
Donald Trump to overhaul H-1B visa program - fujipadam
https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2017/apr/17/donald-trump-temporary-worker-h1b-visa-executive-order
======
timewarrior
The intent of H1-B was to get talented immigrants for jobs for which we had a
shortage of American labor. Instead it has become a tool for indentured labor
of foreigners (especially Indians) to be used to suppress wages and exploit
the foreign nationals.

I have suffered because of this. I spent 6 years on H1 with no end in sight.
It would take at least 20 years for Indians to get a Green Card. Till then,
you have to do do insane amount of paperwork, deal with lot of uncertainty
when we you are up for renewal and are in a limbo state.

Most of my friends who are really smart and are in US, have resigned to their
fate and given up on their entrepreneurial aspirations.

If people think that companies like Facebook and Google are not exploiting
people, they are mistaken. Even though the wages that they pay are much higher
- H1 creates lack of job mobility, within that class of employees. I worked
with someone really smart in an earlier startup in India. He spent 7 years in
Microsoft because it seemed like he will get Green Card next year.

I worked with someone senior at FWD.us and as per that person the intention of
FWD.us is to get more H1 and not Green Cards.

I have lived through this and hopefully out of this cycle. However the best
from India aren't moving to US anymore. They now know about the uncertainties
in their life because of H1 and are choosing to stay behind in India to build
startups there.

Big consultancy companies (TCS, Infosys, Cognizant etc) are abusing the
system. I hope someone puts and end to this.

Edited: formatting

~~~
employee8000
My very good friend is Indian on H1B. In the last 10 years he has had 4 jobs
and is making >200k/yr base. I know white people that are in the same job for
10+ years and can't get another job because their skills degraded. H1Bs have
mobility and great wages, if you're good, just like citizens.

~~~
timewarrior
I respectfully disagree with that.

Maybe your friend wanted to do a startup where he owned the majority voting
control in the startup. You can't do it on H1. Maybe he wanted to go meet his
family but couldn't because his visa renewal was going on. Maybe he wanted a
great opportunity, but the company wasn't setup to do H1 paperwork.

H1 was expected to be a temporary state. If you are on H1 and not from India
or China you can get a Green Card within 1 year. Even Chinese nationals can
get it in 4-5 years.

I switched 5 times in 6 years. Joined LinkedIn, left to build a startup (where
I couldn't have majority stake), sold it to Dropbox, built and incubator at
Verizon, doing another startup. All this while I was doing fine financially.
However I felt really suffocated by the lack of freedom.

Finally I am not on H1 and now I can own a controlling stake in my startup. If
I wasn't on H1 earlier, I would have made different career choices all this
while.

H1 system is broken. Companies all over the spectrum is using it to exploit
employees. It's time to fix it.

~~~
stocktech
You're making the point that being H1 is an inconvenience and to be honest,
that's fine. It even sounds like your life was improved because you were H1.
Would you have had these opportunities if you weren't?

~~~
timewarrior
Just because I was able to overcome, doesn't mean the system works fine.

It took a lot of hard work and luck to get me to overcome this. So I would say
that my life improved in-spite of H1. I was able to found a startup (and
successfully exit) while on H1, which is extremely rare.

Around 2010, the Green Card wait for Indians went from 3-5 years to 20+ years.
Many people who moved before or around that time got invested here (bought a
house, grew family, kids going to school) and in a way are stuck in a limbo.
Many of them are smart and hard working people, who used to have dreams of
building companies. But after a decade in limbo, all they talk about is the
next H1 renewal and the uncertainties around that.

Now, the best from India are instead choosing to stay in India and build
startups there. While the current system is allowing staffing companies bring
subpar talent which displaces good American jobs. So yes the H1B system is
broken and it needs fixing.

If I had stayed, I would have had different set of opportunities in India.
Difficult to predict whether they would have been better or worse!

And it is easy to say "that's fine" \- when you are not living the life with
constraints.

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davidf18
Of all of the candidates both Republican and Democrat (and including President
Obama) only one, President Trump was not in bed with Silicon Valley and Tech
companies attempting to depress American Wages and replace Americans with
cheaper foreign imports. Even the University of California San Francisco (The
UC system trains lots of computer scientists, IT workers) replaced its own IT
workers with H1-B Visa imports.

