7 ms·

Does it really matter how many H1-Bs you allow every year? Look at how many big companies are opening offices in other cities especially in Vancouver or London

Does it really matter how many H1-Bs you allow every year? Look at how many big companies are opening offices in other cities especially in Vancouver or London just because of visa issues. Limiting H1-Bs is just going to force Facebooks and Googles to open up overseas dev centers. At least a high paid H1-B worker helps the American Economy in some ways.. He/She pays a ton of taxes, buys real estate and hopefully employs other Americans..

dominotw 11y ago
i think they are using Vancouver as staging area for eb1c green cards so that they don't have to deal with h1b visa. Thats what my friend at MS told me, not sure how common it is though.
- cmrdporcupine 11y ago
  This may change with the Canadian dollar dropping down so low. A (very high by local standards) $150,000 CAD salary is only $100,000 USD. US employers would be wise to invest in Canadian offices. Especially near universities like University of Waterloo or University of Alberta that are some of the best engineering universities in North America.
stale2002 11y ago
And to be honest, if the choice is between accepting a whole bunch of highly paid Google/Facebook engineers into the country who will pay lots of money in taxes, and accepting a bunch of "economic immigrants" who will cost more money than they contribute, I would accepted the Google engineers in a heartbeat. My solution? Let anyone into the country as long as they can prove that they are receiving a salary of > 125,000$ /year. Or perhaps just create a fast lane immigration track for companies, where if they really really want someone to be let into the country, then they send the US government a $50k check, to skip everything, and get their VISA automatically approved.
- davidw 11y ago
  > 125,000$ What makes that number better than $124,000 ?
- logfromblammo 11y ago
  As jaded and crass as it feels to me as I consider it in my own head, I can't help thinking that the US ought to just let people jump forward in the immigration queue based on the amount of federal taxes they have paid. If you're paying $30000 in income tax every year, which would be lost if you had to return to your home country, there's a really good reason to just hand you a green card. $30k is a significant chunk of a useless government sinecure, after all. And if you make it based on taxes, you can be reasonably certain that it will be recurring revenue, rather than a one-time windfall. And at that income level, you're likely to be a high-expectations parent to a child who will eventually speak English and want to stay forever. So bring the spouse and kids! As a nation, wouldn't we want to encourage as much immigration as possible from people who will be net contributors to our society? Wouldn't we want to bring their families with them, so they wouldn't be remitting their earnings back to another country? Ignoring all the irrational racism, of course. That might still be a problem.
  - mahyarm 11y ago
    One side likes high skill immigrants but does not like low skilled immigrants. The other side likes low skilled immigrants and thinks high skilled immigrants are a-ok too. To try to get their way, the low-skilled side says we won't pass your high skilled stuff unless you pass our low-skilled stuff. The other one refuses and you have legislative deadlock that prevents changing much of anything. That's what I've heard about the problem currently. Also I wouldn't base it on federal taxes, because people with state taxes will pay less federal tax since the state tax is a federal tax deduction or similar. I would base it on total USA tax load.
- aNoob7000 11y ago
