
A computer science professor's never-ending H-1B fight - newacc
http://www.computerworld.com/action/article.do?command=viewArticleBasic&articleId=9110379
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geebee
I recently read an article about visas for foreign nurses on businessweek.
President Obama is quoted: " "The notion that we would have to import nurses
makes absolutely no sense," Obama said at a health-care forum in March. "There
are a lot of people [in the U.S.] who would love to be in that helping
profession, and yet we just aren't providing the resources to get them
trained—that's something we've got to fix." "

(the link is
[http://www.businessweek.com/bwdaily/dnflash/content/jun2009/...](http://www.businessweek.com/bwdaily/dnflash/content/jun2009/db20090619_970033.htm))

It's interesting that our president, who supports an increase in H1Bs for the
high tech industry, would take this position where it comes to nursing.

It's made me very cynical. Ultimately, this all comes down to power.

Nurses have a shared experience (a specific education requirement), as well as
a specific licensing procedure that can be used as a gateway. They also don't
compete with each other the way programmers do (yes, programmers share
knowledge, but a nurse a kaiser clearly isn't competing with a nurse at beth
israel the way a programmer at google competes with one at microsoft).

Nurses also have a very, very powerful union, and society pretty much backs
them up, as the profession is held in high esteem. If a hospital tried to
bring in foreign nurses, engage in "knowledge transfer", and then fire the
older americans with higher salaries, the union would vote to strike, the
hospital would cease to operate, the public would back the nurses, and
management would completely capitulate.

I don't even know if Obama sees the potential inconsistency. That's what power
does. People often don't see themselves as "capitulating" to power. Instead,
they respect power, and negotiate accordingly.

I used to be much more in favor of "free markets". I still am in theory - what
I say is "I'm all in favor of free markets - if you find one, please let me
know, I'd love to participate". But at this point in my live, I've concluded
that working in a "free market" is like wandering around the wild west without
a gun. Sure, it'd be nice if we all put down our arms, but if you're the only
one who does this, you're just a chump. To me, that's what free markets are -
a chump's game.

I applaud Prof Matloff for fighting this. People who have read my posts
probably know that I'm in favor of a small number of visas for very talented
people (in any field), but I think we're unintentionally eradicating our home-
grown STEM (science technology engineering mathematics) workforce. The last
line is especially chilling - parents in Silicon Valley know what's going on,
and they no longer encourage their children to pursue the field. I actually
think that this, in the long run, will severely hurt the US economy, and we're
doing it to ourselves. Yes, allow talented workers to come here. No, don't
issue so many visas that young Americans are rightly deterred from entering
the field.

~~~
tc
I was with you until the last two paragraphs. After that point, you got it all
backwards. Let's see:

 _that's what free markets are - a chump's game_

You're blaming the wrong thing. I believe you mean to say, "pretending that
the markets we have now are free is a chump's game." Is this the sort of
hypothetical story that you have in mind:

"Joe the programmer has gotten laid off from three companies that ended up
going out of business while watching insurance giants and bankers get bailed
out by the government, seeing people in licensed professions (lawyers,
doctors, nurses) remain secure in their lucrative jobs, and observing that
government employees never get fired, have great benefits, high pay, and low
levels of work and stress."

If so, you can make a case that Joe is a chump. You could argue that he should
be using force to get a better deal at the expense of others rather than
naïvely working to increase total wealth. But in any case, the problem has to
do with the breakdown of the rule of law, disregard for property rights, and
neglecting to observe the hidden costs. Free markets have nothing to do with
this.

 _Yes, allow talented workers to come here. No, don't issue so many visas that
young Americans are rightly deterred from entering the field._

The American economy has grown to its present level because smart, hardworking
people built companies in America -- not because people who were Americans at
the time of their birth built companies. How would America be any better if
Sergey Brin's father had been one of those marginal cases you had decided to
keep out? It's easy to forget that if we keep out X Indian individuals, some Y
of those individuals might go on to build the next Cisco -- and if they're
excluded from America, that company might be built in India. The other
governments of the world would love it if we further closed our borders (to
any degree).

~~~
geebee
<the problem has to do with the breakdown of the rule of law, disregard for
property rights, and neglecting to observe the hidden costs. Free markets have
nothing to do with this.>

I agree, 100%. I phrased that badly. The chump's game is blithely accepting
the markets we have as "free".

