> Sagarwala, according to the ruling in Washington, D.C. U.S. District Court, received an H-1B visa in 2012, but those visas are tied to specific employers. So when she sought to change jobs in August last year, the prospective new employer, outsourcing firm HSK Technologies, had to go through the visa application process again.
So she had lived in the US for six years and still had to beg the government for permission to change jobs? I had no idea it was this bad.
:) I am in US for 18 years now, have a master's degree and work at a FANG company, and don't have a GC yet. I am not saying this to seek sympathy, but things are way worse than they look.
The system is gamified by outsourcing companies and body shops, that are more worried about their people in, play the numbers game and clog the H-1B and GC routes, make it difficult for everyone who is trying to do quality work without playing cheap tricks.
Body shops would be able to bring in many more workers, and supress wages further.
The dearth of middle income jobs in the USA is in part caused by these body shops flooding the domestic market with questionable talent, driving down wages and living standards severely.
Thank you for saying how it is and now just blaming on "racist country caps". We might abolish caps tomorrow, but you'll still be as backlogged as you were before.
I have been here 12 years, and know people 15-18+ years, all in the same boat. I can be asked to leave the country tomorrow because I tried to switch jobs, my boss woke up on the wrong side of the bed or literally any or no other reason.
Why do you do it? I'm sorry if it sounds callous, I'm just curious really. I personally wouldn't be able to endure such a precarious and stressful situation.
You intend to leave the first 4 years.. Then someone applies for a green card on your behalf and you believe there's a path to permanence - and you see folks getting green cards all the time.. Then 5 years later you find out, because you were born in the wrong country, you get to wait 70 years instead of 1. But by then you have a wife, kids and a dog.
Then you kinda resign yourself to have to leaving someday but stay and make the TC you can while you can
Well it is considered a "Temporary Visa" and for a specialty occupation.
>Generally, a citizen of a foreign country who wishes to enter the United States must first obtain a visa, either a nonimmigrant visa for temporary stay, or an immigrant visa for permanent residence. Temporary worker visas are for persons who want to enter the United States for employment lasting a fixed period of time, and are not considered permanent or indefinite.
An H1-B visa holder is, under the statute, a "non-immigrant alien" who is "temporarily" in the United States to perform a specialized occupation. 8 USC 1101(a)(15)(H)(1)(b). The fact that it's tied to a specific job is by design. H1-B is not intended to be an immigration path for skilled workers. (The fact that it is often used that way is just a by-product of the fact that the U.S. allows almost all non-short-term visa holders to apply for a green card. But H1-B was not created as a stepping stone toward that process, and its requirements are not really geared toward making it easy to serve as a "staging" ground for green card applicants.)
Does the U.S. need a real skilled immigrant visa? Maybe. That's really a separate question.
> Nonimmigrants in H-1B or L-1 status can be the beneficiary of an immigrant visa petition, apply for adjustment of status, or take other steps toward Lawful Permanent Resident status without affecting their status. This is known as "dual intent" and has been recognized in immigration law since passage of the Immigration Act of 1990.
You’re mixing up two different things. “Dual intent” just means that you don’t lose your eligibility for a temporary status visa (which requires you to have intent to return to your home country) by filing for a green card. It basically allows you to express cognitive dissonance about your immigration intentions. That does not mean that the H1-B visa itself is not a temporary visa. The H1-B program itself remains designed for temporary workers.
Congress explicitly intended for the H-1B to be a stepping stone to an employment-based immigrant visa. Why? Two reasons:
(A) Prior to 1990, the processing times for employment-based immigrant visas were in the order of a few years. Practically speaking, no employer ever sponsored someone for an EB green card if they weren't already working for them at an office abroad. Congress wanted to provide a practical pathway for skilled immigration. The quote "non-immigrant" H, L, O, are explicitly intended to be stepping stones to permanent residence. Look up the Congressional record on this matter (ie debates on the 1990 Act) . There were also some articles from the Cato Institute elucidating this, but I don't remember their names.
(B) The original 1990 bill explicitly exempted H, L, O visa holders from having "non-immigrant" intent. The fact that folks on H, L, O are "non-immigrants" is an accident of how the Immigration and Nationality (INA) is structured. If you're not required to maintain "non-immigrant intent", and are explicitly allowed to call the United States your home by the law (specifically, the INA) you are in no sense a "non-immigrant". The later AC21 bill went further and made people waiting with approved employment-based green card applications, exempt from the 6-year H-1B limit.
Finally, it is insulting and degrading to be called a "non-immigrant" when you have lived for over 10 years in the U.S., by people who have no understanding how the system works, like yourself. I'm trying to be less triggered by comments like yours on HN, but it's difficult. I have to say that based on your commenting history here, I've noticed a very clear pattern of xenophobia, so even if you did understand how horrid the US system is, you'd still likely enjoy insulting people who've lived here for 15 or 20 years, by calling them "non-immigrants". But that's your prerogative/freedom. TBH, despite being a lawyer, rayiner, you have no knowledge of the legislative history of the INA, and shoot out falsehoods from your mouth, with an air of authority. I don't know what causes you (or caused you) to be so incredibly hateful towards immigrants, and I don't really care why either. But please don't turn HN into such a hostile place for non-citizens living and working in the US. I remember reading your comment from a month or so ago, where you called Canada's immigration policy "ruthless". That's a degrading term (towards Canada). I think their skilled immigration policy is the best in the world. Canada is a country that values skilled immigrants, and treats them with respect and dignity. I deeply wish the US had an immigration system similar to Canada's. But it doesn't. Canada is doing something good. But you chose to insult them for it. Canada's immigration system is the best in the world, and it actually allows a skilled person to get permanent residence quickly, and doesn't force you to spend a 10+ years on visas with limited rights, freedoms, etc.
So please don't insult Canada. And ironically, while I can make $200k+ in the US, I am tempted by the freedom that Canada offers, despite lower pay there. It's unfortunately all-too-common for anti-immigrant folk on HN to paint all people on work visas (H, L, O, etc) as working for bad employers, or being thoroughly underpaid -- but this is rooted entirely in ignorance (or in willful dishonesty). My base salary is $140k+ which is an "OES Level 4 Wage", and I've made over $200k with bonuses in the past. Then there's folks like throwaway082729 who make $650k/yr: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=20473537 When xenophobic people on HN are confronted by facts like this, it causes them cognitive dissonance, and throws into muddy water the foundation for their hatred for immigrants. And what happens? They simply downvote. They can't accept the fact that everything they've believed about skilled immigrants (e.g. being low-paid) is utterly false. Please don't be like that. Please try to be a better person.
There are not one, but two immigrant visas for skilled immigrants already. EB1A and EB2-NIW. No need to find a sponsoring employer, no requirement to prove that there are no qualified Americans, no salary requirements, almost no backlog even for people born in India and China, at least for the former.
It's the visa to get for the so-called "best and brightest". Of course, the catch is that you need to be really skilled and be able to prove it.
This is incorrect: you don't need to be in the US at all to apply for any immigrant visa. I believe the Indian body shops perpetuate the fictitious idea that, similarly to naturalization, there is also a required time to be present in the country before being eligible for a GC. While I can see how it fits into their business model, it could not be further from the reality. Not only there is no required time to be in the country but there is no requirement to be in the country at all in order to obtain an immigrant visa - it can be all done in the home country and you can enter the US as an LPR without ever setting foot there before.
This is also incorrect. You can adjust into immigration status from any legal status in general, there might be different complications depending on status (e.g. you might not be able to leave and re-enter the country in some or you need to follow 30/60/90 rule with others) but there is no requirement to be in a dual intent status for AOS. If worse comes to worst you can always do consular processing and only leave the US to stamp your immigration visa in a foreign consulate and re-enter in the new immigrant status.
The "dual intent" concept is for the non-immigrant visa. If you don't want to read the official explanation, posted around here many times already, it means that you don't have to prove strong ties with your country when applying for such a visa. For visas without dual intent you have to prove the lack of immigration intent. For dual intent ones you don't.
You are completely right and I now realize that I worded my comment poorly. You are right in that you don't have to have a dual intent visa to apply, but take my case as an example. I'm in the US on a non-immigrant work visa, but I haven't applied for EB2-NIW because I know that if I get denied, then I would have proved intention to immigrate and getting another non-immigrant visa will be close to impossible.
I wouldn't have that problem if I was on, say, an H1B Visa.
Well, if your immigration petition had been denied while on H1B you wouldn't be able to extend it past 6 years and for most H1Bs, whose bodyshops file for GC at the latest date possible, it would mean going home right away or, at best, at the end of their last one year extension. I am not a lawyer and might be overlooking something obvious, but I can't imagine a situation where going through a non-immigrant visa (even such as H1B or any other dual intent) and AOS had been somehow better than straight immigrant visa if you intended to immigrate and have qualifications for a non-sponsored GC.
