here is the original article on san francsco chronicle Heading north as economy goes south U.S. immigration policy has some foreign tech workers applying for residency in Canada Vanessa Hua, Chronicle Staff Writer Sunday, August 18, 2002 ©2002 San Francisco Chronicle. URL: http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?file=/chronicle/archive/2002/08/18/BU54073.DTL Unemployed programmer Cai Gao believes he has found a place to live the American dream: Canada. Although the native of China has never visited Canada, he applied for permanent residency north of the border. Pink-slipped by a Fremont Web technology firm in December, Gao, 30, fears that his wife could be next. Without employment, she would lose her H-1B visa -- the prized papers that brought hundreds of thousands of skilled foreigners into the United States during the tech boom to meet domestic labor shortages. Gao worries they might not find an employer willing to sponsor a new visa at a time when U.S. citizens are competing for the same spots. At the height of the technology bubble, Canadian firms tried to lure foreign workers away from Silicon Valley, without great success. Now, with the U.S. economy going south, some engineers are heading north. Neither Gao nor his wife has obtained U.S. permanent residency -- despite following immigration laws and contributing thousands of dollars in income tax, he complained. Without a green card, he has trouble finding work and cannot start his own company. "The U.S. government does not care at all about us," said Gao, whose 5-year- old daughter and 3-year-old son are U.S. citizens. "They just want to trash us, once we are not useful enough anymore." The U.S. Immigration and Naturalization Service said it enforces policies set by Congress -- which in turn reflect the wishes of the American public. Spokeswoman Sharon Rummery advised prospective immigrants to review the laws of different countries and choose what suits them best. Some Canadian law firms that specialize in immigration say inquiries have more than doubled this year, compared with 2001. Of the 250,346 new Canadian permanent residents last year, 40,296 hailed from China and 27,812 from India -- the country's top two sources of immigrants. That's up from 29,112 Chinese and 17,429 Indians in 1999. EASIER TO GET RESIDENCY Canada's appeal lies in its points-based immigration system, which generally takes six to 12 months to award permanent residency. The government assigns points to educational level, language skills, adaptability and experience -- factors in successful economic establishment. Applicants can fill out the forms by themselves. If a candidate meets the minimum number of points and has proper documentation, he or she will likely obtain residency, said Jeffrey Abrams, a Canadian immigration lawyer. Some applicants are inadmissible due to medical, criminal and security reasons, or are delayed if too many candidates come from a particular country. Canada seeks to admit between 200,000 and 250,000 immigrants, or about 1 percent of its population, each year, but generally fails to meet that target. (That's the equivalent of the United States pledging to take in 2.5 million to 3 million immigrants each year, instead of the fewer than 1 million who now enter.) Applying for a U.S. green card is more complicated, taking three or more years. Workers must rely on their employer to sponsor the costly process on their behalf. "Canada doesn't make indentured servants of employees," said Murali Krishna Devarakonda of the Immigrants' Support Network, a worker advocacy group in the United States. "It has a much simpler and fairer system." At Maple International, a Quebec immigration law firm, applications for permanent residency filed through its Mountain View office have jumped from 10 to 20 per month in 2000, to 50 to 55 per month. The firm, which advertises in magazines such as Silicon India and India Currents as well as the Chinese language Web site Sina.com, charges $1,800 in attorney fees for processing the application. In Silicon Valley, more than 95 percent of applicants are H-1B visa holders, said Kasim Wu, an immigration consultant at Maple, whose offices feature maps of Canada and Vancouver, British Columbia, as well as the pamphlet "A Newcomer's Introduction to Canada." MANY HAVE LOST JOBS Almost a third of applicants have already lost their jobs, while others apply as a pre-emptive measure, afraid their shaky companies could let them go, Wu said. H-1B holders "are the most vulnerable, statuswise, to be affected by U.S. immigration policy," Wu said. These tech professionals are a coup for the Canadian workforce, said Paul Swinwood, president of the Software Human Resource Council, an Ottawa trade association and education company. "Being able to recruit people we could not get three years ago, that's excellent from the Canadian perspective," Swinwood said. He credited immigrant entrepreneurs for creating employment and boosting the economy with startups in Ottawa's "Silicon Valley North" and in Calgary, Vancouver, Montreal and Toronto. Meanwhile, some U.S. legislators, such as Rep. Tom Tancredo, R-Colo., are trying