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Comment by danking00 | Hacker News Reader

I’d be delighted to be proven wrong but the ten year minimum experience comes from the second reference:

> Letters from current or former employers documenting at least 10 years of full-time experience in your occupation

EDIT: I see where you misunderstood. I emphasized the age to show how long someone would be waiting for a non-precarious situation. I’ll edit above.

Apologies if I’m unclear, I mean getting the H1-B in the first place requires a lottery. People who graduate with US undergrad degrees can start on OPT or the like but must transition to something else when that’s exhausted. One friend just went through exactly this where she exhausted her OPT, lost work authorization, but missed three attempts at H1-B.

What else is wrong?

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> Letters from current or former employers documenting at least 10 years of full-time experience in your occupation

Thats if you are in the second row in the table above. i.e "Exceptional Ability".

You don't need it if you have masters or bachelors + 5.

> Meanwhile, they’re trying to maintain work authorization

There is no 'meanwhile' , they are not in eb green card queues without going though the h1 lottery first. In no case are you going though h1b lottery and in green card queue concurrently.

Fair on the first point, I’ll adjust the text to clarify the need for a BS.

On the second point, first claim, you can be in an EB-1 queue without an H1-B (e.g. OPT or TN [1]). On the second claim, I admit to not knowing someone who is in the queue and in the lottery but they’re on TN, preparing materials for an EB-1 and applying for an H1-B. My understanding was that they’d apply for both concurrently (due to the EB queue period), but I have no references to back me up.

[1] If you were born in China and then immigrated to Canada, you’re still in the China queue for EB.

Yes correct, Greencard is not tied to maintaining current employment or having a visa, its a separate process. I know ppl who came to USA for the first time on a greencard. I was addressing the word "meanwhile" in your comment, i guess it technically possible that someone gets their greencard applied while they are on OPT/vistor visa/some other visa ect and then go through the h1b lottery.

just saw this.

> What else is wrong?

> And when they finally get PR/citizenship, their (now quite old) parents have no hope of receiving PR/citizenship

Family based greencards have current wait time of ~11months start to finish.

Thanks for all your comments thus far! I have an axe to grind with the US immigration system but it’s best to grind it on a stone of facts.

Yeah, I was a bit loose with the parents situation. I made a general comment based on a specific circumstances. That’s my bad.

To petition for parents you need to be a full citizen not simply a green card holder. That adds five years. For India-born folks, this practically puts their parents date over a decade away. Meanwhile those parents become elderly and live thousands of miles from their grand children. So, for a lot of folks who spent years pursuing PhDs and have Indian passports their parents might immigrate at ~seventy while they’re in their fifties. I dunno man, that’s fairly old. Their parents might not make it.

I can’t edit the original post anymore, so your comment will have to serve as the correction.

I went through the EB-1 process and finally got my GC. I applied in my 6th year of working in industry. The work done towards your PhD counts as work experience, if I remember correctly. A couple of people I know applied in their second year in the industry.

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