
Jesse Jackson: H1B Visas Hold Back Diversity in Tech Hiring - colawars
https://twitter.com/WCWOA/status/1267918369715556353
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vsskanth
Every time you file an H1B Visa, you pay something called a ACWIA Fee
(“American Competitiveness and Workforce Improvement Act of 1998”). For
employers who have between 1-25 full-time workers, the American
Competitiveness and Workforce Improvement Act fee is $750. For employers with
26 or more full-time employees, the fee is $1,500. [1] This fee was
established to fund training and education programs administered by the
Department of Labor.

As of 2018, there were 420K active H1B visas in the USA. These people need to
renew their visas every 3 years (most are Indians and they can never become PR
in their lifetime). So that means 300-630 million USD is being added to this
fund over a 3 year period.

It would be useful if he could find out where that money went and why isn't it
being used to provide scholarships and training to disadvantaged students.

[1] [https://www.immi-usa.com/h1b-visa-processing-
fees-2016/](https://www.immi-usa.com/h1b-visa-processing-fees-2016/)

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surfallday
>>It would be useful if he could find out where that money went and why isn't
it being used to provide scholarships and training to disadvantaged students.

100%

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Barrin92
This has been an argument not just made about tech but also other sectors,
usually with a nationalist bend, for example Mexican immigrants taking
industrial jobs from domestic minorities, and so on.

Many things wrong with this (including an odd definition of diversity that
excludes nationality, culture, language and so on), but I'd want to stress one
thing in particular.

In contrast to ivy league college admissions, _the private sector is not a
zero sum game_. It is not a game of musical chairs. Immigrants coming to join
any given economy aren't just occupying jobs, they're creating new jobs, both
indirectly and directly. Indirectly of course by contributing to the overall
wealth by creating value and creating demand, but also disproportionately(!)
by becoming entrepreneurs.

The rate of entrepreneurship among immigrants particularly in the US is very
high. A significant amount of the companies providing the jobs that Mr Jackson
is talking about have been created, or are being led by immigrant executives
or founders.

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redis_mlc
There's numerous factual errors in your frankly disingenuous post.

This article is about H1B's. The H1B is not an entrepreneur visa, and
shouldn't be used to start companies in the US.

> A significant amount of the companies providing the jobs

All of the statistics I've seen about immigrants starting tech companies
deliberately mispresent their claim by including companies with non-immigrant
founders. So if there's 3 founders, with only one being an immigrant, then
that's categorized as an "immigrant-founded company."

In reality, companies hire H1Bs primarily on cost. Otherwise, they wouldn't
pay extra fees and immigration attorney costs, now would they?

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Barrin92
I'm not sure I see the contradiction here. Of course H1B visas are for
employees, not entrepreneurs, but many employees don't stay employees forever,
entrepreneurs aren't conjured up out of thin air. Just take Uber as an
example. That company alone has spawned an entire ecosystem of founders and
venture capitalists as talent over the years has migrated away from the
company.

>So if there's 3 founders, with only one being an immigrant, then that's
categorized as an "immigrant-founded company."

I don't think that's a misrepresentation, particularly not in the context of
my post, because if a company has an immigrant co-founder that still indicates
that an immigrant contributed to the founding of a business.

~~~
redis_mlc
> many employees don't stay employees forever

Then they would have to return to their country if they're no longer an
employee.

The path to citizenship for an H1B is over 10 years now.

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Barrin92
>The path to citizenship for an H1B is over 10 years now.

you can already start a business as a green card holder, but yes it takes a
while in the current system to obtain the ability to start a company. I don't
see however how that relates to the argument. The average age of h1b users is
very young (majority between 25 and 34), so they all have a fulll career ahead
of them.

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nickff
Aren't people from other countries more likely to be diverse in terms of
education, worldview, language, technical background, and even race than
American-born people?

I understand that H1B visas may depress the wages of skilled Americans,
perhaps with a disproportionately negative impact on some minorities, but
that's not quite the same as 'holding back diversity'.

~~~
taneq
In this context 'diversity' actually means 'people of a protected class'. I've
seen people refer to a team of 10 African-American women as '100% diverse'.

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mywittyname
I don't buy it. Asians dominate technology jobs because they dominate college
enrollment in science, engineering and CS. To compound this problem,
socioeconomic factors also work in their favor as well, since Asians have the
highest overall median household income (by a healthy margin).

More diversity in tech starts with more diversity in college programs, which
probably starts in high school when students are deciding what to do with
their life.

[https://www.zippia.com/advice/college-major-distributions-
by...](https://www.zippia.com/advice/college-major-distributions-by-race/)

~~~
ikeyany
When colleges admit non-traditional students, people complain that "they're
taking up all of the spots of the Asian students who deserve it".

It's a common complaint on HN.

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muzaffarpur
Mr Jackson, how about you introduce a bill, which requires interview and work
requirements waived for your preferred diverse group. /s

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aparsons
Oh god, I’ve worked with bootcamp grads hired through a “diversity” program at
ex-employer. The hiring process was basically what you describe. Would not
recommend.

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tuna-piano
How don't H1B workers provide diversity? These are people from across the
world who generally have such different backgrounds and experiences from a
group of native-born Americans.

I assume he's talking about diversity of skin color, which seems so shallow to
me it's hardly worthy of a response.

Not to mention - is there a university out there that isn't actively trying to
recruit skin color diversity? Is there a large company that isn't trying the
same?

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rjkennedy98
Diversity at our company has an explicit definition. It means women, plus
latino and blacks of any gender (including mixed race with a parent of such a
background). That is probably not what people think of as diversity in a broad
sense, but it is likely what most universities and corporations mean. And
black here does not mean African-American, it means someone with African
ancestry.

~~~
commandlinefan
They usually qualify diversity as "under-represented minorities". You have to
be both a minority in the classic sense as well as under-represented.

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Naac
Link to the article: [https://www.americaninno.com/chicago/jesse-
jackson-h-1b-visa...](https://www.americaninno.com/chicago/jesse-
jackson-h-1b-visas-hold-back-diversity-in-tech-hiring/)

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trianglem
Most people on an H1B are from an entirely different race and culture. How can
you even make this statement with a straight face.

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neighbour
Jesse Jackson is a race hustler. For him, diversity == African-American.

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aparsons
Rev Jackson is right. This is well known

~~~
Tagbert
for a narrow definition of “diversity”