  The H1-B issue is about pay and control. An H1-B to me is someone that is trapped because of the visa process and can't command better pay or work conditions. I'm not talking about sweatshop conditions, I'm just saying that it is harder to negotiate when you're under an H1-B visa. I understand people are against "economic immigrants" right now, but last time I checked most of the people that passed through Ellis Island were poor and the United States managed to grow in the last 100 years. The fantasy that the United States can just flourish with only highly educated people working in tech is not real. We also need people to cut our grass, work on our cars, and clean our hotel rooms.
CoryAmber 11y ago
Does it matter? Of course, otherwise this wouldn't be the contentious issue that it is. If you are the Disney programmer telling your wife and kids that you are unemployed, I assure you, it matters. To say it doesn't matter if there are 0 H1-Bs or 250,000 H1-Bs is ... Your "high paid H1-B worker" most likely isn't (see data contained in the referenced article). Outside of a small percentage of very rare individuals or specialists every H1-B is taking a job from a US citizen, who would pay the same taxes or more, is far more likely to buy real estate than rent a nearby apartment for a couple of years, and will almost assuredly un-employ some American than hopefully employ one.
- ksk 11y ago
  >every H1-B is taking a job from a US citizen There is no evidence to support this assertion.
  - sosuke 11y ago
    How would you define that as being a true assertion? I've often seen it as "I trained my H1-B replacement"
    - ksk 11y ago
      Yes, and all such violations should be reported and dealt with. However, using a fact from a local scope to make an automatic "winning" argument in a larger, more global scope is disingenuous.
      - sosuke 11y ago
        I wasn't asserting in either direction. How big does local need to be to assert true then for you? The recent Disney accusations seem rather large. I remember reading recently about migrant workers and the job postings being listed in other states to prevent having local applicants. I guess this isn't a black and white scenario. One H1-B can be taking away an existing local job while another instance in another area might not be. "H1-Bs can take away local jobs" would be a true statement if that local scope fact is true but if you're suggesting that "no local jobs are lost to H1-Bs" then you're wrong. Local scope can invalidate a global scope. Saying "every" as the GP did was wrong. But the argument is which is greater the number of by the book H1-Bs or the the number of H1-Bs that take local jobs. Is there an acceptable level of lost local jobs that makes the gain worth it? I feel like it is the conflict of setting a guilty man free to never convict and innocent man. "It is better that ten guilty persons escape than that one innocent suffer" but not everyone agrees with that. They would rather catch the ten guilty persons and would be okay with the one innocent suffering. The greater good maybe? I'm not sure either way.
dawnbreez 11y ago
I feel like the immigration issue has been made about five hundred times more complicated than is really necessary. We need some high-paid engineers to redesign our laws from the ground up, in my opinion.
- ch4s3 11y ago
  a law engineer?
  - dawnbreez 11y ago
    Yes. Exactly.
- lwhalen 11y ago
  I would love to see git-diff type notation on the text of various laws - 'senator so-and-so added this', 'paralegal Y removed this clause' - with commit-messages for each.
- flubert 11y ago
  I wonder if you'd enjoy: THE MYTH OF THE RULE OF LAW http://faculty.msb.edu/hasnasj/GTWebSite/MythWeb.htm http://faculty.msb.edu/hasnasj/GTWebSite/MythWeb.htm ...and... HAYEK, THE COMMON LAW, AND FLUID DRIVE http://www.law.nyu.edu/sites/default/files/ECM_PRO_060886.pdf http://www.law.nyu.edu/sites/default/files/ECM_PRO_060886.pd...
  - dawnbreez 11y ago
    I did enjoy the first one, am looking forward to reading the second.

