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This has gotten very old very fast (beyond the obvious cruelty). I have several friends who keep watching their colleagues just have to up and leave over this a

This has gotten very old very fast (beyond the obvious cruelty). I have several friends who keep watching their colleagues just have to up and leave over this and it’s causing a ton of issues for businesses that employ folks on work visas in general. It’s just disruptive to be disruptive/feed the base.

tomohawk 6y ago
Instead of H1B, we should be issuing green cards and limiting the amount of leverage that companies have over workers. Eliminate H1B and expand green cards for skilled people who want to live here.
- theflork 6y ago
  That’s honestly a great market based idea and more in spirit of what h1-b is meant to do.
- hckr_news 6y ago
  Agreed. H1B is just a front for immigration anyway. US Companies and the government should probably stop lying to themselves. If they want to bring over talented workers, give them rights too.
- lollipop90 6y ago
  I'm here on an L1 (intra-company transferee). I was initially supposed to come on an H1b, however, lost the lottery twice. (Lottery is difficult to win due to rampant abuse by certain Indian-US outsourcing companies) For H1b, you can at least change jobs. An L1 cannot change jobs at all. So, you are completely at the mercy of your employer. Fortunately my employer is benign, but that is not the case for everyone. Having a proper points system (not one that is easily gamed) and giving people a greencard to enable them to change jobs would be a much better system. This would prevent low-skilled workers and the suppression of US salaries. And if there is a high demand, the US can just take those with the highest points (as the Australian system does). There are two very good systems: 1. Australian 189 permanent resident system. Example of points: https://www.am22tech.com/au/australia-points-calculator-for-skills-based-permanent-residency-application/ https://www.am22tech.com/au/australia-points-calculator-for-... There is limited positions, so only those with the highest points are selected. (Compared to H1b where the bar is low and people are selected via lottery. This incentivises outsourcing companies to have 4 people apply for every one true position). 2. Japan's point-based high skill visa (Technical stream) http://www.immi-moj.go.jp/newimmiact_3/en/system/index.html http://www.immi-moj.go.jp/newimmiact_3/en/system/index.html Processing time for this is 5 days guaranteed and very easy to apply for (I got mine in 4 days). This is not permanent residence, but you can apply for permanent residence after 1 year.
xenocyon 6y ago
A common thing one hears from some Americans is "I'm not opposed to immigration; I'm opposed to illegal immigration". I have come to learn that this is almost always a lie; often these same folks will jump at any chance to hurt legal immigration as well.
- michaelmrose 6y ago
  Literally everyone who is for "legal immigration" belongs to 2 camps. One means they want to limit immigration of brown people to as close to zero as possible while allowing white people from Europe with money to move here. Where they can't outright forbid anyone except white Europeans they want to increase the difficulty and bureaucracy to the point where virtually nobody gets through. If it takes 10 years to become a citizen great. If it takes 30 better. Let em die waiting. Two lives in a fantasy land of law and order where the non criminal types could just queue up and prove that they are the right type of people and follow the law. In this fantasy land type one doesn't exist and the people sneaking in are proven to be bad people by the act of breaking the law. These people live in a world where the law exists to protect and privilege them and anyone not following it is clearly transgressing. Virtually nobody whom we citizens are descended from waited 10 years, hired a lawyer, and filled out paperwork in triplicate and both types are hypocrites who are themselves a disease on the body politic. If you hear someone talking about how they are for "legal immigration" unfriend them, block them, don't hire them, don't associate. You can't fix them so contain the cancer.
Cyclone_ 6y ago
Seems kind of silly to say without evidence that it's just to feed the base when there's a valid reason as to why it's being done (to prioritize Americans out of work)
- iamacyborg 6y ago
  Ah yes, we can expect restaurant staff to soon be working tech jobs.
  - WillPostForFood 6y ago
    College graduate unemployment rate is over 8%, up from 2% a few months ago. There are a lot of skilled, educated, unemployed workers right now. I wouldn’t kick out H-1Bs, but no reason take in new ones right now. https://fred.stlouisfed.org/series/CGRA2534 https://fred.stlouisfed.org/series/CGRA2534
    - oneplane 6y ago
      You do know that H-1B's are already only in because there was no American that could do it, right? Plenty of education and skill in the USA that doesn't have a fitting job (right now) to put that to use. Say there are 100000 MBA's but you need someone who knows how to run a kubernetes cluster with a custom syscall shim for a modified kernel and there is someone in Norway who knows how to do that. Even combining all those college graduates combined with all their business education wouldn't be useful for such a role, but that Norwegian person would be. But you still want to stop H-1B?
      - x0x0 6y ago
        The number of recent layoffs make it clear that there are plenty of people perfectly capable of performing even your pretend scenario. See eg http://layoffs.fyi/ http://layoffs.fyi/ and also eng layoffs at Uber, Samsara, etc.
        6y ago
awillen 6y ago
It's just silly... even if you're a nationalist, isn't the prospect of bringing over talented people from foreign countries to work in America and help our companies profit plus deprive their home countries of their skills a really, really good thing?
- dx87 6y ago
  If H-1B visas were being used how they were intended, they would be a good thing, but we often see them used as a way to get cheap labor, or even directly replace American workers. The company I work at has H-1B junior web developers, hardly "very niche, hard to fill" positions that they can't find any qualified Americans to do.
  - alexandercrohde 6y ago
    For a while I wasn't sure if this was just some "talking point." Then one day, on a hiking meetup, I met a guy who was ranting about his job that was to write "oddly hyper-specific job descriptions that might seem to make no sense" to bring in cheaper h1b candidates. So yeah, it's a problem.
    - jjoonathan 6y ago
      My previous boss would openly brag about doing this, while he was doing it.
      - toomuchtodo 6y ago
        For those who encounter this in their travels and want to do something about it: https://www.uscis.gov/report-fraud https://www.uscis.gov/report-fraud https://www.uscis.gov/report-fraud/uscis-tip-form https://www.uscis.gov/report-fraud/uscis-tip-form
    - pkaye 6y ago
      Years back I had a college friend who was hired on an OPT visa. When they wanted to convert his visa to H1B (I think) they kept getting suitable candidates so had to rewrite the requirements so its only suited to him. He confided this to me as he felt bad but really needed that job.
newsclues 6y ago
The system was abused, and now there are consequences.
- deleted 6y ago
  [deleted]
president 6y ago
But you don't consider that maybe it's still a net positive that they were able to come to the US to get decent working experience for a number of years? At the same time, an unemployed American worker may now have a chance for the same job. How is this a bad thing?

