This is a backdoor immigration cut, nothing more. COVID is irrelevant.
Remember that it's not just new entrants that need H1B processing: it's immigrants currently in the country that need to transfer their visa type (e.g., former students moving from OPT to H1B). What, are they supposed to leave or risk being denied a visa forevermore?
Not to mention, they've already paused green card processing and shut down most offices that process F1 (student) visas. The US just doesn't want high-skilled immigrants anymore.
Some, but not all, H1B immigrants are highly skilled. Some are fodder for body shops, some are used to avoid having to pay market rate. This behavior has been documented in great detail.
I do not believe it unreasonable to take measures to encourage hiring of citizens over importing workers when official unemployment is near 15%, and unofficially, closer to 20%. Your typical tech company is likely to be sophisticated enough to onboard skilled workers outside the US and support them working remotely, in which case, they are not impacted by this policy.
> Your typical tech company is likely to be sophisticated enough to onboard skilled workers outside the US and support them working remotely, in which case, they are not impacted by this policy.
Do you really think that ?
We have worked with team members in different time zones (Europe, India, China), and even with WFH it is a massive headache to work with someone whose schedule runs with a 12 hour offset.
Also, the COVID crisis makes relocation a massive pain in the ass for anyone who is being moved countries as of this time.
> This behavior has been documented in great detail.
Exactly, and still, time and again, the US govt. wants to solve the issue with a blunt tool that kicks everyone, highly skilled or not, out of the country.
It is easy enough to find companies like this. Ban companies that run IT consultancies from hiring H1Bs, unless they pay the market rate. Blanket ban companies who are known abusers (Infosys, TCS).
My faith in Hanlon's razor has dwindled over the last few years. This isn't incompetence. This is malice. The visa laws are always sufficiently less exploitative than the career/monetary gains of working here as an immigrant. (especially pronounced for Indian/Chinese candidates for whom a GC is impossible). I do not find that to be a coincidence.
Yes. I have worked at both at a successful (ie profitable) fully remote startup that employs hundreds of people, and now at an enterprise that is fully remote with thousands of employees across several continents. If you can't manage teams remotely, you can't manage.
Not all companies are structured to be innately remote. My team for instance is really struggling to adjust to remote settings, despite having a flexible WFH setup and working closely with remotely located teams before.
It is little things. Relationships between colleagues get colder. The people I used to see daily were also great friends of mine. Giving constructive feedback and taking criticism is a lot easier when it is by a friend and face to face. Meetings lose the wonderful flow they can have when in person. Brainstorming and white boarding has all but disappeared.
The way I see it, with no offense meant. If your work can be done fully remotely. Maybe it isn't that difficult to begin with.
Big decisions need big discussions and big consensus. My best progress has been made when I get a room together with a team mate, with a huge board and we brainstorm for hours on end.
90% of the time coding is the easiest part of the job. That it can be done remotely, doesn't alleviate the bottleneck much.
Or maybe if your team consisted of introverted, brutally objective people from the get go, who like the additional coldness of remote communication, then sure. But, it actively excludes a lot of the workforce.
I agree that it's management. I have two primary projects right now, and the difference couldn't be more stark.
One has most of the issues you describe, the workflow has gotten cold, meetings are mechanical, communication is poor, the team slack is dry. Problem solving is hard over email, only one person on the team proactively makes phone calls. And of the two offices, this one had the most people that would chime in on conversations from over the cube walls.
On the other project, management has taken the "overcommunicate" route to WFH. Everything feels collaborative, I talk to everyone often enough that nothing that would naturally come up in the office but might not be big enough for an email gets dropped. I have better insight into the electrical and mechanical engineer's tasks than I did while in the office, we identify points of future collaboration calls in meetings, and I've gotten to know people joining the project during WFH well enough over video calls that we now chit-chat over slack.
Perhaps the most striking sign of a culture difference is around 2/3 of people on both projects only turn their webcams on for calls regarding the 2nd project.
Sounds like it's still above 0, which means you should be forced to source local talent before you're permitted to source from outside the country.
It's so strange to me that this viewport is controversial, but "Buy Local" (which I have yet to encounter someone who is against supporting local businesses) is not. This is the labor version of "Buy Local".
Because of frictional unemployment, it's neither possible nor desirable for the unemployment rate to reach 0.
>which means you should be forced to source local talent before you're permitted to source from outside the country.
This is already a requirement; H-1B employers must attest that they can't find an employee domestically and have made a good faith attempt to do so.
>It's so strange to me that this viewport is controversial, but "Buy Local" (which I have yet to encounter someone who is against supporting local businesses) is not. This is the labor version of "Buy Local".
Buy Local is not enforced by the jackboot of the federal government. You're free to hire only non-visa workers for your business.
