This is pretty normal for most countries' visa processes. You often have to leave to renew a visa.

Simila in Ireland: you are not allowed to seek work while in Ireland on a holiday visa, you can only apply for work permissions/visas from outside the country, and depending on the type of visa you get (general work vs critical skills), your spouse might have to wait a year before they can join you.

> Despite being able to show 10 years of consistent working history with income far exceeding the minimum, because I didn’t have a job lined up in the US (who would, or could, in that scenario?) we had to ask my wife's elderly parents to sign affidavits of support to prove I wouldn’t become a "public charge".

This seems entirely reasonable. You had as much time as you could have liked to apply for jobs after deciding to try the USA. Fortunately you were able to take advantage of an alternative that didn’t require that.

I’m not really sure what you were going for writing that. You think 10 years working in country A should entitle you to a work permit from country B?

> nor do they only come from white or european countries.

Why should that matter? If country B decides to only allow white and / or Europeans to apply to live and work in country B, that is entirely fair. It’s not people-from-outside-country-B’s privilege to decide what country B does or doesn’t do.

Discrimination is a human right.

> people who come here to contribute their skills and experience don't all come along on an H1-B/L1, nor do they only come from white or european countries.

But out of the pool of people who come from poor countries, who don't have jobs lined up in the U.S, and aren't here on a skilled worker visa, a large fraction of them will end up relying on welfare benefits.

Family-based visas are a huge loophole in U.S. If you look at most of the immigrant ghettos in the country, they're fueled by family reunification. In my own extended family we have several people, who came here based on my dad's sponsorship, who are a drain on the government. (The sponsorship commitment is basically never enforced.)

The uncertainty is one of the main reasons why I didn't bother to go the F1->H1B route and ended up leaving the US again.... but that was a decade ago.

They undid public charge from my memory. It doesn’t exist anymore.

The USA don't owe you citizenship. It's on you to prove that your presence there would be of benefit to the other citizens.

Under what administration was your process?

I am pretty sure you’re talking about the time when the doctor asks you to lift your dick to check that you don’t have an STD or something .

Best moment of the process.

This is complete nonsense. All other countries, including the UK, Australia and most of Europe has immigration systems that are just as stringent if not more so.

Notably, and very relevant, the UK recently made it substantially harder for UK citizens to bring over spouses to the point that even teachers don't meet the income thresholds necessary to qualify.

Australia is more expensive AND takes longer than the United States for the equivalent spousal visa.

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Or you can simply move to a country that actually apreciates you and doesnt treat you like unwanted subhuman garbage. We have few in Europe, with QoL and happiness higher than US average, sometimes much higher. Just dont make the mistake of comparing salaries directly, US is massively more expensive if you plan to stay long term (ie healthcare) and/or have kids.

You would also have enough time to actually enjoy life, not just work till death/health issues come in some empty prestige rat race.

The reality is many people come on temporary visas, as tourists, as students, etc., and overstay. This policy is some attempt to address flows of quasi-legal immigration.

It's unfortunate there's friction to the process, but it's by design. 15% of American citizens and permanent residents are foreign born, the highest it's been in 50+ years, so people are successfully making it through the process. Ideally we'd have better levers to (1) modulate the rate of immigration, (2) simplify the process of legal immigration, and (3) still somehow limiting illegal immigration, quasi-legal immigration, overstays, etc. This is not the ideal solution.

> it feels necessary to say: people who come here to contribute their skills and experience don't all come along on an H1-B/L1

Do people migrate to "contribute their skills" to a foreign country, or to improve their lives? Maybe I'm a cynic, but I suspect the vast majority of people throughout history have migrated to improve their lives, not to altruistically benefit a foreign country. And that's fine, that's normal. It's what motivates people, and the U.S. has a long history of being shaped by ambitious people, especially immigrants, who wanted to improve their lot in life.

> nor do they only come from white or european countries.

I don't know if that's necessary to be said, because who thinks that? In recent decades, 85%-90% of immigrants to the U.S. are not white. >90% if you include undocumented immigrants. The trajectory of America from a white majority to white minority country is fueling at least some of the immigration backlash today. But I think for most people, it's a feeling (right or wrong) that jobs becoming harder to find, houses are becoming harder to afford, and more and more people are competing for fewer resources.