What is notable is the US newspapers including NYT and WaPo don't write about
this issue much. The Guardian (and Breitbart) have been the most consistent
sources of information.

Thomas Frank had warned of the real reasons for Trump's rise staring in March
2016. Here is a July 2016 article after the BrExit vote that warned the Dems.
Click on the link and you'll see Obama pictured with Zuckerberg. Zuckerberg
famously want to depress American tech wages by having his own lobbying
organization that tries to import more H1-B visa workers.

[https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2016/jul/19/reveng...](https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2016/jul/19/revenge-
against-elites-americas-wake-up)

At Wednesday night’s GOP debate, Rubio was asked about his co-authorship of
controversial legislation–- known as the I-Squared bill — that would triple
the number of wage-depressing H-1B visas up to 195,000 per year. In Rubio’s
home state of Florida, the Walt Disney Company used H-1Bs to lay off hundreds
of American workers and force them to train their foreign replacements.
Disney’s CEO has endorsed Rubio’s I-Squared bill.

[http://www.breitbart.com/2016-presidential-
race/2015/10/30/h...](http://www.breitbart.com/2016-presidential-
race/2015/10/30/h-1b-expert-marco-rubio-fakes-opposition-h-1b-outsourcing/)

President Obama even allowed spouses of H1-B to work, displacing and lowering
wages of yet more American workers.

The intent of H1-B is only for jobs for which there are no Americans
available. There should be an independent commission that reviews each and
every one of these applications. Frankly, it begs credulity that there are
65,000 STEM jobs that are so specialized that there are no Americans to fill
the roles.

~~~
0xcafecafe
>>President Obama even allowed spouses of H1-B to work, displacing and
lowering wages of yet more American workers.

You need to be more informed. Not any H1-B spouse is allowed to work. That
provision was created as a bandaid fix to alleviate the problems of people
(mostly Indian and Chinese) who have to endure a decade+ long wait to get a
green card (due to the stupid EB country cap limits). While that wait
continues, their dependents cannot work. By this provision, only spouses of
workers who have a permanent residency petition approved but are not able file
for a green card due to unavailability of numbers are able to apply. The
estimated number of spouses expected to apply was around 179k out of which
only about 37% ended up applying. In contrast, the US issues 860,000 green
cards every year (non employment based) which by your argument should be
displacing even more local workers.

And not all spouses work in the software field. My wife works in healthcare
and this provision was a Godsend for us since it has been 5 years and counting
since my green card was applied for by my company.

If this provision goes away or the immigration system does not improve for the
better (reducing backlogs), we are seriously contemplating our future here.

~~~
mavelikara
Spouses of L and J visa holders are able to work; and as you said, 860K
immigrants are added to the system every year.

I don't quite understand the grief over spouses of H visa holders from India
and China being allowed to work legally. The family, by then, have filed for a
green card, made clear indication of wanting to immigrate to the country and
are not allowed to do so only because of unfair per-country quota limits.

As an aside, I hope HR 392 [1] passes. It eases out the per-country quota
limits for skilled immigration over 5 years. It currently has 173 co-sponsors
in the house.

[1]: [https://www.congress.gov/bill/115th-congress/house-
bill/392](https://www.congress.gov/bill/115th-congress/house-bill/392)

~~~
davidf18
Passing the bill means more importation of cheap labor effectively lower wages
while displacing Americans from working in America.

I'm for enforcing the H1-B Visa law which means only for jobs where there is
no American with the skill to perform it.

~~~
mavelikara
> Passing the bill means more importation of cheap labor effectively lower
> wages while displacing Americans from working in America.

> I'm for enforcing the H1-B Visa law which means only for jobs where there is
> no American with the skill to perform it.

I don't mean to be snarky, but you _really_ need to educate yourself on these
issues better before commenting here.

The bill does nothing to increase the number of H-1Bs, nor reduce the
enforcement of existing H-1B regulations. All it does it remove the long
(decade+) backlogs for skilled immigrants from India and China.

