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USCIS is challenging an unusually large number of H-1B applications

206 points by prando 9y ago

akhilcacharya 9y ago
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.
daodedickinson 9y ago
"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.
- desireco42 9y ago
  Centro shouldn't need to import people, what they do can be easily found in Chicago, but they would rather not pay good wage it seems.
  - Nrsolis 9y ago
    This is really the central issue. 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.
desireco42 9y ago
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.
- xrd 9y ago
  I don't think the point of this article is that the companies are the only ones crying.
- mavelikara 9y ago
  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. +1.
  - desireco42 9y ago
    And let them travel and know the path to Green Card if they decide to stay. Otherwise then they get milked by lawyers.
- sage76 9y ago
  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.
Terr_ 9y ago
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.
- jarsin 9y ago
  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.
  - frankc 9y ago
    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.
    - Terr_ 9y ago
      Relevant: http://www.paulgraham.com/submarine.html http://www.paulgraham.com/submarine.html
  - rrhd 9y ago
    > Did they interview anyone over 50 who has that exact experience probably not. Why would they interview that person for what sounds like an entry level position?
mavelikara 9y ago
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.
- giobox 9y ago
  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.
  - majormajor 9y ago
    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.
    - giobox 9y ago
      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.
    - mavelikara 9y ago
danharaj 9y ago
If only borders were as porous for workers as they are for capital.
pram 9y ago
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.
- sumitgt 9y ago
  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.
  - throwkgaj 9y ago
    This was me. Working at big tech firm, $190+ salary, 6 years. Green card applied and approved in 2014. 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.
    - lalwanivikas 9y ago
      Super happy for you man :-) Same big tech company or other?
    - sumitgt 9y ago
      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.
komali2 9y ago
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.
- majormajor 9y ago
  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.)
harmlessposter 9y ago
Time for companies to hire Americans and train Americans rather than attempting to suppress wages.
- matt_wulfeck 9y ago
  Specifically, stop simultaneously saying there’s a tech worker shortage while discriminating against workers over the age of 40.
  - rrhd 9y ago
    How many high priceed senior staff are needed?
- throwayit 9y ago
  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/ http://www.epi.org/publication/ib218/ Neither the Republicans or Democrats are addressing the systematic issues with wage growth in America.
malchow 9y ago
Two points: 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/outsourcing-companies-dominate-h1b-visas.html?_r=0 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?
- giobox 9y ago
  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.
  - dmix 9y ago
    > 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.
    - giobox 9y ago
      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.
ultimoo 9y ago
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.
dahdum 9y ago
> 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.
- solotronics 9y ago
  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.
  - rrhd 9y ago
    > If someone is truly extraordinary That's not the bar for the visa and never has been.
  - bduerst 9y ago
    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.
Draco_Au 9y ago
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.
friedButter 9y ago
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)
- myth_drannon 9y ago
  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.
  - rrhd 9y ago
    If the wages weren't complete shit I'd move back tomorrow.
    - myth_drannon 9y ago
      If the wages weren't complete shit they wouldn't set up offices in Canada(well and the tax breaks help too).
damnyou 9y ago
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.
- EdSharkey 9y ago
  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?
  - damnyou 9y ago
    > 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-of-immigrants.html http://johnhcochrane.blogspot.com/2014/06/the-optimal-number... (We should also welcome all the refugees we can get, of course.)
    - EdSharkey 9y ago
      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.
balance_factor 9y ago
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.
- rrhd 9y ago
  > or apply for a green card. 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.
RcouF1uZ4gsC 9y ago
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.
- tomschlick 9y ago
  Agreed on the auction, but not on auto green cards. That would flood the system with false or minor reports.
- matt_wulfeck 9y ago
  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.
  - Zigurd 9y ago
    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.
  - Terr_ 9y ago
    I agree, that's one side effects to watch out for. 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.
- prepend 9y ago
  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.
SkyPuncher 9y ago
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?
- friedButter 9y ago
  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?
  - masterrex 9y ago
    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.
    - pm90 9y ago
      > 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.
matt_wulfeck 9y ago
> 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.
- rrhd 9y ago
  Why shouldn't they do that? 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.
  - andonisus 9y ago
    Because we would like our country to prefer our own citizens for such jobs, when possible.
    - rrhd 9y ago
      Okay, hire 23 year old americans instead of 40 year old americans. Still not seeing why it's wrong.
      - andonisus 9y ago
        That would be the ideal case, but instead employers seek out H1-B workers.
      - hrehhf 9y ago
        Isn't that against the law (Age Discrimination in Employment Act of 1967) ?
        9y ago
1024core 9y ago
The solution is simple: rank the H1B applicants by descending order of wages, and take the top 65K. Period. Done. End of story. No more abuse.
- smsm42 9y ago
  Wages aren't fixed though. But H1b visas are fixed to the employer.
- axiom92 9y ago
  Spot on. The only catch is that there may be industries who genuinely need H1Bs but cannot match the pay grade; a corner case may be added for them.
- rrhd 9y ago
  What about professions that just pay lower? If 100k is well above market for a profession it's still not particularly high for a software dev.
