America's skilled immigration crisis
Modern America has been made possible to a large extent by the contributions of thousands of immigrants. America has attracted the best talent from throughout the world because of its values and opportunities. However that door has now closed for millions and this crisis is going to lead to serious long term repercussions.
In this article I’ll focus on the cause from the perspective of Indian workers looking to immigrate to America via employment options. I am sympathetic to other immigration as well but have not studied those scenarios.
Current Green card backlog
Over 1.8 million cases are now estimated to be pending for employment-based green card processing. Green card allocation is capped based on country of birth. Because immigration in recent decades has been dominated by tech workers from India and China, they face the longest wait times for a green card. Without any change in the policies, new applicants for a major category of applicants (EB2 and EB3) face a timeline of over a 100 years for getting through the green card process. Read that again; new applicants to the green card process will die before they get a green card.
The green cards queue is based on a date called the priority date. The current priority date for India is Jan 1st 2011, which is over 12 years ago. During covid, priority dates progressed temporarily so that green cards were available for around a 8 year gap. However, going forward from the 2010s, the number of applications for Indians compared to other countries continues to increase drastically. Hence the expected wait time for green cards exponentially increases to over 100 years.
Many applicants for green cards start under the H1B visa program. That program is capped to a maximum of 6 years of work unless you get a immigration petition (i.e. i140 with the priority date) filed. However even getting to that phase now takes multiple years of processing times. The Perm process itself takes over 2 years to complete in 2023 because of processing delays with various government agencies.
If you’re lucky and get the i140 filed it is possible for a H1B holder to continue renewing their visa indefinitely. However that benefit has strings attached. You need to actively get your visa stamped at a US consulate which takes an immense amount of time and money. Travel outside the US becomes a burden since getting a visa stamped itself is backlogged. Maintaining an active job that sponsors the H1B visa is required throughout while you wait for years. That means that most visa holders prefer working for stable mid to large sized companies instead of startups which potentially have high rewards but are high risk. In fact during layoffs earlier this year, many Indians had to return to India because of loss of their visa. If you change employers you have to redo initial steps leading to more paperwork and bureaucracy.
Those who are trying to immigrate to the USA end up trying to maintain their jobs. They are severely limited in making long term decisions including financial, family or other categories. When your foundations of location are unstable, there is a fog over many actions. We’ve been in America for almost 15 years now and are still stuck in this limbo. The experience and monetary rewards we’ve gained for these years has been tremendous, but I’m not certain how long we intend to continue this struggle.
Opportunities for Indians
For individuals like me, there are many opportunities in India now. My company and many others offer good jobs with similar profiles with senior leadership roles. Skilled workers have been returning to India and hence the working culture in many companies is comparable and I should be able to build networks there. Taking care of aging parents can be solved easily by leaving to go back home. Arguably a tech salary in India should translate to the higher end of a middle class lifestyle compared to a very average lifestyle in the bay area.
For kids coming here for education or starting work I am not sure if moving to the USA is still viable. There is hope that the immigration policies will improve but we’ve been waiting for that for years. Given the current state of politics, reform feels impossible.
Other countries like Canada and Australia offer good immigration options and are potentially still valid options.
India itself is growing quickly and maturing as a major economy. Capital is going to continue to flow into India for the next few decades as the USA looks to de-risk from China. I still believe that India cannot still utilize its greatest resource - people - well enough. Systemic issues like corruption, education, mis-management are still a drain. However the situation is improving and the society is slowly but surely realizing its potential. In the long term, the Indian diaspora will help India since they are deeply connected benefiting all countries.
America’s crisis
America has many strengths as a global leader. It provides opportunities that are unmatched and unparalleled in research and technical know how. However it still needs skilled labor especially from places like India to help it maintain its position.
Short term thinking and vilification of the outsider has led to a political quagmire of inaction. Based on contributions by skilled immigrants I can argue that streamlining immigration is in fact in the national interest of the USA. Japan and other countries have not been open to immigrants leading to rapid aging of the population. American society is relatively open to immigrants and has been a fantastic place to live in. About 40% PhD students in the US are international students. The technological dominance of the country is what makes it competitive and drives growth for the rest of the population. Legal and illegal immigration are mixed but none are solved leading to a complete stalemate for all parties.
Sometimes I am shocked at how trivial the problem feels. With a population of around 340 million people, the US feels sparsely populated for its land area. Here is some more trivia, the US mainland is actually slightly smaller than the area of India, but India has a population of more than 1.4 billion people (4x higher). The US can easily absorb immigrants at higher rates and actually hire some of those people to automate the processes in immigration offices.
Behavioral scientists can probably model this; but practically I do not think anyone is going to die waiting for a green card… they are just not going to consider coming to the USA. In the long term unless resolved, this is America’s crisis.