
Not Everyone in Tech Cheers the H-1B Visa Program - Cbasedlifeform
https://www.nytimes.com/2017/02/05/business/h-1b-visa-tech-cheers-for-foreign-workers.html?_r=0
======
ericseppanen
It's unfortunate that most of the people writing about the problems with H-1B
visas can't distinguish between companies that hire the best they can get (and
paying competitive salaries), and outsourcing companies that file a ton of
applications (and pay their employees much less).

This approach seems deliberately lazy, as though it's some kind of head-
scratcher that the displaced IT support guy hates his outsourced replacement;
while the Googles and Microsofts of the world support a program that allows
them to hire top engineers from all over the globe.

I find it especially galling that this NYT writer can't make the distinction,
given their paper did a great article about H-1B abuse by outsourcing firms:
[http://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2015/11/06/us/outsourcing...](http://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2015/11/06/us/outsourcing-
companies-dominate-h1b-visas.html)

~~~
cwilkes
Did you read the article? That was brought up in there.

~~~
ericseppanen
Sorry, where? I'm not seeing it.

~~~
jasode
_> most of the people writing about the problems with H-1B visas can't
distinguish_

My response assumes you're saying the journalist of the NYT piece is among _"
most of the people"_ not able to make a distinction between the 2 categories
you laid out.

category 1: _> between companies that hire the best they can get (and paying
competitive salaries),_

NYT article: _" Proponents of the H-1B system argue that it is an important
vehicle to attract top talent to America. After coming to the United States,
these visa holders may apply their skills to start new companies or create
new, innovative products"_

category 2: _> and outsourcing companies that file a ton of applications (and
pay their employees much less)._

NYT article: _" The H-1B program’s critics say the system provides a way for
American companies to turn over technology departments to outsourcing
companies. These are gaming the system to snap up the visas so they can
replace American workers with less expensive, temporary staff members."_

It seems the NYT journalist has correctly distinguished both categories.
(There are more paragraphs in that article that add more details about both
categories but I only copypasted 1 example of each.)

~~~
pbh101
(I didn't read the article yet, but):

There is a difference between proponents and critics describing the same
activity in different terms and noting that different companies treat the
system differently and that it is roughly bimodal: "Google's" use and
"Infosys'" abuse.

I interpreted the two quotes you pulled as the former.

~~~
strgrd
> (I didn't read the article yet, but)

reddit.com is that way --->

------
intrasight
The visa system is prone to abuse as long as it is the sponsoring company that
controls the visa. The visa should be issued to the individual and be valid
for a fixed length of time.

~~~
sverige
Of course, doing this would almost entirely eliminate the economic incentive
for companies to bring in foreign workers since they would be free to
negotiate better deals once here, which would rapidly reduce the demand for
H-1B visas by US companies and the number of foreign workers who come to the
US under that program.

~~~
sologoub
That's completely not true - the programs goal is to bring in skills that are
not available in the market. The fact that it's being used to reduce the cost
of the skills is arguably an unintended consequence (though my personal
opinion is the lobby that helped make H1-B a reality fully intended this
consequence).

A much better use for these visas would be to bring in workers we need at
competitive US salaries. There are plenty of positions that need filling that
would still make sense to pay full market salary for. (Speaking from personal
experience trying to find certain skill sets in LA.)

~~~
sverige
Well, that's my point. In theory, this program is intended to provide US
employers with employees who have skill sets that they cannot find here.

In practice, it's ludicrous to think that the vast US university system cannot
produce employees with whatever skills are in demand, so workers must be
imported from countries that have much smaller education complexes.

The reality is that many US employers don't want to pay market rate for those
skills. I would argue that this is especially true in tech. The same or
similar forces are at play at the bottom end of the labor market, which is
what has driven much of the illegal immigration through the southern border.

~~~
herbst
Dont get me wrong. But to my understanding these visas would be used by a lot
of people from countries with way better education systems. Hence the whole
reason for this.

Edit:// as example. Right now barely any swiss tech pros consider the U.S. as
interesting destination. A lot of husstle for just minimal more pay.

