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by HippoBaro 278 days ago
It was nighttime in Singapore when the ruling was announced. My husband and I scrambled to find a flight back. The best we could find, at any price, lands 25mins after the deadline.

We are on our way there.

10 comments

I feel for you. I just wonder, at this point why would someone look to go back to the US "At any price", given how bad are they being treated? From what I can see, it seems most of us non-US people are "persona non grata" in the US.

I myself am and live in a so called "shithole country ". But specially because of my Technical skills, I've got plenty of opportunities over here. I would never think on living in the USA. Even though I easily could via TN visa. But it's clear US people dont want me living there.

Consider they have a life, a house/appartment, all things they own,… there. Would you give all that up without at least trying to get back?
And even if you decide it's time to leave, you'd still want to come back and settle your affairs and plan a proper move. You wouldn't want to leave everything behind, especially if you only brought enough for a brief trip.
Over potentially my life? Yes, I would give up. For now. I can ask for my assets after the fascist regime is overthrown.
That's an increasing consideration for people thinking about moving to the US or those who aren't settled there yet. But, of course, people who already have family and belongings there will want to get back in to at least sort those things out before leaving for good.
All your things are there, your entire life. Maybe other family members, children's schools etc. Not easy to just never go home.
I'd do it so that I secure my "life" that I built there, and then plan my exit while it's still optional.
I did move away from the US because of these reasons, and it's been a good decision in retrospect. But no one likes uprooting their entire life and it takes years to build a new one somewhere else.

The calculus on immigrating to the US today is clearly negative, but many people immigrated 5/10/20+ years ago before all this shit and have lives there. They did not know any of this would happen.

>lands 25mins after the deadline

I'd rather just have waited until an injunction or something next week. The guidance from my company is either make it back before the deadline, or stay where you are until further notice.

"Further notice" can easily be a firing notice.

I understand your position, but it's a bit of a privileged one. Not everybody will have that option.

Rushing to the US and getting detained by border patrol in a foreign country isn't exactly a shinier alternative at this point. I'd take my risks with my job over my life in those shoes.
Universal injunctions were nerfed by the Supreme Court this year: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Trump_v._CASA
Check for charter jets, you may be able to jet pool.
> The best we could find, at any price, lands 25mins after the deadline.

Scheduled landing or historical landing time? Flightera.net will show you landing times for 2 years of flights

The guidance has changed already. Existing holders don't need to do that
Best of luck! Keep us posted.
i understand playing safe with this administration, but why?

h1b requires that one company signed as responsible sponsor on form i129. they are the ones on the line for the payment.

Via what mechanism? Will they be ready to accept the payments a few hours from now? Ready to process the re-entry with procedures that aren’t even developed yet?

Getting into the country before the deadline is the only safe way to avoid the uncertainty and ensure you don’t get stranded out of the country or in an airport for days or weeks while the process is developed.

This hastily constructed and implemented executive order is a terrible way to run a country

Let me guess, you're not an immigrant?
lived 5yr on L1A. It's a week to leave the country if laid off. But at the same time, most of the penalties/costs fall on the sponsoring company for all cases.

ICE black shirts make it more uncertain on enforcement, but there's still laws.

I don't know about this. As a brown student on F1 visa, I even used to walk into Walmart different than I do now.
Because when it comes to immigration, the downside to getting it wrong are life-altering.
The expected value for immigrants is rapidly shifting into it being more favorable to be an illegal, because ICE/CBP is mostly going after low hanging fruit of easy to catch people that they know about with homes and salary jobs / university and a visa. People that are off paper and 100 miles past the border are as good as gone. So basically what we get is the exact opposite of what we want.
False.

ICE is about to have a ginormous work force

They’ll snatch whoever

Your own premise destroys your argument. If they're grabbing 'whoever' it's at least as easy to grab immigrants with a paper record as those that don't.
> they are the ones on the line for the payment.

And they decide if you keep your job.

Much good luck. Hope you sail trough without harm.
That's terrible. Best of luck to you both.
What is your nationality if you don’t mind me asking?