Someone remind me why we need this?

There is no shortage of talent already living in the US. There is however an interest in corporate America to fill positions at the lowest wage possible.

My wife is here on an H-1B. The U.S. requires such visa holders from her country to renew their stamp yearly (even though the H-1B remains active) if she wants to be able to leave the U.S., such as even visiting Canada, and be able to return. This stamp must be processed in her home country at a U.S. Consulate. During 2020, we happened to be in China during January on vacation, visiting family, and of course renewing the stamp on her visa. Because the U.S. banned visa holders from entering the U.S. as a "response" to COVID, it was over 15 months before I saw her again.

The fact that she needs to renew the stamp yearly allows the U.S. to keep their options open in terms of refusing to allow valid H-1B workers to re-enter for whatever arbitrary reason, such as the case of my wife. It's always been mind-boggling that this is required rather than processing it here. She had studied and worked here in the U.S. for over half a decade, had an apartment, had a car, and had a job at a U.S. headquartered company at the time she wasn't allowed back in.

This is why these stamps need to be done in the U.S. It removes a lever for the U.S. to politicize and hold hostage current H-1B holders as well as removing massive inefficiencies in the immigration processes. The fact that it isn't like that added literally years of delay in our life.

The COVID situation and the very unusual lockins and lockouts are irrelevant to this topic, as stamp or not, she would still have not been allowed back into the US during that period (unless she had full US citizenship).

And my point is that the logistic issues about stamps are a side issue, with the real issue being the [mis|over]use of H1-B in the first place.

This also isn't just a US issue. Many (probably most) countries have fixed duration visas and will not allow you to just casually return if your visa has expired. You have to plan ahead to ensure you have renewed your visa before leaving (and even to avoid overstaying). Now if you have an automatic tourist visa which kicks in, that can provide some safety; but in some cases some countries will disallow conversion of tourist visa into any other kind of visa without leaving the country and applying. There are vast variations and combinations depending on the details of country-country.

> hold hostage current H-1B holders

I don't understand why people seem to believe that once you have a temporary right, you should be able to have that right forever after. I live abroad, and I have to go through the process and expense to renew my visa to live and work there. If circumstances change in that country, they certainly have the right to tighten up requirements to the point where I would not be allowed to renew. This it not an issue of where a renewal stamp is given.

The situation is perfectly relevant, just its scale is larger than other incidences. The U.S. makes visa holders return to their own country to renew the stamp because in the case of denial, the U.S. can just wash their hands of the visa holder.

Also, I think you’re continuing to conflate the actual H-1B visa with the stamp. You can’t get a stamp unless you have a valid visa. My wife’s H-1B was still valid and active at the time, only her stamp had expired. There are also discrepancies between how long the stamps last. Chinese stamps only last a year, whereas others countries’ last longer.

You are also incorrect about her traveling back in this instance. If her passport wasn’t held hostage by the U.S. Consulate awaiting a new stamp, she could have traveled back to the U.S. prior to the ban took effect. Even if she missed that, the U.S. Consulate held her, foreign issued mind you, passport, preventing travel to Canada on a valid visa.

The entire point is that this entire stamp process has these secondary and tertiary effects, seemingly by design, that are disconnected from the actual visas and act as an additional layer of complexity and increases the surface area for arbitrary denial separate form the actual visa process.

The visa and the stamp are two different things.

We need this because we are a nation of laws and punishing legal immigrants who scrupulously adhere to the law is an affront to our notions of fair play. H-1B holders are among the most educated and highest paid people in the country, and are a huge net-positive for the country. There are hundreds of rural counties where they are practically the only doctors who provide care, and there are scads of industries that will be thrown into disarray by turning them away. It’s better to encourage immigration from people who speak the language fluently and can integrate into American society better and practically immediately, than to throw the doors open to poor uneducated people who are mostly here illegally, break dozens of laws everyday merely by being present here illegally, and are likely to remain an underclass for generations irrespective of how hard they work.

Large tech corporations have been pushing the narrative that we need to import workers because there just are not enough locally to fill the need.

In very many cases, there are local workers to fill the need... but the companies are not willing to pay market rates. So they want to import foreign workers who will take a much lower salary. This has gone on for 20 years. https://www.infoworld.com/article/3004501/proof-that-h-1b-vi...

And in the medical industry, if there is a shortage of local doctors, it again likely means that salaries are depressed such that locals find it not worth the pay to do the job. So (highly educated) medical professionals from abroad are welcomed, as they will work hard for less money. If the the standard of living in India were the same as the US, they would not be willing to come here to earn less.

I do not suggest "throwing the doors open" to poor uneducated people. I suggest paying the local market rate for workers and hiring local workers. Those "non-existent" local workers would exist if the pay were appropriate for the work. It would not be necessary to import people.

I don't object to immigration in principle, but when it is used as a way to extract more labor for lower cost, also at the cost of local citizens having fewer job options and more competition, then I do disagree.

