It’s the time taken between sunlight reaching Earth vs. sunlight reaching Jupiter.
By Sujeet Rajan
NEW YORK: It’s exciting news for tens of thousands of legal immigrants in the United States that President Barack Obama might likely take executive action next month to put in place immigration reforms, which will include issuing more Green Cards, increase the number of work visas, every year.
Reportedly, the total number of legal visas to be granted, including H-1B visas for skilled workers in the STEM fields, new Green Cards for workers waiting in line for years and speeding up family reunification applications; work permits for H4 visa holders, and work permits for agricultural workers and other non-skilled work visas, could be as high as 800,000 annually.
Obama might also, through executive action, give amnesty to as many as five million undocumented immigrants in the country. It would put to shade any of the piecemeal approach he has done so far in his presidency for those here illegally, including giving cover to those who came to the country as children without papers. That legislation, in 2012, deferred deportations of more than 500,000 individuals, according to some reports.
Despite opposition to this vast executive action by Obama, by some Republicans in Congress and anti-immigration groups who point to a fragile economy which never recovered fully from the recession – except for bottom lines of corporate houses whose stocks keep vaulting up – mounting number of jobless individuals and paucity of jobs for those entering the workforce or those who have quit looking for full-time work – the talk of robots displacing human workers has yet to feature in this discussion – this is exactly what is needed for America this decade. It will probably be heralded as Obama’s best move during his two terms as president, if he inks it.
Immigration reforms will give a huge boost to the economy. New immigrants, especially skilled workers, come here with no financial baggage – they don’t have student, mortgage, car or credit card loans dragging them down from spending. They will purchase everything imaginable to create a new life in their new adopted country. That in turn would create more jobs in the retail sector, invigorate several more industries.
The move will also uplift stagnant housing markets all over the country; give a fillip to the construction industry. And when financially well-settled workers, long on the last leg of their Green Cards, get permanent residency, they could invest confidently in the country they live in, bereft of the despair and uncertainty that hung over the time when they were unsure if they would ever get a Green Card or not. They will buy second houses, second houses, start new businesses, finalize long-term investment decisions, take more vacations.
These immigrants would not then invest all their money into real estate, gold and fixed deposits in India anymore. In fact, more would be inclined to transfer money back from India to the US, would want to maximize in a short time plans they were forced to put away while the agonizing wait for a Green Card began.
While the move is more than welcome, Obama has to ensure that the Green Cards are issued in a manner which is fair and balanced, to make this a remarkable, unprecedented move.
The question of how the Department of Homeland Security would have to employ thousands of more personnel and train them quickly to take on the deluge of applications from around six million people filing for new visas and Green Cards, is a mind boggling subject and best kept for another discussion.
Perhaps the biggest discrepancy that Obama and the State Department would have to take into consideration when doling out these new Green Cards would be to eliminate the disparity between the EB-2 and EB-3 visas, and within the EB-3 visas itself, which is the biggest cause of frustration for legal immigrants waiting in line for a Green Card.
Here’s an example of the unfair discrepancy between these two categories which are both reserved for work visas for skilled professionals, but when it comes to granting Green Cards one’s wait time compared to the other is like the time taken for sunlight to reach the planet Earth vs. the time it takes sunlight to reach the planet Jupiter: it takes 8.3 minutes for sunlight to reach Earth vs 43.2 minutes to reach Jupiter. Put that in the number of years for EB-2 and EB-3 visa holders to get Green Cards, and it would be fairly accurate in the current waiting scenario.
According to the Department of State September 2014 Visa Bulletin, the cut‐off date for the employment‐based, second preference (EB‐2) immigrant visa category for applicants born in India will have a new cut‐off date of May 1, 2009. This of course, means that anybody from India who had filed their Green Card application on or before May 1, 2009 – just a little more than five years ago – is eligible to get a Green Card.
This is startling good news for EB-2 visa holders from India. The cut-off date had catapulted by an amazing three years and nine months to September 1, 2008 from the previous date of November 15, 2004 in a month’s time, and now the new bulletin suggests more unexpected escalated movement. The advancement of the India EB-2 cut-off date was due to the availability of unused visa numbers in the EB-1 and EB-2 worldwide categories.
