[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.