My company has a H-1B guy that travelled home to India a few months ago and since then can't come back because the next date he can get with the US embassy is next year. Seems he may get stuck even longer...
I am to some degree on board with keeping a closer eye on immigration, but the way the current administration does it feels intentionally cruel. The guy at my company has a house, wife, and kids in the US; his visa is perfectly legal, so it seems it would make sense to process these people quickly. But instead, he is now in some limbo. Same for ICE. Clamping down on illegal immigration makes sense, but it doesn't make sense for ICE to behave like some unaccountable secret police that hires the biggest assholes they can find who can then do whatever they want.
I'm an American that lives abroad. I have first-hand experience how other countries treat 'immigrants'. H1B is a temporary non-immigrant visa.
I could never imagine myself buying a home in a country where I don't have permanent access to that real estate. I am not opposed to voting to prevent non-PRs from owning real estate in order to keep housing prices lower for residents and prevent non-immigrants from shooting themselves in the foot.
As I live abroad in temporary status, I keep one foot back home (USA) and am extremely mindful of the risks of needing to close up shop and move.
If you want an economic perspective, consider reading Warren Buffet's "America’s growing trade deficit is selling the nation out from under us" article [0].
I think one of the fundamental problem with h1b is that it is labeled as "non-immigrant" whereas for all practical purposes it is really an immigrant visa. Why would a person who is supposedly having rare skills come to a country and spend their best years here without reasonable guarantee of permanency? People buy homes because it is a reasonable belief that they are going to be living here permanently and it has historically been true.
In any case I don't see the point you are making. Should America be treating immigrants poorly because whichever country you're in makes you slightly uncomfortable to buy a home there? It's not an excuse for all this pain and cruelty. America should hold itself to higher standards.
There is a very common pattern of people who go to work to some other, richer country for a set period of time with the sole purpose of making enough money to achieve an objective back home (provide for family, buy a house, retire, etc). I don't know how common this is between H-1B applicants, but it's extremely common in the EU for example.
in the EU there is no need for any visa (within member states) and essentially it's a desired feature of the EU.
Another point is that speaking the local language in a richer country of the EU is less likely than speaking English (with English being official only in Ireland and Malta), so it's harder to settle - esp. with kids and school.
It used to be common in the US too. My great-grandfather, for instance, planned to go to the US and work for five years to afford a farm back home. He had earned enough in three (and also contracted tuberculosis, and also the elderly couple whose farm he had agreed to buy weren't ready to sell yet, so he invested the money in bank shares, but the bank was fraudulent and went under...)
> Why would a person who is supposedly having rare skills come to a country and spend their best years here without reasonable guarantee of permanency?
I agree with your overall point but the answer here is money. The earning potential in the US vs. e.g. India is drastic.
I think that in general, expecting a 'career for life' with one company, as was common in the 1950s, is a bit naive today. Companies change, needs change, people change, just because you like the job now doesn't mean you will in ten years. To give a tech industry example, right now you could be working for a cool startup, in a few years the startup gets acquired by a large tech company, they change the management style, it's not fun anymore. Like imagine you got hired at Github around 2010, would you definitely still be there today? Or even in 2020?
Also, you have plenty of people who will have career plans like "work in finance in NYC for 5-10 years, amass a fat pile of cash, and retire to a small farm in the middle of nowhere". If I were living in China or India, I might see "spending 5-10 years in the US earning large piles of money and returning to my homeland to retire and live a life of leisure" as a valid career path.
It's not really money. Frankly, no 20 year old thinks that much about money. They do things that they like, whether that is going to school, working at a job, or starting up. And you don't know about the broken immigration system from the outside. The reason this problem is unique to India is due to country caps/DEI which prevents people from India on H-1B from getting a green card.
I disagree that no 20 year old thinks that much about money.
If you're lucky enough to have had rich enough parents to not have to worry about money too much, yes, you'll probably optimize for doing things you enjoy, but people who spend a lot of their younger years with money issues will sometimes obsess about it and really focus their lives around 'getting rich'.
I've noticed have similar phenomena with people who are deprived of certain important needs in their youth - people who are starved of a certain type of parental affection overcompensating by orienting their lives around getting more of it (eg women with daddy issues who are very promiscuous), people who feel disrespected and downtrodden who become obsessed with social status, people who get bullied and get into martial arts...
