Amiram Hayardeny's My China Experience

Imagine Your Daughter Was Living Overseas

Following a trend (Melanie Gao - http://blogs.sun.com/melinchina/entry/that_stinks and Sin-Yaw Wang - http://blogs.sun.com/syw/entry/imagine_your_daughter_was_living), I had to write about "Imagine Your Daughter Was Living Overseas" as well.  Indeed, it's been many years since I became an American citizen, but I still remember the anguish involved in being granted a visa.

First of all, let me introduce the premise.  The two blog entries brought up two separate issues.  The first is a person's inability to get a visitor's visa to the US for a special purpose, like the wedding of a family member or the birth of a grandchild.  The second is the US's general practice of visa granting.

It is obvious to me that denying visa to someone who honestly wants to participate in a family event is inhumane.  As simple as that.  I would say though, in defense of the US Immigration and Naturalization Services (I believe it is part of the Homeland Security Office now), that it is really difficult to differentiate between those who want to visit for a few days or weeks, and those who want to settle down with the same family they come to visit.  It's been long since the US practiced the phrase "give me your sick, your tired, your poor" relating to immigrants in the 19th and 20th centuries.  The current practice is "give me nothing"...

My first trip to the USA was in 1979 when I was 16 years old.  I waited in line with many others outside the US embassy in Hayarkon Street in Tel Aviv.  I had to find ways to prove that I was coming back to Israel.  I can only assume that liars are more creative than truth tellers, because I had no clue how to prove something that was so obvious.  I had to finish high school, I had to go to serve in the military, it didn't even occur to me that I could stay in the US.  I also had to prove that I had sufficient funds for the trip, and that if need be, my parents had enough  money to bail me out.  But I got the visa, and I enjoyed the trip.  Having said that, I am confident that most people waiting in line with me had other plans.  They were planning to move to the US, get an illegal job, make lots of money, and eventually get legal status.

As Sin-Yaw said, it is becoming more and more difficult to obtain a visa to the US.  And indeed, many executives are choosing other locations for their business meetings.  Indeed, it would seem that everyone trying to get to the US, businessmen or tourists alike, are first and foremost suspects - either of wanting to do harm to the US or of wanting to stay there.  My point is that every country must protect itself against both, but the biggest, wealthiest country of all, must find better ways of doing it.

Now let me bring up a not-so-popular point.  H1-B visas are special working visas granted by the US.  Only 65,000 are allocated each year, and they are snatched like hot buns.  Sin-Yaw suggests that companies are desperate to get the visas and the foreign employees because they weren't able to find American employees for the positions.  Indeed, H1-B visa employees are well educated and well paid.  And they do buy houses, pay taxes etc.  But there's one small problem with it.  They are paid less than their American counterparts.  In other words, it is quite possible that the companies are snatching the H1-B visas, not because they couldn't find skilled employees in the US, but because they couldn't find skilled employees for the price they were offering.  The H1-B guys are much more likely to accept a much lower job offer than their American colleagues.  (http://www.workpermit.com/news/2005_10_26/us/us_h1b_visa_holders_earn_less.htm).  The same goes for the F-1 vis holders, who are allowed to stay in the country for an extra year of "practical training".  They are more inclined to accept bad job offers as well.  A personal friend of mine, who graduated from a leading American university, with a Mechanical Engineering degree had to put up with a significant lower pay, extended hours, no benefits job for as long as he needed his employer to sponsor him.

Bottom line: it isn't black or white.  The US can and must protect itself, but it should treat visa applicants with more respect, and to grant everyone the "right of being presumed innocent until proven guilty".

Posted at 12:11PM Jul 17, 2007 by Amiram Hayardeny in Personal  |  Comments[6]