It used to be common in the US too. My great-grandfather, for instance, planned to go to the US and work for five years to afford a farm back home. He had earned enough in three (and also contracted tuberculosis, and also the elderly couple whose farm he had agreed to buy weren't ready to sell yet, so he invested the money in bank shares, but the bank was fraudulent and went under...)

in the EU there is no need for any visa (within member states) and essentially it's a desired feature of the EU.

Another point is that speaking the local language in a richer country of the EU is less likely than speaking English (with English being official only in Ireland and Malta), so it's harder to settle - esp. with kids and school.

Yes but if you are worth that money to any company why would you assume one day it will all just end? That's not typical or normal for most careers

It's not really money. Frankly, no 20 year old thinks that much about money. They do things that they like, whether that is going to school, working at a job, or starting up. And you don't know about the broken immigration system from the outside. The reason this problem is unique to India is due to country caps/DEI which prevents people from India on H-1B from getting a green card.

By the government: "This nonimmigrant classification..." [1]

[1] https://www.uscis.gov/working-in-the-united-states/h-1b-spec...

Curious how long have you lived in 4 countries beyond college? No kids, marriage, social life?

I know, pretty much everyone on HN is a self-selected group that's pretty high up on the privilege/luck/wealth scale.

I immigrated to Germany from the US in 2013. My employer handled basically everything--even hired a personal assistant to accompany me to the immigration office and help with finding housing, which is pretty competitive in a major German city.

Honestly, immigration for highly skilled tech people is a walk in the park compared to basically everyone else. I used the term privileged because it's accurate--and I daresay it was a tad bit easier being white, having an advanced degree in tech, and even having some German roots. My experience was absolutely not what other people immigrating to Germany face, as they come from all over the place, there are far fewer slots, and there's a host of soft discrimination that even Eastern Europeans face trying to come to Germany. Like everywhere, there's xenophobia and isolationism, mistrust, and blame. Literally the exact same arguments, finger-pointing, suspicion. And that didn't fall on me.

I moved back to the US and handled the backend of that process, which honestly isn't too bad, but it was so much harder to deal with than one would expect--and that was just leaving. I have a bit of German language skills but legal German is a whole other matter.

When I read OP's comment it raised my hackles because it just sounds incredibly tone deaf. Lots of people want to come to America, and it isn't easy, even doing it right. Telling them they need to be prepared to get kicked out at the drop of a hat is a shitty welcome.

If we want to have reasonable controls on immigration and a better policy, I'm all for it, but let's focus on things that would work without screwing people over and treating them like subhuman garbage like this administration has. Limit the number of visas, handle visa overstays better. A ham-fisted, incompetent over-correction that has untrained meatheads shooting US citizens in the streets with no consequence isn't it.

I don't have a lot of patience for anyone carrying water for this administration. Not a thimble-full. If you think you have nuanced, smart-sounding take on immigration but is just victim-blaming, then it deserves to be challenged. I haven't got time for the leading edge of the Overton-window people who just can't confront their deep anti-immigrant biases and provide cover for the tragic and cruel things that are going down as we speak.

I don't really like the concept of "guests" being applied to people living somewhere for years, working, paying taxes, making families and friends, sending children to school and so on. I think it would be more humane if this concept was minimized, and instead the concept of "no taxation without representation" was applied. Fast track people as much as possible. Maybe one year as a voiceless "guest" is okay for a human being, but not more than that.

> If you throw a party and a guest refuses to leave

Show me where the govt has actually revoked their visa? Instead, because they cannot cancel the visa legally they are trying to create as much pain as possible for these visa holders hoping that some will give up and leave.

These people are productive members of our society who enrich our country and our economy. The idea that they are guests we are hosting is absurd

The big beautiful bill included a 1% foreign remittance tax for outbound international transfers funded using physical cash, money orders, and cashier's checks.

I’m informed on this topic…

Can you correct the mistake?

If I show up in China (or the USA) on a tourist visa with the plans to pursue a marriage and permanent residency, does that mean I get to backdate my permanent residency to the tourist visa because I’m able to pursue a marriage (PR)?

People on HN are not a special elect subset of the population, except perhaps around specific HN-adjacent topics (engineering, VC, computer science, maths, etc.)

Why would you think a random person on HN is less prone to talking out of their ass than a random person in the CS/engineering/VC world? Than a random person selected from the population of the world?

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> If I enter China on a temporary work permit visa, with a 15 year plan to obtain Chinese citizenship, no one will have sympathy for me if that plan is interrupted

I would have sympathy for you if it was interrupted by suddenly changing the requirements through no action of your own.

Like, if you commit a crime, are a belligerent drunk, or whatever and they don't renew your visa over that, I have no sympathy.

If you're unable to secure employment for an extended period of time, and they don't renew your visa, I also have less sympathy since that's part of the bargain you knew going in.

If you play by the rules, but they reject a visa renewal for a reason like "we have too many immigrants from $x country, so we're rejecting y% of renewals" , well that's legally within the government's rights to do, but I'll have sympathy for you and think that you're morally in the right and China's failing its duty to its foreign residents.

Likewise, this US one is a case of capricious rejection, the US government is not holding up its end of the deal you both thought you were agreeing to. Like, the deal with a work visa, even if it's not permanent, is "if you follow the rules and keep good steady employment, you can live here, but yes it's conditional on the work thing".

I have sympathy for this hypothetical you, and also I have sympathy for those holding american visas who are impacted.

You have the heads up: Why acquire real-estate if your status is by law temporary?