Cracking down on Indian outsourcers is one thing, but if this is true
> The skeptical eye the government is taking to applications has extended to all types of employers, according to immigration lawyers. Many are rethinking their own use of H-1B as a result.
This is absolutely disastrous. I personally know families on H1B from well-known American companies are afraid to leave the country because of this.
"It would reject his application unless Centro proved the position required someone with specialized skills. Clark was surprised. She’d been helping people apply for visas for four years, and this was the first time she’d ever seen such a letter."
Four years, and this is the first time she's seen the government even try to see if the law should be enforced. Really says it all.
The H-1B program hasn't ever been a way to get solid talent from other countries to come to the United States because equivalent talent can't be found here. It's ALWAYS been a way to expand the pool of cheap technology labor so that companies dependent on expensive skills can grow faster.
Economics is economics. Companies have an incentive to fight wage inflation when they experience it due to a reliance on high-skill individuals.
I remember going to the offices of a well-known bank and finding nearly the entire development staff comprised of foreign workers on H-1B. Most of them were from India.
That can't be an accident and it's certainly not an indicator that talent is in short supply. What's in short supply is CHEAP TALENT. H-1B workers are cheap and don't have any ability to complain about their working conditions because they can't move to another company as easily as a permanent resident can. That alone is worth the legal hassle a company assumes when bringing in these workers.
SO, word to the wise....make sure you stay one step ahead of the skill levels of the Indian outsourcing companies or your days are numbered.
In the meantime, support candidates that are willing to rein in this amazing abuse of our immigration policy.
This program was abused badly by US and Indian companies and put a number of engineers in subservient position. I will not shed a tear for those companies.
For people, we should have one clear policy and apply it, if they can't come, so be it, but tell them clearly what they can get and what they cannot. And allow some transparency of the income and rates so that it can't be abused as much.
This is absolutely correct. I don't understand this mess of an immigration system, where first you have to lie to visa officers saying that you are using the F1 visa only to study, and you will definitely go back to your home country, then get a dual intent H1B, with a near infinite green card wait.
Set clear standards and expectations. I know that for a lot of people stuck in green card queues, Canada is looking mighty attractive right now. Instant PR.
The particular anecdote in this article almost seems anti-convincing to me... It suggests a job that should get challenged:
> For Centro, a company in Chicago that makes technology for ad agencies [...] applied for visas for three young employees who already had the legal right to work for a limited time after graduating from college.
> To Clark's eyes, the position — which consisted of writing algorithms and required knowledge of multiple programming languages as well as a solid understanding of relational data storage systems — wasn’t a borderline case.
I dunno, that sounds a hell of a lot like a fluffed-up description of an entry-level junior web-dev.
A server-side language + JavaScript + SQL queries. Not exactly the skill set that requires you to go head-hunting overseas.
Yup cant stand journalism today. Straight up mouthpiece for the rich.
Why did they not ask the company what the wage for that position is. How many people in Chicago did they interview. Did they interview anyone over 50 who has that exact experience? Did they approach anyone currently working in similar jobs and offer them raises and other benefits to entice them over?
Truth is the Company did none of those things so the good loyal journalist won't ask those questions.
The problem is that you think they went out and investigated this topic then wrote about the results of their investigation. In reality, they had a narrative and agenda they wanted to pitch and then went out to find confirmatory evidence, while largely discarding contradictory evidence.
You're talking as if there are only two parties here: owners (rich) and tech workers (not rich). But tech workers are well above the average US income. The unspoken group in your argument is the consumer, who on average is poorer than the tech workers. Lowering tech wages with H1B visas helps the consumers as well as the owners, because it makes the marginal tech product less likely to fail.
You might still think that the workers have the strongest claim. But as with most protectionism, there's more to consider.
You seem to be assuming that lowering tech wages will lead to more participation by labor overall, but I think that it will instead just lead to companies lining their coffers with the savings realized by replacing an equal number of positions with lower-paid H1-B workers.
I feel there's an apples-to-bytes comparison in there, given that the marginal cost for another instance of the same software is negligible.
This is especially true when you're talking about the non-institutional "poor consumer", as opposed to a company having customized or proprietary software made just for them.
It doesn't even sound particularly fluffed up. Most new grads that took a database course would probably fit that description. There are plenty of people qualified around.
The way I read it, stuff like "knows multiple programming languages" is intended to sound impressive to readers who don't know any.
I'm just assuming that somebody in the chain that produced this article deliberately sought to make the job sound more selective and prestigious than it really is.
I like how the heading of the article already tells me what I am supposed to be thinking. No time for subtlety or convincing - just start with the hammer blow, "make life hell". And then don't bother with convincing arguments - you already know new regulations are "living hell", what else do you need?
And from what I get in the article - which is not very rich on details - the "living hell" is that the government occasionally asks for proof of what is supposed to be already proven in the visa app - that there's no possibility of hiring the same talent in the US - and which everybody who dealt with it knows is kind of sham and not how it actually works.
This is all theater in 99.999% of the cases. I mean, the legal requirement is to prove you can't hire anybody with these exact specs in the US. It's usually complete bullshit - of course you could find an SQL programmer or a Javascript developer in the US, those are not extinct yet, and of course, you do not need any special unique knowledge to fill up a junior position, or at least not one any competent developer can't gain in a month. What happens is that you already know that particular person, maybe hired him as a freelancer, maybe did some contract work, maybe did it as a student, or maybe just like that person for that position. Or maybe it's just a bit cheaper.
So what you do is your write a tailored job description, which apparently requires exactly the same skill set the person you want to hire has, up to specific versions of the database system, you "publish" it, go through the motions (without really making an effort to hire anybody - it's usually not very hard for a knowledgeable HR person to do) and in a while you can get your H1B.
Pretty much everybody knows it's a game - the pretense that the only reason foreign people are hired is because there is absolutely not a single matching candidate anywhere in the US is false, but it is impossible to prove. But the game continues because the industry does need the influx of foreign talent, and the only politically viable excuse is the one we have. So we have this game.
You're right. "Multiple programming languages" and RDBMS skills aren't exactly rare. Those are very poor reasons to hire someone.
Here are the real reasons they probably wanted to hire him: He's smart enough to do well on his SATs/GREs and go to a good university. He's hard working and conscientious enough to get a good GPA while in University. He's got great recommendations from his classmates, former employers and/or professors. He knows his stuff well enough to get through an interview pipeline that most others fail to get through.
There's one problem though. None of the above are considered valid reasons to hire someone on a H1B. The Stanford grad who knows Java inside and out, has a 4.0 GPA, a perfect SAT score, and amazing side-projects and recommendations... according to the law, he's just a cog, perfectly interchangeable with any CS graduate who manages to graduate with a C+ average.
Hence why companies have to come up with other ridiculous reasons for wanting to hire this guy. Because the real metrics that any rational person would take into consideration, are all considered inadmissible. If you start fighting with a guy who has one hand tied behind his back, don't be surprised if he doesn't follow proper boxing decorum.
That's a nice appeal, but on reflection that case isn't actually virtuous.
What you have described is not an employer who is just violating letter of the law in some harmless defiance of red tape... No, that employer is deliberately breaking the spirit of the law too.
The H1-B exemption is intended to allow for immigrant workers when domestic supply doesn't exist. Not "when you really really like a dude."
We can think of numerous instances where the law is sufficiently dysfunctional, that citizens take it upon themselves to work around it. On the trivial side, most Americans knowingly drive over the speed limit, and consume alcohol when they are underage. On the more serious side, today's sanctuary cities and slavery-era underground-railroads are both intended to subvert federal laws in support of deportation/slavery. Do you think that it's immoral to disobey the law under any circumstances? If not, how do you go about deciding when it's ok to disobey the law?
Even though Silicon Valley sees the H-1B program as one of
its top political priorities, this campaign of reform by
red tape has avoided the frantic political fights
surrounding other aspects of immigration, like the proposed
travel ban or the cancellation of DACA, a program for those
who came to the country as undocumented children.
This is conflating two different things - DACA and travel ban are issues related to immigration; H-1B is about temporary guest workers. The (skilled) immigration issue which concerns most of SV is green card backlogs. That has not gotten any attention from SV leadership.
Given the H1-B is a "Dual Intent" visa, it is absolutely still about immigration, the H1-B doesn't just allow for temporary workers. It provides a well worn path to a green card and permanent residency in the US too, and in my experience virtually everyone I've known to use the H1-B has done so.
The H1-B cap is surely a far more pressing concern for most technology firms than the GC backlog. The H1-B cap and delays are making it significantly harder to hire foreign workers. I don't think the big tech firms care nearly as much about GC backlogs - if anything they probably like this, as it arguably aids in staff retention if your workforce is less able to easily switch job.
I think the parent poster's point is that the H1B process is far from the bottleneck there, for shops intending to bring along their foreign workers rather than churn through cheap employees, which matches my experience.
I'd disagree - the H1B process can absolutely be argued to be the main bottleneck for hiring skilled foreign tech workers right now, especially as the cap has been exceeded by such an enormous number for several years.
Also, the GC backlogs are more relevant to SV than the two other issues mentioned - travel ban and DACA. Yet SV leadership is way more vocal on travel ban and DACA than they are about GC backlogs.
>The (skilled) immigration issue which concerns most of SV is green card backlogs. That has not gotten any attention from SV leadership.
Of course not. If workers were not held hostage by one company, and were free to go to any company they wanted without worrying about their immigration status, the companies would have to pay higher wages to keep their workers.
Not to mention, many would be able to work for or create startups, small businesses, or heck, just bum around or retire if they had saved enough over the years.
Companies hate employees having this kind of flexibility. Just on some other thread on HN, there was talk of how foreign grad students were not treated well compared to citizens, since the foreigners were tied to a visa.
The H-1B is not about guest workers, which are an altogther separate set of programs/visas. The H-1B is a dual-intent visa, so it supports both people who intend to obtain a green card or citizenship eventually as well as people who only intend to work in the US for a period of time before returning home. (Even in the latter case, this doesn't qualify it as a guest worker program, which is a third category altogether).
An easy heuristic you can use to remember why the H-1B visa isn't a guest worker program is that many people who obtain H-1B visas enter the country without any plan for the date that they will return home. (Whether or not they ultimately stay and immigrate is a separate matter, but guest workers by definition know their expected departure date when they enter, because the terms of their employment and entry are inherently temporary.)
Some critics of the H-1B visa refer to it as a guest worker program, in an attempt to conflate it pejoratively with the latter (which are generally for low-skilled labor, and therefore viewed less favorably than specialty visas like the H-1B).
So now they’re just doing what was supposed to have been happening the entire time? I’m having difficulty sympathizing with these companies and lawyers when all they have to do is apparently file more paperwork.
It's not like that. Most top companies do detailed paperwork. This causes other side effects and stress.
For example, you could be working at Google / Facebook earning top $$$$ every year and you paperwork could be spotless. But the stress of having to go through an uncertain renewal process every 3 years prevents you from investing in big things like buying a house or having kids. You are always worried about being able to return back to your stuff when you leave for a trip overseas.
Even though most top companies immediately apply for Green CArds, the "country of birth" based green limits ensure that you have to remain in H1-B status for 15 - 20 years (if you happen to be born in India).
TL;DR: It's not the increased vetting that we fear, its the uncertainty and complicated appeal procedures that can affect genuine H1-B cases.
Actually it's currently looking more like 15 years. People with priority dates in 2009 are just getting in. So if you account for the number (plus consider the fact the people in EB-3 become eligible for EB-2 after a few years), it looking more like 15.
The silly thing is, there is bipartisan bill in congress and Senate to fix it (HR 392). But it is stuck is legislative limbo.
This is my comment. Addressing some of the questions
1. I took a pay cut. I went from 190K+ USD (~250k+ CAD) to 180k CAD (this includes my bonus. My base is lower, say around ~150k CAD). Numbers are fuzzed but close enough to reality.
This is a significant drop, but of course it's still a very good salary for Canada. I'm satisfied with my decision.
2. I'm in Marketing, reasonably senior. Couple levels down from the CMO.
3. Same company. Essentially got transferred with a pay cut. This made it easy for the company as well. It helped that I've been here for a longish time and have built relationships within the company. They were very supportive.
Yes, but if you lose your job for any reason, you have to leave the country in a matter of days (I think you have 30 days, it might be a little more).
So, sell your house, all your belongings, take the kids out of school, move all investments... uproot your whole life in 2 months, maybe 1 month. That's not an easy thing to do, especially with children. It's not fair to my family - the kids would hate moving from the US back to India. Canada is much closer, culturally, and it's easier to adjust.
We decided to move as a family, and planned everything for more than a year.
This is personal, of course. Everyone has to make their own decision.
Sorry if I'm being overly detailed, but if you lose your job when in the later stages of a green card there is portability to a new employer, so there are options.
However, I do agree the uncertainty can be stressful. I went through a layoff when on H1B and it's not fun!
Yes, although there is some portability, you still have to apply, interview and get a job within 30 days. That's not feasible, and doesn't give you enough room to find a good job and negotiate salary from a point of strength.
Conservatives may generally view this as "good" regardless of the impact because (according to arguments I've heard) "the less globalization, the better."
In my mind, however, it boils down to two pretty simple points:
Given that (1) the US is lagging far behind every developed nation in education, and higher education in the US is prohibitively expensive compared to other developed nations, (2) the only way for the US to remain on the R&D playing field is to attract already educated/trained people from other nations with the lure of misc benefits of living in the US (culture, safety, stability, philly cheese steaks). Take away our ability to import talent and there goes the last leg of American dominance in technology.
No more American students that can compete with Chinese, Taiwanese, Japanese, or German ones, leading to less innovation in a generation. No more immigrant students making their money and starting their businesses here (or working for American R&D departments) because they can't get a visa - and possibly even worse, well-trained highly educated Americans leaving because of the obvious end-game (reduced GDP causing all sorts of ripple effects in local economies, safety, etc).
I just don't understand why we wouldn't want to make it as easy as possible to steal talent that another country invested in. We take a 23yo Chinese engineering graduate as he's going to begin peak productivity - the USA didn't have to invest in his k-12, scholarship his university, clean the water he drank for 24 years, etc. Instantaneous social profit. He joins Chevron and is turning a profit for them within the year, pumping out research and getting taxed on his 100k/year salary, spending his money in-country and oh well, maybe he sends a bit (already taxed) home.
Am I being reductive? Seems to be a very poor investment to make it harder for the highly educated to come into this country, without at the very least making a massive push for higher education across the board for our own citizens (which we are not seeing).
EDIT: To clarify my points: There are 2 ways for a country to be technologically advanced - train their own citizens, or steal other trained citizens. Have neither of those and obviously, you will fall behind.
The US as a whole (including non-governmental culture, employer preferences, etc) is still making a massive push for higher education, which is a big part of what's caused the arms race of ever-nicer dorms etc.
The thing to remember about US education is that it's highly different between the haves and have-nots. That's a problem in itself, but it's a giant oversimplification to jump to "US educations are generally poor." (One of the other high school and college cost-drivers/arms-race-drivers is competing to attract foreign students.)
Well that's just it - using the word "generally," the US does poorly. Gap or no, if a huge swath of your population can't compete, that reflects poorly on your country.
There's a gap in China as well but it's made up for by a massive population. Lord forbid they close their gap, that'll be the end of any other country's ability to compete as China and India just throw five hundred million engineers each at their technology sector.
Maybe I'm coming from an overly lucky position, but if so it's not the one you normally see called out for it: midsize town away from the coasts, public school education, middling state school university. The top 50% of the class has done perfectly competitively the last 15-20 years, even as skilled immigration has been high. Maybe we'd make even more otherwise, who knows.
The bottom 50% has gotten fucked by loss of jobs/industries/career paths/debt, but H1Bs aren't helping with that.
So if your contention is "we need to figure out how to better invest in the whole population" I agree, but I don't see the other half of the equation being an overly large limiting point.
If anything, if we're in the lead industry-wise, does importing young talent, teaching them these things, and making it easier for that experience to be taken elsewhere really help long-run? Almost sounds more like a case for paranoid isolationism immigration-wise.
We're never gonna have a billion people in the US in my lifetime, but I don't think that's necessary for there to be enough US self-driven industry to have a nice, happy, productive life.
Also, working at a major state university in the US, I don't see that the international students are really very good, for the most part. They certainly are predominant (in a numbers sense) in fields like computer science, but they aren't very good overall. Perhaps due to being barely able to communicate in English.
I mean, arguably neither did the Chinese, depending on where you are and how much they've let pollution occur in that area.
I think you are grossly overestimating both the value of these immigrants (it isn't hard to see how much garbage science gets published abroad and how useless a good chunk of international students are) and the entire mechanism for technological improvement and innovation (most of which is market, not PhD, driven).
You also don't cite any sources for your claims; this information would be helpful to anybody seeking to agree or argue with you.
> it isn't hard to see how much garbage science and how useless a good chunk of international students are
That statement is true of any group of students, international or local. On the other hand, there are good international students (and there are good local students). Is there any reason why you think the ratio isn't the same (in fact, you'd think that the ratio of good international students would be higher because they have to go through far more rigorous testing than the average local student).
And while you might argue they're mostly useless, usually international students make up a large amount of the funding for universities since their fees are usually 5x or sometimes even 10x "local" student fees[1]. So if you like having well-funded universities throwing out international students is a good way to stop that from working.
[1]: My data is from Australia (since that's where I am). In 2017, ~1.3 million students enrolled in higher education -- and ~350k were international students. Most universities have a multiplier of _at least_ 4x for international students taking the same courses as a local student. By simple arithmetic, international students make up more than half of the funding-through-fees of Australian universities.
I agree that that statement is absolutely applicable to "native" students as well! And there are definitely some outstanding international students!
The author I was replying though doesn't seem to differentiate though, for example, between graduate students coming here to do research and learn cutting-edge things and undergraduates who have wealthy families that export them abroad because of course that's what one does.
You've also kind of nailed another issue on the head: it is more profitable, per student, for universities to bring in international students than to teach local ones. This in turn leads to an increase in pricing for everybody (though probably not as much as due to student loan availability, but that's a different thing) and weird campus behavior to accommodate valued country officials (local school of Rice University, for example, hiding Taiwanese flags during a visit by mainlanders).
This is not entirely accurate because most Australian domestic university students have their fees heavily subsidised by the federal government, which is why they are called 'HECS-HELP contributions' and not fees. After taking into account government grants (including those made on account of domestic students' fees) and other sources of income international student fees make up less than 20% of university income on average – see slide 35 on this 'data snapshot': https://www.universitiesaustralia.edu.au/ArticleDocuments/16...
I think you may have misunderstood your source. "Government grants" (which are going to go away in the next few years if Turnbull has his way) have nothing to do with student fees. They are effectively research grants, and other forms of funding from the government (since our universities are partially publicly funded). And since everyone pays tax, effectively everyone is paying for those grants.
As for HECS-HELP loans, this is quite different from a subsidy. It's a loan from the government that has a guaranteed return (pretty good deal for them). But even from your own source, international student fees are 18.8% and total "local" contributions (including HECS loans) are 19.9%. Which is effectively what my original point was -- approximately half of the funding directly from students is from international students even though much less than half of the students are international students (I never said that 50% of total university funding is from international students, please re-read my comment).
If you are a local student and you don't use HECS you still only pay <25% what an international student would pay -- because they have a different per-course-unit fee structure that's far more expensive.
Most government grants are not research grants; they fund the component of domestic undergraduate tuition which is not repayable through HECS-HELP. 'The Australian Government subsidises a CSP [Commonwealth-supported place] by paying part of the fees for the place directly to the university. The subsidy amount is not a loan and students do not have to pay the subsidy amount back.' [1]
This component of government grants is not broken down on the source I provided, but it is explained in the notes to universities' financial statements. See for example those of Australia's largest university, at p 66 [2]. $345 million was provided under the Commonwealth Grants Scheme, compared to $214 million under HECS-HELP and $58 million from the Australian Research Council (research grants are also provided by other bodies such as the NHMRC). The CGS is the means of funding CSPs, not a source of research grants [3].
Your original point, that 'international students make up more than half of the funding-through-fees,' might actually be correct even if you accept that payments under the CGS are on account of 'fees' (which is the language used in [1]). It is correct at Monash, where international student fees generated $653 million, compared to $1.03 billion from the Australian government including CGS, HECS-HELP and research grants. Monash is an outlier because almost half of its students are international or offshore [4], but it leaves me unsure as to the reliability of my original source. We can certainly agree that international student fees are a very substantial source of income, but I wanted to correct the common misconception that HECS-HELP loans are the sole source of domestic tuition funds.
The demand for locally trained highly trained people is stifled by the easy access to highly trained people trained by someone else. Reducing the influx of highly skilled immigrants may have the virtuous effect of increasing the demand for local high quality education, which may, in the long term, reduce the the education gap between US and China / Taiwan / Japan / Germany.
The stated purpose of the H1-B program is to allow companies to fill vacancies with international applicants if they are unable to find US employees qualified for the roles. I've never heard any sane, rational person object to this use case.
The issue most people have is that the program seems to be rampantly abused. Companies are replacing US workers with H1-B's sourced from companies like Tata and Infosys at much lower salaries than US employees would normally command. In some cases, they're just bringing in foreign workers for the time it takes to train them, then having them work remotely and paying them even less still.
It's this type of abuse where US companies are simply looking to fire US citizens so they can pay slave wages to foreign contractors for the same work that people are up in arms about.
Even established companies not in the obviously-sleazy Tata/Infosys abuse buckets play games here. "Write up job description consisting of specialty skills your H1B candidate already has, but that you don't need in your company in that role, then use them as a generic webdev" type stuff.
I 100% believe you, but just for entertainment value, assuming the posting was public and recent -- any chance you have a link to the posting that you can share with us? I need a good laugh today.
Yeah because wanting someone who has worked in your company for 3-5 years and has an in depth knowledge of the job and the internal Dynamics of the company is obviously the exact equivalent of someone who has experience in the 3-4 specific headline technologies whether they are good or not at that is a terrible idea.