If you've ever read Gone With The Wind, there's a line where Scarlett O'Hara says "with God as my witness, I'll never go hungry again". I suspect that many people who have similar experiences will react by orienting their lives in a similar manner. "I was deprived of something important, so I will react by over-indexing on that important thing I was deprived of, to avoid the future pain of being again deprived of it".
* If you're lucky enough to have had rich enough parents to not have to worry about money too much, yes, you'll probably optimize for doing things you enjoy, but people who spend a lot of their younger years with money issues will sometimes obsess about it and really focus their lives around 'getting rich'.*
I think you’re in the right ballpark, and I have seen it play out exactly that. However, I think it is even more common for rich kids to obsess about getting richer.
In my experience, as long as their needs are being met, most people get used to whatever lifestyle they are raised in, and stick with it. if they grew up in a family that chases wealth, and equates income with self worth, then they tend to keep doing that.
> Why would a person who is supposedly having rare skills come to a country and spend their best years here without reasonable guarantee of permanency?
For the same reason I temporarily resided elsewhere: An opportunity to expand my horizons, experience another culture, and oh yeah... the money. In fact, through much of history it was common for skilled workers to go abroad and bring skills home, this was how industry got kickstarted in many places and there were even various formal programs for this. This is even the case for skilled labor that doesn't qualify for an H1-B visa. It's commonplace for aspiring chefs to work in kitchens around the world under the tutelage of well-regarded chefs to learn from them and then apply the same techniques and operating models to their own restaurant at home.
You are mentally applying reasoning that assumes permanency to a situation that explicitly says it doesn't include permanency.
> I think one of the fundamental problem with h1b is that it is labeled as "non-immigrant"
I'm curious as a non-American - labelled by who? People who want to talk tough on immigration but benefit from H1Bs in their companies? Or the system itself in some way?
i think people are missing here that it is non immigrant because it’s temporary. but it is dual intent so you can intend to become an immigrant (permanent resident) on this visa. there are other nonimmigrant visas that are not dual intent such as B-1/B-2 or F-1. To get those visas you cannot have intent to immigrate.
It's a non-immigrant visa, because the law uses "immigrant" as a technical term that does not match the common usage. For international comparisons, it makes more sense to say that H-1B is an initial immigrant visa that grants you a temporary residence and work permit. Most countries expect you to immigrate and live several years as a temporary resident before you can apply for permanent residency.
My personal rule of thumb is that any non-citizen who becomes a tax resident due to hitting the six-month rule is an immigrant.
> I think one of the fundamental problem with h1b is that it is labeled as "non-immigrant" whereas for all practical purposes it is really an immigrant visa.
The fundamental problem is people spreading this lie. It has a path to permanent immigration, but it is a non immigrant visa, it is very clearly define and describe as such.
It is idiotic to build a life in a country where you only have a temporary visa. I've lived in 4 countries and I never assumed I would forever be allowed to stay in any of them.
The US do not owe a path to permanent residency to anyone.
Grew up in one for ~25 years, lived in 2 for roughly 1.5 years each, then moved to the fourth for the past ~15 years. Married with 2 children. What's your point?
I never even thought of buying a house or "build a permanent life" in a country before I was given permanent residency with no condition. And even then, I worked as fast as possible to get citizenship. When you are a guest in a country you don't assume they'll keep you around forever.
So you're claim of 4 countries isn't applicable to most people buying homes while on visa. Nobody on visa is buying a house in 1.5 years. People buy homes when they've been here for several years and have a permanent residency application in progress. So that's more like the last country where you've been.
Whole point of this thread is that it isn't unreasonable to have kids and family and a house and social life when you've lived somewhere for 10+ years. So any action on part of the government should at least give the space to get things in order or find alternatives. This is a fair and humane expectation.
Duration has nothing to do with it. One should not buy a house while on a temporary visa, period. You should not feel entitled to stay in a country just because you've been there X years on a temporary visa.
If someone gets permanent residency in a country I see no problem if they want to buy a house after 6 months, more power to them.
The abnormality is this idiotic 10+ years time that people are allowed to stay on a temporary visa. This is what needs to end. This is what makes people entitled - understandably I would even say. People are foolish, but I still blame the game, not the players.
