[ganeshkrishnan]

It takes around 20+ years to go from H1b to permanent visa/green card. In the meantime your kids born in US have grown up, graduated, you have a house and everything could be yanked at the border when you are travelling.

Meanwhile vast majority of them pay into taxes and social security and leave the US and never see a dime of that money.

Immigrants are the easiest group to exploit by everyone because they have no voice and are vilified by vast majority of the people include the so called intellectuals in here.

[geodel]

So these highly skilled and smart immigrants coming on H1 to US without ever understanding what they are getting into?

They should absolutely be shunning this unfair system and helping India become vishwaguru of software.

[umanwizard]

The byzantine US immigration system absolutely is an impediment to people coming and staying here, and in my (admittedly anecdotal) estimation is a major competitive disadvantage, and a big part of the reason the UK, EU, Canada and China are making progress towards becoming tech hubs.

[theflyinghorse]

Canada is not making any sort of progress towards becoming a tech hub. Canadian engineers' dream is to work for a US company. Canadian investment landscape is just sad, but that's a different conversation all together.

[geodel]

Well everyone is making progress. Relevant point is how far they have come and how long they've taken.

[aylmao]

Those particular cases have benefited by the shortcomings of the USA actually. I know some big tech companies send workers who weren't able to secure US immigration specifically to offices in Canada, the UK or the EU. For example Meta and Google [1][2].

One can expect the company then grows an interest in developing full engineering teams in these sites. One can also expect some people might simply decide to not come back to the USA.

With the general rise of China's tech scene, recently there's been a trend by which the USA doesn't retain Chinese international students and they instead opt to return home. One has to imagine the very, very long immigration process they have to go to has to do with this [4].

[1]: https://www.teamblind.com/post/Does-Meta-relocate-you-to-Can...

[2]: https://www.quora.com/Is-it-difficult-to-relocate-from-the-G...

[3]: https://news.cgtn.com/news/2024-08-29/The-return-wave-Why-80...

[4]: https://www.statista.com/chart/16528/long-wait-times-for-gre...

[lern_too_spel]

Outcomes aren't binary. For any marginal increase in immigration difficulty for skilled tech workers, there is a marginal decrease in US tech competitiveness relative to other countries.

[thatfrenchguy]

20 years only if you're born in India married to someone born in India. Not great either way though, but it's really affecting the Indian community because of their particular norms.

[toast0]

If your spouse is a US citizen or permanent resident on their own, great. But if you're on H1-B and your spouse is on H-4, I don't think their country of birth makes a difference?

If you're both on H1-B, then sure, having a different country of birth can help.

[lanakei]

It does make a difference. When filing for adjustment of status, you can request USCIS to consider both you and your spouse as chargable to your spouse's country of birth, and therefore be placed in a more favourable GC queue. This is called cross-chargeability [1].

Because of this, the "100-year green card queue" problem only really applies for a couple who are both born in India/China, with kids who are not born in the US. If even one child was born in the US, they would be able to sponsor both parents for an immediate green card when they turn 21 years old. In the meantime, the H1-B beneficiary can extend their visa indefinitely and port their approved I-140 whenever they switch jobs, with a 6-month grace period. The spouse also has full working rights.

21 years is a long time, but while working, both parents will accumulate social security credits and will be eligible to recieve benefits upon retirement (if they've secured a green card by then).

[1] https://www.uscis.gov/policy-manual/volume-7-part-a-chapter-...

[newyankee]

Yup, left US after years of working and doubt will ever see social security for self.

[next_xibalba]

I’m sure this is no consolation, but as a born-and-raised citizen who has paid into social security for 15 years now, I have serious doubts about seeing a positive return on those taxes myself.

[ganeshkrishnan]

>I’m sure this is no consolation, but as a born-and-raised citizen who has paid into social security for 15 years now, I have serious doubts about seeing a positive return on those taxes myself.

Look at the bright side though: You get a chance to get conscripted for a war against Iran/Russia/China and also get to blow up windowless mudhouses in the desert to protect democracy and freedom back in the states.

[radicality]

Social security also kinda feels like a Ponzi scheme. Use current ‘investors’ money to pay for retired people.

[commandlinefan]

If only they just used the current 'investors' money to pay the retirees. They actually use the social security taxes to pay for "whatever" and hope they can come up with the rest when they need it.

[lesuorac]

If you were paying retired people with investors money then why does SSA have a giant surplus of nearly 3 trillion [1]?

The surplus is because of all the people that have payed into the program and haven't retired yet ...

[1]: https://www.ssa.gov/oact/progdata/assets.html

[lern_too_spel]

That's not how social security works. You're not supposed to get a positive return. You directly pay a basic income to retired people (minus administration costs). When you retire, workers pay a basic income to you.

[bombcar]

This is how it works, but it is not how it was sold (and all the "work tracking" confuses people as to what it is doing).

[SpicyLemonZest]

The issue is that, for me and anyone else who reaches retirement age after 2034, only about 80% of that basic income will be available. For reasons I'm not super clear on, this idea tends to get coded as a conspiracy theory in many circles, despite being uncontroversially true and widely reported on.

[lern_too_spel]

That's a perennial Boogeyman. Policymakers have a wide array of tweaks they could make (from adjusting the cap to adjusting retirement age) at any time that could push that out by another century. https://www.epi.org/blog/a-record-share-of-earnings-was-not-...

[dataflow]

I'm pretty sure they understand how social security works. You missed the point they were making.

[lern_too_spel]

Asking for a positive return on social security is like asking for a positive return on welfare. The positive return comes from not having so many homeless old people all over the country. It's not a personal investment vehicle.

[FredPret]

It could be that OP expects Social Security to be kaput by the time he gets to be old.

Looking at the population graph, that’s a valid concern. There’s a ton of boomers and a ton of millenials, but very few babies to pay for our retirement.

(This phenomenon could invalidate even individual stock investment retirement plans as well. We need a future generation of workers, investors, entrepreneurs, consumers).

[BeetleB]

> It takes around 20+ years to go from H1b to permanent visa/green card.

Primarily only for Indians. For almost everyone else, it's much quicker. Most people I know get it in 2-3 years. Many in under 2 years.

(And yes, it's frankly immoral that they have a separate queue for Indians).

So don't get rid of H1B. Make it one queue.

[rbanffy]

> your kids born in US have grown up

And now even their citizenship is threatened.

[ImJamal]

If they were born here then they are citizens and nobody is advocating stripping them of citizenship.

[rbanffy]

Not if the next president gets away with it: https://www.latimes.com/politics/story/2024-12-16/trump-said...

It's unlikely he'll succeed, and he walked back on many campaign promises.

[ImJamal]

You are confusing what he is calling for. He is not advocating for people who are already citizens to lose their citizenship. He is saying, going forward, people who are born here will not automatically be given citizenship.