7 ms·

End H1-B immediately. Americans, many who simply cannot move to other countries, need to be first in line for access to economic opportunities in this country.

End H1-B immediately. Americans, many who simply cannot move to other countries, need to be first in line for access to economic opportunities in this country. It's utterly disgusting to make American workers second class citizens in their own country. How many more Disney's, Qualcomms, and Southern California Edison's do we need to see before we realize that the program is harmful to Americans? Then there's the matter of non-profits being exempt from the caps on H1-B visas - this is a significant reason why PHD graduates have trouble finding jobs in their field. H1-B is bad for America. In my mind, ending H1-B is a matter of social justice for Americans, just like marriage equality. ( Before anyone thinks that I'm a Trump supporter, please be aware that I'm a gay man, and life long Democrat, who is absolutely horrified at the thought of what Trump's choices for the Supreme Court could mean for marriage equality and social justice. Just to be clear: I don't support Trump in any way, shape, or form. )

pj_mukh 10y ago
So if you're not a Trump supporter and actually want to give this a fair shake. Have you perhaps asked WHY H1-B employees are so attractive? They are living in America (same cost of living), so why are their salaries lower? Who is the real second-class human here? P.S: The answer is that H1-B's are virtually locked into their jobs and have no negotiating power. Give them that and American employees will look magically more attractive.
- biocomputation 10y ago
  I'm not a Trump supporter. I didn't vote for him, and as noted in my previous post, I am truly horrified when I think about what his Supreme Court choices could mean for marriage equality ( among other things! ). * We don't need to give H1-B guest workers negotiating power. * We need to end H1-B and send the guest workers home. * We need to replace the guest workers with American workers. Access to jobs, and the economic mobility accompanied by it, is a bedrock social justice issue in America. It is an enormous social injustice to make American workers compete with foreign nationals for jobs. Frankly, I don't see how it's possible read about American workers having to train their foreign worker replacements and not see it as anything less than deeply and tragically wrong.
  - 464192002d7fe1c 10y ago
    I am a trump supporter, and work in tech management. I agree with 100% of what you're saying. I've personally seen the abuses of the H-1B program. I know that the required job searches prior to utilizing the H-1B program are basically perfunctory. I know that the workers under the program are abused. I know it depresses wages for American workers overall. Its funny, I generally despise the term "social justice," but, you're dead on here.
    - biocomputation 10y ago
      Thanks for your remarks. We'll definitely have to agree to disagree on Trump, but you and I do have common ground in our belief that access to employment is an issue of social justice, and that the H1-B program has been abused and corrupted in a way that has created profoundly unjust outcomes for Americans. The United States already has a program for legal immigration, right? Why do we even need H1-B?
      - mandeepj 10y ago
        > The United States already has a program for legal immigration, right? Why do we even need H1-B? I'm pretty convinced you don't have solid understanding about inner workings of immigration and H1-B. You just have some hatred against this visa. Most of jobs holded by h1-b candidates are temporary and their ranks stand at the very bottom of the food chain. These jobs last not more than few months and in very rare cases 1-2 years. So, they are the first ones to leave the company before the permanent ones. H1-b candidates are very expensive to hire. Although, they do get paid very low. Now, please go and educate five other people so that we can end this BS propaganda.
        biocomputation 10y ago
        >> You just have some hatred against this visa. Jobs are a bedrock social justice issue in the United States. You're free to characterize me remarks however you like, but I'm pretty sure that the fact that 60-80% of H1-B visas are issued to citizens of only two countries is a sign that the program has been hopelessly corrupted.
MikeHolman 10y ago
I'm an American and I work in tech with a bunch of people on H1-Bs, and I think your proposition is ridiculous. The people I work with are really good. We interview a ton of Americans as well, but there just aren't enough strong candidates to fill the positions. It's not like American tech workers have high unemployment... Maybe some companies exploit the system, but your stance is extreme. We should promote importing talent. Maybe the system needs work, but it doesn't need to be eviscerated.
- biocomputation 10y ago
  >> We interview a ton of Americans as well, but there just aren't enough strong candidates to fill the positions. Access to jobs is a bedrock social justice issue in America. If your company didn't have access to foreign H1-B guest workers, you would have two primary options: 1.) hire and train American workers, or 2.) recruit more aggressively by paying even higher wages. A wild guess on my part says that your company would hire the weaker candidates and train them. I'm all for the first option, but the second option is okay too.
  - dmode 10y ago
    You forget the most viable third option - relocate the job to where engineers are available
    - biocomputation 10y ago
      Sure, since it isn't going to an American anyway.
      - dmode 10y ago
        Hiring an immigrant vs offshoring has many more benefits. Tax dollars to start with, but immigrants also spend that money on food, housing, etc
