
H1-B visa and the need for reform - fwiwm2c
https://medium.com/@fwiwm2c/lets-talk-about-the-h1-b-visa-6e5d5def2b00#.cznxn16s7
======
Glyptodon
Let's not mention the consistent gaming of classifications and salaries or the
fact that Visas without a quick path to permanent residency are just a legal
form of indentured servitude with all the perverse incentives and power
imbalances you'd expect.

There shouldn't be a work visa that doesn't lead to a green card/permanent
residency within two years. Anything less is merely legalized human
trafficking.

~~~
pkaye
How does this work in other countries btw? Can an american get a work visa and
get permanent residency in EU countries with ease?

~~~
dirtybird04
In Canada, you get an Open Work Permit as soon as you finish your degree. The
length of the work permit depends on the type and length of the program. Once
you get a proper job (full-time, related to your degree), you file for
Permanent Residency, which if all checks out, takes around 6-8 months to
process.

Source: did my undergrad in US, spent 5 miserable years on H1B tied to a
single employer who kept delaying my PR application, because of which I
couldn't travel freely internationally. Moved to Canada, finished my Masters,
got my PR in 6 months. Now I can travel whereever I want. Thanks, Trudeau!

------
geodel
There is no reference to lots of dubious universities exist only to have
candidates from India/China. The students immediately get a CPT and start
working at places nothing to do with their fields. They appear mostly for
exams and some weekend classes and keep working full time.

Unless higher education criteria defined and universities scrutinized for bad
behavior, most of the H1 abuse will shift to F1.

~~~
fwiwm2c
That is a fair point - agree that there is no clear threshold on the "quality"
of education provided by various universities. Thus admissions into the lower
rung of universities is quite easy which can be exploited. I didn't want to
get into this as it opens another can of worms on whether US universities
should be certified to give an OPT period (which eventually becomes a stepping
stone for H1-Bs).

Do you have any suggestions here?

~~~
geodel
Considering the problem has existed for long time and very smart people tried
to find solution. I do not think there is really easy solution lurking around.

From my perspective US gives the best combination of features to a very large
section of Indians who hold H1 visa. These are (relative)large american
salary, a high quality 'Indian' lifestyle which includes large availability of
movies, cricket, food etc and other assorted luxuries which in US are called
middle class things but they are almost very top end luxuries back home.

The intersection of these features makes it very unique for Indians in US as
compared to European/Canadian/Australian in US. If first world person get laid
off, or decide to leave, it may be monetary loss but other things back home
will compensate. But for most Indians it may a unequivocal loss in term of
money and lifestyle.

The only solution I think is massive infrastructure improvement in India
affordable at Indian salaries. This is very difficult to achieve. For now it
is whining about traffic on US-267 or whatever in a luxury car vs 2-3 hr of
soul crushing train and bus ride 1-way. So once things improve drastically
back home people will have much less incentive to leave just for money.

------
mikereilly01
> Don’t read too much into IBM, Accenture, CapGemini as being American
> companies — all of them have very large bases in India and they use H1 visa
> to get low cost Indian workers on the client side in US.

I've never seen anyone prove the claim that tech firms (or any companies for
that matter) use H1B workers for cheap labor. Also, this paragraph is just
garbage "Don't read too much into it..." as if we should just trust the
author.

~~~
fwiwm2c
Author here. Though IBM hasn't officially confirmed this themselves as they
have stopped calling out the number of employees in each of their countries,
but there have been several pieces out there corroborating the size of its
Indian workforce exceed their US ones (and these articles are more than 4 yrs
old when IBM US workforce was still large and the recent layoffs hadn't
happened): [http://nypost.com/2013/10/05/ibm-now-employs-more-workers-
in...](http://nypost.com/2013/10/05/ibm-now-employs-more-workers-in-india-
than-us/) [http://www.computerworld.com/article/2493565/it-
careers/in-a...](http://www.computerworld.com/article/2493565/it-careers/in-a-
symbolic-shift--ibm-s-india-workforce-likely-exceeds-u-s-.html)

IBM, Accenture and CG make a large amount of their revenue from IT outsourcing
[1] where their largest competitors are TCS, Infosys etc. They can't win the
cost game without having a significant presence in India and getting some of
their employees client side.

[1] [http://revenuesandprofits.com/how-ibm-makes-
money/](http://revenuesandprofits.com/how-ibm-makes-money/)

~~~
bguillet
> Don’t read too much into IBM, Accenture, CapGemini as being American
> companies —

Nitpick, but yeah, CapGemini is French ;)

------
Aldo_MX
A simple solution: Auction the visas.

