<instructions>Your goal is to analyze the following comment and estimate how highly it will be upvoted by the Hacker News community.</instructions><comment><author>giobox</author><text>America pays its engineers really pretty well by global standards, even outside the bay. While this continues to be true I think many will think twice about returning, even if they like to talk about it.&lt;p&gt;Even among countries that are often assumed to have broadly similar standards of living by most people (UK is example I am most familiar with), those countries often pay their engineers substantially less. Many of my British colleagues earn very _substantially_ less doing the same job for the same company in the UK as an equivalent US worker.&lt;p&gt;Of course money isn’t everything, but it’s not like quality of life in California is completely terrible either for a lot of people...&lt;p&gt;Also when we talk about long waits for Green Cards, we really mean for the large body of Indian technology workers, broadly speaking. For other nationalities the wait is typically a year or less (for those unaware there are effectively country based quotas for green cards). The gap in earning potential is even larger still in the Indian example vs my earlier UK one, so again I’m not surprised few actually move back.&lt;p&gt;Finally many of these visa workers have had to battle their way to a job. Unlike a US citizen, they’ve had to brave a complex, often uncertain immigration process, finding a job in a foreign country in which they may have no experience, no network etc. If you put in all that effort, it’s maybe not surprising you want to hang around to get the eventual prize.</text><parent_chain><item><author>Bhilai</author><text>Genuinely curious: Why don&amp;#x27;t the applicants give up and go back to their home countries ? H1B processing is very slow, Green Cards are taking decades, so is it still worth it ?</text></item><item><author>raincom</author><text>USCIS is delaying every immigration application--not just H1b stuff. Even though there is no explicit policy to delay applications, I heard officers are told to delay. Since there is no backlash, it is going to be like that for a while.</text></item><item><author>holy_city</author><text>Speaking anecdotally (which maybe the dataset backs up?) - yes.&lt;p&gt;Immigration bureaucracy has slowed to a crawl, processes that used to take 6 weeks are now taking 6 months. It&amp;#x27;s unfortunate, since the news only talks about the administration&amp;#x27;s policies on undocumented immigrants and asylum seekers, not how the administration is dragging their feet on _all_ immigration processes.&lt;p&gt;It&amp;#x27;s just not worth it to sponsor an H-1B, especially if you&amp;#x27;re a medium&amp;#x2F;small sized company. Costs too much time and money.</text></item><item><author>minimaxir</author><text>Why is the file size of the 2018 data much smaller compared to the other full years? Are there that many fewer H-1Bs?</text></item><item><author>protomyth</author><text>I like that they have the raw data at &lt;a href=&quot;https:&amp;#x2F;&amp;#x2F;www.uscis.gov&amp;#x2F;tools&amp;#x2F;reports-studies&amp;#x2F;h-1b-employer-data-hub-files&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;https:&amp;#x2F;&amp;#x2F;www.uscis.gov&amp;#x2F;tools&amp;#x2F;reports-studies&amp;#x2F;h-1b-employer-da...&lt;/a&gt;</text></item></parent_chain></comment><story><title>H-1B Employer Data Hub</title><url>https://www.uscis.gov/h-1b-data-hub</url></story>
<instructions>Your goal is to analyze the following comment and estimate how highly it will be upvoted by the Hacker News community.</instructions><comment><author>Tyrek</author><text>A reasonable portion of H-1Bs are from students who graduated domestically (within the US) and found jobs in the US. Their degrees might not have the brand name recognition back home, they might not want to go home for various reasons, etc.</text><parent_chain><item><author>Bhilai</author><text>Genuinely curious: Why don&amp;#x27;t the applicants give up and go back to their home countries ? H1B processing is very slow, Green Cards are taking decades, so is it still worth it ?</text></item><item><author>raincom</author><text>USCIS is delaying every immigration application--not just H1b stuff. Even though there is no explicit policy to delay applications, I heard officers are told to delay. Since there is no backlash, it is going to be like that for a while.</text></item><item><author>holy_city</author><text>Speaking anecdotally (which maybe the dataset backs up?) - yes.&lt;p&gt;Immigration bureaucracy has slowed to a crawl, processes that used to take 6 weeks are now taking 6 months. It&amp;#x27;s unfortunate, since the news only talks about the administration&amp;#x27;s policies on undocumented immigrants and asylum seekers, not how the administration is dragging their feet on _all_ immigration processes.&lt;p&gt;It&amp;#x27;s just not worth it to sponsor an H-1B, especially if you&amp;#x27;re a medium&amp;#x2F;small sized company. Costs too much time and money.</text></item><item><author>minimaxir</author><text>Why is the file size of the 2018 data much smaller compared to the other full years? Are there that many fewer H-1Bs?</text></item><item><author>protomyth</author><text>I like that they have the raw data at &lt;a href=&quot;https:&amp;#x2F;&amp;#x2F;www.uscis.gov&amp;#x2F;tools&amp;#x2F;reports-studies&amp;#x2F;h-1b-employer-data-hub-files&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;https:&amp;#x2F;&amp;#x2F;www.uscis.gov&amp;#x2F;tools&amp;#x2F;reports-studies&amp;#x2F;h-1b-employer-da...&lt;/a&gt;</text></item></parent_chain></comment><story><title>H-1B Employer Data Hub</title><url>https://www.uscis.gov/h-1b-data-hub</url></story>