Putting aside for a moment the insane fact that someone can be in the green card queue for even six years (and I know people who have been in it for much longer), I don't see this as unreasonable. If you've had an H-1B approved for a particular kind of job, and then try to go work for one of the body-shop consulting/outsourcing firms, that absolutely should not be allowed.
These firms have been abusing the H-1B system for years, giving the visa (and often the workers who have it) a bad name.
Six years would be a blessing. Most people I know have been waiting 10 years or longer. The green card queue for the vast majority of applicants today is essentially infinite, even if you stay in the same job at the same company.
Isn't it only true for applicants from India and China? As far as I know (and I may be mistaken, this is just what my immigration lawyer told me a while ago) for all other countries it's not that bad, rarely passed a few years.
But that's because there is a per-country yearly cap. I just think it may not be wise to make blanket statements like "it takes 22 years to get a GC!" while this is only true for half a dozen of nationalities.
This is definitely, painfully, normal. It also impacts where a worker will go - big companies have immigration lawyers on staff to help with this, while smaller companies have to leave the workers to largely fight the battle on their own.
This means, regardless of wage(!), big companies have a bigger pool to hire from.
I've been here for 17+ years, earn $650k/yr and I'm still in the same boat. I'm at the mercy of the govt. if I want to change jobs. Moreover, I need to restart the labor certification process and reapply for my green card though I get to keep the same priority date. There's no end in sight i.e. I cannot predict when I'll get my green card due to the per-country cap and backlog. Worse, I cannot quit and take time off even for a day.
Surprised this is getting downvoted. These types of salaries are somewhat common in FANG companies for senior engineers and it is common for some of them (depending on their nationality) to still wait for the green card for 15+ yrs. I know people here won't like the truth but this is the current reality for Indian citizens legally immigrated in US.
On the other hand, it is actually easier to get a green card if you are an illegal immigrant - which is the real thing that boggles my mind. I was talking to an Uber driver the other day who was from Congo but came illegally to US and got his green card within 2 yrs. Not saying that the Congo folks shouldn't get green cards but a high skilled legal immigrant, who is able to command $300k+ in salary (which is sufficiently high to categorize them out of the IT body shop type work), is someone US should try to value at least as much (if not more) vs. an illegal immigrant.
This is not true - in your Congo example, the driver claimed asylum, won his case, and then was able to apply for his green card. You cannot go from illegal immigrant to green card directly. Many people don't win their asylum cases and are deported.
Most highly skilled legal immigrants would have also invested time and money for a US graduate education, often taking out big education loans. So if an illegal immigrant is getting a permanent residency within 2 years and a highly skilled legal immigrant is waiting 10+ years, the system is severely broken and unfair.
He wouldn't qualify if he'd been here illegally. Probably he came without a visa and applied for asylum (basically anybody in Congo who's not a warlord surely is in danger of life and limb), was granted asylum and then got leave to remain via GC. Which sounds reasonable.
The rich also get the protection from competition from abroad. There is an unlimited visa for nannies, but limited for doctors, lawyers and software engineers.
Why not get an investor visa? It's easily convertible to green card according to several people I know who did it. You only need $500K or so for the whole thing. And investment money were returned even with some profit.
You just get roped into a big development project like Hudson Yards in NYC which was an excuse to sell thousands of EB5 visas. The bonus is your investment in "blight" redevelopment turns into luxury housing you can purchase to park your excess funds.
You can just provide the money without actually doing any leg work in hiring or managing the business itself. As far as I know you get a list of businesses that require funding and you will pick which one you will fund
It takes 2 years and a lot of lawyers and maybe you might get it.. (it's not guaranteed at all) but if you've earned the 500k the hard way you're not very inclined to gamble it on the slim chance.
Besides.. there's better places to retire on 500k
Honestly, with that kind of salary - it feels like you could save up enough to get to an EB-5 investors category, which have far shorter waiting times, correct?
Even O-1 seems like it could be a good possibility (I wrote a reference letter for a colleague seeking the O-1 via a few years ago, and I only had to describe his work as open source project lead).
You mean EB-1. The O-1 is a temporary visa. Approvals of EB-1 are unfortunately highly subjective. It's like winning a lottery (based on who looks at your application).
Personal attacks and name-calling aren't allowed here. Could you please not post in the flamewar style to Hacker News? We're trying for something other than that on this site.
If you'd read https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html and follow those rules when posting to HN, we'd be grateful. You might also find these links helpful for understanding where they came from:
The parent comment was unsubstantive. It served no purpose, but to falsely paint the author as a victim. I disagree that calling someone a "drama queen" is flaming or name-calling.
I wouldn't say it was unsubstantive. It described a concrete situation with new information. Yes, it also had a note of complaint (pretty understandable assuming the information is true), and perhaps a bit of gratuitous showing off, but "falsely paint the author as a victim" seems harsh.
You can agree or disagree, but addressing another user the way you did is definitely outside the community norm here and a bannable offense, so please don't do that on HN again.
Also, since your account has so far commented on only one topic and done so rather pugnaciously, I should let you know that single-purpose accounts are not allowed on HN, and especially not accounts that use the site primarily for political battle.
OP is not stopping anyone from pursuing higher education or working hard or getting a high paying job, they are merely describing their experience of the broken system and not asking for your sympathy.
Noted, but I didn't feel my comment unsubstantive.
The OP comes to America as an immigrant (as did I), makes more money in one year than most American's make in 20. My comment simply put his "problem" into perspective.
There was no information in it other than that the GP makes more money than others, which was missed by no one, and a vague expression of resentment about it. I'm afraid that's completely unsubstantive by HN standards.
>So she had lived in the US for six years and still had to beg the government for permission to change jobs? I had no idea it was this bad.
The purpose of the H1B program is for foreign specialists to do work for which no American worker can be found. It's not for foreigners to come to the US and go job hopping.
She lived in a foreign country run by foreigners and administered by a government created for the sole purpose of serving the interests of those foreigners and their posterity. If those foreigners have decided for whatever reason to restrict access to the labor markets in their country, how is it "bad" for their government to enforce that?
You only have to do that if your new job is significantly different than your existing one. You do have to notify the government (USCIS probably) that you're changing jobs, bu that's not "visa application process again" if your new job is similar, and you're unlikely to be denied.
Job changes are very dangerous for H1-Bs in other ways and employers know it (and abuse it, nearly all of them). Basically if your employer finds out you're looking for a job and you don't already have another job lined up, they can fire you out of spite, and you'll have to GTFO the US within (IIRC) 2 weeks. There's absolutely no recourse. Even if you are in a protected class, you're very unlikely to sue unless you're in the US and have lots of money (which H1-Bs typically don't). So few people bother unless the situation is really dire.
It's not just H1-B either. F1-OPT gets abused in a similar fashion.
Your new employer has to file a H1B petition de novo, with the only difference that you are not subject to the lottery any more. USCIS may well take the view that your new job, even if it is doing the same thing, is not a specialty occupation any more.
SWE->SWE is relatively safe. And there are a number of significant differences between a truly "de novo" petition and a transfer. While it is true that you need a sponsor, and therefore a petition needs to be filed, you don't need to wait for it to be approved to start working at the new place. You can also have multiple prospective employers file petitions, so if one gets denied another might get approved, or if you get a better offer you get the option of picking and choosing. The process is still fraught with uncertainty (particularly if H1-B worker brought their wife and kids along), but you aren't really "starting from scratch" or undergoing the same degree of scrutiny.
It used to be worse, BTW: it used to be that you couldn't really change jobs at all, and until fairly recently, your spouse (who is typically on H4) couldn't work. Or to be exact, she/he could, but couldn't get paid (volunteering was OK).
It isn't a "notification", you still have to file for a new visa regardless of how similar the new position is. And it can very well be denied. The only concession is that you won't be subject to the annual limit and won't have to go through the lottery.
It's a one-time grace period, not 60 days cumulative over a lifetime. The second time you get laid off without a new job in hand no grace period for you.
As a current H-1B applicant who received RFE to prove 'specialty occupation', this is giving me anxiety. All my friends in the same company with exact same role, level and education got their H-1B visa last month or so and I'm still waiting for a response to my RFE. Eh, at least I still have my OPT STEM...
Ugh, these cases give H1B's a bad name. I do wish there was crackdown on crap like this.
Where I work the H1B applicants (who don't get selected) have masters, from a US university, for a degree that applies specifically to their job. These folks should be on the red carpet to US citizenship. They have checked every box. Instead they get treated like crap.
They should SHUT DOWN these other players who clog up the process.
a) outsourcing firms that are just numbers game body shop mills.
b) set a minimum comp for the jobs that is reasonable (but include retirement and other benefits in calc).
c) allow all employers one applicant before awarding more slots, so the body shop mills have to compete with small business who have real jobs for real people and are not just playing percentage games (100K applications with 5k actual jobs available).
I'm a HUGE fan of lots of immigration - but saying H1B is highly specialized for real jobs, then having the body shop mills apply for 100K slots (they don't have those jobs), so they can dominate the selections and then profit off the salary / visa arbitrage is disgusting for all involved. And yes, I sign real applications that never get selected (and am willing to pay well over Level 1 and Level 2 wages).
