Jon asked me to post this essay written by our friend.
Life as an Immigrant
By Marc Brands
From 1993 to 1996 I did an apprenticeship in Electronics Engineering at
Siemens. In Switzerland apprenticeships are very common, students
attend about 16 hours of classes and about 32 hours of practical
training per week at an employers' site.
For most people the apprenticeship is the final stage of formal
education. A few people go on to higher education in a full-time
university setting. In Switzerland higher education is virtually fully
paid by the state and because of this, demand is high and space is
limited. Generally less than 20% of applicants will be accepted for any
given university. Each university has its own admissions test, and
preparations for these tests usually involves months of study.
Fortunately, I was accepted into the computer science program at one of
the top engineering schools in Switzerland.
That particular school had a reputation of over-accepting students and
then failing a number of them during the first few semesters. One of
the required subjects was English and as I had some time between
finishing my apprenticeship and starting the university I decided to
study English beforehand.
I decided to come to the United States to study English. It was a life
changing experience. I made friends with people from the US and all
over the world. I had the best time of my life. I recognized the
strength of the US lies in its diversity and ability to attract the
brightest and best people in the world. The US is a great society that
is based on individual freedom to let people interact in mutual
beneficial transactions that breeds respect, a solid code of ethics and
respect of the rule of law.
After four months of English I returned to Switzerland to begin my
studies. Most people had to work more than 80 hours per week and after
the first semester our class size shrank from 24 to 13 students. I was
doing fairly well but I was not happy with the environment I was in.
Relative to the US, Switzerland is a fairly closed country in terms of
immigration; people are not often exposed to other cultures and ideas.
I felt like a bird that was let out of the cage to see the world and
was then put back into the cage. As in the US and most other countries,
people in Switzerland are very patriotic and consider their country the
best in the world. After spending only four months in the US, I
realized that there are many great countries in the world and that the
US was taking the best things from all over the world. This fact,
coupled with a free market philosophy and the concept of individual
liberty made this country very attractive for me.
Switzerland is considered one of the richest countries in the world; at
that time it had a higher GDP per capita than the US and it was also
considered one of the freest in terms of economic and personal liberty
in the world. Given all that I still felt Switzerland was moving in a
socialist rather than a capitalist direction. There was a defining
moment I remember very well where we had two political parties invited
to our campus to debate. One candidate suggested abolishing the federal
requirement of employers to paying a predefined premium of 25% to any
employee working at nights or weekends and let the free market clear
the equilibrium wage premium. That idea was massacred and there was
virtually no one in the room that would even consider it. Looking
around the room realizing that these people will be the leaders of this
country, I decided to investigate the possibility of migrating to the
US.
In 1997 I returned to the US, took one more month of English and
enrolled in college. Economically, it made no sense; I now had to pay
full out-of-state tuition and attended a school that is considered
inferior and would offered smaller earnings potential in terms of level
of education. Nonetheless, I considered it to be the absolute right
move. I was much happier, I had more friends, I had more free time and
I had the perception of being free. The economy in the US was booming
while Europe was somewhat stagnating. In my free time I was trading in
the stock market and made a small fortune which I later lost in the
bust following 2000.
I graduated in 2000 with Magna Cum Laude and found very quickly a job
at Carnegie Mellon University as a Systems Manager at a renowned MRI
research lab. At that time I was not very concerned about receiving a
work visa. Initially, I had a OPT (Optional Practical Training) which
is a work authorization for up to one year that people receive after
graduating from a US university as a full time student to get practical
experience in their field of study. I only applied for 3 and 6 month
each because I wasn't sure if I'd find a job and alternatively I would
have gone to graduate school. Because of immigration processing times,
there was a 1 month gap between the OPT and the H-1B where I wasn't
able to work, but otherwise I did not have a problem getting my work
visa. In fact the department head at that time was able to fill out all
the forms which didn't require an immigration lawyer.
During my career at Carnegie Mellon University I decided I should apply
for permanent residency. I hired an immigration lawyer and started the
green card process with the labor certification which is the first in a
three stage process. Only at that point I realized enormous
bureaucratic hurdles that had to be cleared. I had to spend thousands
of dollars in lawyers fee as well as over $1000 to advertise my
position and then my employer had to interview all applicants that
applied to my position and show that they did not qualify.
At this point the economy started to go into a recession and September
11 happened. I remember the day very well, and I would have never ever
imagined the amount of policy changes that this caused and how
massively it would change this country and my personal life.
