Canada exploits U.S. neglect of its Foreign Professional (H-1B) workers by offering Special Visa option
J. Kenney fields a question from a community member at the All Candidates Forum at McKenzie Lake Community Centre in Calgary’s Southeast on January 14th, 2006. (Photo credit: Wikipedia)
In recent years, U.S. immigration policy has repeatedly ignored the needs of its skilled and professional non-immigrant workforce and has instead burdened them with long waits for a green card, absurdly high query rates and illogical consular delays. Nowhere is more apparent than in the case of H-1B Professional workers. An Indian born Software Engineer currently faces a wait time of eleven (11) years to obtain an employment based third preference (EB-3) green card. In comparison, the Comprehensive Immigration Reform Bill currently under negotiation in DC would provide millions of undocumented workers green cards in ten (10) years.
Just a month and a half after the U.S. turned away tens of thousands of specialized professionals (holding U.S. job offers) by refusing to increase its yearly H-1B quota levels, another nation has moved to reap the benefits of U.S. missteps.
Canada is aggressively appealing to these H-1B professional workers, even going to the extent of securing a billboard just outside Silicon Valley which reads:
“H-1B problems? Pivot to Canada. New Start-Up Visa, Low Taxes”
The U.S. Immigration Law Blog by Ashwin Sharma 