tomohawk 6y ago

Instead of H1B, we should be issuing green cards and limiting the amount of leverage that companies have over workers. Eliminate H1B and expand green cards for skilled people who want to live here.

theflork 6y ago
That’s honestly a great market based idea and more in spirit of what h1-b is meant to do.
hckr_news 6y ago
Agreed. H1B is just a front for immigration anyway. US Companies and the government should probably stop lying to themselves. If they want to bring over talented workers, give them rights too.
lollipop90 6y ago
I'm here on an L1 (intra-company transferee). I was initially supposed to come on an H1b, however, lost the lottery twice. (Lottery is difficult to win due to rampant abuse by certain Indian-US outsourcing companies) For H1b, you can at least change jobs. An L1 cannot change jobs at all. So, you are completely at the mercy of your employer. Fortunately my employer is benign, but that is not the case for everyone. Having a proper points system (not one that is easily gamed) and giving people a greencard to enable them to change jobs would be a much better system. This would prevent low-skilled workers and the suppression of US salaries. And if there is a high demand, the US can just take those with the highest points (as the Australian system does). There are two very good systems: 1. Australian 189 permanent resident system. Example of points: https://www.am22tech.com/au/australia-points-calculator-for-skills-based-permanent-residency-application/ https://www.am22tech.com/au/australia-points-calculator-for-... There is limited positions, so only those with the highest points are selected. (Compared to H1b where the bar is low and people are selected via lottery. This incentivises outsourcing companies to have 4 people apply for every one true position). 2. Japan's point-based high skill visa (Technical stream) http://www.immi-moj.go.jp/newimmiact_3/en/system/index.html http://www.immi-moj.go.jp/newimmiact_3/en/system/index.html Processing time for this is 5 days guaranteed and very easy to apply for (I got mine in 4 days). This is not permanent residence, but you can apply for permanent residence after 1 year.

