Originally posted by DCMark
> Why should the law be changed? The spirit of the J1 visa with home
> residency requirement is not to make it easier to immigrate to the US.
>
Actually, the spirit of the J1 visa with Home Residency, is to learn
something, then bring it home to your country and show others. The fact
of the matter is, most J1 visa holders with HRR are here for 3-4 months,
then required to spend 24 months in their country. A lot of those
holders don't have anything much better than a office job doing simple
low end tasks. They don't learn much.
After living through the J1 waiver process I see it a different way.
My main reason for the law to change is due to the length in time for
processing a waiver. It took us about a year. If the government can't
process a request within a reasonable amount of time, then they
shouldn't hold that "carrot" out there.
We need to reward people that abide by the laws instead of break them.
In addition, reducing the time frame to 1 year or even 18 months is
sufficient time to return home, and tell everyone in their country about
what they learned. Most people would say, "You can spend a year in your
country, no problem." but it's harder to get someone to go back home
for 2 years. What does that lead to? I think it leads to people
staying illegally.
The shortened time required outside of the USA, would reduce the number
of waiver requests, calls to governments and paper pushing.