> * H-1B employers must attest that they can't find an employee domestically and have made a good faith attempt to do so.*
How effectively is this enforced? The arguments against these visa is that companies know how to game this requirement. They specifically write job descriptions in a way that’ll fail to find someone locally, so they can hire cheaper immigrant labor.
And cheaper isn’t just lower salaries, they’ll also cause fewer waves and be more accommodating. An employee who depends on your employment to stay in the country is more likely to put up with abuse.
Maybe then easing the restrictions on immigrant employees might be the solution.
Max 60 days of unemployment over your whole career, when many companies need a month to go from offer to starting, makes being fired a fatal affair.
H1B applications being cancelled, if someone switches companies means in the first few years, changing companies is even worse.
Oh, you've been working in the US for 20 years ? Hard luck, you still don't have a permanent residency because of some archaic system. No, your wife can't work in the US either. Also, you can't avail any of the benefits you already pay taxes for. You lose your job and your child is a US citizen ? Hard luck, take them back to where you came from. Because, having immigrant parents is a crime enough to banish even your own citizen.
The visa system is built to encourage abuse. Just because the trade off is worth it, doesn't mean it is fair
or a favor. It is a system built to be of maximal benefit to America. Which is fine, but let's not pretend it
is some sort of gift that is granted to people of other nations. It's the govt. driving a hard bargain because they know they can.
Now, my career does grow 2x as fast and I do make 2x as much by working in the US. I also do not have kids, partners or a life in the US, that it would destroy me to leave the country. I am also fortunate enough to be in a company that doesn't usually fire willy-nilly. So, I continue to stay. But, in 5 or so years, I wouldn't be too sure.
One common tactic is adding more duty requirements to the description. For example, the job description would ask a database admin to manage multiple database products but, in reality, they'd only be managing one.
Finding someone with knowledge of multiple products would be hard, so they list all of them. When they can't find someone with those skills, they ask for a visa to find someone who can.
In reality, that person doesn't actually know and won't actually be managing all those products.
That method is so common, it's listed on the gov't website:
> The H-1B worker is not performing the duties specified in the H-1B petition, including when the duties are at a higher level than the position description.
> This is already a requirement; H-1B employers must attest that they can't find an employee domestically and have made a good faith attempt to do so.
While this is true, what percentage of employers make an actual good faith attempt? I'd be shocked if it was even as high as 50%.
In my experience, companies design job postings for a market where only an H-1B applicant could get the position.
As a private citizen you aren't legally mandated to buy local. I don't begrudge someone for buying local themselves but it's annoying when they want to force that decision on me.
At any rate I think your analogy makes more sense for services procured from outside the U.S. If you hire someone who then relocates to the U.S. they become local by definition.
> I have yet to encounter someone who is against supporting local businesses
I am. I'd rather just pay a higher income tax and have that fund UBI, and save myself the money by buying cheap instead of local.
Asking consumers to spend more money on feel-good slogans is the same as a regressive tax.
Your neighborhood is decaying? It's not because welfare is broken, healthcare is broken, and law enforcement is useless, it's because you, the working-class consumer made the wrong choice.
Also it's an awful Prisoner's Dilemma. If I'm faithful, it makes a tiny dent in the odds of any given business closing. Why not defect, if my vote won't count for anything in the end?
Honestly you should have yo pay a premium for foreign workers. If you can’t hire a local to pick fruit at minimum wage then you have to pay a Mexican temp worker more to do the same job.
The H1b worker should be in the top 20% of the pay scale not the bottom 20% if they are that good salaries should reflect that.
H1B's already need to exceed the prevailing wage, as determined by DoL.
You can argue about where they actually end up, but it's not the bottom 20%. Esp once you figure in immigration related overheads (that's staff, not just fees and travel).
Higher salaries for H1B's would require the right to change jobs easily, unlike now where there's a tremendous risk. And then there's L1's, who have no negotiation power at all.
Of course, problems are complex. Important to whom? Do I care if your business gets someone who is slightly less exceptional if it means you have to hire a fellow citizen? Can you prove objectively the person you're hiring on a visa is more qualified, and that your hiring process doesn't just suck in general (even Google doesn't do hiring well, as has been shown with internal recruiters submitting hiring committee participant packets back to the committee without their knowledge, and the committee wouldn't even hire themselves)? These are important questions when setting public policy.
Clearly, my personal opinion is to prioritize local labor over you as a business optimizing your opinion of "top talent". I will trade some quality over supporting Local, and if that's a decision we make as a country, I would not be opposed and will vote for representatives who support such policy. One person's "nationalism" is another person's labor solidarity.
In any given field, there's a certain base level of applicants who are never hired because they're completely incompetent in their chosen line of work, i.e. a lot worse than slightly less exceptional. Are you okay with your team being forced to carry someone with negative productivity who happens to be "local" over anyone, no matter how highly skilled, who happens to be foreign born?
