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The efficacy of this as a deterrent seems to depend on the notion that India would like its citizens to be able to obtain H1 visas from the US. Is that the cas

The efficacy of this as a deterrent seems to depend on the notion that India would like its citizens to be able to obtain H1 visas from the US. Is that the case?

lettergram 7y ago
Could go either way (more or less). So probably
ineedasername 7y ago
I wouldn't think India would be much deterred by the move. Those workers represent a very small drop in a very large bucket. An extra 50,000 Indian workers seeking work in India instead of the US (or in some other non-US country) is practically nothing.
NTDF9 7y ago
Yes and no. Yes, because it directly affects the business of large outsourcing companies. It also drops remittances, one of the largest sources of dollars for India. No, because for many decades, India has been trying to keep their smartest citizens to build their own country. Making local companies, serving at local hospitals, teaching at local schools and universities. They want their own Google, Microsoft, Sun Microsystems, Adobe instead of Indian citizens working in the US for US corporations. They were just unsuccessful for so many years because countries like US drained the well-educated so much. Ultimately, this will be a great deal for India. India doesn't want remittances. They want their own companies to make software that the world wants to buy.
- darklajid 7y ago
  Help me understand the first part. Why do you need a US visa (well, THAT visa - I understand a 'fly over for a meeting' visiting visa) as an outsourcing company? What I mean is: How are the outsourcing companies affected by this?
  - kinkrtyavimoodh 7y ago
    A lot of these companies routinely send workers 'onsite' to US offices. Likewise, many employees at big cos who are actually 'vendors' are employees of outsourcing companies working at offices located in America.
    - fourier_mode 7y ago
      Yeah, but as it was pointed out -- it could be done by a 6 month visit visa and still the payment comes through at the site in India. So technically the employee could be working for the outsourced outlet and there should be no requirement of a work visa.
      - zaroth 7y ago
        Pretty sure that’s illegal.
        pandaman 7y ago
        Not a lawyer but apparently the term "B1 in lieu of H1" exists and is mentioned by more-or-less reputable lawyers on the web.
  - 9nGQluzmnq3M 7y ago
    Many if not most outsourcing gigs require some people on the ground in the US to drum up new business, liaise with the customer, fulfill compliance requirements ("work must be done in US"), etc.
  - NTDF9 7y ago
    Its a business visa to allow exchange of ideas quicker, better. Imagine GE, a company with a pool of power electronics talent in the US, wants to build specialized power plants for the Indian market. They can't do it remotely from the US. They will fly their US employees to India to study the market, understand rules and constraints, design and consult local Indian teams. The US employees need to stay there for years to build those things. All that requires India to give US citizens the visa to work for such a long time. And India does give that. Business visas in India are easy to get. Reverse the roles and if an Indian company wants to use their own pool of talent to do business in the US, H-1b are the only ones available for long term business related work, which got totally distorted by politics over the years. https://www.usa-corporate.com/start-us-company-non-resident/intro-us-business-visas/ https://www.usa-corporate.com/start-us-company-non-resident/...
- 9nGQluzmnq3M 7y ago
  Putting arbitrary caps on visas isn't a great way to do this though. A lot of startups in India are founded & staffed by Indian folks who got their experience, capital and connections working in the US.
  - NTDF9 7y ago
    Tell that to Trump. He can't see a win-win when it stares at him.