After about 2 years of my labor certification case pending, I received
the denial of my case. The immigration claimed that the requirement
that we specified for my position which included some experience or
knowledge in electronics was too specific and tailored to my background
and therefore reduced the requirements to anyone with a bachelor's in a
computer science related field which qualified 13 out of 35 people. My
electronics experience and knowledge was in fact very crucial to my
position since I developed almost all devices that are used in the MRI
and interact with our in-house research software and the MRI scanner
but that did not change the decision. It was an eye opening experience;
I blamed myself a little for not being on top of things and not
carefully choosing a good lawyer. I couldn't imagine that I would not
get my case approved. During these times I was politically active,
publishing Op-ed pieces on the Internet. Today, those opinions are
considered true and accurate by most people, but they were not at that
time and I am now convinced that this has caused my denial. I realized
that free speech isn't as free as many believe it is. I did hire a new
immigration lawyer, restarted the process and stopped expressing my
political views.
During my full time work I started taking classes towards an MBA from
Carnegie Mellon University at the Tepper School of Business which was
placed as the second best business school in the world by the Wall
Street Journal and ranked in the top 20 in all other major
publications. It was lot of time spent but I managed to graduate with
honors.
In the meantime my labor certification case was still pending, at that
time cases were pending several years but a new labor certification
process which was called PERM was put in place which is completely
computerized and most cases went through the system within only a few
months.
I decided I would look for a new position and redo my labor
certification through the new employer and new position. The job search
was impossible. The amount of discrimination based on my need of visa
sponsorship was incomprehensible. 95% of all recruiting companies at
the Tepper School of Business would refuse any interview with anyone
needing sponsorship and this was worse given the fact that about half
of all students at the school would require sponsorship.
Because the tech boom in the 90's congress raised the annual cap for
H-1B work visas to 115,000 for FY 1999 and FY 2000, and then to 195,000
for FY 2001 through 2003. During these years quotas were not reached
and employers were able to hire the best qualified individuals and
generate wealth for the country. H-1B visas for Universities are cap
exempt and therefore my visa was never counted towards the quota even
though there would have been enough visas available.
In October 2003 at the start of the FY the increase in the visa sunset
back to 65,000 visas annually. Because of the political climate with
the war and the public's anti-immigrant sentiment there was no support
to raise the cap. That year the cap was reached in February 2004. The
following year the quota was reached October 1, 2005, the first day
they became available. Since my visa was never counted toward the
quota, I would need to be counted towards this quota. Furthermore,
since I was studying part-time under my work visa I was not eligible to
receive an OPT. At this point I was stuck and could not move forward.
To alleviate this immigration crisis, congress passed a law that made
an additional 20,000 work visa available to anyone that has a graduate
degree from a US university.
After several month of intensive job search I found an employer that
was willing to sponsor me. I signed the contract and stopped my job
search. Unfortunately, there was long delay until these additional
20,000 would become available. After waiting several months my new
employer decided that they could no longer wait and withdrew their
offer.
Only days later the visas became available. I knew they were not going
to last very long, so I decided to contact anyone I knew and had
contacted during in my job search. A friend of mine who was also
ex-coworker told me about a position at his current employer. I
interview and immediately took that position. That new position was a
lateral move at best, the job skill requirements were lower, the daily
tasks were less interesting, and the compensation was merely equivalent
to the previous position. I was still glad that to be able to take that
position since it promised a faster path to the green card so I would
stop being discriminated against.
My new employer did file a new labor certification with PERM and my
case was approved in less than one year from the start. Because there
is a limited availability of immigrant visas (green card) each year the
USICS limits applicants to apply for Adjustment of Status (the final
step in the green card process) based on their country of origin,
employment based preference category and date they first filed for the
labor certification.
Because my position did not require a graduate degree or a minimum of 5
years related experience and was also not compensated accordingly, I
was put into the third employment based preference category (EB3).
Every visa in that category was retrogressed, meaning only people who
had filed their labor certification in 2001 would now be able apply for
AOS (Adjustment of Status). Things didn't look good. After a while, I
consulted with another immigration lawyer who recommended I should find
a new employer and have them file for a green card under the EB2
category which was luckily not retrogressed for my country of origin. I
would then work for them as soon as I would receive my EAD (Employment
Authorization Document) which one should get about one month after
applying for the AOS. I did not really want to switch employers but it
seemed to be to only feasible option. I also talked to my current
employer to see if they were willing to offer me a future position and
redo my green card process under the EB2 category.