So, great news for EB-2 visa holders.
What about the EB-3 visa holders from India? Well, not so great. Gloom, despair, frustration continues.
The EB-3 India visa category, which has stood rock still at October 15, 2003, advanced by a gargantuan leap – by an ant’s viewpoint – two weeks to November 1, 2003 in July, and will move forward spectacularly, by another week, to November 8, 2003 in August. The pace for the rest of the year: one week per month.
Well, that’s great news for somebody from India on EB-3 visa whose cutoff date is sometime in December 2003. But for somebody whose cutoff date is May 1, 2009, he or she can wait to get old and die too in this country without getting a Green Card which his or her EB-2 counterpart from India is eligible to receive next week.
To rub it in further, here’s the other raw deal: apart from India, the current cut-off date in the EB-3 category for all other countries in the world remained at April 1, 2011.
Here’s a suggestion: if you plan to emigrate to the US from India and then be confined to en EB-3 visa, take up citizenship from Burundi or Burma before you land here. Even China will do. EB-3 China category is right now at October 1, 2006. In the EB-2 category, China is at July 1, 2009, even better than India.
So what is the difference between the EB-2 and EB-3 visa categories? None at all, except for adherence to archaic rules set up by the State Department which are not relevant anymore, and needs to be amended to make it a level playing field for professionals who are caught unawares by the consequences by filing for an EB-3 application for a Green Card.
It doesn’t make a difference if a professional gets a Master’s level or higher degree from a US university and takes up a job, and on the job even finishes a doctoral program. If he or she is in a job which according to EB-3 rules require only a Bachelor’s degree, then one can only file under EB-3 visa for a Green Card.
For example, if an IT professional from India, comes directly to a job which requires a Master’s level requirement, but doesn’t have a Master’s from India, only a Bachelor’s it’s still alright if he or she has enough experience to make up for it and has got an H-1B visa, and can subsequently file for an EB-2 visa. But if somebody who does a Ph.D., in computer science from a US university takes up a job on an H-1B visa which requires only a Bachelor’s degree then it’s the hard route to a Green Card: stay confined to an EB-3 visa.
This cuts across all industries, be it a researcher or a manager. It’s particularly severe upon graduates of US universities, who can expect to wait for decades if on an EB-3 visa category, vs. somebody who has recently come from India with only a bachelor’s degree but has five years of experience to take on a job requirement which fulfils the EB-2 visa requirement.
This unfair, discriminatory visa practice must be eliminated for meaningful reform in allocation of Green Cards. The wait time for EB-2 and EB-3 visas must be adjusted to make it a level playing field, on par with each other.
(Sujeet Rajan is the Editor-in-Chief of The American Bazaar)
8 Comments
Oh one more thing Johnny Ignoramus… Did you know that H1B visa holders pay social security tax which feeds your grandpa who you all put in that home, and medicare but are themselves not eligible to benefit from it? Even tax-wise, most of the patriotic Americans establish companies to log “business expenses” in order to save on taxes, but H1B visa holders do not do this. Seriously Johnny Boy… you really need to get your head out of your protectionist ass.
If you believe in liberty, equality and justice FOR ALL,
then as the other reader has said, this system is flawed. But let’s say that
all that stuff about justice etc. is just false advertisement. And let us just
take a very dumb and selfish approach to this.
Even then… the guys asking that the visa program be
scrapped are actually right. It should be scrapped because H1B visa holders
earn very good money (to the average Johnny Ignoramus, Department of Labor
approves visa application only if wages are above a threshold); then they live
worse than minimum wage earners, and save up.
And then SEND ALL THE MONEY HOME. Buggers take your jobs (which is not
really true, but since we are agreeing to be dumb about it let us play along).
And then take the money also. Now THAT is what should piss you off.
What US should do instead is either become protectionist
(hey one can learn from anyone including Portugal, Greece and France, which are
broke as countries, but the poor are taken care of, so un-American, I know), or
actually offer permanent residence straight away to those that America needs/wants.
That is selfish. That is also fair. Everyone happy. Why waste time with some stupid-ass visa?
So scrap the H1B, and issue Green Cards straightaway – all this
visa nonsense is just that. Nonsense.
