
Denial of H1-B visas to India’s largest IT services exporters at all-time high - howard941
https://economictimes.indiatimes.com/nri/visa-and-immigration/h-1b-visa-denials-at-all-time-high/articleshow/70613732.cms
======
dang
All: please follow the site guidelines when posting here. They include: "
_Comments should get more thoughtful and substantive, not less, as a topic
gets more divisive._ "

We ban commenters who break them and have had to do so several times in this
thread.

[https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html](https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html)

------
hn_throwaway_99
Note that this data was just from 4 of the giant Indian IT outsourcers (e.g.
Infosys, Tata Consulting, Wipro), who were basically the worst abusers of the
H-1B system. I'm interested to know what the rate is for smaller companies and
US-based companies.

~~~
whatshisface
I am trying to find a table of the number of H1B visas awarded. The best thing
I can find is [1]. It doesn't show enough years of the Trump presidency to be
useful, and the 2017 number is incomplete because the report was published
before year end in 2017. Other than the fact that visa awards significantly
increased from 2015 to 2016, the chart doesn't show what we're looking for.

If anyone can volunteer a better source that would be much appreciated.

[1]
[https://www.uscis.gov/sites/default/files/USCIS/Resources/Re...](https://www.uscis.gov/sites/default/files/USCIS/Resources/Reports%20and%20Studies/Immigration%20Forms%20Data/BAHA/h-1b-2007-2017-trend-
tables.pdf)

~~~
jjgod
[https://www.uscis.gov/sites/default/files/USCIS/Resources/Re...](https://www.uscis.gov/sites/default/files/USCIS/Resources/Reports%20and%20Studies/Immigration%20Forms%20Data/BAHA/h-1B-quarterly-
requests-for-evidence-2015-2019-Q1-top-30-employers.pdf) is pretty good data
for 2018.

You can see that non-consultancy firms like Amazon, Microsoft, Apple, Google
and Facebook all have approval rates close to 99%.

~~~
yorwba
There's a large difference between IBM Corporation (approval rate 92%) and IBM
India Private Limited (approval rate 82%). The difference is even greater if
you look only at initial approvals vs. denials (IBM India 62 vs. 60, IBM 268
vs. 3). I wonder what the cause is.

------
doh
We are still a small company of 40+ people and have quite unprecedented issues
with H-1Bs, from transfer though extension. Literally every single H-1B
extension or transfer got slapped by RFE. The amount of documents we had to
produce to prove that an employee, who works for us for 3 years, is still
valuable, is just mind-blowing.

BTW we got RFE equally for people that are from Europe and India.

PS: because it was brought up by someone in this thread, we don’t employ
immigrants to save money. Check any of my “who is hiring” posts [0] and you
can see, that we pay equally across the US to all employees based on their
skill level. We bring immigrants because we’re having hard times finding
skilled workers locally. The competition for talent is quite brutal and we
just can’t pay the same as FAANG.

[0]
[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=20587535](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=20587535)

~~~
rayiner
> we don’t employ immigrants to save money.

> The competition for talent is quite brutal and we just can’t pay the same as
> FAANG.

You don't have to pay immigrants less in order to be saving money by employing
immigrants. The whole point is that by expanding the labor pool, you're
reducing salaries and negotiating power for everyone.

That's not what the H1-B system was designed for. It was designed to
facilitate hiring folks with specialized skills you can't get locally. _E.g._
you want to hire an Indian person who did his PhD on something relevant to a
project you're working on.

~~~
komali2
> you're reducing salaries and negotiating power for everyone.

Rather, you're leveling it by expanding the labor pool to include the rest of
the world, aka via globalization. Not inherently bad imo, but I could
understand why someone patriotic would find this problematic.

~~~
addicted
Well, H1B visas do not expand the labor pool. H1B visas allow members of an
already expanded labor pool to join and contribute to the US economy.