~~~
hocuspocus
As a Swiss working abroad (in Berlin right now), it's not always about pay,
two years ago I interviewed with a dozen of companies in the US because there
are just so many more opportunities.

~~~
herbst
True that. But there are many options outside of the U.S. that are less
complicated to reach. Like berlin, schengen makes it easy

~~~
hocuspocus
Yes indeed. And high salaries don't make up for everything. And these days
companies like Google, Facebook, Amazon,... are increasing their engineering
headcount in Europe (they must realize how cheap European engineers are with
the strong USD :)

Sadly in my case I was applying for jobs at companies that are relatively big
but concentrate their developers in the silicon valley.

~~~
herbst
If i learned one thing in switzerlands IT is that it is easy to earn a lot but
also relatively easy to earn more than enough while still having a lot of free
time and beeing able to enjoy your job.

I just throw in the money argument because almost always i say anything
against SV someone comes with the money argument ;)

------
Alex3917
I have a certain level of sympathy for unemployed Americans who the government
could be retraining as technology workers. There are some H-1B workers who
legitimately have skills that are highly valuable and uncommon within the
U.S., but the majority seem to employed by large contracting firms who
specialize in bringing in folks to perform relatively simple labor.

I have much less sympathy for folks already in the tech industry who are
complaining about this. Tech is basically the most overpaid career there is.
And not because it's especially hard or valuable, but because as soon as some
CEO starts getting the idea that they could be the next Mark Zuckerberg then
all rational thought goes out the window.

Hiring developers is basically rich people's version of blowing all their
money on lottery tickets. The entire industry is completely unregulated
despite putting the nation's critical infrastructure and economy in grave
danger, which artificially drives up wages by externalizing the risk onto
everyone else. And H-1B workers are placing basically zero downward pressure
on wages as far as I can tell.

~~~
codedokode
The tech worker salaries are completely unreasonable compared to other jobs.
The characters from the article could just agree to work for $60 000/year
(which still is a lot) and wouldn't lose their jobs.

~~~
lostboys67
I don't understand why there are self hating developers on HN or those who
don't seem to grock the free market system - there is no god given "fair "
rate for the job.

~~~
geebee
Yeah, it is a little strange. People make statements about a "shortage" of
workers without mentioning pay and working conditions. Or, if they do, they'll
discuss a shortage at the "market rate", without considering that the "market
rate" itself is insufficient to attract talented people with freedom into the
field.

------
klunger
In Norway, if you are on a knowledge worker visa, your salary needs to be
competitive. This amount increases each year with inflation.

As an American working in Norway, I have to say that this is how it should be
done in the US . My Norwegian coworkers do not resent me because I was not
hired because I am any cheaper than they are. And, I get a salary that allows
me to meet the high cost of living here. If companies were allowed to pay
foreigners significantly below industry standard, it would be a disaster. I
don't understand why this is still standard practice in the US.

Oh wait, I do understand: it allows companies to pay less for labor and pad
their profit margins. But it is bogus, and this is one Trump initiative I can
get behind.

~~~
greggman
The hb-1 visa does require the same salary same as norway

[http://www.nolo.com/legal-encyclopedia/h-1b-employers-
what-w...](http://www.nolo.com/legal-encyclopedia/h-1b-employers-what-wage-
must-you-pay.html)

~~~
Clubber
I believe it is currently a minimum of $60K / year, which was established in
1989 and not updated since. Companies in the US (and the government too) tend
to skirt laws justifying the misdeeds as, "we interpret the law differently."

In other words, some shops will gladly pay a senior software engineer $60K a
year, claiming they are something else like tech support. There are plenty of
examples of other methods some companies use.

~~~
refurb
The minimum salary is based on the Labor Department's "prevailing wage" which
is informed by a survey of current salaries. It's based on a given role and
geographic location.

Yes, you may find some prevailing wages are lower than what Google pays, but
that shouldn't be surprising since high paying tech jobs don't represent the
average wage.

~~~
joshbert
The point being, it needs to be updated.

~~~
refurb
Do you have any suggestions on how?

If you have programmers being paid anywhere from $80K to $150K for a given
skill set, the average is going to be lower than what the top companies pay.

The only way around that is to create another subset of programmers that only
look at the highest wages.

