8 ms·

The obvious solution (making h1b non-transferable across employers again, without even the 30 day window) probably causes more harm than benefit here. I assume

by rdl 8y ago

The obvious solution (making h1b non-transferable across employers again, without even the 30 day window) probably causes more harm than benefit here. I assume someone could abusively misuse h1b in the traditional Wipro/Infosys way anyway, by doing staffing companies. His fraud was just more capital efficient but not that fundamentally different. It is probably unpopular, but I think h1b should be ended. Genuine short term needs should be covered through something like L1, and aside from specific categories of non-immigrant visa like medical or educational, we should just expand immigrant visas on a Canadian/NZ style merit/points system. This would be less discriminatory against people from big countries (China and India specifically), avoid some of the abuse possibilities, and be better for employees/immigrants and their families. The only losers would be body shops and large employers who benefit today from a limited form of indenture.

beerlord 8y ago
Any replacement visa needs to be like the diversity lottery (or the Olympics) by rewarding applicants from smaller countries. The migrant intake shouldn't be dominated completely by India and China - their sheer size gives them an advantage, as naturalized Indian and Chinese employers will then just go on to hire their own countrymen. For example, 76% of H1B visas went to Indians. Having multiple, smaller groups of people inside the USA also assists integration - instead of being able to fall back on a parallel society, migrants will be forced to integrate and learn English. Plus, just like the Olympics, diversity makes things interesting. Having (qualified) people from Belgium, Poland, Kenya, Thailand, Japan, Colombia, Mongolia (for example) is more interesting than just India, India, India, China, China, China.... A broader pool of migrants also helps US businesses expand worldwide. Finally, the schemes should also include a minimum 55% quota of women, from each country. This ensures that any visa scheme does not become completely dominated by men, and addresses past imbalances.
- fooker 8y ago
  I'm glad you are not in charge of immigration policy.
- GordonS 8y ago
  > Any replacement visa needs to be like the diversity lottery (or the Olympics) by rewarding applicants from smaller countries I'm not sure I understand the rationale behind this? Why does it matter what country applicants are from as long as they have the skills the economy needs?
- rdl 8y ago
  There is definitely commercial/political/etc. benefit to the US if it has businesspeople from multiple countries, but there's as much diversity of business relationships and value between, say, a Beijing entrepreneur and a Shenzhen entrepreneur as between a Czech and a Slovak. A point based system could factor in a lot of things. There's also value in having the world's 20 top OCaml developers (15 of them are likely French) as well as the world's top 20 server-side ARM multicore guys (who are also likely French) vs. 40 top OCaml people (where there may be more French people.) The easiest way to address all of this is for financial value to be the main factor. You can bring in people if they pay something like 200% of the US average wage as a surtax above their regular income tax and other costs. There could be explicit charities to subsidize things other than direct wage income value -- maybe an arts charity covers the $100k/yr to bring in a brilliant artist who is paid an additional $50k/yr in income and pays 5k/yr tax on that.
- amf12 8y ago
  > Any replacement visa needs to be like the diversity lottery (or the Olympics) by rewarding applicants from smaller countries Why? So you are okay with a guy who does not speak English, doesn't have moderate-high skills, will probably drive Uber or work in some restaurant over a moderately-skilled Indian/Chinese who understands and speaks relatively decent English, just because that guys is an Indian or Chinese? This is the definition of racism. > Having multiple, smaller groups of people inside the USA also assists integration No. Knowing the local language, understanding the local culture, knowing some people from a similar culture living in the country (a.k.a having a fallback - so as to not depend on government aid) helps in integration. > Plus, just like the Olympics, diversity makes things interesting. Absolutely. But that should depend on the skills and not on the nationality. Skilled people from Belgium-Mongolia would still get in regardless of "diversity lottery visa". What US needs is a point based system which rewards quality over just diversity.
