8 ms·

Trump’s “Hire American” order makes it harder to get H-1B visas

47 points by losvedir 8y ago

akshayB 8y ago
Companies want low salaried employees to cut down cost and they use H1 for it by giving an excuse that there is no equivalent talent in US and we need to import talent from other countries. When it comes to Tech. it all boils down to $/per hour for getting things done. These tactics may discourage H1 applications but unless they force companies to hire people in US H1 will continue to exist.
- jonathankoren 8y ago
  While this does happen for certain things, and certain segments, it's definitely not true for specialty areas like machine learning. ML / AI specialists command higher salaries because of simple supply and demand. In my personal experience, I have never seen a company hire someone on an H1B that wasn't seen as the best person for the job. Immigration status was simply a non issue at the sponsoring companies I've worked at. On the other hand, I've worked at places that rejected out of hand anyone that did need sponsorship because the company simply didn't have scale to hire immigration lawyers.
  - bdcravens 8y ago
    > I have never seen a company hire someone on an H1B that wasn't seen as the best person for the job My understanding is that H1B isn't designed to expand the hiring pool but to fill a gap where the local pool is effectively 0.
    - steego 8y ago
      > My understanding is that H1B isn't designed to expand the hiring pool but to fill a gap where the local pool is effectively 0. Maybe that was the intent, but is that true in practice? My experience has been that it expands the hiring pool because most places simply want to hire the best skill they can get for the money. Honestly, the idea that you're going to restrict H1B visas to scenarios where they couldn't hire an American first is very naive and misguided. If American workers want to ensure their wages aren't being driven down, they have to abandon these antiquated policies that only benefit employers who want to hire cheap foreign workers because the policy artificially puts them at a disadvantage in the job market. It's ironic that Americans think putting foreign workers at a disadvantage in the job market gives them an advantage. The truth is it ends up hurting them more because it's these policies that are the tools use to exploit foreign workers' situation. Why would you hire an American if you have the tools to hire and retain a foreigner who wants it more? If they have to find another sponsor, they're less likely to job hop or ask for a raise.
- jdietrich 8y ago
  If it's purely a matter of cost, surely you'd just outsource it all to Bangalore? An Indian developer in India is a hell of a lot cheaper than an Indian developer in the US.
  - CompanionCuuube 8y ago
    It isn't all about cost, it's about having a body in an office chair. Otherwise they would be more open to remote workers vs on-site.
  - r00fus 8y ago
    Managing a workforce 11:30 hours shifted is not easy. At best you have a multi-hour latency. Often this results in multi-day delays if requirements are shifting or trust in work output is not established.
- steego 8y ago
  > Companies want low salaried employees to cut down cost and they use H1 for it I've long argued that one reason H1B workers are low salaried is because H1B visa makes it harder for them to job hop and earn a better salary. Don't get me wrong, I know H1B visas don't prohibit switching jobs, but it does add enough fiction and it limits access to some employers. I would love to see fair work visas inspired by Singapore's policies that empower foreign workers to earn market wages. It only makes sense to me that we should absorb as many skilled foreign workers as we can provided they earn some minimal threshold of a salary adjusted for the cost of living in their area. It shouldn't be too high as to make it impossible to get a visa, but it also shouldn't be too low. Importing skilled tax payers is a great way to grow the economy and provide more revenue to the treasury. Pushing away foreign workers is just bad policy. It will will only encourage outsourcing and offshoring of offices. That means local economies will never benefit from the wages of foreign workers. Offshore wages can't be taxed. You encourage other countries to accelerate the development of their own tech hubs at the expense of your tech hubs.
losvedir 8y ago
Does anyone know what the "request for evidence" means exactly? What sort of evidence is required for an H1-B? Evidence of technical ability?
- silveira 8y ago
  Usually is a request for more documents. A few days ago USCIS published two new rules where they can skip the "request for additional evidence" step completely and already start a deportation (in the case of a H-1B renewal, or even green card process).
- bigcostooge 8y ago