The alternative to fewer H1B visas is not just hiring Americans. In fact,
hiring Americans is far less likely than simply hiring Indians and letting
them work in India. Or, as is happening increasingly, having Chinese and
Indian employees who were educated in the US, move to Canada.

~~~
throwaway5752
Can those of us born in the US and educated there be moved to Canada by
FAANGs? If that's already happening by all means reply and let me know how to
get in on it before all the stuff really hits the fan in the US.

~~~
lazaroclapp
Sure. Definitely already a thing! I know plenty of people from the US who
joined a company in the US with international offices and then transferred
(temporarily or permanently) to an office somewhere else. Singapore comes to
mind, but I am sure the case for Canada is even easier (given NAFTA and
similar).

You could also just directly apply to a position that happens to be in Canada,
e.g.
[https://careers.google.com/locations/toronto/?hl=en](https://careers.google.com/locations/toronto/?hl=en)

By the way, you actually might not need any FAANG (or other Canadian employer)
help: [https://www.canada.ca/en/immigration-refugees-
citizenship/se...](https://www.canada.ca/en/immigration-refugees-
citizenship/services/immigrate-canada/start-visa/eligibility.html)

------
newprint
My best friend is full blown concert pianist, who graduated from Yale,
finishing her PhD in one of the most prestigious conservatories in US. She
performs internationally with orchestras : Japan, Europe, Asia. Has CD
recordings, won number of international competitions. Recently, she played
Rachmaninoff piano concerto with orchestra in VA/DC area. Guess what ? She is
struggling to get any documents to stay here permanently. And here, I'm
sitting in Fortune x0 company, filled with unqualified HB-1 software
engineers, who produce trashy code and don't care about quality of their work,
because in x-Months, they will be out or replaced.

HB-1 was made for people like my friend - a highly qualified PhD and not cheap
contractors shipped in packs from overseas. I'm kind of glad that this racket
is being closed for good.

~~~
gordon_freeman
H1-B visa is not intended for performing arts category or for extraordinary
artists. It is intended for specialty occupation such as software engineers
and data scientists etc. I understand your frustration but the way to reform
the system is to give the visas to the "right" candidates within the
speciality occupation rather than giving it to an entirely different category
in which your friend belongs to.

------
dmayle
I've always thought that the current salary requirement (min 60k) was a poor
way to go about implementing H1B. Companies want H1B visas, workers want to
make sure that their jobs are not displaced.

As such, they should make the salary requiement something like twice the rate
of whichever is greater: market rate for the role, the highest salary paid to
any non-H1B employee at that company in the same role.

At that point, you can relax (not remove) the H1B cap, because it makes it
cheaper to hire locals, so companies will only seek out H1Bs when there really
are talent shortages.

~~~
belltaco
The most noticeable impact that will have is shift many many jobs to immigrant
friendly countries in the same time zone like Canada, or just straight to
India. That'd be a lot of taxes and local consumption happening outside the
US.

Take places like Japan, negligible work immigration but wages haven't really
been growing along with productivity.

~~~
technofiend
Sounds like an opportunity for a tech maquiladora in Mexico or points farther
South. Mexico has the benefit of low cost of living and easy access to the US.
I placed people in Buenos Aires and it has a standard of living similar to any
large city in the US.

~~~
xtracto
It is already happening here in GDL, Mexico. Several start ups have opened dev
shops down here. They have a competitive advantage and plenty of comparatively
cheap talent to get from big companies like Oracle, hp, IBM, Intel,
Tata,Cognizant, among others that already have bored developers.

------
belltaco
This does not just impact consulting companies and body shops.

Big companies like Apple, JP Morgan, Blackrock, Coca Cola, Visa, Verizon and
dozens of others are also very negatively impacted.

