These bills seek to remove the per country cap in employment based green card category making it free from discrimination on an applicant's country of birth. This is a much needed relief for many backlogged tech workers who have been working in USA, legally, for decades with absurd GC wait times like 150 years, all while proving year after year to visa officers their worth and value to America! It has been a contentious topic and many posts get flagged and disappear. I would just like to clear some popular misconceptions I see on blind and elsewhere on this topic. I base it only on facts NOT opinions and cite all my sources for your independent verification. Myth 1 "Wait times for all except Indians will become 10+ years." FALSE: True number of backlogged cases is unknown. But a number does come from a CATO post (cited below) that used a bunch of worst case estimates of 300k backlogged Indians assuming each applicant has 2+ dependents. It's a worst case estimate because most Indians have American kids (who don't need GC). It also assumes ZERO dropouts (untrue as thousands of Indians leave this broken system every year). The original source was really trying to highlight the plight of Indians stuck here. But EVEN SO their number of 632k backlogs / 140k GCs per year = 4.5years to clear backlog!!! The bill already has a transition phase of 3 years which means for 3 years the country caps are increased, NOT removed. The bill also has a DO-NO-HARM clause which means if you have something in progress you will see NO IMPACT. Still realistically future applicants could be looking at a delay of 1.5 years AFTER 4 years of enactment. Even so, 3 years of added delay runs **in parallel** with regular GC processing which itself takes 2 years anyway, so real added delay would be in MONTHS!, Definitely not in decades for future immigrants from all countries! (contrast that with current 150 year wait time for Indians in the queue without the bill)! MYTH 2. "US tech force will lose diversity" IMPOSSIBLE: - Employment category makes up a measly 10% of all green cards issued! (Cited below) - Indians the largest beneficiary make up ~1% of US population. Even with all backlog cleared, their percentage can barely scratch 2%! (Sources cited below) - These are existing people waiting in queue for decades, not newcomers so you can't destroy diversity with existing workforce. MYTH 3. "Bill encourages Indians and Chinese to flood the system" REALLY REALLY HARD: EB has merit based categories, multiple levels of scrutiny and more importantly forces employers to prove that local talent is unavailable for every new applicant. It is NOT like H1b where there is minimal scrutiny, no merit based categories and a pure lottery based allocation. Moreover with this bill people will get mobility, making it harder to justify new alien hires. The reason it is so easy for body shops and H1b abusers today is because the backlog means folks waiting cannot qualify to apply to these new positions. There is a very obvious side effect when folks move - TC goes up for ALL!! Sources: https://www.cato.org/blog/150-year-wait-indian-immigrants-advanced-degrees https://www.rpc.senate.gov/policy-papers/employment-based-immigration https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Indian_Americans ----------------------- TL,DR: S386/HR1044 CANNOT SCREW ANYONE!
Amen
Myth 0: the backlog is linear. FALSE! Once Indian knows there is GC giveaway by s386, there will be another 2 million Indians in the line during that 3 years. :) And pls don’t put Chinese in your post. They are against it.
That's point 3. But you are almost right - There could be another 2 million applicants! But that does not mean there will be 2 million more immigrants! Because you can't enter the country with a pending GC application. You need a visa like H1b which has a much lower cap. So yes they will all apply but you will see no more influx than what exists today. If anything the influx will be lower since fewer legitimate employers will need to get h1bs to begin with.
Also fight your "keep Chinese out of this" battle elsewhere. Every senator, news article and blog on this topic mention both countries because AS of today these two countrymen are the beneficiaries whether Chinese support it or not.
We all know what Indians did to flood the IT system with ICC companies transporting people from abroad. Right now the number waiting in the line is not exceedingly high (which is really high already) is because Indian people saw it took too long to get in the US through this option. If the bill gets passed, there will be tremendous amount of Indian people starting to apply for US working visa this way and flood the IT industry. It is IT industry being flooded first, and then all other high paid industries would be next. It will be an end for other ethnicities.
You are partially correct - they are gonna apply in hordes! But they ain't gonna get it!! Because really nothing changed on the H1b front (that's how people get here) If anything more H1b crackdowns and fewer immigrants!
@Linkedin, Iam against this bill but can you explain me what's the American ethnicity that you forsee the end of btw?
Bill encourage Indian and Chinese flood the system - Chinese are not flooding the system. Indian friend please stop buck us in. I know Indian vs ROW doesn’t look good, but we don’t want to fight with you
Er.. did you even realize that's the MYTH I am trying to bust?!
Can you read?
1. You’re not right. It’s easy to calculate. Current backlog is around 10 years. Indians get on average 70-75% of all h1s which leads you to about 600k people in backlog. You can easy multiple this by factor of 3 (wife plus one kid). So we’re looking for at least 1.5 million potential permanent residents. USCIS allocate only 120k visas every year for all eb categories, even if you get 100k it will take 12-15 years to clean up the backlog. 2. Yes, it will lose. I only see Indians in tech and it’s not because you’re great. Just because you’re cheaper. The whole bill is sponsored by big tech. 3. Yes, it encourages INDIANS to flood the system. Also this visa can be granted to any alien residing outside of the US. Eb visa has nothing to do with h1. It can be sponsored remotely thought the same process. Stop your propaganda.
Very well written. Thanks, OP. This was enlightening.
Glad to see another Indian owned
Everyone is a hypocrite.. people who show so much affection to illegal immigration and shower so much hatred on conservatives will shit on legal immigration one of the highest tax paying group! And people who want to build that wall and keep ranting come the right way get in line don’t even know how broken the line is! All those who are against removal of country cap I have a question for them - If you go to a movie theater to buy tickets or Disney world or Starbucks to get coffee and you are asked to stand in line based on your country of birth and are not allowed to go on another counter even though there is no line there because there aren’t any people from that country getting coffee would that be okay with you????? Next time imagine if you are made to stand in line based on your country of birth anywhere how ridiculous it is!!! Why should H1 be any different !
You should definitely check out John Oliver's piece https://youtu.be/tXqnRMU1fTs
Cause we’re not a movie theater, we’re the country. Our country - our rules. Don’t like it? You know what to do. Make India great again.
Who cares! Didn't even read the shit long post. US doesn't care about Indians working for them.
And I totally love your comment! They should not! No one should care about the country of the worker. You got the gist of the bill without reading!!
Awesome!! But, why is it only Indians who worry and post these 'shit long' posts? Not that I care but do some self introspection.
A simple logic. If this bill doesn’t benefit Indians why are they the only ones advocate for it? We want diversity here in the US. The country cap is there to ensure the people from other countries with smaller populations don’t get flooded out by a big pool of Indians already in the queue of the GC line. Not to mention that a high percentage of them are unqualified h1 workers bringing in through a loophole by those Indian IT consulting firms. How is this fair?
Then work on the loopholes. Many Indians will support that! Indians are most impacted by the consultancies abusing the system but don’t just put everyone in a single queue base on country of birth! That is ridiculous!
For the legitimate ones this bill is the only shred of hope that keeps Indians in America! Give them a better bill that has a chance and they will support it instead. Obviously what they can't do is accept that America is asking them to get out now and shut up! I mean c'mon!
Are you Indian?
Yes I am a backlogged Indian but my priority date is 2011, which means I am likely going to get my green card even if these bills do not pass!
Bill passes, you get your GC in a year or two. Bill fails, you wait another 10 years. You are the biggest beneficiary. That should be your disclosure.