Tech companies are telling immigrant employees on visas not to leave the U.S.
washingtonpost.com171 points by prtaylor 20 hours ago
171 points by prtaylor 20 hours ago
It's what their lawyers are advising them.
The Globe and Mail had a piece on March 25th on the advice that lawyers were giving to their clients, often Canadians working on TN visas down south:
> York-based immigration law firm Dyer Harris LLP, which helps foreigners secure work visas in the U.S., sent an e-mail to their clients residing and working in the country to hold off on international travel altogether, unless in an emergency.
Lawyers advise Canadians working in U.S. to avoid travel amid border crackdown, The Globe and Mail, 2025-03-25. https://web.archive.org/web/20250325223021/https://www.thegl...
Yeah I run a startup accelerator out of the back of a Canadian law firm, saw a note from the GC of the firm reminding the lawyers not to do non-essential work cross border and to take firm issued blank laptops and phones across. Clearly being taken seriously.
Given all the remote work tech that the pandemic helped mature, the answer seems obvious.
Seems but isn't due to the way taxation/jurisdiction/licensure works. Where you are doing your work from and where the benefactor of that work are make a big difference. Example: Doctors can't telehealth over State lines. Lawyers likewise. Employers aren't supposed to allow migrant workers to work from across state lines from their address of record.
A great deal of draconian control is actually implemented through employment and licensure law, and as with most things in real life, come bundled with a surprising amount of detail. Part of why I've become particularly dissatisfied with the U.S. as of late, as so much of it is predicated on actually keeping you locked into one geographical location.
Doctors can definitely telehealth through state lines, they only need to get license approval from the specific states.
I believe it depends on the state. I'm not positive but my therapist friends can only operate in certain states remotely.
> so much of it is predicated on actually keeping you locked ino one geographical location.
Most of the digital nomad hubs have the same laws with regards to worker protections and tax residency; they're just too poor to enforce them. The same is true of the workers themselves. In the 2010s I remember seeing a lot of guys bragging about having virtual assistants in the Philippines. This was probably illegal on both sides of the transaction the way that they had it set up, the issue is that the people working these jobs do not have the resources to pursue a case against a US-based employer; that's assuming they have the knowledge and motivation necessary to sue the employer in the first place. I'm not as libertarian as I once was, but these kinds of arrangements are a no-brainer; it's all of the upside of the free movement of labor with none of the downside of that labor being physically relocated.
I'm super interested to see what the next HN thread with that proberts lawyer dude is like.
I found the commentary in the last post from him to be pretty meagre, whether it was because people were afraid to talk about this kind of stuff or they just didn't know, I'm not sure, but it seems like reality is quickly setting in for a lot of people in the US.
Things are changing and they're changing fast.
You won't be able to ignore this forever.
The most interesting thing I see is people overestimate how resilient the system is. Unfortunately, this is at the whim of a president, who with a majority in the court, dictates the law. With a ban or at his whim, even legal residents can find themselves out. We tend to think the system is resilient to this, but ultimately it really isn't. Scholars cannot even agree on whether these tech workers are entitled to the amendments (since they are not citizens, despite living in the US). Much of this was eye opening for me, and is used by Rubio as a basis to deport the Korean girl and the Columbia guy (also a Harvard student as of yesterday). The law is unfortunately very vague and thus open to interpretation (which is ultimately subject to the commander in chief, the current clown)
Its not like immigrants have had wonderful, controllable and predictable paths to residency in the past. For those who arent Einstein or belong to the over rated HN crowd, the system has always be exploitative. Anyone who isnt born rich and has been through the process has had to live with constant fear, doubt and uncertainty.
+1. This.
As an alien you would have generally been extra wary of your behavior. Civil disobedience and dedication to political action is not what you should expect of an average alien.
Some natural born citizens seem to have been introduced to the immigrant experience yesterday.
100% agree with civil disobedience being high risk. And it always has been for immigrants. But writing articles in a newspaper? Criticizing domestic or particular foreign governments? If immigrants can't exercise purely expressive speech something is drastically fucked up.
Rubio affirmatively suggested the op-ed is not why she got deported. Nothing happened to her co-authors.
Rubio can say what he wants but there's no record of her doing anything else and he's a proven liar. If it was something else let them allege it. There isn't.
I haven't checked, but perhaps the other authors were citizens?
They might have been citizens. He is a well-known liar. It most certainly is the op-ed. I know for a fact the Adelsons made contributions to the campaign for this single issue (they are fanatically Jewish and donate to Israel exorbitant amounts out of religiosity). The irony is they made their fortunes in gambling... Due process would have our gov lay out explicitly why she and others were arrested, but Thugs will behave as thugs until a bigger bully comes around
I emigrated to the US as a fiancée. It was not necessarily easy or cheap (I'm agreeing with you) and I came from a "low visa fraud risk country" (Australia). Some of the challenges faced:
It probably cost around $30,000 all up. Every visit to a consular office or USCIS cost about $100 in biometrics alone (each time). Fees for applying, fees for adjustments.
