[rdtsc]

An interesting test would be if there was a way to expedite the processes. Say pay more and it gets rushed and wait time is now only one or two years. Would employers do that or not? Otherwise aren't they actually interested in prolonging the process artificially ("Oh yeah our lawyers are working on it, get back with us in 5 years..." kind of attitude).

[mdda]

For H1B visas there certainly was an expedited process - a couple of times our firm paid ~$1000 to get the response within 2 weeks, rather than 'several months'. Reducing uncertainty was valuable to us, since otherwise we might have been mentoring an excellent employee who could be plucked out of the workplace by the INS on any random day : and due to the whole bureaucracy thing, any 'appeal' would be a huge, huge waste of time (and life).