The green card process can take 9 to 20 months and applying for a green card demonstrates an intent to immigrate so it's highly likely attempts to return on other temporary visas like a student visa will be denied.

So they likely have to wait out the green card process abroad unless they secure a dual-intent visa like an H-1B.

There's also 75 countries that the US has shut down consular processing for so those people may be locked out getting a green card entirely.

Footnote 20 on page 4:

Footnote 20: However, maintaining lawful status in a dual intent nonimmigrant category is not sufficient, on its own, to warrant a favorable exercise of discretion

Where in the memo does it say "only if they do not maintain lawful status"? there are plenty of people adjusting under employment based petitions who have non-immigrant visas (eg O-1) which are not dual intent.

No the memo specifically says:

> However, maintaining lawful status in a dual intent nonimmigrant category is not sufficient, on its own, to warrant a favorable exercise of discretion.

Which basically means that, applying AOS while being in dual-intent category is not favorable and you will have to prove extraordinary circumstance for a simple i-485 AOS on H1B. Lacking the extraordinary circumstance, your application may be denied.

What this basically means for millions of people on H1B (especially from countries like India is), they have to go for consular processing. And given the lack of appointments in India and delays they are facing - you could be stuck for months to years and no company is going to wait for you while you go through the process. So leaving would definitely disqualify them.

Exactly that. And really, it's still not going to be enough.

The literal next line after your quote is:

> While aliens who were inspected and admitted or paroled may request adjustment of status, as a general matter the discretionary approval of such a request is extraordinary given Congress’s intent that aliens should depart once the purpose for which they sought parole or nonimmigrant admission from DHS has been accomplished.

You are misreading this. K-1 can come and stay since it’s considered an immigrant visa.

This screws over anyone who enters the country on visitor/temp work or student visa since those visas are not immigrant visa. You would be expected to leave the country and apply for GC overseas if you got married on one of those.

What barns you can live in, perhaps, but not what pastures you can graze in.

I don't think it's a perfectly representative sample of people in real life, so I always view it as an anthropological experiment, as if I'm visiting wild tribes... but still am finding the proportion of people in favor of this decision to be surprisingly high.

Because immigration is a net positive for economies, as any economist will explain to you. Especially high-skilled immigration, but it's not even limited to that. An increasing population is already a net positive.

Or we could build more houses, and schools and hospitals. When did we become a country of scarcity instead of builders? Half of downtown down San Francisco is built on the abandoned boats from migrants that were building too fast to bother moving the boats that brought them to the gold rush so they just built a city on top.

We could create special economic zones like china, allow 200 million immigrants into the country with a goal of a billion people to match the population of china and India. Make it a condition of citizenship that they help build ten homes or similar infrastructure. Immigrants could be the solution to all the problems you cite and they certainly aren’t the reason those problems exist.

If you think this is going to immunize you from the worst of what the MAGA movement has to offer I think you're in for a rude awakening.

It’s sad you don’t realize who you’re getting in bed with. H1Bs and their families are only 0.4% of the population and yet they’re being blamed for -all of americas problems. Must be your first rodeo around the american political system if you actually think they will no longer blame you even if that number shrinks to 0.1%. The economic considerations have always been a pretense. Some of them hate you because you’re brown but not the kind of exploitable cheap labour brown that serves them food and cleans their houses. Politicians see an easy scapegoat to blame for their mismanagement of the country and lean on the narrative. Indians keep leaning republican and learning this lesson over and over again.