Building a life in the US as an Asian immigrant is fraught with challenges. I knew that. To get to work and live there, you need to win a lottery. I signed up for all of it. Five years later, I just lived through the most soul crushing experience of my otherwise privileged life. With the expiration of my student VISA, the legal immigration machine filtered me out. Thank you for your service. Months later, I still find myself yearning to be back in the states, to put it mildly. And I can’t, not so soon.

The idea with this two-part brain dump is to potentially channel some perspective from within, own the cards that have been dealt, and make peace with the path ahead. A disclaimer before the dump begins - the following paragraphs are a rant, with some sanity towards the end. Here goes.

After a highly engaging graduate degree experience in New York City, I got to resume and also start living the most animated years of my life at the dawn of 2021. Sadly, there were only three of those, the last of which was tainted with stress in anticipation of the upcoming downgrade. I haven’t been picked in the H1B lottery in the four attempts made so far, and my student VISA (F1 STEM-OPT) expired in February this year. Although being on the wrong side of luck four times with the H1B is quite unfortunate (about 30% chance I believe), it was well within the realm of my imagination. As the next step, I was supposed to move to Canada as a contingency plan for a year. This is where it all went downhill. My employer’s work permit application to the Canadian immigration authorities took five months to process when they advertise the processing times as two weeks under the “global skills strategy” program. With the VISA expiration, I had no choice but to uproot my life to leave the US by a deadline.

When entertaining the thought of returning to India or moving to Europe to not have to deal with any of this again, I was quite surprised to find how closed off I am to moving to a new place. I can’t really put a finger on what it is exactly that’s so sticky - the comfort with the familiar, the money, the American way of life (or the infiniteness to that) - but I know that I miss it badly. While sky was the limit there, away it feels like I’m back to the ground, back to where I started in 2021 in different aspects of life, except it’s now anywhere but America, and with several months lost in disarray. This probably applies to some cities and states more than others, but I witnessed an incredible energy fueled with non-conformity and an atmosphere of innovation, where everyone is welcome and immediately belongs, and those with curiosity and a growth mindset thrive. From what I’ve heard - I’ve only been to Europe as a tourist, so I am not one to talk about how it is like living there - this is peculiar to America. When I was in the US, I always felt this potential in my periphery, but I became complacent and took it for granted, and never properly tapped into it. But I can feel the void now.

To add to that, there’s the psychological burden to make piece with all the time lost, and that will be lost in the shambles, until I’m settled again. Settled - a word that I found uncool not long ago - is now a priority in life. Talk about how people change. In that vein, I hope I’m able to put all this behind me. But I know I’ll stay adamant on building a life in North America. And there I wish I could just say “…in the US”, but that’s a whole war ahead of me. In the meantime I have no choice but to embrace Canada. I have never been there before, so I don’t know what to expect. I absolutely must get PR (permanent resident status) there. That apparently takes two years. There’ll be a lure to return to the US with the L1B VISA, but those chains are heavy - you can’t change employers. I am happy to stay put until I get PR, I think, unless the experience living in Canada strongly convinces me otherwise. That patience will be rewarded with peace of the mind. When the macroeconomic shit hits the fan, I know I can still be home in Canada.

Alright, so what would be an ideal case of getting back to the US? Ideal would be

  1. as soon as possible,
  2. with a legal status that’s either not dependent on an employer, or if so, guarantees a green card in not more than 2-3 years.
  3. as a side effect of pursuing career aspirations that I’d have pursued as if immigration was a non-issue (I say this tongue in cheek, because I’ve lost count to how many exciting interview opportunities with Big Tech as well as startups I’ve lost for not having an H1B VISA)

Those three specifications would make up for an ideal case, or in case of a non-Asian immigrant, the fairly accessible case. Number two is only possible with a Canadian citizenship, an O1 VISA, an EB1 green card, or the EB5 green card. This last one, EB5, is essentially buying a green card for a million dollars. I’m not sure if I could even relate to this brain dump if I had that amount of money to spare. I will some day, but this route doesn’t appeal to me. Getting the Canadian citizenship once I have PR on the other hand, is another waiting game, but one that will take me past 34-35, the age of family planning. Pure waiting games like this have too much of an opportunity cost. O1 and EB1 are the real deal. O1 is a VISA, and EB1 is a green card. Getting an O1 would be a career peak, and EB1A is the summit of that mountain. Their appeal lies in rewarding merit - you are the mountain climber. I’ll get to what I know about what it takes to get these VISAs in the follow-up post.

What adds to my naive boldness in believing I could shoot for an O1 or EB1 is the fact that it is possible for me in theory. That’s because I have a foot in that door - being employed for an US-based tech company, working in an area fairly aligned with my interest and of wide relevance to the industry. But that’s just the starting point. I don’t have a map or a syllabus, but as Graham Weaver says, “How is the killer of all dreams”. The real challenge is to minimize the opportunity cost while pursing that how. And deliberating over that is essential for guarding specification number three above - to pursue the green card only as a planned side-effect. To passionately pursue a career and a lifestyle authentic to my intrinsic inclinations, viewing the US green card only as a stepping stone along the way.

to be continued…