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NotARedditUser3 t1_j1frwet wrote

Reply to comment by matrixsuperstah in Tech Layoffs Set the Clock Ticking for Foreign Workers by buncley

It's very different than in many other countries.

In a lot of countries you can get a temporary residency visa, which after some years can become a permanent residency visa, and after many years you may have a way to apply for citizenship.

For example I've moved from the US to mexico; here, I have my temp residency, i've had it for 2.5 years. In 1.5 years (4 total), I can get permanent residency. A year after that, once i've had 5 years of residency total, I can apply for citizenship here, which takes roughly a year to process.

There's a very clear path and there's little chance of people being upended and sent back to a country they have no further roots in...

For example, if I was suddenly sent back to the US tomorrow... I have no home there. No job. No bank accounts there. I don't have a US cell phone. No home / address means I'd have trouble getting accounts set up for nearly anything; I'd be homeless immediately, probably wasting what cash I have on hotels trying to get things figured out. It's a horrifying proposition to send someone (back) to a country unexpectedly. Impacts their entire solvency and future.

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Scrofuloid t1_j1g4hgl wrote

That's how it works in the US too, for H-1B workers -- except for the ones born in India and China.

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SeattleBattle t1_j1gdyu5 wrote

86% of H1B holders in 2021 were from India and China, so that is how the system works for 17 out of 20 people.

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Scrofuloid t1_j1gful9 wrote

Is that 86% of people who get H-1B visas, or 86% of people who currently are on an H-1B? If the latter, this could be a result of the long wait time for a green card for those nationalities. i.e. most people who go through the system do not have these insane wait times, but Indian and Chinese applicants are stuck in the system for much longer, and thus make up a disproportionate number of current H-1B holders.

Not that that's a good thing, of course. It's incredibly unfair to them.

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SeattleBattle t1_j1gkgnb wrote

The former. 86% of new H1B visas given in 2021 went to India (74%) and China (12%). So the problem you referred to of these countries being overrepresented as H1B holders is only exacerbated by the continued heavy proportion of visas given to citizens of those two countries.

I will note that I am trusting a site called www.y-axis.com for this data though, and I've never heard of them before.

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Scrofuloid t1_j1gpvap wrote

Got it. I found almost the exact same numbers on the USCIS site, except that in this case it says it includes both new and continuing cases: https://www.uscis.gov/sites/default/files/document/data/h-1b-petitions-by-gender-country-of-birth-fy2019.pdf

So if I'm reading this right, it looks like the latter of the two scenarios I described.

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SeattleBattle t1_j1i3csx wrote

Ahh ok, I definitely could be wrong. I am not an expert on H1Bs. Thanks for doing additional research!

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