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> The Department of Homeland Security wants to switch the order of these lotteries, it said in a notice of the proposed rule change, which would — somewhat coun

> The Department of Homeland Security wants to switch the order of these lotteries, it said in a notice of the proposed rule change, which would — somewhat counterintuitively — improve the odds for those highly educated workers > ... with a master’s or doctoral degree from an American college or university This is a welcome change. But this biases the playing field in favor of those graduating from American degree mills. As a counter-measure against abuse from those, I hope DHS also intensifies scrutiny on the many American staffing companies who bend the H-1B rules to hire these foreign graduates. There is indication that they have started on it, for example [1]. Also, > The lottery change could be aimed at hindering those outsourcing firms’ applications, Rand said. Three Indian firms, Tata Consultancy Services, Infosys and Wipro, have dominated H-1B applications since 2012, government data shows. > “Most of the visas are snapped up by these body shops,” said Ira Mehlman, a spokesman for the Federation for American Immigration Reform, or FAIR. Tata Consultancy Services, Infosys and Wipro are outsourcing companies, not "body shops". Body shops are staffing companies - they are mostly American and run out of places like Edison. [1]: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=18425341 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=18425341

maxxxxx 8y ago
Staffing companies should get no H1 visas at all. They are the biggest abusers.
- belltaco 8y ago
  The key problem is that the visa is given to the company, not the person, leaving the employee at the mercy of the company, leading to abuses like underpay and overwork in even direct jobs. If you lose your job, you lose your green card application if it's not past a certain stage and may have to leave the country immediately in case of layoffs, being fired. The rules are byzantine and a bureacratic nightmare with long processing delays. The Trump administration even tried to make it so that if you're working legally while waiting on your extension visa(can take more than 8 months) and it happens to get rejected, they will report you to ICE for deportation proceedings calling the period you worked legally as being illegal, creating a Catch-22 where you're accruing illegal stay after you have to stop working, but cannot leave the country because you're waiting for a court date, since not showing up in a court is another new crime in itself. You have to live without a salary and being able to work at all, and the immigration courts are overloaded and once you accrue 6 months of illegal stay, you can be banned from entering the US for 10 years on any visa. If you think that sounds too ridiculous to be true, read this: https://www.forbes.com/sites/stuartanderson/2018/07/11/new-uscis-policy-will-carry-harsh-consequences-for-applicants/#632d7dea4615 https://www.forbes.com/sites/stuartanderson/2018/07/11/new-u... This is the reason that many talented folks prefer to work for companies on a contract through a staffing company that holds the visa that allows for easier job hopping without losing your chance of getting a green card, or getting fired on Friday and accruing illegal stay starting from Saturday. Otherwise, why would you give away 40% to >50% of your hourly rate to a middleman? In this new environment, if you somehow get caught in an ICE raid while selling your car for pennies and puting all your belongings that dont fit in luggage in the dumpster or whilepacking your bags, you might get shipped to jail inspite of not violating a single law before you got fired. The companies oppose these fixes because they will less leverage over their employees on visas and they might job hop more if underpaid or overworked. Fix these problems instead of creating weird custom rules against staffing companies and the problem will fix itself for the most part.
  - tracer4201 8y ago
    Even if you give the visa to the employee, now you run the risk of employers sizing up an employee's status (are they a citizen or an immigrant who needs a job to stay in the country) and hiring or offering salaries based on that. It'll still lead to the wrong behaviors. Citizenship questions are illegal but still get asked. Are you going to outlaw asking about an employee's immigration status? Good luck enforcing that.
    - belltaco 8y ago
      My point is that it will make it easier for employees stuck in a bad spot due to employee abuse to switch jobs. Lets say they join the company you cite and the boss dumps 80 hours a week worth of work every week and doesn't pay overtime. Currently it's a huge hassle and risky to switch jobs, so that employee may continue thus hurting the job market. If you give the employee the visa, they can shop around for jobs like citizens and the company they left will have to find someone else to replace them, hopefully at better market rates this time. The biggest leverage the companies have on immigrant labor is the threat of being fired and deported, if you make that less costly and not turn their life upside down in a day, the problem will be lessened and make the job market more fair and competitive for everyone looking for jobs, and also greatly hurt staffing companies. It also lets the employee say "No." more easily when asked to work 80 hours for the fourth week in a row with no extra pay. This is the reason companies lobby against making this happen.
      - maxxxxx 8y ago