The question isn't about entitlement at all. It's about decency. I agree, better to not allow people to stay too long on temporary status. But it was and is allowed today. So there are people who have been on temporary status for 15, even 20 years. Fully legally. If your policies require them to just leave one fine day without any recourse, it is not decent.
An example might be someone who is renting your house. If you allowed them to live in your house for 10 years, would you ask them to leave without notice or with just the minimum 1 month notice? Yes they are not entitled to anything more than what was in the contract but would you do that? I wouldn't. Most people I know would work with the tenant and give them more time to figure things out. And if all of this was done with that decency, I am fine with it.
"Decency" is subjective so I don't really see the point of debating it. The rules were 1) clear from the beginning when it comes to a status being temporary and 2) always potentially subject to change since countries change their policies all the time. To be honest, that's the only objective thing to look at.
This comment vaguely blames immigrants for not having an escape plan. Millions of people immigrate to the US through all the right mechanisms and follow all the laws and have every intention of staying forever and becoming citizens. Scaring their pants off is an unnecessarily hostile and unwelcoming act that is unbecoming of this country.
> in order to keep housing prices lower for residents
And where do they live? They rent. So this jacks up rents for everyone, not just for immigrants, but for any who cannot afford to buy.
Basically everything you say and also imply makes life worse for immigrants and better for wealthy residents. It even makes life worse for poor residents.
I know, pretty much everyone on HN is a self-selected group that's pretty high up on the privilege/luck/wealth scale.
I immigrated to Germany from the US in 2013. My employer handled basically everything--even hired a personal assistant to accompany me to the immigration office and help with finding housing, which is pretty competitive in a major German city.
Honestly, immigration for highly skilled tech people is a walk in the park compared to basically everyone else. I used the term privileged because it's accurate--and I daresay it was a tad bit easier being white, having an advanced degree in tech, and even having some German roots. My experience was absolutely not what other people immigrating to Germany face, as they come from all over the place, there are far fewer slots, and there's a host of soft discrimination that even Eastern Europeans face trying to come to Germany. Like everywhere, there's xenophobia and isolationism, mistrust, and blame. Literally the exact same arguments, finger-pointing, suspicion. And that didn't fall on me.
I moved back to the US and handled the backend of that process, which honestly isn't too bad, but it was so much harder to deal with than one would expect--and that was just leaving. I have a bit of German language skills but legal German is a whole other matter.
When I read OP's comment it raised my hackles because it just sounds incredibly tone deaf. Lots of people want to come to America, and it isn't easy, even doing it right. Telling them they need to be prepared to get kicked out at the drop of a hat is a shitty welcome.
If we want to have reasonable controls on immigration and a better policy, I'm all for it, but let's focus on things that would work without screwing people over and treating them like subhuman garbage like this administration has. Limit the number of visas, handle visa overstays better. A ham-fisted, incompetent over-correction that has untrained meatheads shooting US citizens in the streets with no consequence isn't it.
I don't have a lot of patience for anyone carrying water for this administration. Not a thimble-full. If you think you have nuanced, smart-sounding take on immigration but is just victim-blaming, then it deserves to be challenged. I haven't got time for the leading edge of the Overton-window people who just can't confront their deep anti-immigrant biases and provide cover for the tragic and cruel things that are going down as we speak.
I have never had a silver spoon expat package. When I live abroad, I DIY: navigating immigration processes without employer or legal assistance.
I am extremely mindful that the visa that I am using is temporary. Perhaps as a white person in Asia, I'm reminded daily that I am a guest and that I don't accidentally fall into a mindset that misaligns with my visa status.
Its insane the hoops that I have to jump through that American Immigrants don't. For example, this week my landlord cut off my water and ended my lease due to me failing register an overnight guest with the local government. [0]
In the USA, its very expensive to find people that overstay, but in Vietnam b/c the government tracks everyone, they know exactly where you sleep every night.
I know that: "just because you have it bad, doesn't mean we have to have it bad." but the US system is much much more kind than any country I have lived in.
In the USA, we pay you to leave. In Thailand or Vietnam, they can toss you in jail if you can't pay the overstay fine.
The US economy provides a lot more resources for immigrants. In Vietnam, a 'good' salary is $850usd/mo. The lawyer I spoke to about assisting me said her hourly rate is $300/mo...
