
New Evidence USCIS Policies Increased Denials Of H-1B Visas - seshagiric
https://www.forbes.com/sites/stuartanderson/2018/07/25/new-evidence-uscis-policies-increased-denials-of-h-1b-visas/#29f948785a9f
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e9
India has more applicants than all other countries combined times 2.5

I wouldn't be surprised if a lot of them are fraud and legitimately rejected

[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)

~~~
User23
Having worked with H-1B "principal engineers" who can't write a bash script,
I'm thinking yes, this is true.

~~~
__sr__
People who work primarily on Windows have trouble writing bash scripts. That’s
not exactly surprising.

~~~
User23
This was at a Linux shop.

~~~
__sr__
That was meant as a joke.

While I agree that there are many incompetent people who have abused H1B and
other such systems, I prefer to judge people on their individual merits and
avoid stereotyping. I have worked with both the extremes.

See my longer response to the OP

~~~
User23
I've never worked with a native employee with this particular defect for any
appreciable length of time. They always get let go. The H-1Bs however, in my
experience, don't. Why might that be?

~~~
__sr__
> The H-1Bs however, in my experience, don't. Why might that be?

That is strange. In my experience, H1Bs are let go as quickly as natives if
they are not competent. Of course, it could simply be a matter of the type of
companies we have worked with. Again, see my (longer) response to the OP. I
have mostly worked with Type 1 people I described there and have been
fortunate enough to mostly avoid the Type 2. That said, I’ve worked with both
extremes.

EDIT: When I say I’ve worked with both the extremes, I mean I have worked with
both highly skilled and totally incompetent foreigners _as well as_ natives.

EDIT 2: I’ve also worked with a third category — highly intelligent people
(PhD level) who are more interested in spreading their intelligence (i.e.
showing off) than getting actual work done. Unfortunately, I haven’t met the
other extreme in this case. :-)

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NTDF9
I know a lot of Americans think that most H-1B are cheap labor or incompetent
engineers. There is some truth to it but hear the other side out.

The way H-1B is implemented, it does not distinguish a person with PhDin
Computer Science from Stanford from someone who did bachelors in Computer
Science from Univ of Timbuktoo. This is the only visa for a top student can
get to continue to work in the United States.

Over many years, this caused a lot of grief with body shops abusing these
visas. The new administration came in and appointed a bunch of racists to head
USCIS, who started denying H-1B indiscriminately. Guess who are the guys
getting kicked out now?

Yes, the same Stanford graduates (or other top university graduates) that
America taught for many years.

The process also discounts non-linearity of life. A student produced by top
American universities is likely a good engineer. If they've worked in top
Silicon valley companies for many years, they've gained practical knowledge
that many other countries would kill to have. These 28-45 year old people are
typically startup founders, top engineers, execs and folks willing to take
chances. The US unceremoniously chooses to kick them out brashly? Guess which
jobs are going with them?

Also, the real mess of H-1B is the green card process of USA. There are so so
so many people on periodic H-1B extensions for 10 years, 15 years etc. These
guys have been in the US for the best periods of their lives and should be
naturalized. But because of the patchwork laws of US immigration, don't have
green cards. With the over zealous deportation machine (aka USCIS) in
operation now, these folks are being kicked out with their spouses and kids.

The US under current administration has the world completely backward. If they
ever genuinely had the intent to fix the immigration process (which I suspect
they don't), they've chosen the worst possible way.

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GauntletWizard
Somehow, I don't see this article getting a lot of traction here on HN. I'm
certain most of us have good friends and colleagues here in the US on an H1B
Visa; I'm equally certain most of us have seen and experienced the abuse of
the system.

H1B's stated purpose is "Specialty Occupation"s. A _lot_ of these Visas are
being used to bring in workers for very generic IT helpdesk jobs. There's
still many that are granted for exceptional talents in the field of
Information Technology and Computer Science, but there's also a large number
granted to companies that are primarily outsourcers, whose appeal is not
specialization but simply being cheap.

It's been suggested many times on HN that the regulations on H1Bs be changed
to make it a bidding process - Only bring over applicants who are being paid
the most. I'm not sure I agree or disagree, but I absolutely think more
careful scrutiny of what's considered a "Specialist Occupation" is a step
that's reasonable within the current regulations. There's a lot of complaints
of Fraud and Abuse related to the program that are also being addressed with
more careful scrutiny.

~~~
gaius
_whose appeal is not specialization but simply being cheap_

If there was genuinely a shortage of tech workers there would be no ageism (or
any other sort of -ism) nor would there be these elaborate multi-day hoop-
jumping interviews.

~~~
akhilcacharya
Why? There is a legitimate reason for having a high hiring bar. Obviously this
doesn’t make ageism or discrimination acceptable of course.

~~~
gaius
_There is a legitimate reason for having a high hiring bar._

The “bar” is not representative at all of the nature of the work is why. It’s
artificially high in order to eliminate a glut of candidates early in the
process.

I remember when there was a genuine shortage of tech workers - the dotcom
boom. Hiring and compensation reflected that there was high demand and
competition to hire. Outside of a very few niches now, the economics (law of
supply and demand) simply don’t show it.

~~~
akhilcacharya
>Outside of a very few niches now, the economics (law of supply and demand)
simply don’t show it.