  Technical ability alone does not qualify one for an H1b visa. You need to be above and beyond what is able to be sourced in America. Specifically, the skills need to be so advanced that you cannot find any American workers to fill the job. I imagine this test would discredit nearly every H1b software hire.
  - knuththetruth 8y ago
    It will discredit nearly every H1b in industries (like tech) where workers switch jobs often and are more competitively compensated. That’s what the system is intended to curb.
  - yourapostasy 8y ago
    > You need to be above and beyond what is able to be sourced in America. One workaround tactic I've read claimed on forums is the requirements stipulate that the candidate must work with offshore business analyst teams in their native language, which is not English. I can't believe it would be that easy, though. If that actually passes muster with federal immigration review, then these more stringent rules are just a paper tiger and political bluster.
    - bigcostooge 8y ago
      I haven’t seen this specifically in our job postings. But we only hire H1bs to reduce cost.
tbenedetti10 8y ago
Good.
- dang 8y ago
  Please don't post unsubstantive comments here.
quxbar 8y ago
Okay but can we get a $12 billion farmer-style bailout?
- deleted 8y ago
  [deleted]
- nutjob2 8y ago
  Soybeans are a national security issue.
  - User23 8y ago
    Food supply is in fact a national security issue.
nutjob2 8y ago
There's a simple work around for visa hell in the US: move your (tech) business to Europe. Lots of talent, lower employee costs, liberal immigration laws, choice of legal and tax jurisdictions. Really, it's got it all.
- dragontamer 8y ago
  Wouldn't European tech companies be subject to GPDR and other such regulations in the European market? I think move to Canada makes the most sense. Similar laws to the USA, close and a similar set of advantages that you've described.
  - dominotw 8y ago
    > similar set of advantages that you've described. low salaries, high taxes/cost of living, less jobs and less dynamic job market.
  - delecti 8y ago
    GDPR only applies to data of users who are in the EU. A company with users solely in the US is no more affected by GDPR if their developers are in the EU than they are if their developers are in the US or India. Similarly, a company with users in the EU is already affected by the GDPR even if their developers are not in the EU.
    - DanBC 8y ago
      If you operate from the EU GDPR applies to all your users. (3.1) If you operate outside the EU GDPR will apply to all your EU users if you are offering goods or services, or monitoring their behaviour in the Union. (3.2) https://gdpr-info.eu/art-3-gdpr/ https://gdpr-info.eu/art-3-gdpr/
- ardfie 8y ago
  I don’t think it’s useful to describe ‘Europe’ like this. From country to country you can have large differences in availability of candidates, expected salaries, immigration laws, and regulations and customs around running a business.
dominotw 8y ago
> Interviews with attorneys and companies, as well as other data, indicate high rates of denials Not quite clear how exactly this data was collected and how reliable it is. Also what is "other data".
jessaustin 8y ago
That is the intended effect, is it not? Isn't that what he promised to do before he was elected? Many problems admit no pareto-optimal solution.
ashelmire 8y ago
The H-1B issue is a complicated one. On the one hand, we want the US to have the best talent, and on the other you want American workers to have a better shot at American jobs, and not to have wages suppressed by cheaper foreign labor. H-1Bs are supposed to fill talent gaps, but seem to be overwhelmingly used to pay lower-than-market wages to foreign workers when you could easily hire an American - if you were offering more money. Despite the law stating that they must be offered above average wages for their jobs, studies show they are paid less on average. See https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/H-1B_visa#Wage_depression https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/H-1B_visa#Wage_depression
- anonymous5133 8y ago
  It wont help protect american workers though because the company can always just open a remote office in india to get the talent. If americans want the jobs then they need to compete in all levels with the competition which includes wages, skills and so on.
  - frgtpsswrdlame 8y ago
    >If americans want the jobs then they need to compete in all levels with the competition which includes wages, skills and so on. Okay but let's also let americans compete on the level that they have an advantage in - Location. If someone wants to outsource, fine, but if they want workers in the states, it shouldn't be foreigners on temporary visas working there.
  - knuththetruth 8y ago
    They won’t open that remote office though because then the execs at these companies wouldn’t have teams that they “manage.” H1bs were a solution to the problem of having a cheaper, more locked down labor force without correspondingly making the execs themselves obsolete. It’s about bringing back a greater degree of authoritarian control in competitive labor categories where such behavior would otherwise make them unattractive to workers.