As a baseline, I'm in favor of a lot of immigration and think people have way too many hoops to jump through in general, but the H1B crowd in particular is a group that matches even what most of those opposed to mass immigration claim to desire in immigrants.
That said, i've noticed different "worlds" of H1B worlds, with different impacts upon other workers.
I did a govt job on the US East Coast (Richmond, VA) that had a lot of H1B contract workers, likely from one of these body shops. They were good people, and adequate if unimpressive coders. They were earning decent US wages and were painfully aware that losing or leaving a job left them no guarantee there'd be another for them in the US soon. Management abused the heck out of these people, establishing practices, expectations, and treatment of coders that were terrible. They put up with it, but but it lowered the quality of the workplace for everyone, and the employees and US citizens (naturalized or born) working there also suffered, and tended to leave when they could. I was one of them, which put me in Seattle on the West Coast...
...Where I found an entirely different world of H1B workers. These were not contractors, not through a body shop, and were definitely impressive in their fields (devs, architects, and QA/Test eng, along with a handful of PMs and Team Leads). Here there was no reduction of workplace quality - these workers had lots of extra annoyances I didn't have to worry about (example: apparently changing your job title during one period of time when applying for a green card restarts the multi-year process, so I knew of people that declined or postponed promotions!) but they could definitely find work elsewhere easily enough - should workplace be unbearable they'd bounce like the rest of us could.
Whenever the H1-B debate comes up, I reflect on the different impact the workers had on these offices, and the impact the H1-B rules had on those workers. Everytime one of my friends debated if it was worth pursuing a green card or naturalization, I saw the seeming idiotic result of the US chasing away workers that it said it needed, that had proven themselves, and that american companies had spent time and money in training and getting experience to.
The 'root cause' problem in the 1st case is the leverage the employee has over the person. The workers are just trying to better their lot in life, like many of our own ancestors who came to the US. I don't hold any illusions that whoever it was that came over from Ireland in my family was some kind of exceptional talent. Probably just an ordinary person willing to take some risks and work hard.
The first group are basically being exploited by a body shop that puts in 10X the number of applications vs spots that they need, but always still gets lots of awards. They then are able to leverage the fact they flooded the pool to carry out visa arbitrage - they have something employees want, and leverage that, even though that things is really public government property (visa) and so shouldn't be a privately leveraged.
Almost all the H1B horror stories are from these shops (often they have related outsource arms) - "I had to train my replacement and they sent my job overseas using H1B visas". You can see how trump got elected when dems were defending this as good for US workers.
The second group are folks who really really need employees. They are and will hire absolutely any US worker who meets their criteria (it's a lot easier - fewer hoops to jump through) and are willing to hire an H1B eligible employee if they run out of pipeline on US based folks. These tend to be truly higher skill jobs. The US is taking the cream of other countries investments in education etc etc with the folks - I can't imagine this is bad for the US in any way.
What is frustrating from one perspective though is that the reactionary defense of H1B means that lots of group 1 are still allowed to play their games. Seriously, crack down big time on group one. Keep same number of folks coming, and loosen up on group 2 - Level 2+ wages, masters degree US should be first in line.
The declared intended purpose of H-1B is not for the benefit of the worker but for the benefit of US economy - the visa is intended so that the US employer can fill that particular job position that requires special skills.
If that position ceases to exist or gets filled by a local worker, then the visa loses its purpose, the employee apparently isn't needed anymore by US and can be discarded.
I imagine it's to deter a certain kind of exploit. Hiring Quantum Rocket Surgeons and a week later they're Surface Hygiene Associates being paid much much less. Or vice-versa.
It's to prevent a bait-and-switch on behalf of the employee and situations where a person is "employed" by a company only so they can immigrate and then do something else, on behalf of the employer.
We can easily let people switch job titles and employers while addressing potential loopholes though.
I think the idea is that the H1B isnt a general 'work visa', it is given because there is a position at a company for a worker with a specific skillset. So it makes sense in that framework. I'm not arguing that this is the right way, just what the reason probably is.
You have to see how laws are made in the US. They are written by lobbyists/corporate lawyers (the lawmakers have stopped pretending otherwise these days). For the company, it totally makes sense. They spent something upfront (H-1B fees and uncertainties are non-trivial), so they want a guarantee that this person cannot change jobs easily. That the lock-in is for 6-years is just pure power-play.
The simple solution is to give every h1b worker a temporary green card or somehow allow them free mobility of work within the United states. Being allowed to move jobs at will, vs being beholden to the hiring companies for sponsorship, will quickly kill these body shops and also let us know if tech firms really are being honest about a shortage of skilled engineers.
exactly. It makes too much sense. Which is why it needs to happen, Canada has a skilled worker program and they give you a green card when you arrive. America doesn't need a visa designation in my opinion, just copy the skilled worker designation from Canada and you're there.
I think that you would still want some restrictions like they have to work in the same industry for at least e.g. 80% of the total comp of their first job in the US until they get a real green card. Otherwise there are different abuse patterns that could happen.
I don't think this solution makes sense. I agree that , from an ethical standpoint, there should to be better protections for H1B holders. But giving everyone free reign to change jobs is also ripe for abusing the system and possibly flooding the market without a general way to gauge need for that particular H1B applicant's skillset.
Currently, the process is that you need to find a company that is willing to sponsor you, then that company needs to file paperwork with the government to explain the wages, job description, etc. And then this application is either accepted or rejected based on whatever guidelines they use[1].
If we keep this situation and start allow workers to move around wherever they want, the company just ate the paperwork legal costs and the role they hired for might not even stay filled for long, prompting them to redo the process.
> the company just ate the paperwork legal costs and the role they hired for might not even stay filled for long,
Would you expect a company to be able to retain US citizen employees if it underpaid or gave boring work?
Switching jobs is a stressful, non-trivial process. Most people who are happy with their job don't want to change it. If the company can't retain an employee on the merits of its own offerings and compensation, that's too bad.
There should be only one parameter that governs the eligibility to specialist visas: the ability to earn a high wage. Companies should bid directly with the salary, and the top X offers get a Visa; the candidate is free to change jobs but is required to maintain within that wage band for the duration of the visa, outside exceptional situations.
Any other mechanism affords the opportunity for arbitrage, bureaucracy, legal leeches specialized in exploiting the process etc.
What's awesome about this approach is that it naturally leads to max revenue for the government as well.
The only counter I've heard to it is that Joe's Tech Corp in Podunk, USA cannot compete with big city salaries and would never be able to get any filled. Though I see that as a feature not a bug.
Not all tech workers are created equal and not all companies need tech rock stars. Joe's Tech Corp would be priced out of the H1B market but could still compete for talent in the citizen pool. Different talent levels come with different compensation requirements.
I'm trying to come up with the most charitable interpretation of your last sentence but am failing. Was it meant as a "let them eat cake" statement for not being a coastal dweller? Given the many negative effects tech centers are having on local populations, deconcentrating tech across the country seems like it would have positive benefits for many not in the tech industry, which is most people.
Money is how we as a society have chosen to decide how resources are allocated. Why would we decide to be 'socialist' here and say use a lottery or some other stupid way?
I'm totally amazed how often the US come up with ways for the rich to have the benefits of socialism and the or to have the consequences of capitalism.
And even if they were, Google and Amazon (maybe Goldman Sachs too) have talent spread out across the country, even in what is dismissively called flyover country. Certainly these locations aren't their main wells of talent but they're still important to the companies.
You could give small rural areas a boost by using some sort of formula based on percent Average annual income in the largest metro area in 150mile radius. But the idea is largely good and too fair to implement by any lobbying group
The less developed and unsafe the applicant's home country is, the less just the H1B model is. H1B employees are worked like animals under the threat of being sent back or replaced and losing their visa. It's an awful system in general. If we want skilled workers, they should be given a green card and the ability to find work wherever they want and quit whenever they want. Holding their visa over their head via their job is evil.
> c) allow all employers one applicant before awarding more slots, so the body shop mills have to compete with small business who have real jobs for real people and are not just playing percentage games (100K applications with 5k actual jobs available).
Won't that just mean the body shops create 100K subsidiaries?
That sounds effective. Would probably impact more legitimate attempts, though (single-owner business really needs someone with a really obscure skill, etc).
You're not a huge fan of mass immigration if you're not a huge fan of mediocre immigrants.
I'm not just saying this to be facetious. There's a huge pressure on members of any marginalized group (women, immigrants, LGBTQ) to either be extraordinary or not matter at all. You have to make space for the people that aren't extraordinary.
I'm speaking as someone from a marginalized group. I've dealt with this pressure myself.
But are there US citizens or permanent residents who are interested in the jobs your H1B's are vying for? It is a tight labor market, so it's possible there aren't many other candidates, depending on the job.
