Trump’s visa plan pushes H-1B ‘refugees’ to move elsewhere

When Chian Chang took a trip from Shanghai to Boston at the age of 18, she thought she was heading towards the “best version” of her life. It was 2009, during the first term of President Barack Obama, when the American economy recovered and the opportunities for learned workers appear well.

She was heading to Dartmouth College, a better choice for many Chinese students, and later found her way to Harvard Business College.

Cheyan embraced the American dream: the promise of equal opportunities, the country that is equivalent to talent and hard work, and a place for international citizens like affiliation.

By the early thirties of her life, she was a president of a global company in Boston, and received six numbers annually. But behind the sparkling CV was a fact that was determined by the migration situation.

Like hundreds of thousands of foreign professionals, Qian lived on the H-1B-1B work visa that linked her job, her ability to travel, and her entire feeling safe to give the employer. “Your whole life is linked to your work,” she said. “If you lose the job, you lose the visa. If you lose the visa, the country will lose.”

Initially, she pushed her anxiety. She bought property, built friendships, and told herself that she was not different from her American colleagues.

But every year, new reminder brought: the holidays were shortened to return to China in search of visa papers, job search operations because changing employers require a new visa care, and the constant fear that someone will make mistakes in her life. She said, “H-1B made me feel a second-class citizen.”

In 2022, four months after her promotion to the Vice President, Qian resigned. A year later, her life was filed in bags again. This time, she was leaving forever.

Now, the 35 -year -old girl lives in the capital of Portugal, Lisbon, with her partner, Swiss artist, Tobias Madison, and her newborn baby. She says that the Portuguese sun and the speed are slower, has begun to heal the shock of a decade in America, where every upgrade, holiday and romantic intertwining felt shades of the same fear: What happens if its visa disappeared?

Dreaming – and visa

C-1B visa mainly formed the course of her career. She said: “Only a handful of sectors to sponsor them – financing, technology, consulting, law and medicine. You don’t have many options.”

He has done many tasks in Boston, from strategic consultations to business development in a technology company, before she became a vice president of consumption products company.

“When the economy is strong, you may have an opportunity to compete equally with other job seekers. But when the economy is bad, you are the last choice, if you have chosen at all.”

Her anxiety was deepened during President Donald Trump’s first term, when the visa treatment delays and reviews increased. Even Cheyan, who seemed to embody the type of high skilled factor that the United States claimed to be permissible, was weak. “I had a struggle at once and thought, if the fire was launched, I would have to leave immediately,” she recalled. “I was very worried because I really crashed my car.”

She said that the country was no longer the one that entered in 2009. Reading the comments under news articles about realistic immigration. And she said: “America, which I believed in openness, was welcoming talent.” “America, which left its division, is suspicious, anxious.”

She has been disappointed with a broader trend in slowing the joining of international students in the United States in recent years.

“America used to be the dream,” she said. “Now people like me look elsewhere.”

New chapter

Lisbon, with its tiled streets and the Atlantic sunset, is a world far from Boston and New York. Cheyan and her partner renovate a farm in the Portuguese countryside. She writes a book and explores creative projects. She said life is slower, cheaper and cheaper.

Portugal was a hot point for digital nomads, attracting foreign workers with friendly visa policies, better quality of life, and lower living cost.

She said that her visa in Portugal was “the easiest of my life.” When she pressed her lawyer for what could happen, the lawyer reassured her: “Don’t worry, we are not the United States.”

Her years in America gave her financial security – she graduated when the economy was strong, saved responsibly and invested wisely. This pillow allowed her to start again. “I was lucky,” she said. “The right wave caught.”

However, it is contradictory around the country that formed the age of adulthood. “I used to see everything through the United States lens,” she said. “Now I see it is not the center of the world.”

It hopes that the United States will be able to re -discover the openness that attracted it once. “I want America to become America that we believe in.” “Open. I am confident. Free. Not this frightening version, closed from itself.”

She said until then, more people like her will continue to leave. “Perhaps,” added with a small smile, “America needs more than we need America.”

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