[https://money.cnn.com/2018/08/23/news/companies/business-
rou...](https://money.cnn.com/2018/08/23/news/companies/business-roundtable-
immigration/index.html)

Full text of their Business Roundtable letter to DHS about work visas and the
list of signatories:

[https://s3.amazonaws.com/brt.org/archive/letters/Immigration...](https://s3.amazonaws.com/brt.org/archive/letters/Immigration.Nielsen%20Letter%2008232018.pdf)

~~~
shaklee3
Apple appears to be unaffected:

[https://www.uscis.gov/sites/default/files/USCIS/Resources/Re...](https://www.uscis.gov/sites/default/files/USCIS/Resources/Reports%20and%20Studies/Immigration%20Forms%20Data/BAHA/h-1B-quarterly-
requests-for-evidence-2015-2019-Q1-top-30-employers.pdf)

------
thatfrenchguy
For the sake of all the great skilled people from India who have been on H1B
for decades, Congress really need to fix the green card attribution problem:
there’s no reason why a person born in India has to wait 10 years to get a
green card when a French person can have one in 18-36 months.

~~~
refurb
Sure there is a reason - diversity. The “no country can get more than 5% of
immigrant visa in any given year”, was done so that large countries don’t
dominate the immigrant mix.

Same reason you can’t get a green card through the lottery if your from Canada
- it’s only open to under-represented countries.

~~~
whatshisface
Is there any reason why you would want diversity? On its face Indians wouldn't
be less valuable per capita than inhabitants of some small Pacific island just
because there are more Indians alive. In fact if you believe in normal
distributions then the best Indians would be better than almost any other
country _because_ there are more Indians to draw from.

~~~
pkaye
> Is there any reason why you would want diversity?

Diversity is generally considered a positive thing for companies and
countries. Also there have been complaints that US is poaching the best people
from other countries so diversity helps moderate that.

~~~
whatshisface
> _Also there have been complaints that US is poaching the best people from
> other countries so diversity helps moderate that._

The US sets US law to serve US interests, so I don't see how that would be a
motivation.

------
kaitai
A lot of folks are -- often justly -- saying that we should be training more
Americans for some of these jobs.

I worked for some time in a professional masters program that mostly has non-
US enrollment, despite being in flyover land. To complete it costs a fair bit,
though it's lower-priced than similar such programs on the coasts, and when
you get out especially if you're an American student you're often looking at
$90k+ for starting salary (depends on a few factors). It's a very remunerative
field.

But we just can't get many US students in! We've been trying to figure it out.
US students mainly come in when they've reached a point at their company where
they have a manager who says, You need these additional skills -- go to school
to get them, and we'll pay. I'm not talking "learn JavaScript library blah",
I'm talking stochastic calculus. The school part really is helpful because
there's a ton of theory that you don't learn by doing the practical
applications.

US citizen grads are placed so fast. There's no such thing as a sure bet, but
this grad program is a high-expected-value bet. And yet we just... can't...
get... Americans.

I think it's the math. So many Americans are just scared of math. Some of our
Chinese students "know" they're "just bad at math" but they don't see that as
a particular obstacle; just need to study harder. Americans tend to see it as
an inborn anatomical characteristic or something. But also it's the cost of a
master's after taking on the crushing load of undergrad debt. Some of our
students got their bachelors degrees for free in their home countries & then
just had to float the cost of this masters, which is less tuition-wise than 3
years of state college.

There are more structural problems than just "companies, you should grow your
own talent". I agree companies should do more: but if we really wanted a US
society that fostered technical excellence, we could make sure our schools did
that. We've made sure our schools foster football excellence, for instance.

And to get back to the direct topic: we're seeing a ton of RFEs for our grads,
and there is no other masters' program that does this stuff within a state and
a half of us. You've got to drive 8 hours to get to the next one.

~~~
truth_be_told
You have brought up something that most Americans don't want to hear i.e. "The
Truth"! I have worked for well over a decade in the US (but i did not study
there) and had always wondered about the dearth of "Americans" in the Tech.
Industry. Here is my blunt assessment;

1) Your entire culture/society has turned away from STEM fields. Everybody is
only interested in making money via Media/Management/Finance and any other way
to "get rich quick". The pursuit of knowledge is gone. This is quite sad given
that your previous generations did much to develop and spread scientific
temper throughout the world.

2) Americans also suffer from major self-entitlement. In a global world, the
fact that your previous generations were scientific top-dogs does not
guarantee you the same status without working for it. You have to compete and
prove yourselves worthy. So when the industry brings them face-to-face with
reality they lose heart and start blaming everybody else for their
predicament.

