>employers are lobbying Washington hard for things to be this complicated.

There is nothing complicated about the process itself. You just happen to be from India/China.

I'm quite sure that by writing "I'm not in the slow lane" he/she meant exactly that he/she is not from India or China.

wrong. There are many "lanes" ( eb1, eb2,..) with different speeds even for people from India/China.

The irony is that for a lot of Indians/Chinese here, they could either wait 6-8 years, or they could leave the country for a year then transfer back in and have a GC in a year or less. It's particularly unpleasant for H1-Bs who start the PREM process as such. So much easier for internal transfers, especially EB1, O, an L1/L2... and easier still if you're not from a slow lane country (currently China & India, but Brazil was in this boat for a number of years, too).

A lot of companies (Microsoft is one example that I know of) are sidestepping H1-B entirely for college hires (and perhaps other channels of hiring?) for L1. Hire in Canada or the UK; apply for L1; transfer to the US in a year or two.

Apparently it's much more straightforward (and less prone to chance) as compared to H1B.

Its actually pretty cool to see Microsoft 'hacking' the visa system. They opened a center in Vancouver and put all their international hires there for 1 year, then brought them into the US on an L1 which allows them to get a greencard in 1 year- which prevents them from being in the 10 year to be free queue.

Its not ideal for the employee though, since they are restricted to work for one employer. But otherwise, yes, it is a very good deal.

You should be able to transfer your H1-B to another employer, though. I didn't think it was that hard.

I recently got married and filed for AOS.

You can, but the parent was talking about an L1, which cannot be transferred.

only L1A is faster than H1B though, L1B seems to take the same amount of time http://www.immihelp.com/l1-visa/l1-visa-based-greencard.html

There is 0 difference in the speed of GC process. It does not matter if you are on H, L, O or don't have any status at all and applying from abroad. People are spreading this myth because L1-A and O-1 requirements are pretty close to EB1 so if you can get such a category of visa then you have a good chance to apply to EB1. But, again, if you fit these requirements already you can just apply to EB1 from any status (or lack of thereof).

Actually at least one cateogory, EB1-C, specifically applies to managers relocated from an overseas branch of the same company. An equivalently qualified manager on H1-B in the US is ineligible for that category.

Equivalently qualified manager on H-1B would have spent a year out of last 3 serving in such a position overseas so he would also be eligible. Alternatively, a L-1A manager who already spent more than 2 years in the US would be ineligible.

Didn't know that, thanks for the information. I was rejected in the H1B random lottery step (sigh) after getting an offer from a grown startup in SF, and did not investigate the green card process deep enough.

> I was rejected in the H1B random lottery step (sigh) after getting an offer from a grown startup in SF,

Ah, sorry about that mate. The process is fucked up.

I dunno, I'm from Canada and it's still a major clusterfuck from my perspective

They screwed things up royally a few years back with the bonded Canadian workers in the timber industry in Maine. Some sort of snafu with immigration held up the paperwork, and a bunch of contractors on tight margins went tits up because they couldn't find replacements for those workers, some of whom had been working for them for 10, 15, 20 years under that system.

Not really. There are disproportionately more applicants from certain countries, and the US government wants to make sure they don't flood the system. There are a limited number of "slots" every year.

When every 1 out of 7 people on this planet is either from India or China, makes me wonder what was the thought behind the limited number of "slots".

Additionally, these "slots" seems to have been placed only in the last stage of green card, there are no country specific limits for H1B applications, Green Card Application(LCA), nor the I-140 Immigration petition for Alien Worker.