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How can I protect my H-1B and green card if I am laid off?

alcorn.law

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Re: How can I protect my H-1B and green card if I am laid off?

#51

Post by zb1plus »

commandlinefan wrote: post #19
zb1plus wrote: post #10

Citizenship should be performance based as opposed to based upon place of birth or being rich or lucky enough to obtain a piece of paper from some governmental body. It honestly shocks and disturbs me that this isn't a commonsense principle in 2022.

> Citizenship should be performance based as opposed to based upon place of birth Wait, what? I thought you were going to suggest that people should be free to live/work wherever, which I agree with in principle, but also think it's not a change that can be made overnight. You seem to be suggesting that everybody has to earn the right to live in a particular country, even if they were born there. If that was universa…

Performance based in my opinion means if you live in a region or territory for a certain amount of time and otherwise act in a manner that would indicate you intend to make this place your home, you would be eligible to be a citizen of that territory. I'm not a fan of the idea that buying a bunch of property or investing a bunch of money in a local business without living there would give the right to have an equal voice in the governing of that territory as somebody who makes their home there.

Re: How can I protect my H-1B and green card if I am laid off?

#52

Post by zb1plus »

nathanaldensr wrote: post #24
zb1plus wrote: post #10

Citizenship should be performance based as opposed to based upon place of birth or being rich or lucky enough to obtain a piece of paper from some governmental body. It honestly shocks and disturbs me that this isn't a commonsense principle in 2022.

Sorry, the world doesn't work this way. Countries are sovereign and executive authorities have direct control over who they allow in and out of said countries. Putting "right" in scare quotes doesn't make it magically not a right of government to do these things.

The world doesn't currently work in the this way sadly.

Re: How can I protect my H-1B and green card if I am laid off?

#53

Post by returningfory2 »

AdvancedCarrot wrote: post #8
Kalium wrote: post #5

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I believe H-1B is a dual-intent visa, allowing application for a Green Card after a specified number of years. Green Card holders then become eligible for citizenship after another specified number of years. So if my understanding is correct, the US government agrees with you.

Yes but your employer needs to sponsor you for a green card, and they don't really have any incentive to do so (since once you have the green card you don't have to work for them anymore).

I think this sounds theoretically reasonable, but in reality it's not like this:

- The cost of sponsoring someone for a green card ($50k?) is low compared to engineering salaries.

- Many companies like Google have great retention and the probability that an employee leaves after getting green card is low.

- Companies that are worried about retention often have employees sign a reimbursement agreement when starting the GC process. Something like, if you leave within 2 years of getting the GC you pay a prorated portion of the legal fees.

- In a tight labor market, GC sponsorship is another benefit like compensation, and companies offer it to hire good people. Over the last few years companies like Amazon have changed their GC policy to sponsor folks from day 1 of employment in order to hire people for whom a GC is that important.

Re: How can I protect my H-1B and green card if I am laid off?

#54

Post by returningfory2 »

trustingtrust wrote: post #16

What is the exact reason for such a big backlog ? My theory is that the backlog is mostly a double edged sword. If the backlog turned to zero today, the Universities would flood with applications from around the world and the number of I140s would increase exponentially in the next 10 years. The backlog hence keeps expectations in check. I know plenty of friends on I140s who may not get a green card for the next deca…

There is a quota for employment-based green cards (typically 140k/year). The number of applicants that apply each year is larger than the quota. So every year the total number of people who have applied but cannot be approved due to the quota gets larger.

Because of the per-country limit of 7%, these queuing dynamics generally only affect people from countries with large number of applications (India, China). But sometimes there will be a backlog for all countries. The current forecast is that there will be a backlog in 2023 in the EB2 category for all countries.

Re: How can I protect my H-1B and green card if I am laid off?

#55

Post by Sophie_Alcorn »

snotrockets wrote: post #36
Kalium wrote: post #5

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I believe H-1B is a dual-intent visa, allowing application for a Green Card after a specified number of years. Green Card holders then become eligible for citizenship after another specified number of years. So if my understanding is correct, the US government agrees with you.

This is not true. An H1B employee can not apply to become a permanent resident ("green card") based on their H1B employment itself. As far as I know, the only way to self petition for an extraordinary ability (EB1) based immigration, but that probably applies only to a small percentage of H1B workers. The rest are bound to their employer applying to grant the employees immigration benefits, which the employer may or…

Also the EB-2 NIW, see my other comment in this thread!

Re: How can I protect my H-1B and green card if I am laid off?