3) Americans are averse to hard-work. Here the Chinese/Indians wipe the floor
with them. It is a standard joke in the Tech. Industry that while the
Chinese/Indians do the actual work, the Americans are only good for
bullshitting in Management/Marketing/Sales roles. Whatever happened to the
"American Work Ethic"?

4) It is now a truism that much of the Tech Industry work has been
"commoditized" and the barrier to entry has gotten lower. Most workers are
mere "Craftsmen" rather than "Engineers/Scientists". For example, i have
worked alongside PhDs in Physics/Mathematics/Biology etc. and their output was
comparable to mine (no PhD) simply because the domain did not need their
specialization. Most of the Software Industry is like this.

I just wish that the current/future generation of Americans would take a good
hard look at themselves and make the necessary changes to their society to
build themselves up again instead of blaming "immigrants" and everybody else.

~~~
Bubbadoo
Unfortunately, you have just described the stereotypical American engineer and
the main reason why managers here from other countries, such as India and
China, will rarely hire an American for a domestic position. I can tell you,
first hand, this stereotype is not durable nor applicable. I agree, most
American-born students tend to go towards the 'soft' skills, such as marketing
or sales. But many people I'll also give you, Americans aren't the best at
rote learning, ie., memorizing texts. I'm not going conclude by saying
American-born engineers are getting maligned, only those critical points you
allege as being endemic to US engineers are applicable to engineers
everywhere.

~~~
truth_be_told
My intent was to shine a spotlight on a specific mindset (whether real or
imagined, the external effect is the same) which affects Engineers/Management
in the Tech. Industry. One has to face realities on the ground whether one
likes it or not.

Note that what i described above exists in the "middle strata" i.e. the vast
majority of work/jobs which have been commoditized and thus has a lower
barrier to entry. As an example, i may consider myself as an experienced
super-duper "Systems Programmer"(limited jobs) but given that the number of
jobs in "Web Development" are at-least a few orders of magnitude greater than
in "Systems Development", i would need to learn Web Technologies and compete
with kids half my age if i want to earn a salary and keep a roof over my head.
Generalize this to competing with developers throughout the world and i have a
major problem. Therefore in order to make myself more attractive to clients i
need to bring lots more to the table like Experience, Hardwork, Humble
mentality, Willingness to learn and Getting things done. The necessary change
has to come from within. No amount of blaming H1Bs or others is going to help
me.

Incidentally, the above viewpoints were explained to me by a Microsoft HR
person himself! It came as a shock initially but over time i have come to
accept it and learned to change my expectations.

------
shagie
One of the questions that appears to be at the heart of the H1-B visas - does
rank and file software development still meet the criteria for a specialty
occupation?

From [https://www.uscis.gov/working-united-states/temporary-
worker...](https://www.uscis.gov/working-united-states/temporary-
workers/h-1b-specialty-occupations-dod-cooperative-research-and-development-
project-workers-and-fashion-models) , one of the following must be true for it
to be considered a specialty occupation:

> Bachelor’s or higher degree or its equivalent is normally the minimum entry
> requirement for the position

> The degree requirement for the job is common to the industry or the job is
> so complex or unique that it can be performed only by an individual with a
> degree

> The employer normally requires a degree or its equivalent for the position

> The nature of the specific duties is so specialized and complex that the
> knowledge required to perform the duties is usually associated with the
> attainment of a bachelor’s or higher degree.

With today's world of bootcamps for entry level software development being
more and more common - I really wonder if this is still the case. A bachelors
degree is helpful... it signals that a person is willing to work on a multi
year program to complete something that has a wide range of requirements...
but it's not essential. I work with a person who has a degree in physics and
another who went from truck driver to registered nurse to working on medical
records software.