  - UncleEntity 8y ago
    > Why? So you are okay with a guy who does not speak English, doesn't have moderate-high skills, will probably drive Uber or work in some restaurant over a moderately-skilled Indian/Chinese who understands and speaks relatively decent English, just because that guys is an Indian or Chinese? This is the definition of racism. My landlord and the owner of the company I work for both came to the US from Iran in exactly this way and now they both own successful businesses built up from busting their asses driving cabs. That has been The American Dream™ for generations and not the virtual indentured servitude I always hear about in these discussions.
    - amf12 8y ago
      > My landlord and the owner of the company I work for both came to the US from Iran For one example of success there are 100s if not 1000s of examples where they failed and relied on government handouts. Also, how did "diversity visa" help in this case? Those guys succeeded because they were smart and hardworking. Clearly their country of origin did not make them successful.
  - nkurz 8y ago
- ap3 8y ago
  > Any replacement visa needs to be like the diversity lottery (or the Olympics) by rewarding applicants from smaller countries The Olympics are a performance competition- the guy from “Eastern Rhodesia” might make it but he won’t get any extra help when running against Usain Bolt. Now you are saying that companies that want to make money will be saddled with less competent talent because of diversity?
- taysic 8y ago
  Despite you being downvoted, I really liked your points. As someone whose parents came from a tiny country with which there was little to no network once arriving - I can attest to our experience of quickly integrating. I believe it was a good experience for us and a good model for the US going forward.
jgh 8y ago
Yeah the US really needs to completely revamp its immigration system. Not only H1B but GC as well. Take a look at the line for Indians waiting for green cards. It's apparently 150 years long. That is absurd.
- Ensorceled 8y ago
  Why is it absurd? The green card application queue is several million along the only way for it to be shorter would be to just let them all in. Of course, many more millions who haven’t applied would immediately join the new queue ... I’m not sure even the US could deal with a sudden population increase of 30-40 million.
  - nonamechicken 8y ago
    As of April 20, 2018, there were 632,219 Indian immigrants and their spouses and minor children waiting for green cards also known as legal permanent residency cards. https://m.timesofindia.com/business/india-business/indians-with-advanced-degree-may-have-to-wait-151-years-for-green-card-report/articleshow/64611973.cms https://m.timesofindia.com/business/india-business/indians-w... Where did you get the 30-40 million number from?
    - jgh 8y ago
      All of the anti-immigrant rhetoric makes people vastly overestimate the number of immigrants there actually are, I suspect.
      - Ensorceled 8y ago
        I'm not anti-immigrant. I'm estimating the number of people who would apply if the US stopped queuing and opened their doors.
        jgh 8y ago
        I didn't say you are, but there is a lot of anti-immigrant rhetoric that purposely overstates the number of immigrants in order to scare people.
foldr 8y ago
>Genuine short term needs should be covered through something like L1 The current L1 is a visa for transferring from a branch of a company in another country to a branch of the same company in the US. I get that you're not talking about the L1 in its current form, but it's far from being a general mechanism for dealing with short term labor needs.
- yourapostasy 8y ago