  - ashelmire 8y ago
    I believe many of these companies have tried that, and have moved away from it - because it didn't work out, and they found having American developers was better. Hence the insourcing trend lately.
patrickg_zill 8y ago
I have not interacted much with h1b's. However a friend of mine has, at several different companies and in general has not been impressed. Specifically when a quote for single sign on was made for the customer, that it would take 3 months. He implemented the feature over a weekend... This is in the "body shop" consulting side of the industry. I have heard similar complaints about H1b's in the cell phone and telecom industry as well. EDIT to add: specialty cases as mentioned elsewhere in the thread, could well be different...
dmurray 8y ago
As I understand it, H1B visas are subject to a lottery system, the number of places available has not changed in years, and there are always more applicants than there are visas available. Do denied applications count towards the cap? If not, then this change can't be making it meaningfully "harder" to get a visa. If it's harder for one applicant to get a visa, it's easier for another who benefits from the first one being rejected. Ideally this should benefit the really excellent applicants and disadvantage the body shop outsourcers, which is exactly the H1B reform HN is normally calling for.
jonathankoren 8y ago
The is a strategic blunder. One of the great historical advantages of the United States has been an excellent higher education system, a strong economy. It's an environment that has attracted some of the most talented people from around the globe to come here. Unfortunately, current immigration policy hamstrings that advantage, and this announced policy just further kneecaps it. The biggest flaw in the H-1B system is that it's a nonimmigration visa. A very common path, is to come to United States on an F-1 student visa, graduate, then get a job on an H-1B. But the H-1B is time limited, and indentures people to a specific employer. Get a crappy job, get low balled, you're screwed, and god help you if you don't start your green card paperwork early enough. Couple this with the limited number of visas, we're simply turning away talented people and encouraging them to go home and compete against the United States on the international stage. It's stupid. Instead, we should create a new visa that's allows anyone that graduated from an American university to stay in the United States, work get a job, change a job. Allow their spouse and children to come, and also work. Essentially, give them a diploma and a green card.
- hiram112 8y ago
  The worst thing you could do, as a nation state with a (dubious) lack of talent, with a long-term view of being competitive, would be to allow your companies to maximize short-term profits by importing and training foreigners (many who won't stay and who will not spend their wages domestically), depressing salaries, and making the field as unattractive as possible for native citizens. Do you think smart native students can't see that all the grad students are foreigners, all the entry level jobs are filled with H1Bs and F1 visa-holders, and that salaries aren't really that great compared to finance, or medicine, or dozens of other fields that have barriers to entry, or at least aren't completely overrun with workers from low wage nations? Instead of letting the market work as it's designed - where demand pushes up wages, we flood the industry with labor and depress wages, then throw a few billion dollars at public school unions to teach kindergartners to program (i.e. buy IPads), and expect things to work out well. :/
  - jonathankoren 8y ago
    I'm sorry but this nationalist rhetoric makes no sense. Are the immigrants being trained and leaving, or are they staying and driving down wages so low that Americans don't want the jobs? If the later, then why not keep bringing in immigrants to do the jobs that Americans turn their noses up at? If they're coming over here, filling our grad schools and taking our jobs in our high wage nation, aren't they now high wage earners? Even your "letting the market work as it's designed" plan doesn't make sense. So if there's no one to do the jobs, you think that American companies are just going to tough it out for a decade, raising wages even higher, until a new crop of people get trained up, and then depress market again? Isn't that horrible because the wages are being depressed? Why would a company do this? Why wouldn't they just leave, thus depressing the economy even more? Immigrants stay when you encourage them to stay. Not only do they get jobs contributing to the American economy, but they also have kids here. None of this makes sense through any sort of economic lens. It does make sense, if all you care about is if people from different places, with different languages, different customs, and different looks aren't getting ahead in your society. There's a word for that. In fact, there are several of words for that, but I'll go with the simple one. It's racist. And just, so we're both clear, I'm calling you a racist.
