Young Chinese Émigrés Confront America’s Brutal Visa Lottery

For Chinese seeking educational opportunity, the United States has long been the top spot, but as more want to stay to work, their paths are full of roadblocks.

For the past three years, luck failed David Zheng in the lottery for the American work visa known as the H-1B. He was in good company: Hundreds of thousands of immigrants apply for a limited number of H-1B visas every year, and a vast majority fail to make the cut.

Mr. Zheng, a Chinese national, came to America for higher education, earning a master’s degree in computer science in 2021. He wanted to stay in the United States and work in his field, but he was running out of time: His education visa allowed him to work in the country for only three years after graduation.

In July, while continuing to work full time, he enrolled in another master’s program to maintain his legal status.

“Sometimes, I wonder if this country wants people like me or not,” he told me.

For decades, the United States has been the top choice for young Chinese people seeking educational opportunities. Until the coronavirus pandemic, some 80 percent of them eventually went back to China because their country offered more opportunities. Now many want to stay because their home government is becoming increasingly authoritarian, their country’s economy is faltering and the job market is bleak.

But the U.S. immigration process, which is unpredictable and often prolonged, coupled with the degraded United States-China relationship, has left many in limbo. I interviewed six Chinese émigrés, and messaged with a handful of others who were trying to secure visas to establish professional roots in the United States. They described an experience that was vexing and sometimes traumatic — using words like “hell” and “nightmare.”

Some people I interviewed asked to be identified by only one name for fear of retribution from China, or fear that speaking out could be used against them in the visa process. Quite a few said that, in hindsight, they probably should have chosen Canada or another country with a clearer path to permanent residency and citizenship.

Immigration has been a hot topic in this year’s U.S. presidential election, with much of the attention paid to people crossing the southern border illegally. The fragmented system that legal immigrants must navigate is rarely discussed. Nor is there much debate about how to attract the most talented immigrants from around the world.

The United States, a country built by immigrants, has become a daunting — and expensive — destination for everybody who aspires to be part of what it represents: freedom, opportunity and even wealth, a place where people are largely left to be whomever they want to be. I know the United States faces many challenges. Yet its system of government and principles of free expression are idolized in many places where people are suffering from much worse, like war, famine and repressive governments.

The H-1B visa is an entry card for many would-be immigrants in various business sectors, including law, technology and medicine, as well as academia.

But like playing any lottery, getting an H-1B is a gamble. The U.S. government issues 85,000 H-1B work visas each year. In the 2023 fiscal year, there were 480,000 registrations; in the 2024 fiscal year, there were 780,000. Indians usually make up about three-quarters of the applications, followed by Chinese, who make up about one-eighth.

Generally speaking, foreign college graduates can work in the United States legally for one year if they were humanities majors, or for three years if they majored in science and technology.

In an attempt to beat the long odds, some Chinese H-1B applicants pray to Buddha. Others eat at a dim sum restaurant chain whose Chinese name means “bringing good luck.” And some pray while dining at Chick-fil-A restaurants because an urban legend in the Chinese community says doing so can help.

One of those turning to prayer is Wei, a woman who asked that I use only her surname. Ms. Wei visited temples in New York and California. “I would pray to Buddha,” she told me. “‘I’m going into the H-1B lottery. I really want to stay in the U.S., I don’t want to go back to China.’”

She first applied for a visa in March 2023, only to be denied. Four months later, the day after she visited a temple in California, she received the approval notice for her second try.

Ms. Wei said she emigrated to the United States in 2021 because China had come to feel suffocating. She said she used to speak up about gender inequality and other issues. Her accounts on the social media platform Weibo — about 10 in all — were deleted by censors. At home, her parents told her not to talk about social and political issues.

“Even though there didn’t seem to be any hardship in my life, I felt hopeless,” she said. “I felt like a zombie.”

Now Ms. Wei works in the marketing department at a finance company in Silicon Valley. Her ideal job would be to work for a group that advocates human rights and women’s rights, but her job options are limited to employers that would sponsor her visa.

“I was drawn to the U.S. by its freedom, but after arriving, I realized that freedom is only for citizens,” she said. “The freedom for foreigners is very limited.”

Another émigré, Andrea Gao, left China a decade ago to study computer science. As a member of the L.G.B.T.Q. community, she believed that the United States would be a much friendlier place than China. She never expected what she would have to go through to live and work legally in her adopted country.

Her first H-1B application was rejected. She was approved on her second try, so she traveled back to China to activate the visa at a U.S. Consulate. That was in early 2020. The pandemic and its many complications for travel kept her in China. The night before her visa interview at the U.S. Consulate in Shanghai, she was so nervous that she cried until 3 a.m. She got the visa and moved to New York.

But her difficult journey continued. She applied for permanent residency, but the application was rejected because her lawyers had made a minor error on a form. Then, in 2022, her company started layoffs. She kept her job but was jolted by anxiety. H-1B visa holders who are laid off have 60 days to find another employer to sponsor their visa, or they will have to leave the United States.

“I came to the U.S. because I want freedom, a better life,” she told me. “Now I can’t go home, can’t change jobs and can’t travel abroad.”

Feeling trapped by the process was a common experience for the people I interviewed.

Mr. Zheng, the computer science student who is now pursuing a second master’s degree, has not visited his family in China since 2018. He has heard too many horror stories about people having trouble re-entering the United States as the two countries’ relations have deteriorated. And he is now separated by the Atlantic Ocean from his girlfriend, also a Chinese émigré, who failed to secure a work visa, so her employer transferred her to Britain in July. As Chinese passport holders, they have to jump through hoops to visit each other.

Mr. Zheng misses her, and she misses him and her friends in the United States.

“After living here for eight years, we can’t officially call it home because of our immigration status,” he said. “But in our hearts, we feel like it’s home to some extent.”

Our Coverage of U.S. Immigration

• America’s Brutal Visa Lottery: For Chinese seeking educational opportunity, the United States has long been the top spot, but as more want to stay to work, their paths are full of roadblocks.
• A Migrant Family’s Struggles: Margarita Solito and her family fled violence and poverty in El Salvador, hoping to build a better life in San Francisco. The city often wasn’t what they thought it would be.
• Home-Buying Assistance: Gov. Gavin Newsom of California rejected a Democratic proposal that would have extended first-time home-buyer loans to some undocumented immigrants. Republicans had widely criticized the bill.
• When One Partner Is Deported: American citizens whose spouses have been deported face wrenching decisions on what is best for their future, especially when they have children.
• Asylum Restrictions: The Biden administration is considering actions that would make the president’s tough but temporary asylum restrictions almost impossible to lift, essentially turning what had been a short-term fix into a central feature of the asylum system in America.