

Ask HN: Is it possible to get asylum for developers? - strangeworks

As you know russians dropped about 6k military force units to Ukraine, and soon the can start to show some aggression. And for me as a developer(and I think for lots of people there) this situation seems very scary, and I&#x27;m starting to look some variants of relocation from Ukraine to some peaceful place and maybe to work remotely or to find place where I can be hired. How to do you think, what can be an optimal solution for this case?
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avar
I work at a company in Amsterdam that employs a lot of non-natives (myself
included) including several Russians & Ukrainians. I don't think it would be
appropriate to name-drop the company given the topic, but contact me if you're
interested.

Anyway, given my admittedly somewhat limited knowledge of immigration law I
don't think what you want to be looking at _at all_ is getting asylum
somewhere. That's going to be a process that's a _giant pain in the ass_
anywhere in the world.

There's also lots of major caveats with getting asylum, generally to do with
you or your ethnic/social group being specifically discriminated against or
otherwise in danger. You're generally not going to get asylum just because you
don't like the general security situation in your country of residence. If
that was the case the first world would pretty much grant blanked asylum to
millions to billions of people living in the failed states of the world.

If you have a specialist skill such as being a developer a much better and
quicker path to emigrating is to get a work visa somewhere, and go from there
to potentially getting a permanent residence permit or even citizenship

~~~
strangeworks
Thank you for the comment, could you tell please, what kind of projects do you
have in your company? Do they have ruby or rails positions, or frontend-based
positions open?

~~~
avar
I work at Booking.com. We don't use RoR but yeah, we have plenty of frontend
positions open: [https://workingatbooking.com](https://workingatbooking.com)
I'm also happy to answer any of your questions, my E-Mail contact is in my
profile.

But aside from where I work more generally there's lots of companies in more
stable countries in Europe (or elsewhere) that would be willing to hire a
competent developer of whatever skills you might have.

I just wanted to point out to you that you'd have a _much_ easier time if you
could get a work visa and work your way towards permanent residence or
citizenship than starting out trying to request asylum.

~~~
dkuntz2
> I don't think it would be appropriate to name-drop the company given the
> topic

Next response:

> I work at Booking.com

Wat? Sorry, things like this really stick out to me, and I thought it was odd.
I have no opinion you choosing to, or not to, reveal your employer.

~~~
avar
I wasn't expecting a follow-up question to be a question about the company I
was working at in particular. I mainly replied to give some (admittedly
amateur) general advice on seeking asylum v.s. pursuing a work visa.

Since he did ask what projects we have at the company that I happen to work at
I thought it was simpler just to mention where I work.

We have a lot of promotion & hiring material online, and it's way easier just
to mention where I work and have the OP check that out than for me to write up
some some long-winded description of what the company does, all the while
trying not to mention what company I'm talking about.

It's not like there's that many companies in Amsterdam that run online hotel
booking websites. So any interested reader could infer what company I was
talking about anyway if I were to describe what sort of projects we work on.

------
falsestprophet
Many other-than-rich countries have permissive visa programs for people who
have job offers: Brazil, India, the Philippines, United Arab Emirates, Mexico,
and others. I've heard the market for developers in Brazil is pretty hot right
now.

Getting a work permit will almost certainly be easier than being granted
asylum. That said, most civilized countries won't deport people to a war zone
[1]. So, if you happen to be in such a country when a shooting war breaks out
then you may be able to stay for the duration.

[1] for example: [http://www.uscis.gov/humanitarian/temporary-protected-
status...](http://www.uscis.gov/humanitarian/temporary-protected-status-
deferred-enforced-departure/temporary-protected-status)

------
ahp
Wow. I hope that you and your family are all right.

I would doubt that there is a asylum process specific for developers, at least
for asylum in the U.S. (in that I would doubt that the USFG discriminates
between developer and non-developer applicants.) It does seem like, again, in
the U.S., the process still faces some kinks [1].

However, I know that there is a plethora of nation-states which recognize the
universal right of asylum. I would suggest that, should you or your family
ever be in a position in which you feel that you will face prosecution (even
persecution, maybe?), you should actively research the possibility of
attaining asylum.

[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Right_of_asylum#United_States](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Right_of_asylum#United_States)

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strangeworks
Thank you, guys, for the feedback, maybe asylum isn't suitable solution for
me. I have no experience in these issues, I just wan't to securely write code
and having fun. I have a pretty nice job here in Ukraine but I'm afraid that
soon that it is possible to lost everything. So just looking for some variants
to save myself and family from this possible hell.

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untitaker_
By making every problem sound specific to developers, its presence on Hacker
News can be justified. Developers are also people, so yes, you _can_ get
asylum.

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justizin
Consider Poland?

~~~
a-saleh
I am not sure about long-stay-working visa permits for Ukrainians in Poland,
but I know that for Czech republic, it can take up to several months to have
all the burocracy in order.

I know this, because I work for a large multi-national, and my boss always
complains when he has to deal with relocating people from non EU countries to
Czech republic.

On the other hand, it happens reasonably often, in two years we hired several
people from Armenia, Serbia, Russia, Ukraine ...

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whatevsbro
Getting out of harm's way is a wise choice. Don't count on getting asylum
though.

Your destination would depend on how much money you've got saved up, of
course. But if you want to live cheaply, Vietnam might be a good option. It's
supposedly easy to get a long-term visa there (I got six months in 2011), and
cost of living is low. I believe applying for a visa through an agent is the
typical (or only?) way, but it shouldn't take more than a week or two. You can
find these agents on the Internet. Mine wanted the money transferred through
Western Union, I believe.

Ho Chi Minh City would probably be a good choice, there's some startup culture
going on, and you could even find a Westerner there who could employ you.

Just go for it, and good luck!

