Earlier quoted context omitted.
You’re using the term “democracy” in an Orwellian way. The people voted for the guy who promised mass deportations. There were signs and everything. Multiple surveys have found that, if everyone had voted, he would have won by an even larger margin. https://www.npr.org/2025/06/26/nx-s1-5447450/trump-2024-elec... A non-functioning democracy would be if the people voted this way and mass deportations didn’t happen. Lik…
Democracy is broken because here's a candidate whose entire premise (that America somehow isn't great and needs to be made great again) is made-up, and a significant proportion of the population just believe it.
Microsoft has urged its employees on H-1B and H-4 visas to return immediately
311–320 of 679 posts
Re: Microsoft has urged its employees on H-1B and H-4 visas to return immediately
#312UK around Brexit time thought kind of similar: let's keep the "riffraff" immigrants out by applying higher criteria. The narrative also changed this way: we don't want immigrants in general, but you , with your highly paid PhD-requiring job, you can go in, on a 2 year rolling basis. Then everyone's a winner, except for unwanted, unskilled labour. But a lot of skilled labour left anyway. Partly because the general atm…
Of course, nothing has changed for the illegal ones: they haven't (and won't) see the increased burden of legal migration of which they are oblivious. Overall things are only getting worse, and I hate that there's no attempt to having a honest and transparent debate and discourse on the matter.
Re: Microsoft has urged its employees on H-1B and H-4 visas to return immediately
#313Earlier quoted context omitted.
Ok. How does Microsoft pay the fee? Which online portal do they go to? What bank account do they wire a check to over the weekend? What reason do they give for the payment? What USCIS code do they enter? What USCIS forms do they fill that USCIS will then snail mail (because they’re still living in the 90s) an I-797A to the employee that they will present at the border for evidence of payment. What address will USCIS…
Maybe Satya can call Donald Trump? I am sure he has his phone number. They can sort it
That's so dumb I can't believe you're suggesting it. In a rule-of-law country, lobbying the president should never be a solution to anything, much less routine bureaucracy.
Re: Microsoft has urged its employees on H-1B and H-4 visas to return immediately
#314Doesn’t seem fair to the companies that employ these people. It’s obviously a hidden tax on large tech companies like x and Tesla that hire a lot of global talent.
Doesn't seem fair to the citizens that live here. We should be taxing companies that have international leverage more . ¢¢ –– Citizen, former Data Center Electrician (still blue collar — I'll eagerly do the work if paid citizen-wages!)
What was the wage you were last offered?
Re: Microsoft has urged its employees on H-1B and H-4 visas to return immediately
#315My roommate in 2018 was an Indian here on an H1-B. He was working for a large consulting firm. (You've heard of it.) I don't recall his title but it was sort of an SRE/infrastructure position. He was a relatively conservative guy himself, in terms of his views, and a huge fan of America. He delighted in being here. He bought a brand new Mustang because it was the iconic American car. We weren't particularly close friends, but we got along okay.
In the spring of 2018, he went back to India for the first time in several years, for about a month. His return flight date came and went and I didn't hear from him until the next day: He was back in India. He'd landed in Chicago, and CBP had pulled him aside. They said his documents were flawed and he was to be deported. They said he had lied about where he was moving for his job. When he pointed out that he hadn't, they said, well, your employer didn't tell us everything they were supposed to when you moved.
He asked to see documents he had with him, or call his managers. They said no. He asked for time to go online and get his employment details. They said no. The only options he were given was: 1) Admit he'd lied, and be deported but not banned from the US, or, 2) deny he'd lied, and be deported and banned for five years. Indignant, he refused to "admit" to anything. He was deported. His entire life in the US was summarily destroyed. I spent a great deal of time helping him get his possessions either sold or shipped to him, and on the phone, I had to explain to him that he likely hadn't done anything wrong - it wasn't his fault. This was how our system had been set up to work.
About two years later, a judge concluded that there had not, in fact, been any issues with his employer or him that were material. The deportation was ruled to have been illegitimate. But by that point, he'd been back in India for years, and it was now COVID. He's probably never coming back to the US. We lost our chance to have him, because a couple of individual CBP agents in Chicago made a bad call one day in 2018 and wouldn't take no for an answer.
Even if you believe in controlling and limiting immigration, even if you think that we should only bring the best and brightest and then only in limited numbers, even if you think everyone who crosses the border illegally is a criminal, there is nothing just in what happened in this case. If you are such a person, and you think the people in power are on your side, I urge you to look at what they're actually doing over what they say they're doing. There's no justice in what happened in this case; if even legal immigrants have such limited due process and can have their lives so utterly destroyed, what rights do any of us imagine we have?
Re: Microsoft has urged its employees on H-1B and H-4 visas to return immediately
#316Bet all those tech lords are happy they went to the White House to stroke big Don and tell him how smart he is.
Re: Microsoft has urged its employees on H-1B and H-4 visas to return immediately
#317Re: Microsoft has urged its employees on H-1B and H-4 visas to return immediately
#318This has very strong "cruelty is the point" vibes. There are a fair bit of international flights in the 10-12 hour range. Add some time to pack, get to airport, baggage check, get through security & how the flight times line up and this seems calculated in a way that is precisely not doable. Never mind people not perpetually online and only seeing this a couple hours later Meanwhile there is to my knowledge no reason…
48 hours would also have been crazy. This should be a bill introduced in Congress, discussed in committee, voted on, and enacted with a date months in the future when it goes into effect, so that people, companies and government agencies can prepare and plan ... you know like an country with laws and procedures.
We have laws against that. But they were ignored.
Re: Microsoft has urged its employees on H-1B and H-4 visas to return immediately
#319Earlier quoted context omitted.
When I think of slavery I usually think of working for free, not H1B tech worker salaries which are insanely high on a global scale. It's also something people actively sign up for.
The free part of slavery is about freedom, not payment. It was not uncommon for enslaved people to buy their way out of enslavement.
Re: Microsoft has urged its employees on H-1B and H-4 visas to return immediately
#320Anecdotally, although I'm sure it's happening to more people. I'm Brazilian, I work in the US on H1-B. I'm on vacations in Brazil with my wife and kids, one in school age. I also came to renew my visa stamp, as I had my extension approved not long ago. My visa is valid from September 21st, so, same day as this proclamation takes effect. And I can't go back before that because my visa is not valid. My flight was sched…
"On vacation" makes it sounds like workers were just off "having fun" (which of course is their right), but as your story illustrates, many immigrants are required to leave the US for their visa renewals. To be forced to leave the country and then be barred from return by an sudden change in the rules is the most unjust cruelty.
As an American, I'm deeply ashamed by this. I hope you and your family are able to return home soon. Thank you for sharing your story.