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I have good credentials, my resume speaks for itself, and I have no family (I'm single, so no wife or girlfriend) nor any immediate relatives left besides my mom (she's close to retirement and not planning on going anywhere).
Hmm, tricky. I guess it depends on certain characteristics. I wouldn't mind living in a small town as long there's plenty of space between the neighbours with generous lots and plenty of trees. Say, something like Tudor Drive in Nacogdoches, TX (Google Map it in sat/street view), to give an example. I definitely don't want to end up in just another big city because that's what I'm trying to get away from. I'm tired of the noise, pollution, traffic, concrete, and tons of people everywhere and all that. I urgently need my peace and quiet.
The truth is, because you weren’t born with the right of abode to the US, like someone either born in the US or born outside the US but has citizenship or greencard (GC) through descent, you are absolutely not in the position to choose where you want to live. People here are enthusiastically giving you recommendations because as natural born citizens, naturally they have no idea.
USA doesn’t have an easy program that gives out Permanent Residence status to foreigners (like Canada, Australia, these “easy” countries, using some sort of nonsense point system) before they even step foot in the country. These kind of western countries have small population, no jobs for immigrants and deadtown, limp economy, in fact they make use of immigrants to artificially expand their GDP because as these unlucky immigrants move there, they buy a house, buy other things, drive up consumer spending, this makes the GDP growth of such “deadtown” countries look good on paper. As otherwise they have no jobs. And the GDP is literally flat. This is known as the Population Ponzi or Ponzi demography, the idea of using sheer population growth the idea of just adding warm bodies to your country to make the GDP look larger year after year.
For aspiring joiners to the land of the free, you need to first secure sponsorship of a visa. A visa is something that tells the government “This is why I’m justified to exist in USA”. For eg if you are petitioned by a US citizen/GC holder fiancé, the reason you deserve to exist in USA is to be reunited with your US citizen/greencard holder spouse (family reunification category - the most common category). For employment, you need to first secure a job to get a work visa. You get to stay as long as you are on the work visa and until you get a GC. You don’t apply the GC yourself except for EB1 and EB5, your employer applies for you and he must want to, the employer even needs to prove to the US federal government that they couldn’t find a citizen and greencard holder to do that job. They have to prove they tried and could not. Then the reason for the petition for why you deserve to exist in the US, is to do that job and perform that function in the US long term.
A visa can be defined as the “reason why a foreigner is in any country”. For eg a student applies and gets student visa. The student visa is limited in duration according to the course of study, and is a non-immigrant visa. A H1B visa is a work visa, and is immigrant visa. An immigrant visa means your employer can apply for a GC for a H1B holder. But typically employer will not even consider to apply until the foreigner has been on the H1B for at least 3 years. Usually no one asks until 2-3 years but the smart thing to do is always make known from the very beginning that GC is your intent, and you are looking at it as a plan, and make sure the employer feels the same and indicate that he or she is not unwilling. Better if it’s a company that has done many GC petitions for lots of others in the past.
And it was already like this for decades. I would imagine in these Trump times, it’s even tougher.
US gives out 1 million greencards a year to foreigners, and out of that number, only 10% or less go to employment based greencards. That’s why the tech companies keep lobbying for higher numbers of employment based greencard quotas and higher number of H1B visa. An overwhelming more than 80% close to 90% of GC are given to “family reunification”, so that includes foreign spouses, mail order brides from Philippines and Laos, parents, children, siblings of US citizens and spouses and children of greencard holders. The quota that go to greencard lotterty and asylum refugees are so insignificant it’s not worthy of mention. Asylum and GC lottery quotas do not even make a dent.
I’m not discouraging you from moving. I’m telling you what the process is actually like. And you are jumping the gun selecting where you want to live. You don’t choose where you enjoy living. You go to wherever you can get a job and greencard sponsorship. After you get your greencard then you can start looking at where you really like to live. Because even with a work visa, you are at risk of being thrown out of the country anytime. Your stay in the country hinges on you holding on the job and the position existing continually and needing you.
I know many foreigners are shocked or at least, surprised by this and have no idea. Same for natural born Americans, they don’t know.
When I first told people in my home country of my plans to immigrate to US, they always ask me as the first response “which part/where in the USA? What city?”. Their assumption is a foreigner without any legal documents to stay long term beyond his tourist visa allowance can happily just choose where he wants to put down roots in, and easily find eager greencard sponsoring employment in wherever that is as a matter of course. Even people with US right of abode go to where the job offer is. What’s more, someone without right of abode. But of course someone with right of abode has a lot of bandwidth to play with. He just needs to make sure he has enough finances until he finds a job in the city he likes best. People without right of abode are presumed to have no right to live in a foreign country until there is a visa (that gives that right).
