H1B life vs. Moving to Canada - Experience sharing

[lampbreaker]

Like many on this forum, I am an Indian stuck in the US GC backlog and Canadian PR. The golden question I need to find answer to in the next two-three years is - Should I make the move to Canada, leaving behind US life. Can those who have made this move or pondering over this question share their experiences?

• What differences did you find in Canada that you find significant?
• How did your standard of life change?
• Is uprooting yourself and settling down in a new country easy?

 

[harirajmohan]

Like many on this forum, I am an Indian stuck in the US GC backlog and Canadian PR. The golden question I need to find answer to in the next two-three years is - Should I make the move to Canada, leaving behind US life. Can those who have made this move or pondering over this question share their experiences?

• 1. What differences did you find in Canada that you find significant?
• 2. How did your standard of life change?
• 3.Is uprooting yourself and settling down in a new country easy?

I thought you already moved and commuting.

Everyone's experience and preference is different. So not sure if that will suit yours.
Why are you not finding the border city job and try to commute first before you decide to move to Canada completely? This will give ease on transition and give you time to decide if you still fully want to move(meaning, finding Canadian job and staying within Canada).

1. No difference in terms of living except the benefit of becoming eligible to apply for citizenship.
2. No difference with the one of the US. I am still commuting hence no impact for me in life style which might have come due to less paying job.
3. One should avoid moving without the job unless one cant find a job within 3 years of landing. Its not easy to move without job as i tried doing it in Australia and it was horrible and too much stress which i should have tried to avoid. So i did not do that mistake in my move to Canada.

 

[DEEPCUR]

I thought you already moved and commuting.

Everyone's experience and preference is different. So not sure if that will suit yours.
Why are you not finding the border city job and try to commute first before you decide to move to Canada completely? This will give ease on transition and give you time to decide if you still fully want to move(meaning, finding Canadian job and staying within Canada).

1. No difference in terms of living except the benefit of becoming eligible to apply for citizenship.
2. No difference with the one of the US. I am still commuting hence no impact for me in life style which might have come due to less paying job.
3. One should avoid moving without the job unless one cant find a job within 3 years of landing. Its not easy to move without job as i tried doing it in Australia and it was horrible and too much stress which i should have tried to avoid. So i did not do that mistake in my move to Canada.

The only catch I see in border job is job for spouse who is on H4 EAD.. not very sure if they can do regular commute based on experiences in this forum and what could be done once H4 EAD gets revoked. This creates a compelling situation to move to Canada fully.

 

[lampbreaker]

Thanks for you answers @DEEPCUR @harirajmohan

My thoughts right now.

• H4 EAD is a concern for me. My wife cherishes working, she is highly educated and sponsoring H1B is not very common/likely in her field of work. However, many employers in her field will allow her to work from Canada. If she loses H4 EAD, moving to Canada will become a serious consideration.
• I love my job here and they love me too. So changing jobs just for the sake of moving closer to border is not preferable. I am talking to my employer to allow me to work from Canada but it is difficult.
• I have interviewed with an employer in Canada for a position similar to my current one. The discussions ended at salary levels because their target ranges were 25% below my current salary (in nominal numbers + exchange rates making it even worse). However, this was my only attempt so far, I may consider a somewhat lower salary if they could offer me a higher position and at least get career progression. the search will continue.
• We are also concerned as a family to move to a different country, making new social circles from scratch again, adjusting to different city/culture etc. However, coming from the US it will be easier for us than somebody coming from India directly. (at least we hope so)
• We are in our mid thirties and we have three years to make the move. Any delay will make it more and more difficult just from the stage in life perspective.

 

[DEEPCUR]

Thanks for you answers @DEEPCUR @harirajmohan

My thoughts right now.

• H4 EAD is a concern for me. My wife cherishes working, she is highly educated and sponsoring H1B is not very common/likely in her field of work. However, many employers in her field will allow her to work from Canada. If she loses H4 EAD, moving to Canada will become a serious consideration.
• I love my job here and they love me too. So changing jobs just for the sake of moving closer to border is not preferable. I am talking to my employer to allow me to work from Canada but it is difficult.
• I have interviewed with an employer in Canada for a position similar to my current one. The discussions ended at salary levels because their target ranges were 25% below my current salary (in nominal numbers + exchange rates making it even worse). However, this was my only attempt so far, I may consider a somewhat lower salary if they could offer me a higher position and at least get career progression. the search will continue.
• We are also concerned as a family to move to a different country, making new social circles from scratch again, adjusting to different city/culture etc. However, coming from the US it will be easier for us than somebody coming from India directly. (at least we hope so)
• We are in our mid thirties and we have three years to make the move. Any delay will make it more and more difficult just from the stage in life perspective.

More or less similar thoughts for me.. most points are applicable to me. Not that much of 4 as we are not great a making friends any ways. I have only two more years left to keep the PR alive.

Regarding you salary and job search experience, just to understand what you say.. for instance, if you were making $100k in US, were they offering 75k CAD as salary?