The alternative of an H1B is not an American. It's off shoring the entire project to a team that doesn't live in the US in the first place.
Nope, offshorinng to non-US companies is the most preferred alternative in the real world. Just look at the fact. Offshorinng has been existing for a long time. Building dev center in Ohio and Montana is much more difficult and costly.
This is correct. I've been involved in these sorts of postings, and it was absolutely gamed. But for good reason: we already had the perfect person in the role and wanted to keep him.
Imagine if there was a law that required companies to post job openings for every position in the company, regardless of whether or not that position was already filled. As you can imagine, they would likely make the job requirements exceedingly specific for the roles filled by people they really like.
You don't even need to imagine, just go look at government or non-profit job postings. It's often the case that they similar ridiculous policies for promotions, where they already have a person they want to promote, but they need to open it up to public applicants first.
>The alternative of an H1B is not an American. It's off shoring the entire project to a team that doesn't live in the US in the first place.
This is fairly obvious, but do Americans not realize this? Or are they consciously saying that its better for high paying jobs to move out of US than for foreigners to work at those jobs in US?
> The stated purpose of the H1-B program is to allow companies to fill vacancies with international applicants if they are unable to find US employees qualified for the roles.
This canard keeps getting repeated in HN threads. This is WRONG. 100% absolutely completely WRONG. The only stated purpose of the H-1B program is to allow foreigners with degrees (or equivalent experience) to perform skilled work in the US. Here are the DOL requirements: https://webapps.dol.gov/elaws/elg/h1b.htm
The only one that affects US workers is to "[p]rovide working conditions for H-1B, H-1B1, or E-3 workers that will not adversely affect the working conditions of workers similarly employed." (There are additional requirements on H-1B dependent companies, but those don't apply to most companies.)
Yeah, but I don't think anyone argues that type of behavior isn't blatant abuse of the program.
It's frustrating when people complain about H-1Bs at big companies like Google/MS/Amazon. Apparently we're underpaid, overworked, and stealing a job from an american. Despite the fact that these companies are almost constantly hiring and if the american wants to go try, they could.
If we weren't around, an American could demand a (significantly) higher wage. If the developer wages were higher an American programer would consider not becoming a manager (why code away for peanuts when you can boss others for much more?).
That's in the short term. In the long term more Americans would do CS, and if the supply is tight enough, Apple and the others would open schools to train teenagers to code.
Not saying that the current system isn't better. But the basic forces are what they are.
Btw, you are underpaid and overworked. The game-room is gaming you to stay at work longer hours.
Or BigCorp would open an office in your hometown and hire you there anyway, because it was now impossible to get enough people for their job.
More likely still, significantly more SaaS in easily configurable packages as companies that can't afford massive dev salaries for an IT department turn towards GoogMicroSAP to fulfill their needs
> If we weren't around, an American could demand a (significantly) higher wage.
This is exactly correct. I'm a US citizen and work at a high paying tech job. Amazon calls me at least once a month to try to convince me to work for them. The problem is that their highest allowed salary is lower than what I'm already making, and I also get gobs of stock bonuses worth at least as much as their stock bonuses. So they really aren't even trying to compete here. If they really wanted people of my caliber who were US citizens, they'd have to improve their compensation.
> The employer, before petitioning for H-1B status for any alien worker pursuant to an H-1B LCA, took good faith steps to recruit U.S. workers for the job for which the alien worker is sought, at wages at least equal to those offered to the H-1B worker. Also, the employer will offer the job to any U.S. worker who applies and is equally or better qualified than the H-1B worker. This attestation does not apply if the H-1B worker is a "priority worker" (see Section 203(b) (1) (A), (B), or (C) of the INA). [0]
While it may not be the sole purposes as outlined in the link [0] you provided, it does mean that the rules state this very fact that precedence is to be given to US workers. So saying it's 100% wrong is... wrong as well.
The intent of the H-1B provisions is to help employers who cannot otherwise obtain needed business skills and abilities from the U.S. workforce by authorizing the temporary employment of qualified individuals who are not otherwise authorized to work in the United States.
This text is genuinely surprising to me. The only statutes that come close to meeting that goal are the ones that only apply to H-1B dependent employers and wilful violators.
The 1990 legislation creating the H-1B program was pretty specific that it was for getting skills into the country that could not be obtained locally. Considering all the notices that are supposed to be posted. It is abused heavily, but that was the intent.
I like the idea, nearly a throw-away line in the article, that the H-1B visas should be granted to the highest paying jobs rather than by lottery. That would certainly cut down on the abuses.
Not just that, the alternative is outsourcing to India/another country. The companies that bring in the TCS/Infosys employees are typically looking to cut cost any which way possible. While I hate the gaming by TCS/Infosys and think it needs to be fixed, making H1B unnecessarily hard is not going to help fix that. A H1B employee living in the US, pays the taxes here and spends the money here. An outsourced job is an expenditure written off for tax.
Not just taxes. They also pay for social security even though they don't get anything from it. If that is not enough, they also have to pay tax for the income they get in their parent country while they are in US. I get paying US taxes, but why pay tax for income that has nothing to do with US?
You are accurately reflecting the status quo, now that impediments to wage-depressing use of H-1B are so thoroughly lawyered into submission. But H1-B requirements say, among several other related things, that employers must consider U.S. candidates in "in good faith."
That's laughable unless you take the legalistic view that, unless it's been litigated not to be in good faith, that's good (faith) enough. Companies like Tata exist only to import cheaper workers. Saying otherwise amounts to claiming you might just want to hold hands with that person from the escort service.
It's also insulting to those who can see the difference between an R&D organization doing a worldwide search for a CTO and a "body shop."
The logical remedy would be to eliminate the lock the employer has on these people so that they can get competitive offers and see their salaries bid up to something better.
There is no lock. Once you have an H-1B, you can transfer as soon as you get another offer. The lock is on the J-1 and O-1 visas very popular at research orgs. That's where the true indentured servitude happens.
J-1 and O-1 have more shackles. H1b indeed restricts mobility.
IMO, a better law would be to give a green card with 3 yr validity to those on H1b. Then you'll see how the equation changes. Employees on H1b have very few choices due to these locks.
Compensation for H1Bs includes potential American citizenship. Depending where you're from, this can be worth a lot. Therefore these employees will still accept much lower pay from the employer for similar work
Since the big chunk of H1Bs are for people from India and China, Citizenship through employment is almost impossible for most of them, especially those born in India. This link explains the why and how very well http://7monthsvs70years.siia.us
People born elsewhere (other than China, India, Philippines) and are here on an H1b, are better off in terms of chances of getting a Green Card and a citizenship in a decent amount of time.
The reason is that U.S. Immigration laws only allocate 14% of annual quota to employment-based (EB) petition. The majority go to family-based (FB) petitions. Indian have a much higher EB/FB ratios, whereas Chinese have many more FB petitioners, e.g. cross-ethnicity marriages. Chinese also have one more eligible category than Indians---green card for asylees.
Ethnicities/nationalities like Mexicans have negligible skilled EB immigrants and have a much higher reliance on FB to immigrate a whole family to the U.S. (oftentimes derisively called out by Republicans as chain immigration), and thus they face longer FB backlog compared with Chinese FBs and Indian FBs. For example, as of today, the backlog for an Unmarried Child of an Mexican immigrant is 21 years, whereas that of Indians and Chinese are 7. (https://travel.state.gov/content/visas/en/law-and-policy/bul...) The priority date for a skilled Mexican immigrant programmer, who would be filing for either EB2 or EB3, is current (no backlog).
Since the system is heavily family-oriented, EBs often found themselves in very awkward positions as either the scape-goat for America's economic problems or distractions among partisan fights. A lot of things do not make sense. For example, the spouse of an EB petitioner does not count as "family-based" but takes up one more EB slot, and their school-age children, despite not being employed for work, are counted as "employment-based" immigrants. In addition, to offset the number of green cards given out to Chinese nationals after the 1989 Tian'anmen Square Massacre, a number of greencards are deducted from Chinese EB quota. Just making small changes to these two issues can ompletely eliminate Chinese backlog and greatly shorten Indian backlog. However, the politicians couldn't care any less about sensible solutions. While Democrats typically only pay the lip service, Republicans' common tactic is to hide their anti-immigration attempt behind a big banner of pro-skilled immigrants. The Rs either will try to trade the EBs with zeroing out refugee quota or slashing FBs in half, for example. They may have a good point (U.S. admits more refugees than employment-based immigrants annually), but touching that hot-button issue will never get Democratic votes, and it beginning to increasingly look like Republicans' political show vote.
A point to be noted, is that the arbitrary per country cap for EB green cards, was added in the last 30 years, to surreptitiously add a subtle anti-Asian bias, to reduce the number of Chinese immigrants entering US. Looks like Indian and Philippine citizens are caught in the cross fire now.
If you speak to high skilled immigrants in US who understand the situation, you'll see them being equally highly frustrated with the Democrats and the Republicans, and their respective supporters. Everything seems to be so focussed on DACA and illegal immigrants, that the legal ones are left in limbo.
Though to paraphrase what you're saying, if we just forget about all other petition types (sounds like they're not interrelated anyway, at least on the supply side), it still means India has ~10x the amount of EB seekers vs China. That's surprising fact stands on its own.
Because I think (not sure) many Chinese grad students are required to go back to China because their govt funded their studies or because they have a tech industry that’s leap frogging in terms of latest tech or have access to EB-5 visa or move to Canada.
Compare that to the number of immigrants from India, most of them use up family’s life savings to study in the US and try to recover from working in US. Unlike students from other countries, who can apply for a green card when they are studying (by getting a willing employer through their connections), can get their work authorization and Green Card itself before their 3 yr OPT expires.
Which means, there’s mostly people from backlogged countries, applying for h1b visas!
That means, there’ll be some %age of applicants who are willing to get treated like slaves by the employer, and these are the employees who have poisoned the basket of apples. And USCIS is looking at the basket very suspiciously.
Well, everyone including darling tech giants in California wants to milk the PR opportunities like homelessness, high cost of living, immigrants in limbo status etc.
Sadly, good numbner of people are naive enough to not see past the fracas.
So why not simply stop granting any H-1Bs to rampant abusers like Tata and Infosys, while leaving more H-1Bs to go around for the non-abusers? What they're up to is very widely known.
This is obviously the sensible approach, but most people who comment on Hacker News immigration threads are nativist. They might pretend to be liberal or progressive [1], but at their core they're no different from the Jim Crow segregationists of the '50s. Changing your in-group from being based on the color of your skin to the patch of dirt you were born on doesn't change the basic immorality of your position.
[1] Though it must be said that progressivism and nativism have been very close friends historically, and continue to be so in the form of NIMBYs.
That's an interesting article, but if the proposals for limiting the number of immigrants in that article, like speaking English. paying a bond, asset and income tests, would probably drive progressives apoplectic if proposed as actual legislation.
Although, would be super interesting to see this as a proposal from a "moderate" Democrat.
Also completely ignores traditional criteria for immigration, like oppressed people, security concerns, spouses and family members, and health status.
Also, author jokes about population density of places like the UK, but how long would it take to actually build the infrastructure to accommodate a mass influx of new residents, especially if they tended to congregate in a small number of areas with good jobs or other people of their ethnic or linguistic groups?
In a country as large as the US, that two consulting companies picked up nearly 10% of the country's visa allotment for a certain category of worker is part of the problem in itself.
Paleoconservatism/populism isn't concerned about the economic benefits of immigration; it's concerned about "protecting" culture so that immigrants don't have the opportunity to reshape it in any capacity.
A sizeable portion of Trump's base believes that they are in danger of becoming a minority in "their own" country and will sidestep the economic benefits of immigration to retain a demographic majority. To these voters, power and influence is a zero-sum game where the many exercise absolute reign over the few (constitutional equality be damned), and sharing the pie with immigrants puts them at risk of becoming the few.
What US Democrats ignore is that practically every damn country in the world does this too, often to a higher degree than the US.
So there's a pragmatic question of how to avoid putting yourself at a disadvantage by being comparatively overgenerous that you don't have to be a "paleoconservative" or Trump supporter, or even Republican, to be concerned about.
Generally churn factors. Stuff like importing young talent opening up further exposure to that talent moving on but also atrophying your in-country educational structures and investment. Kinda the societal version of "publish or perish" - always chasing just short-term dollars, without regard to long-term planning. If you want to import people to do the good jobs, but also want to ship the cheap jobs away, what happens to everyone squeezed out?
We can retrain and redistribute resources to them, but for some reason the people who are most concerned about short term profits are the least willing to share them with others.
You might like to ruminate on teh fact that while Trump demonizes immigrants out of one side of his mouth, the resort he owns at Mar-A-Lago- was able to get 70 H1-B visas to hire hotel staff, despite the availability of some 5000 such people in Florida's state employment opportunities database and a whole lot of US citizens in Puerto Rico that are in search of economic opportunity right about now. Not that you were making a partisan point, but this is a great example of how the rhetorical divisions in American politics do not line up with the business practices.
Right, it's a partisan point but it shouldn't be. I know perfectly well Trump is often full of shit and do-what-I-say-not-what-I-do. But unpartisanifying the discussion of pros/cons of immigration vs outsourcing vs insourcing vs how to help other countries vs what to focus on in our own borders would be beneficial.
It might, but I can't help feeling you're assuming your conclusion a bit by treating migration as the problem. Maybe it's something else in the nature of the economic system. Other species seem to get OK without our hyper-territoriality.
Yes I've received job offers in developed countries under such schemes.
There might have technically been other minimal requirements like knowing English or the local language, but most people who fulfill the pay requirements will fulfill the minor requirements too if applicable.
One example is the Blue Card for Germany. The required amounts are ridiculous. It is not used a lot though, I guess people don't want to learn German :)
Denmark grants VISA if you find a job making > 62k USD per year.
OR you work in an industry on the "positive list" which includes management, doctors, research, and tech jobs in general.
But:
- tech salaries aren't US competitive
- people often speak Danish (sometimes it's a requirement)
And while you'll probably do fine with English in Denmark in general. Long term you would need to learn the language.
And to be fair, it's a useless language, there is only 5M speakers, why would anyone spend time learning that? :)
And yes, you would experience racism too. Just because it's a borderline social-libertarian paradise doesn't mean all the people are angels.
"practically every damn country in the world does this too, often to a higher degree than the US. So there's a pragmatic question of how to avoid putting yourself at a disadvantage by being comparatively overgenerous..."
A disadvantage or an advantage? It's always seemed to me that people from other countries and cultures contributed very positively to what the US is today.
One thing that gets somewhat ignored for political reasons is assimilation/integration. Of course there was never a purely smooth, even, perfect melting pot, and there's a large history of enclaves in America, but today there are parties taking that to a prescriptive rule of "don't culturally appropriate" that feels self-defeating (and just dumb, frankly).
There's also room for a discussion of what good qualities to explicitly promote adoption of for shared values, etc.
That's not what that means, unless you're using it differently than it sounds. My claim is that the US is not unique, is not a special magical land, but is only as good or as bad as we make it, and no citizen of any country should ignore their own agency in helping shape those paths.
What on Earth does most of this list have to do with the article or this discussion? This is the kind of thing that I would expect to see from Pepe avatars on Twitter, not HN.
" What US Democrats ignore is that practically every damn country in the world does this too, often to a higher degree than the US.
So there's a pragmatic question of how to avoid putting yourself at a disadvantage by being comparatively overgenerous that you don't have to be a "paleoconservative" or Trump supporter, or even Republican, to be concerned about. "
my point is that things have shifted, and is perfectly in line with the parent which has +1 vote and was not considered a 'troll'..
"
What US Democrats ignore is that practically every damn country in the world does this too, often to a higher degree than the US.
So there's a pragmatic question of how to avoid putting yourself at a disadvantage by being comparatively overgenerous that you don't have to be a "paleoconservative" or Trump supporter, or even Republican, to be concerned about.
"
my point is that things have shifted, and is perfectly in line with the parent which has +1 vote and was not considered a 'troll'..
Are other countries really overly generous? I'm only (vaguely) familiar with Canada, having worked with several Canadian immigrants, and the impression I get is that Canada is dead simple to immigrate to. So much so that there are suburbs of Toronto with so many Chinese immigrants that there are strip malls where all of the street signs are written in Chinese.
> A sizeable portion of Trump's base believes that they are in danger of becoming a minority in "their own" country
Well, they'd be correct, wouldn't they? People of European ancestry, once making up 90% of the country, are set to become a minority around 2040 now IIRC. And arguably the United States were originally conceived to be an outpost of Europe, so the "their own" country thing seems to be a reasonable assessment, too.
>A sizeable portion of Trump's base believes that they are in danger of becoming a minority in "their own" country...
Why did you put scare quotes around "their own"? Is it not their own country?
Culture changes over time no matter what you do, but is it completely unreasonable to want your culture to change slowly enough that you can still function in your dotage?
This is such an interesting topic that is extremely difficult to discuss as people on both sides rapidly devolve to name calling. There's this[0] episode of This American Life which discusses some of this, but I haven't found many others.
The point of linking that is only to question whether there are people who want their culture to change more slowly for reasons other than prejudice. Should "obviously wrong" dramatic cultural shifts like gay marriage somehow be slowed so people can get used to the idea? Even in the linked example, there are clearly other forces at work (anti-Muslim propaganda) which seem to exist purely to make it appear that the culture itself is changing entirely, when in reality it's just becoming more mixed race.
> Why did you put scare quotes around "their own"? Is it not their own country?
I think the quotes are to suggest that those voters habitually overestimate their share of ownership, compared to everyone else in the country.
For clearer and not-political example, consider the average cat and "their house". It is true that they are a legitimate and valued member of the household... But the quotes suggest something about the way the cat sees the world.
It's a factual description of how European sttlers treated the indigenous tribes, and you can find plenty of people who continue to express animus towards Indian tribes.
I made a tart comment pointing out what I see as the hypocrisy of the nativist position, and suddenly I'm 'intent on having a civil war'? For people who complain so loudly about political correctness y'all seem pretty damn sensitive to any sort of criticism.
This is really reminding me of how supporters of the Confederacy insist on talking about the 'War of Northern Aggression' despite being the ones that started the conflict. Perhaps you could consider matters from a less absolutist perspective.
The point of constitutional liberty is that culture can change as much as you want but you'll always be free to retreat to your enclave where it never will.
A great deal of anger seems to be conservatives wanting to engineer the outcome rather than allowing culture to become more inclusive to people not like them e.g. more companies voluntarily saying Happy Holidays instead of Merry Christmas. This voluntary push to accomidate more non-christian customers is viewed as the "war" on Christmas, with the proposed "solution" being fewer non-christians in the country.
>The point of constitutional liberty is that culture can change as much as you want but you'll always be free to retreat to your enclave where it never will.
This is absolutely incorrect, Americans do not have freedom of association, so people of other cultures can always live with you, work with you, buy from you, etc - by law. Whether you think that's a good thing or not, that is a fact: you can't have an enclave in any meaningful sense.
I agree. I'm an independent (American) who leans left. Those quotes stood out to me too. The quotes to me signaled that the USA is literally everyone and no one's country. Just a free for all and while I'm certainly not against immigration, you can take it too far. Part of the consequences of going too far is that you end up with Trump and iterations of him thereafter. That's not good either.
The goal is to simply be sensible and only allow in those who will be a significant positive benefit to our society.
Yes, our society. The people already here. People seem to have a hard time grasping that the culture who founded the modern US gov't are indeed those people, or it's somehow become offensive. Even a 1st generation immigrant would agree with that, but not some revisionist who brings up the American Indians as if fair amends haven't been made there or somehow a new government completely void of their influence is somehow not the founding of the country.
I hope these same people go around the internet beating the drum on east Asian immigration policies and immigrant acceptance along with Israel. You'd think this country is evil and I completely disagree we're as bad as these finger-wagging liberals insist we are with their scare quotes.
>>A sizeable portion of Trump's base believes that they are in danger of becoming a minority in "their own" country and will sidestep the economic benefits of immigration to retain a demographic majority.
Actually they are simply pissed at that fact- since the end of slavery and colonialism, life has gotten simply too hard.
Also you have to live in the situation now where you are continually reminded you are no racial superman, and some one you thought was way beneath your station is now routinely beating you in highly intellectual activities.
This is not new to the US. Bulk of Indias current social friction problems happen because the previously lower caste people are doing well off in life now. Now economy might be a growing pie on the longer run, but on the shorter run, its just competition for limited resources at the end. If you previously were a upper caste person albeit not very capable, you could still succeed easily, given only your castes were allowed to study and prosper. Today with more people having an opportunity to compete, you just don't stand a chance. Now imagine being a upper caste person who only until recently had to merely exist to succeed to now having to compete and routinely be beaten by people whom you think are beneath you.
Things don't work well.
To those seasoned to privilege, equality feels like oppression - Internet Quote
To play devils advocate, at this point in time with the highest rate of immigration in the history of the country (i think 13%) "conservatives" are looking out for the american citizens that are losing out to these high skilled (and low skilled) immigrants.
Why is it that we cannot compete with foreign companies with native workers? Why should those countries be okay with losing their top talent?
Shoudnt we solve the problem of native workers not having the right skills before we open the borders to everyone else?
The other argument I understand is cultural. How much immigration can a society take before it is unrecognizable to the people that live there. You can't say that if you moved 100 million indians to the US ( A fairly small number of the population) it wouldn't look and feel completely different.
These countries may not be okay with losing their top talent. It's an interesting viewpoint on economic competition though. It absolutely is in the best interest of the US to "brain drain" other countries.
Note that this isn't new. During and after WWII the US worked hard to bring scientists to the US to prevent them working for the enemy. Just one example:
We're not at the highest point (compared to 1920s) but might be by 2023. We're a very young nation of immigrants, so I find it odd that you wouldn't retroactively apply the grievances about cultural shifts to all the generations that came previously.