During this discussion an amazing thing happened. The June Visa
Bulletin, which is a monthly posting by the DOS (Department of State)
showing the current priority dates for each category of applicants, was
published. Many priority dates moved significantly, my priority date
for example moved by over 2 years in one month, moving me significantly
closer to the date when I could apply for AOS. The reason for this was
to avoid what happened in previous years when immigrant visas were
wasted. The DOS had often mis-estimated demand and priority dates
weren't moved ahead enough so unused immigrant visas of one fiscal year
could not be moved to the next. At this point I abandoned the idea of
trying to file in the EB2 category since it would have only given me a
marginal benefit.
One month later, the July Bulletin was published and virtually all
employment based priority dates became current. This was unprecedented
and completely unanticipated. I was very happy about this but it also
started a rush of collecting all required papers and such.
One of the requirements was a medical exam only to be performed by an
approved civil surgeon. Because of the sudden spike in demand, all
available physicians got flooded with appointment requests and the
first day after the announcement all available physicians in the
Pittsburgh area got booked out until August which was past the deadline
for filing. I was very lucky and found a physician in Erie, PA where I
was able to "piggyback" on a friend's appointment. I had to take off
work to travel to Erie for the two required appointments, but it worked
and I was able to get my medical examination.
The immigration's own laws and regulations state that people whose
priority date is current for a particular month may apply for the AOS
anytime during that month. On Sunday July 1, rumors indicated that the
DOS would make all categories unavailable as soon as Monday or Tuesday.
Given this information I decided to prepare all documents, purchase a
next day airplane ticket, and hand deliver them to the immigration
attorney located in Phoenix AZ. For anyone who has not dealt with
immigration, this seems excessive given that one could just overnight
the documents and save several hundred dollars but it was not excessive
given what is at stake and many who had to deal with the immigration
systems can attest to this.
As I got off the plane in Phoenix I received the news that the DOS
revoked their initial July posting and made all immigrant visas
unavailable and that the USICS would reject any applicant's
application. I was able to talk to the managing director of the law
firm, I was devastated, angry and almost in tears. The DOS incorrectly
estimated the demand of immigrant visas and thus had published this
unprecedented movement in the July Visa Bulletin but then revoked their
decision.
I did decide to file all my papers on my own without any ones review so
I would have proof that I attempted to file my case. The American
Immigration Lawyers Association is working on a class action lawsuit
against the USCIS and they had suggested people should attempt to file
their case.
All of this keeps me pondering and predicting the future of this
country. This country has changed dramatically in the recent years.
Many very poorly chosen policies have been implemented that, in my
belief, have contributed to a significant decline of this country.
If one takes a look at the US dollar exchange rate relative to the
trade-weighted currency index a decline of about 16% since 2001 can be
seen. This decline can be translated into loss in total economic value
of this country relative to expected opportunity cost. Exchange rates
are determined by the market's belief of future productivity
differentials between countries. Massive debt levels, increased cost of
regulatory compliance, America's declining brand name and goodwill in
the world, and also America's increased closing of its borders has
contributed to this country's decline.
I am very concerned about the future. If we continue at this rate, this
country will be bankrupt in only a few decades. I know we will turn
things around and we will not continue at this rate. No one can now
predict when we will hit bottom and when we will correct our path.
I have been seeing this country decline for years but this immigration
disaster was now the defining moment in my life where I am starting to
investigate my options for a better life.
I am the first employee of my current employer that is being sponsored.
Sadly, I am also the last one. My employer became aware of the waste
amount of bureaucratic hurdles and cost that is involved in sponsoring
a non-permanent resident and decided to not interview anyone requiring
sponsorship.
My situation is just one story of millions, literally. I can not think
of any immigrant that I know personally that does not have some sort of
horror story of their own. One friend of mine, a PhD student was held
up in his home country for four months awaiting his security clearance
for renewing his visa stamp while his university students didn't have a
teacher. Another friend of mine was forced to quit her job because she
couldn't get an H-1B visa after her husband had to switch off his J-1
visa status. She was stuck at living at home with nothing to do for
several months and eventually just went home. Yet another friend was
also had to stop working due to the H-1B unavailability crisis and
forced to leave the country for good. These are immediate friends of
mine and not some isolated cases and all of them have graduate degrees.
