Sunday, November 9, 2008

Why Do Indians Get Boned For Green Crads

Dear President Elect Obama,

A few days ago, the latest status report from the INS came out. If a person from India, qualified with *at least* a Masters Degree or equivalent work experience (around 2+ years) applied for a Green Card in June 2003 they are now eligible to get it. This means that they would have been waiting in line, patiently, for almost 6 years, chained to their current employer, fearful of getting fired or doing something wrong and losing their job, because then the wait resets!

In comparison, if you are a European with equivalent experience, you get your Green Card right away. If you are a less qualified European, you would have had to apply in May 2005, almost two years later! Finally, if you are an unskilled European, you are at about the same place as a highly qualified Indian.

And here's the kicker: Most of these Indians with Masters Degrees got them from US Universities. If you kick us out, or force us to leave because bonding ourselves to the same employer for 6 years can get a bit stifling, you will lose US educated and trained talent. From whatever angle you look at this conundrun, it doesn't seem to make sense. The only reason I can think of is that the INS is prioritizing Europeans over Indians and Chinese, and the only reason you can think about for doing this, is because the INS is trying to maintain some sort of racial equity in the makeup of immigrants to the US, an equity in which Europeans are more equal than Indians or Chinese.

As a President, you will, hopefully, have the opportunity to fix this. Please do. Giving us Green Cards can only help the US as we start companies and employ people (usually US citizens) - note that we can't start companies on H1-B visas. It would be nice to be free of the INS bogeyman and feel welcomed into this country.

Even John Doerr seems to agree
.

Thank you,
Rushabh Doshi

1 comment:

Lily's Dad said...

haha typo!!!!!

seriously though, our immigration strategy sucks. If we were so restrictive when my farmer ancestors came over, I'd be in Germany right now listening to their crappy pop
music.

If the position of national CTO is created, and Bill Joy is appointed, he's said he'd "I would staple a green card to the diploma" which is a-ok with me. You know, as long as they can verify that they aren't criminals.

I've got a couple reservations about Joy but that's one idea I can get behind.