An unemployed H-1B visa holder has to find a new employer, or “sponsor,” within 60 days, or leave the country. Thousands of Bay Area tech and biotech workers have surged onto sites like LinkedIn, frantically looking for friendly faces, like 36-year-old Vidhi Agrawal of San Francisco.
Along with gaining the right to vote and the responsibility of serving on a jury, some studies show new citizens make clear economic gains as well. But not everyone buys it. Naturalization rates in the US are extremely low. Of the more than 8 million people with a US green card, less than 40 percent will go on to naturalize. That’s nearly a third of the naturalization rate in our neighbor to the north, Canada.