Trump administration has been increasingly hostile to legal immigrants, so this doesn’t surprise me one bit. Everyday there is a new policy change in USCIS designed to screw immigrants, whose only crime is working on high paid jobs. I am on the verge of losing my work permit after having lived here for 12 years and working in high tech jobs in leading companies.
I have 14 yrs work experience in Software Dev and Product Management. USCIS is claiming that I don’t have work experience for a PM job, even though I have an MBA from a top school in the US. I made 300K last year
I believe GP, myself and everyone else earned our job the hard way. We have never claimed we deserve it, we put in effort, competed in notoriously difficult hiring processes and got selected.
Additionally, our employers have had to provide extensive documentation to the Department of Labor that no US citizen was eligible at the time of hiring - the laws are very strict and comprehensive about this.
We are here, just like every other immigrant, to try and make a better life for ourselves and our families. After living here for 12 years, GP would have been a US citizen if he was born in any other country other than India or China. Unfortunately, being born in India is punished with an estimated[1] 83 years of very limited rights, almost zero liberty (no liberty to produce and publish art works, no liberty to join a band and sing at a local bar, no liberty to mine bitcoin at home, to host a youtube channel etc). GP and me also have to submit to a complete inspection by some USCIS officer every 3 years - and any offense, real or imaginary, can bar us from returning to the US at any time, without trial or even an explanation.
> Why do you deserve a job over a resident with equal skills?
This kind of discourse around immigration in some circles is extremely short-sighted. Every time America has taken in a wave of immigrants - whether unskilled or skilled (e.g. scientists fleeing Germany in WWII) it has been a net positive for the county in the long run. The idea that labor is a zero-sum game - where a job occupied by an immigrant is one not going to a native - is ridiculous on its face.
Consider a similar idea on the consumption side - "if an immigrant buys a TV it's bad because that means an American won't be able to get a TV" - to see how silly it is. But years of propaganda about "immigrants taking our jobs" has somehow turned this into a truism.
In conclusion, please read some research on the topic before trotting out this tired talking point [1][2][3].
After living in a country for 12 years, you legally are a resident.
Additionally he is obviously a highly skilled worker considering he works for leading tech companies, therefore you cannot consider him an average Joe bricklayer who can be compared with others as he is in a percentile that is in demand (there is a shortage of these people).
Two people are hardly ever equal when it comes to applying for a job, its not just about skills, its about the people, its about the experiences they have had. I would always employ a person with more life experience than not, and traveling, learning a new language, a new culture is apart of that. It takes bravery, courage and stamina to uproot your life and move to a new country and these are all respectable traits. So respectable in fact, that the fear of these people by society is blatantly evident.
You forget that we are all citizens of the world, and people move around for many different reasons. Just because you are happy to stay in your cultural bubble doesn't mean other people are. And if these people are skilled and can contribute to the economy, even better.
It's baseless to say that they are equal; the employer obviously preferred someone else. Why should we discriminate against people based on nationality? We get a more competitive, more efficient, more productive economy by opening it to more people.
Another answer to your question is, so that Americans can get jobs in other countries.