#56

Post by stjohnswarts »

cousin_it wrote: post #26
causi wrote: post #2

This can pose a big problem for people who have made their homes in the U.S. for decades, diligently working, paying taxes, buying houses, and raising their children. It's perverse there is any visa that lets someone stay in the country for decades without offering them a path to permanent residency and citizenship.

I'd go even further. If a country benefits from someone's work and taxes, it should give them a say in how these taxes are spent (i.e. let them vote) after a quite short term, for example one year.

I don't think so. The right to vote and control how money is spent is the right of a citizen. However I think the current immigration system is awful and should be completely redone and improved and the waitlists drastically reduced with citizenship being a lot more streamlined for active, productive members participating in our economy.

Re: How can I protect my H-1B and green card if I am laid off?

#57

Post by Sophie_Alcorn »

david-gpu wrote: post #13
Kalium wrote: post #5

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I believe H-1B is a dual-intent visa, allowing application for a Green Card after a specified number of years. Green Card holders then become eligible for citizenship after another specified number of years. So if my understanding is correct, the US government agrees with you.

> Green Card holders then become eligible for citizenship after another specified number of years In theory, yes. But there's a massive backlog, depending on your country of origin. I know somebody who graduated in the US and after 10+ years they gave up trying to obtain a green card in the US and instead applied for permanent residence in Canada -- within a year they had moved with their family. This is far from uni…

The system is super broken. If you're from India or China and on H-1B and just starting out, do whatever your employer is willing to sponsor you for to get a green card, but your fastest path is probably to figure out how to qualify through only legal employment activities to get an O-1A and then an EB-1A.

Re: How can I protect my H-1B and green card if I am laid off?

#58

Post by snotrockets »

Sophie_Alcorn wrote: post #47
snotrockets wrote: post #35

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is not true. An H1B employee can not apply to become a permanent resident ("green card") based on their H1B employment itself. As far as I know, the only way to self petition for an extraordinary ability (EB1) based immigration, but that probably applies only to a small percentage of H1B workers. The rest are bound to their employer applying to grant the employees immigration benefits, which the employer may or…

H-1B holders can seek green cards through a variety of ways: green card lottery (for certain countries), family sponsorship (such as marriage green cards), and employment sponsorship (the EB-1, EB-2, EB-3, EB-4, and EB-5 categories.) Within the EB's, most companies will sponsor H-1B holders for green cards in the EB-2 or EB-3 categories in a 3-step process: PERM, I-140, I-485. If an H-1B holder wants to get a green c…

I forgot about EB2 NIW (which again, I understand isn't open to all, due to the NIW requirement).

But unlike what the top level commenter wrote, the option for an H1B holder to become a permanent resident by their own action, rather then by their employer benevolence, is limited to very few (the green card lottery and the above mentioned narrow self-petition categories), and isn't a thing you can just do after a certain length of stay in the US.

Re: How can I protect my H-1B and green card if I am laid off?

#59

Post by polotics »

vaidhy wrote: post #41
trustingtrust wrote: post #16

What is the exact reason for such a big backlog ? My theory is that the backlog is mostly a double edged sword. If the backlog turned to zero today, the Universities would flood with applications from around the world and the number of I140s would increase exponentially in the next 10 years. The backlog hence keeps expectations in check. I know plenty of friends on I140s who may not get a green card for the next deca…

The exact reason is that US only allows for limited number of green cards(GC) in a year and each country has a limited quota (no more than 7% can go to any country, IIRC). India and China have a huge backlog of people that with the current number of GCs and the backlog, you are looking at multi-decade wait. There are some nuances here as there are three tiers in the employment based immigrant visa - EB1, 2 and 3. EB1…

If you would be so kind as to not associate the whole of the West in your (fair) appraisal of the US of A's mistreatment of non-whites, this would be very much appreciated.

Re: How can I protect my H-1B and green card if I am laid off?

#60

Post by snotrockets »

olliej wrote: post #45
snotrockets wrote: post #35

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is not true. An H1B employee can not apply to become a permanent resident ("green card") based on their H1B employment itself. As far as I know, the only way to self petition for an extraordinary ability (EB1) based immigration, but that probably applies only to a small percentage of H1B workers. The rest are bound to their employer applying to grant the employees immigration benefits, which the employer may or…

What? They absolutely can, and it can be employee supported - I know this because I actually started this. While in the insanely long backlog you can get your h1b extended beyond the six year limit as well. I had got married by and had a green card through that before the backlog and what not would have got through on the h1b path, but if I hadn’t met my person I would have still ended up a permanent resident.

They can if they fit the criteria for EB1A or EB2 NIW. I don't think most of H1B recipient fit the criteria for those visas.
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