  > The current L1 is a visa for transferring from a branch of a company in another country to a branch of the same company in the US. Also being used by body shops to ship in people who otherwise couldn't get into the US. The process is they open up a marginal nexus in a nation with relatively more lax immigration laws to their origin nation, then transfer via L1 into the US from branch to branch. Identification and enforcement against this kind of abuse is very time-consuming, as there are legitimate situations used by legitimate companies. AWS was pitched/started by guys in South Africa, they legit could come to Seattle Amazon HQ on L1.
- amf12 8y ago
  Actually, L1 is the visa which is also responsible for keeping wages low. Generally it doesn't get a lot of attention. The employees on L1 cannot switch jobs. So a lot of the people coming on L1 accept any wage they can get. Of course, eventually they have to switch to an H1 in order to stay here longer than 5 years.
  - deleted 8y ago
    [deleted]
bradleyjg 8y ago
> we should just expand immigrant visas on a Canadian/NZ style merit/points system. This would be less discriminatory against people from big countries (China and India specifically), avoid some of the abuse possibilities, and be better for employees/immigrants and their families. I think a point system is a good way to go, but it isn’t necessary to end the disparate access that those from India, China, the Philippines, and Mexico face. All that would take is a small amendment to section 202 removing the per country caps. On a separate but related topic, given how large tech employers treat job applicants I don’t believe them when they say the face a shortage of qualified workers. Actions speak louder than words.
- chii 8y ago
  > I don’t believe them when they say the face a shortage of qualified workers. they face a shortage of qualified, but willingly-accept-low-pay workers.
  - mav3rick 8y ago
    At least in the big companies, H1Bs get the same offers as American employees. I am not sure about smaller companies. When people complain about H1Bs, I hope they make a distinction between students that actually studied here and then got offers vs the Infosys Wipro type scams.
    - yourapostasy 8y ago
      > At least in the big companies, H1Bs get the same offers as American employees. This happens in skill sets with high demand and short supply where free agent shopping between a multitude of offers between gigs in the $200+/hour range is viable because supply is so constrained. I guarantee you will not see this uniformly happen in big companies where skill sets are in high demand and even moderate supply, not to speak of high supply. Otherwise, Disney would not be able to use the vendor-supplies-staffing-for-outsourcing-entire-department-contract loophole via HCL and Cognizant, a situation particularly susceptible to that loophole, explaining its popularity among companies big to small.
    - 8y ago
carlsborg 8y ago
IMO the obvious solution is a) don't tie the visa to an employer and b) increase the earning bar. This way the body shopping model breaks. Also in the current system workers tied to an employer have less leverage in terms of demands/wage negotiations, and tend to stick around for a long time, so this part of incentive from the hiring managers perspective will go away.
sershe 8y ago
What about the solution where the quota is filled after ordering by salaries? With a provision that a salary cannot be lowered while on the visa, or re-ordering and re-filtering with combined quota including new workers every year (i.e. mix previous year quota, and the new one, order by salaries, keep 2x quota, potentially revoking some visas - although this might be disruptive to the worker). This might disadvantage the startups paying in speculative stock options though... not sure what to do about that, any provisions making it easier to bring people in based on vague promises under a salary-based system seem ripe for exploitation. Disclaimer: I'm a former L1, although I'm pretty sure I would've also "made it" under H1-salary-system above.
- amf12 8y ago
  > What about the solution where the quota is filled after ordering by salaries? Employers in California will win, employers in say Tennessee will lose out. If comp is being considered, then they should also consider the COL.
  - pishpash 8y ago
    That's relatively easy to solve, you can reference to the local prevailing wage.
    - r00fus 8y ago
      Or make the pool proportional by state population.
