
The H-1B visa has got to go - raju
http://weblog.infoworld.com/tech-bottom-line/archives/2009/02/h1b_has_got_to.html?source=NLC-DAILY&cgd=2009-02-12
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DavidPP
I'm not saying he is wrong, and since I'm not from (or in) the USA, I can't
really argue. But from my point of view, the author present alot of facts like
: "In the last 10 years or so, the number of people forced to work as
contractors has increased exponentially." without offering any "hard" data or
links to his sources.

Is he using real data as a basis for his arguments?

------
lionhearted
I feel pretty strongly about this one, and pretty confident in my assessment
that more immigration of talented people is good for America. So instead of
just commenting here, I took the time to write the author, hoping that I could
start a dialogue and maybe understand where he's coming from and show him the
other side of the story. Here's what I wrote:

\--

Hi Bill,

I read your article about H1-B visas on Info World. I came from Hacker News, a
great community where we share and talk about the newest articles in
technology. I wanted to share a perspective I've got with you on visas,
because maybe I have a bit of a unique one. My first studies before changing
majors was in economics, and later I've done work in many countries around the
world. In the last few years, I've worked or spent significant time in the
United States, Canada, England, Ireland, Spain, Holland, Sweden, Singapore,
Malaysia, China, Japan, and Dubai among other places. I'm an American myself,
and I've got many American and international friends in lots of industries.

With a bit of background in economics and international business, I've come to
think that having as many smart, hard-working people in the United States as
possible is good for the country. I'll give you an example: A friend of mine
in New York just got her green card. She's got two degrees, speaks fluent
Japanese and near-native English, and works in medical devices. She'd been on
an H-1B visa before getting her green card.

The USA is clearly better for her being here: She's done great work in the
medical community in New York, and - this is another great part - she's
actually created wealth and jobs in New York City. She saves a bit of her
paycheck - the rest she spends on the things people spend on: Rent and
groceries, movies and clothing, the salon and handbags, occasionally a class,
public transit and taxis, and everything a standard American gal would spend
on. Her work in medical devices has saved lives, people who can go on and be
productive, and those people's insurance companies have paid her company for
the technology. This means the company can hire more people into R&D,
engineering, and support. The people who owe their lives to her can continue
working and making money, and spending that money - thus creating new jobs.

I think the biggest potential issue with the H1-B program is that employees
are bound to a particular company once hired, but it looks like at least the
major companies pay their foreign employees on par with American workers. That
means they're not hiring to keep wages down, but instead to get the best
people. Great people in technology are able to find jobs quickly - there's a
demand for them. But there's also genius-level people with amazing work ethics
outside of the States that would love to come here and thrive. We want those
people in America.

A final thought: Google co-founder Sergey Brin's parents immigrated to the
United States when he was six years old from Russia. Currently, his father is
a math professor at the University of Maryland, and his mother is a research
scientist at NASA. Those are two jobs - math professor and research scientist
- that could've been held by American citizens that instead went to newer
immigrants. But how much better is the world because Brin's family worked hard
to come here, worked hard in their jobs, raised Sergey well, and he created
Google? You might have short term gains in helping people find jobs by locking
out talented, hard working immigrats, but what do you give up for the future?
I say - Open the doors to the world's best and brightest, and we'l come out
with the most propsersity, good jobs, and amazing lives that we can.

Thank you for your time, and best wishes,

Sebastian Marshall

~~~
geebee
It's also very important to note that the terms of the H1B would disallow an
"immigrant" from quitting his job and starting a company, because his legal
presence in the US is contingent on remaining in the good graces of his
employer. The H1B says "we'll allow you to come here to work for Google, but
we won't allow you to come here to start a company that competes with Google."
That said, it sounds like you don't like this aspect of the H1B visa either -
you would probably support a system that preserves more freedom for the guest
worker.

Lastly, I think you are using "smart, hard-working people" ambiguously. We
don't allow hundreds of thousands of foreign lawyers into the US every year.
While health care does award some H1B's, Medicine and Dentistry also act as
gatekeepers that ensure Americans who pursue these fields are not replaced en
masse with foreign nationals. Of course, real estate agents, mortgage brokers,
flight attendants, plumbers, meter maids, and almost every other sector of the
economy isn't targeted with a work visa.

Now, there's so much work to do in high tech that we still may get some
Americans in the field. But we still create a relative disincentive to
Americans when we allow targeted visas in science and engineering. After all,
an American who pursues a law degree doesn't have to compete with foreign
lawyers for jobs and clients. But an American who pursues a graduate degree in
engineering most definitely does. Do we really want to discourage our citizens
from engineering degrees and direct them toward law and other non-technical
fields?

The answer may actually be "yes." We can get engineers more cheaply from
overseas, so we have decided, as a nation, to staff these positions with non
us-citizens, and encourage our own citizens to pursue other degree paths and
professions. But I think this would be a terrible idea, since a robust, home
grown engineering and science profession is crucial to the economic health and
security of the United States.