However I recently saw an opening where I work go to an H1B where there were other qualified candidates, which I don't like to see. I would rather see the H1B's have a more stable/easier path to permanent residency. Not only does it confer a longer term economic benefit to the US to have more skilled workers, it would (probably) make the worker feel more secure and stable in their life, and less beholden to stay somewhere working because their H1B status is being held over their head and preventing easy mobility.
It isn't about interest, but who is best for the job. That's the point of classifying a specialty occupation. Candidates aren't interchangeable. A PhD grad from India with a specialized degree could add a TON of more value to the business and economy than a US citizen, so why not hire them?
There is no doubt that H1B gets abused by these small contracting shops and Indian giants like Infosys. I am all for stricter criteria for H1B but at the same time if it comes without a path for permanent residency then its not lucrative enough for an immigrant. Most H1B people I know are genuine hard working tax paying good people. They like it here and want to make it their home while contributing to the economy so why not remove the hoops they jump through.
Countries all around the world make policies to prevent their brighest and entrepreneurial minds from leaving to another countries.
Immigration restriction is the process by the which you refuse the gift from another country. It is doing to yourself what your competitors are trying to inflict on you.
> outsourcing firms that are just numbers game body shop mills.
When there is a 6+ months wait from applying for H1-B for getting it approved or rejected, the very top candidates nor the fastest growing companies may not want to wait that long. So H1-B is by nature more appealing to companies who can play the numbers game.
>Where I work the H1B applicants (who don't get selected) have masters, from a US university, for a degree that applies specifically to their job. These folks should be on the red carpet to US citizenship. They have checked every box.
Job specific degrees are always a boon-doggle and they really shouldn't be getting the jobs their degrees proclaim. School is the time for theory, but these Job-specific degree programs these days are just glorified bootcamps
> b) set a minimum comp for the jobs that is reasonable.
Indeed. What the H1-B program should look is for workers paying taxes. I'd grant them from top to bottom until equilibrium. Except for a very small set of specific professions needed and still not making it (perhaps healthcare or education). US doesn't need QA analysts or consultants.
Signed up just to say this. I don't see the controversy in not counting QA analyst as a specialty position. Just look up what countries like Canada, UK, France consider specialty positions and understand that this isn't a controversy.
In fact, I was shocked that QA has been an H1B position in the United States. This is also why there are such massive backlogs for EB-3 for India, despite them getting circa 18% of the cap (7% + unused quota from ROW).
The truth might be worse than you think. Not only has QA been a popular H1B approved requisition, but so are positions that are simply listed as “Analyst” and “Business Analyst” and so on, as well as the many many variations on “Analyst” (QA or other). It might compete with “Developer” as the most common H1B position.
Im amazed at the level of protectionism expressed in this thread, in this community.
I will make an argument for the cynics that believe they should be protected from competition: that immigration restrictions and caps like the H1B curtail the freedom of Americans to buy services from who they want to. American people that run American businesses are prohibited from hiring people they believe to be best suited for the job.
There is not "gaming" the visa or "outsourcing companies". US consumes software engineers from abroad at 100x its software engineer immigration, only that they don't pay taxes to the US and export close to 100% of the their trade. It would be much better for the us to bring the people inside America to pay taxes and provide more value for Americans.
Incredible to see software engineers buying an apple phone made in china and argue that Americans should not be able to employe chinese software engineers.
> American people that run American businesses are prohibited from hiring people they believe to be best suited for the job.
Or american people in positions of power are free to use that power against their fellow citizens by importing people to do the same work for cheaper? 1859 Atlanta Ga called, they want their labor market back..
You can't avoid protectionist arguments when discussing H-1B process which is explicitly designed to achieve protectionist goals with protectionist-friendly means.
You could have a very different immigration system, but there's no sign that the currently elected representatives or the voters targeted for the next election want to have or even would tolerate a non-protectionist system.
> I will make an argument for the cynics that believe they should be protected from competition: that immigration restrictions and caps like the H1B curtail the freedom of Americans to buy services from who they want to. American people that run American businesses are prohibited from hiring people they believe to be best suited for the job.
This argument makes sense from the point of a business owner but not necessarily for the average American who will lose his job to a foreign worker that will work ungodly hours for considerably less pay. And over time, working ungodly hours will then become the norm and get worse and worse over time as the cycle continues. But yes, there is plenty of money to made if you're a business owner who can hire plenty of cheap and willing workers.
If your model is that there is a fixed number of jobs, then bringing in one immigrant deprives one American of a job. The obvious consequence of this model is that if a country has a 5% unemployment rate, then it should simply expel 5% of its population, and suddenly the number of people will perfectly match the number of jobs.
Of course, that's not how things work. It's not true that adding one person to the economy adds one person to the ranks of the unemployed, because adding an additional person also increases demand for goods and services, thus increasing the demand for labor.
I would like to add an additional layer of economic nuance here, beyond Econ 101 and BA Econ. While it is true that an economy is not necessarily a fixed “lump of labour”, you also need to take into consideration many more factors before making another blanket statement about how labour and an economy works.
There are localized crowding effects that take place at all levels of labour (bottom to the top), and various market frictions which you ignore talking about. The economy is not perfect, perfectly efficient, or perfectly distributed. I won’t even get into monopolies and monopsonies, but suffice to say that market forces can be highly skewed. Markets are typically highly constrained in relative size and don’t freely grow independently.
Adding 1000 more H1Bs this year does not mean the tech sector will grow by an additional 1500 U.S. citizens as well. Labour growth is organic and requires training and experience to grow. If most new tech positions are created for visas, citizens will never enter the field, or gain training and experience to compete.
When crowding in a market increases, the market is very slow to react and expand. This is especially true in a more mature system like the USA, where the frontier days have mostly ended, and future growth is slower and more expensive. The U.S. economy has certainly shifted (perhaps especially so around 1970) into growing the pie less, and more growing your slice.
Let’s not be naive either, because we know that visa data is publicly available. We should not rely too much on economic theory from Exon 101 when we can check the theory against what actually happens and is measured (empirics). As an experiment you should compare the annual H1B visa cap against the number of new “tech hires” in the economy. The trend you see is that every year, tech grows by ONLY the number of visas they are granted for that year. You probably think I’m pulling your leg, but please check for yourself.
Now please tell me honestly... From the data, which theory of the labour market do you think best describes the history of the tech sector in the USA? Hint, the lump of labour fallacy is not always a fallacy. Now your follow up question is, if the labour market experiences localized crowding, and citizens may be in direct competition with non-citizens for their jobs, what might happen to citizen wages that are under this competitive environment?
> The trend you see is that every year, tech grows by ONLY the number of visas they are granted.
That very strongly suggests that there's a shortage of tech workers in the United States. What's the unemployment rate for CS majors? [1]
> From the data, which theory of the labour market do you think best describes the history of the tech sector in the USA?
The data appears to describe a tech sector that cannot find enough skilled workers to fill the positions it has available. Virtually all of the CS majors are employed. There is a large pool of skilled labor abroad, however, which US tech companies would like to tap into. They have two ways to do so: getting those workers to come to the US or setting up shop where the workers are.
There seem to be a lot of protectionist-minded tech workers in the US who are convinced that their salaries would increase if there were fewer visas handed out. That's probably true in the short run. If you constrict the labor supply, you force companies to outbid one another to hire the remaining workers. But once that initial shock subsides, companies will wise up and expand their operations overseas, where skilled labor is cheaper.
I believe your interpretation is being disingenuous with the data and everything known about how H1Bs are utilized.
You seem to gloss over the fact that tech jobs don’t actually require everyone to hold a specific CS degree (in reality and practice few do if you have the skills). So once you expand your definition of skilled workers to include everyone that could adequately fill such positions, you are looking at a much larger pool of workers than just fresh CS grads. You definitely don’t need a CS degree to be a low level analyst, tester, etc. which has been a pretty popular H1B position. From the linked article, you likely also have adequate coding skills if you come from an engineering, scientific, STEM, or similar background. Then add people from bootcamps that came from outside STEM.
You also ignore that H1Bs are frequently used to replace citizens, their poor working conditions, and lower salaries. You seem to apply to another perpetual myth in economics that companies like to spout about labour shortages and skilled labour shortages. There are few if any economic studies that conclude there are actual widespread shortages of candidates with necessary skills. What you seem to ascribe to is a shortage of workers that are willing to be taken advantage of, work for lower wages, and work in poor conditions.
"Disingenuous" means "dishonest." Did you actually intend to accuse me of dishonesty?
> From the linked article, you likely also have adequate coding skills if you come from an engineering, scientific, STEM, or similar background.
The linked article discusses the fact that people with a broad range of undergraduate computer-, math- and engineering-related degrees have unemployment rates of 1.5-2% in the United States. Long-term unemployment for these groups is even lower, in the 0.4-0.7% range.
> Then add people from bootcamps that came from outside STEM.