This will raise the price of foreign talent until it reaches a balance point
so it will be more difficult to abuse the visa system to bring "cheap labor".

~~~
fwiwm2c
This hurts folks from non STEM fields who are also entitled to H1-B visas..

------
vmarsy
The math facts aren't completely correct since we don't know the ratio of
Advanced degree vs. non advanced ones.

Also the table includes transferred and renewed H1B, for which the cap does
not apply.

What would be interesting is to know the number of _new_ H1B applicant of
those big companies. Let's assume it's around 40k for the top 3 in that list:
Infosys+Capgemini+Tata, and assume all Advanced degree seats gets filled, then
there'd be 236-20 = 216k remaining applicants in the undergrad pool (Advanced
degree gets 2 chances: one in the advanced degree pool, where 20k gets picked,
then those who didn't get picked in that round fall back in the normal pool.
Without knowing the ratio but assuming it's at least 20k Advanced degree
applicants, the only thing we can conclude is that there is 216k remaining
applicants in the Non-advanced degree pool).

With 65k seats, with I+C+T, there's a 65/216 = _30%_ chance of getting an H1B
if you don't have a US Advanced degree. Now let's suppose we completely forbid
I+C+T to get H1B visas, then there would be a 65/(216-40) = _36%_ chance of
getting an H1B. It's an increase, but 36% remains pretty low.

This is an extreme example where we would completely forbid those to apply, if
instead we limit them to 10k as the author suggest, the probability increase
of people not in those companies would be even less important.

Regarding exempting the cap for those who studied in the US, I think that
would be a great idea, as long as "fake" universities[1][2] do not exist.

[1]
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/University_of_Northern_New_Jer...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/University_of_Northern_New_Jersey)
\- This one is interesting as it was created by DHS as a bait.

[2] [https://www.nytimes.com/2016/04/06/nyregion/new-jersey-
unive...](https://www.nytimes.com/2016/04/06/nyregion/new-jersey-university-
was-fake-but-visa-fraud-arrests-are-real.html?_r=1)

~~~
hocuspocus
There are already a few real universities of dubious value that profit from
the current situation. I've seen former coworkers work 1-2 years after
graduating, save up to be able to afford a Masters in one of those bottom tier
universities, and they're now employed on OPT status.

------
kyleschiller

      Say Tata Consultancy Services (TCS) files for 13k visas for in 2016. If the total number of applications were 236k, then the expected number of visas TCS is going to get is (using probability) => (13,000/236,000)*65,000 = 3,580 visas
    
      Similarly, let us say a startup is filing for an H1-B for 1 of their employees. Their expected probability of securing the visa is => 1/236000*65000=0.27
    
      As you can see, the current lottery system favors the company which applies for the most number of visas. 
    

How is this favoritism? Isn't the conclusion here just that everyone has
similar odds and companies that apply for more visas will get more visas?

~~~
fwiwm2c
Yes - everyone has similar odds. But if you are a large outsourcing company
such as TCS (which has 350k+ employees), you would simply file a lot of H1-B
applications to secure the maximum number of visas. And since the number of
visas are limited, each visa you secure is one less that another company would
have secured. A startup (which have far lesser number of employees) can't do
that.

------
wnevets
If "cheap labor" from H1-Bs can do your job, you need to get better at your
job.

~~~
DarkKomunalec
It's been predicted 50% of jobs are at risk of being done by robots, so surely
cheap H1-Bs could do them as well. Are you saying 50% of people need to just
'get better'? Or that you should move your family to Mexico or some other low
cost of living country, just so you can survive at a globally competitive
wage?

