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I spent the last 15 years trying to become an American and failed

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Re: I spent the last 15 years trying to become an American and failed

#581

Post by [deleted] »

cubix wrote: post #466
log0 wrote: post #433

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Just to clarify in case people still have the impression that Canada is good for immigration: Maybe Canada is better than America for immigration, the experience is getting worse. After the new immigration minister came up in July 2013, the government has changed policies to make immigration slow and the path to citizenship much harder. 1) A Labour Market Opinion (LMO), which is required before a work visa, itself us…

My wife and I befriended a couple from North Korea who, in the face of horrendous hardship that we can barely begin to imagine, managed to escape by way of China to end up in Toronto. In short order they had setup a thriving massage studio based on traditional Chinese methods, had a child, and were able to afford a nice apartment and car. Apart from the the private Christian group that helped them enter Canada, they…

[deleted]

Re: I spent the last 15 years trying to become an American and failed

#582

Post by winter_blue »

ericdschmidt wrote: post #493

"I have two Ivy League degrees. And I am on the verge of deportation." So you obviously deserve to come here, while the people living on $1 a day in extreme poverty and under oppressive regimes, they should be kept out? No, you didn't say all that, but I'm passionate about the cause of open borders ( http://econlog.econlib.org/archives/2011/08/the_efficient_e.... , http://www.openborders.info ), and I can tell you a…

Excellent comment, thanks!

I feel that even something much smaller (esp. in the US), like allowing labor shortages to be filled would make a huge difference. Simplifying the process so that a farmer in need of workers doesn't have to hire a lawyer to do complicated paperwork that takes 6 months would be a first step. Granting these workers green cards on entry (instead of the restrictive H-2 visa) would ensure their freedom. The same goes for skilled workers. Even just allowing all workers in fields where there is a huge variation in skill (e.g. STEM, journalism, culinary arts, etc) to immigrate on the basis of well-paying job offer would make a huge difference.

Re: I spent the last 15 years trying to become an American and failed

#583

Post by oqnet »

bruceb wrote: post #95
oqnet wrote: post #28

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Did you read the part in the article where he his legal forbidden from starting up a company or even working at a startup? He should have just stuck with the job until he found another one that would support his green card efforts. Switching careers part way through he should have known was risky. The lack of information that is presented on him for his reasoning besides "Well they weren't sponsoring me anyways" seem…

He isn't prevented from working at a startup. Startups can sponsor people. But startups need devs not lawyers.

Someone should tell him that then. :P I'm not American so I can't really say what is and isn't but that's what I had gathered from his article.

Re: I spent the last 15 years trying to become an American and failed

#584

Post by davidf18 »

Last I checked, there are a lot of unemployed lawyers, including grads from Ivy League Law schools. So why should someone from another country be employed law job (as opposed to some esoteric field of science where there simply is nobody to do the job) when there are Americans that are searching for jobs?

Instead of choosing a profession like law where there is a surplus of lawyers, he should have chosen a job like nursing where there is a shortage and then he could have been a US citizen.

Simply baffling to me that this guy chooses a career like law where there is a surplus of Americans looking for jobs instead of a career like nursing where there is a shortage and then he complains!

Re: I spent the last 15 years trying to become an American and failed

#585

Post by random_2azkXJ »

developer1 wrote: post #505
log0 wrote: post #433

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Just to clarify in case people still have the impression that Canada is good for immigration: Maybe Canada is better than America for immigration, the experience is getting worse. After the new immigration minister came up in July 2013, the government has changed policies to make immigration slow and the path to citizenship much harder. 1) A Labour Market Opinion (LMO), which is required before a work visa, itself us…

Strangely with Canada, I think it depends on where within the country you immigrate to. As a native Canadian from the prairies who moved to Montreal 10 years ago, I have met and worked with so many immigrants here that I now believe I know more of them in Montreal than I do native Canadians. It makes for an extremely interesting cultural mix. Apparently Quebec makes it much easier for citizens from a select list of c…

Moldovan (from Cahul) here. Many of my friends emigrated in Canada. Good friends, which I miss. While I appreciate your good impression of us, I don't share your wish for more of us going there. Although I'm somewhat content for those finding a better life than it could have been here, I'm not content with loosing our best and brightest among us, and thus not so content about Canada facilitating this brain drain in any way. In the end, although I'm fully aware what the subject of general discussion is (i.e. decrying the immigration hurdles), I have to say that for us who chose not to emigrate the changes in Canada's immigration policies comes as a good thing.

Re: I spent the last 15 years trying to become an American and failed

#586

Post by protomyth »

winter_blue wrote: post #579
protomyth wrote: post #566

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> This exists already. It's called "F-1 OPT". By all accounts, it doesn't work worth a crud in its current form. > That's what the H1B is. My friends on H1B's couldn't switch jobs freely. H1B transfers are just trading indentured servants and not a good thing for freedom of the person. > Also your pining for work visas to be "abolished" without offering a meaningful alternative is equivalent to pining for no skilled…

> By all accounts, it doesn't work worth a crud in its current form. You insist that F-1 OPT "doesn't work", but you the fail to give the slightest explanation as to why. OPT allows students to work a certain amount of time after they graduate, and most students cherish being allowed to do so. After OPT expires, they have to go through the H1B lottery. You can start a startup (i.e. be self-employed) on OPT, so it's a…

> You insist that F-1 OPT "doesn't work", but you the fail to give the slightest explanation as to why.

Other folks in this thread have pointed out it doesn't work

> Ask them why.