This requirement applies to most people. Unless you are a Nobel prize winner, someone like Einstein, such people who had and will have their greencards delivered on a platter, then yes, choosing wherever you want to live would not be jumping the gun.
Last edited by Islander7; 09-12-2018 at 02:24 AM..
The truth is, because you weren’t born with the right of abode to the US, like someone either born in the US or born outside the US but has citizenship or greencard (GC) through descent, you are absolutely not in the position to choose where you want to live. People here are enthusiastically giving you recommendations because as natural born citizens, naturally they have no idea.
USA doesn’t have an easy program that gives out Permanent Residence status to foreigners (like Canada, Australia, these “easy” countries, using some sort of nonsense point system) before they even step foot in the country. These kind of western countries have small population, no jobs for immigrants and deadtown, limp economy, in fact they make use of immigrants to artificially expand their GDP because as these unlucky immigrants move there, they buy a house, buy other things, drive up consumer spending, this makes the GDP growth of such “deadtown” countries look good on paper. As otherwise they have no jobs. And the GDP is literally flat. This is known as the Population Ponzi or Ponzi demography, the idea of using sheer population growth the idea of just adding warm bodies to your country to make the GDP look larger year after year.
For aspiring joiners to the land of the free, you need to first secure sponsorship of a visa. A visa is something that tells the government “This is why I’m justified to exist in USA”. For eg if you are petitioned by a US citizen/GC holder fiancé, the reason you deserve to exist in USA is to be reunited with your US citizen/greencard holder spouse (family reunification category - the most common category). For employment, you need to first secure a job to get a work visa. You get to stay as long as you are on the work visa and until you get a GC. You don’t apply the GC yourself except for EB1 and EB5, your employer applies for you and he must want to, the employer even needs to prove to the US federal government that they couldn’t find a citizen and greencard holder to do that job. They have to prove they tried and could not. Then the reason for the petition for why you deserve to exist in the US, is to do that job and perform that function in the US long term.
A visa can be defined as the “reason why a foreigner is in any country”. For eg a student applies and gets student visa. The student visa is limited in duration according to the course of study, and is a non-immigrant visa. A H1B visa is a work visa, and is immigrant visa. An immigrant visa means your employer can apply for a GC for a H1B holder. But typically employer will not even consider to apply until the foreigner has been on the H1B for at least 3 years. Usually no one asks until 2-3 years but the smart thing to do is always make known from the very beginning that GC is your intent, and you are looking at it as a plan, and make sure the employer feels the same and indicate that he or she is not unwilling. Better if it’s a company that has done many GC petitions for lots of others in the past.
And it was already like this for decades. I would imagine in these Trump times, it’s even tougher.
US gives out 1 million greencards a year to foreigners, and out of that number, only 10% or less go to employment based greencards. That’s why the tech companies keep lobbying for higher numbers of employment based greencard quotas and higher number of H1B visa. An overwhelming more than 80% close to 90% of GC are given to “family reunification”, so that includes foreign spouses, mail order brides from Philippines and Laos, parents, children, siblings of US citizens and spouses and children of greencard holders. The quota that go to greencard lotterty and asylum refugees are so insignificant it’s not worthy of mention. Asylum and GC lottery quotas do not even make a dent.
I’m not discouraging you from moving. I’m telling you what the process is actually like. And you are jumping the gun selecting where you want to live. You don’t choose where you enjoy living. You go to wherever you can get a job and greencard sponsorship. After you get your greencard then you can start looking at where you really like to live. Because even with a work visa, you are at risk of being thrown out of the country anytime. Your stay in the country hinges on you holding on the job and the position existing continually and needing you.
I know many foreigners are shocked or at least, surprised by this and have no idea. Same for natural born Americans, they don’t know.
When I first told people in my home country of my plans to immigrate to US, they always ask me as the first response “which part/where in the USA? What city?”. Their assumption is a foreigner without any legal documents to stay long term beyond his tourist visa allowance can happily just choose where he wants to put down roots in, and easily find eager greencard sponsoring employment in wherever that is as a matter of course. Even people with US right of abode go to where the job offer is. What’s more, someone without right of abode. But of course someone with right of abode has a lot of bandwidth to play with. He just needs to make sure he has enough finances until he finds a job in the city he likes best. People without right of abode are presumed to have no right to live in a foreign country until there is a visa (that gives that right).
This requirement applies to most people. Unless you are a Nobel prize winner, someone like Einstein, such people who had and will have their greencards delivered on a platter, then yes, choosing wherever you want to live would not be jumping the gun.
Thank you for this large, detailed and very informative reply. I'm indeed aware of how the visa/gc system works. First priority is to find a job. As for the 'settling down in a nice area'-part: Thatswhy I'm specifically searching for possible employers in those areas.
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