
Join the tech community in passing immigration reform - sethbannon
http://www.fwd.us/#
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mynameishere
Join [a bunch of millionaires] in [reducing their labor expenses]. You're not
fooling anyone. Just bribe congress in the standard way and get your monstrous
evil done.

~~~
yummyfajitas
Join [a bunch of thousandaires] in [rising up from poverty].

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bhb916
So far I've already seen two comments dismissing this as an evil plot to drive
down labor costs. I hear this argument a lot and I can't over emphasize my
absolute disgust for it. It seems to cross both class and party lines.

There are human beings who are willing to risk life and limb, to separate
themselves permanently from their families, to endure unspeakable hardship and
constant fear of being deported simply for the opportunity to work -- and the
only thing us middle-class, educated, privileged people can think about is
that these people might dare compete with us! Excluding them from opportunity
simply because they were born on the other side of some arbitrary, imaginary
line is cruelty and selfishness beyond belief.

(This is not condoning the original link above or whatever it might stand for.
It seems a little impossible to tell.)

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rayiner
> Excluding them from opportunity simply because they were born on the other
> side of some arbitrary, imaginary line is cruelty and selfishness beyond
> belief.

National borders are not arbitrary, imaginary lines. One of the fundamental
attributes of a sovereign entity is the ability to define "inside" and
"outside" and control the flow between "inside" and "outside" just as that is
one of the fundamental attributes of a organism.

People everywhere are _not_ the same. Those in your country are bound together
with you in the social compact. Now, it's good and necessary to allow
immigration to a certain extent, but in doing so the only consideration should
be what maximizes the prosperity of those who are already part of the
community. Anything else undermines the social compact, and those who lobby to
systematically undermine the social compact in this way to depress wages and
boost corporate profits verge on sociopathy.

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iskander
> Those in your country are bound together with you in the social compact.
> Now, it's good and necessary to allow immigration to a certain extent, but
> in doing so the only consideration should be what maximizes the prosperity
> of those who are already part of the community. Anything else undermines the
> social compact

Please keep in mind that what you're writing bears strong similarity to
America's long history of nativist sentiment. At various points in our history
it has been very popular to try to keep out French, Irish, Jewish, Chinese,
and all sorts of other immigrant groups. "They're not the same as us" and "How
do we benefit from them coming here?" often have strong appeal in the moment
and end up looking foolish and small-minded in hindsight. I think that "Give
me your tired, your poor" is a perfectly fine immigration policy, not just for
feel-good sentimentality but also because eking out perceived benefits for the
existing members of our "social compact" might be at odds with both ethics and
what's healthy for the future of the country.

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darwinosx
That has nothing to do with what is happening now which in The middle of an
unemployment crisis Americans are losing jobs, wages, and befits to foreigners
so a handful of people can't get richer. Wake up.

~~~
danielweber
Of course, if those people came to America, they would then consume goods and
services of their own, which would provide opportunities to other Americans.

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Dirlewanger
Oh look, business people looking to open the floodgates of cheap labor.

If this passes, get ready for all STEM wages to plummet. You think it's hard
now for 40-something programmers to find work? Ohhh man...

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jstrate
Where do these assholes get off on speaking for the entire "tech community"?
As far as I can tell there are a few website developers and vc partners on the
founder list.

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khuey
A little light on the policy details.

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jack-r-abbit
Agreed. I'm in favor of some immigration changes (call it "reform" if you
wish) but my idea of what that means might very well be different than what
yours or theirs is. I'm not that interested in getting involved in a group
whose beliefs do not align with mine.

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13b9f227ecf0
My guess is they have really narrow elitist concerns about bringing high
skilled foreigners into Silicon Valley, but they figured out they can't pursue
that goal stand-alone. So they're hitching up with the broader suite of
treason-lobby mass immigration and amnesty interests.

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optiminimalist
It's surprising that most commenters are concerned about immigrants from India
who are taking away jobs from Americans at artificially low wages.

What about skilled engineers from a less represented region such as Europe?
There's plenty of us who are gladly hired/sponsored by Silicon Valley start-
ups and paid the same wage as the American employees. In the current climate
it feels that start-ups are hiring every skilled person they can find, no
matter if US citizen or not. I, personally, really don't feel like I'm taking
away anyone's job. Yet, we still have to compete for visas with the huge
corporations that "import" cheap labor from elsewhere.