    - jfim 10y ago
      That's what Amazon is doing with their Vancouver office. Since getting enough hires into the US is too complicated, it's easier to open an office really close to Seattle and give those tax dollars to Canada instead of Uncle Sam.
jacques_chester 10y ago
Many people who are now Americans didn't used to be. Are they job thieves? Many people are the natural-born children of migrants. Are they job thieves? Some people had ancestors who arrived on the Mayflower. Is everyone else a job thief? Some people are descended from the aboriginal inhabitants of the continent. Is everyone else a thief? Aren't you?
- biocomputation 10y ago
  I don't believe my posts said anything about immigration. For the record, I support immigration, whether general immigration or for other reasons. To this point, I think it would been totally acceptable to allow the entire population of Syria to either immigrate the US ( green cards on arrival ) or grant safe harbor to those who want to return home until such time as it's safe. With respect to H1-B: in case I haven't been absolutely clear, I think its socially unjust to make American workers compete with foreign nationals for jobs. This has nothing to do with immigration.
  - jacques_chester 10y ago
    So if tomorrow it was possible to become a US citizen by filling out a web form and paying $50, that'd be fine by you? It'd be fine by me. But I'm a job thief. Unless I become a US citizen. At which point I'm still the same person, but somehow it's OK.
    - biocomputation 10y ago
      My remarks about the citizens of Syria were made in the context of the brutal war being fought in Syria at the moment. >> So if tomorrow it was possible to become a US citizen by filling out a web form and paying $50, that'd be fine by you? No, citizenship should never be for sale. Otherwise it's meaningless. You should be allowed to immigrate legally provided you can satisfy the requirements of our immigration program. >> But I'm a job thief. Please note that those are your words, not mine. I don't view people here on work visas as job thieves. My remarks are framed exclusively around what's best for Americans: it is socially unjust to make Americans compete with foreign nationals for jobs.
dmode 10y ago
I am confused. Are you saying that specifically H1B should be ended or no foreign individual should ever get a job in the US ?
- biocomputation 10y ago
  I'm saying end H1-B forever. I fully support immigration. In another post in this thread, I wrote: "For the record, I support immigration, whether general immigration or for other reasons. To this point, I think it would been totally acceptable to allow the entire population of Syria to either immigrate the US ( green cards on arrival ) or grant safe harbor to those who want to return home until such time as it's safe."
  - dmode 10y ago
    Thanks for the clarification
nickthemagicman 10y ago
Werent Sergey Brin and Elon Musk immigrants? Glad we let them in. Lol.
- biocomputation 10y ago
  Immigration is not the same as H1-B. For the record, in another post in this thread I wrote: "For the record, I support immigration, whether general immigration or for other reasons. To this point, I think it would been totally acceptable to allow the entire population of Syria to either immigrate the US ( green cards on arrival ) or grant safe harbor to those who want to return home until such time as it's safe."
  - pj_mukh 10y ago
    H1-B is simply another vehicle for general immigration, and one that guarantees you are immigrating the best and the brightest of other countries. Your battle is with Wipro and Infosys, not the H1-B program.
serge2k 10y ago
> It's utterly disgusting to make American workers second class citizens in their own country. How many more Disney's, Qualcomms, and Southern California Edison's do we need to see before we realize that the program is harmful to Americans? They need to get rid of the fraud at places like Disney. Ban Tata and Infosys and other shitty consulting companies from obtaining H-1B ever again. Make the minimum cost 125k (about what MS and Google pay for H-1B), so it's not profitable for people to replace Americans (you get into the range where people are going to earn big bucks either way). Make it easier for an H-1B to switch jobs and announce that whistleblowers will be rewarded (money, green card slot, etc...). As someone here on a visa I really, really, fucking hate these consulting companies for abusing the program. The company I work for is big, they create loads of jobs. They want to hire people on Visas because they want to hire pretty much anyone they can find who meets their bar.
- biocomputation 10y ago
  I just don't think this is good enough. Companies need to hire and train weaker candidates. It is socially unjust to make American workers compete with foreign nationals for jobs.
ganeshkrishnan 10y ago
So free market for commodities but throw out the common man trying to make a better life for himself? Everyone here arguing against H1b saying that US companies should prefer American citizens first are forgetting that most multi-nationals or even American companies earn their money globally. IBM,Apple, Microsoft, Google all earn as much money out of US as inside. Yelling "dey tuk er jerbs" is going to drive them away to where they will find more programmers to do their jobs. You guys don't understand that companies are not tied to national borders. And plenty of these companies: Microsoft, Google, Pepsi, Mastercard etc have Indian CEOs who are/were on their H1b. Kick them out too? 51% of billion dollar silicon valley companies were founded by immigrants. If you are asking to shut down legal migration and build a wall for illegal immigration you are either deluded about the market or have no idea how economy works. You live by free market, you die by it.

