[sg47]

Now is the time to leave. 18 years in the US with a kid born here. I missed the boat in getting my priority date around the time when my friends were getting theirs (my company was laying off people in other departments and my application got audited). Didn't think it was a big deal at that time. Now, my friends are getting their citizenships and I'm still stuck on a visa. I'm at the whim of the Consul officer and the CBP officer every time I renew my visa or come back into the country. Heavily vested here assuming I'll get a green card but planning to apply for Canadian PR just in case. There's an easy way to game the system if one is in the right situation and is willing to risk it. Leave the country and work for the same company for a year as a manager. Come back on a L1 visa and boom you can apply in the EB-1 category and get your green card in a couple of years. I've quite a few friends who easily got their green cards working for TCS, Infosys, etc. Meanwhile, with a Masters degree and 16 years of experience, I'm at the mercy of immigration officers.

[klipt]

> 18 years in the US with a kid born here

If you wait long enough your US citizen kid can sponsor your green card as an "immediate relative" once they turn 18 :-)

The backlog for Indians and Chinese is truly ridiculous though.

[bobfrost]

18 years? That's scary.

I'm surprised at the amount of confidence you have in the USCIS that you might get a greed card. If you are still on a visa, I don't see how soon you believe you can get a green card in a reasonable amount of time. I'm not sure you can use the EB-1 category even with an L-1 - unless you're at a very high level in your company. Even for that category, the waitlist is currently about 5 years.

[sg47]

Well, I just don't think about it. Pay being very high makes up for it. My priority date is 2 years behind the current priority date for EB2 so I'm hoping for a miracle. I cannot leave because we are so entrenched here and have lots of friends we don't want to leave behind.

It doesn't have to be a L1. Even with a H1B, if you worked as a manager in India and come here with a manager title (even Project Manager), you can apply in EB1 as a multinational manager. It's a terrible loophole and one that's mercilessly exploited.

[kamaal]

>>Come back on a L1 visa and boom you can apply in the EB-1 category and get your green card in a couple of years.

Those days are gone now. You go into EB-1 only if you get into the US on L1-A. They don't give L1-A's easily these days. For starters you need to be in director level positions to even qualify for L1-A's. Even then the waiting period for India EB-1 itself is growing and stands at 5+ years now. And it will only increase.

>>I've quite a few friends who easily got their green cards working for TCS, Infosys, etc.

Put the saddle on the right horse. People who come in from those companies often work for <$70K an year. Most are poor blokes who survive on ramen, and giving haircuts to each other so that they can save $8.

The real deal is Cgnzt which even until recently filed L1-A's and EB-1's for thousands/lacs of people by cooking up documents. Often promoting some one with a BCom degree to a director, granting them a GC and then rolling back the promotion. Thousands to lacs have made it to GC and Passports this way. When I worked for a short time in the US, it was painful to see PhD students in Stanford struggle for little extra stay, while some one with a basic 2 year diploma land GCs in like an year. In fact even until recently the biggest incentive to work at Cgnzt was this.

https://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/business/india-business/...

8.4 lac Indians got citizenship only last year. 5.8 lac got green cards. This is basically abuse max.

Add this to manager's pets who routinely get their documents cooked to be Nobel Prize worthy talent and land GC's. Literally the wrongest possible people occupy the numbers these days. Add to this a large number of body shopping firms.

There are several top level doctors, lawyers and scientists who don't even get B1's.

In short we Indians bought this upon ourselves. Like everything else. We abuse things so much, so far and so blatantly it makes things impossible for the real people when they arrive at the scene.

I'm one of those people who got burned badly due to all these politics at every level. I have largely given up, you just need to get very lucky early life to win at these things. Or cheat shamelessly.

[triceratops]

> 8.4 lac Indians got citizenship only last year

That was the total number of citizenships granted last year. Indians were about 50k of that total - approximately 6%. That's from the article you linked.

[kamaal]

Oops, I stand corrected.

But the part about abuse still stands. Basically get married to an American, or be lucky to be a part of some one time abuse drive.

[rohit2412]

> In short we Indians bought this upon ourselves.

I was with you till here. No, we did not bring this to ourselves. The answer is that USA has dumb policies.

[refurb]

The reason for the backlog is the US is trying to get a diverse set of immigrants to the US. Any one country can’t get more than 5% of permanent visas in a given year.

If it wasn’t for that, 80% of people getting green cards would be Indian and Chinese.

[TheCoelacanth]

That's a pretty ridiculous policy when China and India are a third of the world's population.