~~~
Arizhel
It's simple: require that the employers pay the H1-B visaholder in the 95th
percentile or above of the salary range for that position.

And if an employer is found to have abused the system (hired someone for a
lower position and then made them do higher-level work, e.g., call them "tech
support" when they're really a senior engineer), then force the company to pay
the H1-B the equivalent of 100 years' salary and put any employees found to
have been complicit in this in prison.

------
addicted
I think it's funny that people complain that the H1B visa program are
"shipping jobs abroad" when by being a visa program, the whole point is to
allow people to work in the US. No one is going through all the trouble to
enter a 10% lottery to "ship jobs abroad" when actually shipping jobs abroad
requorws no visa, and requires no minimum 60k payment.

Now, this doesn't mean there aren't problems with the H1B program. By making
workers so dependent on their employers (for example, if an H1B visa holder
gets laid off or fired they have to leave the country immediately without
legally having the opportunity to find a new job) it most likely drives down
wages slightly, but the "sending jobs abroad" rhetoric is little more than
xenophobic sloganeering which only serves to distract people from the actual
problems related to the H1B (the power differential between the employers and
the employees, and the ridiculousness of a lottery system which benefits those
who can flood the system with applications as opposed to actual companies that
need good workers).

~~~
Clubber
By shipping jobs abroad, I believe most people think they are taking jobs held
by US nationals and giving then to foreign nationals, regardless of where they
fill a seat.

~~~
cr1895
>regardless of where they fill a seat

But this seat-filling is important. A person who is hired for a job shipped
abroad is not living in the US, paying taxes in the US, buying groceries,
spending money, etc etc. A non-American brought into the US is participating
and contributing to the economy just as any American worker is.

------
Dowwie
I have vivid memories of what 2003 was like for me, a computer science grad
who entered the workforce just as management's solution to control a new,
major cost center (IT) was taking hold. Many of the DevOps functions that you
celebrate today were considered commoditized and consequently eligible for
offshore tech consultancy. I watched middle-aged, highly skilled professionals
train their low-cost, unskilled replacements after being explicitly told by
HR/management that their severance packages required their complete
cooperation during their "employment transition".

This was at Merrill Lynch during its heyday.

~~~
nicholas73
That explains why Merrill Edge has the shittiest trading interface of all the
online brokers I've used.

------
planetjones
This is wage dumping. The article explains the problem perfectly i.e. a 130K
job is replaced by a 60K job. Call this globalisation and efficient markets if
you like. However, on a personal note, if Trump manages to put in place
policies to make it more of a level playing field and stops some of the greed
which CEOs apply when replacing jobs with outsourcing contracts then I think
he may have found a policy which will carry a lot of favour with middle class
workers.

~~~
WildUtah
Just given the timing of the business cycle, Trump is likely to face a
recession or at least a stagnation by the time he's working on reelection in
2020. There's very little he can do about it now: Most economists believe it
takes almost four years for fiscal policy to affect the business cycle and two
years for monetary policy. And Trump won't be appointing his own Federal
Reserve chairman to set monetary policy until 2018 at the earliest.

But Trump can take action that will open up jobs and raise wages for American
workers even in the face of a recession. He can deport illegal aliens and cut
off the H-1B and L cheap professional visa categories. That would create a lot
of working class and lower-tier professional jobs for Americans fast.

~~~
scholia
Yup. All those unemployed miners from Ohio are going to move to California and
become maids, pool cleaners, burger-flippers and agricultural workers.

~~~
WildUtah
OH and CA aren't swing states.

~~~
scholia
Why is that important? You're welcome to substitute any states you like....

The fact is that many migrants are willing to risk destitution or even death
to relocate, and they will work their socks off at menial jobs for a better
life (for their children in particular).

How many unemployed American workers are doing the same?

~~~
toomuchtodo
Why should you have to work a shit job because someone from another country
will?

Start prosecuting employers of illegal immigrants, and you'll see the wage
floor rise.