That is a good point, however most of the immigrants in the 1920s were from europe. Now that is not the case, they are mostly from asia and southeast asia.
There is an argument that there is enough of a cultural difference for it to affect the country one way or another.
You know, HN usually slaps me on the wrist for insinuating that someone is a white nationalist, which is why I was pretty low key about it, so.. thanks for just coming out and admitting it, I guess?
Could you please stop the information-free provocation and just comment civilly and substantively, like we've asked many times before? We'd like not to ban the account, but that's what happens when this doesn't change.
> Why should those countries be okay with losing their top talent?
What sort of thinking is this? People stopped being subjects of their countries a while ago. Countries should compete for people, not trap them. If a country isn't OK with losing its top talent it should fix its institutions to make itself competitive.
You know what country doesn't allow its citizens to leave? North Korea.
I completely agree, countries should not trap people.
But why is it "making it" in some countries to leave and go to America? Why not build up your own country and affect their living standards in a positive way?
Personally I have no desire to leave my country because I like it and want to make it better. I think that is a healthy way to think about your identity.
> But why is it "making it" in some countries to leave and go to America? Why not build up your own country and affect their living standards in a positive way?
Many reasons.
* Because they'll be able to add more value to society in the other country.
* Because they're part of a marginalized group and the other country has better protections for people like them. Maybe they can't get married in their home country but can in the other country, say.
* Most importantly, because they might not want to.
People should generally be free to do what they like, right?
> I have no desire to leave my country because I like it and want to make it better.
Great, sounds awesome! You're free to do as you desire. Others have different desires or constraints and should be free to do as they wish as well.
>>> Why not build up your own country and affect their living standards in a positive way?
I can answer that in a personal way. Because I don't care.
The modern world is capitalist, especially with software. If your work is worth X dollars, why would you work for X/10 dollars? Because of nationalism?
Interesting perspective. I am curious about why the country you are going to pays more than the one you are coming from in software.
Would it be too bold for me to say it has some cultural reasons? Perhaps the openness to innovation? or maybe the way people think about solving new problems? Why not try to instill these cultural mechanisms in the country you came from? I hope i'm not coming across as a cultural imperialist but I am genuinely curious.
Also I don't think people should migrate for purely financial reasons. There is a lot of rich and interesting cultures in this world - it would be a shame if people just abandoned them for the sake of money.
> Would it be too bold for me to say it has some cultural reasons? Perhaps the openness to innovation? or maybe the way people think about solving new problems?
It's usually an institutional problem. For example, a country where the laws governing business are predictable will work better than one where businesses are at the whim of a local authority.
For more along those lines, check out Why Nations Fail by Acemoglu and Robinson.
> Why not try to instill these cultural mechanisms in the country you came from?
>>> Interesting perspective. I am curious about why the country you are going to pays more than the one you are coming from in software
Are you asking me why some places pay more than others? I don't think I have the expertise to answer that correctly honestly, it's probably a multitude of factors.
But I don't think it's cultural (or mostly cultural) since it happens within countries too. Silicon valley pays more than the Midwest, London pays more than Birmingham. I don't know why exactly but it's undeniable that they do.
>>> Why not try to instill these cultural mechanisms in the country you came from?
Because I don't think it's cultural. And even if it were... Why would I do that? My family is more important that some vague notion of changing cultural mechanisms.
>>> Also I don't think people should migrate for purely financial reasons. There is a lot of rich and interesting cultures in this world - it would be a shame if people just abandoned them for the sake of money
Sorry to be blunt, but it's not your choice. People's lives and priorities are their own to make.
This sounds too much like airmchair philosophy. It's great that you can do it but it's not "just money" for the vast majority of people, rich country or not.
The 13% you mentioned I'm assuming is the percentage of the US population that is foreign born. That is not the highest in US history. Take a look at page 3 of this: https://www.census.gov/newsroom/pdf/cspan_fb_slides.pdf (sorry for the PDF). You'll see that 13-14% foreign born was pretty much the norm from 1860-1920. The US society seemed to survive that just fine.
To your point though, I suspect a lot of older voters grew up with much lower immigration (due to the Immigration Act of 1924) and so this level feels really high to them even though it was common for a large part of US history.
>>Why should those countries be okay with losing their top talent?
They are not. But the people there have no options. In my country(India), despite a level of free market reforms, there is still a huge cancer of socialism at large.
Socialist spending, affirmative action policies and corruption are extremely rampant. Public apathy is at peak. Almost anybody smart enough to make genuine difference has only one life style, where he/she has to earn all life to pay nearly 50% of all earned money in taxes and yet live a third world quality life.
So there is only one option. Just immigrate and save yourself the trouble.
>>How much immigration can a society take before it is unrecognizable to the people that live there.
> I just don't understand why we wouldn't want to make it as easy as possible to steal talent
Because that's not what the H1-B is. The majority of H1-B holders are the IT body shops: Cognizant, Infosys, and Tata are the top 3 by a wide margin [1]. I agree with you in principle but I think the H1-B system is not a good implementation of those ideals. I have a hard time believing it does much more than depress the wages of American white collar workers.
Seems the numbers in the graph and article don't are not easy to match up. In the graph, the sum seems to be over 100k for those top 20 companies, while the article states that 40-80k visas were granted.
I do agree that I think those outsourcing talent shop should be limited. You shouldn't have majority of your workforce on h1b.
As a counter point I don't think Google, Apple, Microsoft etc are not out of line. Also many startups that are founded by immigrants (50%) and often also hire international talent (since there isn't enough local one). Also startups are not able to compete on salaries like larger companies. If the article is beloved, 63% h1bs go to other than these top companies.
The OP comment still holds that I think startups and hiring international talent does contribute to the US economy and it's just not for "depressing white collar wages".
My point is that the system as it currently stands is depressing white collar wages. There are better systems we can adopt to hire entrepreneurially-minded folks or developers who are particularly skilled from other countries.
Trump is not gutting the H1-B system (currently). All they did was start asking companies to prove that the H1-B was going to an applicant who actually meets the requirements of the visa. If companies are worried about the change that's pretty clear evidence the program is being abused.
>The majority of H1-B holders are the IT body shops
That's not what the data says in the article you linked.
It also lists companies such as Apple, Google, IBM, JP Morgan, etc. as part of the majority. Consultancies like Cognizant, Infosys, and Tata are not even close to the majority of H1B holders.
> I have a hard time believing it does much more than depress the wages of American white collar workers.
It makes it viable to keep white collar jobs in the midwest.
The company I work for announced they are no longer using these "IT body shops," as you put it. The local pool of workers is totally exhausted, so they can't find enough people to hire, and have decided to close up shop in the midwest and will be moving development to an ultra-high COL tech hub.
Officially, only developers are getting the ax. But I have to assume the rest of the staff are in line. The developers managers should probably be co-located, and if all the dev and managers are co-located, then so should the product managers and their teams. PMs and sales work pretty closely, so it's not hard to imagine those positions will move, etc, etc.
People love to throw out econ 101 supply/demand stuff here, and claim that obviously more tech workers = lower tech worker salaries. But that does not appear to be the case. Regions with more tech workers also pay higher salaries; there's a clear inverse relationship going on.
So, in my interpretation of the empirical evidence we have, suggests that more H1-Bs would raise developer/engineer wages, not suppress them.
P.S. It's clear that IT staff do face downward wage pressure from offshoring. But they also face the same from automation of their jobs (cloud services, SaaS, etc).
No you are not being reductive, I appreciate your candid narrative. Bottom line, this is it for America, if we do not open the doors, sign treaties well established and reaffirm our position of leadership to our allies...the petrodollar is next, which means our chances of defaulting are 80%, and with that we will officially become a failed state. Because you let in a criminal mobster, a chauvinist, a loudmouth, a Wiseguy from queens who doesn’t know his place. Add in the hundreds of thousands of Americans who consider Trump a billionaire. I mean i’m Utterly in a state of revolsion. This behavior is abhorrent, a true affront to national security, not to mention the blatant obstruction and mishandling of justice; diluting our separation of powers, the list goes on....popcorn, you’re gonna need lots of it...and a second passport.
Because Trump does what benefits Trump, rather than the country as a whole. Support him and perhaps not get punished. Don't support him and definitely get punished. It is as simple as that.
Capital crosses national boundaries to a great extent so if you've got capital who cares where it is deployed.
I can't research this at the moment but a couple obvious explanations:
- The USA is massive compared to every first-world nation (in the West) in terms of size / population / schools. I'd be shocked if a place like Sweden were somehow the top, statistically.
- I know a few people who came from India to study here because it put them on a fast track for a visa (or whatever they're using to work here after graduating). So they based it on post-grad opportunities, not the education itself.
> the US is lagging far behind every developed nation in education
I'd like to hear the list of places doing far better than MIT, Caltech, Stanford, Berkeley, etc. in STEM fields. I mean I know there are pretty good schools around, but can you really say MIT is "lagging far behind" them?
> higher education in the US is prohibitively expensive
That's because when you buy "higher education" in US you buy something entirely different from what is understood by "education" in other countries. But if you want to, you have options to buy the actual education too. It won't be brand-name, but that's the cost of brand names. Here's contradiction with the first propositions - if US brands were so bad, they won't be that much in demand, would they?
> No more American students that can compete with Chinese, Taiwanese, Japanese, or German ones
There is a subtle fallacy here. You're comparing average US student with top-of-the crop students with the rest of the world. Not every Japanese student competes with US ones - the mediocre ones stay in Japan, the excellent ones go to compete in the US. Of course, mediocre US student would not look that excellent compared to top of the crop from 7bln pool. But that is excellent for the US that they are able to become the concentration point for the top talent. This needs to be guarded and preserved.
> I just don't understand why we wouldn't want to make it as easy as possible to steal talent that another country invested in
This is another side of what I mentioned before. It is good for the nation, but being mediocre student in that environment sucks. Mediocre Japanese student can remain in Japan and be relatively OK. Mediocre student somewhere in talent concentration point is screwed - he's where the top talent of the world is, and has to compete with them for any nice opportunities. It is hard. And they can't just go to Japan and take the place of those top Japanese students that left for the US (well, some small number can, but in general it's not easy). It is a real problem, and so far we don't have very good solution for it. Until we do, we'll have to deal with this kind of resentment, and telling people "well, it's good for the nation" won't help them much.
Kinda hard when other, more lucrative, sports steal most of your domestic talent. There is a reason the women's team is dominant in a way that then men's team is not, but the fact that a good US player really has to leave the country and take a gamble that most US collegiate athletes do not require does not help.
Sorry, but it just doesn't make sense. You just can't make excuses anymore. What happened this time around is beyond acceptable imo.
Iceland, with a population of ~300,000, was able to qualify in (arguably) the toughest region in the world. The US has about 1000 people for every Icelandic citizen, and yet we couldn't even qualify in (arguably) the EASIEST region in the world.
I'm simply dumbfounded by how bad the US team is. Let's just hope we get there next time.
> Mediocre Japanese student can remain in Japan and be relatively OK. Mediocre student somewhere in talent concentration point is screwed - he's where the top talent of the world is, and has to compete with them for any nice opportunities.
Given the lower salaries and longer working hours in Japan, I'm not convinced that the mediocre Japanese student is better of than the mediocre US student. Even if the Japanese student scores a "better" job (in relation to the opportunities available locally) than the US student, the absolute differences between job markets can make his job worse.
If you go to a "pretty good" college in Japan (Most often the "March" colleges and above", generally you have a solid paycheck, good social prestige, and decent (though declining) job security. The high level of public infrastructure and low cost of living (compared to US coastal cities, even Tokyo is cheap) means that your dollar (or yen) goes much further than in NYC or the Bay Area.
Overall it's not too bad a deal compared to the bifurcating job outcomes we see in the States.
Hours are long and the commutes are (often) long. Culture is hierarchical and often seniority based. Groupthink, consensus, backroom deal making (rather than open argumentation which is the norm in the states), and not rocking the boat are priorities.
But you're basically never going to be fired and generally speaking companies do genuinely seek to "take care of" their people in ways that US companies no longer do (but used to, many decades ago). It's a highly frustrating environment for a restless high performer, but for the mediocre college grad I don't think it's a bad deal at all.
They grew up there, know the culture, and have been trained/educated to navigate its waters.
I would go even further to say that the best US students are often "better" than the best international counterparts, because the US runs a primary and secondary education system with a philosophy to grow the standout students as much as possible. The best high schools encourage their top students to really dive deep into their subject of interest, rather than focus on improving the performance of laggards or generally concentrating on improving average performance.
I have zero doubt that the average Japanese student blows the average American student out of the water. But the US produces both a greater number and a greater degree of ridiculously talented and driven students.
Asian countries generally have a high average and low variance distribution in students. The US has a lower average but a much higher variance and thus has more outlier students on both ends of the spectrum. Whether this is good or bad would depend on your perspective.
This is definitely not the case for public schools in CA, for the most part. That's why I'm basically forced to sending my children to private schools at considerable cost ($30k/yr/child).
Public schools also cost about $20k/year/pupil (I wrote $30 before but looks like I was mistaken). But this is paid from general budget so nobody cares too much, because tax money obviously aren't real money.
I also live in California and I also send my child to a private school which costs upwards of 30k.
California currently spends about 10k per student for public education. That makes 30k sound crazy, but in 1970 California spent 5500 which is about 35k in 2017 dollars. California (and most of the US) is woefully underfunding it's schools.
My Midwest school does, but it's usually rated as one of the better ones in the state.
Someone up thread seemed to think the average student of another country would blow away the average US student. I don't think this is true. The US pays lip service to universal education more then most other countries. Unfortunately we don't follow through on it and this leaves a large enough number of substandard schools to make a significant impact on US test averages. The sad fact is the tail end of these averages are so bad they bring down the score, but the "average" for the majority of US students is much higher.
This stratification of education is probably a significant contributor to the stratification of wealth in the US, and it's not OK.
I don't know how you reach that conclusion. The rise of standardized testing and "no child left behind" means that school's energies are focused on making sure every student passes the tests. Schools that don't measure up get their funding cut.
> The best high schools encourage their top students to really dive deep into their subject of interest, rather than focus on improving the performance of laggards or generally concentrating on improving average performance.
This is certainly not my experience of the US public school system, either as a student or a parent. The typical US school has always cared more about getting 20th-percentile students to meet a minimum standard. And if the student makes an effort to work with the school, the school is very good at it. Public schools are evaluated based on how many students meet that minimum standard ("No Child Left Behind"), and they respond to that incentive.
The 80th to 90th percentile students, well, they're kind of an afterthought. I mean, they're going to ace all the standardized exams anyway. Now, some public schools will make an effort to help high-performing students, because teachers do care, but it's not incentivized.
Private schools, on the other hand, are evaluated on a very different metric—how many students get into Harvard/Yale/Stanford/etc.? They game this metric by offering generous scholarships to top-notch students, and by charging stiff tuition to rich parents.
>This is certainly not my experience of the US public school system, either as a student or a parent. The typical US school has always cared more about getting 20th-percentile students
Schools in the US are locally controlled.
There are places that run schools like this. And there are school systems that have fantastic magnet schools for gifted students.
Oh please. The US is laughably poor in every aspect of education besides US top universities. Don't reframe things, he never said the top institutions of the US were worse.
And you are supporting this claim with... "oh please"? You want to prove US education system is inadequate to supply the workforce for technological companies, I believe it is not so, US has very good supply of necessary talent in the field. Please produce your evidence why you think it is not so.
What is "position in education"? I notice that's the third person making claims without backing them up or even substantiating them enough to be verifyable ("US school sucks" is not verifyable, "US schools ranked number N according to metric M published by organization O" is). I don't know where these people are educated so not sure whether I can take it as anecdotal evidence to either side...
Also protip: "this is not a debate" doesn't make you automatically win a debate.
The US is also exceptional in how bad its bad schools are, this drags our averages down. While it's a tragedy for the kids who are not being served, it's a distortion to say all US schools are bad when most are not.
A: Here is metric using averaging over large populations.
B: Using averages over large populations is hiding important details about X.
A: How else we could compare large populations?! We must use globals averages!
B: Averages have the effect of very small number of very bad instances distort the result of large population which would have much better results, thus making it appear bad results are much more common than they are actually are. We know specifically this is the case for the question we are discussing.
A: Well, that's how averages work, nothing can be done about it.
Aside from population-wide sums or “averages” (in the specific sense of “arithmetic mean”), there's also models, medians, various distributional measures, etc. Which subset (which may include more than one selection) of these are most appropriate for a particular comparison depends on the specific purpose of the comparison. Arithmetic mean and/or sums are usually the easiest measures, but quite often not the most relevant.
Averages often say very little about a population.
There are states and metro areas in the US with (and this is the important part) populations as large as many high ranked European countries that rank at the very top of the world in any educational metric.
Every country has good and bad parts. That's the point of averages. How else would you compare countries?
The study only compares averages and that's all that people are saying. It's totally possible that the best secondary school in the world is in the US but that's not the point.
And I don't see how population size is important, as you say. Schools in the US are locally funded, no?
>Every country has good and bad parts. That's the point of averages. How else would you compare countries?
Surely you understand that averages are often misleading and can be worse than useless.
The US is the most diverse large country in the world. Averages do not work well when comparing highly varied populations.
>And I don't see how population size is important, as you say.
There are many smaller countries with better average educational outcomes than the US. But none of the countries with higher scores are anywhere near the size and diversity of the US.
The only country even close to the US in population is China and you'll note that test scores are only available for the highest performing provinces.
If you want to make a proper comparison, you'd need to compare the US with something like the entire continent of Europe.
Finland is more analogous to say Massachusetts than it is to the entire US.
>>> Surely you understand that averages are often misleading and can be worse than useless.
So why are you complaining in a conversation talking about averages?
>>> The US is the most diverse large country in the world.
Brazil and India would like a word. Also, irrelevant.
>>> Averages do not work well when comparing highly varied populations.
That's why you have averages. Again, how else would you compare countries?
>>> There are many smaller countries with better average educational outcomes than the US. But none of the countries with higher scores are anywhere near the size and diversity of the US.
And? How are those things relayed? Seriously, how is diversity related to federally provided education?
>>>The only country even close to the US in population is China
Well great, in a conversation comparing China and the US that might be relevant, but this is not it.
>>> If you want to make a proper comparison, you'd need to compare the US with something like the entire continent of Europe.
Why? You actually think population and diversity are even close? Or relevant? Just trying to understand your logic because it doesn't make sense.
>So why are you complaining in a conversation talking about averages?
You're the one who is using averages. Everyone else here is telling you averages are a misleading metric here when trying to compare the US to other countries.
Averages are not useful for comparing diverse data sets.
The mean tells you a lot about a hypothetical population where everyone has an IQ of 100. It doesn't tell you a lot about a population where half the people have an IQ of 75 and half 125. Using mean scores to compare those populations is nearly useless.
>That's why you have averages. Again, how else would you compare countries?
That's just it, you can't use 1 number to compare countries. It's not meaningless, but it's close.
>>> You're the one who is using averages. Everyone else here is telling you averages are a misleading metric here when trying to compare the US to other countries.
What everyone else. The grandparent literally complained about three people in this thread mentioning a fact without sources about averages. I supplied said source. What are you responding to?
>>> Averages are not useful for comparing diverse data sets.
The US is not particularly diverse in the world. And again, how do you compare "diverse" data sets like kids literally being able to read?
>>> The mean tells you a lot about a hypothetical population where everyone has an IQ of 100. It doesn't tell you a lot about a population where half the people have an IQ of 75 and half 125. Using mean scores to compare those populations is nearly useless.
Right, because we actually have countries where half the population is 125 and half is 75, what can I say. /s
>>> That's just it, you can't use 1 number to compare countries. It's not meaningless, but it's close
Tell that to the OECD.
Why do you care so must about this comparison of averages? Why are you commenting?
I like how you literally don't answer half my replies, makes one think what's the point of this.
Me and the other person who replied to you. "The US is also exceptional in how bad its bad schools are, this drags our averages down. While it's a tragedy for the kids who are not being served, it's a distortion to say all US schools are bad when most are not."
>The US is not particularly diverse in the world.
I'm sorry I can no longer take you seriously.
>And again, how do you compare "diverse" data sets like kids literally being able to read?
An average is nearly useless if you don't know the distribution. Rankings based on averages are meaningless.
>Right, because we actually have countries where half the population is 125 and half is 75, what can I say
How could you think an example that works out with nice easy numbers is supposed to actually represent a real country?
>Why are you commenting?
Because of this
>Oh come on, every study puts the US in a mediocre position in education within the OECD. That's not a debate.
Because it is debatable. Using PISA rankings to say that the US is in a mediocre position in education is very controversial. In addition to using the mean of a set of test scores, they don't take into account the percentage of 15 year olds still in school, or the percentage of 15 year olds who take the test. The US goes WAY up in the ranks when those things are taken into account.
> Me and the other person who replied to you. "The US is also exceptional in how bad its bad schools are, this drags our averages down. While it's a tragedy for the kids who are not being served, it's a distortion to say all US schools are bad when most are not."
You really think this is not true elsewhere? Inequality doesn't exist in other countries? Do you really think medians are unheard of for scientists and they didn't take that into account? Please.
>>> The US is not particularly diverse in the world.
> I'm sorry I can no longer take you seriously.
You know there's studies ranking countries based on diversity right? You want me to Google them for you?
Oh wait, you probably think they're missing something clearly obvious like not knowing what a median is again.
>>> And again, how do you compare "diverse" data sets like kids literally being able to read?
> An average is nearly useless if you don't know the distribution. Rankings based on averages are meaningless.
Great if you think that. Show me a better way to compare countries when it comes to reading skills.
>>> Why are you commenting?
> Because of this
You just said you don't believe the study is relevant. So why do you care what it says.
>>>Oh come on, every study puts the US in a mediocre position in education within the OECD. That's not a debate.