didibus 8y ago
In my opinion, they just need to allow H1B mobility. If H1B workers could easilly switch job once they're here, then they could negotiate higher salaries. Part of the trick is that an H1B employee cannot complain about poor conditions, or low wages, because they're dependent on the sponsoring company. If that was true, H1Bs would quickly force wages back up, and employers would once again freely compete for talent.
rjkennedy98 8y ago
I work with many H1-B's. People ask why don't they only use H1-B's? They do when they can, but there is a major difference between American and Indian Engineers. Indian Engineers are good at doing a very specific task with clear requirements. However, they struggle with open-ended requirements that require originality and ingenuity to solve. For instance, I had a co-worker that worked on building a framework based on Angular so that it would be simple and formulaic to make UI updates. Once they were able to see that the Indians could leverage the framework without help, he was let go.
ProfessorLayton 8y ago
It seems like a better step towards fixing this h1-b mess is to get rid of the lottery system, and just move towards making companies bid for each slot, with the "bid" being a salary that goes 100% towards the employee. This would be win-win-win: - Companies that truly need the talent will bid highly for a slot. - H1-b employees will get paid more as quantities are limited. - H1-b slots will be better utilized towards jobs that actually need specialization, not lower wage work. - It'll probably be cheaper to "Hire American" Downsides: Only FAANG and other large companies could afford such a system, but so what? What entitles companies to hire cheap labor anyway? A fix for this could also be to make it more expensive for each additional h1-b slot the company hires, I suppose.
- throwaway37585 8y ago
  > What entitles companies to hire cheap labor anyway? What entitles you to decide what labor companies hire?
  - ProfessorLayton 8y ago
    Judging by your incendiary comment history on your throwaway account, why should I believe your question is in good faith?
    - throwaway37585 8y ago
      Which comment do you consider incendiary? And two can play that game. Judging by your incendiary comment history on your account, why should I believe your question is in good faith? I love it when people comment on my account name as if it were some sort of rebuttal. It exposes the lazy thinkers.
- sharpy 8y ago
  The only downside would be that almost 100% of the visa allocation would go to IT then. I believe medical field also gets quite a few H1B workers.
  - 8y ago
hiram112 8y ago
I voted for Trump in 2016 specifically because of this issue, and am glad to see he is following through on yet another one of his promises. H1B sounds good in theory, and I'll admit is a valid system for a small percentage of talented employees and companies working on hard problems. OTOH, big business and the body shops have ruined it for the rest of us. If there is indeed a talent shortage, the most short-sighted thing you could do as a nation is to import foreigners, depress wages, and make the industry as unattractive as possible for current students. BTW, I've worked in India and seen how the game is played both here and there, so I'm not just the typical xenophobe who's crying about Der took er jerbs (as if that wasn't a valid thing to be angry about). But I know that people from any other country would NOT tolerate training foreign workers from lower-COL nations as replacements for their own job, and Americans now need to push back, too. Enough is enough.
codeafin 8y ago
If you check the official government reports, you'll see it's actually the other way around. 2016 H-1Bs [1] - 398718 submitted with 53456 denied = 13% denial rate 2017 H-1Bs [2] - 403675 submitted with 37993 denied = 9% denial rate So it looks like the denial rate has actually decreased. [1] https://www.uscis.gov/sites/default/files/USCIS/Resources/Reports%20and%20Studies/H-1B/h-1B-FY16.pdf https://www.uscis.gov/sites/default/files/USCIS/Resources/Re... [2] https://www.uscis.gov/sites/default/files/files/nativedocuments/Characteristics_of_H-1B_Specialty_Occupation_Workers_FY17.pdf https://www.uscis.gov/sites/default/files/files/nativedocume...
- jessaustin 8y ago
  [EDIT] Haha never mind. Attack of dyslexia...
  - codeafin 8y ago
    Where are you seeing that there were more denials than submitted? On the first table, it shows the total submitted is 398,718. The number approved is 345,262, which leaves at most 53,456 denied (398,718 - 345,262 = 53,456).

