
Workers in Silicon Valley Weigh in on Obama’s Immigration Order - gordon_freeman
http://www.nytimes.com/2014/11/24/technology/workers-in-silicon-valley-weigh-in-on-obamas-immigration-order.html?ref=technology
======
supercanuck
Look its no accident that the Top 3 H1-B Employers is on the low end of the
salary scale.

[http://www.myvisajobs.com/Reports/2014-H1B-Visa-
Sponsor.aspx](http://www.myvisajobs.com/Reports/2014-H1B-Visa-Sponsor.aspx)

If these jobs are paying the $60-70K Range, to me there is no reason why a
College Graduate from an American Computer Science or Information Systems
cannot perform these jobs.

IMO, end clients such as Fortune 500 are simply using the Cognizant's, Infosys
etc. of the world, as a "Flexible Workforce" or "Onshoring Model" in lieu of
actually hiring and training employees.

In my view, they should allow these otherwise H1-B's access to a visa that
isn't tied to an employer, so they can seek competitive wages and allow them
to compete openly without the prospect them being deported be a drag on their
salary, or cut down the H1-B's entirely. Either way, I believe is difficult
for Americans to compete.

We can talk special privileges for "startups" but as long as it takes $500 on
incorporate.com to create a company, the system will be abused.

~~~
ep103
And yet the word h1-B doesn't even appear in the article, sigh.

~~~
gregorias
Let me guess. You didn't even read the article and simply did ctrl+f h1-B,
which didn't give you any results, because it's a typo.

~~~
ep103
I did read it, and I thought it doesn't even deserve to be called journalism.
They only reference people currently going through the immigration process,
and employers. What do you think their perspective is going to be? They even
included a quote from an employer claiming that he hires 10 Americans for
every immigrant, without any quantification, clarification or investigation,
let alone analysis on whether or not that is common for technology firms (it
isn't). For all we know, all 10 hired people don't make a combined salary of
the single imported worker. They then left an unsourced quote as the very last
line of the article claiming that the new measure would not in any way be
related to wage suppression.

When I worked for actual worker's rights, in another lifetime, whenever a PR
firm hired out journalists to write a hit piece on our organization they would
write articles of this quality. Selectively choosing interviewees to meet a
predefined viewpoint, skipping over flashpoint words, presenting only one
viewpoint without analysis, and then as a buried lead, dismiss potential
opposition worries as far below the fold as possible.

~~~
seanflyon
> They then left an unsourced quote as the very last line of the article

The article stated the source of that quote:

"Carl Guardino, chief executive of the Silicon Valley Leadership Group, which
represents most of the region’s large tech companies"

------
disposition2
> "Mr. Srini said the American visa restrictions had also crimped his ability
> to hire talented engineers. Because the primary visas used to hire software
> workers, known as H-1B visas, run out in a few days when the lottery is
> opened every April, he really has one chance a year to hire foreigners. And
> if they don’t win the lottery, they have to wait another year, often forcing
> Zenefits to find someone else."

I don't disagree with the article in regards to easing the ability for
entrepreneurs to come to the States and open a business but it has been proven
time and again that most of the "we lack talented engineers, we need more
H1-B's" is in fact "we don't want to pay the going rate in the States, we need
more H1-B's"

~~~
djb_hackernews
This part of the article really stuck out to me too. Are we supposed to feel
bad for Zenefits here? If Zenefits is able to find someone else, then they
didn't need the H1B to begin with...

Not that it matters in the grand scheme, but I'm willing to write off Zenefits
as a potential employer if this is the attitude of the founders.

~~~
saalweachter
I think there is something weird going on. At least for tech, I think there's
a mentality that our hiring pool isn't just "people who show up at our office
with a resume" or even "people in the same country" but "the entire goddamn
world".

I don't know if this is good or bad, but I think it's definitely different
from the way things used to be, and probably different from the way things
still are in a lot of industries. So it seems reasonable to say that the
current US immigration policies were not written with the whole-world hiring
pool mentality in mind.

------
bsder
Sigh. Here we go again.

Look, the problem is easy to solve. Tell INS that a tech H1-B converts to a
green card in a year and make it stick. No waiting 6+ _years_.

The H1-B quota empties out. Domestic tech folks aren't being undercut by Asian
serfs. Companies get the tech workers they need.

Of course, the tech companies don't want this. There is no tech worker
shortage; there is a _cheap_ tech worker shortage. Granting green cards would
make tech workers more expensive.

~~~
jessaustin
_The H1-B quota empties out._

Is there a good reason to believe this would happen? It seems possible that
the new green card holders would just find themselves in the same situation as
native workers. How many hundreds of thousands of IT degrees are awarded every
year in India?

~~~
bsder
Because H1-B's are expensive. If you can't hold onto the worker more than 1
year, you never make the money back.

------
etaty
Why not just apply basic of economy to visa ?

I mean every day you match X visas to the highest salaries!

So salaries doesn't go down, and people can apply all year.

And you check the salary is really paid.