  - 1024core 9y ago
    But H1Bs are not meant to get _cheap_ labor; they're meant for _impossible to find_ labor.
    - rrhd 9y ago
      No, they aren't. They are meant for skilled labour. The bar is a degree.
      - 1024core 9y ago
        No, they're meant for jobs that cannot be filled by an American; not just any "skilled labor".
vmarsy 9y ago
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/ 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-all-h-1b-petition-types/ http://immigrationgirl.com/premium-processing-is-back-for-al...
babesh 9y ago
I am really interested in seeing whether the tech companies eventually bend the knee.
salviasloth 9y ago
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?
prepend 9y ago
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.
gaius 9y ago
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.
- rrhd 9y ago
  > only used for rare talent. Not the purpose of the visa.
rrhd 9y ago
> immigration should be merit-based and cut in half. and a visa which requires in demand skills needs to be curbed.
outworlder 9y ago
This is not only happening to H1-B Visas. I am on L1 Visa and got an RFE as well. Lawyers said that they have seen a large increase in such requests. I am in charge of production systems which, if they go down for any significant amount of time, can represent hundreds of millions of dollars in lost revenue. This is a very niche system(networking-related), not your usual run of the mill web app. My salary is in the 6 digit range (and I have got multiple raises since then). I have got awards from my company for work I have and am doing. Still got an RFE. Now, I'll have to dig into payslips from my home country, get letters from former managers overseas, justify one more time all the skills (which I already did multiple times), provide org charts(from the current and previous position), and so on. I believe I have a pretty strong case, but it's a very stressful process. All this to be allowed to continue doing the stuff that was previously approved. And, unless I apply for a green card, I can stay for 5 years max. So why make it even harder? There's already an expiration date. And I can't drive while this is going on (DMV wants the approved extension). Fun times. The US is a great country; I feel that some "natives" have no idea how great it is, despite all its quirks. And, for engineers, the allure of Silicon Valley is too great – everything of notice is happening here. I have chosen to come here, and I knew that I need to jump through some hoops and prove my worth, to both the country and the company. But at some point, you start questioning if it is worth it. Can an American do my job? Absolutely – if you can find one with the right skillset that's willing to join. This position was open for MONTHS before the company even considered hiring from outside the country. They tried increasing the offers too, no takers, at least not qualified ones. The problem is that at some point all the companies can do is to poach from one another. Can you improve things with education? Yes. Do you want to avoid immigration altogether? Why would you, when you can hire the best brains from anywhere in the planet? The problem is that there are companies heavily abusing the system. But they are a handful, and they should get the hammer. That's from a rational perspective though, not a politically motivated one.
- comicjk 9y ago
  I'm rooting for you (and more usefully, donating time and money to political candidates who can help you). My research group currently has a scientist who took a year to recruit stuck in immigration. I wouldn't be surprised if he gives up. It makes me furious what the alliance of nativism and greed is doing to this country.
deleted 9y ago
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rrhd 9y ago
http://h1bdata.info/index.php?em=aegis+company&job=&city=&year=All+Years http://h1bdata.info/index.php?em=aegis+company&job=&city=&ye... The Aegis Company listed in the article is paying devs 55k a year in the seattle area. I'm wondering if this is targeted at the places that seem to pay well under market rate.
- bduerst 9y ago
  According to OFLC, the entry-level prevailing wage for developers in the Bellevue area (where these developers work) is $39k. Paying $55k for a level 1 or 2 isn't unreasonable because it's more than the average pay of citizens in the area working the same job. http://www.flcdatacenter.com/OesQuickResults.aspx?area=5300004&code=15-1199&year=18&source=1 http://www.flcdatacenter.com/OesQuickResults.aspx?area=53000...
fortythirteen 9y ago
I'm having a hard time finding sympathy for an industry that has systematically abused this system, with the direct intent of artificially lowering wages. I also find it hilarious that the same people who are always going on about the "evil rich" and the wage gap are the most likely to be against culling one of the biggest loopholes out there.
asfsa 9y ago
Serious question here: Why not get rid of the closed number and charge a 100% immigration tax to the employer? Cheap labor would be priced out unless American really cant substitute the imported labor. Employers would encourage employees to get a green card (as opposed to doing everything in their power to keep them chained to the H1B) What are the negatives (except for the obvious problems of taxes, of course)
- dmode 9y ago
  This will basically kill all immigration. Employers have to go through a LOT to hire an immigrant, and I almost feel sorry to ask an employer to file an H1 transfer. They have to hire an army of lawyers and pay steep fees to file all the paperwork and go through a process when it comes to green card. If you ask them to pay a lot, they will just hire somewhere else.
vermontdevil 9y ago
Yet Trump's own Mar-a-Lago is abusing H-2B to obtain 70 foreign workers: From the article: "It’s unclear whether the Trump Organization had made an extra effort to try to fill the jobs. In July, the club placed an ad on Page C8 of the Palm Beach Post: “3 mos recent & verifiable exp in fine dining/country club,” the ad said. “No tips,” Fahrenthold reported. The ad, which ran twice, gave no email address, mailing address or phone number and instructed applicants to “Apply by fax.”" Hypocrites. https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/powerpost/wp/2017/11/05/trump-who-urged-people-to-hire-american-secures-70-foreign-workers-for-mar-a-lago/ https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/powerpost/wp/2017/11/05/...
- meragrin 9y ago
  The Palm Beach Post posted on their blog about three ads for Mar-a-Lago. The three ads were published on July 27th and all have an address at the end with a job number to reference. The server ad at the bottom seems to be the one they are referring to. http://realtime.blog.palmbeachpost.com/2017/08/07/want-a-seasonal-job-at-trumps-mar-a-lago-club-fire-up-the-fax-but-the-number-doesnt-seem-to-work-realdonaldtrump/ http://realtime.blog.palmbeachpost.com/2017/08/07/want-a-sea...
jijji 9y ago