    - kevin_thibedeau 8y ago
      Federal COLA stats would be better as they aren't gamed by employers.
    - dsfyu404ed 8y ago
      Or just use the same CoL adjustment mechanism the federal government uses for its employees
- screye 8y ago
pentae 8y ago
The problem with the points system like in Singapore/Hong Kong is that it heavily favours those with college diplomas. Some of the most talented people in tech that I know have no higher education but are self taught experts in their field and often have decades of experience.
broknbottle 8y ago
If they end the program, how will the US refill the social security coffers? It's my understanding that h1b1 employees pay into social security just like everybody else but it is likely they will never draw from it. Most Indians I've talked to plan to eventually go back home either due to family or because the wait is astronomically long.
- kevin_thibedeau 8y ago
  The total number of H-1Bs issued since the program's inception is only a couple million and most of those have expired. They don't constitute enough people to make a difference.
- bdcravens 8y ago
  There's about 500,000 h1b holders at any given time. That's less than 0.5% of the workforce. Probably a higher percentage paying into Social Security who will die prior to being eligible. According to this article, about 20% die prior to age 65, and some percentage of those will not have a spouse to provide benefits to: http://home.bt.com/lifestyle/wellbeing/did-you-know-20-of-men-die-before-retirement-age-11363985764112 http://home.bt.com/lifestyle/wellbeing/did-you-know-20-of-me...
- muzz 8y ago
  Refill? The Social Security surplus is over $2.6 Trillion
  - kamaal 8y ago
    Actually no. >>At the end of 2014, the Trust Fund contained (or alternatively, was owed) $2.79 trillion, up $25 billion from 2013. >>Trust Fund obligations are considered "intra-governmental" debt, a component of the "public" or "national" debt. As of June 2015, the intragovernmental debt was $5.1 trillion of the $18.2 trillion national debt. Its still a huge total net negative on the government. And you still desperately need those immigrants to be working 20 hour days doing start ups and build tax paying companies, so that some where some one in mid west can buy an iPhone using SS handouts and scold the immigrants for the very value they provide using that iPhone.
kshacker 8y ago
One of the massive holes in the process is the definition of maximum duration of "6 years", of course that is 3 years at a time. So Indian outsourcing companies get a visa in October 2010, do not send the person to US till June 2011, the person does a 6 month project then goes back, comes back 6 months later and spends some time and goes back again. At the end they file for lost days recapture and keep on extending the H1 for 8-9-10-12 years because the person has not spent 12 years employed. While this works for the outsourcing companies, the existence of this model creates perverse incentives for any employer as they have no obligation to pay a person simply because they can classify as being employed in different branch (India), on vacation (sometimes), on unpaid vacation (bench). If the visa was given for 3 or 6 years (with renewal) but you had to a) pay the person or surrender the visa, maybe if you use only 80% for year 1 and the visa gets canceled, and b) there was no extension because of any sundry reasons : initial visa issued in October 2010 expires in September 2016 come what may, you could maybe fix it a little bit. Of course business cycles can bring in some uncertainty but then maybe we can not penalize a single H1 but if the company has deployed only 70% of its H1 staff on US salary, and is still asking for a visa in the next year, it is obviously a no no : if you are such a company then further visas are just not granted.
DuskStar 8y ago
I would love an H1B program where membership was set by auction (500,000 seats where the price everyone pays is the #500,000 bid, that sort of thing) instead of by "need" or a lottery or any number of other things. Even better, have the fee be annual and count towards federal income tax. No ties to employer, no requirement to work for a company, no discrimination based upon country of origin... You could probably lump quite a few visa programs together into that, actually.

