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H-1B and L-1 Visa Reform Act
- pkaye 6y ago> Specifically, the bill would prohibit companies with more than 50 employees, of which at least half are H-1B or L-1 holders, from hiring additional H-1B employees.
- yftsui 6y agoSeems like Facebook is gonna to be hit really hard, it has been H1-B dependent for a while.
- PhoenixReborn 6y agoI strongly doubt that more than 50% of Facebook's workforce is on H-1B visas. This is really intended to stop TCS/Infosys/Wipro from bringing over cheap labor to the US.
- ex3ndr 6y agoSo, everyone will switch to GC faster then?
- product50 6y agoShut up and read before you start asking your racist questions.
- gauravphoenix 6y agoI think you are reading too much into his or her comment. That doesn't appear to be a racist comment.
- product50 6y agoLiterally, the person has provided no context here. Which makes me wonder what were the instincts behind them making this comment.
- gauravphoenix 6y agoNo need to assume the worst. Perhaps he or she is genuinely curious about GC. There was nothing in the comment which can be remotely construed as racist.
- product50 6y agoHave you read the main article? It has nothing to say about green card at all - literally no mention of green card. Please stop defending folks for defending sake. The OP can step in and do it themselves.
- lizardking 6y agoLooks more like a baseless accusation than wondering
- ex3ndr 6y agoWhat's racist in my comment? o_O
- ra7 6y agoNo? This bill isn't changing GC quotas.
- ex3ndr 6y agoI meaning that L1 and friends are quite often could be changed to GC soon. If they put limit on number of L1 visas, they will simply became GC very fast. I think they don't have quotes, this is not a lottery.
- ra7 6y agoThere's already a massive GC backlog for some countries (India, for example). In some distant future where backlog is cleared, fewer number of H1B/L1 visas could mean faster GC. Until then, this won't have any real impact on GC timelines.
- ex3ndr 6y agoit seems that quotes is for India and China mostly. They are quite special since they account for most of applications.
- ianmcgowan 6y agoWhich would solve some of the problems with H1B - you're effectively an indentured servant with very few options. Becoming a green card holder means you are able to switch jobs, negotiate for better pay/conditions, and eventually apply for citizenship without your employer's support. All things that shift the balance of power to the employee, and the employer may decide it's not worth that hassle.
- tschwimmer 6y agoSeems like they’re going after the head shop consultancies like Infosys and TCS. Unclear what the impact on the rest of tech is.
- PhoenixReborn 6y agoYes, exactly. It's this line specifically that pretty much drives that home: > Specifically, the bill would prohibit companies with more than 50 employees, of which at least half are H-1B or L-1 holders, from hiring additional H-1B employees. The only companies I can see hitting this requirement are the Infosys/TCS types. I highly doubt most of the rest of tech has > 50% H-1B employees.
- product50 6y agoPersonally, I think this is the right bill to support. H1-B and L-1 have become tools used by Indian outsourcing firms to inject cheap labor into US. Apart from taking away jobs from US citizens, this also has a negative side effect of increasing visa competition (since there are only 65k visas/yr) for students who are doing their higher education in US, often in the fields of STEM - which discourages foreign students from coming to US. This bill fixes this as it prioritizes H1-B and L-1 visas from candidates who have studied in US vs. those who are applying from outside US (which is the route outsourcing firms often take). So while there are more fixes to be made on the H-1B visa, at least ensuring students who have studied in US have the first dibs at it is a good first step.
- ex3ndr 6y agoSorry, but do americans really hurt by H1-B/L-1? I never heard about lack of need for tech people anywhere in the world. Isn't world's universities produce like 3% of required amount of tech people needed? (Other points are valid though)
- makoz 6y agoHere's an example where Disney replaced their IT workers with people on H1B https://www.nytimes.com/2015/06/04/us/last-task-after-layoff-at-disney-train-foreign-replacements.html https://www.nytimes.com/2015/06/04/us/last-task-after-layoff...
- throwaway2678 6y agoNot to be insensitive to the people who lost their jobs at Disney, but "train" their replacement claim is a stretch (most likely were being to do Knowledge Transfer of the system/job function, but sorry to say won't quality as training their replacements). If anything, any restrictions on H1B force jobs to move out of the country rather than resulting in more "American workers" getting hired. With COVID forced WFH transition with no loss of productivity - even medium-size companies without prior experience in offshore employers are now willing to consider remote tech staff (anecdotal), and will be happy to pay 25%. Unless a very protectionist tax regime accompanies this legislation hard to see this going any other way. Full disclosure: I am on H1B, and am partial to the visa that helped me build my life and career in the US. Now its a real possibility that I, my ineligible to work spouse and my three "very much American" children will have to leave this country due to these attempts by law-makers to find a bogeyman to target their frustration against.
