To add to the above post. For people born in India the wait time is estimated to be more than 20+ years, since the queue is going to get longer and longer, and there are only fixed number of people who leave the queue every year. Unless you are on EB1, it is better to basically forget about getting a green card. Talking to my friends from India, the options are:

1) Do a PhD and hope to produce original, well cited research that qualifies you for EB1.

2)Similar to above, but if you are in a research team and can get good papers out that qualify you for EB1.

3)Wait and hope for promotions that qualify you for EB1.

4)Move back to India after a couple of years.

5)Try to move to Europe or Canada. Everyone is kinda fuzzy on this since no one really has clear idea of immigration laws in other countries.

6)Get enough money from some IPO to pay for investment based green card and hope for the best.

This is if you currently qualify for EB2 i.e 5 or more years experience or a Masters from US. I don't even know what is the condition for people in EB3. As one of my friend put it memorably, there is a person whose parent's haven't even met, that will get a green card faster than me, if born anywhere but India, China, Mexico and Philippines.

I know, barring a recession, I'll be in US for the next couple of years, but after getting a family, I think my tolerance for having my residence in the country coupled with my job would drop and I'll look and see if one of the above option works for me. Plus ageism in tech is something I fear as well.

I would love to settle here, but barring a law change, it is right now impossible for me.

EDIT: Separate line numbers for the numbers points.

The legal immigration system is long overdue for some reform. Especially w.r.t the long waiting times for people from India. I expect it to change in the next couple of years but who knows.

Why? Especially when you can buy foreign skilled labor (H-1B) with no long-term obligation.

I don’t understand what you mean by this. Every company that hired H1Bs also (usually) sponsors their Permanent Residency as well ( well, at least the ones that don’t abuse the system, like FAANGs). They absolutely want to keep these workers on for a long term basis.

> well, at least the ones that don’t abuse the system, like FAANGs

It's unclear whether you mean that FAANGs do or don't abuse the system. I've heard both sides of that.

I guess citizens of all other countries fall under a single category? I could only find dates for the countries you mentioned. There is no delay for Canadians or say Australian citizens?

There is no delay for other countries, at least for Employment based green cards.

There is some fixed number of employment based green cards that are awarded per category(EB1,2,3) with rollover between categories. The reason why there is a delay is that there is a country-wide cap on a percentage of total green cards awarded that year. So countries with higher number of people immigrating have a queue. If there were thousands of Australians immigrating, there can be a queue there too.

I am not sure about Canada though, as there maybe some other category for it.

H1B isn’t an immigrant visa, so of course the wait times are long — it’s the wrong visa for immigration.

> H1B isn’t an immigrant visa, so of course the wait times are long — it’s the wrong visa for immigration.

The wait times referenced are the wait times for an immigrant visa, whether you are applying for it as an already-resident H-1B holder (as permitted by it's dual-intent nature) or as someone who is not yet resident in the US.

The wait times have nothing to do with the H-1B not being an immigrant visa.