Digging into this question,
[https://www.uscis.gov/sites/default/files/files/nativedocume...](https://www.uscis.gov/sites/default/files/files/nativedocuments/Characteristics_of_H-1B_Specialty_Occupation_Workers_FY17.pdf)
\- 70% of all H1-B visas are going to computer related occupations.

~~~
diebeforei485
Plenty of wiggle room with "normal", "so common to the industry", "usually",
etc. Also keep in mind - at most companies, bootcamp grads often join at a
lower/different job title than those with a Bachelors in CS.

------
duaoebg
I've been on H1B numerous times at big and small companies. Each time they
used my immigration status as leverage to pressure me to take increasingly bad
deals and are somehow surprised when I quit.

I would consider the bulk of H1B to be about suppression of worker rights (and
salary)

I now remote consult from my home country. I still get employers who figure
they should pay me less since I live in a cheap country but it's much easier
to negotiate when they can't kick me out of the country.

~~~
softwaredoug
It really is the worst of all immigration outcomes for all but the employer.

You come into the US, but entirely as a kind of guest worker. You demonstrate
you have great skills and work ethic, but there’s no path to permanent
residency or citizenship. The relationship turns exploitative. So you go back
home and do great things there instead of here in the US.

We could have had a smart, productive addition to the American workforce
through a more thoughtful approach to immigration. Instead we gave you up to
your home country. Your home gain a skilled and experienced knowledge worker
bolstered with your experience at a US tech giant, we cycle in the next H1B to
repeat the cycle.

~~~
dmix
People in the US seem hostile to switching to a Canadian or Australian style
immigration because each worker will only be able to bring their spouse and
kids, not their entire extended family (including grandparents, cousins, etc)
for every immigration granted like it currently is in the US. Instead it
should be more lax on the front end, the advanced workers account for a
significantly higher percentage of Canadian immigrants than the US (something
like 30 vs 60%) which is how it should be.

Any country that doesn't make it easy for the world's best and brightest to
come is missing out and having gone through the US immigration process there
is so much low hanging fruit to fix things without adding any pressure to the
system.

The US immigration system is surprisingly liberal but in the wrong places.

~~~
TheCoelacanth
> People in the US seem hostile to switching to a Canadian or Australian style
> immigration because each worker will only be able to bring their spouse and
> kids, not their entire extended family (including grandparents, cousins,
> etc) for every immigration granted like it currently is in the US.

WTF are you talking about? Workers can only bring their spouse and unmarried
children under 21[1]. Even citizens and permanent residents can only sponsor
their parents, children and siblings for immigration[2], not grandparents and
cousins.

[1] [https://www.immihelp.com/h4-dependent-
visa/](https://www.immihelp.com/h4-dependent-visa/)

[2] [https://www.nolo.com/legal-encyclopedia/sponsoring-family-
me...](https://www.nolo.com/legal-encyclopedia/sponsoring-family-member-green-
card-29561.html)

~~~
dmix
It's called chain migration and it's well known that you can go beyond just
siblings, parents, and children:

> As a general rule, it is impossible to obtain U.S. green cards for one’s
> grandparents, aunts, uncles, nieces, nephews, and more extended relations –
> unless you can create a chain of relationships so that a more immediate
> family member can petition for them. For example, instead of petitioning for
> a grandparent, a U.S. citizen could petition for his or her parents; and
> they could, after receiving a green card and eventually U.S. citizenship,
> petition for their parents (your grandparents).

[https://www.alllaw.com/articles/nolo/us-immigration/who-
is-e...](https://www.alllaw.com/articles/nolo/us-immigration/who-is-eligible-
family-based-green-card.html)

The numbers fully support this too as I mentioned there are far more skilled
workers with Visas and green cards vs family members/relatives in Canada than
the US:

> Contrary to conventional thinking, it could be argued the U.S. system is
> more “compassionate” than Canada’s. Almost seven in 10 of those who settle
> lawfully in the U.S. are close relatives of previous immigrants. Each U.S.
> immigrant on average sponsors 3.5 family members.

> Canada, meanwhile, restricts “family reunification” immigrants to about one
> in five. Canada mostly picks immigrants to boost economic expansion. Two of
> three immigrants are brought in because of their skills and education.
> Trump’s plan, created by son-in-law Jared Kushner, copies Canada’s
> reasoning.

US = 70% family/relatives, Canada = 70% skilled workers

[https://vancouversun.com/opinion/columnists/douglas-todd-
wha...](https://vancouversun.com/opinion/columnists/douglas-todd-whats-
different-and-similar-in-canada-and-u-s-immigration-policy)

Our immigrant communities are famously successful too. In large immigrant
communities like Brampton outside of Toronto, Hindus often rank #1 in income
per capita, beating out Christians, Jews, atheists, etc. The Chinese
communities in Richmond Hill, Markham, and Mississauga are also very
successful. You can't drive through those neighbourhoods without seeing
Mercedes and Teslas parked everywhere.

------
diebeforei485
Most of the lawbreaking and shady activity related to H-1B visas seems to
happen when there is this sort of third-party arrangement, where these
companies bring workers in, and then contract them out to other workplaces
(often through a chain of contracts via other intermediaries).

From that sense, it's good to scrutinize these so that genuine applications
have a better shot at the lottery.

