http://www.hindustantimes.com/india-news/h-1b-visa-rules-trump-admin-considers-tweak-that-may-lead-to-mass-deportation-of-indians/story-38JGWQ7LA1vk2xmK6YUIlM.html

not sure how accurate this is, but pretty brutal if true

tl;dr extending past 6 years won’t be allowed if you’re waiting in line for GC

A lot of people get caught up in virtual slave labor with H-1B visas -- their companies essentially holding them hostage -- and as someone who has gone thru the E-2 visa process, followed by work permit / residency and then naturalization, I have pretty mixed feelings about the way H-1B visas are issued, administered, and used -- especially by IT companies.

A friend of mine got an H-1B visa through a company on the East Coast and his working conditions were awful -- and the company kept threatening to stop the sponsorship / process and force him to go back home. I've heard plenty of other horror stories about H-1B visas that are similar.

i havent been on h1b myself, but I have been on TN and O-1, and have employed people on H1-B. I definitely think that the USA could take a page out of the book of other countries when it comes to work permits. H-1B is pretty awful as far as work permits around the world go. But I don’t know if the solution is to send people who are in line for a green card back to their home country for a bunch of years instead of keeping them in the US.

iirc EU blue card you can change jobs after 6 mos or 1 year or so.

i think you can even change countries on it

plus your spouse can work too, which is a big plus

although with the ROW wait time being 0 right now i wonder if you can apply for a green card out of country and wait the 6mos-1yr for the PERM to go through.

that would be faster/less RNG than H1B anyhow

I have - and I have friends that have - been employed on an H1B visa and it's been a great experience. We had the same working conditions as our US citizen colleagues.

We all worked in San Francisco

h1b's hired by companies to supplement existing teams generally work pretty well

the worst offenders IMO are the "h1b mills" that hire them en mass and then use them as contractors

@scriptor Yeah, that's the abusive side of H-1B that kind of spoils it for everyone else 😞 @petterik I'm glad to hear not all H-1B experiences are bad! But working in SF probably helps there since there's so much tech and so many companies willing to sponsor visas.