green card

A person walks through a parking lot at Meta headquarters in Menlo Park, California, Wednesday, Nov. 9, 2022.

Mass Bay Area tech layoffs thrust thousands of H-1B visa holders into frantic job hunt

Jobs

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.

Animesh Namjoshi poses for a graduation photo after receiving his diploma at Seven Lakes High School

This Houston student grew up in the US. Now he may be forced to self-deport to India due to a visa backlog.

Immigration
A woman stands in silhouette against a blue sky.

Liberians hesitate to apply for permanent resident status in US over daunting process

Immigration
Health care workers gather for lunch purchased by members of the New York City Police Department (NYPD)

Pandemic raises fears for immigrant doctors whose status in the US is uncertain

COVID-19
A woman prays during a service

‘It doesn’t feel very real’: Liberian immigrants in US rejoice at pathway to citizenship

Justice
New citizens stand during the National Anthem at a US Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS) naturalization ceremony at the New York Public Library in Manhattan, New York, on July 3, 2018.

Under Trump, immigrants face increasingly long and complicated road to citizenship

Immigration

Applicants are experiencing more vetting, a proposed spike in the application fee and prolonged processing times — waits that could keep thousands of would-be US citizens from voting in the 2020 general election.

Mario Martinez

Serving in the US military won’t protect these veterans from being deported

Global Politics

Noncitizens are eligible to serve in the US military. But even as veterans, they can still be deported if they commit crimes after they leave the service.

Demonstrators protest President Donald Trump's travel ban outside Philadelphia International Airport.

This Trump voter is stunned to find her Syrian relatives deported

Conflict

Sarmad Assali, an Orthodox Christian in Allentown, Pennsylvania, supported Donald Trump for president. She was stunned this weekend when his refugee and immigration restrictions meant her relatives were deported back to Damascus.

Baby Eva has yet to meet her Pakistani grandmother.

A Pakistani mom sets out to visit her new American granddaughter, and is turned back at the visa counter

Justice

Dual citizens from Iraq, Iran, Syria and Sudan are hit by the new US program that restricts their travel. But Pakistanis say they’re victims of a visa clampdown as well.

Angel Ryono in elementary school

Citizenship? No thanks, I’ll pass for now

Culture

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.