Employers are not entitled to cheap labor. Advocating for such an environment
is why the US has a pseudo-populist president now.

~~~
scholia
Sorry, I thought the claim was that removing immigrants would create more jobs
for Americans.

As far as I can see, it would just create jobs that Americans won't or can't
do.

And while you can raise the wage-floor, that increases costs, which may well
raise prices....

~~~
Inconel
>As far as I can see, it would just create jobs that Americans won't or can't
do.

I see this stated often, largely by people who have never worked these types
of jobs, and for the record I'm not saying that this is the case with you, but
it really doesn't match my own experiences.

I've worked as a janitor in a super market, a landscaper, a manual laborer in
construction, a laborer in the Central Valley on a farm, as well as a
dishwasher, all in CA, and while my coworkers were mostly Hispanic, and some
were undocumented, many were white, black or Asian and born in the US. These
were all minimum wage or below jobs so I'm not sure were this idea is coming
from. When people are poor and desperate, they will usually take any work they
can get regardless of immigration status or citizenship.

~~~
akiselev
Your experiences are directly contradicted by Alabama. In 2011, the state
passed HB56, a law that criminalized everything from hiring or renting to an
illegal immigrant to accepting them into a state school. Before it was
neutered by the courts, tens of thousands of illegal immigrants fled the state
and the agricultural industry nearly collapsed when farmers couldn't find
labor willing to work in crap conditions for low pay. There was a barrage of
news stories for almost two years about how farmers had to watch as their
crops died in the fields with no one to harvest them.

Meanwhile, unemployment fell from 9.2% to 8.7% due almost entirely to the
automotive industry (which doesn't really hire illegal immigrants) with no
change in construction, agriculture, etc. Afaik the agricultural industry in
Alabama still hasn't recovered from the shock, even though the majority of
those who left returned by 2015.

~~~
briandear
"For low pay.."

Exactly. If the cost to produce something exceeds its profit, then either the
prices must rise or the business closes.

Why do you think California is so fiercely protective of illegals? Because one
of their major industries is agriculture. They have a competitive advantage
against states like Alabama because of their unwillingness to enforce the law.
Essentially California is stealing from Alabama as they are taking advantage
of below-market labor to harm competitors. A lot of the $15 minimum wage
advocates are in California -- yet nary a peep about minimum wage violations
by the agricultural industry there. If there were actually an enforced $15
minimum wage, Alabama would be competitive agin because they'd be on equal
footing with labor costs (and more competitive because of lower regulatory
costs and taxes.) Illegals working California fields aren't making anywhere
near $15 per hour.

Hiring illegal aliens is quite simply a means to avoid minimum wage.

------
arikrak
If they reduce H-1B visas, can't large companies just hire more people
overseas? How would you make companies hire more Americans?

~~~
sverige
Evidently, having devs live in SV is important enough that companies pay
enough so that their employees can afford the hyperinflated cost of living in
the Bay Area. So I don't think it's the case that anyone would be making them
hire more Americans; rather, by limiting the ability for companies to hire
people from overseas who will work for less, the theory is that they will hire
the people who already live in the US, presumably people who already have
citizenship.

The interesting thing will be whether SV will be willing to absorb the
(presumably) higher labor rates for these citizens. Their other options will
be to outsource the jobs or to develop more infrastructure in less costly
areas of the US.

This is the most plausible explanation of the theory, unless of course you
believe the version where the motivation for H-1B hires isn't purely economic,
but rather that there just aren't enough Americans available who can do the
work.

~~~
scholia
A lot of US companies were founded or co-founded by immigrants including
Google (Brin), Yahoo (Yang), eBay (Omidyar), PayPal (Levchin, Thiel, Nosek),
WhatsApp (Koum), Tesla (Musk), Radioshack (Deutschmann), Comcast (Aaron),
Nordstrom (Nordstrom), Colgate (Colgate), DuPont (DuPont), Kraft (Kraft),
Pfizer (Pfizer), Procter & Gamble (Procter & Gamble) and AT&T (Bell).

Apple was co-founded by the son of a Syrian from Homs, and Intel wouldn't be
the company it is today without Hungarian-born refugee Andy Grove.