 

[harirajmohan]

Thanks for you answers @DEEPCUR @harirajmohan

My thoughts right now.

• H4 EAD is a concern for me. My wife cherishes working, she is highly educated and sponsoring H1B is not very common/likely in her field of work. However, many employers in her field will allow her to work from Canada. If she loses H4 EAD, moving to Canada will become a serious consideration.
• I love my job here and they love me too. So changing jobs just for the sake of moving closer to border is not preferable. I am talking to my employer to allow me to work from Canada but it is difficult.
• I have interviewed with an employer in Canada for a position similar to my current one. The discussions ended at salary levels because their target ranges were 25% below my current salary (in nominal numbers + exchange rates making it even worse). However, this was my only attempt so far, I may consider a somewhat lower salary if they could offer me a higher position and at least get career progression. the search will continue.
• We are also concerned as a family to move to a different country, making new social circles from scratch again, adjusting to different city/culture etc. However, coming from the US it will be easier for us than somebody coming from India directly. (at least we hope so)
• We are in our mid thirties and we have three years to make the move. Any delay will make it more and more difficult just from the stage in life perspective.

This is the same thing many have. Its difficult to decide, i agree. But we forget to plan for long term and later we realize it at 40s or at H4 child ages out or at when not able to get social security benefits.

So plan for long term based on the long term priorities/goals rather than current short term sweet situation.
I worked for a company for long time but never provided anything in terms of growth/benefits. They talk sweet while we work but later they dont even care for the years we lost.

 

[harirajmohan]

According to the US Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS), the number of H1B holders who are from different countries is around 419,637. This number remains almost unchanged because there is a cap on the number of visas issued every year.

Cap is for new H1 quota only. There is no cap on number of visas issued. There is cap only on immigrant visas.
https://www.uscis.gov/sites/default/files/USCIS/Resources/Reports and Studies/Immigration Forms Data/BAHA/h-1b-2007-2017-trend-tables.pdf

 

[lampbreaker]

In recent years, the approval rate for the converting H1B visa to the green card is reduced because of the changes in government policies.

There hasn't been any change in government policies. The number of green cards is the same, there is just a lot many Indians in the line.

 

[21Goose]

I moved from the US to Canada and I'm much happier here.

I had an approved I-140, EB-2 class, great job in the States.. but I moved to Canada for two major reasons

1. Family life - my wife and I were in our early 30s and wanted to have kids. I didn't want my child growing up in the states for very many reasons. A couple of obvious ones - the terrible quality of US schools, the extreme income inequality, gun violence.. etc.

2. I wanted to have rights. As an H1B holder in the States, I didn't have the rights of a resident. I was just one grumpy CBP officer away from losing everything that I worked so hard for. After 10 years of living in a country, you start to get irritated by the same questions every time you land. "Why are you visiting the US", "Where do you work", "How long have you worked there".. etc. etc. And keep in mind that I was working for a FAANMG company as a direct employee.

Also, my wife is highly educated (she has an LL.M from a top US law school and is qualified in NY and our home country), and she wanted to start her own practice.

We thought long and hard, and decided to give up life in the US and move here. Before we did that, we made sure we had enough money to live for 2-3 years without a job.

It's now been almost two years since we moved and we haven't regretted it one bit. And the reason for not regretting things is because we did our research and set our expectations accordingly.

We were pleasantly surprised to find that Canadians are far more welcoming and friendly than Americans. The US has this fixation of being "the greatest country the world has ever known" and every American is convinced that you are super lucky to be allowed to partake in the "American Dream".

Canadians are not nearly as full of themselves!

These are entirely personal decisions and what made sense for us may not make sense for anyone else. I would say however, that is is extremely important to move with the correct set of expectations and be open to a period of readjustment and settling in. Don't make the mistake of comparing everything to the US and feeling sad about stuff.

 

[lampbreaker]

Thanks for your thoughts @21Goose
This is exactly what I am looking for - people's experiences and thoughts.

 

[DEEPCUR]

I moved from the US to Canada and I'm much happier here.

I had an approved I-140, EB-2 class, great job in the States.. but I moved to Canada for two major reasons

1. Family life - my wife and I were in our early 30s and wanted to have kids. I didn't want my child growing up in the states for very many reasons. A couple of obvious ones - the terrible quality of US schools, the extreme income inequality, gun violence.. etc.

2. I wanted to have rights. As an H1B holder in the States, I didn't have the rights of a resident. I was just one grumpy CBP officer away from losing everything that I worked so hard for. After 10 years of living in a country, you start to get irritated by the same questions every time you land. "Why are you visiting the US", "Where do you work", "How long have you worked there".. etc. etc. And keep in mind that I was working for a FAANMG company as a direct employee.

Also, my wife is highly educated (she has an LL.M from a top US law school and is qualified in NY and our home country), and she wanted to start her own practice.

We thought long and hard, and decided to give up life in the US and move here. Before we did that, we made sure we had enough money to live for 2-3 years without a job.

It's now been almost two years since we moved and we haven't regretted it one bit. And the reason for not regretting things is because we did our research and set our expectations accordingly.

