4 ms·

> [eliminating the lottery] I imagine that would be politically unpopular. Why? I'm in the US with a work visa and the idea of having a lottery to decide who i

> [eliminating the lottery] I imagine that would be politically unpopular. Why? I'm in the US with a work visa and the idea of having a lottery to decide who is allowed to work in the US is absolutely insane for me. It just does not make sense.

leggomylibro 9y ago
In the USA, "politically unpopular" often refers to the companies who pay for the legislative campaigns, not the people who vote in them.
freeone3000 9y ago
Politically unpopular is usually restricted to people who are able to vote. If you're on a work visa, you're not the target audience.
- cplanas 9y ago
  No doubt about that, but which is the reason to make a lottery out of it? "An engineer with Harvard education making 150k against an engineer from a lesser university abroad making 60k. Mmmm... impossible to decide. Let's flip a coin."
- conanbatt 9y ago
  This is the reason why the debate over this has little to no regard for the people involved in the immigration process.
trishume 9y ago
Basically for the reason someone else mentioned in a different thread: It would probably mean the visas would entirely go to Silicon Valley. There's a lot of angles that people could get mad about: - The "one percent" angle: The visas would help well-off people like me to earn extremely large amounts of money instead of merely large amounts of money in our home country. Instead of people from India/elsewhere who aren't as well off. - the fairness angle: Almost all the visas would probably end up going to Silicon Valley, which may seem unfair to other industries and locations. - lobbying angle: As someone else mentioned, the industries that profit off of cheap H1B workers, as well as industries outside of tech that couldn't pay enough, would lobby and advertise against such a change. These same arguments all apply to raising the minimum salary, but just to a lesser extent. I mean, I'd be in favour of sorting by salary, both from a selfish perspective (It would make it easier for me to get a visa) and because I think it would be better for the US in terms of bringing in highly skilled labour that is least likely to be competing with Americans (if you could hire an American, why would you pay a huge amount to win the visa salary sort?). I think there are much better immigration policies, but as far as tweaks to H1B go its solid. But, I think it would be unpopular both among Democrats and Republicans.

leggomylibro 9y ago

In the USA, "politically unpopular" often refers to the companies who pay for the legislative campaigns, not the people who vote in them.

freeone3000 9y ago

Politically unpopular is usually restricted to people who are able to vote. If you're on a work visa, you're not the target audience.

cplanas 9y ago
No doubt about that, but which is the reason to make a lottery out of it? "An engineer with Harvard education making 150k against an engineer from a lesser university abroad making 60k. Mmmm... impossible to decide. Let's flip a coin."
conanbatt 9y ago
This is the reason why the debate over this has little to no regard for the people involved in the immigration process.

trishume 9y ago

Basically for the reason someone else mentioned in a different thread: It would probably mean the visas would entirely go to Silicon Valley. There's a lot of angles that people could get mad about: - The "one percent" angle: The visas would help well-off people like me to earn extremely large amounts of money instead of merely large amounts of money in our home country. Instead of people from India/elsewhere who aren't as well off. - the fairness angle: Almost all the visas would probably end up going to Silicon Valley, which may seem unfair to other industries and locations. - lobbying angle: As someone else mentioned, the industries that profit off of cheap H1B workers, as well as industries outside of tech that couldn't pay enough, would lobby and advertise against such a change. These same arguments all apply to raising the minimum salary, but just to a lesser extent. I mean, I'd be in favour of sorting by salary, both from a selfish perspective (It would make it easier for me to get a visa) and because I think it would be better for the US in terms of bringing in highly skilled labour that is least likely to be competing with Americans (if you could hire an American, why would you pay a huge amount to win the visa salary sort?). I think there are much better immigration policies, but as far as tweaks to H1B go its solid. But, I think it would be unpopular both among Democrats and Republicans.