Go and checkout all the big corporations like Google, Microsoft, Apple, ExxonMobil, Chevron, Shell and you will find the best engineer from around the globe working in tendom to create better products better engineering solution and they are from India, China and Europe. They are from the graduates with MS and Phds from best universities like Stanford and MITs. How could removing H1B going to help Americans and American companies? I think the American needs to do better in conversion rates of high school graduates to university graduates and university graduates to grad school graduates. One is not expected to find a decent job if one is not having a right skillset untill unless one turn to be an entrepreneur. Only thing that should be improved in H1B is so many categories and all the offshore companies using it for purposes other than it is intended to. I think the immigration bill was meant to solve that (By preventing these companies employees from working in onsite companies office) but that is left in a cold bag now.
It’s a simple but sad case of supply and demand. When you dump additional labor into a market, the price of labor goes down.
India has 1.17 BILLION people, four times the population of the United States. The H1B Visa program law, and the EB2 and the EB3 visa programs were written by large American tech companies whose only motivation is to increase their profits. Their biggest expense of a tech company, of course, is engineering labor. So they wrote the H1B wording, and had the US Congress make it a law. That was over 12 years ago.
So today in literally every major American corporation, you will see the same pattern: Foreign H1B or EB2 or EB3 Visa engineers sitting in two out of three cubicles, mostly from India and China, getting paid low wages. You will see the remaining American engineers getting lower and lower wages if they can find work at all.
On average, the American engineer will have better skills, but that doesn’t make any difference because the foreign H1B visa engineers are dirt cheap, and there are hordes of them.
you are correct in most of the aspects. however it has to be borne in mind that the purpose of human success is the collective success of the whole and not an individual as such.
if you are a software programmer you might have come across the OOP concept. the purpose of the OOP concept was to make outstanding programs with the use of average to above average programmers. once a programmer understand the concept – s/he only has to call the class and understand the methods within the class – the programmer need not know the complete functionality of the method as such. this makes it possible to get great results from average to above average programmers and you know it.
It is true that America produces outstanding Engineers – but very few engineers compared to the rest of the world (because of the education system – which is Ultra child centric) An American Engineer is an Engineer because s/he has passion for the subject and not because s/he needs a job – that has been the criteria. It is agreed (although I am an indian) that most of the times I find Engineers from America to be exceptionally brilliant – however please note – not always – I have also found Engineers from America to be fakers – some of them. Taking into consideration all the fake graduates that come out from online universities now a days.
It is true that India has 1.7 billion population – but around 50% of the population does not have access to proper education and less than 30% of the population have the means to get an engineering education. What the president is trying to do is give green cards to people who have come to the USA 10 -12 years back on h1b and could not get the green card because of the wait times of Indians and Chinese. Where as any European who came on an h1b would get a green card in six months if s/he applied for it. The president is trying to remove this disparity. Not because of compassion or a good heart but because of economic reasons and let me spell out the reasons for you.
1. 70 Billion dollars – yes that is the annual repatriation to India because of the green card delays annually – because of the uncertainty involved indians – chinese who work in USA cannot decide whether to invest in USA or remit the money back to their home country. so they generally remit all that they earn back to their country. and that is around 70 billion annually
see wikipedia
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Remittances_to_India
what would happen to the housing market if these indians/ chinese were given green cards – the housing market would boom – there would be an instant demand for 100,000 to 200,000 housing units – there would be demand for labor and other services … and please note these are not illegals who jumped the fence. .. but hard working individuals who have been waiting for 10 – 12 years paying all the taxes on time and law abiding people
2. The USA has dropped to the third or fourth place because of this green card disparity, you don’t get the most brilliant here it is mostly the fake degrees and fake resume that land up on the USA. the best and the most brilliant go to Australia or to Canada. if someone has to come to the USA and wait for 10-12 years and instead if that someone can go to Australia and get the green card in six months which destination would one choose.
3. Software development outcome is not because of individual brilliance – it is the result of collective endeavor. you need programmers, analysts, testers. decoders. designers… and requires extensive labor and time, If the big corporations had 10,000 steve jobs in one company … with their attitudes and stubbornness. then perhaps there would be no microsoft, no google, no oracle, no such American coroporations.
