Yahoo: Legal Immigrants to US face GC logJam

[Jackolantern]

I am with you my friend and understand that these policies do hurt employers in the long run but I don't think they are considered serious enough to take action. Not just yet anyway.

That's what I was saying. Employers don't see any reason to change the current system, even though the system is hurting them in the long run.

They see an employee who is stuck with them and think that's good, but they don't see the potential employees who never applied to join them because they are stuck with their own employer. Neither do they see the students who leave the US immediately upon graduation because they don't want to get into the GC mess, or the people from other countries who choose to migrate to somewhere other than the US. They don't see what they are missing, so they don't care.

 

[GreenCardVirus]

I hail from a wonderful institute IIT Powai and I can cite you several examples including JEE 1 ranked person and several others who didn't opt even for MS, applied for GC in lower category EB3 because of bachelors degree, waited just couple yrs and left for good. For them GC was never a striking force which would have determined their future career course.

The fact is US did loose them.

I respectfully disagree. The fact is that US did not loose them. What kind of jobs will the wonderful people you mentioned would land in without doing Masters or Phd? They would be only eligible for type that can be done by any 3 year degree person or to speak precisely anyone who is eligible only for EB3.

Now if the bright people who you mentioned gained enough experience or start their own business or become multi-national managers, they will become eligible for EB1.

You might say US missed them in first place. US immigration treats a person at face value. What the person can do NOW, not what he will become tommorow.

If you would employ some one, you would see what that person can do for you now.

I can bet $100 that US would never loose a person who is really bright, it will eventually take them back.

(I was elibible for EB2 based on experience, degree plus 5)

 

[GreenCardVirus]

Unfortunately this type of thinking has crept into USCIS. As I mentioned before brilliant young people are being affected by retrogression. How do you expect a fresh graduate, even from a top college to apply on EB-1? Does this mean he/she does not matter?

He/She might go on in future to become a CEO or scientist.

Once again, what EB category a person is qualied for is based on what that person is qualified for NOW. That is the basis for US immigration.

Who knows if the person will become a CEO or scientist or a drug addict?

 

[GreenCardVirus]

And what I am trying to say is that loss of talent is a valid and powerful argument against retrogression, which should be used when we write to employers, senators etc. Does any one disagree?

I dont know if you are EB3 or not, if you are, then make a case for yourselves saying your departure will hurt US economy or talent pool. If you win me, you will win over anyone (senarots etc).

I did a lot of introspection on this matter. I realized one thing. My departure will not matter to US even a little bit. There are 1000's waiting to replace me.

 

[banta4gc]

This retrogression endorses the long-term policy of US...

Guest Worker program...

- All immigrants will just come to US to either dirty jobs/jobs that have shortage...
- And will be respectfully given a bamboo, after 3-6 years, to get out to take a break of one year...to stand back in line again (Hee Hee)...

The only drawback, I can think of is this....earlier consulting companies could extract more billing out of employees under the pretext of giving them GC some day...
With no GC hope, employees will only be motivated by pay...jumping H1B companies like flying from one tree to another...

 

[banta4gc]

Bottomline,
People and rules never change...
Rules enacted (Immigration law for country limit) some 50 years ago are still running present day...

US Immigration needs to be more dynamic...and has so many loopholes that none want to fix! Welcome to the way a government runs a shop....

eg: Let's say you are a Nurse and you apply for Schedule A category and apply I-140/I-485 and finally you get stuck in namecheck and waiting for 2 years to while away and before you know...Schedule A quota is full and now you need to wait in line with EB3....Hee Hee....why let them apply in the first place under Schedule A if you are not gonna honor giving them GC???

PRIVATISATION is the key...Immigration needs to be privatised...

 

[mydearcard]

Banta

Privatization is not an answer to everything. Tomorrow someone willask to privatize armed forces. Immigration is core service like armed forces. No country will privatize core service.

 

[alterego2]

You forget to account for two factors that hurt employers.

