I understand this post is more startup-visa focused, but generally the US employment based visa and permanent residency system is fucked. I'm in the US on a work visa, but due to my nationality am looking at over a decade of wait time for getting permanent residency. This means I've to stay in the country at fear of losing my job, pay top of the line taxes and still not get any rights during my best years. Which is highly unfair. Canada is a culturally similar first world country where I can get to a citizenship quickly. The only thing preventing me from moving tomorrow is the large difference in tech industry size. If more and more companies set up shop in Canada, I'm ready to go.
You could say that things are how they are, and if I don't like it, I should go back to my home country, but I _want_ to be American/Canadian. I identify with the outdoor, adventurous culture of the American West more than anything else. I am willing to pay my dues and become a well integrated citizen, but this country doesn't want me to, because it continues to conflate people like me with immigrants who don't pay taxes or commit crimes. Or because it has weird laws that cause these delays and a government unwilling to change that because indentured labor is better for existing companies. I already see Canada being a much better choice in a few years.
So the problems for highly-skilled people who want to to become a part of the US are more widespread than just having difficulty getting a visa. If this YC experiment is an indicator of things to come, and more tech companies lead to better salaries in Vancouver, I can see many engineers taking their taxes and skills north of the border.
You could say that things are how they are, and if I don't like it, I should go back to my home country, but I _want_ to be American/Canadian. I identify with the outdoor, adventurous culture of the American West more than anything else. I am willing to pay my dues and become a well integrated citizen, but this country doesn't want me to, because it continues to conflate people like me with immigrants who don't pay taxes or commit crimes. Or because it has weird laws that cause these delays and a government unwilling to change that because indentured labor is better for existing companies. I already see Canada being a much better choice in a few years.
So the problems for highly-skilled people who want to to become a part of the US are more widespread than just having difficulty getting a visa. If this YC experiment is an indicator of things to come, and more tech companies lead to better salaries in Vancouver, I can see many engineers taking their taxes and skills north of the border.