
The Senate will move next week on comprehensive high-skill immigration reform - muriithi
http://thenextweb.com/us/2013/01/25/the-senate-will-move-next-week-on-comprehensive-high-skill-immigration-reform/
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szopa
The one thing that's really huge in this proposition is that it would allow
spouses of H1B visa holders to work in the US. The fact they cannot do it is a
particularly cruel aspect of the current immigration system in the US.

We moved to the Bay Area when I got a job at Google a year and a couple of
months ago. We really like it in California: my job is super interesting, the
weather is nice, and the people are amazing. I cannot imagine any place in the
world where I could have a bigger impact being a programmer. However, going
back to Europe is a topic of our everyday conversations. Why?

My wife is one of the smartest people I know. She is the webdesigner you would
love to work with (you know, those who can actually code their stuff in a way
that works with all browsers, use source control, and are not afraid of using
the command line). She worked as a project manager and her team loved her. She
has interesting things to say about startups, business models, and Goedel's
theorem. She used to have a career back in Europe, but in the US she's almost
a non-person. She can live here, yes, she can drive a car, but she doesn't
even have her own SSN. She cannot do any productive work, and getting an H1
visa if you are not a software engineer is extremely hard (we had this
conversation with a couple of immigration lawyers).

I have my dream job, but at the same time I cannot help the feeling that I am
ruining my wife's life.

~~~
legutierr
I remember that the wife of a former collegue of mine managed to get a job as
a school teacher while he was still under h1b. I can't remember what kind of
authorization she received, though; maybe she was granted her own h1b? Have
you spoken to an attorney about this?

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fijal
Well, while a step in the right direction, it definitely does not answer most
serious questions. The points that stand out for me:

* High bureaucracy levels while dealing with it, which means cost, which means most small companies won't do it.

* You can't just quit your job and live in the US for a while, while looking for another one (or not). IT salaries make it absolutely possible to take a year off if you feel like it.

* No cleaning of the path to greencard. It's possible, especially when you come from a country with a large number of applicants, like India, that you won't receive a greencard before your second visa expires and you have to go back "home" for a year.

* Just like above, the limit of 2 applications.

Overall a very mellow step, which does not make me any more inclined to come
and work in the states. Greetings from the beautiful city of Cape Town, where
immigration procedures took me a few days and 60 euros.

Cheers, fijal

~~~
yummyfajitas
The H1B is a temporary work visa. It's not a "sit around for a year and find
yourself" visa, nor is it a "get on the path to citizenship" visa.

If you want to expand those visas or reallocate them, advocate for it. I'm
hugely in favor of eliminating nepotism based immigration (what we have now)
and replacing it with something favoring high skilled individuals [1].

But that doesn't mean there isn't a place for temporary work visas.

[1] This is, however, a political non-starter. Bush's amnesty bill was killed
because someone slipped this in as a poison pill.

~~~
lusr
The article title claims "comprehensive high-skill immigration reform".

As a highly-skilled South African (which, interestingly enough, appears to be
where parent ultimately decided to emigrate), the effort, duration and
uncertainty involved in acquiring US citizenship makes it a non-starter option
for me.

I'm better off remaining in South Africa where I don't have to work non-stop
for years and years unless I want to risk being deported, don't have to play a
different game in the job market, can stop working at any time to go full
speed on my startup, etc.

Eventually I hope to be successful enough that emigration through business and
wealth is a simpler and more direct option. Of course by then I may very well
have a family and other commitments that again make emigration a non-option.

Assuming I'm the sort of person this reform is meant to entice into the USA (a
country I very much admire), it certainly isn't comprehensive, which appears
to be parent's point.

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logn
Allow me to ruin my karma...

Maybe we could focus on retraining non-technical people to fill tech jobs. Or
people with outdated skills, and clamp down on age discrimination. There's a
lack of programmers and an abundance of food-service/sales workers. We should
re-work high school in the US to focus on vocational work, such as programming
or other skills such as industrial electrical work. And as we've just renewed
unemployment benefits, doesn't this give government leverage to force people
to learn things?

We tell America that with new automation and technology comes the need to
educate yourselves for the new jobs. Now we're going to add unlimited
temporary workers to compete for these new jobs?

But that's not the quick fix corporate America is lobbying for. They want
masters/php grads to come in and be essentially locked in to working for them
for at best an average salary. If we refuse to educate our public in useful
skills, then I'll take unlimited H1Bs, as I'd rather have a vibrant work force
in our country than a scattered remote one and see innovation and taxes go
elsewhere.

Granted, I'm all for comprehensive immigration reform. Let's do it
comprehensively and let in a steady stream of people to fill all levels and
variety of jobs. Let's let people live the American Dream and let them choose
jobs or quit jobs or strike out on their own. That's what we're not giving H1B
holders. And that's the competition we're giving ourselves.

~~~
fijal
I have no idea about the work areas where I don't happen to work. Maybe
retraining people for doing PHP stuff is actually a very good idea. Some
company (I lost the link) recently posted "$5000 for a month-long training and
we guarantee you'll get a $60k job offer or your money back" for RoR.

However, there is a whole bunch of people who work in niche professions. I
work in VMs. There is maybe a 100 people (maybe 200) who are even remotely in
the area of dynamic language VMs. It takes years (sometimes tens of years) to
be highly skilled and be able to deliver what some companies want. Right now,
H1B is really the only viable option for such people to go to states and has a
whole bunch of strange requirements, that should not apply. Do you really
suggest a McDonalds-worker-trained-IT-professional can be competitive in such
area?

