Otherwise, one could immigrate through a different visa; there are some employment visas that are explicitly intended for those with intent to immigrate. Or like a family or lottery visa, I guess.
I think it's possible to have a permanent residency application sponsored by an employer from abroad, but especially if the candidate is from China, India, Mexico or the Philipines, the timelines make even less sense than H1-B timelines (submit your application in a two week window near the beginning of March, for the chance to start in October). I don't know too many places that want to commit to a hire that can't start for 7 months, although it's not unreasonable for those on post graduate visas with work eligibility.
The H1B visa is explicitly a dual intent visa.
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dual_intent
Becoming a permanent resident is explicitly allowed under the H1B visa. By contrast, if an immigration officer even had a suspicion that you intended to immigrate on any other visa, that would be sufficient grounds for them to disallow you from entering the country.
Further, the dual intent nature of the H1B visa means H1B employees pay social security and Medicare, even though they themselves are not eligible for it. Something you don’t have to do if you earn money on a non dual intent visa.
The H1B visa is indeed temporary. It lasts only 6 years. But it allows you, or your employer, to apply for your permanent residency on the basis of other categories while you’re in the U.S. on an H1B visa. IOW, the only real use of the H1B is that it lets an employer get to know an employee well enough that they’re willing to sponsor their permanent residency.
Also, the other reason the H1B appears overused and not “temporary” is because in a moment of brilliance Congress wrote laws so that there were an equal number of green cards handed out to people from Jamaica as those from China. As a result, when Indians and Chinese apply and get approved for a green card, they need to wait decades to actually get those green cards, whereas someone from Greece would get it instantly.
Since Congress hasn’t been able to write new immigration laws in 3 decades, extending thenH1B visa is the only way to allow folks who have essentially approved green cards to remain in the U.S., because they’re discriminated by their country of birth.
I am aware that this is allowed. However, the DOL describes the program like this: [1]
> The H-1B program applies to employers seeking to hire nonimmigrant aliens as workers in specialty occupations or as fashion models of distinguished merit and ability. A specialty occupation is one that requires the application of a body of highly specialized knowledge and the attainment of at least a bachelor’s degree or its equivalent. The intent of the H-1B provisions is to help employers who cannot otherwise obtain needed business skills and abilities from the U.S. workforce by authorizing the temporary employment of qualified individuals who are not otherwise authorized to work in the United States.
So I understand why people would be confused or upset when nonimmigrant aliens with temporary employment authorization end up immigrating.
I also agree that allocating a limited number of residencies by country of birth is pretty bizarre. There are some countries where the whole population could get a green card in a single year (if they were all eligible), but people born in Mexico and India have a 20 year backlog in some categories. Some sort of population or land area factor should apply. The impacted countries may want to consider strategic division to improve their US immigration backlogs ;P and they could gain more votes in the UN General Assembly, too.
It is largely by design and serves to preserve cultural diversity. Without immigration caps, half of the U.S. would be Indians and Chinese.
Meanwhile vast majority of them pay into taxes and social security and leave the US and never see a dime of that money.
Immigrants are the easiest group to exploit by everyone because they have no voice and are vilified by vast majority of the people include the so called intellectuals in here.
They should absolutely be shunning this unfair system and helping India become vishwaguru of software.
Primarily only for Indians. For almost everyone else, it's much quicker. Most people I know get it in 2-3 years. Many in under 2 years.
(And yes, it's frankly immoral that they have a separate queue for Indians).
So don't get rid of H1B. Make it one queue.
And now even their citizenship is threatened.
