actually if we talk about post-Soviet countries some degrees there have value. They teach physics and math really good, otherwise, why would there be so many talented Russian, Belarusian, Ukrainian programmers? When it comes to social studies, economics, law, not so much, but if someone got degree from place like MFTI it's probably gives that person more credit that degree from average US university.

Re: My Immigration Story

#86

Post by smnrchrds »

rglullis wrote: post #70

Ok, for others who might be interested in immigrating, a few other things that I learned from my experience: - If you already are done with your studies, look for jobs at educational institutions. Universities, research laboratories, think tanks. They are exempt from the quota and can hire at any time of the year and outside of the quota. There a few downsides. First, most of the openings at these institutions will r…

The Canada part is misleading. It takes about two years to get PR (similar to green card) in Canada via Express Entry (well, technically 6 months to 1 year from the time you apply to CIC, but because you virtually need a work visa or provincial nomination to acquire enough points for entry, it takes an extra 1-1.5 years). You need to wait 4 years after getting PR to apply for citizenship. It takes about two years to get granted citizenship after that, but they are trying to reduce it to one. So the whole process takes 6-8 years not 2.

With that said, the immigration laws are indeed saner and merit-based.

http://www.cic.gc.ca/english/information/times/perm-ec.asp

http://citizenshipcounts.ca/citizenship-act-changes

Re: My Immigration Story

#87

Post by deskamess »

rglullis wrote: post #70

Ok, for others who might be interested in immigrating, a few other things that I learned from my experience: - If you already are done with your studies, look for jobs at educational institutions. Universities, research laboratories, think tanks. They are exempt from the quota and can hire at any time of the year and outside of the quota. There a few downsides. First, most of the openings at these institutions will r…

After the PR via Express Entry which takes, say 1 year, you wait 3 years (recently changed by Harper[1]) before you can apply for Citizenship and then it will be almost a year after that when you get the citizenship (27% get in 12 months, 54% in 18 months). So you are easily looking at ~5 years from application. Then you need to find someone who will file a TN visa for you.

[1] http://www.cic.gc.ca/english/citizenship/become-eligibility....

[edit: to reflect express entry does not require 1 year of working in Canada]

Re: My Immigration Story

#88

Post by shalmanese »

rglullis wrote: post #82
shalmanese wrote: post #81

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The Australian work visa is even friendlier than the Canadian one. I'm not sure how the Australian citizenship process works but it used to be you could apply for permanent residency shortly after going there for University. I think it's a bit stricter now but worth looking into.

Yeah, Australia also has a very good immigration policy. I seriously consider applying after I finished college in Brazil. But the hack I described is as a way to possibly end up living in the US. Being an Australian citizen doesn't help much there, while being Canadian does.

Sorry, I meant, as an Australian citizen, you're eligible for an E3 work visa to the United States. You need a bachelor's degree in the relevant field or equivalent work experience, companies just have to spend 20 minutes filling out an LCA and prove they're paying prevailing wage (none of the "prove an American can't do this job" song and dance that makes the H1B so expensive), the quota is so ridiculously high it will never be reached and it's 2 hours at a US Embassy for a 2 year visa.

The only downside is it's a non-immigrant visa so you come in on an E3 then convert to a H1B at your leisure and apply for a green card.

Re: My Immigration Story

#89

Post by deskamess »

TY wrote: post #80
rglullis wrote: post #70

Ok, for others who might be interested in immigrating, a few other things that I learned from my experience: - If you already are done with your studies, look for jobs at educational institutions. Universities, research laboratories, think tanks. They are exempt from the quota and can hire at any time of the year and outside of the quota. There a few downsides. First, most of the openings at these institutions will r…

For Canada hack - you might actually like it better in Canada than in the US. I first moved to Canada after finishing my graduate studies in the US about 15 years ago with the plan to go back in a couple of years. I liked Canada so much that I decided to stay here (Toronto, Ontario) and have been happy about my decision ever since. Yes, taxes are a little bit higher, but the place feels saner and safer. Various level…

The pay is terrible though.

Re: My Immigration Story

#90

Post by rglullis »

smnrchrds wrote: post #86
rglullis wrote: post #70

Ok, for others who might be interested in immigrating, a few other things that I learned from my experience: - If you already are done with your studies, look for jobs at educational institutions. Universities, research laboratories, think tanks. They are exempt from the quota and can hire at any time of the year and outside of the quota. There a few downsides. First, most of the openings at these institutions will r…

The Canada part is misleading. It takes about two years to get PR (similar to green card) in Canada via Express Entry (well, technically 6 months to 1 year from the time you apply to CIC, but because you virtually need a work visa or provincial nomination to acquire enough points for entry, it takes an extra 1-1.5 years). You need to wait 4 years after getting PR to apply for citizenship. It takes about two years to…

You may be right. I do remember looking at the process through Quebec, which seems to be a little different.

When I was more seriously looking, though, I read enough about it to make me pretty confident it could be done in 3-5 years. Of course I was starting with the assumption that I could get the job offer while I was living in Boston and enter Canada for job interviews as a visitor.

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