Comment by QGQBGdeZREunxLe
7 hours ago
It's relatively straightforward to transfer a H1B, describing it as indentured servitude has always struck me as hyperbolic.
The situation could be easier, make approved I140s portable and issue an EAD, but you aren't trapped with an employer.
The green card process is not transferable. Once its started the applicant is stuck. I personally saw the company slow roll the process for one of my directs. I kept hassling them to move it along but to no avail. I saw this happen to colleagues at numerous companies.
Yup. I had a star developer on my team that we had been planning to sponsor but the company was being sold and our future was unclear. I had to advise her to go find a new job, because if she started the process with us and got laid off, even finding a new job willing to sponsor, she'd have to start over. She would run out of time on her existing visa and lose her legal status altogether.
It is transferable under AC21. But that’s not the point. You are not stuck with an employer on H1B.
Never heard of that. Apparently a lot of other people haven't either or consider it too risky as the government has to approve the transfer (as I found when searching for this now).
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Maybe a little hyperbolic, but the point is that it adds an additional significant shackle.
If I decide my company treats me like crap, I can apply to any* job in the US that I'm qualified for.
If an H1B feels the same way, they need to search within a smaller subset of jobs that are willing to do that paperwork. Last time I was hiring (2025) we were not open to sponsoring H1Bs or green cards. It's just a lot of extra work and legal expense, and frankly we found plenty of talented developers so we were right to not do it. Tons of employers don't deal with it.
* Note: Adjust this figure down somewhat to reflect the fake job postings that I never had a shot at, because the employer is just pretending to look for domestic candidates to satisfy H1B or PERM requirements.
So nothing close to "indentured servitude"? Let's give it another name and not undermine the history of slavery.