pj_mukh 10y ago

So if you're not a Trump supporter and actually want to give this a fair shake. Have you perhaps asked WHY H1-B employees are so attractive? They are living in America (same cost of living), so why are their salaries lower? Who is the real second-class human here? P.S: The answer is that H1-B's are virtually locked into their jobs and have no negotiating power. Give them that and American employees will look magically more attractive.

biocomputation 10y ago
I'm not a Trump supporter. I didn't vote for him, and as noted in my previous post, I am truly horrified when I think about what his Supreme Court choices could mean for marriage equality ( among other things! ). * We don't need to give H1-B guest workers negotiating power. * We need to end H1-B and send the guest workers home. * We need to replace the guest workers with American workers. Access to jobs, and the economic mobility accompanied by it, is a bedrock social justice issue in America. It is an enormous social injustice to make American workers compete with foreign nationals for jobs. Frankly, I don't see how it's possible read about American workers having to train their foreign worker replacements and not see it as anything less than deeply and tragically wrong.
- 464192002d7fe1c 10y ago
  I am a trump supporter, and work in tech management. I agree with 100% of what you're saying. I've personally seen the abuses of the H-1B program. I know that the required job searches prior to utilizing the H-1B program are basically perfunctory. I know that the workers under the program are abused. I know it depresses wages for American workers overall. Its funny, I generally despise the term "social justice," but, you're dead on here.
  - biocomputation 10y ago
    Thanks for your remarks. We'll definitely have to agree to disagree on Trump, but you and I do have common ground in our belief that access to employment is an issue of social justice, and that the H1-B program has been abused and corrupted in a way that has created profoundly unjust outcomes for Americans. The United States already has a program for legal immigration, right? Why do we even need H1-B?
    - mandeepj 10y ago
      > The United States already has a program for legal immigration, right? Why do we even need H1-B? I'm pretty convinced you don't have solid understanding about inner workings of immigration and H1-B. You just have some hatred against this visa. Most of jobs holded by h1-b candidates are temporary and their ranks stand at the very bottom of the food chain. These jobs last not more than few months and in very rare cases 1-2 years. So, they are the first ones to leave the company before the permanent ones. H1-b candidates are very expensive to hire. Although, they do get paid very low. Now, please go and educate five other people so that we can end this BS propaganda.
      - biocomputation 10y ago
        >> You just have some hatred against this visa. Jobs are a bedrock social justice issue in the United States. You're free to characterize me remarks however you like, but I'm pretty sure that the fact that 60-80% of H1-B visas are issued to citizens of only two countries is a sign that the program has been hopelessly corrupted.

MikeHolman 10y ago

I'm an American and I work in tech with a bunch of people on H1-Bs, and I think your proposition is ridiculous. The people I work with are really good. We interview a ton of Americans as well, but there just aren't enough strong candidates to fill the positions. It's not like American tech workers have high unemployment... Maybe some companies exploit the system, but your stance is extreme. We should promote importing talent. Maybe the system needs work, but it doesn't need to be eviscerated.

biocomputation 10y ago
>> We interview a ton of Americans as well, but there just aren't enough strong candidates to fill the positions. Access to jobs is a bedrock social justice issue in America. If your company didn't have access to foreign H1-B guest workers, you would have two primary options: 1.) hire and train American workers, or 2.) recruit more aggressively by paying even higher wages. A wild guess on my part says that your company would hire the weaker candidates and train them. I'm all for the first option, but the second option is okay too.
- dmode 10y ago
  You forget the most viable third option - relocate the job to where engineers are available
  - biocomputation 10y ago
    Sure, since it isn't going to an American anyway.
    - dmode 10y ago
      Hiring an immigrant vs offshoring has many more benefits. Tax dollars to start with, but immigrants also spend that money on food, housing, etc
  - jfim 10y ago
    That's what Amazon is doing with their Vancouver office. Since getting enough hires into the US is too complicated, it's easier to open an office really close to Seattle and give those tax dollars to Canada instead of Uncle Sam.