47 points by losvedir 8y ago

Companies want low salaried employees to cut down cost and they use H1 for it by giving an excuse that there is no equivalent talent in US and we need to import talent from other countries. When it comes to Tech. it all boils down to $/per hour for getting things done. These tactics may discourage H1 applications but unless they force companies to hire people in US H1 will continue to exist.

jonathankoren 8y ago
While this does happen for certain things, and certain segments, it's definitely not true for specialty areas like machine learning. ML / AI specialists command higher salaries because of simple supply and demand. In my personal experience, I have never seen a company hire someone on an H1B that wasn't seen as the best person for the job. Immigration status was simply a non issue at the sponsoring companies I've worked at. On the other hand, I've worked at places that rejected out of hand anyone that did need sponsorship because the company simply didn't have scale to hire immigration lawyers.
- bdcravens 8y ago
  > I have never seen a company hire someone on an H1B that wasn't seen as the best person for the job My understanding is that H1B isn't designed to expand the hiring pool but to fill a gap where the local pool is effectively 0.
  - steego 8y ago
    > My understanding is that H1B isn't designed to expand the hiring pool but to fill a gap where the local pool is effectively 0. Maybe that was the intent, but is that true in practice? My experience has been that it expands the hiring pool because most places simply want to hire the best skill they can get for the money. Honestly, the idea that you're going to restrict H1B visas to scenarios where they couldn't hire an American first is very naive and misguided. If American workers want to ensure their wages aren't being driven down, they have to abandon these antiquated policies that only benefit employers who want to hire cheap foreign workers because the policy artificially puts them at a disadvantage in the job market. It's ironic that Americans think putting foreign workers at a disadvantage in the job market gives them an advantage. The truth is it ends up hurting them more because it's these policies that are the tools use to exploit foreign workers' situation. Why would you hire an American if you have the tools to hire and retain a foreigner who wants it more? If they have to find another sponsor, they're less likely to job hop or ask for a raise.
jdietrich 8y ago
If it's purely a matter of cost, surely you'd just outsource it all to Bangalore? An Indian developer in India is a hell of a lot cheaper than an Indian developer in the US.
- CompanionCuuube 8y ago
  It isn't all about cost, it's about having a body in an office chair. Otherwise they would be more open to remote workers vs on-site.
- r00fus 8y ago
  Managing a workforce 11:30 hours shifted is not easy. At best you have a multi-hour latency. Often this results in multi-day delays if requirements are shifting or trust in work output is not established.
steego 8y ago
> Companies want low salaried employees to cut down cost and they use H1 for it I've long argued that one reason H1B workers are low salaried is because H1B visa makes it harder for them to job hop and earn a better salary. Don't get me wrong, I know H1B visas don't prohibit switching jobs, but it does add enough fiction and it limits access to some employers. I would love to see fair work visas inspired by Singapore's policies that empower foreign workers to earn market wages. It only makes sense to me that we should absorb as many skilled foreign workers as we can provided they earn some minimal threshold of a salary adjusted for the cost of living in their area. It shouldn't be too high as to make it impossible to get a visa, but it also shouldn't be too low. Importing skilled tax payers is a great way to grow the economy and provide more revenue to the treasury. Pushing away foreign workers is just bad policy. It will will only encourage outsourcing and offshoring of offices. That means local economies will never benefit from the wages of foreign workers. Offshore wages can't be taxed. You encourage other countries to accelerate the development of their own tech hubs at the expense of your tech hubs.

losvedir 8y ago

Does anyone know what the "request for evidence" means exactly? What sort of evidence is required for an H1-B? Evidence of technical ability?