~~~
geebee
Unfortunately, looks like my comment lost the first half somehow... anywhere,
here's what I meant to put first...

First, thanks for addressing this in a reasoned way. The issue gets emotional
sometimes.

That said, I disagree with your arguments.

A recent study of the H1B visa showed that the majority of these visas go to
Indian outsourcing firms, not American companies looking for top talent. I
have no doubt that many talented people come to the US on this visa, and that
these people are well paid, but that appears to be less common. Most of the
H1Bs are awared to rank and file workers, so I think much more displacement
than innovation is going on here. I also think that we could easily create a
visa (with full mobility rather than indentured servitude) that we could award
in smaller numbers to higly talented foreign nationals.

I strongly object to your use of Sergey Brin as an example of why the H1B is
important. Keep in mind that the writer of this article had no problem with
engineers and scientists immigrating to America, he was just opposed to a
specialized visa created specifically to increase the number of engineers. An
engineer who immigrates independently of the visa program (as is the case with
Sergey Brin, who grew up in the US and chose to study CS once he was here)
would argue for the latter - that we _don't_ need a specialized visa to get
these kinds of people here!

(... then continue with the rest of the post, thanks)

~~~
lionhearted
Thanks for the reply - After you that the majority of H1-B's are going to
Indian outsourcing firms, I took a look at the demographics and stastics to
see if that's true. Here's what I found:

India accounts for the most H1-B visas at 102,382 since 2005. The next highest
is the United Kingdom at 30,755. That's interesting - India does account for
25% of H1-B's, however the rest of the top 10 is: UK, Canada, Mexico, France,
Germany, Japan, China, Venezuela, South Korea. Six of the top 10 are wealthy
countries with high standards of living - the people from those countries are
quite likely skilled professionals.

The government should work to clear up and end abuses of the H1-B program to
bring unskilled laborers over here, but that's not what the majority of the
program is doing. Giving visas not bound to employer would straighten most of
that out right away - it would take away the incentive for employers to get
crummy people, because they couldn't pay undermarket wages.

As for India - I think the reason India is so highly represented is the same
reason Ireland was 150 years ago: It's a poor country with people who want to
work hard and make it in America. I think some people (not you) cite the India
thing and plays as a sort of latent racist card. "Those damn Indians, taking
our jobs!" Why shouldn't Indians come over here? There's some damn brilliant
Indians with nothing going on for them in India. The best and brightest want
to come here, just liked we've seen whenever there's been a famine or poverty
in a country. America's been built by people who came here for a better life.

So okay, only 25% of H1-B's are to Indians, and not all of those (obviously)
are outsourcing firms or an abuse of the program. As for the Sergey Brin
comment - the author was writing how we should restrict immigration because it
costs Americans jobs. My point is if immigration was stricter in the 70's and
the Brin family hadn't been allowed to come to the USA, then we'd all be worse
off. I say get as many bright and hardworking people here as possible, however
we can, and loosen up immigration for anyone who'll be a good citizen in a
field there's demand for. I agree with you that we should cut down on
unskilled laborers abusing the program, and get better filtering criteria. But
I've worked with some amazing Indian coders, and those are people I'd love to
have over here to drink tea with, sit on the beach with, talk code and
business and Chess, and see them raise their kids to be Americans if they get
citizenship, or be grateful for the contributions they made to our economy and
way of life if they go home.

~~~
geebee
You're correct that India accounts for most of the H1B visas, but my comment
was actually referring to the companies that bring in H1B workers, not the
nationality of the H1B workers themselves. Here's a link to an article on
msnbc:

<http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/17048048/>

"data for the fiscal year 2006, which ended last September, show that 7 of the
top 10 applicants for H-1B visas are Indian companies. Giants Infosys
Technologies and Wipro took the top two spots, with 22,600 and 19,400
applications, respectively. The company with the third most applications is
Cognizant Technology Solutions, which is based in Teaneck, N.J., but has most
of its operations in India. All three companies provide services to U.S.
companies from India, including technology support and back-office
processing."

This article raises the point that H1B visas may actually facilitate and
accelerate the trend toward moving jobs offshore. Some people think this is a
worthy goal - source the labor where it can be provided most economically. But
then we should be honest about it, and agree that our national policy will be
to assist foreign corporations in moving development jobs offshore. Then our
own young people can take that into consideration, along with our government's
decision to protect sectors like law from foreign competition, when choosing a
graduate degree and career.