Companies founded or co-founded by the children of immigrants include Walt
Disney (from Canada), Oracle (Russia and Iran), IBM (Germany), Boeing
(Germany), 3M (Canada) and Home Depot (Russia).

More than 40% of the Fortune 500 in 2010 were founded by immigrants or the
children of immigrants.

If the US blocks immigration, it will be much worse off. If the best people go
to other countries, those countries will probably end up much better off.

~~~
sverige
Right, but I don't believe any of those people came here on an H-1B visa. And
it seems like many of the best and brightest are still trying to get into the
US, though right now perhaps fewer than previously.

I'm not arguing against immigration. Heck, I don't even think that the current
administration is against immigration. (Yes, I know this is not the popular
view of the current administration here on HN.)

My point was that the H-1B program is basically built on the hypocrisy that
these are jobs that cannot be filled without bringing in immigrants because no
one here has the skills.

It seems pretty obvious that the reality is that the H-1B program is built to
enable employers to bring in high-skilled workers at a steeply discounted
rate, and to keep them steeply discounted by preventing the immigrants from
looking for better jobs once they get here. If this were untrue, I wouldn't
read so many comments and even articles about how people here on H-1B visas
ought to have the right to find another job.

In other words, make the program declare its real intentions. But that would
never fly, because politically it would be unpalatable to people in any part
of the political spectrum, with the possible exception of the <1% of those who
profit from H-1B employees.

~~~
scholia
Agreed!

In passing, tech companies only use a small proportion of H-1B visas -- less
than 100,000 out of 647,852 from Oct 1 2015 to Sept 30 2016 -- and most of
those are Indian outsourcing firms: Wipro, Infosys and Tata Consultancy
Services, IBM India (75,606).

[https://www.axios.com/tech-firms-arent-biggest-filers-of-
vis...](https://www.axios.com/tech-firms-arent-biggest-filers-of-visa-
applications-2226392488.html)

------
Fazilka
The Trump administration should consider voiding all existing H1-B visas,
without exception, and enforcing that all holders return to their home
countries, before being eligible to re-obtain a H1-B under new, fairer rules.
I know more than a handful of very qualified 40+ folk who were laid off over
the last couple of years, and told quite frankly, and with no words being
minced, that they were too expensive for the company, so their jobs were being
"out-sourced" to cheaper/younger workers.

Most H1-B holders are from pretty desperate circumstances and put up with just
about anything, at least until they obtain their GCs.

~~~
arjie
The market's pretty hot for tech jobs. I'm surprised they can't get hired.

~~~
dukeluke
That's the thing. Most new tech jobs are only being created in the tech hubs
of the country. The rest of the country is seeing a decline in good IT jobs.

------
nul_byte
I looked into H-1B after being offered a senior technical role in the CTO
office of a big networking vendor (based in the valley).

I turned down the role. I would have to enter a lottery to get a visa and then
have my visa tied to my role at that company. For me as someone with two young
children and an already good life in the UK, it was far to uncertain for me.

------
zobzu
im a hb1 worker paid 150000/y. this is slightly less than some colleagues,
slightly more than others (though slightly less qualified arguably)

it ist is hard to find qualified employees for that job. the last person we
found works remote from canada, because that's all we could find that had the
right minimum skillset and was available at all.

for the past 2y we no longer hire via h1b. why? because we cant. the chance
than an applicant gets a visa is now ridiculously low. this is because of the
flooding and first come first serve system this article is mentioning: we can
submit for 2 or 3 100-150k jobs a year. others submit thousands at 60k no
chance. (this is because we do not fire lower skill jobs to replace em by h1b)

~~~
humanrebar
> it ist is hard to find qualified employees for that job

...at that salary.

$150k sounds like a lot, but adjusted for cost of living, it's fairly middle-
of-the-road salary for senior engineers in, say, Texas. In fact, it would be
an effective downgrade in quality of life for many. Your employer could easily
poach _those_ engineers by calling them up and offering $225k or more,
offering housing vouchers, etc.

I'll note that I'm assuming SF or NYC as your location. If you're in Texas,
Atlanta, etc., I withdraw all of the above.

