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Comment by estebank | Hacker News Reader

After living and working in a place for 10 years you no longer have "a place to go back," the new place is your home, regardless of whether USCIS and US immigration laws categorize you as a "non-resident alien."

Uprooting people's lives, including that of US nationals (10 years is long enough to meet someone and have kids, even people that do not have a US citizenship or permanent residence either) is not humane. Visa holders have since 2017 a 60 days "grace period" in which H1B Visa holders have to find a new job, while L1 visa holders have that time to pack up and leave.

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I worked that long in another country, as an American, and had kids there. Then I was laid off. The government didn’t care, my employer didn’t care, I had to leave and uproot everything. This is how it works in most of the world. Only in America do we think an immigrant “deserves” a job while letting native born citizens go hungry.

You were treated inhumanely. That's not a reason to treat others inhumanely.

You do realize that basically 90+% of Americans today are all immigrants right? You do realize that right?

Essentially you are stating everyone who loses a job in the U.S. should leave the US.

Or alternatively you want to draw a line when the good immigrants are allowed to enter after which are the bad immigrants. And I’m sure that conveniently that line will ensure your family becomes part of the good immigrants.

This is not true. If your parents were immigrants and you were born here you are not an immigrant.

Hm, not really. That would make you a second-generation immigrant. [1]

First-generation immigrants are folks who are born outside the US and naturalize. "In the United States, among demographers and other social scientists, 'second generation [immigrants]' refers to the U.S.-born children of foreign-born parents."

Not in the strictest sense, but it's not the bright line you're making it out to be either.

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Immigrant_generations

This is incorrect, 90% of Americans are not immigrants. Please stop spreading misinformation.

Unless your ancestors were in the Americas before Columbus arrived, you're an immigrant. First generation, tenth generation, a hundred generations from now, it doesn't matter. Your great great grandfather landed at Plymouth Rock? You're not native.

In other words: you had it bad in the past, therefore the future is not allowed to be better.

More seriously, while this particular discussion centers around US visas, obviously the analogous arguments apply to other countries as well.

Yeah, I’m curious how immigration works in India, how generous the grace period etc is there.

Small nit, anybody who stayed in the US for 10 years is very unlikely to be a nonresident alien (which is mainly an IRS tax classification and doesn’t have much to do with having an immigrant visa)

source: current resident alien

Indeed I suspect they were looking for nonimmigrant.

Resident alien is synonymous with lawful permanent resident or green card holder, however nonresident alien is a tax term.

That wording is used both by the IRS and USCIS. Non-GC holders are non-resident aliens, but some visas are "dual intent" which allow you to become a resident alien/permanent resident/green card holder. For the IRS being a resident alien means that when you get kicked out of the country after (iirc) living in here for 7 years you have to pay taxes on any assets you own in the US as if you had sold them, just like Americans have to when renouncing their citizenship.

Edit: Quick googling to double check myself and it seems you're right in that USCIS indeed doesn't use that wording, which I must be getting confused with some other term they use in some form, or some other agency, or I'm just plain wrong and got the IRS wording internalized with something else.

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