Comment by ytoawwhra92
1 year ago
> got married, had kids, bought a house
I lived in the US on a temporary visa and it's wild to me that people would put down roots in any country without a clear path to permanent residency.
When you read the conditions attached to your employer-sponsored non-immigrant visa it makes it pretty clear that you're not in the country to settle permanently, you're there to work for the duration of your visa and that's all.
Some people seem to ignore that and just trust that neither their employer nor the US government will screw them over.
A good friend of mine is Indian and also gay. Moving back to India and having a happy life with equal rights isn't on the table.
Sorry to hear that.
There are lots of countries in the world that welcome gay people and have simpler, saner, and more predictable pathways to permanent residency than the USA.
And then we are back to "just leave your friends, family, and life."
This person moved to the US for undergrad, attended grad school, and has been working in the US for like a decade. That's 20 years here. Even if they were only here on H1b for two years, simply moving somewhere else would still be leaving the country they lived in for 12 years. You can surely understand why somebody would be motivated not to do this.