Undergrads (not me though) can make $225k out of school now easily, is that
not showing it?

------
__sr__
Broadly speaking, there are two types of H1B applicants[1]:

1\. Applicants being hired directly by US companies like Amazon, Google,
Microsoft etc. These applicants have either worked for a while at one of their
offshore subsidiaries or were hired directly after a thorough interview
process. They are typically paid on par with their US counterparts. These
applicants are usually very good at what they do — regardless of their
educational background — which is why they were hired in the first place.

2\. Applicants working for outsourcing companies who are being sent to work
for their clients. Unfortunately, not all of them are good and are hired
mostly to reduce costs.

Most of the stereotypical immigrant engineers fall in the second category. A
lot of them moved to the US in late 1990s and throughout the 2000s. Companies
like Microsoft, Amazon, Google, Apple etc. don’t typically hire incompetent
people — barring a few exceptions which may have slipped through the cracks.

Unfortunately, the second category of applicants give all of them a bad name.

I don’t know exactly how this can be solved completely. Perhaps H1Bs should be
allowed to stay in the country after quitting their jobs for a certain period
of time so they can look for another one — eliminating low employee mobility?
Perhaps the minimum H1B wages should be increased — eliminating the low cost
H1Bs? Perhaps there should be additional scrutiny for applicants going to work
for a third party client? Perhaps there should be subcategories of H1B with
different limits for the two types of applicants? Perhaps a combination?

In any case, treating the two categories as one is probably not a great idea.

[1] I know I am generalizing here and that the world is not black and white
and that there are exceptions. But in my experience, these are the broad
categories.

~~~
dmode
Both me and my wife fall in category 1, but were unceremoniously denied H1
visa extensions this year. Both of us have Master's degree in the US. As you
would note from other comments in this thread, there is a lot of
misunderstanding about H1B among Americans. For most people H1B = cheap, which
is grossly incorrect

~~~
NTDF9
@dmode what did you and your spouse end up doing?

~~~
dmode
Thankfully my wife's second petition was approved. I am currently negotiating
to work out of an international office. It is really complicated due to tax
issues, transfer, wage leveling, timezones etc. Personally, it is tough for me
as I have a toddler. The thought of a prolonged separation with her is
stressing me out. We are also planning to move out of the US next year.
Researching best destination currently

~~~
NTDF9
I hear you. Sorry about this! What other countries are you considering?

~~~
dmode
India, Singapore, Dublin, and Canada. Singapore is really easy work permit if
you are already getting paid Bay Area salaries.

~~~
NTDF9
Do you need your company to sponsor you again? Or can you move there
independent of a job offer?

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tananaev
My understanding was that all (or most) applications are processed in 4th
quarter of a fiscal year. That's because lottery is done in April (with
results in May/June). So, comparing quarters of the same year make zero sense
to me. Am I missing or misunderstanding something?

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grad_ml
From the article a)approximately 80% of full-time graduate students in
computer science and electrical engineering at U.S. universities are
international students.

b)Economists Giovanni Peri, Kevin Shih and Chad Sparber notes “A 1 percentage
point increase in the foreign STEM share of a city’s total employment
increased the wage growth of native college-educated labor by about 7–8
percentage points and the wage growth of non-college-educated natives by 3–4
percentage points.”

~~~
commandlinefan
> approximately 80% of full-time graduate students in computer science and
> electrical engineering at U.S. universities are international students.

Just 80? LOL, that sounds low to me. I did an MSCS at a U.S. university in
2005, and I was one of two U.S. citizens in the entire _program_. I took
multiple courses where I was the only U.S.-born person in the room, including
the professor.

------
screenbeam
Eric Weinstein has some thoughts on this:
[https://mobile.twitter.com/EricRWeinstein/status/94208170561...](https://mobile.twitter.com/EricRWeinstein/status/942081705615155200)

Read the paper he links to there.

~~~
User23
The decline in trust in "experts" isn't because people are stupid, it's
because even uneducated Americans are actually pretty smart, more than smart
enough to know when they're being lied to. This applies to people on both
sides of the issues, it's just that the people who prefer the liars' side
pretend not to notice the lying since they perceive it as beneficial to their
interests.

------
mechwarrior
I'm sure there is a good reason this idea wouldn't work, hoping someone can
help poke holes in it:

Why not set a number of H1B visas (say keep the current of 85k), then rather
than do a lottery or check qualifications, simply rank salaries offered to
applicants (or total yearly compensation) and let the people with the highest
offers get the visas.

This way wages won't be depressed, and companies with labor needs they are
truly unable to fulfill with traditional methods will get all the people they
need.

Viewing money as a crude measure of qualification it seems this would be the
most fair method. Also would be the best for the American worker since it
would prevent low cost H1B applicants from lowering local wages.

------
known
More Indian H-1B applicants are rejected since [https://qz.com/889524/the-us-
says-oracle-is-encouraging-indi...](https://qz.com/889524/the-us-says-oracle-
is-encouraging-indians-to-hire-others-indians-and-its-killing-diversity/) and
[http://www.nytimes.com/2012/04/12/world/asia/12iht-
letter12....](http://www.nytimes.com/2012/04/12/world/asia/12iht-
letter12.html)

