I can't say on behalf of everyone, but here is what happened to me after I spent a fair amount of time with Dell:
With my CPT visa I started working with Dell in 2015 (contractor), then full time from 2017 to 2020, and relied totally on their immigration and HR professionals. Initially, their immigration gave me an outline of 17 months to complete the Green Card process, which is more than enough for my nationality. They wasted my entire 24 months STEM OPT and couldn't complete 80% of it, offered the only alternative to move to Canada (with a promise to get me back). After another 8.5 months, they laid me off without any reason and silently forgot about my career (a graduate who spent his entire US career with them). Even though I have requested multiple times about the timing and OPT expiry, but they assured me of their policy and many useless alternatives. They waited for the H1B lottery a few times and intentionally delayed the process so much that when they ran out of time, I being a tiny engineer became the victim.
I became unemployed with no work permit to find a job in Canada! It gave me a really hard time to find a job without a valid work permit - my premature baby was still fighting in the ICU. I never care about my job with Dell because I got a dozen of jobs during the period I worked with them, but I didn't move because they were processing my Green Card - they wasted my time because of their internal process delay and bad employment practice. I had enough alternatives to stay and continue my career in the US but was thrown out of the country only because of their internal politics and some bad people in certain positions - this is not the Dell I dreamt about in 2015! Although Dell might relate everything to Covid-19, I see it's just a label to avoid everything - I shouldn't come out of the US and cancel my PhD offer if their 17-month promise was like their release date.
I have tried applying again for a role at Dell, but the same immigration (who was involved in all my immigration matters) replied - you don't have any visa to join Dell! I was thrown to the bin only because I wanted to stay with Dell as a recent graduate! I am proud of my excellence in any team and proud to be out of a bad group of people after 5 years. Compare me with the average engineers you have!
I saw a few other people had a similar kind of issue. Once they move someone out of the US, he/she becomes the lowest priority in their promised processing!
