Comment by makmanalp | Hacker News Reader

Comment by makmanalp | Hacker News Reader

On one side I'm extremely happy that this might come to pass (might is a keyword in immigration legislation) because I personally know people who have been affected by this and can't work even though they're there. It's extremely frustrating for them to say the least, and extremely silly that people who want to be productive members of society can't.

On the other hand, I'm not sure how fair it is to all the people who applied for an H-1B last year and this year who were forced to participate in the H-1B lottery and couldn't get into the quota of 85000. Now one winning lottery spot could be worth two workers instead of one. Who's to say that the spouse, who didn't even have to go through the trouble of finding an employer, convincing them to sponsor, applying, waiting for the lottery results, etc is more deserving of a work permit than those who did but just weren't lucky enough to win the quota lottery?

I'm ashamed that I'm thinking of something so petty when I should be happy for those people, but having lost the lottery once, I can't help but feel a small tinge of jealousy and resentment.

I would be happier if none of this was an issue in the first place.

Words like "deserve" or "fair" are simply not part of the vocabulary when it comes to immigration. For example, while I am not a US citizen, my wife is which means that once I inevitably give in and agree to move to the United States with her (she's continuously pestering me with it) I will just get a green card after filing some paperwork. And you can rest assured that there are plenty of people more "deserving" of a green card than me.

The issue here is not that you don't "deserve" a Green Card, but that your wife deserves to live with her husband in her home country.

> your wife deserves to live with her husband in her home country.

Which doesn't require a Green Card for the husband.

How is he going to live in the US without the Green Card?

There could easily be a spousal visa.

This is not how the US immigration system works. America issues two types of visas: immigrant and non-immigrant visas. The "green card" in question is, in fact, the end product an immigrant spousal visa (IR1 and CR1). There is also a non-immigrant spousal visa called K-3.

Here in the EU it works differently, as my wife is a family member of an EU citizen (me) she automatically has the right of freedom of movement within the EU. The UK Border Agency has issued her a residence document to confirm her status but it's not a visa or an endorsement in away way; it's just a confirmation of her existing rights.

FWIW, in Japan you just get a spousal visa that's valid for 3 years (give or take). After that you can apply for a renewal. You can apply for a permanent visa after 5 years or so but there's no guarantee you'll get it.

Deserving or not the spouse is still there. So why block them from working if they're already there. It's not as fair as giving someone else an h1b but at the same you can't view it as trading one for the other. Instead you're just expanding what an h1b means. Again the person is already there so why not let them be productive...

Yeah, after thinking again, I can't help but agree.

I had a coworker who was stuck in limbo for a couple months due to this crap. His wife was not allowed to work due to this issue, and he wasn't allowed to work while some bureaucratic thing was being resolved. They were not allowed to leave the US for their home country, either, so they just had to live on savings for this period.

Unless he was out on bail, or something, he was definitely allowed to leave. The US has no exit immigration.

(Being allowed to come back after leaving is a whole different thing, though, which is probably what you meant.)

> The US has no exit immigration.

On a somewhat pedantic tangent, "immigration", by definition, is inbound. The outbound equivalent is "emigration".

I should have said "passport controls" or something.

Sometimes they suggest you don't pass through border control posts if your visa isn't 100% done yet.

While my H1B (later L1B) was processing, I was legally allowed to enter the US for business trips (Visa Waiver with ESTA), but the lawyers really recommended against it.

The border control people apparently can see the pending application and sometimes tend to be in the "I think you want to come here early and start working" mood. That way one might get denied entry which in turn has a negative effect on the currently processing visa.

I was in this situation as a j-2 visa holder. I could not leave the us for more than two weeks and i was not allowed to work for the first three months of my residence.

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