[0] - there is more to the story, for brevity ill just leave it short.
There are arguments from the other side too. Many H1B folks do keep one foot back in the country they are from. But then a lot of backlash on specifically Indian folks for sending most of their salary back home. They know that this is transient state, many of them have rented housing, but still these visas are not like weekly visas, they are for 3 years, people would build somewhat of a life in that time and uprooting them instantly is inhumane indeed.
I don't have opinions about them sending their salary back home. Obviously its better for the USA if the money stayed in the USA, but "earning money in one locality and spending it another" is really really really situation, even in the USA.
American Police officers are famous for not actually living in the cities they work in.
In each country I have lived in, I was a guest. With that knowledge, I carefully designed my life so uprooting would not be a painful inhumane process.
If you throw a party and a guest refuses to leave, you wouldn't declare forcing them to leave your home in-humane.
I don't really like the concept of "guests" being applied to people living somewhere for years, working, paying taxes, making families and friends, sending children to school and so on. I think it would be more humane if this concept was minimized, and instead the concept of "no taxation without representation" was applied. Fast track people as much as possible. Maybe one year as a voiceless "guest" is okay for a human being, but not more than that.
> If you throw a party and a guest refuses to leave
Show me where the govt has actually revoked their visa? Instead, because they cannot cancel the visa legally they are trying to create as much pain as possible for these visa holders hoping that some will give up and leave.
A siblings commenter stated this opinion much more persuasively for me. When these people arrive here, they are absolutely guests. It's incontrovertible that they are guests. Theres no debate.
However, time is important and after a certain amount of time or perhaps even connection made to the community, a person does move from guest to neighbor.
> When these people arrive here, they are absolutely guests. It's incontrovertible that they are guests. Theres no debate.
Yes there is. They are a huge reason our economy is as good as it is.
When a player comes to a team from another as a result of a trade, is he a guest or is he someone people look up to? It depends on what he brings to the table right? Most of the immigrants we talk about here, high skilled tech workers, are bringing more to the table than the average American
Who's angry about how people are spending their already-taxed income? Is that really a thing? Is it sincere or just racism masked as "think of the economy"? (Honest question, Not American. Don't live there, news to me).
The big beautiful bill included a 1% foreign remittance tax for outbound international transfers funded using physical cash, money orders, and cashier's checks.
Which notably, doesn’t affect money transfers in general, just ways that poor people transfer money, so the concern as stated is not in good faith at all, but rather a way to further punish migrant workers, primarily Mexicans, and is absolutely racial animosity.
People on HN are not a special elect subset of the population, except perhaps around specific HN-adjacent topics (engineering, VC, computer science, maths, etc.)
Why would you think a random person on HN is less prone to talking out of their ass than a random person in the CS/engineering/VC world? Than a random person selected from the population of the world?
A random person on HN is more likely to be or personally know someone who is on H1B and familiar with the circumstances, compared to, let's say, someone in astronautical engineering.
Or let me put it in plain English: an HN reader is more likely to have a Chinese/Indian friend/colleague on H1B, and if they ever discussed anything outside work, chances are that these topics come up, and they get exposed to more information in the area. If you are actually interested in immigration topics, you'd probably learn a few facts there. At least between people on visa, these topics get discussed all the time.
I understand that not everyone is based in US, they may not be in such a situation, or their conversations never reach these topics. But I would think they'd shut up instead of giving their opinions. That's called basic courtesy.
I think, at least historically, the crowd here has been heavily based in the bay area and the odds that they've worked in tech alongside other people on visas would be high. So it would lead one to believe that people have at least some understanding of how things work. I say historically because like most social networks, this site has also expanded to become more of an x.com or reddit style global venue, so that in-group assumption isn't true anymore.
If I show up in China (or the USA) on a tourist visa with the plans to pursue a marriage and permanent residency, does that mean I get to backdate my permanent residency to the tourist visa because I’m able to pursue a marriage (PR)?
Can a nonimmigrant in H-1B or L-1 status intend to immigrate permanently to the U.S.?