Now you're discussing people who likely don't have the same qualifications as people coming in on H1B visas. On the other hand, you're not providing any evidence that these people have trouble finding employment in the tech sector, so I don't know what I'm supposed to make of your argument here.
> You seem to apply to another perpetual myth in economics that companies like to spout about labour shortages and skilled labour shortages.
Everything you're describing points towards a constrained labor market in tech. Unemployment for people with relevant undergraduate degrees is near 0%. Companies are desperate to increase the number of visas for tech workers. People can go to "bootcamps" for a few weeks to get basic training in programming, and then quickly find high-paying employment. If I can add to that: big tech companies are offering lavish workplace benefits (free gourmet food, free gyms, free transportation, etc.) in order to try to attract talent. This all points towards a very tight labor market in tech.
> You also ignore that H1Bs are frequently used to replace citizens, their poor working conditions, and lower salaries. [...] What you seem to ascribe to is a shortage of workers that are willing to be taken advantage of, work for lower wages, and work in poor conditions.
I've read the horror stories, just like everyone else. But in general, we're talking about people making 80k+ USD per year, many far more. Most people in America would love to be "taken advantage of" for $100k/year. It's very difficult to get behind a political call to action to exclude foreigners from the labor market in order to limit wage competition for people in the top few percent of the income distribution.
Please elaborate where there was ever a personal attack. Poster is willing debating the finer points of the topic. Debate is routinely attacking ideas; that is normal. Pointing out the trend of routine holes, inconsistencies, selectively addressing facts, glossing over arguments/facts, handwaving in the posters comments that demonstrate bias, blindspots, misrepresentation, poor judgement, dishonesty, ignorance, bigotry, sexism, racism, hate, nationalistic hate, or routinely lacking insight, experience, and informedness is not a personal attack. Those are features of settling debates instead of perpetuating misinformation, small mindedness, and uninformed/poor ideas. Please reflect on your post with the personal swipe I am to edit out, because it is not clear to me a personal swipe was made.
I feel like that is a trap criticism since the poster became suddenly offended by my highly civil, PC, and blunted expression (disingenuousness) that their ideas and treatment of the data/facts was being criticized (to the point of misrepresenting/mischaracterizing the data or being dishonest). That is not changing the topic at all, it is redirecting their evaluative skills to the facts/data they chose to not respond to and hand-wave away, and puts pressure on their reputation to explain their motives for not choosing to respond or evaluate the facts/data. That is entirely substantive in the topic debate.
Further, the poster asked for a straightforward no-nonsense opinion and clarification, which I provided them in an adult fashion without kid gloves at their own request. I would expect the same adult, civil-but-no-nonsense treatment in an adult setting if I started choosing to get offended because someone criticized/called out the way I choose to view the world/facts/data with rose coloured glasses.
Respectfully this is the internet and difficult topics should not be so difficult to discuss because someone might take an adult but civil and valid criticism of repeated questionable opinions that contradict data/facts presented to them personally.
Hacker news is an adult site that may include divisive and real world type content where there will be disagreement to carry out informed but adult, real world discussions that spread/communicate valuable information and discovery and further everyone’s understanding of the world.
If I call out someone for being a hypocrite or espousing and spreading hypocritical views/ideas, does that warrant a warning to not to call them a hypocrite? I cannot shield a person from civil but real world criticism they choose to find offensive if their offense is derived from a criticism to their questionable behavior and questionable ways they choose to carry out discussion here.
TLDR: “I believe you may be a person who acts in contradiction to his or her stated beliefs or feelings.”
“Did you just call me a hypocrite?”
“Yes I did. That or possibly a liar.”
“You can’t tell someone they are a hypocrite or a liar, those terms carry an air of superiority and trigger feelings of inferiority and are patronizing/condescending even if they ask you to clarify and even if they are a behaving as a hypocrite or a liar.
Calling someone disingenuous isn't "highly civil, PC, and blunted. It's a fancy way of calling them a liar, and already crosses into personal attack. Presumably that's why DiogenesKynikos responded the way they did, and I wouldn't say it was an overreaction—they asked a question neutrally.
The question was not posed naturally. They asked in an offended fashion if I was accusing them of dishonesty (well yes, selectively responding to and ignoring presented facts says “those are inconvenient truths I’d rather avoid discussing because it hurts my preferred position/views”).
No. “Disingenuous” is rhetoric used in the context of scientific debates and responses to other studies, without controversy.
Meaning the claims are not valid, not true, not representative, not correct, wrong, mischaracterizing, not genuine. It also means dishonest in science too.
FYI scientists don't use offense to a commonly used term to deflect an opposing view and facts/data. Scientists may partake in highly spirited and civil debates and may call out bias, hypocrisy, lies, and any number of things that plausibly explain opposing incongruent (claims incompatible with facts/data) positions including: idealism, politics, institutionalism, naivety, wishful thinking and so on.
This is the great thing about science and debate. Don’t take arguments personally, it’s the facts that matter. Your biggest critic may be your best friend and they are most effective at showing you where you need to re-evaluate your views/position or improve your self-evaluation and make yourself a better scientist or individual.
I think you might be jumping to conclusions. The usage of disingenuous in debates also means dishonest (see my above comment). What I communicated was that disingenuous usage in a debate is without controversy.
No one reacts by flagging/reporting a study or paper for moderation because I said your position does not honestly represent facts or data. What happens instead is positions are restated in a way that better speaks to and directly addresses the facts or data to better prove their point, or they can’t directly address those facts and the debate more or less ends there quite efficiently.
Does that make sense?
A google search result shows:
“The Economics of the Financial Crisis: Lessons and New Threats
Marco Annunziata · 2011 · Business & Economics
Yet this line of argument is in many ways simplistic, misleading and disingenuous. Economics is an imperfect science, and some of its weaknesses have been shown in an unflatteringly harsh ...”
“On the Economics of Say and Keynes' Interpretation of Say's Law - Jstor
by PO Jonsson · 1995 · Cited by 37 · Related articles
portrayal of how Ricardian economics differed from his own General Theory was best disingenuous and at worst fraudulent. Moreover, because ...”
“A Synthesis of Law and Economics - SMU Scholar
by J Cirace · 2016 · Cited by 20 · Related articles
and transfers, economists often make disingenuous statements to the effect that a " trade-off" between distribution and efficiency exists. 38 Such ...”
“Institutional Economics: Veblen, Commons, and Mitchell ...
Joseph Dorfman · 1963 · Economics
The roots of his institutional economics were planted in the disorderly ... In a homespun and often disingenuous way, he strove with dogged ...”
“A/moral Economics: Classical Political Economy and Cultural ...
Claudia C. Klaver · 2003 · Business & Economics
Economics ... "laws of the inductive philosophy" to the "abstract questions of political economy" is disingenuous given the long history of debate ...”
I had no trouble finding these somewhat general but critical examples; the rhetoric is fairly common. With some better targeted google-fu I can probably find some great examples in heated scientific debates like Einstein vs Bohr and other great controversial debates.
What I meant (and should have made clearer originally) was: if you can find usages where the word 'disingenuous' is being used in a personal context without implying dishonesty or bad faith.
Of your five examples, only #4 is personal. I can't tell what the word is implying there.
What you and most other people seem to overlook is that it's not solely about the money or skilled labor at all. H1-Bs are sought after primarily because they can be squeezed harder than American workers. This ends up forcing Americans to grind as hard as H1-B workers do to compete, which ends up being a race to the bottom. One of the great things about the living in the US is that the quality of life and protections against worker abuse is supposed to be better than other countries. When you start making hiring decisions based on how hungry your candidates are, this creates a normalization of deviation situation.
If in any circumstance, companies would rather opt for an H1-B candidate, it doesn't matter whether the number of jobs is fixed or not. For many tech jobs, an H1-B worker will always get the job over an American with the same skill-level. This may not be true for extremely specialized jobs but lets be honest, 75% of software engineering jobs are just plumbing/glue busy work.
corporations are allowed to exist because the provide jobs to it’s citizens. h1b visa abuse is literally going against the whole purpose of their existence.
As someone on work visa myself it is very clear to me that I have the visa to do a specific job at a specific company. I know I may have to leave at anytime. I also know that there is a path to GC, but it is a bonus and not a certainty. Any intelligent person should understand that.
Now I am not from India or China, but it still takes years to get a GC.
And yes in those years I may like it here very much and start building a life.
But if I do, I accept the responsibility that one day it may all be taken away from me, and I will not be pretending to be a victim. So if you started your life here 5, 10, 15 years ago, you knew full well what you were doing, you were a grown adult with at least a bachelors degree. So just stop being a victim.
Is the system broken? Yes. Do we as immigrants understand that? Yes. Can we do anything about it? No, this is America, and Americans will or will not fix it.
How is it broken?
EDIT: Just wanted to add that I am an American and I would prefer that employers had to raise wages and offer increased benefits to attract domestic workers rather than have the option to import low-wage workers from other countries.
I came to this country in part because I was offered a very good salary by my employer, that allows me a very comfy life in San Francisco.
