Another thing is that the company must respond to your application within 30 days. Unlike Indeed or Linkedin applications which simply disappear into a void.

H1-B visas eventually expire. I think it’s technically a guest worker visa, so the expectation is that the visa holder will go back to their home country after working in the US a few years.

H1-B is an immigrant intent (actually dual intent) visa. I know a lot of Canadians that started working in the US on a TN visa, which doesn't let you ever become a permanent resident. They had to do all the paperwork (and win the lottery) to convert to H1-B status so they could begin the process of getting permanent residency.

To be clear, H1B is not an immigrant intent visa. It’s a non-immigrant visa. “Dual intent” is like Schrödinger's intent. It allows someone who is on a non-immigrant visa to avoid the presumption of immigrant intent that would otherwise apply—rendering them deportable—when they apply for a green card.

The statutory protection for H1Bs is thin. In 1990, Congress excluded H1B from the requirement applicable to other non-immigrants that they retain a foreign residence, and from the rebuttal presumption that someone who applies for a green card has immigrant intent. That’s it. The common operation of H1B as being an immigrant-intent visa is mostly a matter of administrative grace.

I guess "plausible deniability" is the best anyone intending to immigrate to the US can do. It's crazy how difficult we make it.

The system is byzantine because it is a hack around public opinion. Since 1965, support for more immigration peaked around 35%: https://nypost.com/2022/08/08/more-americans-want-fewer-immi..., with everyone else wanting it to either stay the same or be reduced.

The 1965 immigration act was sold to americans on the idea that it was simply ending country-origin discrimination, and wouldn’t increase immigration or change america’s demographics: https://www.nytimes.com/2024/10/29/podcasts/the-daily/electi....

So Congress can take advantage of the fact that a lot of people are okay with the status quo, but can’t affirmatively enact legislation that would be seen as creating a new pathway for permanent immigration. So the current system was built on a series of small measures that could fly under the radar. Eliminating the rebuttable presumption of immigrant intent in subsection blah blah blah doesn’t sound like it’s going to create a new pathway for permanent immigrants.

No. They are indefinitely renewable only if a GC application is pending. Otherwise, they expire after two terms i.e. six years.

It's six years in total, excluding time spent outside the US. The status is valid for at most three calendar years, but it can be shorter for fixed-term positions. And you can renew it as long as your total time in the US is less than 6 years.

I was on H-1B at a university where researcher appointments were nominally from July of year N to June of year N+2. But if you didn't start in July, your second appointment might be only 1 year, for some bureaucratic reasons. And you had to renew the H-1B for each appointment. I had five H-1Bs in total over ~7 years.

Okay but the 2nd order effect of doing this is that we're not permanently bringing in competitors for US jobs

I'd just like to point out that it seems like what you're ultimately against is pure capitalism. You seem to be in favor of Nationalism.