dominotw 11y ago

i think they are using Vancouver as staging area for eb1c green cards so that they don't have to deal with h1b visa. Thats what my friend at MS told me, not sure how common it is though.

cmrdporcupine 11y ago
This may change with the Canadian dollar dropping down so low. A (very high by local standards) $150,000 CAD salary is only $100,000 USD. US employers would be wise to invest in Canadian offices. Especially near universities like University of Waterloo or University of Alberta that are some of the best engineering universities in North America.

stale2002 11y ago

And to be honest, if the choice is between accepting a whole bunch of highly paid Google/Facebook engineers into the country who will pay lots of money in taxes, and accepting a bunch of "economic immigrants" who will cost more money than they contribute, I would accepted the Google engineers in a heartbeat. My solution? Let anyone into the country as long as they can prove that they are receiving a salary of > 125,000$ /year. Or perhaps just create a fast lane immigration track for companies, where if they really really want someone to be let into the country, then they send the US government a $50k check, to skip everything, and get their VISA automatically approved.

davidw 11y ago
> 125,000$ What makes that number better than $124,000 ?
logfromblammo 11y ago
As jaded and crass as it feels to me as I consider it in my own head, I can't help thinking that the US ought to just let people jump forward in the immigration queue based on the amount of federal taxes they have paid. If you're paying $30000 in income tax every year, which would be lost if you had to return to your home country, there's a really good reason to just hand you a green card. $30k is a significant chunk of a useless government sinecure, after all. And if you make it based on taxes, you can be reasonably certain that it will be recurring revenue, rather than a one-time windfall. And at that income level, you're likely to be a high-expectations parent to a child who will eventually speak English and want to stay forever. So bring the spouse and kids! As a nation, wouldn't we want to encourage as much immigration as possible from people who will be net contributors to our society? Wouldn't we want to bring their families with them, so they wouldn't be remitting their earnings back to another country? Ignoring all the irrational racism, of course. That might still be a problem.
- mahyarm 11y ago
  One side likes high skill immigrants but does not like low skilled immigrants. The other side likes low skilled immigrants and thinks high skilled immigrants are a-ok too. To try to get their way, the low-skilled side says we won't pass your high skilled stuff unless you pass our low-skilled stuff. The other one refuses and you have legislative deadlock that prevents changing much of anything. That's what I've heard about the problem currently. Also I wouldn't base it on federal taxes, because people with state taxes will pay less federal tax since the state tax is a federal tax deduction or similar. I would base it on total USA tax load.
aNoob7000 11y ago
The H1-B issue is about pay and control. An H1-B to me is someone that is trapped because of the visa process and can't command better pay or work conditions. I'm not talking about sweatshop conditions, I'm just saying that it is harder to negotiate when you're under an H1-B visa. I understand people are against "economic immigrants" right now, but last time I checked most of the people that passed through Ellis Island were poor and the United States managed to grow in the last 100 years. The fantasy that the United States can just flourish with only highly educated people working in tech is not real. We also need people to cut our grass, work on our cars, and clean our hotel rooms.

CoryAmber 11y ago

Does it matter? Of course, otherwise this wouldn't be the contentious issue that it is. If you are the Disney programmer telling your wife and kids that you are unemployed, I assure you, it matters. To say it doesn't matter if there are 0 H1-Bs or 250,000 H1-Bs is ... Your "high paid H1-B worker" most likely isn't (see data contained in the referenced article). Outside of a small percentage of very rare individuals or specialists every H1-B is taking a job from a US citizen, who would pay the same taxes or more, is far more likely to buy real estate than rent a nearby apartment for a couple of years, and will almost assuredly un-employ some American than hopefully employ one.

ksk 11y ago
>every H1-B is taking a job from a US citizen There is no evidence to support this assertion.
- sosuke 11y ago
  How would you define that as being a true assertion? I've often seen it as "I trained my H1-B replacement"
  - ksk 11y ago
    Yes, and all such violations should be reported and dealt with. However, using a fact from a local scope to make an automatic "winning" argument in a larger, more global scope is disingenuous.
    - sosuke 11y ago
      I wasn't asserting in either direction. How big does local need to be to assert true then for you? The recent Disney accusations seem rather large. I remember reading recently about migrant workers and the job postings being listed in other states to prevent having local applicants. I guess this isn't a black and white scenario. One H1-B can be taking away an existing local job while another instance in another area might not be. "H1-Bs can take away local jobs" would be a true statement if that local scope fact is true but if you're suggesting that "no local jobs are lost to H1-Bs" then you're wrong. Local scope can invalidate a global scope. Saying "every" as the GP did was wrong. But the argument is which is greater the number of by the book H1-Bs or the the number of H1-Bs that take local jobs. Is there an acceptable level of lost local jobs that makes the gain worth it? I feel like it is the conflict of setting a guilty man free to never convict and innocent man. "It is better that ten guilty persons escape than that one innocent suffer" but not everyone agrees with that. They would rather catch the ten guilty persons and would be okay with the one innocent suffering. The greater good maybe? I'm not sure either way.

dawnbreez 11y ago

I feel like the immigration issue has been made about five hundred times more complicated than is really necessary. We need some high-paid engineers to redesign our laws from the ground up, in my opinion.

ch4s3 11y ago
a law engineer?
- dawnbreez 11y ago
  Yes. Exactly.
lwhalen 11y ago
I would love to see git-diff type notation on the text of various laws - 'senator so-and-so added this', 'paralegal Y removed this clause' - with commit-messages for each.
flubert 11y ago
I wonder if you'd enjoy: THE MYTH OF THE RULE OF LAW http://faculty.msb.edu/hasnasj/GTWebSite/MythWeb.htm http://faculty.msb.edu/hasnasj/GTWebSite/MythWeb.htm ...and... HAYEK, THE COMMON LAW, AND FLUID DRIVE http://www.law.nyu.edu/sites/default/files/ECM_PRO_060886.pdf http://www.law.nyu.edu/sites/default/files/ECM_PRO_060886.pd...
- dawnbreez 11y ago
  I did enjoy the first one, am looking forward to reading the second.