> Because it is debatable.
It's really not and it's the best we have.
> Using PISA rankings to say that the US is in a mediocre position in education is very controversial.
Again, it's really not. Haven't seen any counter studies, happy to see them.
Not saying there's no criticisms obviously.
> The US goes WAY up in the ranks when those things are taken into account.
Go on then, show the studies, I'm willing to change my mind.
Of course scientists are aware of medians. However if you look at PISA rankings, they use the mean scores not median.
You have way too much faith in rankings you see on the internet.
> Show me a better way to compare countries when it comes to reading skills.
Median scores, mean with standard deviation, box plots. All of those are better. None are great because comparing reading scores in different languages in a meaningful way is nearly impossible.
For example, Chinese children take much longer to develop their vocabulary than American students because of the way their language is written. Because of this you can't possibly construct a test that makes an accurate comparison between Chinese and American students.
You might as well try to make a test comparing how well American schools teach welding to how how well Chinese schools teach painting.
>You know there's studies ranking countries based on diversity right? You want me to Google them for you?
And only 1 of the countries that ranks higher than the US in diversity ranks higher than us on the PISA list.
The countries the US is unfavorably compared to nearly all appear near the bottom of that list.
It also doesn't take into account the amount of difference between cultures. For example, an African country where 20% of the people speak a different language from and don't intermarry with the dominant culture, but that have lived side by side with the dominant culture for hundreds of years will be ranked the same as a country where 20% of the people are immigrants from a country on the other side of the world.
The US has a far larger percentage of immigrants than any other country, and from far more countries.
Furthermore the US has far higher income inequality than most of the countries that outperform it.
>You just said you don't believe the study is relevant. So why do you care what it says.
It's not. I care that people are pushing PISA rankings as some kind of objective measurement of countries' education systems, and because of that politicians use them to try to push changes without understanding what the rankings actually show.
I can assure that in among academics in education PISA rankings are very controversial. Despite all your insistence about not being debatable it most definitely is.
"With greater power comes greater scrutiny. In 2013, TES revealed damning new allegations against Pisa from statistical and mathematical experts who said that what had become the world’s most influential education league tables were, in fact, “useless”, produced “meaningless” rankings and were compiled using techniques that were “utterly wrong”.
In response, the OECD admitted that “large variation in single country ranking positions is likely” because of the methods it used. For example, in 2009 the organisation said that the UK’s Pisa ranking out of a total of 74 countries was between 19th and 27th for reading, between 23rd and 31st for maths, and between 14th and 19th for science.
But this admission has made little difference to how rankings are reported in the media, and Pisa does not put the caveats centre stage. The resulting league tables are often ...
>Irrelevant. You and the grandparent are making an irrelevant point again and again. Why bring up diversity at all?
Because it's highly relevant when talking about an average value. The more heterogeneous a population is the less likely an average is to be useful.
>I already said there was going to be a "median" example... I was right about that, shocker. /s
Ranking by mean often isn't useful...shocker
>Except Canada and Switzerland and many other countries, right?
Sorry I meant large countries.
>If they are migrants, they're not representing the local education system now do they?
They're talking about long term migrants that represent about 40% of the population.
Look at Australia were 90% of 15 year olds are enrolled in school, vs. a country like Vietnam where 15 year olds routinely drop out and work.
How does that comparison make sense?
Some other examples.
In South Korea parents force their children to spend 4 or 5 hours with private tutors after school each day. South Korea performs very well on PISA league tables, but it probably says very little about the efficacy of the Korean school system vs any other country where parent don't routinely force their kids to pull double school shifts with private tutors.
Finland spends much more time teaching fractions than algebra to 15 year olds. The US outperforms them on algebra questions, but Finland outperforms on fraction questions. But PISA weighs fraction questions much higher than algebra questions.
In the US homeschooling is common. In Germany it's illegal. Home schoolers score much higher on the SAT and ACT, so in the US you're pulling 3 or 4% of the likely highest scoring students out of the pool--of course that's going to drastically affect the mean score.
We can't come up with tests that accurately compare abilities across cultures in the US. How can we possibly do it across 65 countries.
The answer is, you can't do it. Attempting to do it, failing, and publishing data that makes it look like you can is more harmful than just not publishing at all.
The critiques are numerous and come from very respected publications, organizations, and academics.
You can disagree with the critiques all you want, but you can't pretend the debate is over, and that there is some kind of settled science here.
Do you? I thought we were talking about OECD studies not "big" countries. My mistake.
I guess it was just a matter of time until "big" came up after "diversity".
>>> We can't come up with tests that accurately compare abilities across cultures in the US. How can we possibly do it across 65 countries.
Well then, let's just give up and not compare countries anymore. /s
>>> You can disagree with the critiques all you want
I'm not, I said that before.
The thing is, when debating, it's useful to think if your opponent has a falsifiable claim. Since you don't, this conversation is useless. I literally cannot provide any evidence for country comparisons, because it's literally impossible from your point of view. So I'm done.
Many grad students at these premier institutions are international and will be forced to return to their home countries if they cannot secure H1B or similar visas.
The high cost for US students in undergrad is one reason for this. These schools haven't been lagging behind because grad students found a to H1->GC->Citizen. If that path becomes difficult, then these students will just stay in their home countries.
>>Mediocre student somewhere in talent concentration point is screwed - he's where the top talent of the world is, and has to compete with them for any nice opportunities. It is hard.
This is why its never a nice idea for most people to work at a place like Google.
>1 the US is lagging far behind every developed nation in education
It's not as a whole. Parts of it are, Education here is local, and there are states the size of Finland that compare with Finland in education outcomes.
>2 and higher education in the US is prohibitively expensive compared to other developed nations
Income based repayment ensures that you will never pay more than 10% of your disposable income (income over 1.5x the federal poverty level), and loans are forgiven if you make payments for 20 years. This assumes you only take out federal loans (90% of loan disbursements are federal and are enough to pay for public universities).
This is very similar to the system Australia has.
Additionally, the US ranks 7th in number of adults with college degree--higher than every European country except Luxembourg.
And the US has 1/3 of the top 500 ranked colleges in the world, and nearly 1/4 of the top 5000.
The "poverty line" is a joke. It's pegged to food when the largest expenses for most families are housing and medical care. I know I probably spend about the same on groceries as I spend on health insurance, without taking into account what my employer pays, deductibles, etc.
I doubt many families have 10% of income to spare.
My understanding is that in America, the Democratic party is considered to be the liberal party. Most people left-of-center vote for the liberal party. They think of unions and worker protections as liberal values. They also oppose globalization because it has the effect of reducing wages and increasing local job loss.
And so, these Democratic Party supporting liberal minded left-leaning people are in a bind. The new conservative president at least on the surface seems to be doing more to protect local jobs than the last two Democratic Presidents have. In-fact, their champion in the last election sought to increase globalization.
You have a really mercantile view of things: Team Murika is gonna Win the Trade War by signing all the primo players from the other teams!
An alternate way to look at this is that the economy and society of the USA is failing its own citizens by either giving them an inadequate education or not providing them opportunities to succeed. And your proposal is to simply write everyone who's already here off, declare them to be rejects, and import new people over the top of them to be worker bees for the elite.
I can say that I'm not really personally concerned with how many billionaires we have in the US, or how many multinational corporations are headquartered here. I'd be fine if that all went to China, so long as the USA stayed the land of fairness and justice.
>economy and society of the USA is failing its own citizens
Yes, and I have completely lost faith in the US's ability, on a federal level, to staunch that failure, as long as the Republican party continues to exist.
>write off everyone who's already here
I agree that I'm being pessimistic, but I feel that's what the government is aggressively trying to do (by, for example, putting a person hostile to education in charge of the agency that runs education at a federal level).
>Yes, and I have completely lost faith in the US's ability, on a federal level, to staunch that failure, as long as the Republican party continues to exist.
The democrats have had control over the house or the senate for 62 out of the past 84 years, and both of them for 52 years (in total, not contiguously). There has also been a Democratic president for 48 of those years. If you're mad at the way things are, I don't think it makes sense to be mad at the Republican party, unless it's for constantly losing.
>>USA is failing its own citizens by either giving them an inadequate education or not providing them opportunities to succeed.
US millennials are a bunch of people with most privilege, comfort, opportunities, freedom and other nation level perks(like infrastructure, mobility etc) compared to may be all the humans combined in all of history.
There is a reason why you can't get more out of this scheme. The reason is you can only make incremental progress in systems that are this advanced. And after that its usually a bit of Math called 'Central limit theorem'. It just means the progress will only be around the mean.
We just came off an 8-year period of significant unemployment. People are understandably skittish about anything that prevents citizens from getting jobs - especially when people are being imported precisely to fill available domestic jobs. Your reductions don't address the fact that we DID invest in domestic talent, and would like to put that investment to use.
Now that national unemployment has plummeted to remarkably low levels, we may again truly find ourselves needing to import workers.
Peak unemployment during that period just after the 2008 financial crisis was still just under 10%, and it has been steadily decreasing since then.
It's not exactly nothing and it sucks if you are one of the unemployed but an unemployment ratio between 5 and 10% is actually not all that bad.
Significant unemployment were 2009, 2010 and before that 1982. By 2013 unemployment in the US was already back down below 7%, historically speaking nothing special, somewhere between 3 and 7% is fairly normal.
This narrative is frustrating because it's just not true. The vast majority of H1B visas are not bringing in that level of talent. The program is gamed by offshoring firms that take the lions share of the available visas. For every super smart foreign student we bring in we also bring in 3 really mediocre and talentless offshoring workers.
I completely 100% agree that the US is losing its edge in many ways. And a real visa program would help. But at the moment the H1B program is bad for almost everyone involved, unless you own stock in Infosys/Tata etc.
We need to replace it with a real immigration program that weeds out the crap and brings in the best. As it stands super smart people are getting their visas denied while offshoring firms depress wages and take American jobs while producing sub-par products.
This, I agree with. Immigration should not be stopped wholesale, but at least fixed by stopping the EB-1 games and a salary based criteria. Not foolproof , but certainly seems better than today's system
There’s a lot of alternate reality with work visas, and many, if not the majority of the positions are there because of cost, not skill.
The process should be onerous enough that the body shop business that places cheap candidates with marginal skills shouldn’t be a good business, but not too onerous for the high talent individuals for whom it is intended for.
There is no education problem in the US. The observed differences in academic performance are the result of sociological challenges that other countries don’t have (disparities resulting from slavery and segregation of 1/8 of the population, large-scale immigration from countries that speak a different language).
Skimming the cream from other countries doesn’t really ameliorate those problems.
I think the major issue with your line of reasoning (which I mostly agree with it) is you are assuming wealth distribution. I mean, yes it is in our economy's interests to make it easy to steal talent.
However, do economic gains flow to Americans? No, not really because we don't have socialist systems in place to distribute the wealth gained from "stealing talent". So yes stealing talent is good, but it really only benefits corporate shareholders and upper class Americans. The unhappy Americans who are voting for "America First" don't see the gains from startups and tech companies; they are geographically isolated from these companies and even if they lived in California (or any other tech center) they lack the skills to be employed.
So essentially in my view you have a conflict of interest. It is in the best economic interest of the country to be able to attract talent. However, the US is a democracy and unless the economic gains are spread across the entire population, this will not satisfy, "we the people"
So we have really two options in response 1) implement socialist systems to spread wealth to the population or 2) go isolationist to insist that wealth only flows inward
It's embedded in American culture that socialism is bad which is why #2 has been the chose solution.
This is definitely a thing, not only in the US but also from thinkers like Alexandr Dugin in Russia. I believe such reactionary political stances are ultimately doomed, though; we are simply not going to un-invent the internet, air travel, containerization and other things that have made the world smaller and allowed a single planetary scale logistical chain to exist, short of nuclear catastrophe or its equivalent.
> He joins Chevron and is turning a profit for them within the year, pumping out research and getting taxed on his 100k/year salary, spending his money in-country and oh well, maybe he sends a bit (already taxed) home.
But that's not the typical H1B. There are "Manager Trainees" at slaughterhouses making 35k.
> We take a 23yo Chinese engineering graduate as he's going to begin peak productivity - the USA didn't have to invest in his k-12, scholarship his university, clean the water he drank for 24 years, etc. Instantaneous social profit.
That's only the half of it. The US gives out far more F-1 student visas than H-1Bs (roughly 3x). That means that US infrastructure trains the student, but then the US doesn't get to take advantage of his or her output. Its really a lose-lose for the US.
Although, in most cases, the university is using the international students to fund university operations and education (typically without reducing tuition price through financial aid) that brings value to the domestic students...
In the new order, aws infrastructure is same for every one! Consider OPT students getting trained in a early stage startups, do not get H1b after 2-3 years, what would he do? Quite few of them(smart, ambitious ones) will go back home and will compete on the similar products. You can think, schools educated them for quite of money but they got so more in return. I personally believe, every penny invested in CS/math education is worth it.
>the USA didn't have to invest in his k-12, scholarship his university, clean the water he drank for 24 years, etc.
And that's a supposed to be a good thing? Good for the government maybe, but bad for the people. I'd prefer a government which invests highly in all these things and to avoid the capitalist dystopia you're advocating.
To add something I think is overlooked, many people from China feel very unsafe in the US due to all the news about mass shootings. The previous generation of immigrants came for a better life and a sense of safety is an important part of that.
China:
+ Cultural familiarity, closeness to family.
+ High pay for engineering.
- Pollution
- Lack of work/life balance culture.
Censorship is a minor concern for the most part except for political activists. It's arguable that that the US is becoming more draconian in this regard, especially due to police being able to do whatever they want once they decide you're guilty of something.
>>Take away our ability to import talent and there goes the last leg of American dominance in technology.
This is known almost forever now. Even the hard core immigrant hating racists know that their social security checks are coming in because of some one generated more than proportionate share of economic value, and by that definition taxes. And that someone is mostly likely a non-white immigrant.
They just don't like to be reminded of this fact everyday that their bread comes from the very source they hate.
we are talking about low quality cheap replacements to native workers, undermining the economy and depressing wages and causing "all sort of rippling effects" on culture\safety.
Seriously doubt the USA is making the acquisition of world level talent any harder.
Do you believe that this will actually force corporations to not suppress wages? Even if the H-1 program is disbanded, corporations have many options to cut workforce expenses, including offshoring.
Not to mention that healthcare cost rises are one of the key factors that are limiting wage growth: http://www.epi.org/publication/ib218/
Neither the Republicans or Democrats are addressing the systematic issues with wage growth in America.
2) Trump has repeatedly called for a Canadian or Australian style skills-based immigration system to replace chain and quota-based immigration. One would think HN would generally support this?
I would also assume that few here would take issue with merit-based immigration policies. The problem is arguably whether you trust Trump to actually do what he says, especially when he uses immigration policy as a dog whistle when preaching to his core vote.
> The problem is arguably whether you trust Trump to actually do what he says
Is Trump even the one doing it? I thought this was the job of congress?... this seems well out of the scope of an executive order.
Hopefully they do end up copying Canada/Australia directly because they've both performed really well and there is plenty of data there to support it. Instead of the usual series of minor bandaids on top of the old broken system, ala the US healthcare system.
Given final say on any bill rests with Trump himself (signature/veto when it reaches his desk etc), I'm not sure this distinction matters all that much.
At any rate, the president is entirely free to propose a bill, and assuming he can find a congress person to back it (I'm guessing he knows a guy who knows a guy...), can have introduced in Congress. Even if Trump's team doesn't draft a new bill, the lobbying power of the Whitehouse alone on legislation in congress is huge - the threat of a veto alone is a compelling stick.
I think its absurd to think Trump/the executive wouldn't influence the shape of any proposed legislation in this area, when its been such a public part of his campaign.
It still has to first pass the hundreds of eyes in congress, that's the primary challenge of any bill. Vetoing is relatively rare and I doubt he would veto an immigration bill coming from a republican-majority congress...
That said, I never said he had zero influence, but having influence on a congressional bill is a far cry from implying he wrote and proposed it himself.
If you honestly believe the Executive in the US has this little influence on policy agenda, I'm not sure what else to say!
I think most people are capable of understanding that when we talk about "Trump" performing a legislative act, we almost never mean he literally picks up pen and paper and writes the bill himself, or even directly proposes it.
> If you honestly believe the Executive in the US has this little influence on policy agenda,
Again, I never said that, or that he writes it directly himself. This is why I don't debate politics on the internet.
My point is the bill is primarily a congressional matter, and is not at the whims of just the president the way an executive order would be, as was suggested above.
That's because 64% of people currently coming into the US get in because they are relatives or family of another person who was given a green card. Only 15% of people come in due to skill or a job.
The bill would change the system to be more about skill/merit rather than the fact you are related by blood to someone who has skill.
The reduction in numbers is a side effect of the current ratios of the existing system. So ideally they will boost the maximum number on the other end to increase the total number of skilled visas, instead of just cutting the relatives portion (as the bill proposed in August). To me that's the best of both worlds. It's possible it will may be tweaked as it goes through congress or it may have to wait for a future bill, but at least the basic framework is being laid out for a better system similar to Canada/Australia.
That's why I said it's the ideal best of both worlds. Shifting the framework from a primarily relative-based one to skills-based, ala Canada/Australia, is a still a better system regardless.
Plenty of republicans and democrats criticized the "50% reduction by 2028" projection when the original bill was announced a few months ago, so it's not entirely wishful thinking it may change in the future for the better.
Cutting legal immigration in hopes of a later bill that increases it is a fool's errand. This proposal already gives the lie to the Republican marketing on immigration - that they have nothing against legal immigration, and only want to cut the illegal kind. Who knows what they'll ask for next.
One of the strangest things with visas is that the agency that authorizes a person to work (DHS/USCIS) is different and has different objectives from the agency that issues the actual visas (DoS). With a valid USCIS work authorization a person already in the US can continue working legally, but the moment they step out of the country they need to apply for a visa with a US consulate (DHS). Applying for a visa with the DHS can take less than a week or more than 6 weeks (despite having all the correct documents). With the people I've spoken to, this causes a great deal of anxiety when travelling internationally.
TL;DR: A work authorization document issued by one agency allows a person to maintain legal presence in the US. This is different from a visa -- a visa allows one to enter the country and is issued by another agency. The visa doesn't clearly specify what one can and cannot do while in the country.
> Aegis applied for a half-dozen visas this spring, and only one of them made it through the lottery. The year before, Aegis secured a visa for someone filing a type of job he’s filled with H-1B workers in the past. So Narayanan set up a client project for the prospective new employee, a woman who was living in Dehli, India, at the time.
Sounds like they are exactly the type of consulting firm the administration is attempting to crack down on.
> USCIS challenged the application in August, which irked Narayanan because he had provided everything the agency had asked for. Narayanan was doubly annoyed because, without someone else to handle the new contract, it fell to him directly. For the last month, Narayanan has been spending four or five hours each morning doing the work himself, forgoing his own primary responsibility, which is to bring in new clients. “We might not make the profit we were expecting because of these issues,” he said. “We are afraid of on-boarding new H-1B employees, because of the unknown world.”
My heart weeps for him. If he could do the work himself, is it really so specialized he required H1B for it? Or was it more he just didn't want to pay the local rates?
That said, having hired through the H1B program I sure hope it remains viable. Reforms based on salary instead of lottery seem like a good compromise, reducing outsourcing and low salaries endemic with H1B mills. I'd much prefer a floating high salary floor (say top 25%) and uncapping H1B entirely.
I always wondered why not make the H1B salary minimum the same as someone exemplary in that field ( H1B salary 1.5x the average for the position ). If someone is truly extraordinary then a company wouldn't mind paying a little extra but it would influence the average price up and not down for the field.
It already is. H1B visa holders are required to be paid more than the prevailing wage for citizens working the same SOC job classification in the same region.
Its gamed in many ways. Here is one example, bodyshops are based out of some small town in michigan and they use local prevailing wage for h1b application but employee is sent out to work at newyork .
Actually, it is tough to operate such body shops: USCIS has hired contractors to do audits/random checks on these consulting companies and their employees. So, outright fraud is very hard these days. That's also another reason why USCIS is going after the employers, who are not typical body shops operating out of some office in Edison, NJ., Kalamazoo, MI., etc.
I wish that was the case, but it is not.
You can verify this yourself as H1B salary data are publicly available http://h1bdata.info.
Take a look for example at Wayfair in Boston. Majority of their H1B Developers make around $50k-$70k.
This is significantly less than the prevailing wages around Boston, so it is quite clear that they are using H1Bs as cheap labor source.
Wow - Juniper Networks got approved with $63,960 for "Software Engineer" in Sunnyvale just this year while LinkedIn is paying ~$125k for the same title.
That's probably because the website is only showing "base" pay. Juniper does performance packages that go well into six figures, which Linkedin might not do.
You can lookup the Juniper bonus packages on OFLC if you want (it's what this website data is, but more info). I just checked for sunnyvale engineers making 68k and their bonuses go up to 250k.
Where is that info? Glassdoor has 61 reports of Software Engineer for Juniper with an average of $16k performance bonus on an average base salary of $123k. New H1B hires at ~$65k would end up with lower than that average wouldn't they?
Thats besides the point. It doesn't matter what the actual bonuses are , point I was trying to make is that it doesn't make sense to approve H1B based on something uncertain like bonuses.
Are you suggesting uscis " can lookup the Juniper bonus packages on OFLC " before approving h1b ?
Level 1 Software Engineers are paid on average $67k in that area, so by paying them $68k, Wayfair is still paying more than the average wage for U.S. citizens working the same position.
interesting. That is close to the salary I was starting with more than 10yrs ago...Either the wages have stagnated around Boston or that number seems low. Glassdoor reports ~$80k which is closer to what my current employer has been hiring at, thats why the Wayfair numbers seems low to me.
https://www.glassdoor.com/Salaries/boston-entry-level-softwa...
