Did you mean safety net as in another job lined up or substantial personal savings? Having a safety net generally means that your situation might be tough but you're okay if you quit/lose your job.
Getting deported because of your H1B would be an example of "doesn't have a safety net". The definition has gray area (such as if your family in your birth country is rich), but as a rule of thumb if deportation is the likely outcome, then you don't have a safety net.
IF you are an immigrant family, this is a trolley problem. Regardless of the courage of your convictions, you are making a choice for not just yourself, but your spouse and kids. It's not purely your own choice.
I had neither. I took menial temp jobs and short-term manual labor jobs for a while until I could get something full-time in my field. Took about six months the first time, and nine months the second time.
Getting deported because of your H1B would be an example of "doesn't have a safety net".
Is it? It's not like if you lose your job when you're on an H1B they send you to the suicide booth. You just end up back in your old country, but with a much better resume. Yes, life is harder than it was in the United States, but you start again.
That's what people do — they get back up when they're knocked down. I've done it four times now. Losing an H1B is not the end of someone's life.
Well, depends on what you're going back to. Say it's China, and you morally disagree with a lot more of the Chinese tech industry's politics than you do the US's. Is it worth taking the one particular stand here to lose the long game?
Obviously I'm specifically crafting counterexamples, but the point I'm trying to get across is that it's not purely a matter of courage of conviction.
In your case, good for you - you went further than most would. I would not have held that particular line. If that was the choice I would have to make, I would start to look for a new job at that moment, not to quit.
Bring forced to move to a different community is always bad. The fact that states often force you to do it is a big reason I am an anarchist.
I believe the applicable phrase here is "courage of your convictions."
I've been fired twice for refusing to do things that I thought were unethical. Neither time did I have a safety net ready. But my life still continued.
A few years ago I stood up to a middle manager over privacy issues in a feature request. It went far enough to get HR and the legal department involved. It took half a year, but I won.
Bully managers count on people being afraid to lose their jobs. If more people stood up to them, they'd be afraid to make stupid requests in the first place.