They would be cheaper off with a local worker, that would be available for immediate hire, and wouldn’t need an expensive and quite long visa processing. Alas they found none, and not for lack of trying.
I'd really just like to see some sort of minimum pay that is relatively high so that is these are roles that are something the company feels strong enough to shell out the money.
you have to be clear about whether this is the payment to a contracting firm or the payment to the contractor or if it is the “salary” that a typical employee from a company takes home.
lots of numbers are thrown around without any clarifications for the intent of misleading people.
also it must be emphasized that people outside the us typically rely on their home country’s universal healthcare so they will always will be able to undercut any us worker.
The spots should be bid on, and the revenue should be used for STEM education scholarships of US citizens in the field the job was awarded in. The market is indicating that there’s a demand for the skill, so let’s increase supply with “cheaper” US citizens who aren’t going to be costing their employers for the spots.
Yeah, all you need to do is look up rent and taxes for that to be obvious. After taxes an online calculator is telling me you take home $82k. A single bedroom can be had for roughly $2k with roommates, $3k (comfortably) for a studio or one bed. Oh poor you with a disposable income of... over $40k/year
QA doesn't seem like a specialty occupation. We had over 100 QAs in our department with a degree from community college and others for-profit. Some with work experience and no degree.
This is one of the websites that think you're using a private browser if you use the iOS 13 beta. I wonder if it is because of new privacy features, or just because they don't recognize the user agent.
all pay discussions must be qualified with details to whether it is a payment to a contracting company or the contractor or an actual salary with benefits. most foreigners will read your comment and think you are talking about contract payments while us citizens think you are talking about a salary with health and other benefits.
I'm not sure that it entirely matters. 8x minimum wage is already higher than most h1b make. It's about establishing a floor for not abusing the class for cheaper labor. Some companies will still be organised and pay less than others. Nothing would change that without a huge bureaucracy.
TL;DR: The student was denied an H1B for a QA Tester role, which requires a BS in a computer-related field. The argument was that this qualifies as a specialty occupation. The judge rightfully told her to pound sand.
@privateSFacct has a good point - there are plenty of international students that get their masters degree here in America and they should definitely be getting better treatment. I really don't think that there are any actual jobs that require nothing more than a BS degree and can be honestly considered for an H1B unless we dilute the definition to mean anything that any occupation that requires a a 4 year degree (but at that rate, isn't everything a specialty occupation?).
But there is probably a more systematic problem here - it doesn't seem that Americans want to get masters/phd degrees as much as international students do. In 2015: over half of the engineering masters degrees from US universities were earned by international students [1]. Same issue with PhD degrees [2]. Funny thing is, the average American student scores higher than students from other highly regarded countries, so it isn't some sort of skill gap[3]. Anecdotally, I know many people who refuse to get a MS because they feel that they will end up doing the same job for possibly slightly more pay. A lot of posts on programming subreddits also echo this sentiment (though there definitely isn't a consensus) - the opportunity cost for delaying your entry to the workforce by a couple years to get a masters often does not outweigh the salary and experience you would have otherwise earned in those 2 years [4][5][6]. I'm sure one can find posts where sentiment is generally one way or the other, I just liked the first 3 I found.
Americans don't need to get masters/phds to get high-paying jobs in the US, because we don't need them for the immigration benefits.
In most STEM fields, an MS has very little functional benefits. Oftentimes, it's the same with a PhD. In fact if you account for the tuition cost (of an MS) + opportunity cost (lost income and lost advancement) they can be net negatives.
> really don't think that there are any actual jobs that require nothing more than a BS degree and can be honestly considered for an H1B
Uh, software engineering? I know many people with only BS's in CS, Math, or Physics who are better than most people with MS's or even PhDs. I think nursing might also be valid (though that is more credential-based, we still need BSNs).
I'm to believe that it was necessary to bring in an immigrant to fill in a QA position? The point of the program should be to fill positions that we can't possibly (or can't reasonably) fill with a US worker. Using an immigrant for a low-skill job like this just lowers the average wage and depresses our economy when she inevitably leaves back to her home country with her acquired skills and money.
I've talked to many international students in the US pursuing a Master's degree. Most of the time their only motivation is to increase their chances of getting approved for an H-1B, or having more time for a STEM OPT. People who really like graduate school tend to do a PhD.
I'm sorry, but if you were forced to accept your initial H1B offer to immigrate to this country, then I believe there are authorities you can report this to.
However, it sounds like you came here voluntarily on an H1B and are now disappointed that you still don't have a green card, even though H1B and GC are separate things and no one ever promised you one. Nor does the US govt owes you one.
It's tough to convince America that you need to import immigrants because there isn't a single American that can possibly fill the job. Some candidate (cough) is going to bring that up in the next election and I'm not sure I've seen a legitimate argument against it that isn't a generalization.
You mean single, unemployed, qualified American who really wants that job. There are probably thousands of Americans that can take up that job but don't want to because they don't want to move or like their current job or don't like that company, etc.
Or they can't take up that job because they don't have the credentials because they didn't pursue education in the field because education in America is expensive, and there is no market incentive to do so because everyone knows that the positions that do exist are quickly filled with low-to-median wage hires with overseas credentials, which is circularly justified by a perennial shortage of qualified American candidates, somehow, despite a population of 330M.
Even in legitimate cases of difficult to find specialty labor, programs like H-1B should be sparingly applied because they jam the market signaling mechanisms that create qualified candidates in the first place.
You'll notice that this person (Usha Sagarwala) doesn't show up on LinkedIn or has any online presence. That is because most consultancies have a playbook for these H1B employees which includes falsifying their resume and work experience in order to secure not only a visa but also a client. This is not anecdotal but a widespread problem specifically affecting consulting companies (a.k.a body shops). Here's an example where a student on an F-1 (Student) visa was denied entry when CBP determined he had lied: https://www.happyschools.com/h1b-visa-deported-port-entry/ This is a well oiled racket that many people have been running for a while now. Here's an example where feds brought these people down: https://www.mercurynews.com/2018/09/03/h-1b-fraud-indian-ceo...
There is a lot of fraud in the H1B, EB5 and EB1C visa programs. The administration has tried to crack down on it consistently but the Trump administration has been the most vigorous in its enforcement so far. However, this fraud requires legislative fixes which haven't come in yet. Simple fixes like H1Bs can be used only for direct employees and not for consulting purposes would be a huge boon to American companies. Another fix would be to raise the minimum salary which after 30 years of running the program is still at 65K USD. It will have immediate, positive impact by closing the loopholes used for exploitation.
This sort of fraud is also a big reason why people are stuck in years long backlogs for their employment based greencards.
Why would a person expect to have recourse against a government which exists for the sole purpose of furthering the interests of a group of people to which that person does not belong?
I wasn't talking about recourse against the government. The government is within its rights to enforce the visa process to protect and regulate the local labor market. I was talking about recourse against the employer. Even if you're terminated wrongfully (i.e. in retaliation for reporting harassment or abuse, legally permitted whistleblowing, etc), it's unlikely that, as an H1-B, you will sue. That makes H1-Bs extra attractive to unscrupulous employers.
You said there is no recourse after talking about a situation in which no one has recourse against the employer, i.e. if you get fired out of spite for looking for a new job. There is as you know recourse if you're fired illegally, as the American people have been so generous as to grant foreigners the right to sue Americans employers in such cases.
To the limited degree that that's true, that's too bad for the American employer. The American citizen wants the government to put those restrictions on the American employer, and he is the one the government exists to serve, at least ostensibly.
Yes, and one whose bags of money has given him a vastly disproportionate say over the actions of the government. You can call it extortion if you want, I guess. Provided it's in the interests of the American citizen to restrict access to the US labor market, I don't see why they should care what you call it. If you think it's not in their interest, I'd be interested to hear your argument. On the other hand, if you want them to forgo their own interests for some of your ideals, maybe start by pointing out someone that has for those ideals forgone their own interests for the benefit of the American citizen. Good luck finding some.
You would be hard pressed to find economic evidence that immigration has negative results to an economy. It is always better to allow immigration for economic prosperity and the entire science of economics has validated this theoretically and pragmatically since 1776.
Moreover, the importation of labor happens every day every single time you use any manufacture or service produced outside, from software like Google/Facebook (it is partially imported) to manufactures like iphones and macs (it is also imported labor). You could arguably increase the salaries of american citizens by banning by penalty of death any kind of importation: but more dollars do not increase purchasing power.
Americans overpay software, doctors, lawyers, and many other professions because they are unwilling to allow free labor movement from those professions. You can however, import nannies with no limits from anywhere in the world. Talk about regulatory capture!
