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Because they can’t.I’d love to know where this idea of a simple failure to apply is seen as the problem. Natural born citizens have no experience with the immigration process and make a lot of false assumptions about how it works. Most notably that someone has simply not filed the correct form to fix a problem like we do in everyday life. They don’t know that immigration isn’t like other government services and applying is a much more detailed and perilous process.Illegals can’t take steps to become citizens because there is no steps for them to take! Immigration law, with only a handful of specific edge cases, provides no direct path to citizenship for anyone. The big prerequisite to citizenship is becoming a legal permanent resident. And in order to do that you have to follow a whole other set of rules and there is no easy direct path to it either! If you aren’t able to qualify for permanent residency through the paths available, there is quite literally no way to acquire it or citizenship. Citizenship is the end of that process, not the beginning.Those here illegally can’t even get on the path. They can certainly file all the applications for permanent residency or even citizenship they wish. USCIS will happily take their money (USCIS is a fee-funded agency) and then happily reject the application a few weeks or months later due to being ineligible to apply for and receive that benefit. The notion that illegals are simply one form and fee away from solving their problems is one of the most bizarre yet false ideas that is out there.For anyone thinks that people are deliberately living in these circumstances and are just not taking the steps to become a citizen by some willful or ignorant means, I encourage them to visit their own nation’s immigration website and check out the requirements for citizenship. It will be an eye opening experience and will dispel the notion that the steps are simple, cheap, quick or readily available to all. They aren’t.DACA/Dreamers, outside of marriage to a US citizen, cannot apply for legal status or citizenship because they are not eligible to do so. You can’t apply for citizenship until you have met permanent residency requirements and you don’t get that by just filling out a form and saying “Sorry, I forgot”. You have to qualify and they do not qualify.

You’ve already pretty much cooked your goose at this point, by not leaving the US when your employment terminated. The law for H-1B workers is that you must leave immediately when your employment is terminated. Since you were laid off, your employer was required to arrange for your repatriation. If they did not, contact the US Department of Labor, as this is a violation of your rights as a nonimmigrant worker and of your employer’s duties as an employer. If they offered to repatriate you but you refused, then you’re stuck with that decision.In practice, you have about two weeks after termination to find new employment, but if you can’t find it within that time, your status will be terminated. There are some circumstances in which you are entitled to a grace period in which you can still change status or seek new employment, but the longest possible such grace period is 60 days from end of employment. In any case, if you’ve been notified that your status has been revoked by USCIS, that means you are no longer lawfully present.In most cases, you really only have two choices at this point:Leave the US. You can try to get a new H-1B later. If you haven’t started to accumulate unlawful presence, there should not be much of a consequence. If you have started to accumulate unlawful presence (you’ve gone past the end date on your I-94 or have been ruled by USCIS or an immigration judge to be unlawfully present), be advised that this will (a) make you subject to a requirement that all further attempts to apply for a visa to the US be made only at a consulate in your country of citizenship and (b) be held against you when being considered for any future nonimmigrant visas. You will have to convince the consular officer that your previous overstay does not suggest that you will overstay again in the future. Good luck with that.Stay in the US. You will not be allowed to work legally, but you can work illegally, you can start your own business, or you can find someone to support you without working. (It’s much less illegal, and typically much easier, to be self-employed while undocumented.) You will, of course, face the risk that ICE will find you and deport you, but in practice they don’t go after people who overstay unless they commit a crime of some sort (overstay of a visa is not a crime). Your primary focus during your life as an undocumented immigrant should be to find a US citizen willing to marry you. This is because petitions to adjust status to permanent resident are not subject to being barred because the beneficiary is unlawfully present; as long the beneficiary was “inspected” the last time he or she entered the US, the petition can go forward, and so if you find someone willing to marry you, you can then use that marriage to obtain a green card, cure your overstay, and become a lawful permanent resident.You may have additional options if certain special situations apply to you, but you should consult with an immigration attorney to learn more about these possibilities.What you cannot do now is find legal employment. Your H-1B status has been cancelled, and that means that, even if you find an employer willing to be an H-1B sponsor, that employer cannot transfer your work authorization to them because you no longer have one. You also cannot change status to student. If you’d filed for a COS to student before your H-1B was cancelled, you could have done that (because you don’t accumulate unlawful presence while a COS is pending) but you can’t file a COS now that your status has been terminated.Note that once you have accumulated 180 days of unlawful presence, you become subject to a three year bar to being issued any visa to enter the United States. If you allow 365 days of unlawful presence to accumulate, the bar increases to ten years. These bars only takes effect, however, once you leave the US; if you never leave the US, the bar never kicks in. 180 days is therefore the point at which you will have to decide whether you want to go back to your home country, most likely never to return to the US, or tough it out as as undocumented immigrant, hoping to find a spouse before ICE finds you.Update: I have disabled further comments on this answer (the first time I’ve felt the need to do so) because it has become a coatrack for jingoistic, xenophobic, and hostile fly-by comments, mainly by people who are not really members of Quora’s community. If you want to tell all foreign workers to leave, you can do that in your own answer; you won’t do it in the comments on mine. My goal in writing this answer was to provide a fairly dispassionate answer regarding what the actual state of the law is. Not to heap ordure on this poor person, who is presumably trying to do what is best for himself or herself in this unfortunate situation.For those of you who commented compassionately and in good faith on this answer, I thank you. Special mention to Maria K Todd, Siddharth Dani, and Izzie Tan, for offering relevant personal life experiences, and to Xuan Luo for keeping me honest on the thorny details of immigration law (Xuan knows the small corners of the law far better than I do).