silveira 8y ago
Usually is a request for more documents. A few days ago USCIS published two new rules where they can skip the "request for additional evidence" step completely and already start a deportation (in the case of a H-1B renewal, or even green card process).
bigcostooge 8y ago
Technical ability alone does not qualify one for an H1b visa. You need to be above and beyond what is able to be sourced in America. Specifically, the skills need to be so advanced that you cannot find any American workers to fill the job. I imagine this test would discredit nearly every H1b software hire.
- knuththetruth 8y ago
  It will discredit nearly every H1b in industries (like tech) where workers switch jobs often and are more competitively compensated. That’s what the system is intended to curb.
- yourapostasy 8y ago
  > You need to be above and beyond what is able to be sourced in America. One workaround tactic I've read claimed on forums is the requirements stipulate that the candidate must work with offshore business analyst teams in their native language, which is not English. I can't believe it would be that easy, though. If that actually passes muster with federal immigration review, then these more stringent rules are just a paper tiger and political bluster.
  - bigcostooge 8y ago
    I haven’t seen this specifically in our job postings. But we only hire H1bs to reduce cost.

tbenedetti10 8y ago

Good.

dang 8y ago
Please don't post unsubstantive comments here.

quxbar 8y ago

Okay but can we get a $12 billion farmer-style bailout?

deleted 8y ago
[deleted]
nutjob2 8y ago
Soybeans are a national security issue.
- User23 8y ago
  Food supply is in fact a national security issue.

nutjob2 8y ago

There's a simple work around for visa hell in the US: move your (tech) business to Europe. Lots of talent, lower employee costs, liberal immigration laws, choice of legal and tax jurisdictions. Really, it's got it all.

dragontamer 8y ago
Wouldn't European tech companies be subject to GPDR and other such regulations in the European market? I think move to Canada makes the most sense. Similar laws to the USA, close and a similar set of advantages that you've described.
- dominotw 8y ago
  > similar set of advantages that you've described. low salaries, high taxes/cost of living, less jobs and less dynamic job market.
- delecti 8y ago
  GDPR only applies to data of users who are in the EU. A company with users solely in the US is no more affected by GDPR if their developers are in the EU than they are if their developers are in the US or India. Similarly, a company with users in the EU is already affected by the GDPR even if their developers are not in the EU.
  - DanBC 8y ago
    If you operate from the EU GDPR applies to all your users. (3.1) If you operate outside the EU GDPR will apply to all your EU users if you are offering goods or services, or monitoring their behaviour in the Union. (3.2) https://gdpr-info.eu/art-3-gdpr/ https://gdpr-info.eu/art-3-gdpr/
ardfie 8y ago
I don’t think it’s useful to describe ‘Europe’ like this. From country to country you can have large differences in availability of candidates, expected salaries, immigration laws, and regulations and customs around running a business.

dominotw 8y ago

> Interviews with attorneys and companies, as well as other data, indicate high rates of denials Not quite clear how exactly this data was collected and how reliable it is. Also what is "other data".

jessaustin 8y ago

That is the intended effect, is it not? Isn't that what he promised to do before he was elected? Many problems admit no pareto-optimal solution.

ashelmire 8y ago

The H-1B issue is a complicated one. On the one hand, we want the US to have the best talent, and on the other you want American workers to have a better shot at American jobs, and not to have wages suppressed by cheaper foreign labor. H-1Bs are supposed to fill talent gaps, but seem to be overwhelmingly used to pay lower-than-market wages to foreign workers when you could easily hire an American - if you were offering more money. Despite the law stating that they must be offered above average wages for their jobs, studies show they are paid less on average. See https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/H-1B_visa#Wage_depression https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/H-1B_visa#Wage_depression

anonymous5133 8y ago
It wont help protect american workers though because the company can always just open a remote office in india to get the talent. If americans want the jobs then they need to compete in all levels with the competition which includes wages, skills and so on.
- frgtpsswrdlame 8y ago
  >If americans want the jobs then they need to compete in all levels with the competition which includes wages, skills and so on. Okay but let's also let americans compete on the level that they have an advantage in - Location. If someone wants to outsource, fine, but if they want workers in the states, it shouldn't be foreigners on temporary visas working there.
- knuththetruth 8y ago
  They won’t open that remote office though because then the execs at these companies wouldn’t have teams that they “manage.” H1bs were a solution to the problem of having a cheaper, more locked down labor force without correspondingly making the execs themselves obsolete. It’s about bringing back a greater degree of authoritarian control in competitive labor categories where such behavior would otherwise make them unattractive to workers.
- ashelmire 8y ago
  I believe many of these companies have tried that, and have moved away from it - because it didn't work out, and they found having American developers was better. Hence the insourcing trend lately.