to lower the cap on annual H-1B visas issued, down to 65,000, from the 195,000 now available. Created by Congress in 1990, the H-1B program took off middecade. Critics say the sinking economy has reduced the need for foreigners. Some U.S. tech workers also contend that employers prefer to hire lower-paid foreigners instead of Americans. COMPLICATED U.S. POLICY The U.S. system of obtaining residency differs from Canada's for several reasons, explained Barry Edmonston, director of the Population Research Center at Portland State University in Oregon. The INS spends more resources dealing with illegal immigration, said Edmonston, former director of immigration at the National Academy of Science, a Washington, D.C., think tank. Congress has amended immigration legal code repeatedly over the years, adding to its complexity, he said. The large backlog of cases also lengthens the process. Canada's other draws include its socialized health care system, cheaper cost of living, quality educational system and good public transportation, say those who made the switch. The country's proximity to the United States is another attraction for workers who have become accustomed to life in North America. Programmer Yazdi Bulsara, 39, moved to Toronto in July 2001, joining his brother who immigrated before him. Although his U.S. employers in Dallas and New Jersey promised to assist him with his green card, Bulsara said they never completed the process. Bulsara was able to file for and obtain Canadian residency within nine months by himself. "It's close to the border, (my brother) was already there and it's the same environment," said Bulsara, who grew up in a small industrial town near Calcutta. Bulsara has not yet found work. For now, his family lives off their savings, stretched further because of the favorable exchange rate. Canada's unemployment rate was 7.6 percent for July, compared with 5.9 percent in the United States and 6.3 percent in California. (Canada and the United States measure unemployment differently, accounting for some of the gap between the two rates.) MORE FREEDOM TO MOVE AROUND For some, Canadian permanent residency also offers the ability to move around internationally freely. If they returned to their homeland and then tried to apply for travel visas, they would run into problems, they say. That freedom is a boon for entrepreneurs such as Emily Hou, who travels between Canada and China as chief executive for A-Info Science & Technology Inc., a wireless location services company. Hou, a native of Beijing, moved from the Bay Area to Calgary last year, where the government has helped nurtured her business, providing advice on venture capital and legal matters, she said. The Canadian address also puts North American customers and business partners at ease, Hou said. "It's easier for them to accept this idea, from a legal, accounting and cultural perspective, that (they) are doing business with a North American company, rather than doing business with China," Hou said. After finishing accounting graduate school in Boston, Hou moved to the Bay Area in 1995 and worked at several tech startups on an H-1B visa. Hou never obtained a green card, which would have required her to stay with any company that sponsored her throughout the yearslong process. She applied for and received Canadian residency in about seven months. "The U.S. is a good country that I love, that gave me a fair opportunity, but its immigration policy is a burden to a lot of foreigners," Hou said. Eappan Benjamin, a Fremont network administrator, lost his job at telecom firm Marconi in February, which derailed his hopes for a green card. As a backup, he applied for and received Canadian residency in 1997, around the same time he landed a Bay Area job on an H-1B visa. After the native of India sells his house, Benjamin, 39, plans to move with his wife, 8-year-old daughter and 3-year-old son to Alberta, where an aunt and uncle settled 25 years ago. His wife, a teacher by training, has been unable to work in the United States, because her H-4 visa did not permit her. As a permanent resident of Canada, she will be able to teach, Benjamin said. He would consider moving back to the United States someday for a good opportunity, but only on one condition: "I need residency or citizenship status. I do not want to keep hopping around." -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- E-mail Vanessa Hua at . Immigration policy comparison More foreign-born tech workers living in the United States are applying for permanent residency in Canada, which they say is a simpler, cheaper, and faster than obtaining a U.S. green card. . United States Canada Sponsor Must be sponsored by No sponsor needed employer or relative Legal Hired by sponsoring Do-it-yourself counsel employers forms online or applicant can hire a lawyer Average 3 years or more 6 to 12 months processing time Application $800 on average $995 fees plus $3,000-$15,000 in attorney fees in attorney fees plus up to $2,000 (legal counsel optional) . Source: U.S. Immigration and Naturalization Service; Canadian Consulate in Los Angeles; Jim Eiss, Buffalo, N.Y., immigration lawyer