The truth hurts. Retrogression!

During the 1990s and through the dot-com boom upto the recession of 2002, a large number of engineers/scientists came to the USA from all over the world. The most popular ways of coming were to come as a skilled-worker(H visa), foreign employee(L visa) or international student(F visa). After coming here, many believed that this was a land of opportunity and wanted to pursue a career and a life here and applied for permanent residency (green card) through one of the employment based(EB) categories. However, the USA only allows a fixed number of employment based immigrants per year. This number is fixed at 140,000 per year since 1990. This number also includes the dependents(spouse and children) of an EB applicant and in addition there is a per-country limit set at 7% of the total. While, most people applied for permanent residency and continued on with their daily lives, they were unaware of a major bottleneck being created in the system which came to light in January 2005. Retrogression!

First there was denial, then there was anger, then frustration. While many went on to hope and prayers, some decided to take matters into their own hands. These are the people of the likes at ImmigrationVoice.Org, who decided to do something to reverse the steady decline of the American dream for the highly educated, skilled individuals or as I like to call them, "the cream of society". These are the people who generate wealth in a economy. They use their brain power to come up with products and innovations that drive companies to profits, driving up the economy and ultimately resulting in employment creation for all. It would seem suicidal for any country to create an atmosphere which discourages these people from migrating to their country. There is already a steady outflux of these PhD holders, Masters' degree holders and others with extensive industry experience from this country out to either competing economies or albeit third world, but fast growing home economies.

So, before you decide to make plans to come here, understand that there is no red carpet welcome here even if you topped your university back home. You will have to work hard for your future and there will be no guarantees of any sorts. I've learnt my lessons the hard way, hope you don't have to do the same. Happy enlightenment!