My partner and I had an issue where I was supporting her (she was in school). The system is not set up for that, and expects the US citizen to be financially supporting their prospective spouse. I realize that there are challenges around our situation in terms of providing a financial benefit to a USC that could be construed as paying for a visa.
I was interviewing for jobs in the US from Australia as my move date got closer (after the visa was approved). Siemens nearly torpedoed things when they wanted to start a H-1B or other visa app for me even after being repeatedly told I didn't need one.
My fiancees family ended up having to sponsor me, signing declarations of financial responsibility, that they could be made to repay any government benefit I claimed within the first 10 years of living here (tied to that previous issue).
Some of the evidentiary requirements (bona fide relationship) were reasonable and actually quite clever (separated, and asked questions like who usually does dishes, or takes out trash, and what day is trash day for that matter, and beyond) and others were onerous (I had to pay BoA an exorbitant amount to get all bank statements for 3 years, copied and notarized).
In the end, ironically we determined I would have been "adjusted" to a unconditional LPR more quickly, and more cheaply, if I had come here on a visa waiver, promising not to get married, and just got married and said "oops, my bad, can I be converted anyway?" than actually doing it the right way.
Actually USCIS pretty much has blessed your VWP "loophole"
> "INA section 245(c)(4) renders aliens admitted under the VWP ineligible to adjust status to that of a person admitted for permanent residence. This provision, however, includes an exception for immediate relatives of U.S. citizens. Thus, an individual admitted under the VWP who is also an immediate relative is not precluded from seeking adjustment of status, even after the VWP period has expired."[1]
https://www.uscis.gov/sites/default/files/document/memos/201...
As lesbians, do you think it would be more difficult for you under Trump? Was this before or after Australia legalized same-sex marriage seven years ago?
My partner would initially find it difficult to learn that I, who she has known forever as a cisgender heterosexual male, am in fact a lesbian...
the confusion was caused by you using the term fiancée, which is the female form. the male form is fiancé
> The law is unfortunately very vague and thus open to interpretation (which is ultimately subject to the commander in chief, the current clown)
That is it exactly. The US legal/governmental system is a house of cards that has been running for at least 150 years on a bunch of wink-wink-nudge-nudge assumptions that both sides were too scared to test or even acknowledge. An ounce of prevention might have been worth a pound of cure, but now we'll need the cure, and it's probably going to be painful.
This isn't unique to modern American history. Literally all of human civilization meets this criteria. It's all based on a collective acceptance of rules, titles, borders, property. All of which are completely imaginary.
> both sides were too scared to test or even acknowledge
I think that’s harsh. I think the folks in government generally believed that the opposition was there in good faith and with the intent of strengthening the nation, even if they disagreed on how.
I don’t think that’s the case any longer and institutions based on good faith don’t work when the group in power is willing to light everything on fire.
To an extent that's true, but those good-faith assumptions are sort of what I mean by wink-wink-nudge-nudge. It's like a bunch of people working in an office with a bunch of high explosives lying around. Having "good faith" that no one will set them off is another way of saying you'd rather not actually acknowledge or fix the problem.
Also, it's harder to believe it was all good faith unless you ignore some quite egregious earlier situations that pretty clearly showed that festering issues were being swept under the rug.
Most obviously, after the Civil War the South was placed under military occupation. In 1877 it was ended as part of a political bargain, whereupon the South resumed the racist policies it had previously had in place, and which had been supposedly banned by the reconstruction amendments and laws. It should have been obvious to people at the time that many people in the South had not learned their lesson, and perhaps military occupation and strict enforcement of reconstruction would have been necessary for decades more.
The willingness of both parties to condone outrageous gerrymanders over decades also indicates a shared desire to look the other way rather than face the dangerous implications head-on.
I recall McCain in 2008 telling a republican supporter that Obama was a decent person and they shouldn't be afraid if he won.
Things have escalated quickly and recently.
2008 was a long time ago, and it was notable at the time because it was already contrary to the overall trend of partisan polarization, which had been consistently escalating since the end of the long period of overlapping realignments that started in the 1930s and settled out in the 1990s. (Political polarization had been high in much of that realignment period, but because the major parties weren't coherently aligned around the high-salience issues that divided the public, that polarization was not strongly partisan.)
i think this is a key point, and this is why this problem will remain until we make some drastic changes.
to look at a completely different example: the internet was designed on good faith. year after year more things have been put into place to protect against those not operating in good faith. proof of work against AI bots is just the latest example.
what is really needed is a change in education. we need to teach the next generation that operating in good faith is absolutely essential for the future of mankind. we can no longer assume that good faith is the default. it isn't any more.
I tend to think that, unfortunately, it's the other way around. What we need to teach the next generation is that good faith, while still to be treasured, cannot be relied on, and we must be prepared to unflinchingly root out bad actors and forcibly prevent them from making things worse for people.
rooting out bad actors is most effectively done by proper education to keep them from becoming bad actors in the first place. any other approach in rooting out bad actors risks judgement errors and should only be applied in the most egregious of cases. and even there the approach should be: "look, you may mean well, but your actions hurt to many people, and therefore we must reject your approach and tell you to stop"
> rooting out bad actors is most effectively done by proper education to keep them from becoming bad actors in the first place.