Edit: I also find the attitude that Americans are SO GREAT, only the worst of
them should fear being outdone by a foreigner, very arrogant and not based in
fact.

~~~
wnevets
Yes. We are not entitled to anything, including being protected from
competition of robots and those living in a low cost country.

~~~
ConfuciusSay02
No, but we can vote for politicians who promise to reform or do away with the
H1B program altogether.

Are you suggesting Americans shouldn't vote for their own interests?

~~~
wnevets
You can try to delay the inevitable but you can't hide from competition
forever, especially if you want to live in a country with capitalism.

~~~
ConfuciusSay02
It's not at all inevitable that we have to allow the hiring of mass amounts of
immigrants.

Why do you think it's inevitable?

------
seshagiric
The article is good in the sense that it at least tries to consider pros &
cons. However specifically from a startup point of view, H1-b is probably a
not good fit anyway. Typically h1-b application process starts in Nov-Dec,
from Feb-Mar, and the earliest someone who gets the visa can start is Sept. I
doubt startups can wait for the minimum 6 month period for their new employees
to join.

However the lottery system is indeed unfair for smaller companies.

~~~
fwiwm2c
For a new student graduating from undergrad or grad course, the timing works
out quite well - especially given the OPT period. Many times, you will notice
that a startup literally doesn't hire a candidate from another country but
hires international students studying in US universities - which is what I was
trying to call out in the article.

------
general_ai
It always cracks me up when I read H1B suggestions from people who weren't
themselves H1Bs. They always focus on the intake, or on "gaming", or wage
thresholds, or whatever the hell else their particular side of the aisle told
them to worry about.

Yet this problem is in a dire need of a free market based solution. Let me
explain.

H1B, for those who don't know, is the indentured servitude visa. While you can
theoretically move between jobs, your next job has to match the one you had
before nearly exactly, and you have to find it _before_ you leave your current
job. Once you leave or lose the job you're currently on H1B for, you have to
GTFO of the country in _two weeks_. I.e. if your employer finds out you're
looking, and they fire you (which they can), you will have no recourse
whatsoever. Same with them firing you if you ask for a raise or promo: GTFO.

You're in this limbo state until you get your green card, a lengthy process
which for me took 7 years, and for someone from India or China would take even
longer.

Companies abuse this power quite heavily by either not promoting/giving raises
to H1Bs (because what are they gonna do, quit?) or hiring vastly more
experienced workers into entry level jobs, or a combination of the two.

Here's what should be done to fix this:

1\. Make the grace period between jobs at least 6 months. If people are
abused, they should be free to leave their job without leaving the country,
and find their next job over a reasonable period of time.

2\. Make it possible for an H1B to move to another job more freely. Any job in
the same industry should be acceptable. To make things fair to employers,
require repayment of visa related fees if employee moves within the first
year.

This alone would fix most of the problems you see on the ground today,
including the problem of underemployment of fresh grads. Because movement of
H1Bs will be unrestricted, they'll command "market rate". That Eastern
European double PhD you hired for your entry level position will be able to
move to a job that pays commensurate with her expertise, freeing up the entry
level position for a fresh grad. The system will just be much more healthy
overall.

However, this will never happen. All those tech CEOs who currently go on ad
nauseam about helping people, all of them, without exception, want cheap fresh
meat that's not going anywhere. And for as long as H1B existed, they were
getting exactly that.

~~~
typon
> However, this will never happen

As long as capitalists run the government and large corporations.

~~~
general_ai
As an immigrant, I _came here_ for capitalism, and you will have a hard time
persuading me that Venezuela should be our role model. :-)

------
davidf18
"Recently, Obama administration also passed a directive to allow the spouses
of H1-B visa to apply for employment authorization (or the ability to work at
any place). This is a great move as it again encourages more talented people,
who are married, to come to US..."

This appears to be a "back door" to displace Americans from STEM jobs and
going around the H1-B Visa program requirements and employment limits.

Immigrants should only be able to work STEM jobs in the US if there is
absolutely nobody trained to do that job in the US which is the intent of
H1-B. As it stands, it is a way for tech firms to depress wage rates and to
displace Americans from jobs.

President Obama was serving elites that want to depress wage rates of American
STEM workers.

As you might recall, there was recently a legal judgment against Apple,
Google, .... for colliding to not try to hire each other's employees.

I hope the Trump administration clamps down on all of these ways that try to
keep American STEM workers from receiving their fare wages.