~~~
privateSFacct
Agreed - I wish they were making it easier on the legit direct hire folks, and
much much harder on these third party placers.

The problem is, the third party placers are playing a numbers game. No
individual is critical in their H1B apps, they just need to have 22% approved
so they can fill their body slots.

The smaller legit direct hire firm has often invested a lot in a potential H1B
usually after really trying very hard to get non visa folks in. The denials
there are brutal.

------
ArtDev
Good. The system is rigged against local workers in favor of global
corporations.

In addition to depressing wages this corrupt system sucks for the H1B workers
too. They can't earn more at another company unless they return to their home
countries and reapply to the system all over again. Which is absurd.

------
Roboprog
How long until executive jobs are offshored as well? What stops that from
happening 10 years after many of the skilled labor jobs are offshored

The only barrier I see is the capital to create competing startups, but places
like China may be well on the way to doing a “head transplant” on much of the
work they have already been doing.

Discuss, pro / con?

------
sn_master
The article isn't talking about denials for FAANG or other reputable
companies.

All the companies in the article are well-known abusers of the H1B visa, and a
primary reason why Indians using the system as intended at top companies have
the huge Green Card backlog.

You'll find endless discussions about those companies dating way before Trump.

------
tracer4201
This sounds like a good thing to me, as long as the visa denials are targeting
the low-skilled Indian coders. I've been at companies where we contracted with
Infosys, Larsen and Toubro, and some other Indian shops. We ended up having
guys in our office who couldn't speak English, lacked an understanding of
basic fundamentals (they've never used source control of any kind or write
2000 line Java methods). Ultimately they delivered garbage and it gave IT a
bad rep at the company. But we kept them on the payroll to "cut costs". The
contracting companies literally don't give a shit (senior managers and
directors would get ball game tickets and other perks under the table), and
management on our side would hold these jobs for these incompetent coders
instead of qualified local talent.

~~~
sumedh
How did they get the project in the first place, did you team in the US vet
the Indian team before signing the contract?

~~~
tracer4201
There’s usually an on-site account manager who hooks up the team in the US
with either an offshore team or Indian coders that work for the contracting
company who are already in the US.

The interviews are a scam. You interview a person who seems decent but someone
else will show up in their place. I had one interview where the person
obviously wasn’t the one coding. He couldn’t actually describe what his code
does. :)

Typically management in these companies aren’t technical folks, and they have
no idea what to look for.

------
segmondy
Percentage doesn't tell me much. If it's just a percent thing, they can just
send through more applications. 10% can be higher than 90%. Without the actual
numbers, the data is meaningless.

------
chewz
It is good thing overall. If a resource becomes more scarce (programmers in
this case) companies learn to use it in more effective ways.

~~~
belltaco
Or they will just offshore to Canada or India. Look at the bottom of the
article where it mentions Toronto.