you know its bad when all your neighbors speak hindi, or when at work when you've been there for years, and you don't know any of your co-workers because none of them speak english (at fortune 500 companies in the US)
kvhdude 9y ago
i'd probably be voted down (even deservedly so). But i cannot resist : what unique sort of modelling work could an american not fullfil that the first lady was given H1B?
1_2__4 9y ago
I feel like a lot of the arguments around immigration - including H1-Bs - boil down to two pretty straightforward opposing views of immigration: 1) "We" have built something great and unique, and we want others to be able to partake of and contribute to it, but the greatness and uniqueness of it is special and we want to preserve that. This is the more conservative view. 2) "We" have an environment where great things can happen, and so we want to bring people into it and add their greatness to it to make it even greater. There is nothing special about what we have, nothing that warrants preserving, and in fact change - constant, disruptive change - is naturally good. This is the more liberal view. It bothers me that (1) is often conflated with racism, admittedly (the bothering part) because it's something I happen to agree with despite being mostly liberal on other issues. I DO think we here in America have a culture worth preserving, and while I want to open it up as much as possible to the world, I won't support doing so to the detriment and/or dissolution of what we have. I don't think constant disruption is naturally good; I didn't when I was younger and I don't think it is now. But anything even approaching a whiff of something like "preservation" is immediately labeled racist dog-whistling (which seems insane to me). Any kind of "hey, maybe non-Americans are trying to exploit this and that's not good" is racism. Saying that perhaps as much diversity as possible even if just for diversity's sake in all things is maybe not the best thing - again, racism. We need to recognize that there are real, non-racist and completely rational and informed reasons why people are uncomfortable with things like H1-B abuse, and that we don't all agree on what immigration should be or accomplish.
- tkahnoski 9y ago
  I don't understand this view of the world. I'd like to ask some questions to better understand. Not debate, understand. I spent a lot of time picking apart the various parts. I largely see immigration issues as capitalist vs. socialist spectrum. The capitalist wants little control over the flow of resources for a more efficient distribution of resources. The socialist wants to control the flow allocation of resources for a fair distribution of resources. So when you state the conservative position, I see that you want to control the flow of labor. What threats do you see from the flow of labor posing to the greatness and uniqueness of the US? Currently I see it as the opposite of imposing socialist tendencies impairing US companies from being able to compete with other countries that don't have the similar controls. Maybe we disagree on what makes the US culture unique. With the liberal point of view stated, I can understand the parts about disruption and change as the capitalist point of view except for the claim about "there is nothing special about what we have, nothing that warrants preserving". I don't see how immigration jeopardizes 'specialness' nor how it harms the preservation of things. We already have a wide dirth of cultural diversity dating back over many centuries, my guess is there is something in particular you value. I could look at things like Cinco de Mayo or St Patrick's day as examples of immigration both preserving special things as well as harming these through dilution and cultural appropriation. Maybe what your trying to say in many words is liberals are pro-change and conservatives are anti-change? Which is kind of the dictionary definition of the words, but I digress... I have more thoughts on how quick people are to throw 'racist' around, but that'll have to wait for another time. All I can say is that we're probably trying to preserve different things we consider great about our country.
masterrex 9y ago
I'll be excited about solutions when the quality and price of education changes for Americans. There is no 'affirmative action' for the average white male to ensure access to affordable higher education.
- rrhd 9y ago
  So go to community college for 2 years and then transfer to a state school. I went to a pretty meh public university. Didn't hold me back.
davidw 9y ago
I wrote about this a while back and think it's still valid: https://journal.dedasys.com/2014/12/29/people-places-and-jobs/ https://journal.dedasys.com/2014/12/29/people-places-and-job...
raitom 9y ago
Young french software engineer here. I was an intern with a J1 for a year in a company in san diego. I'm working remotely since last february. My H1B got picked in the lotery but I received an RFE early august. I had to write a ton of technical doc about my job and the system I work on. The documents were submitted mid-october. I received my approval last week. I guess if your application is legit you don't have much to fear about getting an RFE.
calvinbhai 9y ago
I may be an exception and my experience may be anecdotal, but as someone on an H1-B I think I'm seeing this as a good change. My immigrant peers working at consultancies are seeing more RFEs, and those I know to be working as direct employees are not (as often compared to consultant employees). But there's been a net increase in site visits and verifications along with RFEs to even legit applicants. For those who dont know the process here's how and when one can get an RFE: 1) Missed a key point in the application or Immigration attorney goofed up (this happens way often) 2) Position doesn't look like it needs a high skilled engineer with skills mentioned in application 3) Grossly underpaying the H1b employee Getting an RFE by itself is not the nightmare scenario. Its a problem if the employer is doing things using shady loopholes. What needs to be seen is by what %age RFEs have increased at companies like Apple, Facebook, Intel, Google etc. The bigger companies use boutique immigration law firms and its rare but not impossible for them to mess up on the immigration application process. I'm not sure what has Trump's administration done to reform the H1b system, its still as crappy as it has been. If anything certain employers were abusing the loopholes. Now its going to get tougher to abuse the loopholes.
scardine 9y ago
Will this increase the number of remote positions (work from anywhere) for software developers?
dmode 9y ago
I just wish now that the US government would kill the H1-B and all other immigrant visa and send us all home. I have spent 13 years here, I earn well over 200K, have a kid. But every 3 years, I have to renew my visa and pray and tell that there is no bullshit like RFE when visa is sent for renewal. And then the DMV drama begins as your DL expires, but your application is still not approved. When I came here, I had hope that the US government would make improvements to the immigrant system in good faith, considering all I heard from abroad was that this country is a "nation of immigrants". But it seems like the fancy thing to do these days is to blame every ill on immigrants.