[rewq4321]

Agreed. I'm Australian and was investigating my options for potentially moving to the US to start a company in the AI space, and there's so much friction that I ended up deciding to just stay here. I can't see how they think these policies are a good idea in the long term (or even short term, for that matter).

[kamaal]

>>The answer is that USA has dumb policies.

Oh well, yeah. That part is true to some extent. But I can only comment on things we have control on. And to some extent a system with some specific rules needs to be used the way it was intended. We can't exactly say, we have a right to do what we like(in this case, cheat) especially when these things work like resources in a common pool. I can absolutely understand if some thing like this happened less than a percent. But the moment you enter double digit percentages of abuse/fraud, you are just hurting every one else. Expecting the other party to just offer an infinite pool of resources to accomodate our doing just adds to the anti-immigrant sentiment that is going around. Please note there are also people from other countries here.

Beyond this. Every system needs to work with a degree of fairness and merit, immigration is same.

On the shorter run, I do see someone putting a fix to these things and making things harder for every one else just to stop this abuse. On the longer I can see there will be increased pressure from economic centers all over the world, because every one is fighting for talent concentration at one place. This will lead to more liberal immigration policies.

And contrary to what our American friends believe it's hard to believe they will be the only country with economic centers attractive to everyone. Paris, London and Berlin have a growing tech scene. Then there's also Singapore and Dubai. Canada is another destination.

Beyond this the Chinese Bay Area(https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Guangdong-Hong_Kong-Macau_Grea...) - Guangdong-Hong Kong-Macau Greater Bay Area. Seems to be especially designed to take on Western Economic Centers. They are building state of the art infrastructure. Roads, Railways, affordable housing and top notch Airports. They'll be fighting for the talent pie, and with their demographics on the decline, attracting top notch foreign talent with be a Chinese government priority too. I don't expect them granting them citizenships. But liberal Dubai style 99 year visas on owning a home are possible. And a lot of the world talent will want to work there.

The way I see America will only eventually succumb to the pressure and might have to open up immigration again.

[just4tscomment]

An addendum: The consultancies (TCS, Infy, Accenture, IBM, Capgemini, Wipro etc.) are also to blame. They've kept salaries stagnant for over 15 years, particularly for fresh college graduates (yes, this is in part due to a glut).

They also offer employment abroad as a carrot to incentivize employees sticking with them for long periods of time in unfavorable conditions(Most co.s have high attrition rates - due to the low salaries). The companies also maintain a bond : you have to pay the company if you quit before completing 'x' years of service per contract. They withhold your experience certificate if you don't; a common requirement of any new company you hop ship to.

Most outsourced tech work is manual dreary labor. I've been on that side for 2 years.

[screye]

I hope the US immigration system stops being so meritocracy blind.

The abuse of the h1b and GC process by these coding/consultancy sweat shops is truly despicable. Every competent Indian I know, hates them. Every American seems to hate them.

They seem to have support from neither Democrats (for shit wages) nor Republicans (because most people here are immigrants). What is stopping them for getting their comeuppance.

Why not sanction them in particular ? If it is so blatant to the consumer, it should be fairly blatant for a Government auditor.

[coolplants]

> There's an easy way to game the system

Please stop subverting our laws, you’re making it worse for people who don’t break the law.

[sg47]

This is not illegal. It's just a different way to obtain a green card faster. By the way, I'm one of those people that's NOT gaming the system if there was any confusion. I've been waiting patiently for 9 years now. I'll have to wait for the foreseeable future or do something about this. Moving to Canada or back to India seems to be the only two options if I don't like waiting.

[coolplants]

Stop gaming our system, stop recommending others game our system.

[sg47]

I'm doing neither.

[ipnon]

Nothing he suggested was illegal.

[coolplants]

You’re not a lawyer. Are you defending gaming our immigration system?

[whack]

Are you a lawyer? What he suggested is about as "subversive" as using your 401k to lower your tax bill. The EB1-C program's explicit requirements are to work as a manager abroad, and that's exactly what the person above suggested.

[coolplants]

401K is not “gaming the system.” The IRS explicitly treats it specially for the purposes of allowing hardworking seniors to retire in dignity. The immigration law does not make explicit allowances for people to game it. If less people gamed the system, it would be more fair for the rest of us who do things the right way without manipulating.

[ipnon]

The original poster suggested applying for a different visa that has a lower wait time for green cards. What precisely about this proposition are you objecting to?