5 ms·

I don't know the motivation of the poster authors, but the H-1B program is BS as stated in law. I've seen it abused with my own eyes. Corporations just want che

by tabtab 9y ago

I don't know the motivation of the poster authors, but the H-1B program is BS as stated in law. I've seen it abused with my own eyes. Corporations just want cheap and/or complacent labor, and use the "shortage" lie to get it. IT may be in an up cycle now, but it's had hard times also, such after the dot-com bust on the west coast, and citizens were being replaced or skipped during the hard times.

RamshackleJ 9y ago
Yep, being anti-h1b !== being anti-immigrant. Immigrants who are free to hop jobs are a key component of a vibrant, entrepreneurial, worker-friendly economy. Immigrants who are disposable, bonded labor undermine the freedoms everyone else has while also promoting inefficient labor allocation. not sure if this organization actual feels that way though...
- akhilcacharya 9y ago
  The only other realistic path to a green card for an Indian national, as far as I know, is L1 intracompany transfer (which has an identical effect on the local labor pool) or sponsorship from another American citizen, the latter of which the current administration and its supporters are attempting to limit.
- tabtab 9y ago
  I forgot to describe what I meant by "complacent" and you helped clear that up. Thanks! While it is technically possible for such a visa worker to hop jobs, it's not easy in practice, such that they are more or less indentured servants. They also often don't have families (yet) and so can work long hours. By the way, "!==" (or "!=") means "not the same as" for you non-coders out there.
biocomputation 9y ago
Even worse, many non-profits are exempt from the annual caps. http://www.thenonprofittimes.com/news-articles/nonprofits-using-h-1b-visa-program-face-uncertainty/ http://www.thenonprofittimes.com/news-articles/nonprofits-us... "For-profit companies and many nonprofits come under a nationwide cap of 65,000 H-1B visas per year, plus 20,000 for an advanced degree exemption. Nonprofits are exempt from any cap if they are institutions of higher education; related to or affiliated with an institution of higher education; or a research organization." I'm a lifelong Democrat (and socially and fiscally liberal) and I see this as an issue of social justice for American workers. Tech jobs are among the best paying jobs in the country, and if we're serious about income inequality then more (or very nearly all) of these jobs need to go to US citizens. The US already has a generous immigration policy. H-1B is solely about access to cheap labor, and it should be ended immediately.
- dilyevsky 9y ago
  > I'm a lifelong Democrat (and socially and fiscally liberal) and I see this as an issue of social justice for American workers. Why not take this one step further and make it “white Murican workers”? Or how bout “white straight males of aryan descent”?
  - freejulian 9y ago
    There's nothing wrong with being against laws that weaken labor's bargaining power. Productivity and wages decoupled a long time ago. It's about time the working class started fighting back. It's obvious corporations want cheap labor, and claiming there's a "skill shortage" is an easy way to achieve that.
  - biocomputation 9y ago
    << Why not take this one step further and make it “white Murican workers”? Or how bout “white straight males of aryan descent”? American worker doesn't mean "white Murican worker". It means American citizen. American citizen isn't a synonym for Caucasian. You're doing that thing that people do when we talk about H1-B. You're conflating opposition to H1-B with racism and xenophobia. It's not racist or xenophobia to say that American workers should have first crack at economic opportunities in their own country. As noted in my original remarks, this is something we have to talk about if we're serious about addressing things like income inequality and equal access to economic opportunity. I think it's utterly wrong to give the best economic opportunities to foreign nationals when there are imminently qualified US workers.
    - dilyevsky 9y ago
      > It means American citizen. orly? so you're excluding GC holders as well? > You're conflating opposition to H1-B with racism and xenophobia. I'm conflating it with nationalism. Which it is. Nationalism and racism/xenophobia and other isms/phobias come hand in hand. > I think it's utterly wrong to give the best economic opportunities to foreign nationals when there are imminently qualified US workers. You think wrong.
- 9y ago
cowmoo728 9y ago
It seems like the most effective strategy for H1B applicants without truly exceptional skills is to pay a consulting company to mail thousands of fake applications and simply overwhelm US immigration with junk. Many of these people are then held semi hostage, have their immigration documents taken from them illegally, and are forced to pay annual dues to get the continued support of these companies in filing renewals for their immigration status. https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=10033111 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=10033111 https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2015/11/06/us/outsourcing-companies-dominate-h1b-visas.html https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2015/11/06/us/outsourcin... https://www.quora.com/What-are-some-egregious-examples-of-H1B-visa-abuse https://www.quora.com/What-are-some-egregious-examples-of-H1...
mozumder 9y ago
H1B salaries are more expensive than regular salaries for a lot of jobs: https://www.marketwatch.com/story/are-h-1b-visa-workers-really-paid-less-than-americans-2017-04-24 https://www.marketwatch.com/story/are-h-1b-visa-workers-real... And the jobs where they're paid less, they're not much cheaper.
- s73v3r_ 9y ago
  But, if you're one of the coding sweatshops, you're able to get away with gross abuses of labor law. You can work them to the bone, far more hours than you would a citizen.
  - mozumder 9y ago
    Citizens don't have work hour limits. I've put in 100+ hours a week in jobs before.
    - s73v3r_ 9y ago
      Citizens can go find another job fairly easily. They don't get deported if they get fired.
s73v3r_ 9y ago
I think most on both sides would agree that the program as-is is BS (kinda like a lot of topics these days). The disagreement is what you want to do to fix it. Do you want to give more power to the immigrants so that they are not abused by the sweatshops? Or do you want to simply get rid of the program? That being said, I do believe that the group behind the ads is on the "ban the program and immigrants" side.
bjourne 9y ago
Then it seems that the most sensible way forward is not to limit immigrants ability to immigrate, but to limit corporations' power to abuse immigrants, doesn't it?
- hocuspocus 9y ago
  Or even limit corporations' power to abuse workers altogether, so that Disney can't just lay off its entire IT staff and replace it with cheaper labor, but hey that would be business unfriendly! The level of cognitive dissonance on HN every time this topic comes up is pretty impressive.