bsvalley 9y ago
I don't understand why companies are still trying to bring people in the US to work for them. What's the point for the employer? How about investing overseas and training people here to handle remote offices? That's where we failed in the past... because it was too hard to manage and would require spending extra money to fix the mess. So we all decided to bring everyone in-house which is obviously a much bigger issue. I think we should invest more time in building infrastructures in other countries in order to create top of the line working places outside of the US. This would probably end up costing less and would help hiring way more people. Again, create new positions in the US like a "Remote Office Manager" and build kick ass campuses in India, China, Europe, etc. The whole immigration thing would be totally obsolete... I mean, we will be able to travel to Mars soon... why can't we even manage remote employees in 2017?
pvelagal 9y ago
Here is my take on H1B, which after checking some facts, is the last thing to worry for an average US tech worker, who don't like H1B. ) 65k Visas + 20k (for US educated MS degree holders) = 85k total every year. Lets say each one gets a 130k salary (Senator Chuck Grassley's recommendation) = ~$12 billion ) $12 billion Income. Lets say all these H1Bs send 25% back to their home countries = $3 billion gone out of USA, $9 billion spent in USA ) India's Software exports to USA in 2016 - (61+24.4+22.4 = $107.8 billion) source : https://www.statista.com/statistics/320753/indian-it-software-and-services-exports/ https://www.statista.com/statistics/320753/indian-it-softwar... ) Majority of these exports are to US. If we assume, the cost of getting software work done in India/China is probably 1/3rd of its cost in US, means, India, which exported ~$100+ billion worth of software, would have equalled $300 billion if the work was done in USA (thus creating jobs in USA). *) India, through its software exports sucked $300 billion out of USA and hence took away jobs in USA. Bottom line is, the rise of India's, China's software industries will suck the money out of USA. So, these numbers mean : H1B don't take jobs, Software engineers in India, China and rest of the world are taking them at an order of magnitude faster !
- kamakazizuru 9y ago
  this math is flawed in so many ways, I dont know where to start...
  - pvelagal 9y ago
    Please correct me.
- pvelagal 9y ago
  Disclaimer: I am from India, living in USA and i am reporting what i see, which is nothing but the typical effects/consequences of Globalization. Eg. Everything i buy in Target/Walmart, including US designed marvels, like "iphone" is made in China, which means, workers at that skill level in USA would get impacted. Consider the software equivalent use case, which is India. Software that comes out of India will have impact on workers at that skill level.
t1o5 9y ago
ex H1B here. I left US because of this broken system. There are many bad apples than good ones utilizing the H1B system. Indian bodyshops, one room consultancies all over New Jersey. Even companies like Sprint,Walmart,TR,Garmin,BOFA,Chase,Visa,AMEX, they all game the system and exploit H1B employees because of their situation. There are a lot of fake payroll running firms too which keeps the fake H1B employee's status valid. There are firms which apply for "future greencards" while the beneficiary is not even physically present in the US. Even many non CS graduates faking their resumes as CS ones and applying for "specialized" positions in IT. I had enough of this and left US and immigrated to Canada for good because I am pretty sure that my future will be affected by these bad apples gaming the system. I do not like Trump personally, but he is right about the H1B immigration system. If H1B system is a lottery, then why is it called a "skilled visa" ? H1B should be merit based so as to weed out the bad apples and body shops gaming the system. Probably I should write a book on "How to game the H1B system and get away with it". The book will be an eye opener for this broken skilled visa system and its loopholes.
jstewartmobile 9y ago
Another field report: Our town has a state university and a modest tech employment market. Every H-1B holder I've met a) went to the local university, b) works at a hospital or law office, c) writes CRUD apps in Java or C#. They're good dudes, but hard to imagine that any of them are the kind of alpha-double-plus-good talent that couldn't be locally sourced.
stuffedBelly 9y ago
You know what, as an H1B receiver, I am fine with more scrutiny towards H1B. Over the past few years, I have seen competent international coworkers not able to get H1B visa because: 1. it's a lottery system, regardless of background and academic accomplishment. 2. it's been abused by outsourcing companies. Practices such as multiple-filing for one person are so shady that it baffles me how loose the inspection towards H1B application is. I totally agree that American citizens should be prioritized when it comes to hiring and my country would do the same for its citizens. I also know that immigration service is a booming business for many American law firms and they have their own agenda to go against any further regulations towards H1B. However, in a long run, if done properly, a more merit-based/restricted H1B visa could actually be beneficial to outstanding individuals who follow the rules. As someone that love American culture but also have pride in his academic/career accomplishment, I stay in the US because I like this place, not that I have to, and I am more than happy to go back to my homeland or somewhere welcoming if I am not welcomed here anymore. H1B has never been the last straw of my life and it's true for many folks I know. I am all for making H1B more accessible for accomplished individuals and more restrictive towards those who cheat the game, but do it properly so that America doesn't give an image of Xenophobia to the world.
qmachu 9y ago
Young, European, High-skilled worker here, who've been working on core Kubernetes products for three years. Got several job offers for key infra positions in various companies @ 200-250k+. Trump administration came in, decided to RFE+NOIR my H-1B with a bullshit reason, had to go back to my country, which is not my really home anymore whatsoever (wife/friends here). So yeah, that just happened. It's not only about abuses and 'Indians'.
BuckRogers 9y ago
The self-fulfilling prophecy of "there's no Americans to do these jobs" is coming to an end. In a nation of 330 million people it's been an incredulous argument and it's ruined at least 2 generations from entering STEM. People talk about women in STEM, we have a bigger issue, no one is in STEM. Conservatives like to say you get more of what you subsidize, and they've been subsidizing the rest of the world for a very long time. I hope this is a shift in the tide and not a temporary blip.