We were pleasantly surprised to find that Canadians are far more welcoming and friendly than Americans. The US has this fixation of being "the greatest country the world has ever known" and every American is convinced that you are super lucky to be allowed to partake in the "American Dream".

Canadians are not nearly as full of themselves!

These are entirely personal decisions and what made sense for us may not make sense for anyone else. I would say however, that is is extremely important to move with the correct set of expectations and be open to a period of readjustment and settling in. Don't make the mistake of comparing everything to the US and feeling sad about stuff.

Very useful insights, but I necessarily don't agree with the point about terrible quality of US schools. If someone lives in good school district in US, the kids will definitely access good schools. After second world war, most of the path breaking inventions have come and continue to come from US. If the schools were terrible, how was that possible?

If you consider rankings across the world, sure US is ranked lower compared to countries like Finland or even Canada, but if you carefully look at metrics behind such rankings, it would be mostly about number of kids who pass from a class or number of kids who score above certain score in STEM and all that which are not a accurate indicator of education system or quality of education. Also those countries which rank higher in such ranks are quite small with less population too, but given the size of US and where they are, I would say that they are still doing a good job

Also definitely there is disparity in school quality across affluent and average neighborhoods which is less of a thing in Canada, but most people who are on H1 definitely earn enough to afford a house or rent in a top school district in US and send their kids to top schools which have good quality.

 

[21Goose]

Very useful insights, but I necessarily don't agree with the point about terrible quality of US schools. If someone lives in good school district in US, the kids will definitely access good schools. After second world war, most of the path breaking inventions have come and continue to come from US. If the schools were terrible, how was that possible?

If you consider rankings across the world, sure US is ranked lower compared to countries like Finland or even Canada, but if you carefully look at metrics behind such rankings, it would be mostly about number of kids who pass from a class or number of kids who score above certain score in STEM and all that which are not a accurate indicator of education system or quality of education. Also those countries which rank higher in such ranks are quite small with less population too, but given the size of US and where they are, I would say that they are still doing a good job

Also definitely there is disparity in school quality across affluent and average neighborhoods which is less of a thing in Canada, but most people who are on H1 definitely earn enough to afford a house or rent in a top school district in US and send their kids to top schools which have good quality.

Like I said, these are personal decisions. I'm not going to argue back and forth on the topic - we made a decision that we believe was best for us and these are some (among many, many others) of the factors that went into our thinking. Two years on, we do not regret our decision and are indeed happier every day.

I'm not trying to (and I'm not going to) justify my decision making process. I fully respect that other people may come to entirely different conclusions based on their own knowledge and experience, and I have no doubt that those conclusions will be perfectly valid for their particular circumstances.

This is a thread about sharing experiences, not about proving which country is better (I doubt that's even possible!).

 

[fr72]

Very useful insights, but I necessarily don't agree with the point about terrible quality of US schools. If someone lives in good school district in US, the kids will definitely access good schools. After second world war, most of the path breaking inventions have come and continue to come from US. If the schools were terrible, how was that possible?

If you consider rankings across the world, sure US is ranked lower compared to countries like Finland or even Canada, but if you carefully look at metrics behind such rankings, it would be mostly about number of kids who pass from a class or number of kids who score above certain score in STEM and all that which are not a accurate indicator of education system or quality of education. Also those countries which rank higher in such ranks are quite small with less population too, but given the size of US and where they are, I would say that they are still doing a good job

Also definitely there is disparity in school quality across affluent and average neighborhoods which is less of a thing in Canada, but most people who are on H1 definitely earn enough to afford a house or rent in a top school district in US and send their kids to top schools which have good quality.

here we go again. We all agree that murica is number 1 and 99.9999% people would leave Canada PR for US GC. But you are not getting US GC are you? You clearly love USA, but does USA love you back?

 

[DEEPCUR]

here we go again. We all agree that murica is number 1 and 99.9999% people would leave Canada PR for US GC. But you are not getting US GC are you? You clearly love USA, but does USA love you back?

I do get it is about comparison between immigration status in both countries and I have used the exact argument many a times to people who bring Canada down. I specifically responded to his comment saying US schools are terrible.. comparison between US and Canada started there and I responded on same lines.

 

[freesoul]

Excuse me if I sound too agitated.

When you are in Canada, you are called a newcomer and not an immigrant with an Alien number.
As someone mentioned, it gets frustrating and annoying, to answer the same questions over and over to maintain and explain your immigration status in usa. It's like you are in a time-warp. Like most Indians in USA, my wife and I, were in the higher tax brackets, but the us govt treated us like modern day slaves. Of course, there are no bondages, no chains to break, but there is something called psychological barriers. We paid taxes, followed laws, imbibed local cultures, in return you get consistent barrage of immigrant bashing.

Point being, you have to decide what you want in life. You will make money anywhere you go. You will create a good life for yourself. But, are you free. And you have to decide what freedom is to you.

As Vivekananda said, "Arise, Awake, and Stop Not".