jacques_chester 10y ago

Many people who are now Americans didn't used to be. Are they job thieves? Many people are the natural-born children of migrants. Are they job thieves? Some people had ancestors who arrived on the Mayflower. Is everyone else a job thief? Some people are descended from the aboriginal inhabitants of the continent. Is everyone else a thief? Aren't you?

biocomputation 10y ago
I don't believe my posts said anything about immigration. For the record, I support immigration, whether general immigration or for other reasons. To this point, I think it would been totally acceptable to allow the entire population of Syria to either immigrate the US ( green cards on arrival ) or grant safe harbor to those who want to return home until such time as it's safe. With respect to H1-B: in case I haven't been absolutely clear, I think its socially unjust to make American workers compete with foreign nationals for jobs. This has nothing to do with immigration.
- jacques_chester 10y ago
  So if tomorrow it was possible to become a US citizen by filling out a web form and paying $50, that'd be fine by you? It'd be fine by me. But I'm a job thief. Unless I become a US citizen. At which point I'm still the same person, but somehow it's OK.
  - biocomputation 10y ago
    My remarks about the citizens of Syria were made in the context of the brutal war being fought in Syria at the moment. >> So if tomorrow it was possible to become a US citizen by filling out a web form and paying $50, that'd be fine by you? No, citizenship should never be for sale. Otherwise it's meaningless. You should be allowed to immigrate legally provided you can satisfy the requirements of our immigration program. >> But I'm a job thief. Please note that those are your words, not mine. I don't view people here on work visas as job thieves. My remarks are framed exclusively around what's best for Americans: it is socially unjust to make Americans compete with foreign nationals for jobs.

dmode 10y ago

I am confused. Are you saying that specifically H1B should be ended or no foreign individual should ever get a job in the US ?

biocomputation 10y ago
I'm saying end H1-B forever. I fully support immigration. In another post in this thread, I wrote: "For the record, I support immigration, whether general immigration or for other reasons. To this point, I think it would been totally acceptable to allow the entire population of Syria to either immigrate the US ( green cards on arrival ) or grant safe harbor to those who want to return home until such time as it's safe."
- dmode 10y ago
  Thanks for the clarification

nickthemagicman 10y ago

Werent Sergey Brin and Elon Musk immigrants? Glad we let them in. Lol.

biocomputation 10y ago
Immigration is not the same as H1-B. For the record, in another post in this thread I wrote: "For the record, I support immigration, whether general immigration or for other reasons. To this point, I think it would been totally acceptable to allow the entire population of Syria to either immigrate the US ( green cards on arrival ) or grant safe harbor to those who want to return home until such time as it's safe."
- pj_mukh 10y ago
  H1-B is simply another vehicle for general immigration, and one that guarantees you are immigrating the best and the brightest of other countries. Your battle is with Wipro and Infosys, not the H1-B program.

serge2k 10y ago

> It's utterly disgusting to make American workers second class citizens in their own country. How many more Disney's, Qualcomms, and Southern California Edison's do we need to see before we realize that the program is harmful to Americans? They need to get rid of the fraud at places like Disney. Ban Tata and Infosys and other shitty consulting companies from obtaining H-1B ever again. Make the minimum cost 125k (about what MS and Google pay for H-1B), so it's not profitable for people to replace Americans (you get into the range where people are going to earn big bucks either way). Make it easier for an H-1B to switch jobs and announce that whistleblowers will be rewarded (money, green card slot, etc...). As someone here on a visa I really, really, fucking hate these consulting companies for abusing the program. The company I work for is big, they create loads of jobs. They want to hire people on Visas because they want to hire pretty much anyone they can find who meets their bar.

biocomputation 10y ago
I just don't think this is good enough. Companies need to hire and train weaker candidates. It is socially unjust to make American workers compete with foreign nationals for jobs.

ganeshkrishnan 10y ago

So free market for commodities but throw out the common man trying to make a better life for himself? Everyone here arguing against H1b saying that US companies should prefer American citizens first are forgetting that most multi-nationals or even American companies earn their money globally. IBM,Apple, Microsoft, Google all earn as much money out of US as inside. Yelling "dey tuk er jerbs" is going to drive them away to where they will find more programmers to do their jobs. You guys don't understand that companies are not tied to national borders. And plenty of these companies: Microsoft, Google, Pepsi, Mastercard etc have Indian CEOs who are/were on their H1b. Kick them out too? 51% of billion dollar silicon valley companies were founded by immigrants. If you are asking to shut down legal migration and build a wall for illegal immigration you are either deluded about the market or have no idea how economy works. You live by free market, you die by it.