206 points by prando 9y ago

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.

daodedickinson 9y ago

"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.

desireco42 9y ago
Centro shouldn't need to import people, what they do can be easily found in Chicago, but they would rather not pay good wage it seems.
- Nrsolis 9y ago
  This is really the central issue. 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.

desireco42 9y ago

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.

xrd 9y ago
I don't think the point of this article is that the companies are the only ones crying.
mavelikara 9y ago
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. +1.
- desireco42 9y ago
  And let them travel and know the path to Green Card if they decide to stay. Otherwise then they get milked by lawyers.
sage76 9y ago
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.

Terr_ 9y ago

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.

jarsin 9y ago
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.
- frankc 9y ago
  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.
  - Terr_ 9y ago
    Relevant: http://www.paulgraham.com/submarine.html http://www.paulgraham.com/submarine.html
- rrhd 9y ago
  > Did they interview anyone over 50 who has that exact experience probably not. Why would they interview that person for what sounds like an entry level position?

mavelikara 9y ago

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.

giobox 9y ago
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.
- majormajor 9y ago
  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.
  - giobox 9y ago
    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.
  - mavelikara 9y ago

danharaj 9y ago

If only borders were as porous for workers as they are for capital.

pram 9y ago

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.

sumitgt 9y ago
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.
- throwkgaj 9y ago
  This was me. Working at big tech firm, $190+ salary, 6 years. Green card applied and approved in 2014. 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.
  - lalwanivikas 9y ago
    Super happy for you man :-) Same big tech company or other?
  - sumitgt 9y ago
    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.

komali2 9y ago

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.

majormajor 9y ago
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.)

harmlessposter 9y ago

Time for companies to hire Americans and train Americans rather than attempting to suppress wages.

matt_wulfeck 9y ago
Specifically, stop simultaneously saying there’s a tech worker shortage while discriminating against workers over the age of 40.
- rrhd 9y ago
  How many high priceed senior staff are needed?
throwayit 9y ago
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/ http://www.epi.org/publication/ib218/ Neither the Republicans or Democrats are addressing the systematic issues with wage growth in America.

malchow 9y ago

Two points: 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/outsourcing-companies-dominate-h1b-visas.html?_r=0 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?

giobox 9y ago
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.
- dmix 9y ago
  > 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.
  - giobox 9y ago
    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.

ultimoo 9y ago

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.

dahdum 9y ago

> 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.

solotronics 9y ago
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.
- rrhd 9y ago
  > If someone is truly extraordinary That's not the bar for the visa and never has been.
- bduerst 9y ago
  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.

Draco_Au 9y ago

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.

friedButter 9y ago

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)

myth_drannon 9y ago
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.
- rrhd 9y ago
  If the wages weren't complete shit I'd move back tomorrow.
  - myth_drannon 9y ago
    If the wages weren't complete shit they wouldn't set up offices in Canada(well and the tax breaks help too).

damnyou 9y ago

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.

EdSharkey 9y ago
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?
- damnyou 9y ago
  > 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-of-immigrants.html http://johnhcochrane.blogspot.com/2014/06/the-optimal-number... (We should also welcome all the refugees we can get, of course.)
  - EdSharkey 9y ago
    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.

balance_factor 9y ago

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.

rrhd 9y ago
> or apply for a green card. 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.

RcouF1uZ4gsC 9y ago

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.

tomschlick 9y ago
Agreed on the auction, but not on auto green cards. That would flood the system with false or minor reports.
matt_wulfeck 9y ago
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.
- Zigurd 9y ago
  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.
- Terr_ 9y ago
  I agree, that's one side effects to watch out for. 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.
prepend 9y ago
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.

SkyPuncher 9y ago

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?

friedButter 9y ago
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?
- masterrex 9y ago
  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.
  - pm90 9y ago
    > 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.

matt_wulfeck 9y ago

> 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.

rrhd 9y ago
Why shouldn't they do that? 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.
- andonisus 9y ago
  Because we would like our country to prefer our own citizens for such jobs, when possible.
  - rrhd 9y ago
    Okay, hire 23 year old americans instead of 40 year old americans. Still not seeing why it's wrong.
    - andonisus 9y ago
      That would be the ideal case, but instead employers seek out H1-B workers.
    - hrehhf 9y ago
      Isn't that against the law (Age Discrimination in Employment Act of 1967) ?
      - 9y ago

1024core 9y ago

The solution is simple: rank the H1B applicants by descending order of wages, and take the top 65K. Period. Done. End of story. No more abuse.

smsm42 9y ago
Wages aren't fixed though. But H1b visas are fixed to the employer.
axiom92 9y ago
Spot on. The only catch is that there may be industries who genuinely need H1Bs but cannot match the pay grade; a corner case may be added for them.
rrhd 9y ago
What about professions that just pay lower? If 100k is well above market for a profession it's still not particularly high for a software dev.
- 1024core 9y ago
  But H1Bs are not meant to get _cheap_ labor; they're meant for _impossible to find_ labor.
  - rrhd 9y ago
    No, they aren't. They are meant for skilled labour. The bar is a degree.
    - 1024core 9y ago
      No, they're meant for jobs that cannot be filled by an American; not just any "skilled labor".

vmarsy 9y ago

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/ 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-all-h-1b-petition-types/ http://immigrationgirl.com/premium-processing-is-back-for-al...

babesh 9y ago

I am really interested in seeing whether the tech companies eventually bend the knee.