        In my company most H1 workers that come from Infosys and others are mainly there because they are cheap and not because they are "highly qualified" as the intent of H1 is. If Infosys just had to pay market rates they would lose competitiveness and open up visa spots for the people who truly deserve one.
        belltaco 8y ago
        If you make it easier for those folks to switch, they will switch away from Infosys to a better job after spending a month or two working for cheap, as you say. If that happens a lot Infosys will stop bringing in new people since they mostly leave early but they already paid for their immigration costs which add up. The employees also will be less inclined to work 80 hrs a week for Infosys to rake in the profits. If they want to retain people, Infosys will have to increase their salaries to close to market rate by charging the client more, which means the client is less likely to hire from Infosys. Either way it's a win.
- rajeshpant 8y ago
  Although staffing companies have abused the visas but given the way industry is structured, staffing companies do fill a lot of positions for contract workers & consulting roles. Strictly speaking in terms of law they should be able to hire people on visa as well. The most idiotic thing here is giving a visa to a company based on lottery. As the original comment pointed out, there should be a point system where you are graded based on education and experience.
tracer4201 8y ago
>But this biases the playing field in favor of those graduating from American degree mills. Undergrad is very expensive in the US, even at some public universities. Correct me if I'm wrong, but doesn't this put American graduates at a disadvantage? If I attend a US public university and pay via loans, I'm now competing for a job with Indian and Chinese students who completed a graduate program (anecdotally, these candidates are preferred by HR and sometimes hiring managers). Alternatively, the US student can stay in school for a grad degree and take on more debt. That's the general pattern I've seen at the big tech companies anyway. Person A is from some tiny school in the Midwest and wanted to work here but never even got an interview after graduating. Person B is from Hyderabad who just graduated with a masters CS degree and is a new hire on the team. To be clear - I'm not arguing against immigration or blaming foreign students at all. I have observed that people in the category B rank are willing to take less pay and deal with a ton more bullshit (politics, grind, etc.) because it's not as easy to switch employers on their visa status. Some of these kids are brilliant, others are extremely ordinary, but they got the interview and the kid from the Arkansas school didn't.
- whoisjuan 8y ago
  The problem with this argument is that you're assuming that there's more offer than demand, when in fact is the opposite. This is why tech companies push hard for the H1-B program. It's possible that there's a large body of citizens with technical degrees that theoretically could fulfill those jobs, but that doesn't mean that they have the skills or the applied knowledge to perform at the standards required for those jobs. People like to poke at this argument, but any technical person knows that claiming that you know a technology (e.g: a programming language) doesn't equal to being great at working with that technology. Every company has the right to enforce a hiring standard and most top companies will have a very high one. I don't think this has to do at all with formal education but rather with experience and skill. This applies to anyone regardless of nationality or origin. Anecdotically, some of the best American born programmers I have met in my life, don't have an undergrad degree or dropped before graduating. They are all employed at top companies and have always managed to stay employed and keep growing their incomes steadily. Either way, H1-B is a mess and should change for the benefit of everyone affected directly and indirectly by it. This means American workers, internation students, foreign talent and companies.
deleted 8y ago
[deleted]
GreaterFool 8y ago
Universities are not the same and a bad American university is probably no better than a bad foreign university. Most countries with sensible work visas have a point system. Make candidates self-asses and file the application, bucket them into tiers and if you still really want to roll the dice then assign spots to particular tiers. Japan is a great example. They have a wide range of visas. From unskilled worker visas without possibility of obtaining residency (I think there will be a new one with the possibility, but can be wrong), to a couple of different skilled worker visas to the "high-end" highly skilled foreign professional (HSFP). For HSFP you get points for years of experience in the field, age, salary, etc so you can bring a whole range of people. And they keep innovating in the space. They asses what they need and tweak the program accordingly.
- godelmachine 8y ago
  >>Universities are not the same and a bad American university is probably no better than a bad foreign university. As far as India is concerned, if you compare any random US university with any institute from India, barring for IIT's, I am ready to wager any US university will win hands down!
b_tterc_p 8y ago
I agree this does not solve abuses, but it sounds like it is net total a welcome change. The idea that we invite foreign students to learn valuable skills at our universities, and then don’t let them stay and contribute with said skills is bonkers. It honestly make more sense to require foreign students work in the country after being granted the privilege to go to school here in what may have been a domestic student’s spot (note: not a serious recommendation for a number of reasons, but the point remains).

