alt Hacker NewsMy company has a H-1B guy that travelled home to India a few months ago and since then can't come back because the next date he can get with the US embassy is next year. Seems he may get stuck even longer...
I am to some degree on board with keeping a closer eye on immigration, but the way the current administration does it feels intentionally cruel. The guy at my company has a house, wife, and kids in the US; his visa is perfectly legal, so it seems it would make sense to process these people quickly. But instead, he is now in some limbo. Same for ICE. Clamping down on illegal immigration makes sense, but it doesn't make sense for ICE to behave like some unaccountable secret police that hires the biggest assholes they can find who can then do whatever they want.
Replies
“Feels intentionally cruel”?
Where have you been? There is so much evidence of the deliberate cruelty that it beggars belief you’d say that.
An H-1B is a temporary non-immigrant visa. You're not supposed to rely on it to build a life in the US with no backup plan; that was never the intent of the law. However, successive administrations ignored the intent of the law, for so long that people began to rely on assurances that the law never promised. Now that the law is getting applied properly, those people are facing the consequences. It sucks for them, but continuing to not have rule of law would suck worse for all of us
Having the only appointment be a year or more out isn’t new. Anyone I knew wouldn’t take the risk of leaving the US if they didn’t have an appointment secured.
I'm an American that lives abroad. I have first-hand experience how other countries treat 'immigrants'. H1B is a temporary non-immigrant visa.
I could never imagine myself buying a home in a country where I don't have permanent access to that real estate. I am not opposed to voting to prevent non-PRs from owning real estate in order to keep housing prices lower for residents and prevent non-immigrants from shooting themselves in the foot.
As I live abroad in temporary status, I keep one foot back home (USA) and am extremely mindful of the risks of needing to close up shop and move.
If you want an economic perspective, consider reading Warren Buffet's "America’s growing trade deficit is selling the nation out from under us" article [0].
[0] - https://fortune.com/article/warren-buffett-foreign-trade/