Nonimmigrants in H-1B or L-1 status can be the beneficiary of an immigrant visa petition, apply for adjustment of status, or take other steps toward Lawful
Permanent Resident status without affecting their status. This is known as "dual intent" and has been recognized in immigration law since passage of the
Immigration Act of 1990. During the time that the application for LPR status is pending, a nonimmigrant in valid H-1B or L-1 status may travel on his or her
visa rather than obtaining advance parole or requesting other advance permission from USCIS to return to the U.S.
I don’t understand the relevance. No one is using a tourist visa in this scenario and a tourist visa definitely isn’t dual intent in the way an H1B is.
Not sure what you're trying to say regarding back-dating. I think what you're missing is that long term holders of H1Bs universally have an approved PR or at least a pending one. That's the basis for extending it past the usual temporary limit. They need to stay on the work visa (with its limitations) until the immigrant visa becomes available (different from approval).
>seeking permanent residence on a tourist visa is not allowed, under most conditions.
In the US, it's allowed under your stated conditions. Immediate relatives of US citizens can generally adjust status to PR from any status (including tourist visa/visa waiver) or no status. Although if your underlying status expires you could be temporarily detained on a discretionary basis.
That said, it's better to pursue a K1 if you plan to get married shortly after arriving. It's very unlikely you will be granted a tourist visa if you tell the truth in the interview that you're engaged to someone in the US with immediate plans to marry.
H1-B is a dual intent visa, which means that, while technically a non-immigrant visa, one can apply for an immigrant visa (aka Green Card) while on it.
Because there are per-country yearly limits for immigrant visas, some countries have insanely long wait times. If you’ve applied for a Green Card, you can renew an H1-B visa indefinitely until the Green Card is approved. Realistically for someone from India, that wait time can be decades long. Are you saying someone that has lived in the US for over a decade, may have kids born here, may have lived the majority of their adult life here, should not try to live a normal life and buy a house and settle down?
I went through the whole immigration process from H1-B to citizenship. In general I agree with your mentality, and I did not consider buying a house until I got my Green Card. But I am not Indian and it took me 6 years.
It was not by law temporary, it was by law indefinitely renewable. You just had to hold a job that'll sponsor you. How is that materially different from any "normal" person who takes a 30 year mortgage with no guarantee that they will stay employed that long? Hell, the vast majority of H1Bs have much greater job security than the average home buyer anyway.
Again change the law if you want. Give a heads up. Or dont. Nothing the current government does to home owning H1Bs should be rank ordered anywhere but to the bottom quartile of the greatest injustices being doled out.
Sorry but does that word ring any bells? Is there any nation where natives have to "renew" their native-ness acceptance from the state on a n-yearly basis? This is intellectually dishonest imo.
(a) The WSJ article is talking about "immigrant visas" a.k.a. green cards, not H1-Bs.
(b) Even if we are talking about H1-Bs, it takes someone in India 10-15 years of waiting in line to get a green card. If someone were to buy a house in the interim, it doesn't seem so irrational to me.
Its easy to blame the victim and say they should have known.
(a) I responded to OP's comment about H1-Bs, not the article itself. Even then, presumably, they paused processing new visa and the people that have already obtained them may continue to stay. If they fail to renew GC during this time, I agree that is a dark issue.
(b) If I enter China on a temporary work permit visa, with a 15 year plan to obtain Chinese citizenship, no one will have sympathy for me if that plan is interrupted by legal, political, economic changes. Since I full well knew my current status and the risks of failing to obtain Chinese citizenship.
Just because there is a possibility in the distant future for permanence, doesn't mean you can safely backdate it to today.
> If I enter China on a temporary work permit visa, with a 15 year plan to obtain Chinese citizenship, no one will have sympathy for me if that plan is interrupted
I would have sympathy for you if it was interrupted by suddenly changing the requirements through no action of your own.
Like, if you commit a crime, are a belligerent drunk, or whatever and they don't renew your visa over that, I have no sympathy.
If you're unable to secure employment for an extended period of time, and they don't renew your visa, I also have less sympathy since that's part of the bargain you knew going in.
If you play by the rules, but they reject a visa renewal for a reason like "we have too many immigrants from $x country, so we're rejecting y% of renewals" , well that's legally within the government's rights to do, but I'll have sympathy for you and think that you're morally in the right and China's failing its duty to its foreign residents.