UPDATE:-Lots of upvotes and views on this answer.. Thanks everyone.. :)Its almost a year since I wrote this answer. I wanted to provide an insight into the slow moving nature of legal immigration.In Oct 2018, for EB2 India, USCIS was processing GC applications from 26 March 2009.In Oct 2019, for EB2 India, USCIS is processing GC applications from 12 May 2019.So in 1 year, the dates have moved by 47 days.The wait will never end……I came to the US in Aug 2004 for my MS in Computer Science. Finished in May 2006 and working since then. So it has been more than 14 years that I have been living in this country. In the meanwhile, I got married, my wife finished her Masters in Computer Science as well and has been working. We bought a home about 4 years back. My priority date is Dec 2011. I don’t expect to get my permanent residency aka Green Card for another 5–6 years.In this whole delay, I am mentally ready to pack up everything and leave the US whenever I lose my job and cannot find another in 60 days OR if the immigration policy changes at any time during this delay.I cannot freely move to another job. The current administration’s policy make it tougher to take the risk. If my H1-B visa transfer gets denied for whatever reason, we will need to pack up and leave. The delay also means that I need to be employed all the time. I cannot take a month or two off if I want to. Maybe I need a break or I want to go back home and take care of my parents for a few months. But that is not an option if I do not have my green card.Overall, life in the US is good but the green card delay means that there is a still a lot of uncertainty. Going back to India does not mean the end of the world and I am confident that we will land on our feet. I understand that the US government does not owe me or my family anything. Immigration rules and policies is their prerogative. But it does mean that the life that we have built here is gone almost instantly.Edits: Based on some of the comments, wanted to throw some more light.You are being exploited here.While you could argue I am being exploited because of this uncertainty or lack of employment mobility, I do not think so.First of all, nobody is forcing me to stay here. I am not being held here against my will directly or indirectly.Secondly, even from the money perspective, I am not exploited. I know what my close friends on H1 -B and green card are making, I am on par with them. We are more than living comfortably, if not lavishly. In fact, some of my H1-B friends make significantly more than green card ones and probably US citizens. Basically, you perform and you get paid handsomely.Regarding employment mobility, I have had no issues so far in finding new jobs and transferring my visa in the past. The current policies have given some pause for thought and it is not as straightforward as it used to be.Don’t get me wrong, there is exploitation and abuse for those on H1-B. I am aware of that and I hope they crackdown on those.2. Why did’t you file for green card earlier, if you started working in 2006That is on me. Call it my naivety or stupidity. When I started working, it was my first job ever and I was happy making money. I did not realize the importance of filing for green card right away. By the time, I got serious and started working with my 1st employer to file, the Great Recession hit and I got laid off in 2009. I then took a small pay cut and joined a startup. No one was big on filing green cards at that time. By the time, they decided they will do it, the startup got acquired in 2010. So that added to the delay till it finally happened in 2011.3. Leave US/Move to Canada/Come back to India/ Go back to your country.Life and work in the US has been good to me. Bay Area has the most opportunities and the place to be in this field. At this point, living and working in the US is the best option for me and my family.Canada is a good option from immigration perspective. But the wife and I cannot handle the cold. We crib about the mild 3–4 months of the Bay area. Can’t imagine what 6–8 months of snow will be like. We are spoiled by the sunshine here. Also, have read on Quora about the “Canadian experience” requirement for employment there. It might not apply to technical fields but I am not sure.India is always an option. We will find the transition a little difficult at first but we will adjust.In short, we will make the best of it, where ever we go. It is not the end of the world.4. US immigration system.In every country, immigration is a privilege, not a right. Them are the rules and you have to play by them.But the immigration system is badly broken and needs serious reform. In the current political climate, no politician will touch this with a 100-foot pole. It needs to be made more fair. Waiting 14 years and paying taxes and still not close to permanent residency sucks. My 2 cents on how things can be improved especially for those like me in the India EB2 linea. Remove per country capsb. Only count the principal applicant towards the cap, not their spouses and children.