On the other hand, I can assure you that visa costs outweight importing people
for average salary. It's really about shortage of skills (or shortage of good
immigration policies) that drives those efforts, not the will to employ people
for less-than-average money.

~~~
don_draper
>>Do you really suggest a McDonalds-worker-trained-IT-professional can be
competitive in such area?

I think there probably is a pool of US developers doing more mundane work that
have the capacity and skills to do the type of work you do. And I think there
are some baristas that could do what most HN readers think of as mundane IT
work.

~~~
fijal
Great. So what's wrong? Is the job market rigged? Do you suggest niche
specialists get underpaid?

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codeonfire
Contrary to popular belief, H1B is not about money. It is more about power and
control. Businesses want to be able to bill someone out at 300 or 400 dollars
per hour and know the person can't quit or start their own business. Whether
or not that person is paid 25, 50, or 75 per hour is not as important as
keeping that person working long hours for the company for years.

~~~
dotBen
Er, how would paying someone 25/hr pass the required market rate salary
component of the H1B application? There is now a list of H1B jobs an the
average pay which the petitioner must prove they are paying above.

Also, how does a person become trapped working 'long hours' for the same
company 'for years' when there is a porting aspect of the H1B where the visa-
holder may port the visa to another employer after 6 months. If they don't
wish to work for that employer, or another can provide them with a better
option then they are free to port.

Sorry, but respectfully your comment is utter bullshit.

~~~
fijal
Porting is a mess. For starters, the list of employers willing to deal with
your visa is limited (most startups are too small and moving too fast).
Second, you can't quite your job, without having secured a visa transfer
first. I mean of course you can but you must leave the country immediately
(looking for job after quitting and before leaving the country is technically
a violation of the law). While not 100% preventing moving between companies,
it definitely puts higher pressure on job security.

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tomjen3
Comprehensive my ass. Comprehensive reform is a point based system with no
caps.

It is also what is required to end the current recession.

~~~
eli_gottlieb
In what way is the recession caused or exacerbated by a _lack_ of workers?

~~~
gizmo
It's not, but high-skill immigration would certainly give the economy a boost.
This boost to the economy would be good for everybody: lowering unemployment
and increasing aggregate demand. And technically the US isn't even in a
recession right now -- although the economy is still depressed.

~~~
yummyfajitas
_...lowering unemployment and increasing aggregate demand._

It's certainly true that importing new employed people will increase the
denominator in the unemployment rate will reduce unemployment, but that
doesn't help any human.

I believe you are making the fallacy of reasoning from a composition change.
Amusingly, one of the better explanations of this I've found is at
OpenBorders: <http://openborders.info/compositional-effects/>

~~~
gizmo
No, those high skilled (and therefore high earning) immigrants use their
salary to buy stuff so aggregate demand increases so unemployment decreases.
I'm not playing compositional games here.

~~~
yummyfajitas
They also produce a bunch of stuff, thereby increasing aggregate supply
commensurately. Since they are high skilled, they likely increase AS more than
AD, since high skilled individuals tend to produce more than they consume.

~~~
gizmo
Yes, high skilled people produce more than they consume but that's of course a
good thing.

Look at it from the other way around. What would happen to the economy if 50%
of high skilled people moved to a different country? It would be disastrous
for the country. So AS and AD go down as a direct consequence of those people
leaving, but AD will also go down as a consequence of the resulting
recession/depression. Importing high skilled people has the opposite effect.

So yes, high skilled workers add to AS and to AD, and the ratio of AS to AD
won't change much because of that. But the economy will still get a boost
(another increase in AD).

~~~
yummyfajitas
I'm not a Keynesian, so I don't make arguments about AS/AD except in the
context of "here is what the Keynesians believe".

Looking at it the other way, if 50% of high skilled people moved to a
different country, it would be a disaster. I just don't think it would be a
Keynesian disaster. If anything, AD should hold constant while AS dropped,
leading to an increase in employment.

Note that I'm disputing your reasoning, not your conclusion.

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rdl
This isn't "comprehensive" if it is "high-skill".

Comprehensive is DC code for "includes illegals currently in the US, low-skill
immigrants from central/south america, etc." High skill is in the "etc." that
everyone supports, but which was being held hostage to deal with the
politically-contentious other groups (which are 100x the size)

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jakozaur
\+ wife those on H1B can work: currently regulations successful discouraged
many europeans and let to abuses in other countries:
<http://sepiamutiny.com/blog/2004/10/20/dangers_of_the/>

\+ cap increase for H1B

\+ easier green cards for US STEM students

\- easier for established companies, not startups and smaller ones

\- still fails for many of this founders:
[http://techcrunch.com/2012/06/10/startup-act-2-0-great-
for-f...](http://techcrunch.com/2012/06/10/startup-act-2-0-great-for-foreign-
graduate-students-but-not-foreign-tech-entrepreneurs/)

------
kenjagi
While this is a step, it's in the wrong direction.

Companies should focus on finding quality US personnel first.

Let's look at how the process works. A company advertises, in this case I
chose to use Monster and looked for "SQL 2012" and found a company that's
looking for someone with 5 years experience using SQL Server 2008. That
"requirement" is impossible, so HR and management will bypass all applicants
since they're "not qualified". The next company down wanted 2 years of SQL
Server 2012. Again, an impossibility.

The companies will whine to politicians that they can't find anyone that meets
their requirements. The politicians will do some grandstanding about how
quality tech personnel are scarce and next will be the flood of personnel
driving down salaries even worse than they already are. Developer salaries
have been stagnant since the dotcom bust 10 years ago.

The best solution is eliminate H1B and utilize the people who are unemployed.

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mtgx
I hope it's more comprehensive than the filibuster "reform" they've just
passed.

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msoad
How this will impact US programming job market?

~~~
glavata
Make it even harder for companies to find good programmers?

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wildranter
Prepare to get fucked!