I have yet to encounter a group work setting where you didn't have to carry weaker team members versus everyone being the strongest in their field. Maximum optimization is a fantasy. Such is life. I have learned to take enjoyment in giving others the opportunity to level up, even if they turn out unable to (I'm paying it forward, many have done the same for me in my career).
So, yes. I'm not only okay with it, I embrace it. Every day is a new day to have the opportunity to try to help someone become a better version of their professional self.
This can be solved so easily. What does countries do when they want to promote their product? They add tariffs to imports? Do the tariffs work? Totally different question but it has a change at the margins.
So you want the best but not necessarily local? At the same time serving the needs of the locals? Introduce a tariff? Not the couple of thousand dollars worth of processing fee, but a 20% tax on the salary earned : every single dollar, salary, bonus, stock : everything. This gives you a free market. No one stops you from hiring an H1, but if gives local talent 20-25% leg up over an H1 talent. [ Numbers are of course negotiable but I do not see any number below 20-30% being effective. ]
==you should be forced to source local talent before you're permitted to source from outside the country.==
Sounds like pretty heavy-handed regulation. “Buy Local” doesn’t force anyone to do anything. It encourages consumers to choose a specific product, but all products are still available. Not really sure how they are similar.
> It's so strange to me that this viewport is controversial, but "Buy Local" (which I have yet to encounter someone who is against supporting local businesses) is not.
“Buy Local” is so controversial in fact that the US government has entered into international agreements limiting it, which is why, e.g., country of origin labels are being removed from meat products. Capitalism and globalization go fist-in-gauntlet.
The fact that one side is overrepresented in empty PR while the other side operates quietly between the economic elites and the politically powerful obscures the disagreement if you don't pay too much attention.
There's no such thing as a long term labor shortage in a market economy. I've been hearing about these labor shortages since the 90s. Make no mistake, this is industry and government colluding to suppress your wages.
What percent of these roles do you think will actually go to local talent vs. be off-shored? If tech companies can outsource, than who is benefitting?
Related - Have you personally hired an H1-B employee? The H1-B process is a pain for employers. There's a lot of costs delays, uncertainty, and legal fees to hiring H1-B.
But that doesn't play as well in the court of public opinion.
Much "better" for the GOP to do this and claim, "Look, we're trying to keep the brown people out!" And it's good for the Democrats too, "Look at those racists! Vote for us instead!" Neither side has much to gain from doing the right thing.
- This would advantage even more the companies that can already more easily hire talent. Also, would you have audits to make sure salaries are not changed 2 months after hire?
- Would it work to hire 5 front desk managers to hire 1 engineer on H1B?
- It already is. Also fairly cheap, just a few grands for the hiring company, cheaper than recruiter fee.
Companies will always find a loophole. Smarter people than you and me (like, law smart) will start cranking at it to help them.
Yes the rules would have to be more tightly specified (for example, keeping the same salary for a year, or the employee count be for the same position)
Especially in the US where people make a competition of adhering to the letter but not the spirit of the law (explains a lot about how the US sees GDPR)
> Not to mention, they've already paused green card processing
This one is personal for me. I have a good friend who had been in the US for like a decade, and finally his green card application was going through before the pandemic hit. What’s going to happen to him? Are you going to leave him visa-less during a pandemic, and kick him out of the country on whatever few flights are available? Is his company supposed to magically rebound when they’ve just lost a key worker with tons of experience?
Throughout the campaign cycle this president motivated his supporters by talking about illegal immigration. Yet at every opportunity, they instead reduce legal immigration.
"The US just doesn't want high-skilled immigrants anymore."
This sucks, and it breaks a lot of Americans hearts. My grandparents were the first natural-born Americans of our family and we were raised to understand what that meant. It's of little consequence right now & on any personal level, but America is not a ubiquitous place and the pendulum swings forever.
It was the thing that, for most of my life, was touted as a singularly powerful foundation of American success and freedom: that anyone could come and build a life.
A more sober look at the reality suggests this myth was... less than true. Nonetheless, I always thought of it as an important ideal.
They shut down many other parts of the government as well, this isn't all targeted at Foreigners. My passport application was sent to them on March 10th, and they have no idea when it will actually be processed. I hope its before Oct, when I have my trip, then again, if things aren't better, I will probably cancel anyways.
> This is a backdoor immigration cut, nothing more.
H1B is a non-immigrant visa.
> Remember that it's not just new entrants that need H1B processing: it's immigrants currently in the country that need to transfer their visa type.
Immigrants already admitted to the US can not get and would not benefit from a non-immigrant visa.
Non-immigrants in the US might seek a different non-immigrant visa, but preventing them from getting one is not an immigration cut. It does not reduce the number of immigrant visas issued.
> What, are they supposed to leave or risk being denied a visa forevermore?