~~~
zeroxfe
> Your employer could easily poach those engineers by calling them up and
> offering $225k or more, offering housing vouchers, etc.

I'd dispute the "easily" here. IME, it's extremely hard to get senior
engineers to relocate -- many of them have families, deep ties to their
locations, and are way to accustomed to their way and quality of life to
consider moving.

~~~
humanrebar
I didn't say you could get any particular engineer to relocate with only a
good comp package. The point is that you could get enough to fill empty
positions purely by investing more in employees.

Salaries are a simple conversation point, but we could also talk about remote
work, retraining, opening sites in more affordable areas, etc. I also listed
many specific benefits (housing, child care) that would make a relocation zero
hassle for a senior engineer.

------
subhrm
I was a part of the Infosys offshore team (India) that took the transition
from Eversource energy's IT department (mentioned in the article).

I clearly remember now, how disappointed, sad and gloomy were the members of
the departing team.

~~~
trome
If they are older, and aren't white & male, they likely have a long,
potentially multi-year search ahead of them to find employment. Especially if
they specialized in the operations of Eversource's software, and not in
software development, that is going to put them in a really crappy position
when applying at other local employers.

~~~
subhrm
Yes, you are right.

------
KAdot
Keep in mind that H-1B visa is almost the only legal way for skilled workers
to immigrate to the United States. Unlike other visa types, H-1B requires the
applicant to have at least bachelor’s degree. At the same time USCIS issues
about 650,000 family-based immigration visas and 120,000 visas for refugees
every year.

~~~
0xcafecafe
And the number for employment based immigration visas is 140,000.

~~~
KAdot
Yes, but usually you have to get H-1B or L-1 visa first.

------
DVassallo
> "We are at a disadvantage as Americans," Ms. Hatten-Milholin said.

This is so ridiculous. A disadvantage against who? By any rational measure,
it's the H1-B holders that are at a huge disadvantage against Americans.

~~~
geebee
I'd take a softer stance against the statement, though I do disagree with it.

As a Californian, I'd have trouble signing away my right to leave the software
field for the next 7 years, or granting to my employer the right to have me
deported if I quit my job.

Employers may prefer employees who they know have limited legal rights to
participate as free members of the work force. In fact, the US has a long (and
at times, horrendously ugly) history of programs to import workers who aren't
free to choose the circumstances of their own lives. Because US citizens can't
give up certain rights, they may be at a disadvantage where it comes to
getting jobs where employer control over a worker's residency rights have
become the norm.

After all, why would you hire a free person who can threaten to leave during
salary negotiations, when you can instead hire someone who depends on you for
the right to live and work in the US?

Of course, I'd never, ever make that trade. I'd rather switch fields, or avoid
that field altogether. This may account for some of the aversion to software
development careers we observe among people who do are free as individuals to
live and work in the US without corporate "sponsorship"

------
Friedduck
@ericseppanen,

I agree, that there seem to be two distinct practices. I experienced the
latter, where a company performed wholesale off-shoring of several thousand
jobs.

I don't understand how the stewards of that program approve such visas when
they're clearly being used to replace existing workers (i.e., the argument
that you can't find qualified locals is demonstrably false.)

My other hard-won conclusion: the companies that do this don't recognize the
long-term impacts. They're less capable, less competitive, and their
outsourcing partners can become their overlords. The outsourcers gain
considerable negotiating leverage, and any attempt to unseat them becomes
economically impossible.

What can we do about it? Look at the policies that make American employment
unappetizing. The cost of benefits (principally health care.) Regulations that
make it difficult to fire poor performers.

Finally, there's a feedback mechanism here. I saw many leave technology
because they perceived that the opportunities were all moving off-shore.

------
jeffdavis
I am confused by the article. The examples given are examples of outsourcing,
which doesn't require visas at all, right?

------
chetanahuja
Irony of only focusing on tech jobs when talking about H1-B is two-fold:

1) Tech jobs (especially in software fields) are some of the easiest to do
remotely. Creating higher barriers to H1-B visas will only create higher
incentives to let those same workers work from their home countries instead of
bringing them all the way to the US. The unintended side-effect of course is
that this is actually cheaper for the employers, siphons spending outside the
US economy and to the extent this is believed to be zero-sum market (it's
not), you have to believe that this will depress the job market here.