patrickg_zill 8y ago

I have not interacted much with h1b's. However a friend of mine has, at several different companies and in general has not been impressed. Specifically when a quote for single sign on was made for the customer, that it would take 3 months. He implemented the feature over a weekend... This is in the "body shop" consulting side of the industry. I have heard similar complaints about H1b's in the cell phone and telecom industry as well. EDIT to add: specialty cases as mentioned elsewhere in the thread, could well be different...

dmurray 8y ago

As I understand it, H1B visas are subject to a lottery system, the number of places available has not changed in years, and there are always more applicants than there are visas available. Do denied applications count towards the cap? If not, then this change can't be making it meaningfully "harder" to get a visa. If it's harder for one applicant to get a visa, it's easier for another who benefits from the first one being rejected. Ideally this should benefit the really excellent applicants and disadvantage the body shop outsourcers, which is exactly the H1B reform HN is normally calling for.

jonathankoren 8y ago

The is a strategic blunder. One of the great historical advantages of the United States has been an excellent higher education system, a strong economy. It's an environment that has attracted some of the most talented people from around the globe to come here. Unfortunately, current immigration policy hamstrings that advantage, and this announced policy just further kneecaps it. The biggest flaw in the H-1B system is that it's a nonimmigration visa. A very common path, is to come to United States on an F-1 student visa, graduate, then get a job on an H-1B. But the H-1B is time limited, and indentures people to a specific employer. Get a crappy job, get low balled, you're screwed, and god help you if you don't start your green card paperwork early enough. Couple this with the limited number of visas, we're simply turning away talented people and encouraging them to go home and compete against the United States on the international stage. It's stupid. Instead, we should create a new visa that's allows anyone that graduated from an American university to stay in the United States, work get a job, change a job. Allow their spouse and children to come, and also work. Essentially, give them a diploma and a green card.

hiram112 8y ago
The worst thing you could do, as a nation state with a (dubious) lack of talent, with a long-term view of being competitive, would be to allow your companies to maximize short-term profits by importing and training foreigners (many who won't stay and who will not spend their wages domestically), depressing salaries, and making the field as unattractive as possible for native citizens. Do you think smart native students can't see that all the grad students are foreigners, all the entry level jobs are filled with H1Bs and F1 visa-holders, and that salaries aren't really that great compared to finance, or medicine, or dozens of other fields that have barriers to entry, or at least aren't completely overrun with workers from low wage nations? Instead of letting the market work as it's designed - where demand pushes up wages, we flood the industry with labor and depress wages, then throw a few billion dollars at public school unions to teach kindergartners to program (i.e. buy IPads), and expect things to work out well. :/
- jonathankoren 8y ago
  I'm sorry but this nationalist rhetoric makes no sense. Are the immigrants being trained and leaving, or are they staying and driving down wages so low that Americans don't want the jobs? If the later, then why not keep bringing in immigrants to do the jobs that Americans turn their noses up at? If they're coming over here, filling our grad schools and taking our jobs in our high wage nation, aren't they now high wage earners? Even your "letting the market work as it's designed" plan doesn't make sense. So if there's no one to do the jobs, you think that American companies are just going to tough it out for a decade, raising wages even higher, until a new crop of people get trained up, and then depress market again? Isn't that horrible because the wages are being depressed? Why would a company do this? Why wouldn't they just leave, thus depressing the economy even more? Immigrants stay when you encourage them to stay. Not only do they get jobs contributing to the American economy, but they also have kids here. None of this makes sense through any sort of economic lens. It does make sense, if all you care about is if people from different places, with different languages, different customs, and different looks aren't getting ahead in your society. There's a word for that. In fact, there are several of words for that, but I'll go with the simple one. It's racist. And just, so we're both clear, I'm calling you a racist.