(1) Other employers have less opportunity to get somebody who is in a degenerate company and hire them into a more profitable position, because they are stuck with or afraid to leave their employer due to the possible risk of having to restart the GC process.

(2) Companies are restricted from promoting people, because doing so may violate the same/similar criteria. So their employees' talent is underutilized.

But I agree that employers in general don't see good enough reasons to expedite the process, because in the short-term they benefit from employees who are stuck, and they won't know about the talented people who bypassed USA altogether and went straight to Canada/Europe/Australia due to the sluggish GC process in the USA.

Another point from the employer's perspective is that if the immigration "pipeline" gets clogged. Then there will not be an overall addition into the available highly skilled worker pool in America. If you see in the recent letter to congressmen from 900 prominent companies they included EB relief as a request. This is more important than you may realise.

A lot of people in the USA do not work for 30-40 yrs. They work for a while, then they diversify, they either go into management, shuffle investments, do independent contractor work, or move into a 2nd career and if they do well financially through other means, they go into other more gratifying things in life.
Atleast in the days gone by where they made good money, they used to do this a lot. I know a lot of fifty somethings who do not work jobs, but merely manage investments from home, do part time jobs, contract work etc this is especially so at the highly skilled labour market, especially if there are two working partners.
If you see this situation as improbable, put yourself in a situation where you have skills, 1 million bucks in investments (conservatively making 50K post inflation adjusted money annually) and your employer is trying to squeeze you, and you are not struggling to pay your bills in any way and you already have most of the material things you want. For highly skilled workers who worked in the pre globalisation era in the USA and invested in the stock markets in those days this is not an unlikely scenario.
At that point your tolerance for even 1% unpleasantness from the employer is almost non existent. At that point you almost have the advantage in the employer-employee relationship.

All these sorts of things take away from the available skilled labour pool here. If there is not a steady addition to it then shortages appear quickly and growth can get stifled. Immigrants are more likely to have longer working careers as they try to build up a nest egg, for themselves and their families.

 

[indian_gc_ocean]

I'm just curious if everyone really just has an inflated value of themselves and contribution to this society.

This country has 300 million people in it.

Don't you think it is a little pompous to say that USA needs bright people from the rest of the world to stay competitive. It needs a few hundred thousand people who are on h-1b to get greencard so they can start business and create jobs for them.

Very few of the smartest/brightest people from other countries are interested in greencards. They will stay home or come for business meetings, etc.

I'm just curious if USA allows 100,000 more people here per year on EB greencard or gets rid of spouse on greencard headcount that this would overnight make US more competitive and have so many of the bright people around the world come to USA all of a sudden?

We are thinking in too small of a box. We need to understand there is 300 million people in USA; it is a huge, huge economy that sometimes we can't even fathom in coming up with the arguments of how the economy is being harmed; the impact of our social security payments, our savings that we are not spending, the impact to US business.

UN,
You are contradicting the whole employment based greencard process, it is good if everyone starts business adn employs citizens after getting a greencard. But if I say this to my employer who is doing my greencard is it going to work ? I would say the purpose of employment green card is for employement not for business, there is one entrepreneur category for business. Without this basis we cannot have a meaningful discussion. I do agree US has enough money to attract enough of my kind even if I leave. However, in businesses like s/w, human resource mangement is also important to avoid short term losses. But there are always enough people.

 

[Jackolantern]

Very few of the smartest/brightest people from other countries are interested in greencards. They will stay home or come for business meetings, etc.

Not true. From well-known names like Albert Einstein and Arnold Schwarzenegger to thousands of other lesser known successful people, the US has long been a popular destination for the world's best and brightest. Now if you are saying fewer of the best and brightest still want to come, you'd have a point. Enough of them have heard enough bad things about the immigration system, and other bad things about the US and its government, that more are choosing to stay in their own country or go elsewhere.

However, I will concede that EB3 in general does not represent the "best and brightest", although there is a small percentage of EB3 who are at that level but don't have the formal qualifications to be seen as B&B in the eyes of the USCIS (remember even Bill Gates is a college dropout).