Likewise, this US one is a case of capricious rejection, the US government is not holding up its end of the deal you both thought you were agreeing to. Like, the deal with a work visa, even if it's not permanent, is "if you follow the rules and keep good steady employment, you can live here, but yes it's conditional on the work thing".
I have sympathy for this hypothetical you, and also I have sympathy for those holding american visas who are impacted.
When I was in the US as a student (F1 Visa) that is why I decided to go back home instead of trying to optain an H1B. It was just too risky for too long. I did not want to live a life where I had to expect to leave the next day. Besides, it was right at the beginning when Trump won the first time.
i think your problem is you havent also experienced the american immigration system to properly compare
also h1b is “non immigrant” but it is dual intent. this means it is perfectly legal to seek an immigrant (ie green card) visa. again, you have no idea what youre talking about
Immigration is a privilege, no more unfair than all of capitalism. If a country decides things are x or y levels hard to immigrate thats great.
The problem is the moving of goal posts. For decades, h1b (which is an immigrant visa) was a stable path to immigrate to America. People see that, and there was an implicit promise made there. If the US wants to decide not to continue with this practice that is fully fair. Just make up the rules clearly and give people a heads up. Is that too much to ask?
They are intentionally cruel. Its the point. They aren't even trying to hide it. The posts on official Whitehouse X account are borderline gleeful on topics of deportation and immigration. I'm in dis-belief at times.
This is the issue with low trust society. Consulting companies and H1B have abused things so much, people don't show any empathy even for genuine candidate.
A really good point and it echoes exactly how I feel. I want people to feel stable, have visas, etc. I understand there are truly irreplaceable workers out there and I want to have empathy for their situation.
Yet, I feel my apathy growing. I know logically it is not the person seeking a better life’s fault. But the system is broken and the only winners seem to be Fortune 500 companies.
An H-1B is a temporary non-immigrant visa. You're not supposed to rely on it to build a life in the US with no backup plan; that was never the intent of the law. However, successive administrations ignored the intent of the law, for so long that people began to rely on assurances that the law never promised. Now that the law is getting applied properly, those people are facing the consequences. It sucks for them, but continuing to not have rule of law would suck worse for all of us
H1B is explicitly a dual intent visa. You are allowed to pursue a green card while in the country on an H1B. It has been an accepted, valid path for a very long time now. If the government wishes to change that of course they can. But the humane approach would be to let those who have already started the process finish it.
I don't really think anyone is disputing that the government is able to change their approach to immigration (though it's telling they're doing it by just freezing appointments rather than passing a law), but that you can make changes to immigration law in a way that respects immigrants as human beings. The government is just choosing not to.
Responding to "it's cruel" with "they're allowed to do it" is kind of sidestepping the core of the complaint.
> The doctrine of H-1B dual intent has the following legal bases:
> Unlike many nonimmigrant categories, I.N.A. § 101(a)(15)(H)(i) contains no requirement of proving there is a "residence in a foreign country which he has no intention of abandoning;"
> The H category is specifically excluded from the I.N.A. § 214(b)'s presumption of immigrant intent;
You say:
> You're not supposed to rely on it to build a life in the US with no backup plan
when in fact the visa very specifically allows it (as per the "no intention of abandoning"). People arriving in the US on an H1B visa with immigrant intent are absolutely following the law. Is it a good idea? Much more debatable. But they're not acting without precedent nor without specific legal text allowing it.
The "with no backup plan" is load-bearing*. You can pursue citizenship while on an H-1B, but there has never been a promise that the government will say yes.
*argh, why do LLMs have to ruin perfectly good words
brother H-1Bs are transparently vectors for foreign educated workers to come to the US to build lives and eventually get a green card, so the US doesn't have to actually build a functional education system.
no one talented will come pay taxes and make your nice tech companies carry the S&P500 and in turn, everyone's retirement funds, if you treat them like hogs
It is always possible to make rules stricter for the new applicants. While there was some complaints with visa price hikes, they were for new visas so it was okay. Denying existing legal visa holders entry or time to wrap things up doesn't seem bad to you? These are not criminals per say.
>successive administrations ignored the intent of the law, for so long that people began to rely on assurances that the law never promised. Now that the law is getting applied properly, those people are facing the consequences.