My guess is your experience is anecdotal and open to bias. Same with glassdoor, since it's self-submitted. The BLS's Occupational Employment Statistic's prevailing wage data is fairly exhaustive.
This administration continues its onslaught on American values. Crippling those avenues that enrich our culture and civic life: a pro immigrant credo we have fostered for years. Where talent, wherever they may be, were attracted to America for different reasons but almost all envisioned a better future for their family and the world. Trump with friends are facebook, Twitter, google, and reddit have by de facto unleashed the most toxic elements of our culture. I am this close to closing Facebook, I use duck duck go for search, I really regret hosting my domains with google this year, but if the hijacking continues. Everything I do will be blockchain. Fuck Silicon Valley. The place is a dump anyways.
As an aspiring immigrant, I feel this is great. Instead of a situation where immigration to US sort of works, sort of doesnt, is a hassle, but not really a bad one, a lot of companies were still keeping major offices in US.
Now that Americans have made up their mind that they dont want immigrants, companies will spend more money on opening engineering centers in immigration friendly countries (Canada\west Europe\Australia(maybe),etc) which from a personal perspective are great countries for me to immigrate to. And this time I might would be able to catch the first wave of immigrants (who get to convert to citizens) if there is a genuine boom in jobs in such countries (unlike US where its near impossible for an EB2 immigrant to get citizenship if moving today)
That's already happening in Canada. All the major US IT companies started establishing large offices here. All the announcements happened after Trump got elected.
Ah yes, gotta love H-1B threads. The latent nativism among the Hacker News crowd is laid bare.
Here's a radical proposal: give anyone with a clean criminal record and a job offer a green card. No limits, no $100k minimum wage, no protectionism. If you, with all the advantages that natives get (networks, language, NETWORKS), can be beat by an immigrant with zero social connections, you probably are worth less than you think you are. Time to compete, pal.
Anything less is opportunity hoarding based on the patch of dirt you were born on.
I feel the real issue is that Americans are comfy with their quality of life, and spend a lot of money on luxury educationm ending up with loans. People in India for instance are used to a massively lower level of material comforts during education. As a result education is much cheaper (so we dont graduate with massive debts in India) and we are used to a lower quality of live (so 2 people living in a 2 bedroom apartment is still an upgrade).
Americans will end up losing on money in such a system, cause they will want to maintain their quality of life, say living in independent studios with central climate control even in high CoL areas, and they need to pay back education loans which are much lower for people from India
What exactly is the point of a having a country at all, if not to accrue unfair advantages to its citizens? And I assume you have a problem with all other countries unfairly "opportunity hoarding" for their own people too, not just the US?
I just don't like to see people made into indentured servants. Here's my radical proposal: let H1B's change jobs once a year, as long as they're employed somewhere in the industry they're here for and their visa hasn't expired, they can stay. "Sponsoring" companies should not be allowed to keep slaves.
I don't think your radical proposal makes much sense. What's the benefit to a country to basically throw its borders wide open?
> What's the benefit to a country to basically throw its borders wide open?
More people means a bigger economy. Immigrants -- at least the ones that choose to immigrate -- are by definition risk-takers. Risk-taking is core to entrepreneurship. I hope I don't have to defend the value of entrepreneurship on this site.
We've known for thousands of years that free trade is a net positive for everyone involved. Why would free immigration be any different?
The US had open borders for centuries. It became the most powerful country in the world because of open borders.
Nah. You're just making emotional arguments because not all risk-taking immigrants are entrepreneurs. We're not running a charity, why would you talk as if we are?
> (We should also welcome all the refugees we can get, of course.)
What trolling nonsense. We must control who comes and who gets turned away, it's the only fair and equitable option for the citizens and resident aliens who already live here. Because priorities.
Applying for existing h1b transfer is already fairly trivial (or at least it was before Trump) if your company has a lawyer firm on retainer. Most h1bs I know switched jobs at least once.
All of the h1b's I've known that transferred just switched from one slaver to the next. I'm talking about being part of the job market and being able to switch, perhaps within fixed time windows, but for the most part, at one's own will. You know, having freedom?
Of course, that will never happen, because the point of the system is to get people here, have a sword of deportation hanging over their heads, and thus keep 'em quiet and get 'em cheap.
> The latent nativism among the Hacker News crowd is laid bare.
+1. that and sheer ignorance mixed with some American-grade entitlement. being anti-h1b is just socially acceptable (among 'liberals') way of being xenophobic.
Your proposal is a feel-good hurrah, but oversimplifies a few complex issues. No protections = Exploitation of workers. Instant green card = Increased competition for Housing/public services.
So unless you think that lowly-paid immigrants with limited access to social services is the best path forward, I'd advocate for some protections. I agree with no limits. If a company can provide for the workers, then go for it. Otherwise, the US barely has enough financial support/ safety net for the existing population. Opening the doors wide open would put stress on that already poor situation.
I said no protectionism (in the form of visa caps), not no protections.
> Instant green card = Increased competition for Housing/public services.
Sounds like a great opportunity for entrepreneurs to provide those services and make lots of money.
I wonder why the otherwise enterprising Hacker News crowd is blind to the incredible market opportunities open borders would provide. I truly, deeply wonder why.
It's great that these RFE's are happening, and Trump should have closed things up even earlier. There are plenty of people with skills out there who may not know every feature of Vue.js 2.5.3, or who are 30 years old and thus "not a culture fit". Companies will start having to look for these people instead. Enough is enough. There's not even an argument, it's whether the programmer gets to make a salary in an industry where you're chucked overboard at 40, or whether billionaire heirs get that money added to their pile of riches. It's no contest. As far as Indians, they can work in India, or Europe, or apply for a green card.
Instead of a lottery, we should have an H1-B auction. There are a limited number of H1-B slots, and the companies that offer the highest salaries get them.
In addition, whistle-blower protection with automatic Green cards for anyone who reports employer abuse, with prison sentences for the entire company C-suite if a company abuses this process.
We’ve discussed the auction before here. My sentiment is that it would cause all of the H1Bs to be concentrated in the Bay Area at a handful of companies.
In which case H1-B would be used only for high-end R&D talent not obtainable in the US and would have little or no wage-depressing effect. What a terrible problem.
This is a great idea. The challenge is that it goes against the reason companies use h1b, to lower wages paid. This would actually drive up the prices of h1b visas and lead to more skilled workforce.
I deeply understand the need for H-1B's for bringing in highly talented individuals. However, I can't stand how the argument seems to completely ignore the Americans who are displaced because of abuse of the H-1B system.
It seems a bit deceitful to paint this story solely through the lens of "immigrants" while lots of Americans are being directly replaced by H-1B workers.
I do not expect to go to another country and displace local workers. I do not expect to be granted a work visa in a place that I do not belong. If I go to another country to work, I expect to be providing a skill or talent that is not present in the local economy. Further more, I expect that I'd be teaching that skill to others. Or at the very least, be in the position to lead the growth and development of a team until a local worker can do my role.
Why should we expect any different from the H-1B's that the US grants?
Which is the class of poor Americans being displaced by H1B workers earning in excess of 100k at companies like Microsoft,Amazon,Google,etc which are constantly hiring anyways?
White males. Laugh, disregard it - but it's true. If you're a poor white male, you don't really get a lot of assistance. I don't get special grants for being white, I don't get a padded SAT score, I don't get preferential treatment - in fact, it's the opposite. Not all white males are born with a silver spoon, and they're certainly not all given an 'equal opportunity' when a "diverse" person of lesser intellect can get financial and logistic support and lauded for being born a different race.
Frankly, over time the average white American family is going to find it more and more difficult to afford higher education, as if by design, to push them out of the middle class. Meanwhile, poor non-whites will be granted scholarships based on non-whiteness.
> Frankly, over time the average white American family is going to find it more and more difficult to afford higher education, as if by design, to push them out of the middle class. Meanwhile, poor non-whites will be granted scholarships based on non-whiteness.
No they wont. White females are still eligible for many of the same (gender based) diversity advantages. The majority of college students in the US are female.
Besides that, most of the wealth in this country is controlled by white families. Which makes your assertion truly pointless: unless there is some major cataclysm, white families will continue to pass on their advantages to their offspring for generations to come.
Ok, great, just not white males. Half of the white population. Also, this shows contempt and disregard for the concept of a stay-at-home mother. Women in the workplace are great - but this entire scheme/system destroys values the West was built upon.
> most of the wealth in this country is controlled by white families
I doubt this is true anymore, and even if there are wealthy white families, your sentiment is utter disregard for those who are merely average or low-income. An average-income white father earning a modest living will have a hell of a time raising a family - meanwhile low-income blacks are paid to reproduce and get shoved into the finest institutions at tax payer expense at comparative advantage with padded SAT scores. Do you not see the hypocrisy? That isn't equal opportunity, it's an attempt at forcing an equal outcome.
I feel like you're getting something backwards there.
Most of the wealth is controlled by white families. This does not imply that all white families control wealth. Those white families that do control the wealth aren't exactly sharing it around with all their 8th cousins. They sure do share it with their direct descendants, and pass on advantages that way, but if any non-rich white person is advantaged, it is likely only because the rich white people are observably racist when delegating their authority and managing their assets. Imagine for a moment someone so racist that their toilets may only be cleaned by a white person, and realize that people like that do exist. So yes, I guess that white loo-scrubber is advantaged, by not having to compete quite as much, in a very minor way.
There are plenty of white families out there who know that no-one is on their side, who believe that the illusion of equality is being pursued by cutting them down rather than raising everyone else up. And they believe that immigration is diluting their family's voice, rather than augmenting it. And many of them are "checking out". They turn to a bullet or a syringe, or blindly follow any person that tells the lies they most want to hear.
The rich and powerful are free at any time to erase the echo of privilege enjoyed by middle class white people simply by not hiring them preferentially over darker people. Which is what is happening. And while that is happening, the reactive measures to prior institutionalized racism remain in place. The problem is not with affirmative action or feminism or egalitarian movements, but that the old money is far too powerful politically, and that the rich kids are not as disgustingly racist as their parents. So there will likely be a generation at some point where middle class white families have zero advantages, non-white families will have some preferences stemming from ongoing racial equality movements from the 1960s to the present, and the data that show they are no longer needed have not yet been collected and published.
And that generation is going to have a lot of neo-Nazis and white supremacists in it, because people will still be telling them about white privilege when they remember growing up in a manufactured home, eating cold Spaghetti-Os and Spam, watching other people get things that they were never offered. I don't quite know if it is already here, or if it is still coming and will be even worse than what we have already seen. But I do know that part of the problem is attributing the source of privilege to any color other than green.
> Centro had applied for visas for three young employees
> He’d received a letter from USCIS saying it would reject his application unless Centro proved the position required someone with specialized skills
> The position — which consisted of writing algorithms and required knowledge of multiple programming languages as well as a solid understanding of relational data storage systems — wasn’t a borderline case.
I'm going to disagree here. It sounds to me like a textbook example of a company hiring a young, inexperienced worker because they're cheaper than experienced ones.
To those getting old in the valley, it seems this type of action is good news.
There is no immorality around my position. We exist as a country to promote the welfare of our own people. I should expect any country to place its own citizens' interests above those of foreign nations.
Moreover, countries are generally defined by their geographic locations. The actions of the people within them directly affect those around them. Local economies are affected by influxes of labor and depression of wages.
A person's race is simply an attribute they possess; attempting to compare this to a nationality makes little sense in this case. Someone's race does not intrinsically affect the economy around them, whereas the wage they are paid will.
What are you on about? Are you able to have a discussion about this, or are you simply looking to discount any counter-arguments with feeble attempts at dog whistling?
Fine, here's my position: Immigration restrictions are a version of "separate but equal" segregation that is somehow acceptable to talk about. Anyone who wants to do a job, can do it, and is willing to move to where the job is should be able to do it, regardless of where they were born or what papers they have.
That they can't because a bunch of people have collectively decided to pull the ladder up behind them is unjust, unfair and immoral.
What about the people who want to do the job, can do it, are willing to move to the job location, are American citizens, and are denied because they are being replaced by cheaper H1-B workers?
These H1-B workers are not entitled to jobs in America. It is something we offer to benefit both them and our country as a whole. It becomes detrimental when these visas are extended at the expense of the American citizen who is being displaced.
H1-B visas are for technical expertise that's not available in the United States. Each slot used for something other than that purpose makes it harder for a high-skill foreign worker to come to our country and contribute to our economy.
I don't like pieces like this who mostly make people who are in a true need of an H-1B more anxious.
For instance, statements like this one below are suppose to make the reader think something is deeply wrong:
> She said in past years she's counted on 90 percent of her petitions being approved by Oct. 1 in years past. This year, only 20 percent of the applications have been processed.
But, this year Premium processing was disabled for most of the year so that would explain this, wouldn't it? For those unaware, Premium processing is where the petitioner can pay an extra $1225 on top of all the existing fees, to have its case processed in at most 14 days. Without premium processing it can take months & months instead. Also, without the fees for premium processing, I wouldn't be surprised if USCIS have less employees able to work the cases. It was disabled specifically because the Regular processing cases backlog was getting too big. So if last year 90% of her cases used Premium Processing, the quote isn't shocking at all.
The same lawyer maintains her personal blog, where she isn't as dramatic, and gives more useful facts: http://immigrationgirl.com/
Premium processing is now back[1], it'd be interesting to see if the statement still holds true.
It seems like the pretense of these changes is to affect the "infosys" style of visas. Does anyone have any insight on how this will affect getting visas for higher end jobs?
Couldn't this be positive if it stops all the body shop h1b companies that just want cheap, basic programmers? This will then allow for visas for true skills where there are gaps.
I've worked with hundreds of h1b visa, 90% of them were just java programmers with a low bill rate. But there were also a few with really rare skills. I'd like to see more of the latter and less of the former. Especially since the number of h1b visa is capped.
If your business can't survive without indentured labor - that's on you. Simple as that.
The H1B situation could be fixed overnight by declaring the minimum wage to be... one million dollars. Then we'll see it genuinely only used for rare talent.
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[ 0.30 ms ] story [ 313 ms ] thread> The skeptical eye the government is taking to applications has extended to all types of employers, according to immigration lawyers. Many are rethinking their own use of H-1B as a result.
This is absolutely disastrous. I personally know families on H1B from well-known American companies are afraid to leave the country because of this.
Four years, and this is the first time she's seen the government even try to see if the law should be enforced. Really says it all.
The H-1B program hasn't ever been a way to get solid talent from other countries to come to the United States because equivalent talent can't be found here. It's ALWAYS been a way to expand the pool of cheap technology labor so that companies dependent on expensive skills can grow faster.
Economics is economics. Companies have an incentive to fight wage inflation when they experience it due to a reliance on high-skill individuals.
I remember going to the offices of a well-known bank and finding nearly the entire development staff comprised of foreign workers on H-1B. Most of them were from India.
That can't be an accident and it's certainly not an indicator that talent is in short supply. What's in short supply is CHEAP TALENT. H-1B workers are cheap and don't have any ability to complain about their working conditions because they can't move to another company as easily as a permanent resident can. That alone is worth the legal hassle a company assumes when bringing in these workers.
SO, word to the wise....make sure you stay one step ahead of the skill levels of the Indian outsourcing companies or your days are numbered.
In the meantime, support candidates that are willing to rein in this amazing abuse of our immigration policy.
For people, we should have one clear policy and apply it, if they can't come, so be it, but tell them clearly what they can get and what they cannot. And allow some transparency of the income and rates so that it can't be abused as much.
Set clear standards and expectations. I know that for a lot of people stuck in green card queues, Canada is looking mighty attractive right now. Instant PR.
> For Centro, a company in Chicago that makes technology for ad agencies [...] applied for visas for three young employees who already had the legal right to work for a limited time after graduating from college.
> To Clark's eyes, the position — which consisted of writing algorithms and required knowledge of multiple programming languages as well as a solid understanding of relational data storage systems — wasn’t a borderline case.
I dunno, that sounds a hell of a lot like a fluffed-up description of an entry-level junior web-dev.
A server-side language + JavaScript + SQL queries. Not exactly the skill set that requires you to go head-hunting overseas.
Why did they not ask the company what the wage for that position is. How many people in Chicago did they interview. Did they interview anyone over 50 who has that exact experience? Did they approach anyone currently working in similar jobs and offer them raises and other benefits to entice them over?
Truth is the Company did none of those things so the good loyal journalist won't ask those questions.
probably not. Why would they interview that person for what sounds like an entry level position?
You might still think that the workers have the strongest claim. But as with most protectionism, there's more to consider.
This is especially true when you're talking about the non-institutional "poor consumer", as opposed to a company having customized or proprietary software made just for them.
I'm just assuming that somebody in the chain that produced this article deliberately sought to make the job sound more selective and prestigious than it really is.
Learning one is super hard, learning two is almost impossible.
And from what I get in the article - which is not very rich on details - the "living hell" is that the government occasionally asks for proof of what is supposed to be already proven in the visa app - that there's no possibility of hiring the same talent in the US - and which everybody who dealt with it knows is kind of sham and not how it actually works.
So what you do is your write a tailored job description, which apparently requires exactly the same skill set the person you want to hire has, up to specific versions of the database system, you "publish" it, go through the motions (without really making an effort to hire anybody - it's usually not very hard for a knowledgeable HR person to do) and in a while you can get your H1B.
Pretty much everybody knows it's a game - the pretense that the only reason foreign people are hired is because there is absolutely not a single matching candidate anywhere in the US is false, but it is impossible to prove. But the game continues because the industry does need the influx of foreign talent, and the only politically viable excuse is the one we have. So we have this game.
Here are the real reasons they probably wanted to hire him: He's smart enough to do well on his SATs/GREs and go to a good university. He's hard working and conscientious enough to get a good GPA while in University. He's got great recommendations from his classmates, former employers and/or professors. He knows his stuff well enough to get through an interview pipeline that most others fail to get through.
There's one problem though. None of the above are considered valid reasons to hire someone on a H1B. The Stanford grad who knows Java inside and out, has a 4.0 GPA, a perfect SAT score, and amazing side-projects and recommendations... according to the law, he's just a cog, perfectly interchangeable with any CS graduate who manages to graduate with a C+ average.
Hence why companies have to come up with other ridiculous reasons for wanting to hire this guy. Because the real metrics that any rational person would take into consideration, are all considered inadmissible. If you start fighting with a guy who has one hand tied behind his back, don't be surprised if he doesn't follow proper boxing decorum.
What you have described is not an employer who is just violating letter of the law in some harmless defiance of red tape... No, that employer is deliberately breaking the spirit of the law too.
The H1-B exemption is intended to allow for immigrant workers when domestic supply doesn't exist. Not "when you really really like a dude."
The H1-B cap is surely a far more pressing concern for most technology firms than the GC backlog. The H1-B cap and delays are making it significantly harder to hire foreign workers. I don't think the big tech firms care nearly as much about GC backlogs - if anything they probably like this, as it arguably aids in staff retention if your workforce is less able to easily switch job.
Also, the GC backlogs are more relevant to SV than the two other issues mentioned - travel ban and DACA. Yet SV leadership is way more vocal on travel ban and DACA than they are about GC backlogs.
Of course not. If workers were not held hostage by one company, and were free to go to any company they wanted without worrying about their immigration status, the companies would have to pay higher wages to keep their workers.
Companies hate employees having this kind of flexibility. Just on some other thread on HN, there was talk of how foreign grad students were not treated well compared to citizens, since the foreigners were tied to a visa.
The H-1B is not about guest workers, which are an altogther separate set of programs/visas. The H-1B is a dual-intent visa, so it supports both people who intend to obtain a green card or citizenship eventually as well as people who only intend to work in the US for a period of time before returning home. (Even in the latter case, this doesn't qualify it as a guest worker program, which is a third category altogether).
An easy heuristic you can use to remember why the H-1B visa isn't a guest worker program is that many people who obtain H-1B visas enter the country without any plan for the date that they will return home. (Whether or not they ultimately stay and immigrate is a separate matter, but guest workers by definition know their expected departure date when they enter, because the terms of their employment and entry are inherently temporary.)
Some critics of the H-1B visa refer to it as a guest worker program, in an attempt to conflate it pejoratively with the latter (which are generally for low-skilled labor, and therefore viewed less favorably than specialty visas like the H-1B).
For example, you could be working at Google / Facebook earning top $$$$ every year and you paperwork could be spotless. But the stress of having to go through an uncertain renewal process every 3 years prevents you from investing in big things like buying a house or having kids. You are always worried about being able to return back to your stuff when you leave for a trip overseas.
Even though most top companies immediately apply for Green CArds, the "country of birth" based green limits ensure that you have to remain in H1-B status for 15 - 20 years (if you happen to be born in India).
TL;DR: It's not the increased vetting that we fear, its the uncertainty and complicated appeal procedures that can affect genuine H1-B cases.
But Indians have to wait at least 5years for a green card(EB-2). And this was before the current admin.
I’m now in Canada. Permanent Resident (took 8 months), $180k+ salary, big tech company. Going to buy a house in the summer.
Same big tech company or other?
The silly thing is, there is bipartisan bill in congress and Senate to fix it (HR 392). But it is stuck is legislative limbo.
1. I took a pay cut. I went from 190K+ USD (~250k+ CAD) to 180k CAD (this includes my bonus. My base is lower, say around ~150k CAD). Numbers are fuzzed but close enough to reality.
This is a significant drop, but of course it's still a very good salary for Canada. I'm satisfied with my decision.
2. I'm in Marketing, reasonably senior. Couple levels down from the CMO.
3. Same company. Essentially got transferred with a pay cut. This made it easy for the company as well. It helped that I've been here for a longish time and have built relationships within the company. They were very supportive.
You don't wait in H1B status, you get advanced parole which means you can stay and work until you green card has been processed.
So, sell your house, all your belongings, take the kids out of school, move all investments... uproot your whole life in 2 months, maybe 1 month. That's not an easy thing to do, especially with children. It's not fair to my family - the kids would hate moving from the US back to India. Canada is much closer, culturally, and it's easier to adjust.
