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If the backlog is truly 60 years, then it will take 4.2 years of giving every single employment based greencard to Indians to clear that backlog. This ignores the backlog that exists for Chinese applicants.

The fact is that the backlog will get longer in every year that more foreign temporary workers apply for green cards than there are green cards available. So what might start out as a 4 year backlog in (say) 2020 will get longer each year by as long as 1 year (if there are, say, 280,000 H-1B petitions every year and the worst case of 100% of them applying for greencards occurs).

If it really is a matter of going from <2 year wait for non-Chinese, non-Indians and a multi-decade wait for Chinese and Indians to a <4 year wait for everyone, forever, because there will no longer be an accumulation of a backlog, then it is a no brainer for the US to make that change in policy. I believe that that scenario is a fantasy and the actual result of HR 392 will be a multi-decade wait for everyone. The solution to that will, IMO, turn into a lottery similar to today's H-1B process.



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