Merely increasing the number of visa wouldn't help - the big corporations
would just flood USCIS with even more applications.

I think an H1B reform is absolutely necessary, but maybe in the form of a
quota. Either on a per-country basis (such as the diversity greencard lottery)
or, better perhaps, on a per-company basis so that only a certain proportion
of visas can be allocated to a single company.

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cletus
Whoever thinks this will open the floodgates to cheap labor has got it
backwards: the current situation is creating a class of employees who are one
step above indentured servitude.

Not all H1Bs are created equal either. Some don't allow multiple reentry (or
reentry beyond a 6-24 month period) due to some arcane reciprocity issue. So
once here it can be a risk for many to even visit other countries and in the
very least it's a hassle.

Many come to the US with the intent of moving here permanently if they're able
to. Frankly, considering some of the countries they come from, I can't really
blame them. They simply want a better life for themselves and their families.
In doing so they may end up separating themselves from their families for a
significant period of time.

The current process of getting a temporary wrok visa (specifically, an H1B)
just creates artificial hoops to jump through of "proving" you can't find
someone locally. This system is already completely compromised and has been
thoroughly gamed. Now it simply enrichens lawyers who specialize in it.

But the payoff for many temporary workers is immigration and here is where the
indentured servitude comes in. For high-demand countries (China, India, Mexico
and the Phillipines IIRC) the delay between making an application and getting
approved is _years_. 6+ on EB3, 4+ years on EB2.

The problem is that employers know this and can (and do) hold people hostage
with artificially low wages (because the "prevailing wage" is far removed from
reality) and those workers simply have to put up with it.

I suspect most of these employers aren't startups but are corporate bodyshops
who don't really care about the quality of their employees. They simply want
someone to fill a seat because, hey, charging a huge markup on their labor to
some contractor further up the line anyway. Large corporate outsourcing and
particularly outsourcing from the government seems to be the main cause for
this particularly racket.

If someone is willing to employ them, then that largely should be the barrier
that has to be met. It isn't quite that simple however as this could be used
to bring people over with true indentured servitude much like what happens
with illegal immigrants. People smugglers bring in people who then have to pay
back the debt with much of their take home pay for _years_ (this is how people
smuggling into Australia works).

So you have to somehow verify that the employment is legitimate and the worker
isn't being exploited. The simplest way to do this is:

1\. Make work authorization easily transferable;

2\. Make such transfers not reset the immigration process (the current system
does this; the new employer has to start again); and

3\. Make immigration _automatic_ after some period of time, say 3-6 years so
people can't be held hostage with it.

All this talk of "they're stealing our jobs" is horribly misguided and ill-
informed about the reality of the incentives created by the current system.

~~~
geebee
Would you support a change in US immigration policy that would grant a green
card to everyone who wishes to come here with good intentions (ie., with
nothing but the desire for a better life for themselves and their families)?

The US does currently accept about 1.2 million immigrants legally into the
country every year. Obviously, that's not enough to meet demand. Do you feel
that 1.2 million is far too low? If so, how do you feel generally about the
notion of an upper limit - or would you support unlimited immigration to the
US?

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darwinosx
Why is this on Hacker News. Who has a vested interest in more of our jobs
going to cheap Indian labor? Do people really think we don't know that's what
this is about? Who funds this organization?

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ttrreeww
We need to eliminate the H-1B program and replace it with a point based green
card program, similar to the one in NZ or Australia.

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enraged_camel
Can you summarize how it works for those of us not familiar with it?

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ttrreeww
Basically, if you have enough points, you apply for a green card and you get
it.

That's it :)

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enraged_camel
Yes, but how do you gain points?

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rdouble
You get points if you are skilled in a job the country needs, you have X years
in your field, you have a bachelor's degree, you have a master's degree, you
fit into certain age brackets, you have an Australian spouse, you have other
family in Australia, you have a job offer, etc.

<http://www.isa.com.au/points-test>

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ttrreeww
Pretty much, if they want a flood of worker in a certain industry, then they
give you points if you have exp in that industry.