by rdl 8y ago

beerlord 8y ago

Any replacement visa needs to be like the diversity lottery (or the Olympics) by rewarding applicants from smaller countries. The migrant intake shouldn't be dominated completely by India and China - their sheer size gives them an advantage, as naturalized Indian and Chinese employers will then just go on to hire their own countrymen. For example, 76% of H1B visas went to Indians. Having multiple, smaller groups of people inside the USA also assists integration - instead of being able to fall back on a parallel society, migrants will be forced to integrate and learn English. Plus, just like the Olympics, diversity makes things interesting. Having (qualified) people from Belgium, Poland, Kenya, Thailand, Japan, Colombia, Mongolia (for example) is more interesting than just India, India, India, China, China, China.... A broader pool of migrants also helps US businesses expand worldwide. Finally, the schemes should also include a minimum 55% quota of women, from each country. This ensures that any visa scheme does not become completely dominated by men, and addresses past imbalances.

fooker 8y ago
I'm glad you are not in charge of immigration policy.
GordonS 8y ago
> Any replacement visa needs to be like the diversity lottery (or the Olympics) by rewarding applicants from smaller countries I'm not sure I understand the rationale behind this? Why does it matter what country applicants are from as long as they have the skills the economy needs?
rdl 8y ago
There is definitely commercial/political/etc. benefit to the US if it has businesspeople from multiple countries, but there's as much diversity of business relationships and value between, say, a Beijing entrepreneur and a Shenzhen entrepreneur as between a Czech and a Slovak. A point based system could factor in a lot of things. There's also value in having the world's 20 top OCaml developers (15 of them are likely French) as well as the world's top 20 server-side ARM multicore guys (who are also likely French) vs. 40 top OCaml people (where there may be more French people.) The easiest way to address all of this is for financial value to be the main factor. You can bring in people if they pay something like 200% of the US average wage as a surtax above their regular income tax and other costs. There could be explicit charities to subsidize things other than direct wage income value -- maybe an arts charity covers the $100k/yr to bring in a brilliant artist who is paid an additional $50k/yr in income and pays 5k/yr tax on that.
amf12 8y ago
> Any replacement visa needs to be like the diversity lottery (or the Olympics) by rewarding applicants from smaller countries Why? So you are okay with a guy who does not speak English, doesn't have moderate-high skills, will probably drive Uber or work in some restaurant over a moderately-skilled Indian/Chinese who understands and speaks relatively decent English, just because that guys is an Indian or Chinese? This is the definition of racism. > Having multiple, smaller groups of people inside the USA also assists integration No. Knowing the local language, understanding the local culture, knowing some people from a similar culture living in the country (a.k.a having a fallback - so as to not depend on government aid) helps in integration. > Plus, just like the Olympics, diversity makes things interesting. Absolutely. But that should depend on the skills and not on the nationality. Skilled people from Belgium-Mongolia would still get in regardless of "diversity lottery visa". What US needs is a point based system which rewards quality over just diversity.
- UncleEntity 8y ago
  > Why? So you are okay with a guy who does not speak English, doesn't have moderate-high skills, will probably drive Uber or work in some restaurant over a moderately-skilled Indian/Chinese who understands and speaks relatively decent English, just because that guys is an Indian or Chinese? This is the definition of racism. My landlord and the owner of the company I work for both came to the US from Iran in exactly this way and now they both own successful businesses built up from busting their asses driving cabs. That has been The American Dream™ for generations and not the virtual indentured servitude I always hear about in these discussions.
  - amf12 8y ago
    > My landlord and the owner of the company I work for both came to the US from Iran For one example of success there are 100s if not 1000s of examples where they failed and relied on government handouts. Also, how did "diversity visa" help in this case? Those guys succeeded because they were smart and hardworking. Clearly their country of origin did not make them successful.
- nkurz 8y ago
ap3 8y ago
> Any replacement visa needs to be like the diversity lottery (or the Olympics) by rewarding applicants from smaller countries The Olympics are a performance competition- the guy from “Eastern Rhodesia” might make it but he won’t get any extra help when running against Usain Bolt. Now you are saying that companies that want to make money will be saddled with less competent talent because of diversity?
taysic 8y ago
Despite you being downvoted, I really liked your points. As someone whose parents came from a tiny country with which there was little to no network once arriving - I can attest to our experience of quickly integrating. I believe it was a good experience for us and a good model for the US going forward.

jgh 8y ago

Yeah the US really needs to completely revamp its immigration system. Not only H1B but GC as well. Take a look at the line for Indians waiting for green cards. It's apparently 150 years long. That is absurd.

Ensorceled 8y ago
Why is it absurd? The green card application queue is several million along the only way for it to be shorter would be to just let them all in. Of course, many more millions who haven’t applied would immediately join the new queue ... I’m not sure even the US could deal with a sudden population increase of 30-40 million.
- nonamechicken 8y ago
  As of April 20, 2018, there were 632,219 Indian immigrants and their spouses and minor children waiting for green cards also known as legal permanent residency cards. https://m.timesofindia.com/business/india-business/indians-with-advanced-degree-may-have-to-wait-151-years-for-green-card-report/articleshow/64611973.cms https://m.timesofindia.com/business/india-business/indians-w... Where did you get the 30-40 million number from?
  - jgh 8y ago
    All of the anti-immigrant rhetoric makes people vastly overestimate the number of immigrants there actually are, I suspect.
    - Ensorceled 8y ago
      I'm not anti-immigrant. I'm estimating the number of people who would apply if the US stopped queuing and opened their doors.
      - jgh 8y ago
        I didn't say you are, but there is a lot of anti-immigrant rhetoric that purposely overstates the number of immigrants in order to scare people.

