Supply and demand. The US is by far the top place people want to be, so however poorly they treat applicants, there will still be an infinite supply of people willing to put up with it.
And sometimes there isn't really a choice. Life threw us together, our hearts had their own ideas about the situation. The only choices were put up with the process or separate.
I get that, but the kind of white collar workers who are putting up with this have options all over the world. Why would even such people put up with it?
Depends on the work? Software salaries in the US are so far beyond anywhere else in the world that it puts you in a significantly different lifestyle.
One year of a kafkaesque process to make $500k/year instead of 70k Euros is a trade worth it to tons of people to make the go at it. And that’s for stable corporate jobs, it gets even more favorable if you want to start a company.
That's entirely subjective for sure. The USA is a continent sized country and not a one-size-fits-all like most European countries. Each state should be viewed as its own European sized country with its own warts and all. You will have some backwater, inbred states like AL, MS and GA but places like CA or New England or NY are just eons above anything Europe has to offer. Again, it's all subjective.
What I'm hearing about CA and NY is 10hr work days if you're lucky, 2/3 jobs to make ends meet if you're not, and absurd rents.
It is true that it is probably better in the US if you're privileged, but then again it's good everywhere if you're privileged. The difference is in the quality of life of the average person.
California and New York are actually among the most inbred states, because they have the largest populations of recent Muslim immigrants, and cousin marriage is more prevalent in the Muslim world than it is in other places: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cousin_marriage#/media/File:Gl... . There's not all that many Muslims in Alabama or Mississippi; Georgia has somewhat more, probably because of Atlanta's status as a major city that attracts sizeable numbers of immigrants.
Countries like Denmark, Switzerland or Netherlands indeed offer very good quality of life but the language barrier is substantial. Tons of people know English as a second language and almost no one knows, say, Danish as a second language.
> Deal with your mess instead of extending it here.
This is exactly the justification for all the anti-immigration policies, the idea that immigrants from foreign countries have extended the mess that is in their home countries to the United States, and the only way to prevent it is to prevent those people from having the right to settle permanently in the United States.
And there is the fact that countries like Denmark are tightening up immigration even tighter than the US. The EU countries that tried a more open boarder quickly realized how it can spiral out of control.
Up until now wasn't this the case that generally white collar workers would only face issues in very narrow set of conditions? And even now, are all irregular migrants experience the same worsening prospects?
a) money make up for a lot of systemic deficiencies, adding here taxes, which are insanely high all across EU, salaries are several times lower here too
b) English language as a first class language. For example, while there are many job offers promising English only requirement, in reality a significant part of these unofficially presume you will speak local language at proficient level in the team, and hiring process filters for that.
c) EU countries have a lot of their own bureaucracy hell regarding immigration. For example I'm now on a Blue Card status in EU, that's a high skilled immigration program. I need to renew my card for the next 1 to 3 year period, I've started process in Sep 2025 and best case scenario will get card around next winter 26/27. Worst case scenario, add half a year more to that. If I want to get a passport, originally I had to dance through these hoops for at minimum 9 years. Just recently it increased to 11 year. And right now there is a law proposal in the parliament, increasing this term to minimum 17 years (among other inane requirements). If that passes, they may increase it even more in the future, making all immigrants live on the flimsy status for decades. USA at least makes the process faster, even if unpredictable.
tl;dr - EU is nice, just like USA is nice in it's own way, but in both countries immigrants have to put up with a lot of legal BS.