    - zaroth 7y ago
      I think you misunderstood the parent comment. Putting caps on H1B visas isn’t a good way for India to stimulate it’s own startup ecosystem, because the claim is that many Founders are returning to India after a stint with H1B. Capping H1B is classic Trump and threatening to cap it based on complaisance with a particular pro-US policy goal, doubly so. Fundamentally, Trump believes America has tremendous amounts of value that it “gives away” too freely to competing countries in terms of access to our education, employment, and markets (visas and trade). He’s willing to leverage the value of cheap visas and cheap trade to obtain foreign policy goals.
      - NTDF9 7y ago
        > Capping H1B is classic Trump and threatening to cap it based on complaisance with a particular pro-US policy goal, doubly so. I get this. But what Trump fails to grasp is that our own ecosystem in the US relies heavily on sucking MIT, Harvard, Stanford level people from other countries. Stopping that is a boon for other countries who not only have their own smart people starting companies locally but also have fewer American companies competing in general since America hemorrhaged that innovation ecosystem.
  - sumanthvepa 7y ago
    True, any barriers to trade are bad for both parties. India will suffer more from this. And the Indian government almost certainly would not want those caps. But it is a misconception to assume that successful Indian startups were founded by folks who got their experience in business in the US. Indeed the most successful Indian business founders are entirely home grown: (See Infosys, Tata, Flipkart -- sold to Walmart now). I say this despite being one of these who got their experience working the US on an h1b, and then came back to India to start a business. The experience abroad was useful. It certainly broadened my horizons. But frankly, I don't think it made a whole lot of difference to my becoming an entrepreneur in India.
- throwaw4324 7y ago
  There is no 'Indian ecosystem' - there is an Anglo-American one in Indian flavour. That's not much to work for - a cheap fake.
wtmt 7y ago
India would very much like the USD remittances that these people usually send to folks back home in India. India has been riding on foreign inflow of money for quite sometime. I don't know the share of remittances from the US vs. other countries (like the Middle Eastern Gulf countries), but the lack of more remittances over time from the US may not hurt India much, but losing it wouldn't be nice either.
- nonamechicken 7y ago
  Remittance from the US to India make up about 0.02% of the total GDP. UAE is at the top with $13.8 billion, US at second place with $11.7 billion, Saudi at third with $11.2 billion. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Remittances_to_India https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Remittances_to_India [2] https://www.google.com/publicdata/explore?ds=d5bncppjof8f9_&met_y=ny_gdp_mktp_cd&idim=country:IND:GBR&hl=en&dl=en https://www.google.com/publicdata/explore?ds=d5bncppjof8f9_&...
camelNotation 7y ago
On paper it sounds like a good idea. Limit brain drain, keep the high achievers in India. But in practice, it's not that simple. US businesses do well largely because our market is not nearly as corrupted by politics the way things are in India. Chinese companies do well because the communist party cracks down on corruption with brutal force. But in India? Corruption is how work is done. There are real stability issues at play and they manifest themselves even in the elite companies and institutions. This is the same country that almost sank its own nuclear submarine because someone left a hatch open... So yeah, it sounds nice to keep Indian workers in India, but without a political landscape that is stable enough to support something like an Indian Silicon Valley and earn the trust of investors, there's no guarantee they will offset the loss of US remittances on the current H1B workers.