But that's not rooting out bad actors, it's preventing bad actors. The problem with betting the farm on education is that bad actors who already exist will sabotage your efforts in order to lock in their gains. There has to be some plan for actually neutralizing the people who have already become bad actors and can't be "fixed" with education.
not to be harsh but let me tell you, this is bullshit, there's only rule of law if most people accept it. its all ink in paper, the moment someone tries to subvert or pretend it doesn't exist and there are no consequences the "law" is irrelevant.
the laws only exist to the extent that the people that "control" it are willing to exert it. for instance, at any other point in time, everyone involved in the signal-gate scandal would have been fired (and i bet if you were an actual army officer you would still be fired) but the people that enforce the rules can just pretend this isn't a problem and move on.
there is no crime if no one is interested in sending you to jail.
but this is the problem. we lost good faith. but we can't continue down this road. it will end in a bureaucratic nightmare.
laws can only cover the excesses. if you make laws to detailed then the enforcement of those laws will become to expensive and that will make them even less likely to be enforced. one example are social benefits. it has been argued (i don't know in which country) that being less strict in who gets benefits would save more money than the loss caused by those who should not receive them.
NIMBYism is also an outgrowth of that. another example, in germany large scale projects are taking decades and cost 10 times as much as planned because people are not acting in good faith. the US is not far behind in some areas. (the high speed rail project in california comes to mind)
yes, you can't rely on people acting in good faith. but there was a time when you could. and we need to get back to that.
>what is really needed is a change in education. we need to teach the next generation that operating in good faith is absolutely essential for the future of mankind.
How can mankind have any future at all, when education is one of the tools used to indoctrinate children into not wanting children of their own someday? The first priority of any society/civilization must always be that of making the next generation of people... or else that society/civilization will soon cease to exist. And we no longer hold that as a priority. Whatever the solution might be, I do not think that it can use the education system, in whole or in part, without serious reform of the sort that would frighten those who most want to use it.
Furthermore, it may be the case that our particular nation is composed of two distinct groups who no longer have enough common values that we can effectively remain a singular nation. At least not without one coming to dominate the other decisively. Which is unfortunate given that there are many foreign powers that would take advantage of any possible divorce, amicable or hostile.
> How can mankind have any future at all, when education is one of the tools used to indoctrinate children into not wanting children of their own someday? The first priority of any society/civilization must always be that of making the next generation of people... or else that society/civilization will soon cease to exist. And we no longer hold that as a priority. Whatever the solution might be, I do not think that it can use the education system, in whole or in part, without serious reform of the sort that would frighten those who most want to use it.
Education is in no way indoctrinating children into not wanting children.
You are conflating education with the current economical system, which uses education to have a trained workforce to generate value for companies. It's this system that is pushing people to not want kids, when kids are expensive in terms of time and money, where people work under a system that attempts to extract as much time as possible for production, it's just natural people won't be feeling any higher drive to have kids of their own.
You are blaming education while the issue is much more pervasive and systemic, we live in a world of abundant goods but precarious labour, we produce a lot but don't feel safe nor relaxed enough to tackle one of the most stressful events in someone's life.
Just look at workaholic societies like South Korea and Japan, societal pressures around earning money to support a family, showing status about your job, keeping a career as a mom, etc. eventually completely remove any desire to start families.
absolutely. i just saw a documentary about that. south korea has a birthrate of 0.72. in a few generations the country will be full of elders in poverty because the pension funds have run out of money and there are not enough workers to replenish the funds.
>Just look at workaholic societies like South Korea and Japan, societal pressures around earning money to support a family,
So, if we check the unemployed in Japan, they will be baby daddies to six or seven children? It's not workaholism.
>Education is in no way indoctrinating children into not wanting children.
You understand that this sounds like a lie not because I watch Fox News, but rather because I've had the kids come home telling me about how they were taught that the most important thing that they could do to lower their carbon footprint was to not have children, but that "adoption was just as good"? Granted, I'd agree that it's almost certainly not some official written policy somewhere, but the indoctrination is real and personally witnessed. And it's not just that, there are other examples.
>You are conflating education with the current economical system, which uses education to have a trained workforce to
If that were ever true, it hasn't been so since your grandparent's time. We don't need a workforce, not enough industry left to require it. Should I just ignore the fallacy where "education system" means whatever is most convenient for your argument rather than the government bureaucracy and social institution that always tends to have "education" either in the agency's name itself or in its official purpose?
I've had the kids come home telling me about how they were taught that the most important thing that they could do to lower their carbon footprint was to not have children
ugh. i understand that this sentiment is going around. but i don't think it is coming from the school or the curriculum. it is more likely a teacher sharing their personal, misguided, opinion.
We don't need a workforce, not enough industry left to require it
that doesn't change the fact that companies demand trained employees. it's not just industry. every sector demands that employees are handed to them full of experience in their trade. companies don't want to invest into training themselves.
likewise parents demand that children finish school ready to get hired into well paid jobs.