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

When Qian Zhang made a flight from Shanghai to Boston at the age of 18, he thought he had gone towards the “best version of his life. 2009, in the first period of President Barack Obama, the US economy was recovered and opportunities for well -educated workers seemed abundant.

He was connected to Dartmouth College, the best choice for many Chinese students, and then found the way to Harvard Business School.

Qian embraced the American dream: a country that rewarded equal opportunities, talent and hard work, and a place where global citizens like it can belong.

In his early 30s, he became vice president of a global company in Boston and won six figures a year. However, behind the glittering resume was a reality defined by the status of immigration.

Like hundreds of thousands of foreign professionals, Qian also lived on a H-1B business visa-the document connecting his work, the ability to travel and all the feeling of security of the employer’s grace. “Your whole life depends on your business,” he said. “If you lose the job, you lose the visa. If you lose the visa, you will lose the country.”

At first he pushed his worries aside. He bought property, founded friendships and told him that he was not different from his American colleagues.

But every year he brought new reminders: visa documents, short -cut holidays to fly to China for hidden job search, because employers’ changing new visa sponsorships and a constant fear that a wrong step can solve the life. “H-1B made me feel like a second-class citizen,” he said.

In 2022, four months after his introduction to the Vice President, Qian quot. A year later, he pack his life again in suitcases. This time he was going for good.

Now, the 35-year-old Portugal’s capital, Lisbon, his partner Swiss artist-Filma Leaf Tobias Madison and his newborn children live. The Portuguese Sun and the slower Tempo say that every promotion, holiday and romantic circulation remains in the shade by the same fear: what happens if the visa disappears?

Chasing the dream – and visa

Qian said that the H-1B visa basically shaped the career path. “Even a handful of sectors sponsor – finance, technology, consultancy, law and medicine. You don’t have much choice.” He said.

Before he was promoted to become vice president of a consumer products company, he made several clues from Strategy Consultancy to a technology company to develop a business.

“When the economy is strong, you may have the chance to compete equal to other job seekers. But when the economy is bad, you are the last choice if you are elected.”

President Donald Trump, where the visa’s processing delays and inspections increased, deepened the concern in the first period of Trump. Even Qian felt vulnerable, which seemed to have embodied the high -qualified type of workers, which the US claimed to have been awarded, is vulnerable. “Once upon a time I had a clash at work and I might have to leave immediately if I got fired,” he remembered. “I was so worried that I actually hit my car.”

He said that the country is no longer the country in 2009. Reading comments under news articles about migration was sober. “America, which I believe in the clarity, to meet the talents,” he said. “The America I left was divided, suspicious, worried.”

Disappointment has reiterated the tendency to slow down the registration of international students to the USA in recent years.

“America was a dream,” he said. “Now people like me look elsewhere.”

A new episode

A world away from Boston and New York with Lisbon, tile streets and Atlantic sunset. Qian and his partner are renewing a farmhouse in the Portuguese countryside. He writes a book and discovers creative projects. Life Life is slower, cheaper, more free, dedi he said.

Portugal has been a hot dot for digital nomads, attracts foreign distance workers with friendly visa policies, better quality of life and a lower cost of life.

The visa process in Portugal said it was “the easiest of my life”. When he pressed his lawyer for what they could go wrong, the lawyer gave him assurance: “Don’t worry, we are not the USA.”

The years in the United States gave financial security – when the economy was strong, he graduated, saved responsibly and made a cautious investment. This pillow allowed him to start over. “I was lucky,” he said. “I caught the right wave.”

Nevertheless, it is undecided about the country that shapes adulthood. “I would see everything from the US lens,” he said. “Now I see that this is not the center of the world.”

He hopes that the United States could once again discover the openness that attracted it. He said, “I want America to be America we believe.” “Open. He’s confident. Free. He’s not his fearful, closed version.”

Until then, more people like him will continue to leave, he said. “Maybe,” he added, “America needs more than what we need.”

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