Even though it is a privilege, I think it is still important to treat people with kindness and respect. The way that the US treats people on h1bs, especially if they are from countries with extremely long waits for green cards, is heartless, in my opinion.

There are a lot of things that we don't have to do to help our fellow human but that we still should do.

There is nothing heartless about it, if the system doesn't work for people born in one particular country. I say this as an Indian H1B holder.

If anything, the US has given me opportunities that I wouldn't get in India. I work on a front office team at an HFT. In India, for front office roles, most of the HFT's don't hire anyone not from the IIT's. My resume would be thrown straight in the bin, if I were still in India. A while back, FAANG offices in India would only prefer hiring from the top tier Indian schools.

I think everyone is treated with respect. No country has to process permanent residency applications for everyone, and no country has to provide a visa for foreigners to work period. The system is overwhelmed and they get to make their policies. I've read something once that really struck me: if you have skills which you think are valuable, have gone through extensive education and training, and subject yourself to the whims of a random system to decide your future, you're not unlucky, you're just dumb.

How is that dumb? May be their calculation of odds in making it big (financially or otherwise) resulted in taking that chance. It’s not just direct money when someone educated and smart wants to work here. There is indirect money that comes in form of connections that have significant dividends long term even if they get kicked out. Not to mention a new cultural experience.. So I’d say people make calculations. You have no idea about the decision making process.

The result is already showing up : https://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/city/mumbai/indias-brain...

though i agree with you overall, right now the system is totally not working for indians and to a some extend chinese.

The current wait time for indians is over 100 years whereas all other countries get their green card in a couple of years(after green card sponsorship).

This makes the system crushing the Indians who have roots for more than decades.

For people who would say , you should have seen it coming , recently the demand from other countries are too high that wait time for indians are in decades at minimum

I am an Indian H1b holder. The system is not meant to be beneficial for a nationality or a group of nationalities. Indians very well know that the green card waiting times are super long, and yet they'll come here, give birth to kids, buy a house, etc. All on a temporary visa with a very, very long waiting period for their green card. Maybe don't try to set roots if you know that you will not get permanent residency?

many are choosing not to come. The US student visa has been on decline especially from india and china.

What about people who are already here for decades ?

Some don't understand the complexity of the system and think their case will be different

>What about people who are already here for decades ?

They need to understand that immigration is a privilege and not a right. If it were a right, then could have successfully sued the US government in a court of law and gotten their green cards ages ago. They forget that and start crying when faced with long wait times. The US didn't invite them , they made the decision to come here.

I am a US citizen and I don't want to live in a country that has a "guest worker force" with reduced rights and no path towards citizenship. I don't want this because I think it's ugly (and societies that engage in too much of this are always ugly), but I also think that it's bad for citizens as well as the people treated this way. A healthy society should not have its employers maintaining a labor force full of employees who can be shipped back overseas whenever the company feels like it: this is a recipe for labor abuse, and such abuse can harm citizens as well as non-citizens. So TL;DR if you're over here working, I want you to have some rights and a path towards citizenship. I don't want a bunch of people slaving away at 2am and being told this is a privilege.

ETA: I am not saying the H1B program is that, just responding to the sentiments up above.

I agree with you that immigration is a privilege not a right.

However it's not good for a nation to discriminate people from certain countries worse than they treat people from rest of the world.

No system is perfect, and we go through iterations of refining the laws/solutions.

What most people are calling out is this discrimination in a peaceful manner and asking for a change.

Without people asking for change, nothing would have changed in history. The entire labor rights and freedom from slavery were as a result of people asking for a change and to be treated equally on the same set of standards.

American culture(as i understand) is based on concept that anyone can raise up and become successful based on ones own merit. The current legal immigration system for Indians fails to provide it.

And people are currently pointing out the flaw in the system.

> The US didn't invite them

i have to disagree with you on this.

USA did invite them here and provided a dual intent visa(H1b).

Every H1b visa holder did go to embassy and got interviewed by US Visa officer.

so USA very well knew the people who were invited to work in USA can become a US citizen eventually.

I mean, the cynic would say that you have the kids in the USA and eventually they can sponsor you for a visa. Especially if it takes 100 years to go the normal path.

But arguing you shouldn't have children... really?

Just because you've accepted your unfair situation - which, let's be clear, is that you have a second-class status even compared to other foreigners based solely on your country of birth - doesn't mean everyone else in that situation should do the same.

Other H-1B holders who point out this inequity are not morally "wrong", or "crybabies" (paraphrased from another of your comments). Petitioning the government for a redressal of grievances is a very American thing to do. And doing what you have done - accepting the reality of one's situation and adapting to it - is very mentally healthy and pragmatic.

Some people, like you, work around the existing system, while others ask for a better system. Neither group should put down the other, or denigrate the choices they have made. Try to be a better person than that.

I see your point. Yes for those born in countries with traditionally high immigration rates the system is broken. Even if an employer can demonstrate they need to retain a particular person if this employer later needs to terminate the employee for unrelated reasons you are screwed.

I think the H-1B to EB-2 and EB-1 process should be improved to not be subject to immigration rates.

well, it's broken because of a particular high demand from those countries that's different from the others. I don't think the system should explicitly discriminate one country from the other, but I think it's fair to give a chance to other countries at an equal rate.

Visas/green cards are given to people and not countries

The people waiting in the employment green card lines are evaluated on the same set of criteria . Their ability to perform a particular task for their employer.

As a current H1B holder, I agree. I always say that visa workers may not realize it at first but the day they stand outside the consulate for their visa interview, they indirectly agree to whatever headaches come with being on an H1B (or any sort of work visa for that matter).

> As a current H1B holder, I agree

It seems like the only people who do understand the program are the people who are directly participating in it.

I agree with the parent and grandparent comments.

That said, when I was sponsored for an E-3 visa by a US company the recruiters made it clear that my position was permanent (subject to performance) and that the company would sponsor me for a Green Card.

These representations were contradicted by the legal documents I presented in my interview at the US consulate.

Nonetheless, I can imagine some employees on these sorts of visas might take their employer at their word and plan their lives accordingly.

There's a difference between temporary and sudden. Knowing you can stay only for 6 years is temporary. Finding out that you could theoretically be here for a long time but your life could be yanked away any minute is sudden and an uprooting that no one deserves.

that assumption is really "theoretical" and personal. The visa conditions don't tell you can stay for an arbitrarily long time. As others have pointed out, H1B is explicitly temporary and does not in itself lead to a permanent residency path. The US is not like others countries, say UK, where staying for 10 years in some visas or 5 years in a work visa lead you to PR. What they've transformed the H1B in is sort of "unwarranted"

>None of us have the automatic right to stay and work here, and that isn't the intention of the program. Immigration is not a right, it is a privilege.

It's fucking wild that immigrants get this and half of US citizens don't.

I left a shithole to move to a better country. Imagine my surprise when I get here and the people supposedly on my side want to turn the country into the same shithole I left [0]. Then the people who see the problem are also the ones who want to impose a Christian Sharia.

[0] And have succeeded in California at least, there's now the same slums from the worst parts of town in the third world there.