- baby 6y agoAccording to the summary https://www.grassley.senate.gov/sites/default/files/documents/116.S.3770%20-%20H-1B%20%20L-1%20Visa%20Reform%20Act%202020%20-%20Summary_0.pdf https://www.grassley.senate.gov/sites/default/files/document... * The bill would restore Congress’s original intent for the H-1B and L-1 visa programs. * The bill requires employers to make a good faith effort to recruit and hire American workers before bringing in foreign workers and prohibits employers from replacing American workers with H-1B and L-1 workers or giving preference to H-1B visa holders when they are filling open positions. It modifies existing H-1B wage requirements, and for the first time establishes wage requirements for L-1 workers. This will prevent employers from using the H-1B and L-1 programs as sources of cheap labor and encourage the hiring of qualified American workers. * The bill prohibits employers from outsourcing H-1B and L-1 visa holders to other sites unless the employer obtains a waiver which is available only in limited circumstances when the rights of American workers are protected. * The bill gives more authority to the Departments of Homeland Security and Labor to investigate fraud and abuse in the H-1B and L-1 programs. It requires the two departments to audit employers and share information so that visa petitions are more effectively scrutinized. * The bill would crack down on outsourcing companies by prohibiting companies from hiring H-1B employees if they employ more than 50 people and more than 50 percent of their employees are H1B and L-1 visa holders. * The bill creates a new H-1B visa allocation system that gives top priority to workers who have earned advanced science, technology, engineering or mathematics (STEM) degrees from U.S. institutions. * The bill increases penalties on those who violate the law, and provides visa holders with a list of rights before they enter the U.S. so that they are better protected against mistreatment or underpayment of wages.
- baby 6y agoI'm not sure if this bill goes in the right direction. I know many people on the H-1B and this is the problems that I see personally: * if you are not married, you have to get married or break up (I personally decided to get married, even though I do not believe in marriage) * your spouse cannot work. Many of my friends have had their spouse not working for years, and going crazy. * they cannot change job easily, they can't even quit if they're burning out to take some rest time, some of my friends feel like they are basically slaves of their current company * if they get fired (which happened to one of my friend who works at Uber a few days ago) then their life goes to hell * they are hard to come by (I applied twice and didn't get it, had to leave the US and wait for a year and a half for a greencard to be able to come back)
- elil17 6y agoHonestly a lot of the arguments about “importing cheap labour” are economically shallow and ignore the benefits that immigration has for the overall economy. I recommend this book for a really detailed exploration: https://www.smbc-comics.com/openborders/ https://www.smbc-comics.com/openborders/
- darawk 6y agoThere are good arguments for open borders in the equilibrium. But it's very hard to argue that they're good for the people who's jobs are lost. This is the classic median/mean reasoning error. Open borders are good for the arithmetic mean person. They are not necessarily good for the median person. For instance, the outsourcing of american manufacturing to China has seriously heart middle America. There is no real way around that. It has arguably been good on net for the world, but it has been quite bad for those specific communities. It's important that we fully recognize those tradeoffs, and not imply that unfettered immigration is a universal good. It is almost certainly good for 'the economy'. But it can be quite bad for most of the individuals in that economy, and it's very important to disambiguate those things. On balance I think I come down in favor of more immigration, particularly high skilled, but I think it's important that we not pretend like people aren't seriously harmed by it, too.
- strictnein 6y ago> "Open borders are good for the arithmetic mean person. They are not necessarily good for the median person." Yeah, and it's strange that the people who make these arguments are in positions unassailable to those taking advantage of "open borders".
- cousin_it 6y ago> There are good arguments for open borders in the equilibrium. But it's very hard to argue that they're good for the people who's jobs are lost. That seems like a too general argument, as it also applies to technology.
- darawk 6y ago
- CodeSheikh 6y agoThe bill gives more authority to the Departments of Homeland Security... Yeah. Right, no more jurisdiction to DHS on labor matters.
- strictnein 6y agoUS Citizenship and Immigration is part of DHS. https://www.uscis.gov/ https://www.uscis.gov/
- nine_zeros 6y agoDoesn't even try to solve the root cause of any problems caused by these visas. Freedom. Just let them not be tied to their current employer. Allow them to switch jobs with minimal bureaucracy and let them compete for better jobs. Simply allowing employees switch employers without hassles will be enough for even outsourcing companies to pay high wages - because those employees won't suck it up. They'll leave for greener pastures asap, pressuring all companies to pay higher and higher for everyone. For all the talk of capitalism and free markets, we never seem to actually practice it.
- darawk 6y agoI agree. The employer lock-in is very silly, and unproductive. It puts these people at a disadvantage in negotiations, which means they are even more likely to accept lower salaries, and drive down the wages of Americans. Even from an "America first" perspective, you should want H1-B holders to have freedom of movement.
