[briandear]

Try immigrating to the EU as an American; not quite so easy there either. If you are a refugee from Africa you have an easier time getting permanent residence in France than a moderately skilled workers would. My Mexican (now American) wife went through the US immigration process (she had a green card already when I met her, so I didn't 'help') You CAN immigrate to the U.S., there is a process. Funny since we're talking about India a lot on this thread, have you ever been through their immigration process? For even tourists you can only visit the country once during a six month period. Mexico's immigration system is rather difficult as well. The U.S. isn't alone in the difficulty of their immigration process. Getting residency in China is very difficult. I don't see why America gets special status with the animosity people feel towards immigration. Places like Canada are exceptions -- immigration is generally a long bureaucrat process in any country.

[davidw]

> I don't see why America gets special status with the animosity people feel towards immigration.

Because it sucks and treats people badly.

My wife, and mother of my dual-citizen children is Italian: I get to stay in Italy, end of story.

To have her go to the US (where I'm from) is, by comparison, a huge, expensive bunch of work even if we've been married for nearly 10 years and have children together.

If your bureaucracy manages to be worse, and slower than Italy's - which it is, in the US - you're doing something wrong.

[tarikjn]

Sorry but there is no comparaison, Europe has 25 countries with different immigration laws from which you can pretty much choose from depending on what options you are open to.

Take Germany specifically, they have a "Blue Card" (which I believe is available in other EU countries as well) which you can get automatically if you have a degree and a job offer. It converts automatically to residency and eventually citizenship over times depending on the country.

That is a very, very far cry from what H1-B are, and even TN visas.

For H1-B you need a sponsor waiting for you, you need to wait up to ~11 months to know if you are lucky to get through the quota and be allowed to work, an H1-B application is typically 100 pages thick and cost $3 to $8k of lawyer fees and $2k of gov fees (your application gets sent back to you if quotas are reached).

TN/H1-B don't convert to green cards by themselves, your employer need to be willing to go through a lengthly, costly process that takes 2 or more years to get you a green card (that is once you have gone trough all the trouble of getting a H1-B), which many employers will be unwilling to do if you have time left on your 6 years H1-B limit, and you have to stay with the same employer during all that time.

[guyzero]

Chinese, Indian and French kids don't grow up watching this on their TVs every single Saturday morning: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5ZQl6XBo64M