Yes, non-immigrants are supposed to leave when their eligibility for their non-immigrants visa status expires. That's what a non-immigrant visa means. (Even dual-intent non-immigrant visas: those just do not prohibit you from entering with the intent of seeking an immigrant visa while in non-immigrants status, but doing so displaced another prospective immigrant, so cutting the number of people in a position to do it has zero effect on immigration.)
> Not to mention, they've already paused green card processing
Well, yes, that's an actual immigration cut. No need for a back door.
Dual-intent does not mean what you think it does. It means the visa beneficiary can be admitted on a non-immigrant visa even while having an immigration intent. If this has not been a non-immigrant visa then there would not be the need to designate it as a dual-intent ( there are no dual-intent immigrant visas) so, ironically, people who spam "dual-intent" as a refutal to the statement that it's a non-immigrant visa, in fact, just reaffirm the non-immigrant category of this visa.
There is no green card, which is based on any non-immigrant visa, including H1B. Body shops and some other companies use a promise of a green card to convince foreigners to join on H1B but it's not what H1B is for and it doesn't mean it's an immigrant visa or a part of the "path to green card". The whole practice, is, if not illegal then immoral.
> you can still stay and a green card based on it (eventually).
No, you can't.
You can apply for an immigrant visa based on any of the qualifications for such a visa without having to leave the country first if you can keep a current H1B or other dual-intent visa, but the H1B itself does not qualify you for an immigrant visa no matter how much time you stay on it.
Dual-intent visas are non-immigrant visas where it is not a violation of the terms of the visa to apply for it with the intent of later seeking an immigrant visa without leaving the country.
If you do wish to immigrate after being admitted on a dual-intent visa, you still have to qualify for, apply for, and wait in the line for (if it is category with a backlog for your country of origin) an immigrant visa.
>This is a backdoor immigration cut, nothing more. COVID is irrelevant.
I think COVID is very relevant. But you are also correct that this action is in line with the present administration's immigration policies outside of COVID.
In the big picture on the global scale, we're looking at a back-peddling on globalization (which includes immigration and free trade). The echos of the Great Depression should be (but aren't) on the minds of policymakers and the public because this same isolationist and protectionist philosophy exacerbated the pain of the depression.
> in line with the present administration's immigration policies outside of COVID.
According to [1], the immigration rate under Trump has slightly increased compared to under Obama, and is at 3x what it was during 1960-1975. So the policies you refer to are nothing but ineffectual noise.
There are over 200k Indians who are stuck on h1b for more than 10 years. Most of which have us born kids. Makes no sense to have a 60 day freeze on h1bs
Present estimates put it between 50 - 150 years. Yes, I kid you not. The path to GC for Indians, might as well be closed shut for all intents and purposes.
I have an Indian dev friend who's here on an H1B in exactly the situation that KorematsuFred describes. H1B is just a more sophisticated "Gentlemen's Agreement" (a racist way of using Asian peoples' labor while denying them the benefits of citizenship).
Different reasons for different people. Some combination of:
* It's better than the alternative, and it can be made to work, since once I140 is approved you can renew H1 indefinitely (unless sth goes wrong, like right now, but that's a risk that doesn't look so big initially when all is still well).
* The wait only became this bad around 2008 or so. At the time, nobody knew there wouldn't be a realistic chance to get to gc. A lot of people have been in the system since that time.
* It doesn't always start with wanting to move to the US permanently. You go to a US college, or move for a job in the US (maybe the company you've already been part of offered it, maybe not), thinking it'd temporary. Then you build a life, make friendships, and realize you want to stay.
* Or maybe your parents moved when you are a kid and the US is all you know. But when you turn 18, it's F1/OPT/H1 or go to a foreign country (that you happen to be a citizen of, but have no real relationship with).
Above are all real examples I personally know.
Also, while for non-Indian immigrants it is at least possible to get a gc eventually, this is also by no means certain. Very stressful as well.
H1B was always supposed to be a temporary worker program. People have been using it as an easier-to-get form of quasi-residency with the intention to move on to green cards. Everyone in the industry and govt have been winking and nodding at each other for so long that now there's a big pool of people who are basically residents without a right to stay other than nearly-automatic extensions. Govt gives businesses what they want with these workers, while superficially giving the public what they want with limits on green cards.
The green card process on the other hand just takes however many weeks or months it takes to process the paperwork. But there is a per-country limit per year. So if a vast number of people from your country are tying to immigrate you can end up in a really long line.
Citizenship has the requirement of being a permanent resident for a fixed number of years before you can apply.
> H1B was always supposed to be a temporary worker program.
At the same time there isn't any practical way of immigrating to the US other than being very rich, very specialized (and Outstanding) or a family member of a US citizen.
You are confusing quantity and quality. There are many more ways, including unskilled EB3 and DV, it's just too many people want to immigrate so, naturally, visas with less requirements run out faster/ have longer wait. E.g. there are just 5 or 10 thousand EB3 unskilled spots per year and, while DV is 50K, a country that had too many immigrants in the previous year cannot participate on top of the enormous number of applications from the ones, who do participate.