~~~
Clubber
I don't understand why they don't onshore to say Missouri, or Alabama, or
anywhere that isn't a big city.

~~~
belltaco
How many people want to move to AL or MO for jobs, compared to bigger cities?
Your application pool would be considerably smaller.

In many cases they move people who have lost their work visa extensions after
working for 5 to 10 years, yet haven't received their greencards because of
country quotas.

Example:

[https://www.cnbc.com/2018/07/12/microsoft-might-be-forced-
to...](https://www.cnbc.com/2018/07/12/microsoft-might-be-forced-to-move-some-
jobs-abroad-brad-smith-says.html)

~~~
Clubber
I was thinking more of the people who already live there and are computer
savvy and have an internet connection can be utilized.

FWIW, I'd love to get a decent sized property with internet, away from the
city and traffic and pollution, and be able to work full time remotely.

------
damnyou
There's so much discussion here about how H-1Bs are good or bad for cohort X
or community Y.

Why does no one talk about the effects on the _immigrants_ themselves? How
much do they level up their technical and language skills? Are they able to
support their families better? Are their kids now living in a less polluted
environment (good for lifelong physical health) and in abundance, not scarcity
(good for lifelong mental health)? How integrated are they in their local
communities? How well do they form social bonds, both within their culture and
across cultures? How different are they from family-based immigrants?

Surely we should care the most about the people whose lives are impacted the
most?

(This is a rhetorical question, it's qwhite obvious what the reasons are.)

------
sys_64738
Instead of all the lawyers fees and filing fees, could some of these employers
retrain employees to do these jobs instead of laying people off?

~~~
cy_hauser
It's not a matter of retraining. The issue was US corporations abusing the
H1-B system to fire expensive US workers and replace them with Indian workers
at half the going US worker rate.

There's not shortage of workers for companies willing to (1) pay market
competitive rates and (2) hire older (i.e. over 40) workers.

------
conanbatt
They key concept here is Liberty. America was founded with the principles of
Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness.

Rules on how American's should be able to hire people, or humiliating and
excruciating bureaucratic processes goes against the very fabric of what
America was supposed to be about.

The way America treats is foreigners is world renowned for abusive, expensive
and unpredictable. It shames everyone who appreciates freedom of association.
For all the rest, the petty happiness of the mediocre.

------
jzunit
The restrictions on H1Bs is only a temporarily restraint and will only hasten
the transition to 100% remote teams.

Soon people will no longer be complaining about Infosys and Tata Consulting
but instead about Toptal, GitLab and Zapier - and there will be no regulatory
way to stop them.

Politicians can only protect your jobs for so long.

~~~
kevin_thibedeau
Politicians don't care about American's jobs. If they did they would have
reigned in the H1B abuse years ago.

Disney had their IT department literally training their H1B replacements
before being laid off. That was blatantly illegal. Nothing happened to them.
How may other companies got away with this without notice because they weren't
as stupid as Disney?

We can rake Zuck across the coals but Disney is untouchable. That's what
politicians care about.

------
ryanmarsh
The H1B program was being abused for corporate greed.

~~~
belltaco
There are several better ways of dealing with that instead of just making up
arbitrary and capricious rules enforced in a random and unequal manner. When
even companies like Apple protest it, there's something more than preventing
abuse by body shops going on.

E.g They almost turned a routine matter into a catch-22 where it turns people
requesting for work visa extensions while following all rules into criminals
and putting them into the criminal court system.

[https://www.forbes.com/sites/stuartanderson/2018/07/11/new-u...](https://www.forbes.com/sites/stuartanderson/2018/07/11/new-
uscis-policy-will-carry-harsh-consequences-for-applicants/#7bfb70504615)

They only backed down on that aspect after backlash from several big companies
in the form of a letter addressed to DHS, but the other things in that letter
still continue.

[https://money.cnn.com/2018/08/23/news/companies/business-
rou...](https://money.cnn.com/2018/08/23/news/companies/business-roundtable-
immigration/index.html)