4. Finally many people say this to me.
“you are not a citizen – you have no rights to ask for justice or fairness under the constitution”
True very true – and truly spoken like a Daniel and truth you shall have … then why does America advertise the USA to be the land of the just – the land of equity. the land of the righteous … let it tell frankly – and loudly – that it is the land of the discriminated – the land of inequity and the land of different rules for different people that seem like the same rule for all the people…. I wanted to write a few more lines but … i would rather refrain…
you are correct in most of the aspects. however it has to be borne in mind that the purpose of human success is the collective success of the whole and not an individual as such.
if you are a software programmer you might have come across the OOP concept. the purpose of the OOP concept was to make outstanding programs with the use of average to above average programmers. once a programmer understand the concept – s/he only has to call the class and understand the methods within the class – the programmer need not know the complete functionality of the method as such. this makes it possible to get great results from average to above average programmers and you know it.
It is true that America produces outstanding Engineers – but very few engineers compared to the rest of the world (because of the education system – which is Ultra child centric) An American Engineer is an Engineer because s/he has passion for the subject and not because s/he needs a job – that has been the criteria. It is agreed (although I am an indian) that most of the times I find Engineers from America to be exceptionally brilliant – however please note – not always – I have also found Engineers from America to be fakers – some of them. Taking into consideration all the fake graduates that come out from online universities now a days.
It is true that India has 1.7 billion population – but around 50% of the population does not have access to proper education and less than 30% of the population have the means to get an engineering education. What the president is trying to do is give green cards to people who have come to the USA 10 -12 years back on h1b and could not get the green card because of the wait times of Indians and Chinese. Where as any European who came on an h1b would get a green card in six months if s/he applied for it. The president is trying to remove this disparity. Not because of compassion or a good heart but because of economic reasons and let me spell out the reasons for you.
1. 70 Billion dollars – yes that is the annual repatriation to India because of the green card delays annually – because of the uncertainty involved indians – chinese who work in USA cannot decide whether to invest in USA or remit the money back to their home country. so they generally remit all that they earn back to their country. and that is around 70 billion annually
see wikipedia
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Remittances_to_India
what would happen to the housing market if these indians/ chinese were given green cards – the housing market would boom – there would be an instant demand for 100,000 to 200,000 housing units – there would be demand for labor and other services … and please note these are not illegals who jumped the fence. .. but hard working individuals who have been waiting for 10 – 12 years paying all the taxes on time and law abiding people
2. The USA has dropped to the third or fourth place because of this green card disparity, you don’t get the most brilliant here it is mostly the fake degrees and fake resume that land up on the USA. the best and the most brilliant go to Australia or to Canada. if someone has to come to the USA and wait for 10-12 years and instead if that someone can go to Australia and get the green card in six months which destination would one choose.
3. Software development outcome is not because of individual brilliance – it is the result of collective endeavor. you need programmers, analysts, testers. decoders. designers… and requires extensive labor and time, If the big corporations had 10,000 steve jobs in one company … with their attitudes and stubbornness. then perhaps there would be no microsoft, no google, no oracle, no such American coroporations.
4. Finally many people say this to me.
“you are not a citizen – you have no rights to ask for justice or fairness under the constitution”
True very true – and truly spoken like a Daniel and truth you shall have … then why does America advertise the USA to be the land of the just – the land of equity. the land of the righteous … let it tell frankly – and loudly – that it is the land of the discriminated – the land of inequity and the land of different rules for different people that seem like the same rule for all the people…. I wanted to write a few more lines but … i would rather refrain…
The H1B Visa program, too, should be eliminated. The H1B Visa program has helped destroy the American middle class.
EB3 visas need to be eliminated entirely. They are not highly-skilled visas, and is usually used by offshore consultants as a carrot to retain their barely qualified employees.
EB2 and EB1-A and EB1-B visas on the other hand, are highly skilled visas, for people with advanced graduate degrees from the US or outstanding researchers and individuals in science and business.
EB3 semi-skilled individuals, are also eating up permanent residency quotas of other categories, since they can upgrade to EB2 after a few years, forcing much more qualified people, who are actually adding to the US competitiveness, to leave the country in frustration.
It’s time to abolish EB3 visas.