5 ms·

My best friend is full blown concert pianist, who graduated from Yale, finishing her PhD in one of the most prestigious conservatories in US. She performs inter

My best friend is full blown concert pianist, who graduated from Yale, finishing her PhD in one of the most prestigious conservatories in US. She performs internationally with orchestras : Japan, Europe, Asia. Has CD recordings, won number of international competitions. Recently, she played Rachmaninoff piano concerto with orchestra in VA/DC area. Guess what ? She is struggling to get any documents to stay here permanently. And here, I'm sitting in Fortune x0 company, filled with unqualified HB-1 software engineers, who produce trashy code and don't care about quality of their work, because in x-Months, they will be out or replaced. HB-1 was made for people like my friend - a highly qualified PhD and not cheap contractors shipped in packs from overseas. I'm kind of glad that this racket is being closed for good.

kijeda 7y ago
Isn’t an O-1 visa designed for situations like your friend?
- newprint 7y ago
  According to immigration lawyers, it is very hard to get docs through O-1. You literally have to be international star. She is not, but still, she is level above what many musicians achieve in their lifetime.
  - dmix 7y ago
    I've heard of people getting O-1 while being far less than an "international star". Canadian founders getting minor acquihire buyouts have gotten them. You just need to get some letters from influential people. ie, business leaders in the local industry or a politician. Like most things it's as much about who you know and how well you check the right checkboxes as it is about merit. This another perk of VCs and selling to big companies.
  - whoevercares 7y ago
    It really depends on the immigration lawyer, I know many people who study public health & even computer science use O-1 as alternative. non of them are even close to have international influence
  - ctchocula 7y ago
    My understanding the same as that of my two sibling comments. You just need to demonstrate excellence in your field in order to get an O-1. For example in Computer Science, that might be X citations in published work, Y reviews you've written as reviewer (counts as service), and letters of support from experts in the subfield of Computer Science. If your pianist friend has won international competitions, CD recordings and performed with orchestras around the world, that surely counts as excellence in her field. She should consult an immigration attorney ASAP. Even if initial consultation costs money (and it often doesn't), it sounds like a worthwhile path forward if she wants to stay. O-1 is not as prestigious or rare as you make it seem.
gobins 7y ago
Sounds like a different visa category.
- newprint 7y ago
  Oh no, it is the correct category. It is what HB-1 was created in the first place.
gordon_freeman 7y ago
H1-B visa is not intended for performing arts category or for extraordinary artists. It is intended for specialty occupation such as software engineers and data scientists etc. I understand your frustration but the way to reform the system is to give the visas to the "right" candidates within the speciality occupation rather than giving it to an entirely different category in which your friend belongs to.
- deleted 7y ago
  [deleted]
- newprint 7y ago
  It is intended for people with special skills and high degree of education - PhD. It is not for people who can't submit a code to a code repository, without breaking multi-million project.
  - belltaco 7y ago
    >It is not for people who can't submit a code to a code repository, without breaking multi-million project. If that is really the case, and not just meaningless bluster from your end, they would get fired and have to leave the country. Only companies can apply for H1Bs, not immigrants.
  - damnyou 7y ago
    The revisionism going on here is incredible. We are at war with Eurasia.
  - SmellyGeekBoy 7y ago
    I'm not sure why you think these things are mutually exclusive.
dangom 7y ago
Your friend seems to have had access to many opportunities which none of the unqualified HB-1 software engineers you mention may ever have, and it seems like she made the best out of it. Congratulations for her. Despite all her merits, though, life as a musician is financially much harder than that of a software engineer. For visa purposes, unfortunately, you want to make sure people can get by on their own. I hope things work out for her.
xenocyon 7y ago
Your last paragraph implies that if there were fewer H1B visas given out to Indian software engineers then your brilliant musician friend would have a chance. Though this kind of zero-sum fallacy is commonplace, that's not how immigration politics works. For the most part, if a particular USA federal administration is anti-immigrant, then they will hurt all or most immigration applicants, and vice versa, meaning that fewer software H1Bs do not result in better outcomes for your friend, quite the opposite.
- newprint 7y ago
  Wrong. Read carefully. What I'm saying is that people who should not be on HB-1 are getting visas and people who truly deserve HB-1, aren't getting it.
  - frequentnapper 7y ago
    Why should your piano playing friend deserve a visa? I don't care about listening to her live.
  - gfosco 7y ago
    The market seems to disagree. There isn't a lot of work available for concert pianists.
  - jbay808 7y ago
    I guess, H1-B visa is an example of artificial scarcity; the government could just give your deserving friend a visa without taking one away from a software job shop. There's not really a finite supply of them, other than what the government chooses. If an administration is cracking down on software shops, that doesn't necessarily mean it's because they want to make those visas easier to get for anyone else.
  - belltaco 7y ago
    That does not make much sense. H1B visas (you keep saying HB-1 but there is no visa called HB-1 so I am not entirely sure which visa you're talking about) needs to be sponsored by a company, they are not just given to people. If a company is willing to to hire her, maybe she can try applying to any US company. If not, there is no way to say she "deserves" it when it's only in your eyes, i.e apparently she or you are not able to convince a company to hire her. There are also EB-1 green cards that might qualify her since she has a PHD, but they're usually for the STEM field. I have no idea why this is relevant to H1B visas which serve a different purpose.
Causality1 7y ago
I agree with you. If the H1-B program were being used properly it'd be fantastic, but I've had too many friends (three being the "too many" in my case) spend their last six weeks on the job training their half-competent H1-B replacements. It may very well not be the case most of the time, but in my experience H1-B has been used as a prybar when companies have highly-versatile, highly-paid personnel they want to replace with someone who's trained to only do one job and do that job for less money. If I had the option to keep the program exactly as it is now or restrict it to only persons with doctorates, I would choose the latter.
grad_ml 7y ago
Stop hating! If you are sitting with incompetent people you're incompetent too! Why doesn't she apply for O1 visa? You know nothing about nothing. Disclaimer: I'm on H1B too, graduated from Rice CS.

