H1-B Visa path to a job in the USA?

Not that life has ever been simple for H-1B workers, but with the economic downturn things have become even more difficult for them.  Many H-1B workers had resigned themselves to the fact that, due to the long quota backlogs in the EB-3 green card category, and even in the EB-2 category for workers with advanced degrees, when the workers are from India or China, they will be stuck for the better part of a decade in a job with a sponsoring employer who might be treating them like an indentured servant. Now, with all of the layoffs, the probability is increasing that many H-1B workers will lose their H-1B status and green card sponsorship along with their job. This can have catastrophic consequences, particularly for those who have already used up their six years of H-1B eligibility, and are not eligible now to transfer their H-1B visa to a new employer.  In such a case, if the worker is not eligible for a different type of work visa, then he or she would have to leave the U.S. for one year in order to restore H-1B eligibility.

Another problem arose for those H-1B workers working in the financial sector. Congress imposed more burdensome additional obligations and restrictions on financial institutions that received TARP funds and employ H-1B workers. Among those restrictions are the requirement to pay new U.S. employees more than they pay H-1B workers and the requirement not to make any layoffs 90 days before or 90 days after filing a petition for an H-1B worker. In the current environment in which employers are looking to lay workers off and pay them less, some employers prefer to dump H-1B workers in order to maintain more freedom of action in how they deal with the rest of their staff. Meanwhile, there are more and higher qualified American citizens and permanent residents unemployed, who were previously employed elsewhere and available for hire only at a higher salary.

New college graduates are going out to try to find a job in this hostile environment. The only good news for new college graduates who need to get an H-1B visa is that there is less competition for H-1B visas, and so H-1B visas were available for over 8 months last year, as opposed to being exhausted on the first day, as they were in previous years. The unfortunate reason behind the greater availability of H-1B visas is the employers’ lack of interest in hiring H-1B workers.  Many employers see no reason to pay the expenses of the visa application process or to deal with the additional hassle, particularly when, as previously mentioned, many highly qualified U.S. citizens and permanent residents, who were previously employed elsewhere, are now available for hire.

H-1B workers and students alike have found relief from the dangers, uncertainties, and dependence of seeking permanent residence through sponsorship by an employer. They have found such relief by immigrating under the EB-5 program based on investment in a regional center, which frees them from relying on an employer and enables them to obtain conditional permanent residence in less than one year, or, in some cases, less than 6 months. As a result, these EB-5 immigrants can compete for career opportunities or run their own business on equal terms with U.S. citizens and permanent residents. In other words, the EB-5 immigrants have the freedom to live their life in the U.S. as they wish.