salviasloth 9y ago

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?

prepend 9y ago

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.

gaius 9y ago

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.

rrhd 9y ago
> only used for rare talent. Not the purpose of the visa.

rrhd 9y ago

> immigration should be merit-based and cut in half. and a visa which requires in demand skills needs to be curbed.

outworlder 9y ago

This is not only happening to H1-B Visas. I am on L1 Visa and got an RFE as well. Lawyers said that they have seen a large increase in such requests. I am in charge of production systems which, if they go down for any significant amount of time, can represent hundreds of millions of dollars in lost revenue. This is a very niche system(networking-related), not your usual run of the mill web app. My salary is in the 6 digit range (and I have got multiple raises since then). I have got awards from my company for work I have and am doing. Still got an RFE. Now, I'll have to dig into payslips from my home country, get letters from former managers overseas, justify one more time all the skills (which I already did multiple times), provide org charts(from the current and previous position), and so on. I believe I have a pretty strong case, but it's a very stressful process. All this to be allowed to continue doing the stuff that was previously approved. And, unless I apply for a green card, I can stay for 5 years max. So why make it even harder? There's already an expiration date. And I can't drive while this is going on (DMV wants the approved extension). Fun times. The US is a great country; I feel that some "natives" have no idea how great it is, despite all its quirks. And, for engineers, the allure of Silicon Valley is too great – everything of notice is happening here. I have chosen to come here, and I knew that I need to jump through some hoops and prove my worth, to both the country and the company. But at some point, you start questioning if it is worth it. Can an American do my job? Absolutely – if you can find one with the right skillset that's willing to join. This position was open for MONTHS before the company even considered hiring from outside the country. They tried increasing the offers too, no takers, at least not qualified ones. The problem is that at some point all the companies can do is to poach from one another. Can you improve things with education? Yes. Do you want to avoid immigration altogether? Why would you, when you can hire the best brains from anywhere in the planet? The problem is that there are companies heavily abusing the system. But they are a handful, and they should get the hammer. That's from a rational perspective though, not a politically motivated one.

comicjk 9y ago
I'm rooting for you (and more usefully, donating time and money to political candidates who can help you). My research group currently has a scientist who took a year to recruit stuck in immigration. I wouldn't be surprised if he gives up. It makes me furious what the alliance of nativism and greed is doing to this country.

deleted 9y ago

[deleted]

rrhd 9y ago

http://h1bdata.info/index.php?em=aegis+company&job=&city=&year=All+Years http://h1bdata.info/index.php?em=aegis+company&job=&city=&ye... The Aegis Company listed in the article is paying devs 55k a year in the seattle area. I'm wondering if this is targeted at the places that seem to pay well under market rate.

bduerst 9y ago
According to OFLC, the entry-level prevailing wage for developers in the Bellevue area (where these developers work) is $39k. Paying $55k for a level 1 or 2 isn't unreasonable because it's more than the average pay of citizens in the area working the same job. http://www.flcdatacenter.com/OesQuickResults.aspx?area=5300004&code=15-1199&year=18&source=1 http://www.flcdatacenter.com/OesQuickResults.aspx?area=53000...

fortythirteen 9y ago

I'm having a hard time finding sympathy for an industry that has systematically abused this system, with the direct intent of artificially lowering wages. I also find it hilarious that the same people who are always going on about the "evil rich" and the wage gap are the most likely to be against culling one of the biggest loopholes out there.

asfsa 9y ago

Serious question here: Why not get rid of the closed number and charge a 100% immigration tax to the employer? Cheap labor would be priced out unless American really cant substitute the imported labor. Employers would encourage employees to get a green card (as opposed to doing everything in their power to keep them chained to the H1B) What are the negatives (except for the obvious problems of taxes, of course)

dmode 9y ago
This will basically kill all immigration. Employers have to go through a LOT to hire an immigrant, and I almost feel sorry to ask an employer to file an H1 transfer. They have to hire an army of lawyers and pay steep fees to file all the paperwork and go through a process when it comes to green card. If you ask them to pay a lot, they will just hire somewhere else.

vermontdevil 9y ago

Yet Trump's own Mar-a-Lago is abusing H-2B to obtain 70 foreign workers: From the article: "It’s unclear whether the Trump Organization had made an extra effort to try to fill the jobs. In July, the club placed an ad on Page C8 of the Palm Beach Post: “3 mos recent & verifiable exp in fine dining/country club,” the ad said. “No tips,” Fahrenthold reported. The ad, which ran twice, gave no email address, mailing address or phone number and instructed applicants to “Apply by fax.”" Hypocrites. https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/powerpost/wp/2017/11/05/trump-who-urged-people-to-hire-american-secures-70-foreign-workers-for-mar-a-lago/ https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/powerpost/wp/2017/11/05/...

meragrin 9y ago
The Palm Beach Post posted on their blog about three ads for Mar-a-Lago. The three ads were published on July 27th and all have an address at the end with a job number to reference. The server ad at the bottom seems to be the one they are referring to. http://realtime.blog.palmbeachpost.com/2017/08/07/want-a-seasonal-job-at-trumps-mar-a-lago-club-fire-up-the-fax-but-the-number-doesnt-seem-to-work-realdonaldtrump/ http://realtime.blog.palmbeachpost.com/2017/08/07/want-a-sea...

jijji 9y ago

you know its bad when all your neighbors speak hindi, or when at work when you've been there for years, and you don't know any of your co-workers because none of them speak english (at fortune 500 companies in the US)

kvhdude 9y ago

i'd probably be voted down (even deservedly so). But i cannot resist : what unique sort of modelling work could an american not fullfil that the first lady was given H1B?

