A new hope for immigrants š
Plus two programs for immigrant founders
InĀ Consensus, the card game I co-created, we have a prompt thatĀ drasticallyĀ changed in meaning after the elections.
Want to play the game above? playconsensus.com
While Iām not a U.S. citizen, I felt the effects of the Trump administration through longer application wait times, bouts of stress every time a new H1-B proclamation came out & general visa-related anxiety.
With the new administration (š„³),Ā I now point to myself every time this prompt comes up.
Despite 4 years of heightened visa anxiety, I wanted to take time to reflect on the good side of the visa struggles ā the lessons it taught me and perhaps millions of other immigrants.
(1) Resilience
One of my most popular blog posts isĀ āFrom Near Deportation to LinkedIn PMā. I described my path to finding a job asĀ anxiety-inducing, soul crushing, & emotionally fluctuating__.Ā In it, youāll read about how I faced imminent deportation but stayed resilient to land a coveted role.
Way back when, for my first full-time job hunt, I was offered a role at a prestigious consulting firm, even got flown to Florida for the new hire welcome party,Ā thenĀ got my offer rescinded when they found out I was an international student. š¤Æ
While my stories sound gut-wrenching, surprising and extreme, the unfortunate thing isĀ my stories arenāt uncommon ones.
I giveĀ a lotĀ of kudos to all visa strugglers out there. Whatever success you achieve, you areĀ 10x more worthyĀ of it because of the extra hard work you put in (and plethora of documents you had to deal with) compared to your peers. Own it.
(2) Conscientiousness
Way back when, I attended a workshop to process papers for studying abroad. Someone jokingly compared the behavior of international and non-international students in the room. The international students (myself included) came prepared with all documents, papers & passports organized to a T. The non-international students came with missing documents, messy files and, sometimes, plain nothing.
The consequence of a single typo or misplaced file causes MONTHS of additional waiting (and additional anxiety!) Weāre forced toĀ get our shxt together.
(3) Focus on what you can control.
Work and travel permit applications can take fromĀ 3 months to 7 months to a year to processĀ (and were only rising because of the previous administration and the pandemic).
The wait times are excruciatingly long, but I thinkĀ whatās more crippling is the variability between those wait times. Why couldnāt USCIS have UI like Uber or Doordash, with ETAs & progress updates?
Many times Iāve probed my lawyers about how we can expedite the process.Ā Is there someone inside we can talk to? Does my role or compensation make things faster? If I write a sweet letter to someone, will they be kind to my application?
Nada.
The best that we can do is keep our files in order, submit documents asĀ earlyĀ as possible (a weekās delay compounds more than one thinks!), and focus our energy on what we can control.Ā Everything else is a waste of energy and anxiety sweat.
The immigration process is far from perfect, and even with a more supportive president, it will take time for processes, wait times, & backlogs to get corrected. But my lawyerās hopeful, so Iām hopeful and I hope immigrants reading this, facing parallel struggles are hopeful, too.
š Nudges of the week
If youāre an immigrant founder, check out:
- Resilient Venture StudiosĀ - apply to their program for B2B SaaS immigrant founders by Jan 31
- Unshackled VenturesĀ - VC firm investing specifically in immigrant founders
Your friendly neighborhood immigrant,
Mika