We decided to move as a family, and planned everything for more than a year.
This is personal, of course. Everyone has to make their own decision.
However, I do agree the uncertainty can be stressful. I went through a layoff when on H1B and it's not fun!
In my mind, however, it boils down to two pretty simple points:
Given that (1) the US is lagging far behind every developed nation in education, and higher education in the US is prohibitively expensive compared to other developed nations, (2) the only way for the US to remain on the R&D playing field is to attract already educated/trained people from other nations with the lure of misc benefits of living in the US (culture, safety, stability, philly cheese steaks). Take away our ability to import talent and there goes the last leg of American dominance in technology.
No more American students that can compete with Chinese, Taiwanese, Japanese, or German ones, leading to less innovation in a generation. No more immigrant students making their money and starting their businesses here (or working for American R&D departments) because they can't get a visa - and possibly even worse, well-trained highly educated Americans leaving because of the obvious end-game (reduced GDP causing all sorts of ripple effects in local economies, safety, etc).
I just don't understand why we wouldn't want to make it as easy as possible to steal talent that another country invested in. We take a 23yo Chinese engineering graduate as he's going to begin peak productivity - the USA didn't have to invest in his k-12, scholarship his university, clean the water he drank for 24 years, etc. Instantaneous social profit. He joins Chevron and is turning a profit for them within the year, pumping out research and getting taxed on his 100k/year salary, spending his money in-country and oh well, maybe he sends a bit (already taxed) home.
Am I being reductive? Seems to be a very poor investment to make it harder for the highly educated to come into this country, without at the very least making a massive push for higher education across the board for our own citizens (which we are not seeing).
EDIT: To clarify my points: There are 2 ways for a country to be technologically advanced - train their own citizens, or steal other trained citizens. Have neither of those and obviously, you will fall behind.
The thing to remember about US education is that it's highly different between the haves and have-nots. That's a problem in itself, but it's a giant oversimplification to jump to "US educations are generally poor." (One of the other high school and college cost-drivers/arms-race-drivers is competing to attract foreign students.)
There's a gap in China as well but it's made up for by a massive population. Lord forbid they close their gap, that'll be the end of any other country's ability to compete as China and India just throw five hundred million engineers each at their technology sector.
The bottom 50% has gotten fucked by loss of jobs/industries/career paths/debt, but H1Bs aren't helping with that.
So if your contention is "we need to figure out how to better invest in the whole population" I agree, but I don't see the other half of the equation being an overly large limiting point.
If anything, if we're in the lead industry-wise, does importing young talent, teaching them these things, and making it easier for that experience to be taken elsewhere really help long-run? Almost sounds more like a case for paranoid isolationism immigration-wise.
We're never gonna have a billion people in the US in my lifetime, but I don't think that's necessary for there to be enough US self-driven industry to have a nice, happy, productive life.
Zero sum thinking and all that.
I mean, arguably neither did the Chinese, depending on where you are and how much they've let pollution occur in that area.
I think you are grossly overestimating both the value of these immigrants (it isn't hard to see how much garbage science gets published abroad and how useless a good chunk of international students are) and the entire mechanism for technological improvement and innovation (most of which is market, not PhD, driven).
You also don't cite any sources for your claims; this information would be helpful to anybody seeking to agree or argue with you.
That statement is true of any group of students, international or local. On the other hand, there are good international students (and there are good local students). Is there any reason why you think the ratio isn't the same (in fact, you'd think that the ratio of good international students would be higher because they have to go through far more rigorous testing than the average local student).
And while you might argue they're mostly useless, usually international students make up a large amount of the funding for universities since their fees are usually 5x or sometimes even 10x "local" student fees[1]. So if you like having well-funded universities throwing out international students is a good way to stop that from working.
[1]: My data is from Australia (since that's where I am). In 2017, ~1.3 million students enrolled in higher education -- and ~350k were international students. Most universities have a multiplier of _at least_ 4x for international students taking the same courses as a local student. By simple arithmetic, international students make up more than half of the funding-through-fees of Australian universities.
The author I was replying though doesn't seem to differentiate though, for example, between graduate students coming here to do research and learn cutting-edge things and undergraduates who have wealthy families that export them abroad because of course that's what one does.
You've also kind of nailed another issue on the head: it is more profitable, per student, for universities to bring in international students than to teach local ones. This in turn leads to an increase in pricing for everybody (though probably not as much as due to student loan availability, but that's a different thing) and weird campus behavior to accommodate valued country officials (local school of Rice University, for example, hiding Taiwanese flags during a visit by mainlanders).
As for HECS-HELP loans, this is quite different from a subsidy. It's a loan from the government that has a guaranteed return (pretty good deal for them). But even from your own source, international student fees are 18.8% and total "local" contributions (including HECS loans) are 19.9%. Which is effectively what my original point was -- approximately half of the funding directly from students is from international students even though much less than half of the students are international students (I never said that 50% of total university funding is from international students, please re-read my comment).
If you are a local student and you don't use HECS you still only pay <25% what an international student would pay -- because they have a different per-course-unit fee structure that's far more expensive.
This component of government grants is not broken down on the source I provided, but it is explained in the notes to universities' financial statements. See for example those of Australia's largest university, at p 66 [2]. $345 million was provided under the Commonwealth Grants Scheme, compared to $214 million under HECS-HELP and $58 million from the Australian Research Council (research grants are also provided by other bodies such as the NHMRC). The CGS is the means of funding CSPs, not a source of research grants [3].
Your original point, that 'international students make up more than half of the funding-through-fees,' might actually be correct even if you accept that payments under the CGS are on account of 'fees' (which is the language used in [1]). It is correct at Monash, where international student fees generated $653 million, compared to $1.03 billion from the Australian government including CGS, HECS-HELP and research grants. Monash is an outlier because almost half of its students are international or offshore [4], but it leaves me unsure as to the reliability of my original source. We can certainly agree that international student fees are a very substantial source of income, but I wanted to correct the common misconception that HECS-HELP loans are the sole source of domestic tuition funds.
[1] http://studyassist.gov.au/sites/studyassist/helppayingmyfees...
[2] http://www.monash.edu/__data/assets/pdf_file/0011/844508/mon...
[3] https://www.education.gov.au/commonwealth-grant-scheme-cgs
[4] http://www.monash.edu/about/who/glance
The issue most people have is that the program seems to be rampantly abused. Companies are replacing US workers with H1-B's sourced from companies like Tata and Infosys at much lower salaries than US employees would normally command. In some cases, they're just bringing in foreign workers for the time it takes to train them, then having them work remotely and paying them even less still.
Disney even made their US employees train their replacements before laying them off: https://www.nytimes.com/2015/06/04/us/last-task-after-layoff...
Southern California Edison was another company that did the same: https://www.computerworld.com/article/2879083/it-outsourcing...
It's this type of abuse where US companies are simply looking to fire US citizens so they can pay slave wages to foreign contractors for the same work that people are up in arms about.
I assume the person writing the advertisement just forgot that they're technically looking for a local candidate.
The alternative of an H1B is not an American. It's off shoring the entire project to a team that doesn't live in the US in the first place.
Nope, the alternative is off shoring the project to places like Ohio and Montana.
Being unable to import cheap labor from overseas would be a huge loss to these chop shops and allow other local companies to compete with local staff.
Imagine if there was a law that required companies to post job openings for every position in the company, regardless of whether or not that position was already filled. As you can imagine, they would likely make the job requirements exceedingly specific for the roles filled by people they really like.
You don't even need to imagine, just go look at government or non-profit job postings. It's often the case that they similar ridiculous policies for promotions, where they already have a person they want to promote, but they need to open it up to public applicants first.
This is fairly obvious, but do Americans not realize this? Or are they consciously saying that its better for high paying jobs to move out of US than for foreigners to work at those jobs in US?
This canard keeps getting repeated in HN threads. This is WRONG. 100% absolutely completely WRONG. The only stated purpose of the H-1B program is to allow foreigners with degrees (or equivalent experience) to perform skilled work in the US. Here are the DOL requirements: https://webapps.dol.gov/elaws/elg/h1b.htm
The only one that affects US workers is to "[p]rovide working conditions for H-1B, H-1B1, or E-3 workers that will not adversely affect the working conditions of workers similarly employed." (There are additional requirements on H-1B dependent companies, but those don't apply to most companies.)
Here's a fact sheet from the DOL specifically about this matter: https://www.dol.gov/whd/regs/compliance/FactSheet62/whdfs62O...
What you're talking about is requirements for an EB-2 or EB-3 green card.
Seriously. Who in the world would consider being fired and replaced with cheap labor an adverse effect?
It's frustrating when people complain about H-1Bs at big companies like Google/MS/Amazon. Apparently we're underpaid, overworked, and stealing a job from an american. Despite the fact that these companies are almost constantly hiring and if the american wants to go try, they could.
That's in the short term. In the long term more Americans would do CS, and if the supply is tight enough, Apple and the others would open schools to train teenagers to code.
Not saying that the current system isn't better. But the basic forces are what they are.
Btw, you are underpaid and overworked. The game-room is gaming you to stay at work longer hours.
More likely still, significantly more SaaS in easily configurable packages as companies that can't afford massive dev salaries for an IT department turn towards GoogMicroSAP to fulfill their needs
This is exactly correct. I'm a US citizen and work at a high paying tech job. Amazon calls me at least once a month to try to convince me to work for them. The problem is that their highest allowed salary is lower than what I'm already making, and I also get gobs of stock bonuses worth at least as much as their stock bonuses. So they really aren't even trying to compete here. If they really wanted people of my caliber who were US citizens, they'd have to improve their compensation.
While it may not be the sole purposes as outlined in the link [0] you provided, it does mean that the rules state this very fact that precedence is to be given to US workers. So saying it's 100% wrong is... wrong as well.
[0] https://webapps.dol.gov/elaws/elg/h1b.htm#who
https://www.dol.gov/whd/immigration/h1b.htm
Not just taxes. They also pay for social security even though they don't get anything from it. If that is not enough, they also have to pay tax for the income they get in their parent country while they are in US. I get paying US taxes, but why pay tax for income that has nothing to do with US?
That's laughable unless you take the legalistic view that, unless it's been litigated not to be in good faith, that's good (faith) enough. Companies like Tata exist only to import cheaper workers. Saying otherwise amounts to claiming you might just want to hold hands with that person from the escort service.
It's also insulting to those who can see the difference between an R&D organization doing a worldwide search for a CTO and a "body shop."
IMO, a better law would be to give a green card with 3 yr validity to those on H1b. Then you'll see how the equation changes. Employees on H1b have very few choices due to these locks.
People born elsewhere (other than China, India, Philippines) and are here on an H1b, are better off in terms of chances of getting a Green Card and a citizenship in a decent amount of time.
Ethnicities/nationalities like Mexicans have negligible skilled EB immigrants and have a much higher reliance on FB to immigrate a whole family to the U.S. (oftentimes derisively called out by Republicans as chain immigration), and thus they face longer FB backlog compared with Chinese FBs and Indian FBs. For example, as of today, the backlog for an Unmarried Child of an Mexican immigrant is 21 years, whereas that of Indians and Chinese are 7. (https://travel.state.gov/content/visas/en/law-and-policy/bul...) The priority date for a skilled Mexican immigrant programmer, who would be filing for either EB2 or EB3, is current (no backlog).
Since the system is heavily family-oriented, EBs often found themselves in very awkward positions as either the scape-goat for America's economic problems or distractions among partisan fights. A lot of things do not make sense. For example, the spouse of an EB petitioner does not count as "family-based" but takes up one more EB slot, and their school-age children, despite not being employed for work, are counted as "employment-based" immigrants. In addition, to offset the number of green cards given out to Chinese nationals after the 1989 Tian'anmen Square Massacre, a number of greencards are deducted from Chinese EB quota. Just making small changes to these two issues can ompletely eliminate Chinese backlog and greatly shorten Indian backlog. However, the politicians couldn't care any less about sensible solutions. While Democrats typically only pay the lip service, Republicans' common tactic is to hide their anti-immigration attempt behind a big banner of pro-skilled immigrants. The Rs either will try to trade the EBs with zeroing out refugee quota or slashing FBs in half, for example. They may have a good point (U.S. admits more refugees than employment-based immigrants annually), but touching that hot-button issue will never get Democratic votes, and it beginning to increasingly look like Republicans' political show vote.
A point to be noted, is that the arbitrary per country cap for EB green cards, was added in the last 30 years, to surreptitiously add a subtle anti-Asian bias, to reduce the number of Chinese immigrants entering US. Looks like Indian and Philippine citizens are caught in the cross fire now.
If you speak to high skilled immigrants in US who understand the situation, you'll see them being equally highly frustrated with the Democrats and the Republicans, and their respective supporters. Everything seems to be so focussed on DACA and illegal immigrants, that the legal ones are left in limbo.
Compare that to the number of immigrants from India, most of them use up family’s life savings to study in the US and try to recover from working in US. Unlike students from other countries, who can apply for a green card when they are studying (by getting a willing employer through their connections), can get their work authorization and Green Card itself before their 3 yr OPT expires.
Which means, there’s mostly people from backlogged countries, applying for h1b visas!
That means, there’ll be some %age of applicants who are willing to get treated like slaves by the employer, and these are the employees who have poisoned the basket of apples. And USCIS is looking at the basket very suspiciously.
Sadly, good numbner of people are naive enough to not see past the fracas.
http://johnhcochrane.blogspot.com/2014/06/the-optimal-number...
This is obviously the sensible approach, but most people who comment on Hacker News immigration threads are nativist. They might pretend to be liberal or progressive [1], but at their core they're no different from the Jim Crow segregationists of the '50s. Changing your in-group from being based on the color of your skin to the patch of dirt you were born on doesn't change the basic immorality of your position.
[1] Though it must be said that progressivism and nativism have been very close friends historically, and continue to be so in the form of NIMBYs.
Although, would be super interesting to see this as a proposal from a "moderate" Democrat.
Also completely ignores traditional criteria for immigration, like oppressed people, security concerns, spouses and family members, and health status.
Also, author jokes about population density of places like the UK, but how long would it take to actually build the infrastructure to accommodate a mass influx of new residents, especially if they tended to congregate in a small number of areas with good jobs or other people of their ethnic or linguistic groups?
More immigrants could easily participate in building more infrastructure. They did so in the past.
http://www.livemint.com/Industry/pHkRcTtIoKd8MkTkBNdtSN/Info...
In a country as large as the US, that two consulting companies picked up nearly 10% of the country's visa allotment for a certain category of worker is part of the problem in itself.
A sizeable portion of Trump's base believes that they are in danger of becoming a minority in "their own" country and will sidestep the economic benefits of immigration to retain a demographic majority. To these voters, power and influence is a zero-sum game where the many exercise absolute reign over the few (constitutional equality be damned), and sharing the pie with immigrants puts them at risk of becoming the few.
So there's a pragmatic question of how to avoid putting yourself at a disadvantage by being comparatively overgenerous that you don't have to be a "paleoconservative" or Trump supporter, or even Republican, to be concerned about.
You might like to ruminate on teh fact that while Trump demonizes immigrants out of one side of his mouth, the resort he owns at Mar-A-Lago- was able to get 70 H1-B visas to hire hotel staff, despite the availability of some 5000 such people in Florida's state employment opportunities database and a whole lot of US citizens in Puerto Rico that are in search of economic opportunity right about now. Not that you were making a partisan point, but this is a great example of how the rhetorical divisions in American politics do not line up with the business practices.
>if you make more than a certain amount not if you invest over a certain amount.
I don't know any developed countries with that system. Do you?
There might have technically been other minimal requirements like knowing English or the local language, but most people who fulfill the pay requirements will fulfill the minor requirements too if applicable.
If so that's not the same as an income requirement at all.
If not, I'd like a list of them because that's very interesting.
I'm sure lots of countries have similar rules.
They have to demonstrate that they can't find a citizen to do the job etc...?
But: - tech salaries aren't US competitive - people often speak Danish (sometimes it's a requirement)
And while you'll probably do fine with English in Denmark in general. Long term you would need to learn the language. And to be fair, it's a useless language, there is only 5M speakers, why would anyone spend time learning that? :)
And yes, you would experience racism too. Just because it's a borderline social-libertarian paradise doesn't mean all the people are angels.
A disadvantage or an advantage? It's always seemed to me that people from other countries and cultures contributed very positively to what the US is today.
One thing that gets somewhat ignored for political reasons is assimilation/integration. Of course there was never a purely smooth, even, perfect melting pot, and there's a large history of enclaves in America, but today there are parties taking that to a prescriptive rule of "don't culturally appropriate" that feels self-defeating (and just dumb, frankly).
There's also room for a discussion of what good qualities to explicitly promote adoption of for shared values, etc.
- nationalistic, america-first policies
- socially conservative
- womanizing
- served in military
- against homosexuals
- wanted to get rid of the fed
- invaded other countries to fight communism
You're missing an 's' there. To make life a bit easier and to focus the discussion here is an easy to digest page on the subject:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fascism
If after reading that you still feel that JFK would be a fascist then I don't know what to do next.
I said "By modern dem logic, JFK would be a facist"
now, thankfully corrected to:
"By modern dem logic, JFK would be a fascist"
not that I actually believed him to be a facscist.
glad you caught that 1 letter spelling typo though..
" What US Democrats ignore is that practically every damn country in the world does this too, often to a higher degree than the US.
So there's a pragmatic question of how to avoid putting yourself at a disadvantage by being comparatively overgenerous that you don't have to be a "paleoconservative" or Trump supporter, or even Republican, to be concerned about. "
my point is that things have shifted, and is perfectly in line with the parent which has +1 vote and was not considered a 'troll'..
line-of-discusison kthx.
https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html
" What US Democrats ignore is that practically every damn country in the world does this too, often to a higher degree than the US.
So there's a pragmatic question of how to avoid putting yourself at a disadvantage by being comparatively overgenerous that you don't have to be a "paleoconservative" or Trump supporter, or even Republican, to be concerned about. "
my point is that things have shifted, and is perfectly in line with the parent which has +1 vote and was not considered a 'troll'..
line-of-discusison kthx
https://www.google.com/maps/@43.8408304,-79.398378,3a,53.5y,...
Well, they'd be correct, wouldn't they? People of European ancestry, once making up 90% of the country, are set to become a minority around 2040 now IIRC. And arguably the United States were originally conceived to be an outpost of Europe, so the "their own" country thing seems to be a reasonable assessment, too.
Why did you put scare quotes around "their own"? Is it not their own country?
Culture changes over time no matter what you do, but is it completely unreasonable to want your culture to change slowly enough that you can still function in your dotage?
The point of linking that is only to question whether there are people who want their culture to change more slowly for reasons other than prejudice. Should "obviously wrong" dramatic cultural shifts like gay marriage somehow be slowed so people can get used to the idea? Even in the linked example, there are clearly other forces at work (anti-Muslim propaganda) which seem to exist purely to make it appear that the culture itself is changing entirely, when in reality it's just becoming more mixed race.
[0] https://www.thisamericanlife.org/radio-archives/episode/600/...
I think the quotes are to suggest that those voters habitually overestimate their share of ownership, compared to everyone else in the country.
For clearer and not-political example, consider the average cat and "their house". It is true that they are a legitimate and valued member of the household... But the quotes suggest something about the way the cat sees the world.
Don't dish it out if you can't take it.
This is really reminding me of how supporters of the Confederacy insist on talking about the 'War of Northern Aggression' despite being the ones that started the conflict. Perhaps you could consider matters from a less absolutist perspective.
Don't we all agree that what happened to the indigenous tribes was a tragedy and we don't ever want to repeat it?
Doesn't it highlight the problem with unchecked immigration?
A great deal of anger seems to be conservatives wanting to engineer the outcome rather than allowing culture to become more inclusive to people not like them e.g. more companies voluntarily saying Happy Holidays instead of Merry Christmas. This voluntary push to accomidate more non-christian customers is viewed as the "war" on Christmas, with the proposed "solution" being fewer non-christians in the country.
This is absolutely incorrect, Americans do not have freedom of association, so people of other cultures can always live with you, work with you, buy from you, etc - by law. Whether you think that's a good thing or not, that is a fact: you can't have an enclave in any meaningful sense.
Because these arguments just condense to 'We got here first' talk?
Yes, our society. The people already here. People seem to have a hard time grasping that the culture who founded the modern US gov't are indeed those people, or it's somehow become offensive. Even a 1st generation immigrant would agree with that, but not some revisionist who brings up the American Indians as if fair amends haven't been made there or somehow a new government completely void of their influence is somehow not the founding of the country.
I hope these same people go around the internet beating the drum on east Asian immigration policies and immigrant acceptance along with Israel. You'd think this country is evil and I completely disagree we're as bad as these finger-wagging liberals insist we are with their scare quotes.
Actually they are simply pissed at that fact- since the end of slavery and colonialism, life has gotten simply too hard.
Also you have to live in the situation now where you are continually reminded you are no racial superman, and some one you thought was way beneath your station is now routinely beating you in highly intellectual activities.
This is not new to the US. Bulk of Indias current social friction problems happen because the previously lower caste people are doing well off in life now. Now economy might be a growing pie on the longer run, but on the shorter run, its just competition for limited resources at the end. If you previously were a upper caste person albeit not very capable, you could still succeed easily, given only your castes were allowed to study and prosper. Today with more people having an opportunity to compete, you just don't stand a chance. Now imagine being a upper caste person who only until recently had to merely exist to succeed to now having to compete and routinely be beaten by people whom you think are beneath you.
Things don't work well.
To those seasoned to privilege, equality feels like oppression - Internet Quote
The key question is: are they right?
Why would you hand over the keys to your kingdom to people who will displace you and rule against you?
Why is it that we cannot compete with foreign companies with native workers? Why should those countries be okay with losing their top talent?
Shoudnt we solve the problem of native workers not having the right skills before we open the borders to everyone else?
