[NovemberWhiskey]

As someone who apparently has formed a stance on immigration issues, it comes as a surprise to me that you haven't noticed the continuous pattern of using executive power to restrict both legal and illegal immigration activity during this administration.

[nocitrek]

I have noticed it, do not worry. I would gladly migrate to US. I am from Europe, highly educated and believe I can contribute to the economy of US. I wish your immigration could be merit based - instead of green card lottery (silly concept). Give me ability to migrate to US for 2 years as probation period. After those 2 years had elapsed, determine if I am overall positive for the economy, did I commit any serious crimes, do I have permanent place to live, etc...; and based on that, let me stay permanently in the country, until I get citizenship.

[NovemberWhiskey]

>I wish your immigration could be merit based - instead of green card lottery (silly concept)

The diversity lottery is the smallest category of immigrant visas ('green card') issued. The largest is family-based, followed by employment-based.

[hef19898]

So, you are anti-immigration, as long as it doesn't affect you personally?

[ra7]

Or probably anti-immigration to their own country, but would “gladly migrate” to US if it were convenient.

[hef19898]

Sounds like it. And being frustrated because it is not as easy as hoped for.

[oknaj]

Sorry, should've clarified more. Anti-immigration in the current way it is implemented in US, compared to Canada / Australia, etc...

[oblio]

Hi there, I think you logged into your other account by mistake, oknaj aka nocitrek.

[screye]

I don't get it, so you would actually immigrate and think it can be done in win-win manner but are anti-immigration ?

[chrchang523]

I'm guessing that they are, like much of the public, primarily against unrestricted low-skill immigration. (edit: it appears that they also object to some skilled-immigration restrictions present in the US and not present in Canada/Australia/etc.; I can certainly sympathize with that as well.) Probably for the same reason that, if one had the skills to have a good chance of being hired at a top tech company, one would want those companies to maintain a high hiring bar even though that makes it more difficult for them to get hired: it greatly increases the chance that, if they do get in the door, it's actually worthwhile.

Note that all the other major British settler colonies (Canada, Australia, you could also count NZ) switched to race-blind points-based systems decades ago, and since then have provided at least as much per capita opportunity to foreigners as the US has with much less internal political strife. The US is the corrupted outlier.

[oblio]

The US immigration problems are just virtue of having huge borders, especially land borders, with developing countries.

Canada, Australia, New Zealand are all quite far away from developing countries and access is much harder and much more expensive. Australia, which is somewhat close to Indonesia has adopted some... unsavory methods to mitigate this: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Australian_immigration_detenti...

So it's not purely the points based immigration system that differentiates between the 2 situations.

[chrchang523]

Yes, like most other countries, Australia does a reasonable job of enforcing its immigration laws. As you note, Australia actually isn't so geographically isolated that this is a trivial problem; and just like other forms of high-stakes law enforcement, some implementation details look unpleasant, especially when one ignores the downsides of the alternatives.

But Australia is ultimately near the top when it comes to how much sustainable opportunity it offers per capita to foreigners (and nonwhite foreigners in particular, despite past "White Australia" history, if you care about that). It is reasonable to try to do better, but that's pretty much impossible for the US until the people can again trust the government to adequately enforce whatever laws are ultimately decided on.

(I think Canada is the country in the best position to try to do significantly better today. And not coincidentally, it is a country I plausibly may emigrate to if things unravel further in the US.)

[oknaj]

I would gladly immigrate, but not with the current state of things. I do not want to come to US with H1B1 (or equivalent visa) where my employer owns me - deciding my faith.

[pandaman]

If more people were like you and stopped playing pretend immigration while coming in on very restricted temporary visas it would be much better for everyone, and themselves the most.

Unfortunately, it seems to be a very contested political statement to recognize the temporary and restrictive nature of their status to the point that I honestly believe that a significant number of them are unaware of the fact that their visas do not grant them a permanent status and there is no [legal] way to become an immigrant by staying in the country for a certain time in a non-immigrant status. Their only real hope to become actual immigrants is to find an employer who will sponsor an EB immigration or marry a citizen/permanent resident. Or wait for an amnesty, last of which happened in 1986.

One can, however, get the same EB immigrant visa abroad and come to the country as an immigrant (a lawful permanent resident) with very few restrictions compared to a citizen and with a clear path to citizenship.

[NovemberWhiskey]

That's notionally true, but completely impracticable.

First, the current numbers. More than 80% of all EB status is achieved by adjustment, rather than application for visa overseas. Why is this?

In order to be issued an EB visa in most categories, the job for which the candidate is being hired must have labor certification (aka PERM). This is (at minimum) a six to nine month process, extending up to a year and half if there is an audit of the company's application.

This contrasts with the labor condition application (LCA) for H-1B which takes a couple of weeks.

After PERM is complete, the candidate would then enter the queue for available visas. Since applications are adjudicated in strict date order, and there is an annual limit in most categories, the backlogs can be long.

For example, the July 2020 visa bulletin indicates that, at best, applicants who started the PERM process for EB-3 visas before 01 APR 2019 can now begin the application process.

I say "at best" because the priority date for China mainland applications is 01 MAR 2017, and that for Indian applications is 01 FEB 2010!

[pandaman]

You got some bits wrong - after PERM is complete, the employer needs to file I-140 to request an immigrant visa but yes, it will be about a year or two to get a lower priority EB green card.

Now, compare with the H-1B, which, indeed, can have a quick certification, do you get a visa after these couple of weeks? No, you get in the lottery for available visas. Last I've heard, chances in H-1B lottery were ~1/3. But consider yourself lucky and assume you win every time, what is your time frame then? The lottery starts April 1st for the visas for the next FY, which starts October 1st. Give couple months for documents preparation and you are looking at ~10 months (+ n*years if you are not so lucky) from the decision to get H-1B and your first day on the job. E.g. if you wanted to come in on H-1B right now then you'd have to file on April 1st 2021 for the period starting on October 1st 2021. If you won the lottery next year first day of work would be 14 months from now.

If you lose the lottery just once, you are already behind the time it will take to get EB2 for people in most countries of the world.

But let's look at backlogged countries. They are not getting their greencards any faster by being in the country. Instead of waiting for 10-100 years in their home country, where they are first-class citizens, they will have to spend these 10-100 years as non-immigrants, renewing their temporary H-1Bs every 3 years in the best case (and every renewal can fail and they might fall out of status because of that), or applying for a new H-1B every time they change job (and these "transfers" can fail too, and if you are changing the job because of layoff - you are out of status again). I don't know, people are different and some maybe okay with this, but I suspect most do not understand this and get stuck because they were told that after 6 years on H-1B they will become LPRs so they keep going because they have already wasted 6 years.