The current employment-based immigration system is at odds with the reality of the economy today. People don't work for one place for 30-40 years anymore. They are mobile, they change jobs and careers multiple times during their lifetime, and layoffs are a part of life. The system needs to be updated to reflect the nature of America's workforce and workplace, not to serve as a tool to resuscitate out an outdated model that puts all the advantages on the employer's side.

 

[envision]

How can you put Arnold Schwarzenegger's name in the same sentence as Albert Einstein ? He's a hideously overblown dumbass BAD actor with a grotesque accent. He has done nothing except act in bad movies.

 

[nyc8300]

2 cents!

I think the gap of competitiveness of the US vs. rest of the world is decreasing. Given the concerns about terrorism etc we may see a outflow of both human capital and real capital very quickly out of the system. The US needs to realize that China and India and EU are now very viable places for companies to invest and are huge consumer markets. Goldman Sachs has a very good study on India and China over the next 50 years.

The US has to get away from getting people to 'fill up a job approach' to getting smart people who can be employed come here and get GC after working for certain number of years; a UK like system. If we have an open flow of human capital, the best will survive and there will be a normal
attrition/movement of less qualified people. Ultimately, US will be better served through this.

Not true. From well-known names like Albert Einstein and Arnold Schwarzenegger to thousands of other lesser known successful people, the US has long been a popular destination for the world's best and brightest. Now if you are saying fewer of the best and brightest still want to come, you'd have a point. Enough of them have heard enough bad things about the immigration system, and other bad things about the US and its government, that more are choosing to stay in their own country or go elsewhere.

However, I will concede that EB3 in general does not represent the "best and brightest", although there is a small percentage of EB3 who are at that level but don't have the formal qualifications to be seen as B&B in the eyes of the USCIS (remember even Bill Gates is a college dropout).

The current employment-based immigration system is at odds with the reality of the economy today. People don't work for one place for 30-40 years anymore. They are mobile, they change jobs and careers multiple times during their lifetime, and layoffs are a part of life. The system needs to be updated to reflect the nature of America's workforce and workplace, not to serve as a tool to resuscitate out an outdated model that puts all the advantages on the employer's side.

 

[sfmars]

However, I will concede that EB3 in general does not represent the "best and brightest.

I would correct this statement little bit saying that is applicable to EB3 from the certain countries. Some of EB1 people need to go back to school.

The current employment-based immigration system is at odds with the reality of the economy today. People don't work for one place for 30-40 years anymore.

This statement is fair for start-up dot com companies. A lot of people work tens of years on the government jobs becaues it gives them huge benefits and stabilities.

 

[GreenCardVirus]

Don't you think it is a little pompous to say that USA needs bright people from the rest of the world to stay competitive.

Couple of decades back, may be yes. But now I think US certainly needs outside "technical" talent to stay technologically advanced.

You probably dont work or deal with people of science on the job, if you did, you would agree with me. There are tonnes of examples where a break through innovation has an immigrant brain behind it. Simple examples that come to the top of my mind are Pentium, AMD Processors, Linux, hotmail. Drug and Biochem industries have immigrants at their core.

It is no secret that recent visa restrictions have actually helped other countries play catch up in the field of technology.

 

[GreenCardVirus]

How can you put Arnold Schwarzenegger's name in the same sentence as Albert Einstein ? He's a hideously overblown dumbass BAD actor with a grotesque accent. He has done nothing except act in bad movies.

trus.. but collective thought is always right and people of California think he can do good things and people liked his movies ...

 

[indian_gc_ocean]

And what I am trying to say is that loss of talent is a valid and powerful argument against retrogression, which should be used when we write to employers, senators etc. Does any one disagree?

hipka,

Yes, loss of talent is very much valid but if you are from India, tell me how many people you know are willing to go to India because of immmigration problems. There would not be many if you really count, how will one have any kind of risk taking thinking if their central govt (low risk) employed parent's main goal was sending their offspring to US. Everyone wants to return to India with a job in hand from here, that is the amount of risk we are willing to take while thinking of returning. Just family pressures, peer pressures, relative pressures, prestige issues -- all these just force people to just continue their life here even when it is miserable, beleiving that one day everything would be solved.