Each queue is managed by country of origin. Last time I read about it, each country would get, at most, 7% of the available GCs.
What is more fair? A guy from Island waiting 20 years because he is stuck behind 1 billion Indians? Or Indians waiting longer because more of their nationals are applying? Honestly, I don't know, but I know the 7% rule is justified. The idea is to avoid massive inbound diaspora that would be very hard for the country to absorbed culturally.
The problem is not just the per country limit, but also that the total number of greencards available hasn't been updated in decades to keep up with the significant US and worldwide population growth, effectively reducing chances to get one.
Also, EB1/2/3 wasn't supposed to do diversity, that's what the diversity lottery is for.
Also, the limit could've been applied to visas instead of greencards. I don't see how keeping people in limbo inside the US for decades/lifetimes is reasonable. If they are here de facto permanently anyway, they should get a path to citizenship. A two-class society is wrong.
From Wikipedia:
Immigration is the international movement of people to a destination country of which they are not natives or where they do not possess citizenship in order to settle as permanent residents or naturalized citizens.
Because honestly, there really isn't any at all. If all work visas are supposed to not have a pathway to citizenship. Then how is someone supposed to make it in ?
The diversity PR ? Which is almost explicitly an Anti-big country immigration visa, which even then, only has a 0.5% success rate ? (It is kind of hilarious that the visa thinks EU countries add more diversity to the US than those from other nations)
Or the investor PR ? ie. bribe your way into a GC.
Or be religious minister ? Because for some reason priests are a more productive part of society than people with PhDs.
Or should they be refugees. Which is also GC that has fallen out of favor among US politicians.
You say the H1B is a backdoor. But look at the other categories. People in the arts and general administration abuse the Eb1 GC. On the other hand it is almost impossible to get the EB1 GB without a willing employer (usually needs to be in research) and a top tier PhD.
Also, it is not just Indians. How do you think Europeans have historically immigrated to the US. Come over on an employment visa and then get a GC. Just because the ethnicity of the applicants has changed, doesn't mean that the system wasn't always in place. It is referred to as dual-intent for a reason.
I understand if the US wants to suddenly stop being a country that wants immigrants. But, they continue to sell the American dream, their inclusivity and proudly claim the the creations of 1st and 2nd gen immigrants as their own. That, makes them seem really hypocritical.
Of course, doing so will do very little to nothing for American workers. Companies who want the top talent will go where the top talent lives, and this may just speed up the process (one example could be a simple adjustment to hire more folks in Vancouver, for example). Somehow, some people in the US forget that yesterday's immigrant is today's citizen.
I'm not straight out saying you're wrong, but I don't see the evidence that this is obviously true. There's an equally compelling line of logic that by removing H1-B visas you create less supply for those jobs in the US, driving up wages for local workers and encouraging more local people to train up to take those jobs - because of the higher rewards. Will companies just immediately decide to hire in another country? Well, some of them might, but if wages go up 5% is that really going to force companies overseas? Running an international organisation is hugely expensive. So maybe wages go up and basically no jobs are lost to overseas. What if removing these options to basically steal talent from overseas meant companies needed to sponsor more university programmes to get the qualified staff they need?
I find it quite compelling that the first order effect of H1-B visas is to give large corporations an easy way of driving down wages by hiring cheaper overseas workers who are willing to take lower wages than the locals in order to earn their citizenship, and that benefits company profit margins at the expense of native workers.
I'm willing to believe that the net effect is actually different and you get some magical efficiency effect that makes everyone richer, but I think that actually needs to be demonstrated rather than assumed.
I recently worked as a consultant doing back office talent sourcing work. It is a stated, explicit ambition in the industry to offshore & automate as much work as humanly possible.
You're thinking, reasonably, that companies aren't going to go through the trouble of immediately opening a whole office in Bangalore for a few QA testers. You're right. They're either going to (1) offshore to an MSP (2) automate or (3) just not do QA, and (without realizing) just let bad code get written.
Now that IT is working remotely anyway, why the heck NOT call Cap Gemini? Presto - we have QA. Who cares if they're in Penang?
The obvious answer is that the companies that have their QA in Penang fairly quickly learn that the 7,500 engineers in Penang that you got for the price of 20 engineers in the US not only don't do the QA correctly, they're actively making the quality worse by DDOSing the engineers in the US with jira tickets. Then you find out that the senior management outsourced core activities to Penang, and before you know it you're on 14nm++++++ and angry US engineers are being forced to fly to Penang and figure it out, and the CEO is being blackmailed into a resignation using an office affair as a pretext.
May have gotten a bit too specific with my hypothetical there.
It can be Canada. It can be Mexico or South America.
It can be Eastern Europe.