maxxxxx 8y ago

Staffing companies should get no H1 visas at all. They are the biggest abusers.

belltaco 8y ago
The key problem is that the visa is given to the company, not the person, leaving the employee at the mercy of the company, leading to abuses like underpay and overwork in even direct jobs. If you lose your job, you lose your green card application if it's not past a certain stage and may have to leave the country immediately in case of layoffs, being fired. The rules are byzantine and a bureacratic nightmare with long processing delays. The Trump administration even tried to make it so that if you're working legally while waiting on your extension visa(can take more than 8 months) and it happens to get rejected, they will report you to ICE for deportation proceedings calling the period you worked legally as being illegal, creating a Catch-22 where you're accruing illegal stay after you have to stop working, but cannot leave the country because you're waiting for a court date, since not showing up in a court is another new crime in itself. You have to live without a salary and being able to work at all, and the immigration courts are overloaded and once you accrue 6 months of illegal stay, you can be banned from entering the US for 10 years on any visa. If you think that sounds too ridiculous to be true, read this: https://www.forbes.com/sites/stuartanderson/2018/07/11/new-uscis-policy-will-carry-harsh-consequences-for-applicants/#632d7dea4615 https://www.forbes.com/sites/stuartanderson/2018/07/11/new-u... This is the reason that many talented folks prefer to work for companies on a contract through a staffing company that holds the visa that allows for easier job hopping without losing your chance of getting a green card, or getting fired on Friday and accruing illegal stay starting from Saturday. Otherwise, why would you give away 40% to >50% of your hourly rate to a middleman? In this new environment, if you somehow get caught in an ICE raid while selling your car for pennies and puting all your belongings that dont fit in luggage in the dumpster or whilepacking your bags, you might get shipped to jail inspite of not violating a single law before you got fired. The companies oppose these fixes because they will less leverage over their employees on visas and they might job hop more if underpaid or overworked. Fix these problems instead of creating weird custom rules against staffing companies and the problem will fix itself for the most part.
- tracer4201 8y ago
  Even if you give the visa to the employee, now you run the risk of employers sizing up an employee's status (are they a citizen or an immigrant who needs a job to stay in the country) and hiring or offering salaries based on that. It'll still lead to the wrong behaviors. Citizenship questions are illegal but still get asked. Are you going to outlaw asking about an employee's immigration status? Good luck enforcing that.
  - belltaco 8y ago
    My point is that it will make it easier for employees stuck in a bad spot due to employee abuse to switch jobs. Lets say they join the company you cite and the boss dumps 80 hours a week worth of work every week and doesn't pay overtime. Currently it's a huge hassle and risky to switch jobs, so that employee may continue thus hurting the job market. If you give the employee the visa, they can shop around for jobs like citizens and the company they left will have to find someone else to replace them, hopefully at better market rates this time. The biggest leverage the companies have on immigrant labor is the threat of being fired and deported, if you make that less costly and not turn their life upside down in a day, the problem will be lessened and make the job market more fair and competitive for everyone looking for jobs, and also greatly hurt staffing companies. It also lets the employee say "No." more easily when asked to work 80 hours for the fourth week in a row with no extra pay. This is the reason companies lobby against making this happen.
    - maxxxxx 8y ago
      In my company most H1 workers that come from Infosys and others are mainly there because they are cheap and not because they are "highly qualified" as the intent of H1 is. If Infosys just had to pay market rates they would lose competitiveness and open up visa spots for the people who truly deserve one.
      - belltaco 8y ago
        If you make it easier for those folks to switch, they will switch away from Infosys to a better job after spending a month or two working for cheap, as you say. If that happens a lot Infosys will stop bringing in new people since they mostly leave early but they already paid for their immigration costs which add up. The employees also will be less inclined to work 80 hrs a week for Infosys to rake in the profits. If they want to retain people, Infosys will have to increase their salaries to close to market rate by charging the client more, which means the client is less likely to hire from Infosys. Either way it's a win.
rajeshpant 8y ago
Although staffing companies have abused the visas but given the way industry is structured, staffing companies do fill a lot of positions for contract workers & consulting roles. Strictly speaking in terms of law they should be able to hire people on visa as well. The most idiotic thing here is giving a visa to a company based on lottery. As the original comment pointed out, there should be a point system where you are graded based on education and experience.

