This AI expert has 90 days to find a job – or leave the U.S.
Layoffs across the tech sector often leave immigrant workers with a narrow window to either find a new job or leave the country. This is the story of an AI specialist who was laid off from Instagram.
Huy Tu still remembers their first day of work at Instagram.
Tu grew up in Ho Chi Minh City, Vietnam, in a working class family. The idea of getting a job at a world-famous company like Instagram seemed like a fantasy.
But Tu got in to college in the U.S., earned a Ph.D. and then landed that dream job at the social media giant, working as a research scientist in artifical intelligence.
They arrived at Instagram's offices in downtown New York in February of 2022, with a fake plant and a laminated sign that read:
