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Every immigrant, whether it be the CEOs of Microsoft or Micron, has personal horror stories about the US immigration system. Satya Nadella had to surrender his Green Card and even considered returning to India because rules prevented Green Card spouses from coming to the US. In Microsoft HQ, Satya was known for a long time as the person who gave up his Green Card. Similarly, Sanjay Mehrotra, who heads Micron, was rejected three times for a student visa before his father got involved, scolded the visa officer, and got his son’s visa rejection revoked.
When a student or employee decides to work in the US for the first time, they have yet to learn how long the process would take and how incredibly complicated it can be. This article should shed light on the labyrinthine process of work visas typically under the H1b and L1 visa categories.
The US labor market:
The US labor market is very controlled, and very few outsiders can find a job legally in the US economy. If the borders were more open or the visa process were more straightforward, hundreds of millions, if not billions, of people, would be happy to leave their country to get a chance to work in the US. The average GDP per capita in the US is around 70,000 $, and the Indian GDP per capita number is about 2300 $. The US is the richest among the large countries, and there is an extraordinary demand for US visas. All this means that there is a mad rush for US visas.
Types of Visas:
A typical recipient of this visa is someone who has studied in the US and wants to continue working in the US after their education. Most students come to the US on an F1 student visa. After their education is complete, they can work in a company during Optional Practical Training (OPT). This period is sponsored by the university and is covered by the F1 visa. The ability to work beyond a year after graduation requires an H1B visa or an L1 visa.
For practical purposes, there are two visas to work in the US:
1) H1B Visa: To get an H1B visa, every applicant must undergo a lottery-based selection process. The most recent number is 780,000 applicants for 85000 slots. The 85000 slots consist of 65000 slots in the regular category and 20000 slots for students with Master’s degrees. These odds mean an 11% chance of getting the visa in the lottery and an 89% chance of not getting it. Many companies have stopped sponsoring H1B visas because it is ridiculous to plan for a situation where your employee has nine times more chances of rejection than selection.
Just because a company has applied for an H1B visa doesn’t mean one would get it. While FANG companies typically have rejection rates of 2-6%, Indian IT companies like Wipro and Infosys can have 57-60% rejection rates.
When having an H1B visa, the employee cannot have any other source of income, whether it be writing a book or publishing a work of art. The only income has to be the income through being a loyal salaryman. No adventure, hobby, or passion project of the H1B applicant is permitted. A modern version of golden handcuffs.
2) L1 Visa: To get this visa, one should work in the subsidiary of a US MNC for at least a year in the last three years. It is even better if a person has managed a team and employees. There are no restrictions on the number of L1 visas that can be granted. Rejection rates for L1 visas have ranged from 6-20% in the past, even though it can be much higher for companies like outsourcing companies.
Options outside H1B visas:
1) Typically, when employees or students are not eligible not H1B visas, companies tend to send them to regions like India, Canada, or Europe for at least a year and then bring them back on an L1 visa. This move is only in the scenario that the company can see long-term potential in the employee and is willing to take a bet on the candidate. Since the company has to foot the relocation costs both ways and manage the disruptions in work because of geographical distance, this is not a popular option. In many cases, employees let go of employees, saying they cannot help them without the H1B visa.
2) Some exceptional employees can apply for an O1 visa, also called a Genius visa. Your chances of getting this visa go up if you have a Ph.D. degree and a track record of publishing in top-tier journals, in addition to other factors.
3) Students who apply for STEM graduate programs are eligible for the three-year OPT extension. This extension means that the university sponsors the student for three years instead of just a year. Companies don’t need an H1B degree to employ the student, making it an attractive proposition. Companies can also keep trying for an H1B degree every year, and they can get up to 3-4 shots at applying for H1B, depending on how early they apply. Repeat applications can dramatically increase the chances of being ultimately selected in the H1B lottery.
What happens after H1B or L1 Visa?
There are a bunch of steps before an H1B visa holder becomes a US citizen; the steps are:
1) PERM Labor Certification and I-140 petition: The entire process can take around 2.5-3 years. The petition is the first step and requires a lot of paperwork to be filed with the US Government. If the employee changes jobs during the period, the Labor Certification has to be filed from scratch. If the I140 petition is not filed as “expedited” (at much higher costs to the company), the wait can extend by 6-8 months. Once the employee gets the I-140 petition, they are still at the employer’s mercy for another six months, who can decide to revoke the entire GC application during that time.
2) I-485 status or Change of status to Green Card (GC): It can take up to 12-13 years for Indians to get the GC. Archaic US immigration rules state that not more than 7% of GC slots should go to any one country. Hence countries with more applicants wait a lot. Since India constitutes 73% of H1B visa holders, they have among the most extended wait times of over a decade. The US government has yet to attempt to solve this problem as H1B reform is often unfairly clubbed along with illegal border migration. Typically no solutions emerge to tackle all the immigration problems in one shot. During this long waiting period, if the person loses their job, the experience can be nerve-racking. Within 60 days of the person being unemployed, people have to leave the US if they have not found an alternative job. The former administration brought a bizarre rule to force those waiting for their GC to return to their home countries. Imagine the horror of earning in India and paying expenses and mortgages in the US. Fortunately, the proposal was shot down. That is how close many Indians came to total disaster.
3) Change from Green Card to US citizenship: It typically takes five years to go from GC to citizenship. Typically, an Indian student who is 22 years old when they come to the US will probably be 44 years old by the time they get their citizenship. A similar student from Europe can get citizenship in 10-12 years, at least a decade faster than their Indian counterparts. This is how unfair the system is, for no fault of the individual. When having a GC, a person cannot spend more than six months yearly outside the US. Failing the residency requirement, border security assumes that the employee has no interest in maintaining GC status.
In totality, the entire process can take up to 15-16 years for a GC or 20-21 years for citizenship. This number is only expected to rise. Some media reports mention that it could take up to 90 years for Indians to get their Green Cards. Considering that many companies and industries run on Indian manpower, this is an absolute tragedy. Since Indians are the highest-educated and highest-earning ethnic group (making an average of 126,000 $), it is surprising that they are treated so shabbily. Even Silicon Valley big tech companies, where 30-60% of their engineers can be from India, have shown little interest in lobbying to make life easier for their most skilled employees. These facts show a different side of India rarely talked about – not the omnipotence of Indian engineering talent but their impotence and irrelevance. No one cares, indeed!!
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