Was there some yearly (monthly, weekly?) crap you had to deal with to stay here legally?

Except for Indians and to an extent Chinese and Filipinos, no other immigrants have to go through any "crap" in the US. It is usually smooth sailing and just a matter of filling out the paperwork and you should have your green card in less than 2 years, if not one.

HOWEVER, if you are Indian, then yes. There is an absolute megafuckton of crap that you have to go through because of what I can only describe as downright crazy if not racist and discriminatory process loaded squarely against those born in India.

To cut a really long and painful story absurdly short, here's the bottomline and why I call the process racist and discriminatory -- the bottomline is ... according to the way the process is right now (and there's no signs of this changing any time soon) if there were two guys here, both on H1, both with exactly the same skillset, but one of them was born in India and the other literally anywhere but China and Philippines, the non-India guy will get his GC in a year or two tops, while for the guy born in India it can take anywhere between 7 and 15 years to get a Green Card. As for citizenship, add another 5-6 years on top of that.

During this long, excruciating, racist and discriminatory wait, most Indian professionals let go of various opportunities because the mere act of accepting a promotion can mean a boatload of associated paperwork and chances of something getting screwed up. I've personally known more than a few guys who turned down promotions and hefty raises simply because they didn't want to deal with the dreadful paperwork.

Of course, most Americans and even lesser of the reddit hivemind knows anything about this discriminatory process and merely keeps harping on how Indians (and not anybody else) is taking their jobs or even more ridiculously "driving down wages". The "driving down wages" claim would be funny if it was not so damn absurd. I could go on.. but let me stop myself right here.