kijeda 7y ago

Isn’t an O-1 visa designed for situations like your friend?

newprint 7y ago
According to immigration lawyers, it is very hard to get docs through O-1. You literally have to be international star. She is not, but still, she is level above what many musicians achieve in their lifetime.
- dmix 7y ago
  I've heard of people getting O-1 while being far less than an "international star". Canadian founders getting minor acquihire buyouts have gotten them. You just need to get some letters from influential people. ie, business leaders in the local industry or a politician. Like most things it's as much about who you know and how well you check the right checkboxes as it is about merit. This another perk of VCs and selling to big companies.
- whoevercares 7y ago
  It really depends on the immigration lawyer, I know many people who study public health & even computer science use O-1 as alternative. non of them are even close to have international influence
- ctchocula 7y ago
  My understanding the same as that of my two sibling comments. You just need to demonstrate excellence in your field in order to get an O-1. For example in Computer Science, that might be X citations in published work, Y reviews you've written as reviewer (counts as service), and letters of support from experts in the subfield of Computer Science. If your pianist friend has won international competitions, CD recordings and performed with orchestras around the world, that surely counts as excellence in her field. She should consult an immigration attorney ASAP. Even if initial consultation costs money (and it often doesn't), it sounds like a worthwhile path forward if she wants to stay. O-1 is not as prestigious or rare as you make it seem.

gobins 7y ago

Sounds like a different visa category.

newprint 7y ago
Oh no, it is the correct category. It is what HB-1 was created in the first place.

gordon_freeman 7y ago

H1-B visa is not intended for performing arts category or for extraordinary artists. It is intended for specialty occupation such as software engineers and data scientists etc. I understand your frustration but the way to reform the system is to give the visas to the "right" candidates within the speciality occupation rather than giving it to an entirely different category in which your friend belongs to.

deleted 7y ago
[deleted]
newprint 7y ago
It is intended for people with special skills and high degree of education - PhD. It is not for people who can't submit a code to a code repository, without breaking multi-million project.
- belltaco 7y ago
  >It is not for people who can't submit a code to a code repository, without breaking multi-million project. If that is really the case, and not just meaningless bluster from your end, they would get fired and have to leave the country. Only companies can apply for H1Bs, not immigrants.
- damnyou 7y ago
  The revisionism going on here is incredible. We are at war with Eurasia.
- SmellyGeekBoy 7y ago
  I'm not sure why you think these things are mutually exclusive.

dangom 7y ago

Your friend seems to have had access to many opportunities which none of the unqualified HB-1 software engineers you mention may ever have, and it seems like she made the best out of it. Congratulations for her. Despite all her merits, though, life as a musician is financially much harder than that of a software engineer. For visa purposes, unfortunately, you want to make sure people can get by on their own. I hope things work out for her.

xenocyon 7y ago

Your last paragraph implies that if there were fewer H1B visas given out to Indian software engineers then your brilliant musician friend would have a chance. Though this kind of zero-sum fallacy is commonplace, that's not how immigration politics works. For the most part, if a particular USA federal administration is anti-immigrant, then they will hurt all or most immigration applicants, and vice versa, meaning that fewer software H1Bs do not result in better outcomes for your friend, quite the opposite.

newprint 7y ago
Wrong. Read carefully. What I'm saying is that people who should not be on HB-1 are getting visas and people who truly deserve HB-1, aren't getting it.
- frequentnapper 7y ago
  Why should your piano playing friend deserve a visa? I don't care about listening to her live.
- gfosco 7y ago
  The market seems to disagree. There isn't a lot of work available for concert pianists.
- jbay808 7y ago
  I guess, H1-B visa is an example of artificial scarcity; the government could just give your deserving friend a visa without taking one away from a software job shop. There's not really a finite supply of them, other than what the government chooses. If an administration is cracking down on software shops, that doesn't necessarily mean it's because they want to make those visas easier to get for anyone else.
- belltaco 7y ago
  That does not make much sense. H1B visas (you keep saying HB-1 but there is no visa called HB-1 so I am not entirely sure which visa you're talking about) needs to be sponsored by a company, they are not just given to people. If a company is willing to to hire her, maybe she can try applying to any US company. If not, there is no way to say she "deserves" it when it's only in your eyes, i.e apparently she or you are not able to convince a company to hire her. There are also EB-1 green cards that might qualify her since she has a PHD, but they're usually for the STEM field. I have no idea why this is relevant to H1B visas which serve a different purpose.

Causality1 7y ago

I agree with you. If the H1-B program were being used properly it'd be fantastic, but I've had too many friends (three being the "too many" in my case) spend their last six weeks on the job training their half-competent H1-B replacements. It may very well not be the case most of the time, but in my experience H1-B has been used as a prybar when companies have highly-versatile, highly-paid personnel they want to replace with someone who's trained to only do one job and do that job for less money. If I had the option to keep the program exactly as it is now or restrict it to only persons with doctorates, I would choose the latter.

grad_ml 7y ago

Stop hating! If you are sitting with incompetent people you're incompetent too! Why doesn't she apply for O1 visa? You know nothing about nothing. Disclaimer: I'm on H1B too, graduated from Rice CS.