The efficacy of this as a deterrent seems to depend on the notion that India would like its citizens to be able to obtain H1 visas from the US. Is that the case?

lettergram 7y ago

Could go either way (more or less). So probably

ineedasername 7y ago

I wouldn't think India would be much deterred by the move. Those workers represent a very small drop in a very large bucket. An extra 50,000 Indian workers seeking work in India instead of the US (or in some other non-US country) is practically nothing.

NTDF9 7y ago

Yes and no. Yes, because it directly affects the business of large outsourcing companies. It also drops remittances, one of the largest sources of dollars for India. No, because for many decades, India has been trying to keep their smartest citizens to build their own country. Making local companies, serving at local hospitals, teaching at local schools and universities. They want their own Google, Microsoft, Sun Microsystems, Adobe instead of Indian citizens working in the US for US corporations. They were just unsuccessful for so many years because countries like US drained the well-educated so much. Ultimately, this will be a great deal for India. India doesn't want remittances. They want their own companies to make software that the world wants to buy.

darklajid 7y ago
Help me understand the first part. Why do you need a US visa (well, THAT visa - I understand a 'fly over for a meeting' visiting visa) as an outsourcing company? What I mean is: How are the outsourcing companies affected by this?
- kinkrtyavimoodh 7y ago
  A lot of these companies routinely send workers 'onsite' to US offices. Likewise, many employees at big cos who are actually 'vendors' are employees of outsourcing companies working at offices located in America.
  - fourier_mode 7y ago
    Yeah, but as it was pointed out -- it could be done by a 6 month visit visa and still the payment comes through at the site in India. So technically the employee could be working for the outsourced outlet and there should be no requirement of a work visa.
    - zaroth 7y ago
      Pretty sure that’s illegal.
      - pandaman 7y ago
        Not a lawyer but apparently the term "B1 in lieu of H1" exists and is mentioned by more-or-less reputable lawyers on the web.
- 9nGQluzmnq3M 7y ago
  Many if not most outsourcing gigs require some people on the ground in the US to drum up new business, liaise with the customer, fulfill compliance requirements ("work must be done in US"), etc.
- NTDF9 7y ago
  Its a business visa to allow exchange of ideas quicker, better. Imagine GE, a company with a pool of power electronics talent in the US, wants to build specialized power plants for the Indian market. They can't do it remotely from the US. They will fly their US employees to India to study the market, understand rules and constraints, design and consult local Indian teams. The US employees need to stay there for years to build those things. All that requires India to give US citizens the visa to work for such a long time. And India does give that. Business visas in India are easy to get. Reverse the roles and if an Indian company wants to use their own pool of talent to do business in the US, H-1b are the only ones available for long term business related work, which got totally distorted by politics over the years. https://www.usa-corporate.com/start-us-company-non-resident/intro-us-business-visas/ https://www.usa-corporate.com/start-us-company-non-resident/...
9nGQluzmnq3M 7y ago
Putting arbitrary caps on visas isn't a great way to do this though. A lot of startups in India are founded & staffed by Indian folks who got their experience, capital and connections working in the US.
- NTDF9 7y ago
  Tell that to Trump. He can't see a win-win when it stares at him.
  - zaroth 7y ago
    I think you misunderstood the parent comment. Putting caps on H1B visas isn’t a good way for India to stimulate it’s own startup ecosystem, because the claim is that many Founders are returning to India after a stint with H1B. Capping H1B is classic Trump and threatening to cap it based on complaisance with a particular pro-US policy goal, doubly so. Fundamentally, Trump believes America has tremendous amounts of value that it “gives away” too freely to competing countries in terms of access to our education, employment, and markets (visas and trade). He’s willing to leverage the value of cheap visas and cheap trade to obtain foreign policy goals.
    - NTDF9 7y ago
      > Capping H1B is classic Trump and threatening to cap it based on complaisance with a particular pro-US policy goal, doubly so. I get this. But what Trump fails to grasp is that our own ecosystem in the US relies heavily on sucking MIT, Harvard, Stanford level people from other countries. Stopping that is a boon for other countries who not only have their own smart people starting companies locally but also have fewer American companies competing in general since America hemorrhaged that innovation ecosystem.
- sumanthvepa 7y ago
  True, any barriers to trade are bad for both parties. India will suffer more from this. And the Indian government almost certainly would not want those caps. But it is a misconception to assume that successful Indian startups were founded by folks who got their experience in business in the US. Indeed the most successful Indian business founders are entirely home grown: (See Infosys, Tata, Flipkart -- sold to Walmart now). I say this despite being one of these who got their experience working the US on an h1b, and then came back to India to start a business. The experience abroad was useful. It certainly broadened my horizons. But frankly, I don't think it made a whole lot of difference to my becoming an entrepreneur in India.
throwaw4324 7y ago
There is no 'Indian ecosystem' - there is an Anglo-American one in Indian flavour. That's not much to work for - a cheap fake.

wtmt 7y ago

India would very much like the USD remittances that these people usually send to folks back home in India. India has been riding on foreign inflow of money for quite sometime. I don't know the share of remittances from the US vs. other countries (like the Middle Eastern Gulf countries), but the lack of more remittances over time from the US may not hurt India much, but losing it wouldn't be nice either.

nonamechicken 7y ago
Remittance from the US to India make up about 0.02% of the total GDP. UAE is at the top with $13.8 billion, US at second place with $11.7 billion, Saudi at third with $11.2 billion. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Remittances_to_India https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Remittances_to_India [2] https://www.google.com/publicdata/explore?ds=d5bncppjof8f9_&met_y=ny_gdp_mktp_cd&idim=country:IND:GBR&hl=en&dl=en https://www.google.com/publicdata/explore?ds=d5bncppjof8f9_&...

camelNotation 7y ago

On paper it sounds like a good idea. Limit brain drain, keep the high achievers in India. But in practice, it's not that simple. US businesses do well largely because our market is not nearly as corrupted by politics the way things are in India. Chinese companies do well because the communist party cracks down on corruption with brutal force. But in India? Corruption is how work is done. There are real stability issues at play and they manifest themselves even in the elite companies and institutions. This is the same country that almost sank its own nuclear submarine because someone left a hatch open... So yeah, it sounds nice to keep Indian workers in India, but without a political landscape that is stable enough to support something like an Indian Silicon Valley and earn the trust of investors, there's no guarantee they will offset the loss of US remittances on the current H1B workers.