foldr 8y ago

>Genuine short term needs should be covered through something like L1 The current L1 is a visa for transferring from a branch of a company in another country to a branch of the same company in the US. I get that you're not talking about the L1 in its current form, but it's far from being a general mechanism for dealing with short term labor needs.

yourapostasy 8y ago
> The current L1 is a visa for transferring from a branch of a company in another country to a branch of the same company in the US. Also being used by body shops to ship in people who otherwise couldn't get into the US. The process is they open up a marginal nexus in a nation with relatively more lax immigration laws to their origin nation, then transfer via L1 into the US from branch to branch. Identification and enforcement against this kind of abuse is very time-consuming, as there are legitimate situations used by legitimate companies. AWS was pitched/started by guys in South Africa, they legit could come to Seattle Amazon HQ on L1.
amf12 8y ago
Actually, L1 is the visa which is also responsible for keeping wages low. Generally it doesn't get a lot of attention. The employees on L1 cannot switch jobs. So a lot of the people coming on L1 accept any wage they can get. Of course, eventually they have to switch to an H1 in order to stay here longer than 5 years.
- deleted 8y ago
  [deleted]

bradleyjg 8y ago

> we should just expand immigrant visas on a Canadian/NZ style merit/points system. This would be less discriminatory against people from big countries (China and India specifically), avoid some of the abuse possibilities, and be better for employees/immigrants and their families. I think a point system is a good way to go, but it isn’t necessary to end the disparate access that those from India, China, the Philippines, and Mexico face. All that would take is a small amendment to section 202 removing the per country caps. On a separate but related topic, given how large tech employers treat job applicants I don’t believe them when they say the face a shortage of qualified workers. Actions speak louder than words.

chii 8y ago
> I don’t believe them when they say the face a shortage of qualified workers. they face a shortage of qualified, but willingly-accept-low-pay workers.
- mav3rick 8y ago
  At least in the big companies, H1Bs get the same offers as American employees. I am not sure about smaller companies. When people complain about H1Bs, I hope they make a distinction between students that actually studied here and then got offers vs the Infosys Wipro type scams.
  - yourapostasy 8y ago
    > At least in the big companies, H1Bs get the same offers as American employees. This happens in skill sets with high demand and short supply where free agent shopping between a multitude of offers between gigs in the $200+/hour range is viable because supply is so constrained. I guarantee you will not see this uniformly happen in big companies where skill sets are in high demand and even moderate supply, not to speak of high supply. Otherwise, Disney would not be able to use the vendor-supplies-staffing-for-outsourcing-entire-department-contract loophole via HCL and Cognizant, a situation particularly susceptible to that loophole, explaining its popularity among companies big to small.
  - 8y ago

carlsborg 8y ago

IMO the obvious solution is a) don't tie the visa to an employer and b) increase the earning bar. This way the body shopping model breaks. Also in the current system workers tied to an employer have less leverage in terms of demands/wage negotiations, and tend to stick around for a long time, so this part of incentive from the hiring managers perspective will go away.

sershe 8y ago

What about the solution where the quota is filled after ordering by salaries? With a provision that a salary cannot be lowered while on the visa, or re-ordering and re-filtering with combined quota including new workers every year (i.e. mix previous year quota, and the new one, order by salaries, keep 2x quota, potentially revoking some visas - although this might be disruptive to the worker). This might disadvantage the startups paying in speculative stock options though... not sure what to do about that, any provisions making it easier to bring people in based on vague promises under a salary-based system seem ripe for exploitation. Disclaimer: I'm a former L1, although I'm pretty sure I would've also "made it" under H1-salary-system above.