~~~
scient
Please stop talking about things you have no clue about. I have been in the US
for 3+ years now on a H1B visa and during all this time my wife, who has an
MBA, is not allowed to work here - which is absolute garbage. The change was
the right one in the right direction, but not enough.

You also greatly overestimate the amount of competent people in the US. Most
companies, like FB and Google and Uber, and not hiring from abroad because its
cheaper. They are doing it because there are not enough competent people in
the US to fill the jobs.

The companies abusing H1Bs are a different story, and those should be handled.

~~~
davidf18
> "Please stop talking about things you have no clue about. I have been in the
> US for 3+ years now on a H1B visa and during all this time my wife, who has
> an MBA, is not allowed to work here - which is absolute garbage."

I have lived here all my life and you have lived here "3+ years" and yet you
say I don't know what I'm talking about.

The intent of the H1-B visa law is clear: It is meant only for STEM workers
when there is no American to fill the role. That's it. Period.

American employment should come first. Sorry if you don't like that, but you
can always return to your country and maybe there your wife can find a job.

Do you know that there are Americans with MBAs that can't find jobs? Don't you
think they should have priority over immigrants?

> "You also greatly overestimate the amount of competent people in the US.
> Most companies, like FB and Google and Uber, and not hiring from abroad
> because its cheaper. They are doing it because there are not enough
> competent people in the US to fill the jobs."

Where's your evidence, because I completely disagree? You'll note that these
firms you mention are not offering the same or higher wages for immigrants
than Americans but lower ones.

I wonder if other's on HN believe as you do that there aren't enough competent
Americans in STEM.

But since you're so knowledgeable, please cite the reliable evidence of this
claim.

~~~
mildbow
Just because you've lived in the US for all your life doesn't mean much when
talking about something specific scient went through.

Note also, his comment addressed issues he perceived and solutions that would
directly affect change in a positive way for you! Let me spell it out for you:
if H1-B wasn't as restrictive, then companies couldn't abuse them for lower
salaries, making Americans (in your view) more competitive.

Anyway, why _should_ American employment come first? How have you contributed
to the country more than a random foreigner, by default? If anything, it
_benefits_ a country to have immigrants (who it hasn't invested in) come and
provide expertise for free! _That_ free expertise is what H1-B was/is for.

From this, it also follows that it benefits a country to make use of a highly
qualified spouse of an immigrant.

~~~
davidf18
> "Anyway, why should American employment come first?"

Because we are American citizens. Ask about any American and they will agree
as will our President, that immigrants should not be displacing Americans from
jobs.

This is true of about any country and I and most agree with this that citizens
come first for employment. If there are no citizens to fill the role anywhere
in the country, then by all means hire a immigrant.

Many firms could hire more competent workers by locating office where the
competent workers live.

For example, Google has a huge office building in NYC and hires many New
Yorkers. Microsoft, Amazon, Facebook, Apple do not have such a large presence
in NYC for engineering as Google and that is part of the problem those firms
may have in terms of hiring competent people.

> "So it follows that it benefits a country to make use of a highly qualified
> spouse of an immigrant."

Your wife would be taking the job of an American. I'm sorry, but I don't see
how that is a good thing. Maybe your wife can get a job in the country you are
from instead of displacing American jobs.

~~~
anthonybsd
>For example, Google has a huge office building in NYC and hires many New
Yorkers.

You sound more and more like a closet xenophobe. I have multiple friends that
work in that office. Majority of techies there are foreign born, although only
a small percentage of them are on H1Bs.

~~~
davidf18
> "Majority of techies there are foreign born"

Do you work in human relations at Google? Otherwise how would you know this.
It hires many, many engineers.

The issue is the abuse of the H1-B Visa system to hire employees at lower wage
rates than Americans. I have absolutely no problem with an H1-B Visa issued
for its original intent which is in the case that there is no American to fill
the job. Usually, there are Americans to fill the job, but the firm frequently
doesn't want to offer the wages necessary to employ them.