<it's easy to forget that if we keep out X Indian individuals, some Y of those
individuals might go on to build the next Cisco -- and if they're excluded
from America, that company might be built in India.>

That's true. But the US takes 1.2 million immigrants a year. I consider that
to be a high number, but that's really just a matter of opinion. But we
(almost) all have our limits. Should we increase it to 2.4 million so we don't
lose the marginal cases? Even if we do, there will _still_ be marginal cases.
So then should we increase it to 4.8 million/year? I'm sure we could find
takers. Eventually, we have to accept that as a practical matter, some of the
people who want to come here aren't going to get to - and some of them would
have been truly excellent Americans.

<The other governments of the world would love it if we further closed our
borders (to any degree).>

On this one, I completely disagree. Seven of the top 10 users of the H1B visa
are actually Indian outsourcing firms. They use the visa to cycle a worker
through the US to learn the job, then bring that worker back home to outsource
the job. India actually gets quite angry with the US when we talk about
limiting H1B visas.

~~~
geebee
Lastly, a big problem I have with the current visa situation is that it
creates a market distortion by bringing in hundreds of thousands or
engineers/programmers while leaving other fields completely protected. Imagine
if the united states banned all foreign grown lemons but allowed in all
foreign grown avocados. Well, you could say that by removing all tarrifs from
avocados, we've increased free trade. But you can bet that any farm outside
the US hoping to access our market that can shift production to avocados will
do so, and any farm in the us that can shift to lemons will do so as well.

This is what we've done to engineering. If you make it easy to come to the US
as a programmer, but not as a lawyer, you distort the market. You should
absolutely expect this to deter americans from engineering and encourage them
to go into law.

~~~
tc
I agree with that. Anywhere the government coerces the market you're going to
get distortions. Is playing favorites the worst type of market distortion?
That's hard to judge, but it is probably the most egregious.

I don't think that immigration or foreign competition is the primary driver
behind the decline in American engineering (if there is such a thing) though.
The other mistakes we've made completely dwarf any effect this would have had:

Our fiscal policy over the past few decades has made debt our primary export.
Wall Street firms can make more money just dealing in US Treasury debt than
the profits of all the successful companies in Silicon Valley combined.

Steadily increasing regulation (SOX, whatever nonsense comes out of the
current situation, etc.), litigiousness (often spurred by statue law: sexual
harassment claims, hostile work environment, discrimination, etc.), and
complicated tax code has made lawyers and CPAs more in demand, while licensing
keeps their numbers down.

The increasing nationalization of health care has misdirected a shocking
amount of resources into this industry.

All in all, the major reasons why a smart, rational young person, who is
primarily motivated to make a buck, should go into law, medicine, banking, (or
politics!) have almost nothing to do with immigration.

------
yardie
He presents a lot of good ideas, but I'm weary of singling out H1B visa
holders. It seems the US immigration policy is counterintuitive to just about
every other countries' visa policy. It is hopelessly complex and random. It
rewards family connection over any valuable skill. I could sponsor a distant
cousin and he would get in before a highly talented programmer who doesn't
have any famillial connections in the US.

And as a programmer I feel like my best years are starting to be behind me.
I've still got a fresh mind, but when I leave the office my wrists are killing
me. I've just entered my 30s and I'm already telling my wife I don't know how
long I'll be able to do the job I love. I won't discourage my son form seeking
the same profession but I don't know if I'll have the same passion to
encourage him in this profession. I sometimes wonder if programming will
evolve to fit the human body or if the body can cope with the intricate work
of banging at a keyboard constantly.

~~~
anamax
> He presents a lot of good ideas, but I'm weary of singling out H1B visa
> holders. It seems the US immigration policy is counterintuitive to just
> about every other countries' visa policy. It is hopelessly complex and
> random. It rewards family connection over any valuable skill.

That paragraph is much too weak.

H1Bs are a small fraction of US legal immigration. Illegal immigration swamps
legal immigration.

We could increase H1B by 10x and easily have less total immigration.

The advocates for increased H1B are being played.

We've had the bait and switch game on immigration before. We gave amnesty
supposedly in return for effective enforcement. We didn't get enforcement.

As to the whole "jobs Americans won't do", I've done farm labor. Also, when
one of the meat packing plants lost many of its "undocumented" workers, folks
who actually had a legal right to work in this country applied.

~~~
queensnake
Just to boost your "Americans doing jobs Americans won't do" anecdote with a
bigger one (at least in these hard times):

[http://www.9news.com/news/article.aspx?storyid=118219&pr...](http://www.9news.com/news/article.aspx?storyid=118219&provider=top&catid=188)

------
queensnake
This article is from last year. The Durbin/Grassley bill he talks about came
and went, but it's back this year. Here's a pretty decent discussion:

<http://seeker.dice.com/olc/message.jspa?messageID=128406>