- ianmcgowan 6y agoThat would definitely improve the lot of the H1B employee, and probably have an indirect effect on the companies involved to discourage H1B's (though I imagine they would recreate the ties with contracts, using things like signing bonuses and relocation reimbursement to keep people stuck in the current job). But it doesn't do anything to address the goal of this bill which is to prevent abuses of the H1B program, and "protect American workers".
- slaymaker1907 6y agoIt does help protect American workers by raising the H1-B salaries and thus lessening the downward pressure currently caused by the program.
- InvaderFizz 6y agoMy general issues with the immigration system aside, I've been a proponent of this positive change for some years now. Another method, that I think would be more acceptable is to just allocate the visas based on pay. Hard to argue that H1Bs are being used to undercut US workers when there are no H1Bs making under $200k.
- dntbnmpls 6y agoI don't see how anyone can support this from a moral perspective. Firstly, if we are not producing enough "talented" people, then we should be investing on producing more "talented" people rather than bringing them from overseas. If companies can just bring in foreigners to undercut american workers then what incentive is there for companies and local/state/federal governments to invest in american workers/people. Secondly, if we are stealing "talented" people from other countries, how fair is it to these countries that need these people to develop. Isn't it amoral for a wealthy nation to steal resources from a poor nation just so that some billionaire can get cheaper workers and/or suppress wages? And if poor countries realize that their "talented" people are going to be taken by wealthy nations, then what incentive is there for these countries to invest in and develop their own people? If politicians supports this, then I propose we also open up these elected positions to foreigners. Let foreigners run for the senate, house and presidency. Lets see how they like it. Let them also bid for the wages as well. Don't see a downside from where I'm standing as it can't get any worse than the current political class we have.
- vsskanth 6y agoEvery once in a while a bill like this is introduced and people waste time discussing it as if it's going to be voted on let alone pass. This is mere political posturing, nothing more. Immigration bills are pretty hard to pass.
- mola 6y agoIsn't the only reason these visas are abused is the employee lock-in? Iean how can these outsourcing companies pay low salary for these foreign workers when there's so much demand for developers?
- sftwdv 6y agoThe low salaries are mainly because of the low quality of the developers "imported" on H1B. There are plenty of options for good developers to transfer their H1B.
- throwaway_12351 6y agoI think this is more or less just a political statement for the republican base. These changes have been discussed for a long time, and conservative publications / reddit have been calling for them since the unemployment numbers went up. It's not going to have much impact, and as mentioned in other posts, it only affects Infosys/TCS types consulting shops which were already revamping their organizations to work around these changes since 2014. It's election year, so not very surprising to weaponize immigration. It's quite disappointing that the US has decided to politicize two core pillars, healthcare, and legal immigration. I think both of these should be delegated to a bipartisan body, like the judiciary. It's also disappointing to see the senators miss an opportunity to revamp the whole program. As an Indian, who did no go to grad school in US but worked at one of the FANGs, I think H1-B/L1-B should be just scrapped all together and every foreigner who graduates from an American university should get a green card. It will hurt people like me from coming to US, but generally it will be quite good for the US university system and the tech industry, and also a blessing in disguise for people like me.
- MR4D 6y ago> and every foreigner who graduates from an American university should get a green card If you do that, aren’t you just making the issue of who can come into the country for education the main problem instead of who can come in for work?
- throwaway_12351 6y agoIsn't it a solved problem? US universities attract best students from all over the world, from practically every society/country/culture. It's way more diverse, selective, and productive to let universities to decide who gets to come than a rule-based system via DHS.
- lostmsu 6y agoYou will have lots of departments or entire universities dedicated to giving foreigners degrees for cash.
- Animats 6y agoIt hasn't even been assigned a bill number yet. This is very early.
- archlight 6y agoi think US gov should set up H1B audit committee to audit all interview records and summon HR head to testify on hiring practice in the big corp. any fraud will be treated like financial fraud which results in prison term. if students cheated in college and their parents are sentenced to 5 years, i think HR head should be treated as same
- fmajid 6y agoThe best way to combat outsourcers and other bottom-feeders is to give priority based on salary (and enforce this by cross-referencing with the IRS). This would also kill the financial incentive to hire H1-Bs for low pay.
- dang 6y agoProposed bills rarely go anywhere, and so are mostly off topic on HN: https://hn.algolia.com/?dateRange=all&page=0&prefix=true&query=by%3Adang%20bills&sort=byDate&type=comment https://hn.algolia.com/?dateRange=all&page=0&prefix=true&que... If they're evidence of some interesting new phenomenon (a la https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html), that could be an exception.
- sys_64738 6y agoSenator Grassley is third in line for the presidency. If Nov's election were somehow delayed then President and VP would be out of office on 1/20/21 and Speaker out of office on 1/3/21. He would assume office and could execute an executive order to make this act law.
- votepaunchy 6y agoSenator Grassley is third in line for the presidency ... with Senate confirmation.