~~~
leakybit
Why should anyone put their trust in what corporation say? They're an entity
whose sole existence is to generate profit from employee labor. Not to mention
Apple has a 99% approval rate for h1b apps.

~~~
belltaco
Because said corporations can move the same high paying jobs to Canada or
India. Especially easier in these days where big companies are becoming more
comfortable with people working from home and fully remote work. So instead of
taxes and consumption happening in the USA, all that money will go offshore.
Citizens' jobs will be affected too when new teams are set up offshore with
people already up to speed on internal knowledge of IT systems.

When they are already set up offshore and they look for new hires, do you
think they will hire first in SV/NYC or in their Canada/India offices? Same
with layoff preferences, they would prefer to lay off people in the more
expensive location. And maybe hire someone new in the cheaper location.

This will affect a lot of non-tech local jobs both at the company like HR and
cafeteria, and jobs in the local economy.

>Not to mention Apple has a 99% approval rate for h1b apps

Then why do you think Tim Cook personally signed this letter?

[https://s3.amazonaws.com/brt.org/archive/letters/Immigration...](https://s3.amazonaws.com/brt.org/archive/letters/Immigration.Nielsen%20Letter%2008232018.pdf)

It isn't just about approval rates, it's about being able attract the best
foreign talent, people being stuck in green card queue for a decade+ with no
end in sight, not getting visas in consulates etc.

~~~
povertyworld
Don't you think if those FAANG companies could offshore those jobs they would
have already? You think they keep them in SV because they love paying some
Javascript guy more than a dentist just so he can afford rent? Please.

~~~
belltaco
What do you think will happen if they need to pay 900k/yr to get good
engineers in SV?

As the pay rises, the tendency and pressure to offshore increases. It will
start slowly, but as more competitors do it, will accelerate.

[https://www.seattletimes.com/business/microsoft/trumps-
immig...](https://www.seattletimes.com/business/microsoft/trumps-immigration-
policies-give-vancouvers-tech-sector-an-extra-bump/)

~~~
povertyworld
Maybe that's why IBM has been so incredibly successful after off shoring
everything possible to India.

------
gesman
+1

Our tax dollars at work.

------
avip
I'm going to wildly extrapolate from here and go meta about the future, though
this is just a piece about your usual visa abusers finally getting the treat
they deserve.

In 10-20 years there will be one viable immigration policy: closed borders.
This is an inevitable corollary to the climate crisis.

In other words, if you're trying to better your life by relocating to a better
place, get into pace - now.

~~~
b_tterc_p
Not closed borders. Just specific closed borders. Notably, the ones facing the
equator. Awkwardly the ones who will most need to close borders will be the
ones against whom borders will be closed in the next wave of emigration.

------
llarsson
Yeah, this is definitely what all that "America first" and "Make America Great
Again" stuff was about. Isolationism, pure and simple. Short term, it looks
like a good strategy that benefits the own country. Long term, you lose
potential partnerships and access to great workers, who will now be elsewhere,
in competition with you. But I guess that will be someone else's problem, so
why should a politician care?

~~~
tus88
> and access to great workers

and access to _cheap_ workers

Let's be honest here.

~~~
untog
The way the system is currently set up it's both. Outsourcing companies like
those mentioned in the article (Infosys etc) absolutely abuse the system to
hire cheap workers. But a lot of talented engineers are hired that way too.
Hopefully I don't sound _too_ biased when I say that, since I'm a former H1B
holder. Whether I'm truly talented or not, I can assure you I was paid market
rate.

~~~
ptr
I've got a _very_ knowledgeable and experienced friend from Sweden that aced
both Google's and Amazon's interviews, but they're only willing to employ him
outside the US (Canada for example) due to the H1B issues. He didn't accept
their offers and is now a top paid developer at a local startup.

I'm not sure how this is "Making America Great Again".

------
pauljurczak
I wonder if we will observe an uptick in software quality as a consequence...

------
leannekim
Big companies and startups look good by supporting expanded foreign worker
programs. It makes them look progressive. It also lowers their costs to have
more qualified workers around.

But actually I know many local (US citizen) Silicon Valley programmers who
don’t support those programs. They know that more workers means lower salaries
for everyone.