No, there's nothing proper about it and it has nothing to do with the merits of the visas in question. There is no law saying that the state department should make travel impractical for people USCIS has already decided can live/work in the US. The reverse is much more likely. They want to push people off of legally obtained visas by causing unreasonable delays.
H1B is temporary but you can have immigrant intent. It can be extended indefinitely with an approved green card application. Your employer is going to pursue that if you're on h1b and they want to keep you around. Many if not most h1b holders are in that category and will get a green card eventually. They are simply waiting for that to be available due to quotas based on their qualifications and birthplace.
Same for ICE. Clamping down on illegal immigration makes sense, but it doesn't make sense for ICE to behave like some unaccountable secret police that hires the biggest assholes they can find who can then do whatever they want.
To you.
But the existence of a secret police has a lot of upsides if you plan to not leave office.
> The guy at my company has a house, wife, and kids in the US;
I agree that this is cruel, but I also think that many people coming to the US on an H1-B visa aren't taking to heart the very clear terms of that visa. An H1-B is a /nonimmigrant/ /temporary/ work visa. It does allow you to pursue a green card via the PERM process, however until your receive your PERM status you reside in the US at the mercy of the government only. Buying a house on an H1-B visa, for instance, seems like an exceptionally foolhardy idea.
As someone who once had temporary residency in another country, I did not buy real estate even though I was considering seeking permanent residency, because it was obvious that until I had permanent residency granted that I could be removed at any time and it was perfectly legal, within their rights, and aligned to the terms of my visa.
So you agree with the person you're responding to, but you're attacking them for stating it with less melodrama than you would prefer? What a useless comment.
OP is right. There are too many people here in the comments who act surprised although it has been very clear what the Trump administration is trying to do. The cruelty is the point and they are not even trying to hide it.
You're getting downvoted but this is literally true.
> According to The Atlantic, while helping Trump prepare for a debate in 2024, Miller got into an argument with an ally on immigration. Trump reportedly said, "Stephen... if you had it your way, everyone would look exactly like you", to which Miller replied "That’s correct". In another incident reported by The New York Times, Trump told a campaign meeting that Miller only wanted 100 million people who looked like him to live in the United States.
That’s what my company is doing. Instead of hiring more people in the US they are hiring almost exclusively in other countries. The tariffs seem to be backfiring in a similar way. More production is moved outside the US to avoid the tariffs.
> doesn't make sense for ICE to behave like some unaccountable secret police that hires the biggest assholes they can find who can then do whatever they want
ICE is run by the same people today as it was under Obama. No one had a problem with Deporter-in-Chief Obama. Any notion that ICE is "some unaccountable secret police" is unsubstantiated nonsense.
Sure, he should just have lived as a slave and not socialize with anyone until he left.
H1Bs have been used as a path to citizenship for a long time. You can't just change the rules like that without destroying so many lives in a senseless act of cruelty. But the cruelty is the point.
Is it not cruel to Americans to replace them with said slave labor through legislation? The people who built this prosperous modern nation that so many people wish to flock to for a better life are just kicked to the curb -- talk about cruel.
* America was built by pioneers and colonists who tamed the wild continent and helped create the modern civilization we enjoy. They brought their experience and culture from the Western civilization from which they were launched.
* There are Americans currently alive who are direct descendants of the pioneers and colonists who created this great nation who deserve to prosper from their ancestors' sacrifice(s)
* Resources (housing) and opportunities (jobs) are finite -- if Heritage Americans have to compete with the entire developing world for their birthright, there is a non-zero chance they will be "kicked to the curb" so to speak.
Having the only appointment be a year or more out isn’t new. Anyone I knew wouldn’t take the risk of leaving the US if they didn’t have an appointment secured.
The pro maga crowd has learned to take a less obvious, but just as callous approach to commenting over the last 6 months. They are trying to subtly slide the overton window in their direction.
I am to some degree on board with keeping a closer eye on immigration, but the way the current administration does it feels intentionally cruel. The guy at my company has a house, wife, and kids in the US; his visa is perfectly legal, so it seems it would make sense to process these people quickly. But instead, he is now in some limbo. Same for ICE. Clamping down on illegal immigration makes sense, but it doesn't make sense for ICE to behave like some unaccountable secret police that hires the biggest assholes they can find who can then do whatever they want.