The other argument I understand is cultural. How much immigration can a society take before it is unrecognizable to the people that live there. You can't say that if you moved 100 million indians to the US ( A fairly small number of the population) it wouldn't look and feel completely different.
Note that this isn't new. During and after WWII the US worked hard to bring scientists to the US to prevent them working for the enemy. Just one example:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Operation_Paperclip
There is an argument that there is enough of a cultural difference for it to affect the country one way or another.
which itself is a conveniently ambiguous phrase.
FDR was white. FDR was nationalist.
Was he a 'White Nationalist'?
certainly not, but if he publicly held the same political positions he held less than a century before the label would more than likely be applied.
I guess you will sit in your camp and I will sit in mine; no reason to have a civil discussion about the complex topic of immigration.
https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html
Ironical, given Thanksgiving is a few weeks from now.
Is that an argument for or against immigration by people with different cultural values?
What sort of thinking is this? People stopped being subjects of their countries a while ago. Countries should compete for people, not trap them. If a country isn't OK with losing its top talent it should fix its institutions to make itself competitive.
You know what country doesn't allow its citizens to leave? North Korea.
Besides, remittances are a thing.
But why is it "making it" in some countries to leave and go to America? Why not build up your own country and affect their living standards in a positive way?
Personally I have no desire to leave my country because I like it and want to make it better. I think that is a healthy way to think about your identity.
Many reasons.
* Because they'll be able to add more value to society in the other country.
* Because they're part of a marginalized group and the other country has better protections for people like them. Maybe they can't get married in their home country but can in the other country, say.
* Most importantly, because they might not want to.
People should generally be free to do what they like, right?
> I have no desire to leave my country because I like it and want to make it better.
Great, sounds awesome! You're free to do as you desire. Others have different desires or constraints and should be free to do as they wish as well.
I can answer that in a personal way. Because I don't care.
The modern world is capitalist, especially with software. If your work is worth X dollars, why would you work for X/10 dollars? Because of nationalism?
Would it be too bold for me to say it has some cultural reasons? Perhaps the openness to innovation? or maybe the way people think about solving new problems? Why not try to instill these cultural mechanisms in the country you came from? I hope i'm not coming across as a cultural imperialist but I am genuinely curious.
Also I don't think people should migrate for purely financial reasons. There is a lot of rich and interesting cultures in this world - it would be a shame if people just abandoned them for the sake of money.
It's usually an institutional problem. For example, a country where the laws governing business are predictable will work better than one where businesses are at the whim of a local authority.
For more along those lines, check out Why Nations Fail by Acemoglu and Robinson.
> Why not try to instill these cultural mechanisms in the country you came from?
So work twice as hard to get half as far?
Are you asking me why some places pay more than others? I don't think I have the expertise to answer that correctly honestly, it's probably a multitude of factors.
But I don't think it's cultural (or mostly cultural) since it happens within countries too. Silicon valley pays more than the Midwest, London pays more than Birmingham. I don't know why exactly but it's undeniable that they do.
>>> Why not try to instill these cultural mechanisms in the country you came from?
Because I don't think it's cultural. And even if it were... Why would I do that? My family is more important that some vague notion of changing cultural mechanisms.
>>> Also I don't think people should migrate for purely financial reasons. There is a lot of rich and interesting cultures in this world - it would be a shame if people just abandoned them for the sake of money
Sorry to be blunt, but it's not your choice. People's lives and priorities are their own to make.
This sounds too much like airmchair philosophy. It's great that you can do it but it's not "just money" for the vast majority of people, rich country or not.
To your point though, I suspect a lot of older voters grew up with much lower immigration (due to the Immigration Act of 1924) and so this level feels really high to them even though it was common for a large part of US history.
They are not. But the people there have no options. In my country(India), despite a level of free market reforms, there is still a huge cancer of socialism at large.
Socialist spending, affirmative action policies and corruption are extremely rampant. Public apathy is at peak. Almost anybody smart enough to make genuine difference has only one life style, where he/she has to earn all life to pay nearly 50% of all earned money in taxes and yet live a third world quality life.
So there is only one option. Just immigrate and save yourself the trouble.
>>How much immigration can a society take before it is unrecognizable to the people that live there.
You might want to take a look at: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ship_of_Theseus
Because that's not what the H1-B is. The majority of H1-B holders are the IT body shops: Cognizant, Infosys, and Tata are the top 3 by a wide margin [1]. I agree with you in principle but I think the H1-B system is not a good implementation of those ideals. I have a hard time believing it does much more than depress the wages of American white collar workers.
1. http://fortune.com/2017/08/03/companies-h1b-visa-holders/
I do agree that I think those outsourcing talent shop should be limited. You shouldn't have majority of your workforce on h1b.
As a counter point I don't think Google, Apple, Microsoft etc are not out of line. Also many startups that are founded by immigrants (50%) and often also hire international talent (since there isn't enough local one). Also startups are not able to compete on salaries like larger companies. If the article is beloved, 63% h1bs go to other than these top companies.
The OP comment still holds that I think startups and hiring international talent does contribute to the US economy and it's just not for "depressing white collar wages".
Trump is not gutting the H1-B system (currently). All they did was start asking companies to prove that the H1-B was going to an applicant who actually meets the requirements of the visa. If companies are worried about the change that's pretty clear evidence the program is being abused.
That's not what the data says in the article you linked.
It also lists companies such as Apple, Google, IBM, JP Morgan, etc. as part of the majority. Consultancies like Cognizant, Infosys, and Tata are not even close to the majority of H1B holders.
http://www.livemint.com/Industry/pHkRcTtIoKd8MkTkBNdtSN/Info...
It makes it viable to keep white collar jobs in the midwest.
The company I work for announced they are no longer using these "IT body shops," as you put it. The local pool of workers is totally exhausted, so they can't find enough people to hire, and have decided to close up shop in the midwest and will be moving development to an ultra-high COL tech hub.
Officially, only developers are getting the ax. But I have to assume the rest of the staff are in line. The developers managers should probably be co-located, and if all the dev and managers are co-located, then so should the product managers and their teams. PMs and sales work pretty closely, so it's not hard to imagine those positions will move, etc, etc.
People love to throw out econ 101 supply/demand stuff here, and claim that obviously more tech workers = lower tech worker salaries. But that does not appear to be the case. Regions with more tech workers also pay higher salaries; there's a clear inverse relationship going on.
So, in my interpretation of the empirical evidence we have, suggests that more H1-Bs would raise developer/engineer wages, not suppress them.
P.S. It's clear that IT staff do face downward wage pressure from offshoring. But they also face the same from automation of their jobs (cloud services, SaaS, etc).
Are those the people we're bringing in with H1-Bs?
I highly recommend a tour around your local university's Chemistry department, as a stark example.
Capital crosses national boundaries to a great extent so if you've got capital who cares where it is deployed.
I wouldn't say that for college level education. Why is then the US the top study abroad destination in the world?
This just isn't true at all.
Average state schools that are affordable to the vast majority of students through income based student loan repayments are far better than mediocre.
The US has 1/3 of the top 500 ranked colleges in the world, and nearly 1/4 of the top 5000.
http://www.webometrics.info/en/node/54
There's a reason that international students flock to even low ranked state schools in the US.
I wouldn't say that is filling up.
http://graphics.wsj.com/international-students/
- The USA is massive compared to every first-world nation (in the West) in terms of size / population / schools. I'd be shocked if a place like Sweden were somehow the top, statistically.
- I know a few people who came from India to study here because it put them on a fast track for a visa (or whatever they're using to work here after graduating). So they based it on post-grad opportunities, not the education itself.
But assuming you can't get into those schools, any middle ranked US state school is a better bet.
I'd like to hear the list of places doing far better than MIT, Caltech, Stanford, Berkeley, etc. in STEM fields. I mean I know there are pretty good schools around, but can you really say MIT is "lagging far behind" them?
> higher education in the US is prohibitively expensive
That's because when you buy "higher education" in US you buy something entirely different from what is understood by "education" in other countries. But if you want to, you have options to buy the actual education too. It won't be brand-name, but that's the cost of brand names. Here's contradiction with the first propositions - if US brands were so bad, they won't be that much in demand, would they?
> No more American students that can compete with Chinese, Taiwanese, Japanese, or German ones
There is a subtle fallacy here. You're comparing average US student with top-of-the crop students with the rest of the world. Not every Japanese student competes with US ones - the mediocre ones stay in Japan, the excellent ones go to compete in the US. Of course, mediocre US student would not look that excellent compared to top of the crop from 7bln pool. But that is excellent for the US that they are able to become the concentration point for the top talent. This needs to be guarded and preserved.
> I just don't understand why we wouldn't want to make it as easy as possible to steal talent that another country invested in
This is another side of what I mentioned before. It is good for the nation, but being mediocre student in that environment sucks. Mediocre Japanese student can remain in Japan and be relatively OK. Mediocre student somewhere in talent concentration point is screwed - he's where the top talent of the world is, and has to compete with them for any nice opportunities. It is hard. And they can't just go to Japan and take the place of those top Japanese students that left for the US (well, some small number can, but in general it's not easy). It is a real problem, and so far we don't have very good solution for it. Until we do, we'll have to deal with this kind of resentment, and telling people "well, it's good for the nation" won't help them much.
Iceland, with a population of ~300,000, was able to qualify in (arguably) the toughest region in the world. The US has about 1000 people for every Icelandic citizen, and yet we couldn't even qualify in (arguably) the EASIEST region in the world.
I'm simply dumbfounded by how bad the US team is. Let's just hope we get there next time.
The thing is, we aren't just "bad": we're terrible by any standard out there. It's borderline pitiful. And look at how good the women's team is...
One of my "countries of origin" has basically qualified at least (Tunisia). Now we wait for Australia...
Given the lower salaries and longer working hours in Japan, I'm not convinced that the mediocre Japanese student is better of than the mediocre US student. Even if the Japanese student scores a "better" job (in relation to the opportunities available locally) than the US student, the absolute differences between job markets can make his job worse.
Overall it's not too bad a deal compared to the bifurcating job outcomes we see in the States.
But you're basically never going to be fired and generally speaking companies do genuinely seek to "take care of" their people in ways that US companies no longer do (but used to, many decades ago). It's a highly frustrating environment for a restless high performer, but for the mediocre college grad I don't think it's a bad deal at all.
They grew up there, know the culture, and have been trained/educated to navigate its waters.
I have zero doubt that the average Japanese student blows the average American student out of the water. But the US produces both a greater number and a greater degree of ridiculously talented and driven students.
Asian countries generally have a high average and low variance distribution in students. The US has a lower average but a much higher variance and thus has more outlier students on both ends of the spectrum. Whether this is good or bad would depend on your perspective.
I am assuming you are talking about K12 education. That is pretty absurd.
[1] https://www.cato.org/publications/policy-analysis/they-spend...
California currently spends about 10k per student for public education. That makes 30k sound crazy, but in 1970 California spent 5500 which is about 35k in 2017 dollars. California (and most of the US) is woefully underfunding it's schools.
Someone up thread seemed to think the average student of another country would blow away the average US student. I don't think this is true. The US pays lip service to universal education more then most other countries. Unfortunately we don't follow through on it and this leaves a large enough number of substandard schools to make a significant impact on US test averages. The sad fact is the tail end of these averages are so bad they bring down the score, but the "average" for the majority of US students is much higher.
This stratification of education is probably a significant contributor to the stratification of wealth in the US, and it's not OK.
This is certainly not my experience of the US public school system, either as a student or a parent. The typical US school has always cared more about getting 20th-percentile students to meet a minimum standard. And if the student makes an effort to work with the school, the school is very good at it. Public schools are evaluated based on how many students meet that minimum standard ("No Child Left Behind"), and they respond to that incentive.
The 80th to 90th percentile students, well, they're kind of an afterthought. I mean, they're going to ace all the standardized exams anyway. Now, some public schools will make an effort to help high-performing students, because teachers do care, but it's not incentivized.
Private schools, on the other hand, are evaluated on a very different metric—how many students get into Harvard/Yale/Stanford/etc.? They game this metric by offering generous scholarships to top-notch students, and by charging stiff tuition to rich parents.
Schools in the US are locally controlled.
There are places that run schools like this. And there are school systems that have fantastic magnet schools for gifted students.
Also protip: "this is not a debate" doesn't make you automatically win a debate.
A: X is true.
B: Please provide proof.
A: Here is metric using averaging over large populations.
B: Using averages over large populations is hiding important details about X.
A: How else we could compare large populations?! We must use globals averages!
B: Averages have the effect of very small number of very bad instances distort the result of large population which would have much better results, thus making it appear bad results are much more common than they are actually are. We know specifically this is the case for the question we are discussing.
A: Well, that's how averages work, nothing can be done about it.
Don't you think something is missing here?
PS: you know medians exist and those studies account for it, right? Nobody is saying YOUR school is mediocre.
There's many studies about this, it's not a controversial topic.
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Programme_for_International_...
There are states and metro areas in the US with (and this is the important part) populations as large as many high ranked European countries that rank at the very top of the world in any educational metric.
The study only compares averages and that's all that people are saying. It's totally possible that the best secondary school in the world is in the US but that's not the point.
And I don't see how population size is important, as you say. Schools in the US are locally funded, no?
Surely you understand that averages are often misleading and can be worse than useless.
The US is the most diverse large country in the world. Averages do not work well when comparing highly varied populations.
>And I don't see how population size is important, as you say.
There are many smaller countries with better average educational outcomes than the US. But none of the countries with higher scores are anywhere near the size and diversity of the US.
The only country even close to the US in population is China and you'll note that test scores are only available for the highest performing provinces.
If you want to make a proper comparison, you'd need to compare the US with something like the entire continent of Europe.
Finland is more analogous to say Massachusetts than it is to the entire US.
So why are you complaining in a conversation talking about averages?
>>> The US is the most diverse large country in the world.
Brazil and India would like a word. Also, irrelevant.
>>> Averages do not work well when comparing highly varied populations.
That's why you have averages. Again, how else would you compare countries?
>>> There are many smaller countries with better average educational outcomes than the US. But none of the countries with higher scores are anywhere near the size and diversity of the US.
And? How are those things relayed? Seriously, how is diversity related to federally provided education?
>>>The only country even close to the US in population is China
Well great, in a conversation comparing China and the US that might be relevant, but this is not it.
>>> If you want to make a proper comparison, you'd need to compare the US with something like the entire continent of Europe.
Why? You actually think population and diversity are even close? Or relevant? Just trying to understand your logic because it doesn't make sense.
You're the one who is using averages. Everyone else here is telling you averages are a misleading metric here when trying to compare the US to other countries.
Averages are not useful for comparing diverse data sets.
The mean tells you a lot about a hypothetical population where everyone has an IQ of 100. It doesn't tell you a lot about a population where half the people have an IQ of 75 and half 125. Using mean scores to compare those populations is nearly useless.
>That's why you have averages. Again, how else would you compare countries?
That's just it, you can't use 1 number to compare countries. It's not meaningless, but it's close.
What everyone else. The grandparent literally complained about three people in this thread mentioning a fact without sources about averages. I supplied said source. What are you responding to?
>>> Averages are not useful for comparing diverse data sets.
The US is not particularly diverse in the world. And again, how do you compare "diverse" data sets like kids literally being able to read?
>>> The mean tells you a lot about a hypothetical population where everyone has an IQ of 100. It doesn't tell you a lot about a population where half the people have an IQ of 75 and half 125. Using mean scores to compare those populations is nearly useless.
Right, because we actually have countries where half the population is 125 and half is 75, what can I say. /s
>>> That's just it, you can't use 1 number to compare countries. It's not meaningless, but it's close
Tell that to the OECD.
Why do you care so must about this comparison of averages? Why are you commenting?
I like how you literally don't answer half my replies, makes one think what's the point of this.
Me and the other person who replied to you. "The US is also exceptional in how bad its bad schools are, this drags our averages down. While it's a tragedy for the kids who are not being served, it's a distortion to say all US schools are bad when most are not."
>The US is not particularly diverse in the world.
I'm sorry I can no longer take you seriously.
>And again, how do you compare "diverse" data sets like kids literally being able to read?
An average is nearly useless if you don't know the distribution. Rankings based on averages are meaningless.
>Right, because we actually have countries where half the population is 125 and half is 75, what can I say
How could you think an example that works out with nice easy numbers is supposed to actually represent a real country?
>Why are you commenting?
Because of this
>Oh come on, every study puts the US in a mediocre position in education within the OECD. That's not a debate.
Because it is debatable. Using PISA rankings to say that the US is in a mediocre position in education is very controversial. In addition to using the mean of a set of test scores, they don't take into account the percentage of 15 year olds still in school, or the percentage of 15 year olds who take the test. The US goes WAY up in the ranks when those things are taken into account.
> Me and the other person who replied to you. "The US is also exceptional in how bad its bad schools are, this drags our averages down. While it's a tragedy for the kids who are not being served, it's a distortion to say all US schools are bad when most are not."
You really think this is not true elsewhere? Inequality doesn't exist in other countries? Do you really think medians are unheard of for scientists and they didn't take that into account? Please.
>>> The US is not particularly diverse in the world.
> I'm sorry I can no longer take you seriously.
You know there's studies ranking countries based on diversity right? You want me to Google them for you?
Oh wait, you probably think they're missing something clearly obvious like not knowing what a median is again.
>>> And again, how do you compare "diverse" data sets like kids literally being able to read?
> An average is nearly useless if you don't know the distribution. Rankings based on averages are meaningless.
Great if you think that. Show me a better way to compare countries when it comes to reading skills.
>>> Why are you commenting? > Because of this
You just said you don't believe the study is relevant. So why do you care what it says.
>>>Oh come on, every study puts the US in a mediocre position in education within the OECD. That's not a debate.
> Because it is debatable.
It's really not and it's the best we have.
> Using PISA rankings to say that the US is in a mediocre position in education is very controversial.
Again, it's really not. Haven't seen any counter studies, happy to see them.
Not saying there's no criticisms obviously.
> The US goes WAY up in the ranks when those things are taken into account.
Go on then, show the studies, I'm willing to change my mind.
You have way too much faith in rankings you see on the internet.
> Show me a better way to compare countries when it comes to reading skills.
Median scores, mean with standard deviation, box plots. All of those are better. None are great because comparing reading scores in different languages in a meaningful way is nearly impossible.
For example, Chinese children take much longer to develop their vocabulary than American students because of the way their language is written. Because of this you can't possibly construct a test that makes an accurate comparison between Chinese and American students.
You might as well try to make a test comparing how well American schools teach welding to how how well Chinese schools teach painting.
>You know there's studies ranking countries based on diversity right? You want me to Google them for you?
And only 1 of the countries that ranks higher than the US in diversity ranks higher than us on the PISA list.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_ranked_by_et...
The countries the US is unfavorably compared to nearly all appear near the bottom of that list.
It also doesn't take into account the amount of difference between cultures. For example, an African country where 20% of the people speak a different language from and don't intermarry with the dominant culture, but that have lived side by side with the dominant culture for hundreds of years will be ranked the same as a country where 20% of the people are immigrants from a country on the other side of the world.
The US has a far larger percentage of immigrants than any other country, and from far more countries.
Furthermore the US has far higher income inequality than most of the countries that outperform it.
>You just said you don't believe the study is relevant. So why do you care what it says.
It's not. I care that people are pushing PISA rankings as some kind of objective measurement of countries' education systems, and because of that politicians use them to try to push changes without understanding what the rankings actually show.
I can assure that in among academics in education PISA rankings are very controversial. Despite all your insistence about not being debatable it most definitely is.
Here's an example of some of the criticsm
--From the Times Educational Supplement
https://www.tes.com/news/school-news/breaking-news/long-read... https://www.tes.com/news/tes-archive/tes-publication/pisa-ra...
"With greater power comes greater scrutiny. In 2013, TES revealed damning new allegations against Pisa from statistical and mathematical experts who said that what had become the world’s most influential education league tables were, in fact, “useless”, produced “meaningless” rankings and were compiled using techniques that were “utterly wrong”.
In response, the OECD admitted that “large variation in single country ranking positions is likely” because of the methods it used. For example, in 2009 the organisation said that the UK’s Pisa ranking out of a total of 74 countries was between 19th and 27th for reading, between 23rd and 31st for maths, and between 14th and 19th for science.
But this admission has made little difference to how rankings are reported in the media, and Pisa does not put the caveats centre stage. The resulting league tables are often ...
Irrelevant. You and the grandparent are making an irrelevant point again and again. Why bring up diversity at all?
>>> It also doesn't take into account the amount of difference between cultures. For example ...
I already said there was going to be a "median" example... I was right about that, shocker. /s
>>> The US has a far larger percentage of immigrants than any other country, and from far more countries.
Except Canada and Switzerland and many other countries, right?
Thanks for the criticisms about PISA, never said they weren't any (see my previous comment). I asked repeatedly for alternatives instead.
The criticisms are pretty weak as well.
"In addition, Shanghai schools systematically exclude migrant youth."
If they are migrants, they're not representing the local education system now do they?
Because it's highly relevant when talking about an average value. The more heterogeneous a population is the less likely an average is to be useful.
>I already said there was going to be a "median" example... I was right about that, shocker. /s
Ranking by mean often isn't useful...shocker
>Except Canada and Switzerland and many other countries, right?
Sorry I meant large countries.
>If they are migrants, they're not representing the local education system now do they?
They're talking about long term migrants that represent about 40% of the population.
Look at Australia were 90% of 15 year olds are enrolled in school, vs. a country like Vietnam where 15 year olds routinely drop out and work.
How does that comparison make sense?
Some other examples.
In South Korea parents force their children to spend 4 or 5 hours with private tutors after school each day. South Korea performs very well on PISA league tables, but it probably says very little about the efficacy of the Korean school system vs any other country where parent don't routinely force their kids to pull double school shifts with private tutors.