1_2__4 9y ago

I feel like a lot of the arguments around immigration - including H1-Bs - boil down to two pretty straightforward opposing views of immigration: 1) "We" have built something great and unique, and we want others to be able to partake of and contribute to it, but the greatness and uniqueness of it is special and we want to preserve that. This is the more conservative view. 2) "We" have an environment where great things can happen, and so we want to bring people into it and add their greatness to it to make it even greater. There is nothing special about what we have, nothing that warrants preserving, and in fact change - constant, disruptive change - is naturally good. This is the more liberal view. It bothers me that (1) is often conflated with racism, admittedly (the bothering part) because it's something I happen to agree with despite being mostly liberal on other issues. I DO think we here in America have a culture worth preserving, and while I want to open it up as much as possible to the world, I won't support doing so to the detriment and/or dissolution of what we have. I don't think constant disruption is naturally good; I didn't when I was younger and I don't think it is now. But anything even approaching a whiff of something like "preservation" is immediately labeled racist dog-whistling (which seems insane to me). Any kind of "hey, maybe non-Americans are trying to exploit this and that's not good" is racism. Saying that perhaps as much diversity as possible even if just for diversity's sake in all things is maybe not the best thing - again, racism. We need to recognize that there are real, non-racist and completely rational and informed reasons why people are uncomfortable with things like H1-B abuse, and that we don't all agree on what immigration should be or accomplish.

tkahnoski 9y ago
I don't understand this view of the world. I'd like to ask some questions to better understand. Not debate, understand. I spent a lot of time picking apart the various parts. I largely see immigration issues as capitalist vs. socialist spectrum. The capitalist wants little control over the flow of resources for a more efficient distribution of resources. The socialist wants to control the flow allocation of resources for a fair distribution of resources. So when you state the conservative position, I see that you want to control the flow of labor. What threats do you see from the flow of labor posing to the greatness and uniqueness of the US? Currently I see it as the opposite of imposing socialist tendencies impairing US companies from being able to compete with other countries that don't have the similar controls. Maybe we disagree on what makes the US culture unique. With the liberal point of view stated, I can understand the parts about disruption and change as the capitalist point of view except for the claim about "there is nothing special about what we have, nothing that warrants preserving". I don't see how immigration jeopardizes 'specialness' nor how it harms the preservation of things. We already have a wide dirth of cultural diversity dating back over many centuries, my guess is there is something in particular you value. I could look at things like Cinco de Mayo or St Patrick's day as examples of immigration both preserving special things as well as harming these through dilution and cultural appropriation. Maybe what your trying to say in many words is liberals are pro-change and conservatives are anti-change? Which is kind of the dictionary definition of the words, but I digress... I have more thoughts on how quick people are to throw 'racist' around, but that'll have to wait for another time. All I can say is that we're probably trying to preserve different things we consider great about our country.

masterrex 9y ago

I'll be excited about solutions when the quality and price of education changes for Americans. There is no 'affirmative action' for the average white male to ensure access to affordable higher education.

rrhd 9y ago
So go to community college for 2 years and then transfer to a state school. I went to a pretty meh public university. Didn't hold me back.

davidw 9y ago

I wrote about this a while back and think it's still valid: https://journal.dedasys.com/2014/12/29/people-places-and-jobs/ https://journal.dedasys.com/2014/12/29/people-places-and-job...

raitom 9y ago

Young french software engineer here. I was an intern with a J1 for a year in a company in san diego. I'm working remotely since last february. My H1B got picked in the lotery but I received an RFE early august. I had to write a ton of technical doc about my job and the system I work on. The documents were submitted mid-october. I received my approval last week. I guess if your application is legit you don't have much to fear about getting an RFE.

calvinbhai 9y ago

I may be an exception and my experience may be anecdotal, but as someone on an H1-B I think I'm seeing this as a good change. My immigrant peers working at consultancies are seeing more RFEs, and those I know to be working as direct employees are not (as often compared to consultant employees). But there's been a net increase in site visits and verifications along with RFEs to even legit applicants. For those who dont know the process here's how and when one can get an RFE: 1) Missed a key point in the application or Immigration attorney goofed up (this happens way often) 2) Position doesn't look like it needs a high skilled engineer with skills mentioned in application 3) Grossly underpaying the H1b employee Getting an RFE by itself is not the nightmare scenario. Its a problem if the employer is doing things using shady loopholes. What needs to be seen is by what %age RFEs have increased at companies like Apple, Facebook, Intel, Google etc. The bigger companies use boutique immigration law firms and its rare but not impossible for them to mess up on the immigration application process. I'm not sure what has Trump's administration done to reform the H1b system, its still as crappy as it has been. If anything certain employers were abusing the loopholes. Now its going to get tougher to abuse the loopholes.

scardine 9y ago

Will this increase the number of remote positions (work from anywhere) for software developers?

dmode 9y ago

I just wish now that the US government would kill the H1-B and all other immigrant visa and send us all home. I have spent 13 years here, I earn well over 200K, have a kid. But every 3 years, I have to renew my visa and pray and tell that there is no bullshit like RFE when visa is sent for renewal. And then the DMV drama begins as your DL expires, but your application is still not approved. When I came here, I had hope that the US government would make improvements to the immigrant system in good faith, considering all I heard from abroad was that this country is a "nation of immigrants". But it seems like the fancy thing to do these days is to blame every ill on immigrants.