Relative to many, I am in a much better situation, I can be happy that
I am from the country that I am from and that I have a graduate degree
from the US.
I have been in this country for over 10 years and have been trying to
get a green card. I spend $10,000 regularly to pay for lawyers and
such, have forgone at least $100,000 in earnings due to the
unavailability of H-1B's and not being able to be more productive.
I came to this country yearning to be free. But a country where Bob
wants to work for Joe, Joe wants Bob to work for him and Uncle Sam says
you cannot is not a free country!
I am at a stage in life where I realized that all the reasons why I
came here in the first place don't seem to exist anymore. I am
seriously considering packing up my stuff and go to some country where
I am welcome, because I am clearly not here! I will take all my wealth
and knowledge and go where liberty and freedom is practiced.
Updates:
- July 12, 2007: American Immigration Law Foundation announced they
have collected sufficient evidence and are preparing the class action
law suit.
- July 17, 2007: American Immigration Law Foundation announced they are
ready to file its class action lawsuit against the USCIS and the DOS
- July 17, 2007: The USISC announced they will reinstate the July Bulletin and will accept AOS cases until August 18.
- July 19, 2007: The Senate rejects a bill that would recapture unused
H-1B visas to give temporary relive to the visa crisis.
- July 20, 2007: After reviewing my case with the lawyer it was
discovered that I failed to send the required $70.00 fingerprinting fee
and that my case will most likely be rejected.
Posted by
Heather Daley on
October 17, 2007, 3:59 pm
| Read 61750 times
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Will somebody please tell me why this country makes it so difficult for law-abiding, well-educated people with high skill levels who will add value to our economy to live here, and yet wants to grant that right, en masse, to those who are here illegally, have few skills and less education, and are often a drain on our resources? Don't tell me it's because they're doing jobs Americans won't do -- if illegal immigration weren't keeping wages artificially low, there would be plenty of Americans eager for those jobs.
Things may have been made worse after 2001, but my memory is long enough to know that we have a history of keeping out well-qualified immigrants.
Not that Switzerland is any better! Of course, I'm basing most of my information on Swiss immigration on Die Schweizer Macher and I know I don't want people judging America by our movies!
Funny how Marc says of Switzerland, "people are not often exposed to other cultures and ideas," and Janet is finding Switzerland to be a place where she is experiencing just that. At her small school, "There’s only one other person from the US, one from Canada, and two from England. There are plenty of French, Spanish, and German students and also represented was Israel, Colombia, Russia, Japan, Portugal, Rumania, South Africa, Italy, and more I’m forgetting." She can easily walk from Switzerland to France and Germany, and most natives know at least two languages, often three or four.
No doubt about the Socialist direction of the country, however. Not but what we're sliding that way, too....
It would be so cool if you could find a job in systems management, particularly in a big company, where they'd pay you under the table.
I have an American friend who married a Swiss, but because he is the breadwinner he cannot get an American green card. They've been married over 20 years and she would have to get a job in America in order for him to get a green card. Even though many companies want him they say 'come back when you have a green card.' It's a horrible.
If illegal immigration didn't keep wages artificially low, wouldn't the price of goods rise dramatically as well?
Sure, prices would rise, but I'm not sure that's relevant. That the economy of our southern states was dependent on slave labor did not justify the continued existence of slavery.
And price increases are not always bad. The increase in gas prices, for example, fuels interest in alternative means of transportation.
I'm sure the economics of it all is quite complicated, and if we don't want to go to the extremes we did when combating slavery, we'll have to consider ways of easing the transition -- but it's hard for me to believe that rewarding illegal behavior would be a good thing.
Rising prices aren't relevant to whether it ought to be done, but to how much resistance there will be against it.
I agree that rewarding illegal behavior is generally a bad proposition. However, if we still are the home of the American Dream, where hard work and an enterprising attitude is all that matters for your career, then a lack of skills and education shouldn't matter a lot - and folks ambitious enough to break what they regard as an unfair law imposed by someone else probably (unfortunately) don't fit our requirements too badly. If, however, education and skills are paramount, then aren't we just being selfish by saying, essentially: "We're rich, and you don't help us get richer because your parents weren't rich enough for you to get educated, so we don't want you?" I guess I'm unsure as to what we are, what we think we are, and what we want to be, which is a level above policy decisions.
wow, i am not reading this.