Because they need a sponsor to switch - that is not freely - and as you say it "costs a company at most $4000" which is not free.

Re: I spent the last 15 years trying to become an American and failed

#587

Post by jhhn »

Forget the immigration laws.... It's impossible to live legally in US as skilled worker or anything like this. I know a lot of people who went there, lived as illegals without graduation or any kind of specialization for a long time and now they have green card or citizenship. But I also know two guys who had H1B or academic visas, the only one who is still there got married, to other one had to come back.

Re: I spent the last 15 years trying to become an American and failed

#588

Post by IkmoIkmo »

danielweber wrote: post #179
Nadya wrote: post #139

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>It is not unreasonable for people to want to preserve culture. It has sentimental and historical value, but I don't think it's particularly important. We can argue cultural identity, but that's only important so long as there are various cultures. In a monoculture world, the idea of cultural identity would be a lost concept. Cultural anthropology, which while highly interesting and informative of human relations, is…

The reason people want to move to the US is the US's culture. The people share a wide agreement for rule of law, want to resolve issues through the political process, can usually be shamed into supporting freedom of speech, and don't want to kill their neighbors for having the wrong religion. It's not something magical about the soil that makes people want to move to the US. It's the culture. The more people that can…

Who have you been talking to?

Why do you think North Africans move to Europe and South Americans move to the US? Because it's the closest country with the best economic opportunities.

Economic immigration is huge. Cultural immigration is tiny.

In fact American culture is the joke of the world (its media can be consumed from wherever and is quite popular, but its values and policies on things like health care, sexual education, religion, crime etc are mocked by more than a few modern economies) and its institutions (e.g. ensuring freedom of speech, freedom of the press, gender equality, life expectancy, racism, gay rights) usually don't find themselves ranked among the top 20, let alone top 10 of countries.

In fact, it's one of the main reasons I wouldn't want to move to the US. I'm in the Netherlands, my partner is American, we could move anytime. But I much prefer the politics, institutions and culture here. (and it's far from perfect here).

I mean you write 'share a wide agreement for rule of law, want to resolve issues through the political process, can usually be shamed into supporting freedom of speech, and don't want to kill their neighbors for having the wrong religion' as if the US is unique in this regard. You write it as if the poorest people on the planet simply want to move to a country that 'doesn't kill its neighbours for having the right religion', as if this is the nr 1 thing on their mind, if only they could move to such a country! That's ridiculous, as opposed to wanting to move to the US for economic opportunities to get a decent standard of life for them and their family.

Re: I spent the last 15 years trying to become an American and failed

#589

Post by ayushgta »

ayushgta wrote: post #496

Its a slow evening and I was curious about how many times people mentioned different places (countries) in the comments to this post. So I ran the Stanford (Named Entity) Analyzer on the copy of the comments so far. Here is what I got so far (a gist is here: https://gist.github.com/ayush/6efe681ba968123605fd ): US 108 Canada 42 America 42 U.S. 25 Zealand 20 Europe 18 NZ 17 Japan 16 China 13 France 12 India 11 UK 10 U…

Here is an update on this US 132 Canada 49 America 46 U.S. 32 New 23 Europe 23 Japan 20 Zealand 20 NZ 18 Australia 17 China 16 USA 15 India 13 France 13 UK 12 EU 10 Germany 9 Switzerland 9 Netherlands 9 United 7 Haiti 7 Mexico 7 us 6 States 5 South 5 Brazil 5 Auckland 5 Korea 5 Asia 5 Britain 4 Amsterdam 4 Spain 4 area 4 Italy 4 York 4 china 4 California 3 Pakistan 3 Ireland 3 Norway 3 Denmark 3 U.S 3 Bay 3 bay 2 Turkey 2 London 2 Nigeria 2 Croatia 2 Samoa 2 Israel 2 Montreal 2 Schleswig-Holstein 2 Colombia 2 Honduras 2 Portugal 1 america 1 Western 1 Francisco 1 Vatican 1 devouredSouth 1 Seattle 1 17 1 18 1 Africa 1 Hollywood 1 Saudi 1 Tesla 1 U.S.A. 1 S. 1 Amazon 1 Yemen 1 south 1 Adelaide 1 Thailand 1 Amsterdan 1 btw 1 the 1 States7 1 GOSPLAN 1 kameez 1 Usano 1 Arabia 1 North 1 new 1 Berlin 1 Moldova 1 U.S.Another 1 City 1 Texas 1 Oregon 1 San 1 Afghanistan 1 shalwar 1 Manila 1 Russia 1 Rotterdam 1 PERM 1 Numbeo 1 US.I 1 Philippines 1 Quebec 1 StatesFolks 1 earth 1

Re: I spent the last 15 years trying to become an American and failed

#590

Post by ashwinaj »

jacques_chester wrote: post #534
ashwinaj wrote: post #402

As a foreigner (including myself) the OP should have realized what's required to stay in the US beyond the H1B. In his case, it was applying for the green card lottery and employment based green card. Since he is a citizen of NZ, if he had applied for an employment based green card, he would've obtained it in less than 2 years. This might sound harsh, but there is no point complaining about the immigration system whi…

If you read further, you'll see that his employers refused to sponsor him for an H1B. He did in fact go for another job, which has fallen through. And so he must leave the country.

Well he only mentions that the higher ups wouldn't sponsor the employment based green card. The only thing he mentions about H1B is that it is renewable only once for 3 years. Where do you see that his H1B wasn't being sponsored? He would've being working on an H1B anyway.
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