bsvalley 9y ago

I don't understand why companies are still trying to bring people in the US to work for them. What's the point for the employer? How about investing overseas and training people here to handle remote offices? That's where we failed in the past... because it was too hard to manage and would require spending extra money to fix the mess. So we all decided to bring everyone in-house which is obviously a much bigger issue. I think we should invest more time in building infrastructures in other countries in order to create top of the line working places outside of the US. This would probably end up costing less and would help hiring way more people. Again, create new positions in the US like a "Remote Office Manager" and build kick ass campuses in India, China, Europe, etc. The whole immigration thing would be totally obsolete... I mean, we will be able to travel to Mars soon... why can't we even manage remote employees in 2017?

pvelagal 9y ago

Here is my take on H1B, which after checking some facts, is the last thing to worry for an average US tech worker, who don't like H1B. ) 65k Visas + 20k (for US educated MS degree holders) = 85k total every year. Lets say each one gets a 130k salary (Senator Chuck Grassley's recommendation) = ~$12 billion ) $12 billion Income. Lets say all these H1Bs send 25% back to their home countries = $3 billion gone out of USA, $9 billion spent in USA ) India's Software exports to USA in 2016 - (61+24.4+22.4 = $107.8 billion) source : https://www.statista.com/statistics/320753/indian-it-software-and-services-exports/ https://www.statista.com/statistics/320753/indian-it-softwar... ) Majority of these exports are to US. If we assume, the cost of getting software work done in India/China is probably 1/3rd of its cost in US, means, India, which exported ~$100+ billion worth of software, would have equalled $300 billion if the work was done in USA (thus creating jobs in USA). *) India, through its software exports sucked $300 billion out of USA and hence took away jobs in USA. Bottom line is, the rise of India's, China's software industries will suck the money out of USA. So, these numbers mean : H1B don't take jobs, Software engineers in India, China and rest of the world are taking them at an order of magnitude faster !

kamakazizuru 9y ago
this math is flawed in so many ways, I dont know where to start...
- pvelagal 9y ago
  Please correct me.
pvelagal 9y ago
Disclaimer: I am from India, living in USA and i am reporting what i see, which is nothing but the typical effects/consequences of Globalization. Eg. Everything i buy in Target/Walmart, including US designed marvels, like "iphone" is made in China, which means, workers at that skill level in USA would get impacted. Consider the software equivalent use case, which is India. Software that comes out of India will have impact on workers at that skill level.

t1o5 9y ago

ex H1B here. I left US because of this broken system. There are many bad apples than good ones utilizing the H1B system. Indian bodyshops, one room consultancies all over New Jersey. Even companies like Sprint,Walmart,TR,Garmin,BOFA,Chase,Visa,AMEX, they all game the system and exploit H1B employees because of their situation. There are a lot of fake payroll running firms too which keeps the fake H1B employee's status valid. There are firms which apply for "future greencards" while the beneficiary is not even physically present in the US. Even many non CS graduates faking their resumes as CS ones and applying for "specialized" positions in IT. I had enough of this and left US and immigrated to Canada for good because I am pretty sure that my future will be affected by these bad apples gaming the system. I do not like Trump personally, but he is right about the H1B immigration system. If H1B system is a lottery, then why is it called a "skilled visa" ? H1B should be merit based so as to weed out the bad apples and body shops gaming the system. Probably I should write a book on "How to game the H1B system and get away with it". The book will be an eye opener for this broken skilled visa system and its loopholes.

jstewartmobile 9y ago

Another field report: Our town has a state university and a modest tech employment market. Every H-1B holder I've met a) went to the local university, b) works at a hospital or law office, c) writes CRUD apps in Java or C#. They're good dudes, but hard to imagine that any of them are the kind of alpha-double-plus-good talent that couldn't be locally sourced.

stuffedBelly 9y ago

You know what, as an H1B receiver, I am fine with more scrutiny towards H1B. Over the past few years, I have seen competent international coworkers not able to get H1B visa because: 1. it's a lottery system, regardless of background and academic accomplishment. 2. it's been abused by outsourcing companies. Practices such as multiple-filing for one person are so shady that it baffles me how loose the inspection towards H1B application is. I totally agree that American citizens should be prioritized when it comes to hiring and my country would do the same for its citizens. I also know that immigration service is a booming business for many American law firms and they have their own agenda to go against any further regulations towards H1B. However, in a long run, if done properly, a more merit-based/restricted H1B visa could actually be beneficial to outstanding individuals who follow the rules. As someone that love American culture but also have pride in his academic/career accomplishment, I stay in the US because I like this place, not that I have to, and I am more than happy to go back to my homeland or somewhere welcoming if I am not welcomed here anymore. H1B has never been the last straw of my life and it's true for many folks I know. I am all for making H1B more accessible for accomplished individuals and more restrictive towards those who cheat the game, but do it properly so that America doesn't give an image of Xenophobia to the world.

qmachu 9y ago

Young, European, High-skilled worker here, who've been working on core Kubernetes products for three years. Got several job offers for key infra positions in various companies @ 200-250k+. Trump administration came in, decided to RFE+NOIR my H-1B with a bullshit reason, had to go back to my country, which is not my really home anymore whatsoever (wife/friends here). So yeah, that just happened. It's not only about abuses and 'Indians'.

BuckRogers 9y ago

The self-fulfilling prophecy of "there's no Americans to do these jobs" is coming to an end. In a nation of 330 million people it's been an incredulous argument and it's ruined at least 2 generations from entering STEM. People talk about women in STEM, we have a bigger issue, no one is in STEM. Conservatives like to say you get more of what you subsidize, and they've been subsidizing the rest of the world for a very long time. I hope this is a shift in the tide and not a temporary blip.