I feel very divided on this subject. As an Indian Citizen, I feel I shouldn’t be criticizing or commenting on other countries immigration policies – more so on American Immigration Policies.
I generally subscribe to the idea that you like what they offer to go for it, you don’t like it then don’t go. This is for many reasons one of them being – Nearly a decade back when I applied for the first time for a US B1 visa I felt bad about standing in line from pre-dawn till evening in front of the American Consulate in Chennai. Then on one of my trips to the UK, I met a second-generation Indian – a UK Citizen who is doing extremely well and working for a leading MNC bank there in their investment division. He says that whenever his work takes him to India, he has to go through the ordeal of getting an Indian visa and how the officials in the Indian Embassy there are not helpful at all. I am sure people don’t queue in front of Indian Embassies, but nevertheless, it showed that my own country’s immigration policies and procedures may not be all that great too. Each country has its own problems, compulsions and reasonings.
On the other hand, I feel America should be more welcoming in their immigration policy (At Vishwak we have our own subsidiary in the USA we have an interest in the H1 and immigration rules). Last year the overall H1 limit of 65,000 applications got exhausted around May 3rd week. This year on the opening day of April 2nd itself over 150,000 applications have been received. It is surprising that the country which was formed on the basis of freedom and welcoming people to immigrate now has a limit on the number of most-skilled and intelligent people from around the world who can come into their country. In this regard, I found the recent “Economist” article titled “America’s useless immigration system” to be well-written on this subject. Reading that is when I decided to write this post.