It's certainly true that immigration has a positive effect on GDP, at least in the short term, and in the long term depending on other circumstances, but that doesn't necessarily mean it's in the interest of everyone or even most people in the country. We are not paid as a percentage of GDP. It doesn't help me out too much that goods and services are slightly cheaper or more plentiful, or that the stock market goes up, if my wages are depressed to a larger degree. You admit that wage depression happens to workers in fields where foreign labor is allowed to participate ("Americans overpay software, doctors, lawyers, and many other professions because they are unwilling to allow free labor movement from those professions."), so it is only a matter of which outpaces the other. It seems pretty clear that for low and medium skilled workers in the US, it has not been a good deal, at least for the past few decades.
And that is only to speak of their short term interests. It is almost certainly not in the long term interests of the majority of the people in a country to import large numbers of people who fail, for whatever reason, to fully assimilate into the country, especially if there is a democratic system of government, where identity politics can take hold and corrode the government in addition to the damage done to the social fabric.
>You could arguably increase the salaries of american citizens by banning by penalty of death any kind of importation
Is that what every country on earth with import restrictions and duties does? I had no idea. That seems a bit over the top. Can't they just make people pay money for bringing those things in, instead of killing them?
> It doesn't help me out too much that goods and services are slightly cheaper or more plentiful, or that the stock market goes up, if my wages are depressed to a larger degree. You admit that wage depression happens to workers in fields where foreign labor is allowed to participate ("Americans overpay software, doctors, lawyers, and many other professions because they are unwilling to allow free labor movement from those professions."), so it is only a matter of which outpaces the other. It seems pretty clear that for low and medium skilled workers in the US, it has not been a good deal, at least for the past few decades.
It reduces rent-seeking but it increases the value-wages of everyone else. It is true that if you are to personally hold a monopoly for all the software engineering possible to be consumed in the US your wages would go through the moon, and if that monopoly were broken your wages would go down. But the negative effects of that monopoly are evident: less software products would be made, meaning the entire society takes a hit.
A system where every single profession is monopolized would inevitably lead to misery, not to the increase of wages of everyone.
It is also surprising to see people that work with the internet to advocate ideas that would be seen as insane if applied to the internet itself.
> Is that what every country on earth with import restrictions and duties does? I had no idea.
It used to ->
> By the 8th of Elizabeth, chap. 3, the exporter of sheep, lambs,
or rams, was for the first offence, to forfeit all his goods for
ever, to suffer a year's imprisonment, and then to have his left
hand cut off in a market town, upon a market day, to be there
nailed up; and for the second offence, to be adjudged a felon,
and to suffer death accordingly. Adam Smith, Wealth of Nations.
Adam smith buried mercantilism under the argument that it was better for everyone to free trade, not to the brutality of the measures. The benefits of Free trade are not up to debate in the economics field. Again, do you think you would be richer if the iphone or computer you use to post here were had to be made in the US as opposed to china, and it cost 2, 5, or even 10x as some Apple officials have claimed it would have cost?
Yes, but when "everyone else" just means certain groups of high-skilled workers, owners of large businesses, government employees, and people reliant on government benefits, because they're the only ones whose income is not reduced by the importation of labor, you have a pretty big problem for your country.
>But the negative effects of that monopoly are evident
OK, but no one is talking about giving a monopoly to a single person, so the negative effects are going to be vastly smaller.
>A system where every single profession is monopolized would inevitably lead to misery, not to the increase of wages of everyone.
Good thing no one is suggesting that. Keeping foreign labor out of the market is not the same thing as a monopoly.
>It is also surprising to see people that work with the internet to advocate ideas that would be seen as insane if applied to the internet itself.
Please elaborate.
>It used to ->
OK, but, like, it doesn't any more.
>Adam smith buried mercantilism under the argument that it was better for everyone to free trade
Better for everyone that's still trading, I guess.
>Again, do you think you would be richer if the iphone or computer you use to post here were had to be made in the US as opposed to china, and it cost 2, 5, or even 10x as some Apple officials have claimed it would have cost?
I'm not sure about me, personally. I've done fairly well in the economy we have. The people in, say, Appalachia, who are killing themselves or addicted to drugs, are probably not as well off as they would be if we had employed economic protectionism to their benefit, even if their smartphones cost more.
In the long term, I'd prefer to pay more for my computer and phone and know that people who my children and grandchildren are going to share a country with are going to have each other's interests in mind, and that those people are going to be raised by people that are not suffering from the effects of poverty or from lacking any meaning in their lives. It doesn't do much good for my posterity if the people with which they share a country see them as an economic resource to squeeze for whatever they're worth because they have no common bonds of shared history or culture that tie them together, or if those people are damaged from being raised in squalor. I believe we need to put our communities above our GDP for a while.
> Yes, but when "everyone else" just means certain groups of high-skilled workers, owners of large businesses, government employees, and people reliant on government benefits, because they're the only ones whose income is not reduced by the importation of labor, you have a pretty big problem for your country.
Software engineers are the the high-skilled jobs being protected by H1B caps, you know, the top 10% income in the country.
> OK, but no one is talking about giving a monopoly to a single person, so the negative effects are going to be vastly smaller.
I've made an argument in kind, this is an argument of degree. I'll answer in degree: its just as much rent as any positive effect on real wages. If it were to suppress wages a lot, its because the monopoly was very strong. Monopoly power does not require having a single actor, it can happen with many. A good example is medicine: no doctor in the world that is board certified can provide medical care in the united states. Only a small subset of doctors in the world can: american doctors certified by american institutions. The result is that doctors outside the US are willing to provide top level care at 10~20U$S an hour, while they do so at 10-20x in the US.
The result is also evident: medical care is extremely expensive in the US.
> Good thing no one is suggesting that. Keeping foreign labor out of the market is not the same thing as a monopoly.
It is to the employer: they are unable to buy from someone else. There is no big difference between making it illegal to import cars, and give a monopoly to american car companies than to make it illegal to bring foreign car workers. The result is that the cost of manufacture rises for everyone. When you import anything from outside, you are also importing the labor: untaxed, unfettered, sometimes illegal labor. IF you were to bring the worker from the other country into the US, the US would enjoy higher tax revenues and have the exact same GDP (ceteris paribus).
Countries were people leave enter a spiral of misery, countries were people enter have the exact opposite effect!
> In the long term, I'd prefer to pay more for my computer and phone and know that people who my children and grandchildren are going to share a country with are going to have each other's interests in mind
I believe you believe this, but I also believe you don't. Ban any foreign product from your consumption today and you will see why: everything would turn insanely expensive and inconvenient. In any case, I reiterate that your model of how an economy can prosper with protectionism is only in the rhetoric of politicians and in the real of climate denialism or flat-earthers. It just not whats observable. The freedom of trade is almost 1-1 correlated to country prosperity around the world, and the most miserable countries are the protectionists ones.
>I've made an argument in kind, this is an argument of degree.
Yes, of course it is. The degree to which you restrict participation in a market matters.
>its just as much rent as any positive effect on real wages.
What does that matter?
>Monopoly power does not require having a single actor, it can happen with many.
The "mono" part of "monopoly" disagrees with you. But there is no point in squabbling over words here. We both understand that there are degrees to which you can restrict participation in a market, and the more you restrict participation, the more severe are the effects of the restriction.
>It is to the employer: they are unable to buy from someone else.
They have tens of millions of people to buy from.
>The result is that the cost of manufacture rises for everyone.
I'm not sure why you're bothering to mention this. No one is disputing that restricting imports raises the price of goods, or that restricting the importation of labor raises the price of labor.
>the US would enjoy higher tax revenues and have the exact same GDP (ceteris paribus).
There is of course a third alternative, which is to impose duties on imports of goods in addition to restricting the importation of labor, which would substantially raise wages for low and medium skilled workers in this country.
>Countries were people leave enter a spiral of misery, countries were people enter have the exact opposite effect!
That depends on who is coming and going, and why they are doing so.
>Ban any foreign product from your consumption today and you will see why: everything would turn insanely expensive and inconvenient.
Why not mention the lesser alternative to banning, which is to impose duties? Of course outright banning things for which our existing chain of production is insufficient would cause massive problems.
>In any case, I reiterate that your model of how an economy can prosper with protectionism is only in the rhetoric of politicians and in the real of climate denialism or flat-earthers.
You keep talking about the economy prospering, by which I assume you mean GDP going up fast. My goal is for the people to prosper, not the economy. Of course the economy must prosper to a degree for the people to prosper, and it's attractive to try to optimize GDP because it's an easy thing to measure, but it's not the main goal. Sometimes optimizing for GDP is at odds with building healthy communities, and when it is, I would prefer to pick building healthy communities. Or perhaps you think those two things can never be at odds for some reason?
Talk to a professional economist. You are going against the field of economics as a whole, and you will not find economists that agree with your models, factual statements or otherwise.
> The "mono" part of "monopoly" disagrees with you.
You are using a rhetorical definition, not an economics one.
> its just as much rent as any positive effect on real wages. What does that matter?
Economic efficiency is almost synonymous with reducing rents
> They have tens of millions of people to buy from.
Shocks to the supply curve change equilibrium points in markets. There's elasticity of demand/supply.