------
eyeareque
H1B visas are an excuse to pay less for high tech workers IMO. That is what
I've always seen as American workers aren't chosen for those jobs because they
can make more money else where. Why isn't this more well known?

~~~
Dirlewanger
Simple answer: because it's not politically correct to ask about it. Merely
questioning anything anything benefiting immigrants and you're instantly
labeled an ignorant xenophobic backwoods dweller. Who cares about finding jobs
for Americans? Companies wants the cheapest and most expendable resources they
can find. Zuckerberg doesn't give a shit about immigration reform, it just so
happens that pushing for it aligns with reducing Facebook's human capital
costs.

Money rules all.

~~~
geebee
The US currently takes about 1.2 million immigrants into the country every
year, and of course Facebook is more than welcome to hire these new citizens,
just as it would hire any UC citizen regardless or immigration status or
national origin.

I'm not really surprised Facebook wants to change the composition of
immigrants coming to the US. Except for some very narrow programs, immigrants
to the US aren't really chosen based on skills and education. So Facebook
would much rather support a program where they get to decide who does and does
not get to live and work in the US, screening for the kind of worker they'd
like to employ. There is also the appeal of an indentured worker, as many
people have pointed out. You don't have to be especially cynical to think this
is a huge selling point to the corporations that rely heavily on the H1B visa.
What would Facebook rather have - a free citizen immigrant who wasn't selected
for any particular interest or ability in programming, or an immigrant who is
granted the right to live and work in the US provided he or she lives where
Facebook says he or she should live?

For me, my misgivings come from two main sources. First, I am solidly opposed
to corporate control over the immigration system. I don't like the idea of
Facebook's HR department deciding who will and who won't become a US citizen,
green card holder, or resident. Second, while I certainly think programmers
are valuable workers (some of them, anyway), I don't think that there's
sufficient evidence of a shortage relative to other knowledge based fields.
Out here in SF, software developers earn (at the median) a bit more than
dental hygienists, a bit less than registered nurses. I'm not complaining
about that, it's fine by me that nurses are paid better than programmers. I
just think it suggests that there's really no critical shortage or programmers
that the government needs to get involved in resolving by tinkering with the
kind of immigrants who get to come to the US.

I would be ok with a skilled immigration points system like Australia has, and
sure, programming counts as a skill, though I wouldn't put any unusual
emphasis on programming vs plumbing, nursing, dental hygiene, or any number of
other jobs requiring specialized skills and training.

------
general_failure
Can someone help me understand what the new reforms are?

I have seen a lot of countries offer "entrepreneur" visas. And all of them are
highly unrealistic and out of touch with reality. Standard requirements are
masters, sometimes phd, have 500K euro funding and the like, able to employ 5
people within a year (!) and so on.

Policy makes clearly don't understand what makes startups work. I think people
should be allowed into a country as long as can show proof of funds, a
business plan (more like a statement of intent) and the progress can be
revisited every year for visa renewal. Anything else is absurd.

~~~
eli_gottlieb
I don't see why "entrepreneurs" of any kind should receive special visa
prioritization over all other categories of entrant.

~~~
kasey_junk
The standard argument against immigration is that it "takes jobs away" from
local applicants. A successful business will typically generate new jobs.
Thus, allowing in people who create jobs over those that take them is seen as
a net positive.

~~~
yummyfajitas
If I were to start Chris's Italian American bakery I'm likely taking some
business away from Patel's Pure Ghee Sweets and possibly reducing the number
of jobs he creates. So while I've generated 5 _gross_ jobs, it's unclear that
I generated any _net_ jobs.

(For the record I think "new jobs" is a moronic reason to do anything. A job
is a cost, delicious rainbow cookies are the benefit.)

~~~
anigbrowl
This is true to the extent that different goods are economic substitutes for
each other. But even if they are perfect substitutes and no net jobs are
created, increased competition would reduce prices for consumers, resulting in
a net aggregate economic benefit.

I also think 'jobs' is a moronic reason to do things but immigration policy,
more than most, is the focus of atavistic political passions rather than
rational economic analysis.

------
supercanuck
>Right now, the law is so Kafkaesque that Mr. Srini, who is from India, had to
get his American co-founder, Parker Conrad, to officially hire him as
Zenefits’ database administrator simply to transfer his visa from his previous
employer so they could create the company

If it is so easy, imagine all the intelliteks, computeks, etc abusing this to
suppress wages.

------
guard-of-terra
I think we really need another SV but in a jurisdiction that makes sense. At
least I do, neither a resident of USA nor wanting to be there.

Unfortunately, while finance centers are aplenty, tech centers are much more
sparse.

~~~
mahyarm
These centers are developed by capital willing to invest in risky technology
start ups. That is the first-step oxygen that is required to have a SV-style
tech hub. You can import the talent in afterwards.

I left Canada because it's mostly resource wealth that makes the money there.
There isn't nearly as much capital available for software in Canada as SF. SF
has more $30mm+ net worth families/individuals than all of Canada combined.
And a 1/3rd of those Canadian families made money from resources.

------
ep103
This is an important topic, and the NYTimes should be ashamed of this
"journalism". The article is called Workers in Silicon Valley, but it only
mentions quotes from Employers and people currently going through the
immigration process. I wonder what their perspective is going to be?