didibus 8y ago

In my opinion, they just need to allow H1B mobility. If H1B workers could easilly switch job once they're here, then they could negotiate higher salaries. Part of the trick is that an H1B employee cannot complain about poor conditions, or low wages, because they're dependent on the sponsoring company. If that was true, H1Bs would quickly force wages back up, and employers would once again freely compete for talent.

rjkennedy98 8y ago

I work with many H1-B's. People ask why don't they only use H1-B's? They do when they can, but there is a major difference between American and Indian Engineers. Indian Engineers are good at doing a very specific task with clear requirements. However, they struggle with open-ended requirements that require originality and ingenuity to solve. For instance, I had a co-worker that worked on building a framework based on Angular so that it would be simple and formulaic to make UI updates. Once they were able to see that the Indians could leverage the framework without help, he was let go.

ProfessorLayton 8y ago

It seems like a better step towards fixing this h1-b mess is to get rid of the lottery system, and just move towards making companies bid for each slot, with the "bid" being a salary that goes 100% towards the employee. This would be win-win-win: - Companies that truly need the talent will bid highly for a slot. - H1-b employees will get paid more as quantities are limited. - H1-b slots will be better utilized towards jobs that actually need specialization, not lower wage work. - It'll probably be cheaper to "Hire American" Downsides: Only FAANG and other large companies could afford such a system, but so what? What entitles companies to hire cheap labor anyway? A fix for this could also be to make it more expensive for each additional h1-b slot the company hires, I suppose.

throwaway37585 8y ago
> What entitles companies to hire cheap labor anyway? What entitles you to decide what labor companies hire?
- ProfessorLayton 8y ago
  Judging by your incendiary comment history on your throwaway account, why should I believe your question is in good faith?
  - throwaway37585 8y ago
    Which comment do you consider incendiary? And two can play that game. Judging by your incendiary comment history on your account, why should I believe your question is in good faith? I love it when people comment on my account name as if it were some sort of rebuttal. It exposes the lazy thinkers.
sharpy 8y ago
The only downside would be that almost 100% of the visa allocation would go to IT then. I believe medical field also gets quite a few H1B workers.
- 8y ago

hiram112 8y ago

I voted for Trump in 2016 specifically because of this issue, and am glad to see he is following through on yet another one of his promises. H1B sounds good in theory, and I'll admit is a valid system for a small percentage of talented employees and companies working on hard problems. OTOH, big business and the body shops have ruined it for the rest of us. If there is indeed a talent shortage, the most short-sighted thing you could do as a nation is to import foreigners, depress wages, and make the industry as unattractive as possible for current students. BTW, I've worked in India and seen how the game is played both here and there, so I'm not just the typical xenophobe who's crying about Der took er jerbs (as if that wasn't a valid thing to be angry about). But I know that people from any other country would NOT tolerate training foreign workers from lower-COL nations as replacements for their own job, and Americans now need to push back, too. Enough is enough.

codeafin 8y ago

If you check the official government reports, you'll see it's actually the other way around. 2016 H-1Bs [1] - 398718 submitted with 53456 denied = 13% denial rate 2017 H-1Bs [2] - 403675 submitted with 37993 denied = 9% denial rate So it looks like the denial rate has actually decreased. [1] https://www.uscis.gov/sites/default/files/USCIS/Resources/Reports%20and%20Studies/H-1B/h-1B-FY16.pdf https://www.uscis.gov/sites/default/files/USCIS/Resources/Re... [2] https://www.uscis.gov/sites/default/files/files/nativedocuments/Characteristics_of_H-1B_Specialty_Occupation_Workers_FY17.pdf https://www.uscis.gov/sites/default/files/files/nativedocume...

jessaustin 8y ago
[EDIT] Haha never mind. Attack of dyslexia...
- codeafin 8y ago
  Where are you seeing that there were more denials than submitted? On the first table, it shows the total submitted is 398,718. The number approved is 345,262, which leaves at most 53,456 denied (398,718 - 345,262 = 53,456).