Many of the legal immigrants you speak of would not have been allowed to immigrate here were it not for heavy lobbying pressure from large corporations seeking cheaper workers. They created an artificial demand. And I don't believe in the policy of "well it's been that way for a long time, so it should persist". We should frequently re-evaluate our laws and our needs. If that means an immigrant needs to go back home, then so be it. I as an American who immigrated to the Netherlands must jump through hoops and pay not insignificant money to maintain or modify my work visa. And if circumstances in the Netherlands change such that there is an oversupply of tech workers, then I recognize that my opportunity to live there may end. Me living there is a privilege, not a right. Likewise is true for legal immigrants in the US.

Maybe actually read the article or talk to an H1B holder before throwing aspersions around?

It changes absolutely nothing about the number of people granted or staying on H1B. Nothing to do with visa requirements, waitlists, lottery etc etc. It's just administrative.

The current system is like only being able to renew your driver's license at the exact DMV you got it, the proposal is to allow any DMV to do so. Except here the license expires every 1-2 years and the DMV is an embassy in your home country possibly a long and expensive flight away.

So naturally we should build additional beaurocratic infrastructure in the US to serve the needs of < 100,000 people who may only be here for a few years (many of whom would not even be here had it not been for the deceitful lobbying of large companies wanting cheaper labor).

Other countries have rules about where things can be applied for or renewed. It's not just the US. And sometimes those rules require going back to your home country.

And since you mentioned the DMV... If I have a Texas drivers' license, I cannot renew that outside of Texas. I would have to travel back to Texas, even if I happen to be temporarily living in Hawaii.

The H1-B stamp hurdle may have been inconvenient, but many of the H1-B holders I worked with in the past would attempt to travel back home at least once a year, or if not, every other year. It is probably the rare person who leaves their family and home and does not return for years.

It's about repurposing existing underutilized infrastructure, not building more. Also, who do you think is paying to build, maintain and staff US embassies in foreign countries?

Anyways my only point was that you're welcome to whatever policy you like on immigration like say ban all H1Bs but this proposal seems like an awfully roundabout and dishonest way to do it. Other countries just place straightforward laws in place and stick by them. the US instead has one set of standards in law but has begun to enforce an entirely differently set with tricks like wait times, USCIS agents etc without any communication, forewarning or legislation. It's plainly dishonest. But going by the immigration numbers, you might soon get your wish anyways.

I wish H-1B visas were distributed with an auction system instead of a lottery. That would completely eliminate companies abusing them for cheap labor.

Questionable. Presumably the price of a H1B will float up to one cent below the delta versus hiring a citizen/permanent resident for the job, and there will still be vicious fighting over claiming that cent.

If the only companies that used the H-1B program were the ones that abuse it, then that's what would happen. But since there are some companies that do have a legitimate need for talent they can't find domestically at all, wouldn't they end up pushing the price well beyond that to outbid the abusers?

Interesting argument.

It really depends-- are the people who are buying H1Bs for "real talent needs" able to consume most/all of the available slots?

I'd expect that's really on the order of a couple thousand people a year. So they'll pay (comparatively) silly money and get their needs met.

But it looks like the quota is in the high five figures, so there are plenty left for body shops looking for cheaper junior SDEs. And you know that someone will say "now that we turned it into a revenue stream, why not 200,000?"

H1Bs have to be paid the prevailing wage. This stuff is all tracked by the government.

Why we need it is a question for the sponsorer of the visa I.e the employer who in average has to shell out $15k to lawyers and government agencies to hire someone in h1b visa. It is NOT decided by your or my political or social preference , it is determined by market forces and the need of employers.

This is for folks that are already here. There is a shortage of government workers who can work in consulates and process their own bureaucracy.

Please provide citation, because I don't think there is shortage of job if there were adequate salary.

> there is a shortage of labor in America

Nope, and nope.

If I have a software development firm, and I advertise to hire developers at $10/hour, (aside from interns), how many employees do you think I'll get? Right, I won't get many. I may want 20, but I may only get 1 or 2. I know there are developers available, but those developers want $50/hour! I don't like paying that much, so I keep my offer at $10.

Now I go around whining because "there are not enough workers". If I'm big, like Microsoft, I pay lobbyists to convince ignorant (or simply greedy) politicians that we need to create an immigration allowance so I can import workers from lower income countries. Those workers will be happy to work for me for $15/hour, because it's so much more than they earn at home. Of course as the business owner I want to hire as many of the cheaper workers as I can import.

While the H1-B topic doesn't get much attention these days, it was pretty hot in the 2005-2015 period. Evidence and consensus was that there was not a shortage of local skilled labor, and that foreign talent was not more or better suited to the tasks. There's so much out there on this topic, but here's just one example: https://www.epi.org/publication/bp359-guestworkers-high-skil...

> If I have a software development firm, and I advertise to hire developers at $10/hour, (aside from interns), how many employees do you think I'll get? Right, I won't get many. I may want 20, but I may only get 1 or 2. I know there are developers available, but those developers want $50/hour! I don't like paying that much, so I keep my offer at $10.

Citation?

And stamping H1-Bs is a much lower priority need than a lot of other currently understaffed government operations.

I heard from my friends that some US visa appointments in India are now 800 days out in future