So, in summary, this bill does not have any effect on your stated position -
enforcing the H1-B Visa law.

~~~
davidf18
It does allow more immigrants to displace American workers or workers looking
for work or depress American wages.

The only bill that needs passing is one that rescinds all H1-b visas that
don't follow the letter of the law including the Disney H1-b workers that
displaced Americans.

~~~
mavelikara
> It does allow more immigrants to displace American workers or workers
> looking for work or depress American wages.

It does not grant any benefits to anyone not already in the system and on the
path to immigration, so no, it does not "allow more immigrants to <whatever>".

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employee8000
The abuse and exploitation of the h1b by Indian bodyshop and lack of action by
Bush and Obama have ruined it for everyone. I hope the body shops go out of
business and we get a more sane immigration visas. But we need immigration.
Thinking removing immigration will make more uS jobs is stupid. It will hasten
global employers to build r&d centers outside of the US and then we are all
screwed.

~~~
timewarrior
I agree with all your points. Consultancy companies are lobbying to keep this
system broken. I hope they all go out of business.

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wakkaflokka
What kind of salaries should H1-B-heavy jobs expect if the visa didn't exist?

I'm wondering because I get the feeling that the general populace believes
these positions (programming and everything related) pay pretty well. You
might get the opposite feeling when browsing HN.

~~~
timewarrior
H1 visas work like a long tail. Most of the visas are used by big consulting
companies to suppress wages. Most of these jobs pay less than 65k and displace
American workers because they would demand more.

A small part of the visas (less than 10%) is used in the long tail by
companies like Google and Facebook. They jobs pay relatively well. However
because of difficulty in job mobility, the immigrant employees lose on
negotiation and aren't paid we well as they could have gotten paid. At least
these jobs do not displace American workers. The above companies have a lot of
unfilled openings and if an American worker is available with the right
skills, they would hire that person.

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maerF0x0
How will the government assess who has the top skills? Considering that the
industry has a hard time doing this in fairly intensive interview processes, I
can't imagine the government will fare as well or better.

I, cynically, assume they're just going to be like "PHD is better than
masters, is better than bachelor's" etc.

~~~
StillBored
Its actually pretty easy in the US.. Pay! If they aren't being paid in the top
1% then its unlikely they are producing that way. That is why like many
things, I think a more "free market" solution here is in order. A requirement
for a H1B should be an extreme salary band. That proves that they are actually
exceptional, while simultaneously discouraging companies from using them for
cheap labor.

~~~
maerF0x0
Well, thats a pretty poor metric. An organization that sets its pay higher is
not guaranteed to hire a better employee. They maybe get better applicants
though. So while its necessary, its not sufficient.

------
_of
Isn't the risk that these companies will just let Indian's do the work in
India instead of bringing them to the US? Won't the US loose tax money with
such a setup?

~~~
timewarrior
If it's possible consultancy companies already move the jobs to India.

And if the intention is to solve the problem of jobs moving to India, create a
law designed to fix that. H1 wasn't designed to fix this problem. Let it do
what it was designed to do!

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anindha
This would make it harder for startups to recruit since it would be hard to
value equity in a visa application.

~~~
timewarrior
I agree that there will be some challenges and hopefully future changes fix
that.

However current reality is that very few startups employ H1. I founded a
startup when I was on H1 hired someone else on H1 and it was a pain to go
through all paperwork. Right now, if the potential employee doesn't already
have an H1 - the startup will need to apply for H1 lottery where odds are 1/4
and if they win it wait for 6 months before the employees can join.

Recently I built an Incubator where the intention was to pay market salaries
while people try out ideas. And once the idea gets traction - raise funding
and spin it out. Everyone on H1 refused to join the spin out because they
didn't want to deal with the pains of being on H1 while dealing with
uncertainties of a startup.

I hope that these regulations stop the abuse happening on H1. This will help
in two ways: 1\. No lottery - so people who want to move to US have a
predictable path. 2\. Better path for Indians to get Green Card. Right now the
delay is insane (20+ years). Once they get Green Cards they can participate
with more freedom.

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tn135
Paper tiger of Mr. Trump. The executive order does nothing but kind of
recycles old claims without much change to anything.