by tabtab 9y ago

RamshackleJ 9y ago

Yep, being anti-h1b !== being anti-immigrant. Immigrants who are free to hop jobs are a key component of a vibrant, entrepreneurial, worker-friendly economy. Immigrants who are disposable, bonded labor undermine the freedoms everyone else has while also promoting inefficient labor allocation. not sure if this organization actual feels that way though...

akhilcacharya 9y ago
The only other realistic path to a green card for an Indian national, as far as I know, is L1 intracompany transfer (which has an identical effect on the local labor pool) or sponsorship from another American citizen, the latter of which the current administration and its supporters are attempting to limit.
tabtab 9y ago
I forgot to describe what I meant by "complacent" and you helped clear that up. Thanks! While it is technically possible for such a visa worker to hop jobs, it's not easy in practice, such that they are more or less indentured servants. They also often don't have families (yet) and so can work long hours. By the way, "!==" (or "!=") means "not the same as" for you non-coders out there.

biocomputation 9y ago

Even worse, many non-profits are exempt from the annual caps. http://www.thenonprofittimes.com/news-articles/nonprofits-using-h-1b-visa-program-face-uncertainty/ http://www.thenonprofittimes.com/news-articles/nonprofits-us... "For-profit companies and many nonprofits come under a nationwide cap of 65,000 H-1B visas per year, plus 20,000 for an advanced degree exemption. Nonprofits are exempt from any cap if they are institutions of higher education; related to or affiliated with an institution of higher education; or a research organization." I'm a lifelong Democrat (and socially and fiscally liberal) and I see this as an issue of social justice for American workers. Tech jobs are among the best paying jobs in the country, and if we're serious about income inequality then more (or very nearly all) of these jobs need to go to US citizens. The US already has a generous immigration policy. H-1B is solely about access to cheap labor, and it should be ended immediately.

