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> stopping companies like Cognizant and Infosys that game the immigration system by applying for the cheapest H-1Bs possible Cognizant and Infosys will stop th

> stopping companies like Cognizant and Infosys that game the immigration system by applying for the cheapest H-1Bs possible Cognizant and Infosys will stop the gaming the minute you detach the H-1B from the company - something along the lines of "If an employee spends N months at a company on H-1B, not get into trouble with the law, pay taxes and be a productive member of the community, then that person can work at any similar job without being tied to the employer". Facebook, Google or Microsoft are not doing H-1Bs so they can trap those employees into working at low wages - Cognizant and Infosys are. Removing the power these firms have over the employee is the only true way to reform H-1B. President Obama's executive action plans did state intent along those lines [1], but those seem to be torpedoed by vested interests. There is currently a draft rule from USCIS titled "Retention of EB-1, EB-2 and EB-3 Immigrant Workers and Program Improvements Affecting High-Skilled Nonimmigrant Workers" [2] open for comments until Feb 29, 2016. If you are interested in acting towards a solution to this problem you identify, please consider reading and commenting on it this weekend. You can do it online by going to www.regulations.gov and searching for the eDocket number USCIS-2015-0008 [3]. [1]: https://www.dhs.gov/sites/default/files/publications/14_1120_memo_business_actions_1.pdf https://www.dhs.gov/sites/default/files/publications/14_1120... [2] USCIS Seeks Comments on Proposed Rule Affecting Certain Employment-Based Immigrant and Nonimmigrant Visa Programs - https://www.uscis.gov/news/uscis-seeks-comments-proposed-rule-affecting-certain-employment-based-immigrant-and-nonimmigrant-visa-programs https://www.uscis.gov/news/uscis-seeks-comments-proposed-rul... [3] http://www.regulations.gov/#!docketDetail;D=USCIS-2015-0008 http://www.regulations.gov/#!docketDetail;D=USCIS-2015-0008

tdeck 11y ago
> Cognizant and Infosys will stop the gaming the minute you detach the H-1B from the company. While I agree that people on an H-1B visa shouldn't be tied to one particular employer, I don't think this will solve the problem at all. The lottery model will always unfairly advantage these outsourcing companies precisely because all they care about is billable hours, and the people working there are interchangeable. That's why they can afford to be relatively indiscriminate by throwing thousands of visa applications at the wall and hiring whoever sticks. Product companies like Google, Facebook, and Microsoft who have to actually care which individuals they hire are always going to be at a disadvantage in a lottery - their hiring bar reduces the pool of visa applicants and gives them fewer tickets. That doesn't mean that there aren't great engineers at these companies, but as a whole the system perversely incentivizes quantity over quality.
- mavelikara 11y ago
  > because all they care about is billable hours, and the people working there are interchangeable. That's why they can afford to be relatively indiscriminate by throwing thousands of visa applications at the wall and hiring whoever sticks. These companies apply for visas on behalf of the competent employees they have in their offshore offices. Once the employee gets an H-1B visa if the regulations are such that s/he is free to switch employers without harming their immigrant status, they will bargain for better wages. This breaks the business model of applying for lots of visas paying large fees on each of them and getting a few approved. Right now the visa fees (> 7K for just the initial application! [1]) are considered an investment by these firms, because they know that the few that sticks can be trapped into a long employment period and underpaid for years to recoup many multiples of the initial investment. Breaking this business model is what will prevent these firms from applying in large numbers (which is a DoS attack on USCIS, forcing the approval process into a lottery). Hence my original comment. [1]: https://www.uscis.gov/forms/h-and-l-filing-fees-form-i-129-petition-nonimmigrant-worker https://www.uscis.gov/forms/h-and-l-filing-fees-form-i-129-p...

tdeck 11y ago

> Cognizant and Infosys will stop the gaming the minute you detach the H-1B from the company. While I agree that people on an H-1B visa shouldn't be tied to one particular employer, I don't think this will solve the problem at all. The lottery model will always unfairly advantage these outsourcing companies precisely because all they care about is billable hours, and the people working there are interchangeable. That's why they can afford to be relatively indiscriminate by throwing thousands of visa applications at the wall and hiring whoever sticks. Product companies like Google, Facebook, and Microsoft who have to actually care which individuals they hire are always going to be at a disadvantage in a lottery - their hiring bar reduces the pool of visa applicants and gives them fewer tickets. That doesn't mean that there aren't great engineers at these companies, but as a whole the system perversely incentivizes quantity over quality.

mavelikara 11y ago
> because all they care about is billable hours, and the people working there are interchangeable. That's why they can afford to be relatively indiscriminate by throwing thousands of visa applications at the wall and hiring whoever sticks. These companies apply for visas on behalf of the competent employees they have in their offshore offices. Once the employee gets an H-1B visa if the regulations are such that s/he is free to switch employers without harming their immigrant status, they will bargain for better wages. This breaks the business model of applying for lots of visas paying large fees on each of them and getting a few approved. Right now the visa fees (> 7K for just the initial application! [1]) are considered an investment by these firms, because they know that the few that sticks can be trapped into a long employment period and underpaid for years to recoup many multiples of the initial investment. Breaking this business model is what will prevent these firms from applying in large numbers (which is a DoS attack on USCIS, forcing the approval process into a lottery). Hence my original comment. [1]: https://www.uscis.gov/forms/h-and-l-filing-fees-form-i-129-petition-nonimmigrant-worker https://www.uscis.gov/forms/h-and-l-filing-fees-form-i-129-p...