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Chinese Workers Abandon Silicon Valley for Riches Back Home

(www.bloomberg.com)
219 points thisisit | 3 comments | 11 Jan 18 16:55 UTC | HN request time: 0.613s | source
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asabjorn ◴[11 Jan 18 19:41 UTC] No.16127096[source]▶
I am a Norwegian in Silicon Valley that have spent most of my career with Chinese colleagues, both in academia and industry, and my anecdata seem to indicate that my highly talented China-born colleagues are sadly leaving because;

- China has great opportunities for riches

- Getting a US VISA is hard and painful when you come from a populous country like China or India

- My China-born colleagues seem to in general be more conservative, and Silicon Valley has become violently intolerant of anyone that holds an opinion different than the predominant view

Only the first reason is somewhat objective, while the two others cause stress in their daily life as their ability to provide can at any time be removed due to what is perceived as arbitrary reasons. Everything being equal, many of them have told me they would prefer the less crowded Silicon Valley.

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1. cwzwarich ◴[11 Jan 18 19:56 UTC] No.16127234[source]▶
> Getting a US VISA is hard and painful when you come from a populous country like China or India

Getting a green card is harder if you were born in China or India, not getting a visa, but once you've been on an H-1B for a sufficiently long period of time, you can only keep that status with a pending green card application. Switching employers at this stage is more difficult.

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2. golem14 ◴[11 Jan 18 20:10 UTC] No.16127346[source]▶
Aren't there rumblings that the current administration wants to actually remove the opportunity to indefinitely linger on H1B/advance parole status while the green card application is pending ? Sounds credible as far as current administration goes, and would certainly be a huge long term problem for the US, but there we are.
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3. cwzwarich ◴[11 Jan 18 20:23 UTC] No.16127456[source]▶
There was a rumored proposal, but USCIS announced the other day that it was unlikely to happen, and also mentioned that if it did happen it would not apply to existing AC-21 holders, as their employers could file extensions in one year increments.

The DHS has said that they want to propose the end of the H-4 visa giving work authorization for spouses of H-1B holders.