amf12 8y ago
> What about the solution where the quota is filled after ordering by salaries? Employers in California will win, employers in say Tennessee will lose out. If comp is being considered, then they should also consider the COL.
- pishpash 8y ago
  That's relatively easy to solve, you can reference to the local prevailing wage.
  - r00fus 8y ago
    Or make the pool proportional by state population.
  - kevin_thibedeau 8y ago
    Federal COLA stats would be better as they aren't gamed by employers.
  - dsfyu404ed 8y ago
    Or just use the same CoL adjustment mechanism the federal government uses for its employees
screye 8y ago

pentae 8y ago

The problem with the points system like in Singapore/Hong Kong is that it heavily favours those with college diplomas. Some of the most talented people in tech that I know have no higher education but are self taught experts in their field and often have decades of experience.

broknbottle 8y ago

If they end the program, how will the US refill the social security coffers? It's my understanding that h1b1 employees pay into social security just like everybody else but it is likely they will never draw from it. Most Indians I've talked to plan to eventually go back home either due to family or because the wait is astronomically long.

kevin_thibedeau 8y ago
The total number of H-1Bs issued since the program's inception is only a couple million and most of those have expired. They don't constitute enough people to make a difference.
bdcravens 8y ago
There's about 500,000 h1b holders at any given time. That's less than 0.5% of the workforce. Probably a higher percentage paying into Social Security who will die prior to being eligible. According to this article, about 20% die prior to age 65, and some percentage of those will not have a spouse to provide benefits to: http://home.bt.com/lifestyle/wellbeing/did-you-know-20-of-men-die-before-retirement-age-11363985764112 http://home.bt.com/lifestyle/wellbeing/did-you-know-20-of-me...
muzz 8y ago
Refill? The Social Security surplus is over $2.6 Trillion
- kamaal 8y ago
  Actually no. >>At the end of 2014, the Trust Fund contained (or alternatively, was owed) $2.79 trillion, up $25 billion from 2013. >>Trust Fund obligations are considered "intra-governmental" debt, a component of the "public" or "national" debt. As of June 2015, the intragovernmental debt was $5.1 trillion of the $18.2 trillion national debt. Its still a huge total net negative on the government. And you still desperately need those immigrants to be working 20 hour days doing start ups and build tax paying companies, so that some where some one in mid west can buy an iPhone using SS handouts and scold the immigrants for the very value they provide using that iPhone.

kshacker 8y ago

One of the massive holes in the process is the definition of maximum duration of "6 years", of course that is 3 years at a time. So Indian outsourcing companies get a visa in October 2010, do not send the person to US till June 2011, the person does a 6 month project then goes back, comes back 6 months later and spends some time and goes back again. At the end they file for lost days recapture and keep on extending the H1 for 8-9-10-12 years because the person has not spent 12 years employed. While this works for the outsourcing companies, the existence of this model creates perverse incentives for any employer as they have no obligation to pay a person simply because they can classify as being employed in different branch (India), on vacation (sometimes), on unpaid vacation (bench). If the visa was given for 3 or 6 years (with renewal) but you had to a) pay the person or surrender the visa, maybe if you use only 80% for year 1 and the visa gets canceled, and b) there was no extension because of any sundry reasons : initial visa issued in October 2010 expires in September 2016 come what may, you could maybe fix it a little bit. Of course business cycles can bring in some uncertainty but then maybe we can not penalize a single H1 but if the company has deployed only 70% of its H1 staff on US salary, and is still asking for a visa in the next year, it is obviously a no no : if you are such a company then further visas are just not granted.

DuskStar 8y ago

I would love an H1B program where membership was set by auction (500,000 seats where the price everyone pays is the #500,000 bid, that sort of thing) instead of by "need" or a lottery or any number of other things. Even better, have the fee be annual and count towards federal income tax. No ties to employer, no requirement to work for a company, no discrimination based upon country of origin... You could probably lump quite a few visa programs together into that, actually.