I honestly cannot believe in the 21st century we tolerate such archaic systems for highly sought professionals, that we in turn educated via subsidized education (se is a nursing grad from University of South Florida) especially with the enormous demand for nurses.<p>I think at this point, especially with the massive layoffs in tech and the high back up for even renewals and thus precarious situation with H1-N visa holders, it's probably worth exploring a market-place for residence/citizenship via contractional marriage with prenuptial agreements. The situation is becoming more dire and the thought of losing more US raised talent due to such an absurd situation like a backlog of application renewals demands that tech disrupt this monolith.<p>> As someone living in a northern European welfare state, I'll just say what a shitshow the US is<p>I agree, but the truth is that EU/CH isn't much better either. There is a large stigma of German professionals, specifically physicians, coming to Switzerland 'taking all the jobs' when most Swiss who do attend university don't even study medicine to fill the roles they require in most cantons.<p>And then try and come into Switzerland as a professional that conflicts with te Swiss population if you're from a less desirable country like Czech Republic, Hungary or Slovakia--there is a large Croatian population in Switzerland due to the diaspora after the collapse of Yugoslavia, but one of my predictions is how they will delay things for those who want to come and enter Schengen next week.<p>And I'm not even going to go into the quota situation because its murky, and varies from canton to canton.<p>But honestly, it's an absurd system that as the article outlines is ultimately upheld with bi-partisan support in the US, which means that their is no alternative has been the maxim for far too long with no change in sight despite the massive shortfalls of talented professionals in a post COVID World.