Yes, it will be more expensive (but maybe not overall), and there will be fewer "yes-men" and less bottom-kissing but more actual work done and maybe better communications since time zones overlap.
> Somehow, some people in the US forget that yesterday's immigrant is today's citizen.
Playing devil's advocate here, because I myself went through the H1B -> GC -> citizenship path, but why would the US worker care if he can't get a job/fair pay because of today's immigrant? And this is not immigrants (not technically correct when applied to H1B btw) fault. The problem is how game-able this all process/legislation is.
It's 2 highly influential senators (Tom Cotton and Chuck Grassley), one up-and-comer (Hawley) and then Ted Cruz. I'd especially pay attention to Senator Cotton, there's a lot of chatter about him having presidential ambitions, and it wouldn't surprise me to see him become the figurehead of the post-Trump GOP.
When the Democrats had complete control of the Federal government (2009-13), they did absolutely nothing toward immigration "reform". Perhaps your partisanship theory needs re-evaluation.
They had the Presidency, House and Senate from 2009 through 2011, not 2013. Immigration reform was not a quagmire the Obama administration was going to delve into in the first 2 years of his administration, among all his priorities, however they did signal the desire to create a bipartisan solutions.
A comprehensive bipartisan bill did pass the senate in 2013, however it was never brought to the House floor for a vote. So perhaps your partisan theory needs re-evaluation.
Immigration reform was not a quagmire the Obama administration was going to delve into
So, you acknowledge that it's a "quagmire", not a benefit.
The Democrats had the legislation all done and ready to go in the previous Congress, when it was just a tool to bludgeon Bush with rather than accomplish anything (otherwise, they could have brought the exact same bill back in the 111th). But that bill failed because 14 Democrats opposed it at cloture; it never even made it to Bush's desk:
They could have just brought back the exact same legislation. It could have traversed the process and been passed within weeks... had they ever actually wanted it to become law.
Their leadership isn't stupid. They know that a broad-based amnesty would be a long term economic disaster, and they acknowledged that even before the post-2010 recovery demonstrated that even upbeat economic periods won't provide real employment for the unskilled anymore (the "gig economy").
> So, you acknowledge that it's a "quagmire", not a benefit.
I don't know what this means. After seeing the amount of political capital and time spent by the Bush administration the prior years, there was no way the Obama administration was going to delve into the same "quagmire."
It seems to me that that bill was bipartisan in it's support and detractors. So I'm not sure what the poison pills were that prevented it from passing. But I remember personally being against it because it seemed to me to establish a caste system in the US.
I think you miss the largest issue with the premise that the Democrats could have forced anything. The Democratic party is not a party of fall in line, there are procedural differences between how both parties operate in congress, and those differences create partisanship on the Republican side specifically.
Perhaps the greatest error by the Democrats and Pelosi was to abandon the "Hastert Rule" and be the ones actually implementing steps to be less partisan.
I think this is quite good in a strange way. Nobody was happy about H1-B. Tech companies were complaining that quotas were too low. Skilled workers complained that this is a ploy to keep costs down, especially in academia. I've once heard an American PhD say 'I am not afraid of competing with very smart Chinese or Indian scientists. But they are making me compete with 10 mediocre Chinese or Indian PhDs and nobody can win this competition.' So, why not blow the entire H1-B system up and maybe in 3-5 years, once the crisis is over, something better emerges.
I am one of those Indian PhDs. Many of my friends are. I suppose it's easy for you and your friend (let's not get into an argument about who's stupider) to sip some coffee and say let's blow it up and wait for a few years when you have no personal effect.
Meanwhile I'm back in India, and completely lost in my mind on where and how I should proceed with my career.
I'm of the view that a country can choose whatever the hell they want about who to let in. Just stick to some rules with some consistency though. I came to America believing that there was a path that works a certain way, and that I could Hope for a better life in America if I follow it and work hard. Clearly your country hasn't kept your side of a gentleman's agreement there.
I suppose your friend is right, we Indian abd Chinese PhDs are idiots to think America is a fairer country than wherever we come from.
You are assuming that I am a US citizen, but I am not. I was once an immigrant too, lived in California for 6 years and ironically wasn't able to get an immigrant visa, because while on J1 visa I was sponsored by US State Department. I had to apply for an immigrant visa in Canada and was just one point short. So I returned to my home country. I was bummed too, my life was totally turned upside down. That was 20 years ago. So I feel you. BUT I am happy my life turned out the way it did. I am 40+ years old. I own my own home. I have zero debt. I have family and two kids. My medical expenses are next to zero (whatever they take out in my taxes). American political leaders, including presidents turned out to be more batshit crazy than the mediocre idiots that are running my home country (and less corrupt, too). So NOT getting a green card was the best thing that happened to me. It turns out that American dream is more dream that American for many people, and living in Eastern Europe is quite good. Sorry for sharing my personal story, but so that you know where I am personally coming from.
