151 year of waiting for green cards at work: why qualified immigrants leave the US

According to UNESCO statistics, the United States of America is one of the top destinations for international students seeking to pursue higher education and expand their skills and life experiences. But everything is not as simple and attractive as it sounds. Due to the difficulties faced by international students, qualified graduates and immigrant entrepreneurs nowadays, many of them are giving up the idea of ​​moving to the US.

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If a student wants to start a business in the United States sooner or later, he must first become a legal permanent resident (that is, obtain a green card). The preferred route is the H-1B visa program, in which a U.S. company sponsors a visa for a foreign graduate student and then initiates the green card process for that person with the goal of long-term employment, he writes. University world news.

An alternative route is the EB-5 investor visa, which requires investing at least $500 in a business enterprise and creating 000 full-time permanent jobs for Americans. As a result, the investor will receive a green card. Obviously, this is incredibly expensive, especially for foreign graduates, which is why they prefer the first option, but the process of obtaining an H-10B visa and an employer-sponsored green card has become much more complicated due to innovations in American immigration policy.

The main problem for current H-1B visa holders is the delay in obtaining a green card. This is especially true for the Indian immigrant population in the US, as current immigration policies leave a disproportionate number of Indian immigrants waiting. At the same time, the main “suppliers” of foreign students to American universities are India and China.

As of April 2018, 306 working Indian immigrants (400 including their spouses and minor children) were awaiting green cards. The current wait time is 632 years for the EB-219 (advanced degree) personal classification category, which means they have the least chance of getting a green card for the rest of their lives.

How does the waiting time of green cards affect qualified immigrants

A recent study shows that 70% of highly skilled Indian immigrants in the United States are seriously considering immigration to a more visa-friendly country because of the current delays in obtaining a green card in the United States.

The University World News project also found that 30% of such immigrants have already applied for permanent residence in another country, and 9% have already become eligible for such residence.

Given these numbers, it's possible that this could all become a trend—in which case U.S. organizations would lose between $19 billion and $54 billion in lost talent and the costs associated with replacing them.

It is important to note that delays with green cards cause serious problems related to work for immigrants: wage stagnation, lack of security at work, problems with travel and lack of career opportunities. Many of the survey participants noted that the current delays with green cards do not allow them to start their own business.

These problems also lead to consequences for the health of working immigrants - due to the constant fear of the unknown, stress, disappointment, and chronic diseases develop. All this can lead to the problem of burnout and decreased productivity.

Implications for immigration

Not so long ago, reports began to appear that restrictive policies regarding US work visas encourages legal immigrants (foreign students and workers) to move to Canada. There are also signs that similar wave effects are now being observed in foreign students.

According to the US Department of Homeland Security, enrollment of foreign students declined by 4% between 2016 and 2017. These statistics also affect US universities, since high net incomes from foreign students can be used to offset the costs of enrolling local students. In addition, the reduction in the number of foreign students has already led to a reduction in the budget and the cancellation of some programs in several US universities.

Overall, the 2019 statistics of the year show that the US higher education system continues to decline in world rankings with a loss of almost 20% of the top ranking of university departments in the country.

Problems related to immigration policy (especially delays in issuing green cards) force highly qualified graduates to return to their countries.

Vivek Wadhwa, a research associate and professor at Carnegie Mellon University, says: “Hundreds of thousands of highly skilled workers, as well as graduates from leading American universities, have returned home because of the imperfect immigration policy of America. They occupy senior positions in leading research laboratories in China and India. America has lost a whole generation of entrepreneurs and innovators. ”

For example, Kunal Bahl from the Wharton School of Business at the University of Pennsylvania returned to India and founded Snapdeal, one of India's largest e-commerce firms; Sandeep Aggarwal of the University of Washington founded marketplace portal Shopclues; and Naveen Tewari of Harvard Business School, one of the founders of mobile advertising giant InMobi.

Food for thought

The current administration of the President of the United States recently proposed a new rule according to which foreign students with a master's degree in the United States will be given preference among those who claim one of the H-1B visas that are limited by the annual limit. Unfortunately, this “merit-based” rule will change little to reduce the current backlog of green cards for Indian immigrants.

Although the Trump administration has criticized the existing H-1B visa program, this work visa program has attracted some of the most recognized business leaders of our time in the US, including Sundar Pichai, Google's CEO, who has a Wharton magistracy and an MBA from Satya Nadella, Microsoft CEO, who has a Masters degree from the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee and an MBA from the Chicago Booth School of Business.

As President Donald Trump recently noted in his speech on the state of affairs in 2019, the United States welcomes large numbers of legal immigrants. But the question remains: how many legal immigrants, including foreign students with entrepreneurial ambitions, are willing to spend their whole lives waiting for a green card on an H-1B visa, working, in fact, as hired servants?

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