2) Software is not the only field H1-B jobs are used in. There are whole
categories of jobs where $130K salary is absurdly high even for top candidates
(without any visa restrictions). Case in point, academic researchers and
scientists.

------
perseusprime11
I would love to see a New York Times or Washington Post article on H1-B that
is based on interviews from those who are abused either by these consulting
companies that pay low wages or the impact it has on driving down overall
wages of American worker while the tech companies reap reward profits.

------
MR4D
Crazy idea...

How about a one line regulation: You pay whatever you want to your H1B
employee. For every dollar under some limit (say, $130K) you pay that dollar
to Uncle Sam.

At least it would keep them honest, since any cheating would be a tax
violation.

------
known
Try hiring Politicians on H1B

------
auvi
can anybody tell me the legal implications to start a US based company as a
foreigner? Is it possible to start one in F-1 OPT and later file for H1-B?

------
DickingAround
Am I the only one here who thinks that a person has a basic right to work with
whoever and wherever they want regardless of their birthplace? Is
discriminating against someone based on where they were born somehow less of a
fallacy than discriminating based on skin color, etc. ?

~~~
RestlessMind
You can either have open borders or a welfare state, but not both. Otherwise,
what is to stop millions of poor masses from migrating to the country offering
the best welfare and driving down the wages for locals (by, say, willing to
work for a lower standard of living)?

A popular rebuttal is that immigrants will contribute to the growing economy
and will pay taxes. But we are talking about completely open borders here
(anything else is just some fiddling around current system), where anyone
willing to do even minimum wage job can migrate. How can such people
contribute enough in taxes, when the welfare cost needed to support them
(schools, roads, sewers, hospitals...) and their families far exceeds the
taxes paid by them? And while I admit that I don't have any stats to support
my argument, I am just going by my gut feeling that generous welfare is
usually paid for by the richest and not by the poorest.

Another offered solution is to cap welfare for new migrants until they pay
enough taxes. But that just creates a two-tier society and is a separate can
of worms in itself.

~~~
ryukafalz
>You can either have open borders or a welfare state, but not both. Otherwise,
what is to stop millions of poor masses from migrating to the country offering
the best welfare and driving down the wages for locals (by, say, willing to
work for a lower standard of living)?

What stops this from happening in the Schengen Area, where some countries
participating have welfare states and some (I believe) do not? Genuine
question - I've heard other people make the same argument before and it seems
like we have a pretty good real-world example to either verify or refute it.

~~~
raquo
> What stops this from happening in the Schengen Area

EU countries are much more uniform than the rest of the world in their level
of welfare support and social development (e.g. UK and even Portugal are much
more alike than say Bangladesh and the US).

Besides, there _has_ been a lot of movement from poorer countries to richer
countries within the EU, and many people in the richer countries are angry
about this. See Brexit etc.

~~~
toyg
_> there has been a lot of movement from poorer countries_

There has also been a lot of movement _back_ towards such countries as soon as
their wealth levels improved (or UK ones got worse), which happened in no
small part thanks to remittance payments. It's the sort of movement you also
observe in-country when industries in certain regions do better than others.
How many people from Scotland moved to Southern England in the last 100 years?

But that is _the whole point_ of the European Union, which is also expressed
in things like the infrastructure and development funds: we promote solidarity
and cooperation between neighboring countries, rather than competition that
will ultimately result in war.

It's a shame how you only need a couple of generations to forget everything
about their history.

------
andrewclunn
The outsourcing is another issue, as any tech job that can be telecomuted will
be moved overseas (with the exception of security risk aversion factors, like
with HIPA compliant organizations and such). What this allows is for foreign
workers to come to the U.S. too work for less at jobs that require that a
person be on-site. Then they have no power to negotiate, as they're here at
their employer's whim. If there are going to be worker's protection laws, that
I as a citizen am guaranteed, and which raise my cost, then allowing for a
loop hole like this is pricing me out of decent work. Come on President Trump,
raise that price cap and end this loophole!