I also disagree with you that the writer of the article is opposed to
immigration, and he definitely makes a strong case _against_ the claim of
"playing a race card". Here's the quote from his article:

"What's more, the H-1B issue is separate from the debate concerning an
overhaul of sadly confused and outdated immigration framework as a whole.
Friedman's hardworking Indian immigrants would still have an opportunity to
come to the United States and make their contributions as citizens-to-be if
H-1B were suspended, using the regular immigration framework."

So this writer is clearly not opposed to Indians (among others) immigrating to
the US.

The question is: should there be a special visa program designed specifically
to bring more engineers to the United States than we'd get through the normal
process of immigration?

It's a reasonable question, but it really is separate from the more general
question of whether people should be allowed to pursue a better life through
immigration to the US, or even whether we should try to bring more "educated
people" here in a general sense.

The H1B is used specifically to increase the number of engineers, and it seems
pretty obvious to me that if you do that to engineering but not to other
fields, you'll deter young Americans from entering engineering _relative to
other fields that are not targeted by work visas_.

~~~
geebee
I need to correct a statement I made here. I wrote that India accounts for
most of the H1B visas. What I meant to write is that the nation that receives
the most H1B visas is India. However this is a plurality of the H1B total, not
a majority as I implied earlier.

------
lionhearted
"Tell the president, your senators, and your representatives that reform --
meaning a reduction or suspension now, and a more rational approach to
avoiding their use to lower wages in the future -- of H-1B can no longer wait.
Our jobs depend on it."

Is anyone going to buy into this garbage?

 _There is an infinite amount of work that can be done. The world is in no
danger of running out of work, jobs, or good jobs._ The United States is much
stronger because many of the most talented people want to come work here. And
here's the big thing the author misses with his rah-rah-keep-our-jobs
sentiment: _Additional workers in an economy create NEW jobs._

Simple example: Town of 100. 10 new people move into the town. Population now
110. They create additional demand for food, housing, entertainment, and other
services. So the restaurants hire 10% more cooks and waitresses, the builder
hires 10% more construction workers, and the bars hire 10% more bartenders.
There's more openings for plumbers, maintenance men, and new businesses. Since
there's more demand for people, businesses pay a bit more for them - now these
people have money. Some of their money they spend on computing/technology -
which creates more money for R&D, engineering, design, coding, etc.

Trying to limit highly skilled people from coming into your country is a
really, really dumb idea. If some percent of the H-1 program is being used to
get unskilled workers over to the USA, refine that. But I'll tell you - a good
friend of mine just got her green card after working in medical devices on an
H1-1B for years here in the USA. She speaks fluent Japanese and near-native
English and has made a positive difference in New York City's medical
community. Then she spends money eating out, on fashion and handbags and
salons, on books and movies and DVDs and Broadway, and all sorts of other
great things. She makes her $60,000 per year or whatever, and spends $55,000
back into the American economy, creating jobs for people across all social
classes. Those people then have more money to spend in all sorts of sectors -
including technology.

The more talented people in America, the better.

~~~
joe_the_user
I am for more immigration. My father was immigrant to the US. The H1b program
is slanted against both immigrants and the native programmers. Against the
first by making them depend on a particular company and against the second by
making them compete against the first. Let programmers immigrate to the US
based only on their skills and then let them both compete for jobs and let the
companies compete for their skills.

------
medianama
I am top 0.1% in India (and anywhere in the world). I missed out on H1b last
year because the quota (65k) got filled in a day or so.

and I said - f@#k America...your loss, not mine

------
lionhearted
Also:

[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sergey_Brin#Early_life_and_educ...](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sergey_Brin#Early_life_and_education)

I'm glad Sergey's father and mother were allowed to immigrate to the USA.
However, it's too bad that his Russian parents have stolen good jobs while
there's unemployed Americans:

"His father is a mathematics professor at the University of Maryland, and his
mother is a research scientist at NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center."

I mean, there's unemployed mathematicians and research scientists right here
in the USA, right? Why should these _Russians_ be allowed to come in and take
our jobs?

...I want as many intelligent, hard working people as I can find in a company
I run, and in a country that I want to see grow. Take a look at that Wikipedia
link at what a nightmare is what for the Brin family in Russia - thank
goodness we didn't have shortsighted people trying to lock them out to
"preserve the jobs here", or who knows how many fewer great jobs would've been
created, and how much less useful and easy to navigate the internet would be.

