Indians in the Green Card backlog - how we can move forward
A little bit about me - I am originally from India. I moved to the US after high school and have an undergraduate degree from an Ivy League school, and a graduate degree in a specialized field. I am very grateful for the opportunities afforded to me in the US to get to the top of my field and build a fulfilling career. I became a permanent resident of Canada, and moved there this year. It is a great feeling to be a part of a liberal, welcoming, diverse country where I can finally belong and eventually gain citizenship.
Throughout my working career in the US, I have been on temporary work visas (OPT and H1B). I know more about US work visa laws than I ever thought I would. It saddens me when I see my fellow Indian origin brothers and sisters stress about their tenuous path to permanent residency built on top of a highly restrictive visa. I want to share my perspectives to help others in my situation move on with their lives clear eyed about the choices they are making.
Firstly, I want to clear some misconceptions about US immigration laws. Immigration laws do not HAVE to be objectively fair or just. Just as an example, the US has a quota for the total number is immigrants it is willing to admit every year (~1m). There are several millions more people around the year who would immigrate to the US if given a chance, and they may feel that this quota is unfair. There are others who may feel that this quota is too generous.
At one point, a consensus emerged in Congress around this number, and the quota became law.
The US is also free to apportion this quota in any way that it sees fit. Diversity visas? Great. Country caps disproportionate to population? Perfectly fine. All of these things are constitutional.
The H1B visa is a non immigrant temporary visa with no guaranteed path to permanent residency. While the US doesn’t ration h1b visas by country, it does cap employment based visas by country of origin. This has led to an excrutiating decades long backlog for Indians trying to convert their non immigrant h1b visas to a permanent immigration visa. I want to provide a sobering reality check to those who are waiting for some light at the end of the tunnel. Construe the lack of intent on Congress’ part to address this issue as the lack of an American consensus to grant you permanent residency at the moment.
So what can you do if you are not among the people America would like to be a part of their nation?
1. You have First Amendment rights to make a case to Congress and to the American people that their residency laws are unjustly excluding you (or) that including you would be beneficial to the American nation. It is the American people’s prerogative to change their laws if they are persuaded by your case. There is NO guarantee that you will succeed in this, and even if the laws do change to right any wrongs, it may be too late for you to benefit from them.
If you have decided that this is your route, the way you make your case is through stories. An example is the DREAMERs- the dreamers’ narrative is powerful. They were brought to this country when they were too young to decide by their parents and this is the only home they know. Most Americans are sympathetic to this narrative because it appeals to their humanity, they can put themselves in dreamers’ shoes and see their point of view.
Putting down immigrants who came to the US through other routes, or denigrating undocumented immigrants, are not winning narratives. Neither is wanting job security as a highly paid tech worker when Americans from all walks of life are going through suffering. Talk about your children who were raised here and know no other country and are at risk of aging out. Talk about Indian doctors who are saving American lives by putting themselves at risk. Persuade the American people to see your point of view and give you a chance to be one of them.
2. If you don’t want to be an American THAT badly, go to Canada or Australia or India or any other country that will have you and welcome you. I chose Canada for many reasons, and hope you do as well. We need smart people like you to build great companies and add to the richness of the culture here. Australia, India, Singapore or the UK may appeal to others. Now you may be a baller in Silicon Valley making bank, and you may say Canada? Australia? But... TC? In that case, #3 is for you
3. Sorry to put it bluntly but suck it up and deal with the terms of your H1B visa. Deal with travel bans, presidential tweets, a giant unending pile of immigration documents, visa dropboxes, visa extensions, RFEs and if you’re really unlucky, deportation. BUT, you’ll have TC worth bragging about on blind :)
TC - CAD $300K, YOE 10
#workvisa #h1b
comments
1. If you are a high TC individual in the bay and say you move back to India, you’d not make Silicon Valley money, but you’d still make a fuck ton. In fact if you compare the standard of living, you’re better off earning in India than Australia or Canada. You’d live like kings with an ability to literally hire a separate person to clean your house, do the dishes, cook the food, do the laundry, drive you around and do your groceries, EVERYDAY, and still have plenty of savings, while living in one of the more expensive neighborhoods.
2. You’ll have a shitty WLB if you go back and get another job, but if you already have that here, you shouldn’t worry about it. On the plus side, you’d have plenty of options to not go back to a job, and instead create something of your own, which you’d not have on a work visa while you wait for the GC.
3. You’ll give up the clean air, the easy access to nature and the awesome weather for a much different physical environment altogether. On the plus side, you’d gain quick access to friends and family, the food that you like, a strong support system, the festivals that you celebrate, and the culture you miss, a much better mental environment.
4. You’ll lose a lot of day to day luxuries, great roads, the ability to walk into Whole Foods and pick organic avocados and kombucha, the ability to order yoga mattresses on Amazon and have it arrive the next day etc. But you’d gain plenty of other necessities, like the ability to walk in into a doctor’s office pretty much any time you want to and get treated without bankrupting yourself or the ability to send you kids to a good school without having the need to buy a multimillion dollar house in a good neighborhood.
I could spend hours writing more, but you get the point. Me personally, if I have to move out of the bay, I’m going back to my own country. It’s not really worth it trying to live in a third country where you’re not welcome and where the benefits of being there aren’t that many.