Live data from Hacker News

150-Year Green Card Wait for Indian Immigrants With Advanced Degrees

cato.org

21–30 of 115 posts

Re: 150-Year Green Card Wait for Indian Immigrants With Advanced Degrees

#21
post #6

This is one of the enormous penalties we as a nation have to pay because neither of our political parties actually wants to solve the illegal immigration issue. Republicans get to use ‘illegal immigrants taking jobs’ as a stick to beat democrats with, and progressives use cries of racism to rally support amongst Latino voters. Meanwhile anyone who espouses common sense ideas such as reforming our immigration policy g…

I think it's clear that the immigration system could use reform. It's not at all clear what the reform should be. The quoted 150-year wait doesn't quite exist, but real waits of 10-20 years are common for immigrants with lower priority from countries with large numbers of applicants (which are often simply countries with large numbers of people).

That people still want to come here despite having to put up with that is a testament to how powerful the draw to living here is. I can't blame someone for illegally immigrating when they see that the legal path will take so long, and that they could be building a better life in the meantime, despite the struggles that come from living here without papers.

Re: 150-Year Green Card Wait for Indian Immigrants With Advanced Degrees

#22
post #6

This is one of the enormous penalties we as a nation have to pay because neither of our political parties actually wants to solve the illegal immigration issue. Republicans get to use ‘illegal immigrants taking jobs’ as a stick to beat democrats with, and progressives use cries of racism to rally support amongst Latino voters. Meanwhile anyone who espouses common sense ideas such as reforming our immigration policy g…

Umm reforming the immigration policy is exactly what progressives are calling for. The only difference is that the conservatives want to somehow deport everyone who is here and has been here for decades to somewhere while the “progressives” recognize that they are an integral part of the economy and want them to pay a penalty, and stand in the back of the line for American citizenship while they are provided recogniz…

> reforming the immigration policy is exactly what progressives are calling for.

It might be what progressives are calling for, but it's not what Democrats are calling for when they are in power. Additionally, I'm not sure how progressive it is to prefer elite immigrants with "advanced degrees" over other immigrants.

Re: 150-Year Green Card Wait for Indian Immigrants With Advanced Degrees

#24

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Slavery was a system in the way it was and it was even legal! You can't turn around and yell this is how it is.

And not being able to swarm into another country is equivalent to slavery?

No, the fact that a system of discrimination is already in place is not proof that the system is not discriminatory. If that were true, US chattel slavery would not have been discriminatory.

Re: 150-Year Green Card Wait for Indian Immigrants With Advanced Degrees

#25
post #16

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You can work until your priority date is current and you can even change employer.

The caveat is that your employer keeps you on a very short leash. If you are fired you must have a new job within 30 days, else must leave the country. Not everyone has the stomach for this, especially if you have a family.

In my experience companies do not lay off people, it's a huge legal headache, usually people change jobs on their own. I agree about short leash though, it's really bad, although manageable on H1B. The people on L1 are who are trully screwed up.

Re: 150-Year Green Card Wait for Indian Immigrants With Advanced Degrees

#27
post #6

This is one of the enormous penalties we as a nation have to pay because neither of our political parties actually wants to solve the illegal immigration issue. Republicans get to use ‘illegal immigrants taking jobs’ as a stick to beat democrats with, and progressives use cries of racism to rally support amongst Latino voters. Meanwhile anyone who espouses common sense ideas such as reforming our immigration policy g…

> This is one of the enormous penalties we as a nation have to pay because neither of our political parties actually wants to solve the illegal immigration issue.

This is a legal immigration issue. There are no illegal immigrants on H1Bs waiting for a green card.

This could definitely be fixed or reformed without touching the illegal immigration issue.

Re: 150-Year Green Card Wait for Indian Immigrants With Advanced Degrees

#28
post #25

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The caveat is that your employer keeps you on a very short leash. If you are fired you must have a new job within 30 days, else must leave the country. Not everyone has the stomach for this, especially if you have a family.

In my experience companies do not lay off people, it's a huge legal headache, usually people change jobs on their own. I agree about short leash though, it's really bad, although manageable on H1B. The people on L1 are who are trully screwed up.

Are you high? Layoffs - and individual firings - happen all the time. The dirty secret of corporate America is that performance reviews (and even supposedly innocent constructs such as JIRA and other project management software) are really a pretext to firing someone. A firing for poor performance isn’t a significant legal risk if the alleged transgressions are documented in detail.

Re: 150-Year Green Card Wait for Indian Immigrants With Advanced Degrees

#29
post #6

This is one of the enormous penalties we as a nation have to pay because neither of our political parties actually wants to solve the illegal immigration issue. Republicans get to use ‘illegal immigrants taking jobs’ as a stick to beat democrats with, and progressives use cries of racism to rally support amongst Latino voters. Meanwhile anyone who espouses common sense ideas such as reforming our immigration policy g…

> Meanwhile anyone who espouses common sense ideas such as reforming our immigration policy gets called a racist and ‘anti-immigrant’.

First: total strawman.

Second: not even relevant to the issue at hand. There is, to first approximation, exactly zero undocumented immigration among "Indian immigrants with advanced degrees" so I'm having a very, very hard time imaging how this is an "enormous penalty" we have to pay for failing to solve the "illegal immigration issue".

So... enlighten us. What's your common sense idea that would address the problem here? I'll only call you a racist if it's a racist idea, I promise.

Re: 150-Year Green Card Wait for Indian Immigrants With Advanced Degrees

#30
post #6

This is one of the enormous penalties we as a nation have to pay because neither of our political parties actually wants to solve the illegal immigration issue. Republicans get to use ‘illegal immigrants taking jobs’ as a stick to beat democrats with, and progressives use cries of racism to rally support amongst Latino voters. Meanwhile anyone who espouses common sense ideas such as reforming our immigration policy g…

Umm reforming the immigration policy is exactly what progressives are calling for. The only difference is that the conservatives want to somehow deport everyone who is here and has been here for decades to somewhere while the “progressives” recognize that they are an integral part of the economy and want them to pay a penalty, and stand in the back of the line for American citizenship while they are provided recogniz…

Conservatives (the politicians) pretend to want to deport illegal immigrants to get votes. They don't actually want to do it because a lot of businesses depend on them for cheap labor. You don't even need to deport anyone, just start actually enforcing laws that require employers to check employee eligibility. Fewer jobs for illegal immigrants would mean less incentive for them to come. That nobody has tried this shows IMO that nobody (in power) actually wants it. They just want a few examples to grandstand about for votes.

pay a penalty, and stand in the back of the line for American citizenship while they are provided recognized status so they can live in the country legally in the meanwhile.

This is basically amnesty/open-borders. Not arguing for or against, but it is. There is no "line" for citizenship, after five years of permanent residency anyone qualifies. The "line" is for the permanent residency (green card), and you have to qualify to even get in the line, that's why people come illegally. So what's the new qualification? "already in the country"? Then what about the people here 20 years from now? Is it a rolling admission? If not then you have the same problem as before. If yes, then the policy is 'open borders' possibly with a qualification of "can avoid getting caught for X years".

If you don't find open borders acceptable the only reasonable compromise I can think of is a capped category that anyone can apply for, where the cap is adjusted as needed. Somewhat ike the current Diversity Visa (Green Card lottery) which is capped at around 50K per year, though that cap rarely changes.

Post reply on HN