
Trump's opposition to H-1B visas has experts concerned - dragonbonheur
http://www.techrepublic.com/article/trumps-opposition-to-h-1b-visas-has-experts-concerned-about-filling-high-skilled-jobs/?linkId=31056932
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biocomputation
End H1-B immediately.

Americans, many who simply cannot move to other countries, need to be first in
line for access to economic opportunities in this country.

It's utterly disgusting to make American workers second class citizens in
their own country. How many more Disney's, Qualcomms, and Southern California
Edison's do we need to see before we realize that the program is harmful to
Americans?

Then there's the matter of non-profits being exempt from the caps on H1-B
visas - this is a significant reason why PHD graduates have trouble finding
jobs in their field.

H1-B is bad for America. In my mind, ending H1-B is a matter of social justice
for Americans, just like marriage equality.

( Before anyone thinks that I'm a Trump supporter, please be aware that I'm a
gay man, and life long Democrat, who is absolutely horrified at the thought of
what Trump's choices for the Supreme Court could mean for marriage equality
and social justice. Just to be clear: I don't support Trump in any way, shape,
or form. )

~~~
pj_mukh
So if you're not a Trump supporter and actually want to give this a fair
shake. Have you perhaps asked WHY H1-B employees are so attractive? They are
living in America (same cost of living), so why are their salaries lower? Who
is the real second-class human here?

P.S: The answer is that H1-B's are virtually locked into their jobs and have
no negotiating power. Give them that and American employees will look
magically more attractive.

~~~
biocomputation
I'm not a Trump supporter. I didn't vote for him, and as noted in my previous
post, I am truly horrified when I think about what his Supreme Court choices
could mean for marriage equality ( among other things! ).

* We don't need to give H1-B guest workers negotiating power.

* We need to end H1-B and send the guest workers home.

* We need to replace the guest workers with American workers.

Access to jobs, and the economic mobility accompanied by it, is a bedrock
social justice issue in America.

It is an enormous social injustice to make American workers compete with
foreign nationals for jobs. Frankly, I don't see how it's possible read about
American workers having to train their foreign worker replacements and not see
it as anything less than deeply and tragically wrong.

~~~
464192002d7fe1c
I am a trump supporter, and work in tech management. I agree with 100% of what
you're saying. I've personally seen the abuses of the H-1B program.

I know that the required job searches prior to utilizing the H-1B program are
basically perfunctory. I know that the workers under the program are abused. I
know it depresses wages for American workers overall.

Its funny, I generally despise the term "social justice," but, you're dead on
here.

~~~
biocomputation
Thanks for your remarks.

We'll definitely have to agree to disagree on Trump, but you and I do have
common ground in our belief that access to employment is an issue of social
justice, and that the H1-B program has been abused and corrupted in a way that
has created profoundly unjust outcomes for Americans.

The United States already has a program for legal immigration, right? Why do
we even need H1-B?

~~~
mandeepj
> The United States already has a program for legal immigration, right? Why do
> we even need H1-B?

I'm pretty convinced you don't have solid understanding about inner workings
of immigration and H1-B. You just have some hatred against this visa.

Most of jobs holded by h1-b candidates are temporary and their ranks stand at
the very bottom of the food chain. These jobs last not more than few months
and in very rare cases 1-2 years. So, they are the first ones to leave the
company before the permanent ones.

H1-b candidates are very expensive to hire. Although, they do get paid very
low.

Now, please go and educate five other people so that we can end this BS
propaganda.

~~~
biocomputation
>> You just have some hatred against this visa.

Jobs are a bedrock social justice issue in the United States. You're free to
characterize me remarks however you like, but I'm pretty sure that the fact
that 60-80% of H1-B visas are issued to citizens of only two countries is a
sign that the program has been hopelessly corrupted.

~~~
mandeepj
> I'm pretty sure that the fact that 60-80% of H1-B visas are issued to
> citizens of only two countries is a sign that the program has been
> hopelessly corrupted.

Those two countries are also highly populated in the world so the numbers are
proportional

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sfifs
While I live in India and negative actions on H1B will undoubtedly affect my
country, I've struggled to understand how American citizens have tolerated the
gaming of H1B for so long.

Since H1B is supposed to be for hiring people with skills in short supply in
the US, a reasonable solution would be to award the visas in descending order
of pay on the philosophy that a market should value skills in short supply
more. A lottery based system in contrast seems to be designed to be gamed by
whichever company can stuff applications.

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maxxxxx
It actually sounds reasonable. From what I have read the largest H-1B
companies are Infosys and Tata. I have worked with Infosys people and they are
not paid well and the company is slow at applying for a green card. This is
certainly not what H-1B was intended for. If they made it more difficult for
these companies but maybe even easier for small companies that have found a
foreign worker I am all for it.

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farright
If we keep the same caps and introduce a minimum wage for H-1B visas, this
would be a strict improvement.

I don't know why this would even be controversial, it's basic economics. All
developed countries prefer higher paid workers cause those workers pay more
tax (and probably have bigger contributions to total surplus). Having a cap
and letting it fill up randomly with lower income employees like those from
contracting companies, instead of high income employees at big tech companies,
is just leaving money on the table.