> There is of course a third alternative, which is to impose duties on imports of goods in addition to restricting the importation of labor, which would substantially raise wages for low and medium skilled workers in this country.
Economic literature has been arguing the exact opposite for literally centuries.
> That depends on who is coming and going, and why they are doing so.
This is almost a Malthusian model or labor and resources and it will give you dangerous and obviously wrong ideas, like the solution to economic prosperity is marginalizing and kicking people out.
> Why not mention the lesser alternative to banning, which is to impose duties? Of course outright banning things for which our existing chain of production is insufficient would cause massive problems.
A 100% duty is a ban. A 50% duty is half a ban. You are objecting to the crudeness of a ban. I am objecting on the value of any restriction whatsoever by any criteria or method. Look for any chart of economic liberty and see where countries stand in free trade and economic prosperity. This is not a topic of debate, it's absolutely settled. Im trying not to be callous about that, but really its not something that should be debated, akin to refuting gravity and there is more than enough documentation in the open wild to read about.
> You keep talking about the economy prospering, by which I assume you mean GDP going up fast. My goal is for the people to prosper, not the economy
Just a metric like any other, the goal is definitely people's desired prosperity.
- In every country it always is and must be the interest of the great body of the people to buy whatever they want of those who sell it cheapest. The proposition is so very manifest that it seems ridiculous to take any pains to prove it; nor could it ever have been called in question had not the interested sophistry of merchants and manufacturers confounded the common sense of mankind. Their interest is, in this respect, directly opposite to that of the great body of the people.
>Economic efficiency is almost synonymous with reducing rents
I wouldn't dispute that.
>Shocks to the supply curve change equilibrium points in markets. There's elasticity of demand/supply.
I'm not really sure what the relevance of that is, though I don't dispute that either.
>Economic literature has been arguing the exact opposite for literally centuries.
You yourself have stated that restricting the supply of doctors and lawyers raises the wages of those professions, so that their purchasing power is higher relative to other professions than it would be if those restrictions were eased or removed. But the same thing wouldn't happen for unskilled or medium skilled workers? What the economics literature you refer to says is that it would lower their purchasing power, but I don't think you can deny that it would raise their purchasing power relative to other people in society.
>This is almost a Malthusian model or labor and resources and it will give you dangerous and obviously wrong ideas, like the solution to economic prosperity is marginalizing and kicking people out.
Again with the economic prosperity. Do you think a country is nothing more than an economy?
>I am objecting on the value of any restriction whatsoever by any criteria or method.
And you're totally justified in making that objection if the only thing you find valuable is economic growth. If you value things like social cohesion and loyalty to one's countrymen, which I guess you do not, then I'm not sure how you could dispute that having huge numbers of unassimilated foreigners in the country who are there for no purpose except to make money has the potential to cause problems in those areas.
>Look for any chart of economic liberty and see where countries stand in free trade and economic prosperity. This is not a topic of debate, it's absolutely settled.
I don't dispute that.
>In every country it always is and must be the interest of the great body of the people to buy whatever they want of those who sell it cheapest.
In their economic interest, yes. I don't dispute that. But the health of a society is more than the sum of the net worth of each member.
It seems there is very little or nothing we disagree with as far as economics is concerned. You just seem to believe economics is the only thing that matters, for some reason.
If what you care about is something other than economic prosperity, you have to use other tools other than economic analysis. It's not a core problem of political economy to make a system where different interpretations of what social cohesion is and how to use economic policy to satisfy them.
Though the little that political economy does to touch those subjects it will tell you: the most cohesive and prosperous societies are those that respect life and liberty and allow people to trade amongst themselves as freely as possible, and that restrictions flame anger, dissent and war. I personally find it ridiculous to argue that making most of Americans poorer and sicker to protect the wages of doctors is socially cohesive.
>If what you care about is something other than economic prosperity, you have to use other tools other than economic analysis.
Right, it's a political issue. We are not slaves to an economic system; the economic system exists to serve us.
>the most cohesive and prosperous societies are those that respect life and liberty and allow people to trade amongst themselves as freely as possible
In which direction does the arrow of causality point?
>I personally find it ridiculous to argue that making most of Americans poorer and sicker to protect the wages of doctors is socially cohesive.
I certainly am not in favor of employing economic protectionism on behalf of high skilled workers exclusively. It should be used on behalf of low skilled workers as well. They are our countrymen; we have a shared destiny, and should put them before others as we would hope they would do for us and our posterity in times of trouble.
> I certainly am not in favor of employing economic protectionism on behalf of high skilled workers exclusively. It should be used on behalf of low skilled workers as well. They are our countrymen; we have a shared destiny, and should put them before others as we would hope they would do for us and our posterity in times of trouble.
I am willing to accept any proposal of protectionism and restriction you are willing to offer with one condition alone: that is done equally to all, or none at all. That is the equivalent to my original proposition that there should be no restrictions.
Why should anyone sympathize with someone who came here on what was supposed to be a non-immigrant visa tied to a particular job and then changes their mind about immigrating / the job?
The whole immigration system sucks, and especially H1-B, but let's not pretend only some of the players are gaming it. Everyone is.
Dual intent is a weird and subtle aspect of immigration law. It does not mean that the H1-B visa itself is dual intent, available for people with immigrant intentions. The H1-B visa still requires intent to return to your home country.
8 USC 1184(h) allows the H1-B visa holder to be dual intent:
> The fact that an alien is the beneficiary of an application for a preference status filed under section 1154 of this title or has otherwise sought permanent residence in the United States shall not constitute evidence of an intention to abandon a foreign residence for purposes of obtaining a visa as a nonimmigrant described in subparagraph (H)(i)(b) or (c), (L), or (V) of section 1101(a)(15) of this title or otherwise obtaining or maintaining the status of a nonimmigrant described in such subparagraph, if the alien had obtained a change of status under section 1258 of this title to a classification as such a nonimmigrant before the alien’s most recent departure from the United States.
It says that the fact that you’ve filed for permanent residency will not be deemed to undermine the non-immigrant intent requires for the H1-B. But the H1-B remains a non-immigrant, temporary visa.
Contrast with say the Canadian skilled worker program, which results in permanent residency at the time of immigration.
I'm taking downvotes here and up there... but people are missing the point.
H1-B became a trap because of dual-intent.
Someone who always intended to leave the US, as H1-B requires, shouldn't be too bothered that they can't (easily) switch jobs, that a job loss could send them home sooner than anticipated, and they shouldn't have to accept substandard wages or housing or any other body shop abuses we hear about... because they can always just go home, like they'd always intended and should have planned for.
Dual-intent baited people to come here on H1-Bs on the assumption that they'll eventually get permanent residency, bring their family over, attain citizenship. Plenty of people risk their lives to get here with no hope of citizenship; putting up with body shop abuses on a path to citizenship is minor in comparison, a lot like staying at a job you've come to dislike to run out the vesting clock.
And H1-B is such effective bait because the rest of our immigration policy is screwed up and discriminatory.
Why would you need an immigrant visa to get married? As soon as you're married you're supposed to apply for a green card. Green cards through marriage are prioritized, not capped and all.
There is a visa for fiancees to join their future spouses in the US. I assume that while you're getting your interview after a year, your spouse received temporary documents allowing them to travel and work.
Now, if you're talking about meeting your future spouse in the US, then yes. They would have needed a visa to be in the country in the 1st place.
Fiancee visas aren't approved overnight. And if you are out of the country and apply for one you can't come here on a temporary visa (like tourist or H-1) as your application for fiancee visa is considered prima facie evidence that you do intend to stay, hence you don't qualify for a temporary visa or visa waver.
OK so I don't see the problem. I'm not trying to be insensitive or anything. I went through the same process. Is it a pain in the bum? Yes. Are the delays way too long? Yes. But at the end of the day, when you start the GC application process you usually get your temporary documents after a few months (it was 2 for me, another comment claims 6, I guess YEMV) and that's it. Then yeah, it's a pain to have to wait a year to have your marriage scrutinized by an immigration agent, but in the mean time, you can work, travel, etc.
My original comment was just wondering how a "immigrant marriage visa" would change anything.
because green cards take 1.5 years, EAD cards take more than 6 months (I have anecdotes of more than a year), and that's on top of the 7 months to get a K1 visa.
Hum, my experience varies then. The K1 visa is supposed to be used for entry, so you're not really waiting idle in the US at this point. I received my temporary worker card in less than 2 months. Yes, the GC takes a long time (you basically get the temporary one when it is time to apply for the permanent one!), but who cares? You have all the same benefits as soon as you get your temporary docs for work and travel.
nope, you can be expelled from the country at any time with a 30 days notice when you're on adjustment of status.
Your driver's license will expire with your EAD card, the renewal of your EAD card can't be done more than 90day before expiration, but it takes more than 6 months to get a new one.
You can work 180 days with an expired EAD but not drive nor leave the country, and E-verify will be weird so you might lose your job anyways.
So she had lived in the US for six years and still had to beg the government for permission to change jobs? I had no idea it was this bad.