Finland spends much more time teaching fractions than algebra to 15 year olds. The US outperforms them on algebra questions, but Finland outperforms on fraction questions. But PISA weighs fraction questions much higher than algebra questions.
In the US homeschooling is common. In Germany it's illegal. Home schoolers score much higher on the SAT and ACT, so in the US you're pulling 3 or 4% of the likely highest scoring students out of the pool--of course that's going to drastically affect the mean score.
We can't come up with tests that accurately compare abilities across cultures in the US. How can we possibly do it across 65 countries.
The answer is, you can't do it. Attempting to do it, failing, and publishing data that makes it look like you can is more harmful than just not publishing at all.
The critiques are numerous and come from very respected publications, organizations, and academics.
You can disagree with the critiques all you want, but you can't pretend the debate is over, and that there is some kind of settled science here.
Do you? I thought we were talking about OECD studies not "big" countries. My mistake.
I guess it was just a matter of time until "big" came up after "diversity".
>>> We can't come up with tests that accurately compare abilities across cultures in the US. How can we possibly do it across 65 countries.
Well then, let's just give up and not compare countries anymore. /s
>>> You can disagree with the critiques all you want
I'm not, I said that before.
The thing is, when debating, it's useful to think if your opponent has a falsifiable claim. Since you don't, this conversation is useless. I literally cannot provide any evidence for country comparisons, because it's literally impossible from your point of view. So I'm done.
The most significant research happens at the graduate level and beyond. US students are disproportionately under represented at the graduate level. https://www.nytimes.com/2017/11/03/education/edlife/american...
The high cost for US students in undergrad is one reason for this. These schools haven't been lagging behind because grad students found a to H1->GC->Citizen. If that path becomes difficult, then these students will just stay in their home countries.
This is why its never a nice idea for most people to work at a place like Google.
It's not as a whole. Parts of it are, Education here is local, and there are states the size of Finland that compare with Finland in education outcomes.
>2 and higher education in the US is prohibitively expensive compared to other developed nations
Income based repayment ensures that you will never pay more than 10% of your disposable income (income over 1.5x the federal poverty level), and loans are forgiven if you make payments for 20 years. This assumes you only take out federal loans (90% of loan disbursements are federal and are enough to pay for public universities).
This is very similar to the system Australia has.
Additionally, the US ranks 7th in number of adults with college degree--higher than every European country except Luxembourg.
And the US has 1/3 of the top 500 ranked colleges in the world, and nearly 1/4 of the top 5000.
I doubt many families have 10% of income to spare.
>I doubt many families have 10% of income to spare.
For a family of 4, it's 10% of income over $37k, not 10% of income.
If that family made the median household income of $59k, they'd be paying about $180 a month in loan repayments.
And so, these Democratic Party supporting liberal minded left-leaning people are in a bind. The new conservative president at least on the surface seems to be doing more to protect local jobs than the last two Democratic Presidents have. In-fact, their champion in the last election sought to increase globalization.
Not to any economically literate person.
An alternate way to look at this is that the economy and society of the USA is failing its own citizens by either giving them an inadequate education or not providing them opportunities to succeed. And your proposal is to simply write everyone who's already here off, declare them to be rejects, and import new people over the top of them to be worker bees for the elite.
I can say that I'm not really personally concerned with how many billionaires we have in the US, or how many multinational corporations are headquartered here. I'd be fine if that all went to China, so long as the USA stayed the land of fairness and justice.
That ship sailed a while ago.
Yes, and I have completely lost faith in the US's ability, on a federal level, to staunch that failure, as long as the Republican party continues to exist.
>write off everyone who's already here
I agree that I'm being pessimistic, but I feel that's what the government is aggressively trying to do (by, for example, putting a person hostile to education in charge of the agency that runs education at a federal level).
The democrats have had control over the house or the senate for 62 out of the past 84 years, and both of them for 52 years (in total, not contiguously). There has also been a Democratic president for 48 of those years. If you're mad at the way things are, I don't think it makes sense to be mad at the Republican party, unless it's for constantly losing.
https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/7/72/Combined...
US millennials are a bunch of people with most privilege, comfort, opportunities, freedom and other nation level perks(like infrastructure, mobility etc) compared to may be all the humans combined in all of history.
There is a reason why you can't get more out of this scheme. The reason is you can only make incremental progress in systems that are this advanced. And after that its usually a bit of Math called 'Central limit theorem'. It just means the progress will only be around the mean.
http://www.pewresearch.org/fact-tank/2017/02/15/u-s-students...
Now that national unemployment has plummeted to remarkably low levels, we may again truly find ourselves needing to import workers.
https://www.thebalance.com/unemployment-rate-by-year-3305506
Peak unemployment during that period just after the 2008 financial crisis was still just under 10%, and it has been steadily decreasing since then.
It's not exactly nothing and it sucks if you are one of the unemployed but an unemployment ratio between 5 and 10% is actually not all that bad.
Significant unemployment were 2009, 2010 and before that 1982. By 2013 unemployment in the US was already back down below 7%, historically speaking nothing special, somewhere between 3 and 7% is fairly normal.
I completely 100% agree that the US is losing its edge in many ways. And a real visa program would help. But at the moment the H1B program is bad for almost everyone involved, unless you own stock in Infosys/Tata etc.
http://fortune.com/2017/08/03/companies-h1b-visa-holders/
We need to replace it with a real immigration program that weeds out the crap and brings in the best. As it stands super smart people are getting their visas denied while offshoring firms depress wages and take American jobs while producing sub-par products.
The process should be onerous enough that the body shop business that places cheap candidates with marginal skills shouldn’t be a good business, but not too onerous for the high talent individuals for whom it is intended for.
Skimming the cream from other countries doesn’t really ameliorate those problems.
However, do economic gains flow to Americans? No, not really because we don't have socialist systems in place to distribute the wealth gained from "stealing talent". So yes stealing talent is good, but it really only benefits corporate shareholders and upper class Americans. The unhappy Americans who are voting for "America First" don't see the gains from startups and tech companies; they are geographically isolated from these companies and even if they lived in California (or any other tech center) they lack the skills to be employed.
So essentially in my view you have a conflict of interest. It is in the best economic interest of the country to be able to attract talent. However, the US is a democracy and unless the economic gains are spread across the entire population, this will not satisfy, "we the people"
So we have really two options in response 1) implement socialist systems to spread wealth to the population or 2) go isolationist to insist that wealth only flows inward
It's embedded in American culture that socialism is bad which is why #2 has been the chose solution.
This is definitely a thing, not only in the US but also from thinkers like Alexandr Dugin in Russia. I believe such reactionary political stances are ultimately doomed, though; we are simply not going to un-invent the internet, air travel, containerization and other things that have made the world smaller and allowed a single planetary scale logistical chain to exist, short of nuclear catastrophe or its equivalent.
But that's not the typical H1B. There are "Manager Trainees" at slaughterhouses making 35k.
http://h1bdata.info/index.php?job=MANAGER+TRAINEE
Developers making between 30k - 70k are quite common.
Putting in an 80k or so wage floor would be a huge improvement to the current system.
If someone is living on sub 60k in the US, their job is certainly not one that requires an H1B.
That's only the half of it. The US gives out far more F-1 student visas than H-1Bs (roughly 3x). That means that US infrastructure trains the student, but then the US doesn't get to take advantage of his or her output. Its really a lose-lose for the US.
And that's a supposed to be a good thing? Good for the government maybe, but bad for the people. I'd prefer a government which invests highly in all these things and to avoid the capitalist dystopia you're advocating.
China: + Cultural familiarity, closeness to family. + High pay for engineering. - Pollution - Lack of work/life balance culture.
US: - Lack of safety. - Culturally lost. + Higher pay + Better natural environment. + Better future for kids. Schools & stuff.
Censorship is a minor concern for the most part except for political activists. It's arguable that that the US is becoming more draconian in this regard, especially due to police being able to do whatever they want once they decide you're guilty of something.
This is known almost forever now. Even the hard core immigrant hating racists know that their social security checks are coming in because of some one generated more than proportionate share of economic value, and by that definition taxes. And that someone is mostly likely a non-white immigrant.
They just don't like to be reminded of this fact everyday that their bread comes from the very source they hate.
Seriously doubt the USA is making the acquisition of world level talent any harder.
Neither the Republicans or Democrats are addressing the systematic issues with wage growth in America.
1) Given that the numbers did indeed end up proving that wage arbitrageurs like Accenture were dominating the H1B lottery [https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2015/11/06/us/outsourcin...], reform would seem to be necessary.
2) Trump has repeatedly called for a Canadian or Australian style skills-based immigration system to replace chain and quota-based immigration. One would think HN would generally support this?
Is Trump even the one doing it? I thought this was the job of congress?... this seems well out of the scope of an executive order.
Hopefully they do end up copying Canada/Australia directly because they've both performed really well and there is plenty of data there to support it. Instead of the usual series of minor bandaids on top of the old broken system, ala the US healthcare system.
At any rate, the president is entirely free to propose a bill, and assuming he can find a congress person to back it (I'm guessing he knows a guy who knows a guy...), can have introduced in Congress. Even if Trump's team doesn't draft a new bill, the lobbying power of the Whitehouse alone on legislation in congress is huge - the threat of a veto alone is a compelling stick.
I think its absurd to think Trump/the executive wouldn't influence the shape of any proposed legislation in this area, when its been such a public part of his campaign.
That said, I never said he had zero influence, but having influence on a congressional bill is a far cry from implying he wrote and proposed it himself.
I think most people are capable of understanding that when we talk about "Trump" performing a legislative act, we almost never mean he literally picks up pen and paper and writes the bill himself, or even directly proposes it.
Again, I never said that, or that he writes it directly himself. This is why I don't debate politics on the internet.
My point is the bill is primarily a congressional matter, and is not at the whims of just the president the way an executive order would be, as was suggested above.
This thread and your post history strongly suggest otherwise!
I find the other person usually just digs in their heels the more you reply...
coupled with slashing immigration in general.
The bill would change the system to be more about skill/merit rather than the fact you are related by blood to someone who has skill.
The reduction in numbers is a side effect of the current ratios of the existing system. So ideally they will boost the maximum number on the other end to increase the total number of skilled visas, instead of just cutting the relatives portion (as the bill proposed in August). To me that's the best of both worlds. It's possible it will may be tweaked as it goes through congress or it may have to wait for a future bill, but at least the basic framework is being laid out for a better system similar to Canada/Australia.
Plenty of republicans and democrats criticized the "50% reduction by 2028" projection when the original bill was announced a few months ago, so it's not entirely wishful thinking it may change in the future for the better.
TL;DR: A work authorization document issued by one agency allows a person to maintain legal presence in the US. This is different from a visa -- a visa allows one to enter the country and is issued by another agency. The visa doesn't clearly specify what one can and cannot do while in the country.
Sounds like they are exactly the type of consulting firm the administration is attempting to crack down on.
> USCIS challenged the application in August, which irked Narayanan because he had provided everything the agency had asked for. Narayanan was doubly annoyed because, without someone else to handle the new contract, it fell to him directly. For the last month, Narayanan has been spending four or five hours each morning doing the work himself, forgoing his own primary responsibility, which is to bring in new clients. “We might not make the profit we were expecting because of these issues,” he said. “We are afraid of on-boarding new H-1B employees, because of the unknown world.”
My heart weeps for him. If he could do the work himself, is it really so specialized he required H1B for it? Or was it more he just didn't want to pay the local rates?
That said, having hired through the H1B program I sure hope it remains viable. Reforms based on salary instead of lottery seem like a good compromise, reducing outsourcing and low salaries endemic with H1B mills. I'd much prefer a floating high salary floor (say top 25%) and uncapping H1B entirely.
That's not the bar for the visa and never has been.
This is a joke as it is currently implemented.
Take a look for example at Wayfair in Boston. Majority of their H1B Developers make around $50k-$70k. This is significantly less than the prevailing wages around Boston, so it is quite clear that they are using H1Bs as cheap labor source.
Also, LinkedIn does give out performance bonuses.
Are you suggesting uscis " can lookup the Juniper bonus packages on OFLC " before approving h1b ?
http://h1bdata.info/index.php?em=Wayfair+Llc&job=Software+En...
Any while we're at it, why don't we pull the prevailing wage data?
http://www.flcdatacenter.com/OesQuickResults.aspx?area=71654...
Level 1 Software Engineers are paid on average $67k in that area, so by paying them $68k, Wayfair is still paying more than the average wage for U.S. citizens working the same position.
Wayfair is not driving down wages.
Now that Americans have made up their mind that they dont want immigrants, companies will spend more money on opening engineering centers in immigration friendly countries (Canada\west Europe\Australia(maybe),etc) which from a personal perspective are great countries for me to immigrate to. And this time I might would be able to catch the first wave of immigrants (who get to convert to citizens) if there is a genuine boom in jobs in such countries (unlike US where its near impossible for an EB2 immigrant to get citizenship if moving today)
Here's a radical proposal: give anyone with a clean criminal record and a job offer a green card. No limits, no $100k minimum wage, no protectionism. If you, with all the advantages that natives get (networks, language, NETWORKS), can be beat by an immigrant with zero social connections, you probably are worth less than you think you are. Time to compete, pal.
Anything less is opportunity hoarding based on the patch of dirt you were born on.
Americans will end up losing on money in such a system, cause they will want to maintain their quality of life, say living in independent studios with central climate control even in high CoL areas, and they need to pay back education loans which are much lower for people from India
"What exactly is the point of having the white race at all, if not to accrue unfair advantages to its members?"
Countries should effectively be large organizations competing for people based on tax rates, laws, efficiency, and productivity.
> And I assume you have a problem with all other countries unfairly "opportunity hoarding" for their own people too, not just the US?
Obviously. But this is not a Nash equilibrium. Even unilaterally opening up your borders will result in better Pareto outcomes.
I don't think your radical proposal makes much sense. What's the benefit to a country to basically throw its borders wide open?
More people means a bigger economy. Immigrants -- at least the ones that choose to immigrate -- are by definition risk-takers. Risk-taking is core to entrepreneurship. I hope I don't have to defend the value of entrepreneurship on this site.
We've known for thousands of years that free trade is a net positive for everyone involved. Why would free immigration be any different?
The US had open borders for centuries. It became the most powerful country in the world because of open borders.
Here's an economist far more literate than me making the case: http://johnhcochrane.blogspot.com/2014/06/the-optimal-number...
(We should also welcome all the refugees we can get, of course.)
> (We should also welcome all the refugees we can get, of course.)
What trolling nonsense. We must control who comes and who gets turned away, it's the only fair and equitable option for the citizens and resident aliens who already live here. Because priorities.
Of course, that will never happen, because the point of the system is to get people here, have a sword of deportation hanging over their heads, and thus keep 'em quiet and get 'em cheap.
+1. that and sheer ignorance mixed with some American-grade entitlement. being anti-h1b is just socially acceptable (among 'liberals') way of being xenophobic.
So unless you think that lowly-paid immigrants with limited access to social services is the best path forward, I'd advocate for some protections. I agree with no limits. If a company can provide for the workers, then go for it. Otherwise, the US barely has enough financial support/ safety net for the existing population. Opening the doors wide open would put stress on that already poor situation.
I said no protectionism (in the form of visa caps), not no protections.
> Instant green card = Increased competition for Housing/public services.
Sounds like a great opportunity for entrepreneurs to provide those services and make lots of money.
I wonder why the otherwise enterprising Hacker News crowd is blind to the incredible market opportunities open borders would provide. I truly, deeply wonder why.
I believe these were called slums and the entrepreneurs slumlords.
Which they do when they arrive here on the H-1B. It takes decades and they now have to go through even more stress about it because of this.
In addition, whistle-blower protection with automatic Green cards for anyone who reports employer abuse, with prison sentences for the entire company C-suite if a company abuses this process.
However, it can be curbed with some rough (80/20) cost-of-living adjustments to the applications before they're all put together for ranking.
Even without that adjustment, I think the "bidding" system would probably represent a significant improvement over what we have now.
It seems a bit deceitful to paint this story solely through the lens of "immigrants" while lots of Americans are being directly replaced by H-1B workers.
I do not expect to go to another country and displace local workers. I do not expect to be granted a work visa in a place that I do not belong. If I go to another country to work, I expect to be providing a skill or talent that is not present in the local economy. Further more, I expect that I'd be teaching that skill to others. Or at the very least, be in the position to lead the growth and development of a team until a local worker can do my role.
Why should we expect any different from the H-1B's that the US grants?
Frankly, over time the average white American family is going to find it more and more difficult to afford higher education, as if by design, to push them out of the middle class. Meanwhile, poor non-whites will be granted scholarships based on non-whiteness.
No they wont. White females are still eligible for many of the same (gender based) diversity advantages. The majority of college students in the US are female.
Besides that, most of the wealth in this country is controlled by white families. Which makes your assertion truly pointless: unless there is some major cataclysm, white families will continue to pass on their advantages to their offspring for generations to come.
Ok, great, just not white males. Half of the white population. Also, this shows contempt and disregard for the concept of a stay-at-home mother. Women in the workplace are great - but this entire scheme/system destroys values the West was built upon.
> most of the wealth in this country is controlled by white families
I doubt this is true anymore, and even if there are wealthy white families, your sentiment is utter disregard for those who are merely average or low-income. An average-income white father earning a modest living will have a hell of a time raising a family - meanwhile low-income blacks are paid to reproduce and get shoved into the finest institutions at tax payer expense at comparative advantage with padded SAT scores. Do you not see the hypocrisy? That isn't equal opportunity, it's an attempt at forcing an equal outcome.
Most of the wealth is controlled by white families. This does not imply that all white families control wealth. Those white families that do control the wealth aren't exactly sharing it around with all their 8th cousins. They sure do share it with their direct descendants, and pass on advantages that way, but if any non-rich white person is advantaged, it is likely only because the rich white people are observably racist when delegating their authority and managing their assets. Imagine for a moment someone so racist that their toilets may only be cleaned by a white person, and realize that people like that do exist. So yes, I guess that white loo-scrubber is advantaged, by not having to compete quite as much, in a very minor way.
There are plenty of white families out there who know that no-one is on their side, who believe that the illusion of equality is being pursued by cutting them down rather than raising everyone else up. And they believe that immigration is diluting their family's voice, rather than augmenting it. And many of them are "checking out". They turn to a bullet or a syringe, or blindly follow any person that tells the lies they most want to hear.
The rich and powerful are free at any time to erase the echo of privilege enjoyed by middle class white people simply by not hiring them preferentially over darker people. Which is what is happening. And while that is happening, the reactive measures to prior institutionalized racism remain in place. The problem is not with affirmative action or feminism or egalitarian movements, but that the old money is far too powerful politically, and that the rich kids are not as disgustingly racist as their parents. So there will likely be a generation at some point where middle class white families have zero advantages, non-white families will have some preferences stemming from ongoing racial equality movements from the 1960s to the present, and the data that show they are no longer needed have not yet been collected and published.
And that generation is going to have a lot of neo-Nazis and white supremacists in it, because people will still be telling them about white privilege when they remember growing up in a manufactured home, eating cold Spaghetti-Os and Spam, watching other people get things that they were never offered. I don't quite know if it is already here, or if it is still coming and will be even worse than what we have already seen. But I do know that part of the problem is attributing the source of privilege to any color other than green.
> He’d received a letter from USCIS saying it would reject his application unless Centro proved the position required someone with specialized skills
> The position — which consisted of writing algorithms and required knowledge of multiple programming languages as well as a solid understanding of relational data storage systems — wasn’t a borderline case.
I'm going to disagree here. It sounds to me like a textbook example of a company hiring a young, inexperienced worker because they're cheaper than experienced ones.
To those getting old in the valley, it seems this type of action is good news.
If I have a bunch of people to keep them on track then hiring the cheapest workers who can do the job sounds like good business.
Still not seeing why it's wrong.
Moreover, countries are generally defined by their geographic locations. The actions of the people within them directly affect those around them. Local economies are affected by influxes of labor and depression of wages.
A person's race is simply an attribute they possess; attempting to compare this to a nationality makes little sense in this case. Someone's race does not intrinsically affect the economy around them, whereas the wage they are paid will.
There, fixed that for you.
> A person's race is simply an attribute they possess; attempting to compare this to a nationality makes little sense in this case.
Sounds great! Allow anyone who wants to be American to be American.
That they can't because a bunch of people have collectively decided to pull the ladder up behind them is unjust, unfair and immoral.
These H1-B workers are not entitled to jobs in America. It is something we offer to benefit both them and our country as a whole. It becomes detrimental when these visas are extended at the expense of the American citizen who is being displaced.
Privileging citizens of your own country is no different from privileging members of your own race.
https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html
For instance, statements like this one below are suppose to make the reader think something is deeply wrong:
> She said in past years she's counted on 90 percent of her petitions being approved by Oct. 1 in years past. This year, only 20 percent of the applications have been processed.
But, this year Premium processing was disabled for most of the year so that would explain this, wouldn't it? For those unaware, Premium processing is where the petitioner can pay an extra $1225 on top of all the existing fees, to have its case processed in at most 14 days. Without premium processing it can take months & months instead. Also, without the fees for premium processing, I wouldn't be surprised if USCIS have less employees able to work the cases. It was disabled specifically because the Regular processing cases backlog was getting too big. So if last year 90% of her cases used Premium Processing, the quote isn't shocking at all.
The same lawyer maintains her personal blog, where she isn't as dramatic, and gives more useful facts: http://immigrationgirl.com/
Premium processing is now back[1], it'd be interesting to see if the statement still holds true.
[1] http://immigrationgirl.com/premium-processing-is-back-for-al...
I've worked with hundreds of h1b visa, 90% of them were just java programmers with a low bill rate. But there were also a few with really rare skills. I'd like to see more of the latter and less of the former. Especially since the number of h1b visa is capped.
The H1B situation could be fixed overnight by declaring the minimum wage to be... one million dollars. Then we'll see it genuinely only used for rare talent.
Not the purpose of the visa.