I'm definitely glad it worked out for you, I hope you do agree you wasted a lot of time as well though.
I spent a decade doing things in the US and am stuck knowing more about how the system works in the US than how it does in India. All my twenties have been wasted a bit because of this. And India is not the greatest of places to deal with either, though at this point it's up in the air which ones worse! Perhaps that's the state of the entire world as well.
For what it's worth though, in spite of the inequality, healthcare, partisan politics and things, I will much rather still work in the US - it's a more exciting place to be than anywhere else I have ever been
I do, but I am always careful to distinguish my personal situation with the bigger picture. And you kind of have to train yourself to do this. Also, I don't feel that I wasted a single day while living in US. Or, actually wasted a single day I lived in Turkmenistan (lived there for three years as well). Those were totally different experiences, but immensely valuable to me. Either way, I hope your life, personal and professional, turns out to be good whereever you end up living.
It's not really fair, nor professional, to insult someone for having a different viewpoint than you.
Your situation is like many others, and obviously not ideal. The system that you were using was/is blatantly rife with abuse, please don't think everyone who hates H1B is stupid/evil. If there's anyone worth lashing out at, it's all of the 'consultancy' services that have given the program a big black eye.
I agree that this whole thing could end up being good for people stuck in the current system. Personally, US immigration path has become so much less reasonable comparing to Canada's. Hostility is the word I'd describe the system in US.
On another topic, the American PhD's quote doesn't make sense without context. Why "mediocre" scientists are the issue for scientific "competition"? The proportion of top people is always low, scientist or not. It's the system's fault that the whole scientific process becomes a "competition" in my opinion.
My argument is not this. My argument is that NEITHER party was happy with the current system. So, in a way, getting rid of it entirely and starting with scratch might be a good thing. I do realize that there's HUGE human costs to people on H1-B visas who will have their lives totally destroyed by this decision. My sympathies are with them.
I thought H-1B was for when one was unable to source enough skilled people locally? If so, it should kinda be self-adjusting if more high skilled people are unemployed, right?
That's its stated purpose, which is why you see it mostly used for software and science positions.
However, it's been "abused" by large consulting/contracting companies who hire an army of immigrant labor at the low end of market wages. The H1B recipient can't do much about it - they're tied to the employer (and their spouse can't work unless they also get an H1B). Yes, they can move jobs, but it takes legal resources to get the visa moved/re-issued (not sure about the technical details).
Can confirm. Our requirement to fit the "cannot find American" requirement was to post a tiny ad in a small unknown paper with a ton of requirements that they H1-B we were about to hire didn't himself even really meet.
It was HIGHLY abused to just get cheap low-level IT staff. ...like the kinds who confuse Java with Javascript.
I've worked with a ton of H1B talent in my 20 years or so in the industry and I can count on one hand the number of times that they were an exceptional talent (compared to the rest of industry) that couldn't otherwise be sourced locally.
That's true for anybody in any IT position, though, generally.
Truly exceptional people are few and far between.
Also in those cases those H1B folks were highly paid. No, the vast majority of times I've worked with H1B talent was because they were willing to work hard and for less.
IANAL but posting a "tiny ad in a small unknown paper" does not meet this H1B requirement. The requirement itself has many facets, including posting in Sunday editions of widely spread newspapers in the area the job will be, posting with the state workforce agency, and additional requirements that can be met by doing things like holding job fairs. It's a combination of things to help find local talent first. Not making any statements on efficacy, just pointing out that what you said does not meet visa advertisement requirements and anecdotally sounds like the kind of anecdote boomers would FWD:FWD:FWD:FWD: around to try to drum up anti immigrant sentiment.
Us issues around 500k green cards a year. 85k h1bs are a drop in a bucket compared to that.
There are over 1M Indians stuck on gc backlog because of the racist gc caps. Various groups such as cis, fair etc. Want them out and hence these backdoor l
Also not even sure what
A GC worker does not obey to the same rules as a H1B worker. A GC worker is not dependent on the company to remain in the country, they do not help companies keep salaries artificially low. A green card holder is essentially a US citizen on the job market (minus DOD clearance and such).
If you're talking about an L1 (specifically L-1B), it's the same process for getting a green card as an H-1B. The downside with the L-1B is that you can't switch employers.
Edited, thanks! I got confused because there is the @
L1 but then one of my friends got stuck on a J1 instead when moving for Microsoft China to Redmond.
What's the status for TN visas right now? The US/Canadian border is semi-closed now except for things like trucking. If you were just issued one, could you get across?
While I have sympathy for the foreign workers who are hurt by this, honestly this is hardly a surprise. When you try to optimise for money over everything else (quality of government, public healthcare, education for your kids, safety) weird things happen. Try looking for countries that have a sane government with a clear immigration policy. These countries are out there. Yes, you will make less money. But at least this shit isn't likely to happen to you.