tracer4201 8y ago

>But this biases the playing field in favor of those graduating from American degree mills. Undergrad is very expensive in the US, even at some public universities. Correct me if I'm wrong, but doesn't this put American graduates at a disadvantage? If I attend a US public university and pay via loans, I'm now competing for a job with Indian and Chinese students who completed a graduate program (anecdotally, these candidates are preferred by HR and sometimes hiring managers). Alternatively, the US student can stay in school for a grad degree and take on more debt. That's the general pattern I've seen at the big tech companies anyway. Person A is from some tiny school in the Midwest and wanted to work here but never even got an interview after graduating. Person B is from Hyderabad who just graduated with a masters CS degree and is a new hire on the team. To be clear - I'm not arguing against immigration or blaming foreign students at all. I have observed that people in the category B rank are willing to take less pay and deal with a ton more bullshit (politics, grind, etc.) because it's not as easy to switch employers on their visa status. Some of these kids are brilliant, others are extremely ordinary, but they got the interview and the kid from the Arkansas school didn't.

whoisjuan 8y ago
The problem with this argument is that you're assuming that there's more offer than demand, when in fact is the opposite. This is why tech companies push hard for the H1-B program. It's possible that there's a large body of citizens with technical degrees that theoretically could fulfill those jobs, but that doesn't mean that they have the skills or the applied knowledge to perform at the standards required for those jobs. People like to poke at this argument, but any technical person knows that claiming that you know a technology (e.g: a programming language) doesn't equal to being great at working with that technology. Every company has the right to enforce a hiring standard and most top companies will have a very high one. I don't think this has to do at all with formal education but rather with experience and skill. This applies to anyone regardless of nationality or origin. Anecdotically, some of the best American born programmers I have met in my life, don't have an undergrad degree or dropped before graduating. They are all employed at top companies and have always managed to stay employed and keep growing their incomes steadily. Either way, H1-B is a mess and should change for the benefit of everyone affected directly and indirectly by it. This means American workers, internation students, foreign talent and companies.

deleted 8y ago

[deleted]

GreaterFool 8y ago

Universities are not the same and a bad American university is probably no better than a bad foreign university. Most countries with sensible work visas have a point system. Make candidates self-asses and file the application, bucket them into tiers and if you still really want to roll the dice then assign spots to particular tiers. Japan is a great example. They have a wide range of visas. From unskilled worker visas without possibility of obtaining residency (I think there will be a new one with the possibility, but can be wrong), to a couple of different skilled worker visas to the "high-end" highly skilled foreign professional (HSFP). For HSFP you get points for years of experience in the field, age, salary, etc so you can bring a whole range of people. And they keep innovating in the space. They asses what they need and tweak the program accordingly.

godelmachine 8y ago
>>Universities are not the same and a bad American university is probably no better than a bad foreign university. As far as India is concerned, if you compare any random US university with any institute from India, barring for IIT's, I am ready to wager any US university will win hands down!

b_tterc_p 8y ago

I agree this does not solve abuses, but it sounds like it is net total a welcome change. The idea that we invite foreign students to learn valuable skills at our universities, and then don’t let them stay and contribute with said skills is bonkers. It honestly make more sense to require foreign students work in the country after being granted the privilege to go to school here in what may have been a domestic student’s spot (note: not a serious recommendation for a number of reasons, but the point remains).