Companies/uscis just cashing(though not directly) on these to keep people here, so the argument that losing talent has no relative merit in it. Also, you cannot negotiate a deal if you are just leaving without having an altrenative or strong mind.

alternative would be to take advantage of immigration law loop holes and keep moving for betterment if possible.

 

[GotPR?]

Couple of decades back, may be yes. But now I think US certainly needs outside "technical" talent to stay technologically advanced.

Why would you think American can not do good enough ? If you look at top 10 countries in economic power, which of those are immigrant friendly ?
I'd say none. The US has better education system that American takes advantage of, and I wouldn't find reason American can not do better than other countries. The US may lose a little edge with less immigration, however, it still stands high.

You probably dont work or deal with people of science on the job, if you did, you would agree with me. There are tonnes of examples where a break through innovation has an immigrant brain behind it. Simple examples that come to the top of my mind are Pentium, AMD Processors, Linux, hotmail. Drug and Biochem industries have immigrants at their core.

Well, I have been working on high end microprocessor since early 90s and I know a lot of people at AMD's CPU team. Some of those are immigrants, some others are american.. Nowaday, big project involves a lot of people and cannot put such blanket statement that immigrant is core.

 

[where_is_my_gc]

I respectfully disagree. The fact is that US did not loose them. What kind of jobs will the wonderful people you mentioned would land in without doing Masters or Phd? They would be only eligible for type that can be done by any 3 year degree person or to speak precisely anyone who is eligible only for EB3.

EB categories are used by the employers to look for resources for future job. This is as per the definition. So, employers have vested interest in the people they are sponsoring - whether its EB1/2/3. You really can't discriminate them. If this'd have been the case there wouldn't be any EB2 or 3.

USCIS doesn't mandate that in order to receive GC, you have to wait 5-6 years. The delay is because of the system and process in place which is not catering to huge demands. Because of this delay a person may opt to sacrifice employer tagged GC process in search for better job opportunities or may even move back to his own country.

With that I can safely say that yes US Employer(s) (one or many) did loose them.

You might say US missed them in first place. US immigration treats a person at face value. What the person can do NOW, not what he will become tommorow.

Its the employers. Yes. And EB categories are employment based.

(I was elibible for EB2 based on experience, degree plus 5)

Ok!
I have people who had MS but filed in EB3 category because of the employer. Now they are stuck in queue. You think you waited 4 yrs and now you may as well wait 2-3 yrs. The delay hampers the way these resources would have been utlized by the right employers had they received the GC earlier.

 

[Jackolantern]

How can you put Arnold Schwarzenegger's name in the same sentence as Albert Einstein ? He's a hideously overblown dumbass BAD actor with a grotesque accent. He has done nothing except act in bad movies.

That's where you're mistaken. He also has an MBA and runs a number of successful businesses. Not to mention becoming governor, of course.

 

[desi3933]

eb2/eb3 is based on job requirement

.....
I have people who had MS but filed in EB3 category because of the employer. Now they are stuck in queue. You think you waited 4 yrs and now you may as well wait 2-3 yrs. The delay hampers the way these resources would have been utlized by the right employers had they received the GC earlier.

It is NOT the qualification of the applicant that determines the eb category, but the job requirement. If job requires bachelor then person is qualified for eb3 even if he/she has MS or PhD. In other words, eb category is FIRST determined by the job requirements.

I wonder why so many people say "I have MS and I am qualified for eb2".Employment based green card process is driven by employer and job. Person has to match with the job requirement. Not other way around.

It does not matter if you have MS, because the job your employer has sponsored, has requirements that meet eb3 category. If you wanted to apply green card under eb2 category, you should have gone with employer that has job requirement for eb2.

And yes, employer is NOT required to sponspor employee for the green card.