This doesn't make any sense. What does a "60 day cut" even mean? As I understand it, H1Bs get processed now and then get issued in like October. It is more than 60 days from now until October
Wouldn't the only result of this be a backlog of paperwork to process?
Most PhDs start with H-1Bs. So with longer freezes (not that anyone is hiring right now) you risk losing an entire cohort of the best scientists in many fields.
The H1B system along with the L1 and L2 and mostly labor arbitrage. Given the current employment situation, it should be since there are currently enough local workers given the state of the economy. The initial draft of the immigration pause included these, but some of the presidents advisors were concerned that it would upset Google, Apple etc. so it was removed from the final one.
There are 85K H1Bs a year of which 20K is for Masters/PHD students.
- Most foreign student revenue will dry up if you take H1B away.
- H1B is also used for doctors. Do we not want them?
- Given the remote transition underway, they will probably transfer over to Latin America/Canada. This is an issue even for existing tech workers. We are now competing for jobs with everyone that fall in American time zones.
The top 15 paid job titles are all health related and well above $200k in average salary. Their organizations will always manage to get visas no matter what new fancy requirements might come up.
Indeed. I run a IT sweat shop. We only hire h1b1’s. They won’t be out looking for better offers like Americans. If we fire them they get deported. so they do what we tell them without question. Even if it’s illegal. We designed our interview process from the ground up to favor foreign candidates.
Should clarify that this is IT as in low level positions in cheap outsourcing firms. Not to confuse with tech companies.
Edit: You can see visas per company here with average salary https://h1bdata.info/topcompanies.php You can make an opinion for yourself but suffice to say that the bulk of the jobs are in cheap outsourcing firms, not in tech companies. (cf. google 15k VS tata consulting 73k)
Absolute nonsense. One of the biggest beneficiaries of the H1B program have been FAANG - they often apply for some of the largest numbers. I’ve also seen this in personal experience, as will anyone who has worked at these companies. Hiring at these companies is typically focused on just hiring the best candidate, who will often need a visa such as this if they are not American.
Abuse by firms such as infosys and “bodyshopping” are of course a problem as well, but Microsoft, google et al love these visas too.
A lot of people who work in very senior positions in this industry came here via an H1B, it’s not just low level positions.
I do not know the numbers but I suspect your numbers are way off [ BTW saw the same numbers on some websites too so you are not alone ].
There are 85000 H1s given every year, 65000 if you do not count US graduates. The visa eith extensions can last for 6 years. However, if you have applied for a green card, you can easily go twice as long, extending it bit at a time. Now not everyone who gets an H1 stays, but lets try to catch the high end of this and see what the numbers would be. 85000 a year X 12 years would be close to a million.
Now H1 also comes along with H4 which is a spouse visa and I do not know if they are allowed to work today, but there is/was a provision that spouse could work. Assume 10% spouses work, that's another 100K.
And this is before we start counting L1s which many "shops" use. People can classify them differently but from what I have seen, half of those could as well be H1 and the company used L1 because they did not have annual cap issue or some other benefit.
So that takes me to a count of 1.8 million. Assuming 1/3rd of them do not stay back and return to their country, my ballpark number would be in the range of 1.2 M.
You are right about the H1B1. They should give the visa to the person, not to the company, so that people could credible threaten the company to walk away for a different job somewhere else. That would do away with the slave mentality.
Good. H-1B is an exploitative system that forces people into something resembling modern slavery, at the cost of American jobs and business opportunities.
People who are against this IMO, are mostly concerned with not appearing “racist” or xenophobic in any way. Virtue signal.
This is often a false choice in reality - many H1B recipients have lived here for decades or more, have kids at school who are American citizens and know nothing about where their parents even came from.
To go back deports their American children to a country where they may not even know the language, as one example.
I wouldn’t go as far as to call it slavery either of course, but it undoubtedly has a servitude element - the outcomes of the policy speak to that.
My concern is that American selfish politics will just drive a lot of new work to other countries which are actively courting immigrants/skilled workers.
We are already reeling with concerns about China becoming the largest economy. Now we throw out some of the more skilled producers who also have the capital to drive consumption, thus creating jobs. This will only reduce our GDP and allow other countries to go ahead much faster.
What do we expect will happen here? Bartenders will start being on-call in AWS immediately? Unemployment systems, public utilities will run automatically?
Are we seriously imagining the best of people will come to the US to work in medicine or academia with so much vitriol and uncertainty directed towards them? Does anyone even think twice about how inhuman our laws are to people and families who are not criminals?
Remember that it's not just new entrants that need H1B processing: it's immigrants currently in the country that need to transfer their visa type (e.g., former students moving from OPT to H1B). What, are they supposed to leave or risk being denied a visa forevermore?
Not to mention, they've already paused green card processing and shut down most offices that process F1 (student) visas. The US just doesn't want high-skilled immigrants anymore.