dilyevsky 9y ago
> I'm a lifelong Democrat (and socially and fiscally liberal) and I see this as an issue of social justice for American workers. Why not take this one step further and make it “white Murican workers”? Or how bout “white straight males of aryan descent”?
- freejulian 9y ago
  There's nothing wrong with being against laws that weaken labor's bargaining power. Productivity and wages decoupled a long time ago. It's about time the working class started fighting back. It's obvious corporations want cheap labor, and claiming there's a "skill shortage" is an easy way to achieve that.
- biocomputation 9y ago
  << Why not take this one step further and make it “white Murican workers”? Or how bout “white straight males of aryan descent”? American worker doesn't mean "white Murican worker". It means American citizen. American citizen isn't a synonym for Caucasian. You're doing that thing that people do when we talk about H1-B. You're conflating opposition to H1-B with racism and xenophobia. It's not racist or xenophobia to say that American workers should have first crack at economic opportunities in their own country. As noted in my original remarks, this is something we have to talk about if we're serious about addressing things like income inequality and equal access to economic opportunity. I think it's utterly wrong to give the best economic opportunities to foreign nationals when there are imminently qualified US workers.
  - dilyevsky 9y ago
    > It means American citizen. orly? so you're excluding GC holders as well? > You're conflating opposition to H1-B with racism and xenophobia. I'm conflating it with nationalism. Which it is. Nationalism and racism/xenophobia and other isms/phobias come hand in hand. > I think it's utterly wrong to give the best economic opportunities to foreign nationals when there are imminently qualified US workers. You think wrong.
9y ago

cowmoo728 9y ago

It seems like the most effective strategy for H1B applicants without truly exceptional skills is to pay a consulting company to mail thousands of fake applications and simply overwhelm US immigration with junk. Many of these people are then held semi hostage, have their immigration documents taken from them illegally, and are forced to pay annual dues to get the continued support of these companies in filing renewals for their immigration status. https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=10033111 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=10033111 https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2015/11/06/us/outsourcing-companies-dominate-h1b-visas.html https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2015/11/06/us/outsourcin... https://www.quora.com/What-are-some-egregious-examples-of-H1B-visa-abuse https://www.quora.com/What-are-some-egregious-examples-of-H1...

mozumder 9y ago

H1B salaries are more expensive than regular salaries for a lot of jobs: https://www.marketwatch.com/story/are-h-1b-visa-workers-really-paid-less-than-americans-2017-04-24 https://www.marketwatch.com/story/are-h-1b-visa-workers-real... And the jobs where they're paid less, they're not much cheaper.

s73v3r_ 9y ago
But, if you're one of the coding sweatshops, you're able to get away with gross abuses of labor law. You can work them to the bone, far more hours than you would a citizen.
- mozumder 9y ago
  Citizens don't have work hour limits. I've put in 100+ hours a week in jobs before.
  - s73v3r_ 9y ago
    Citizens can go find another job fairly easily. They don't get deported if they get fired.

s73v3r_ 9y ago

I think most on both sides would agree that the program as-is is BS (kinda like a lot of topics these days). The disagreement is what you want to do to fix it. Do you want to give more power to the immigrants so that they are not abused by the sweatshops? Or do you want to simply get rid of the program? That being said, I do believe that the group behind the ads is on the "ban the program and immigrants" side.

bjourne 9y ago

Then it seems that the most sensible way forward is not to limit immigrants ability to immigrate, but to limit corporations' power to abuse immigrants, doesn't it?

hocuspocus 9y ago
Or even limit corporations' power to abuse workers altogether, so that Disney can't just lay off its entire IT staff and replace it with cheaper labor, but hey that would be business unfriendly! The level of cognitive dissonance on HN every time this topic comes up is pretty impressive.