xenocyon 6y ago

A common thing one hears from some Americans is "I'm not opposed to immigration; I'm opposed to illegal immigration". I have come to learn that this is almost always a lie; often these same folks will jump at any chance to hurt legal immigration as well.

michaelmrose 6y ago
Literally everyone who is for "legal immigration" belongs to 2 camps. One means they want to limit immigration of brown people to as close to zero as possible while allowing white people from Europe with money to move here. Where they can't outright forbid anyone except white Europeans they want to increase the difficulty and bureaucracy to the point where virtually nobody gets through. If it takes 10 years to become a citizen great. If it takes 30 better. Let em die waiting. Two lives in a fantasy land of law and order where the non criminal types could just queue up and prove that they are the right type of people and follow the law. In this fantasy land type one doesn't exist and the people sneaking in are proven to be bad people by the act of breaking the law. These people live in a world where the law exists to protect and privilege them and anyone not following it is clearly transgressing. Virtually nobody whom we citizens are descended from waited 10 years, hired a lawyer, and filled out paperwork in triplicate and both types are hypocrites who are themselves a disease on the body politic. If you hear someone talking about how they are for "legal immigration" unfriend them, block them, don't hire them, don't associate. You can't fix them so contain the cancer.

Cyclone_ 6y ago

Seems kind of silly to say without evidence that it's just to feed the base when there's a valid reason as to why it's being done (to prioritize Americans out of work)

iamacyborg 6y ago
Ah yes, we can expect restaurant staff to soon be working tech jobs.
- WillPostForFood 6y ago
  College graduate unemployment rate is over 8%, up from 2% a few months ago. There are a lot of skilled, educated, unemployed workers right now. I wouldn’t kick out H-1Bs, but no reason take in new ones right now. https://fred.stlouisfed.org/series/CGRA2534 https://fred.stlouisfed.org/series/CGRA2534
  - oneplane 6y ago
    You do know that H-1B's are already only in because there was no American that could do it, right? Plenty of education and skill in the USA that doesn't have a fitting job (right now) to put that to use. Say there are 100000 MBA's but you need someone who knows how to run a kubernetes cluster with a custom syscall shim for a modified kernel and there is someone in Norway who knows how to do that. Even combining all those college graduates combined with all their business education wouldn't be useful for such a role, but that Norwegian person would be. But you still want to stop H-1B?
    - x0x0 6y ago
      The number of recent layoffs make it clear that there are plenty of people perfectly capable of performing even your pretend scenario. See eg http://layoffs.fyi/ http://layoffs.fyi/ and also eng layoffs at Uber, Samsara, etc.
      - 6y ago

awillen 6y ago

It's just silly... even if you're a nationalist, isn't the prospect of bringing over talented people from foreign countries to work in America and help our companies profit plus deprive their home countries of their skills a really, really good thing?

dx87 6y ago
If H-1B visas were being used how they were intended, they would be a good thing, but we often see them used as a way to get cheap labor, or even directly replace American workers. The company I work at has H-1B junior web developers, hardly "very niche, hard to fill" positions that they can't find any qualified Americans to do.
- alexandercrohde 6y ago
  For a while I wasn't sure if this was just some "talking point." Then one day, on a hiking meetup, I met a guy who was ranting about his job that was to write "oddly hyper-specific job descriptions that might seem to make no sense" to bring in cheaper h1b candidates. So yeah, it's a problem.
  - jjoonathan 6y ago
    My previous boss would openly brag about doing this, while he was doing it.
    - toomuchtodo 6y ago
      For those who encounter this in their travels and want to do something about it: https://www.uscis.gov/report-fraud https://www.uscis.gov/report-fraud https://www.uscis.gov/report-fraud/uscis-tip-form https://www.uscis.gov/report-fraud/uscis-tip-form
  - pkaye 6y ago
    Years back I had a college friend who was hired on an OPT visa. When they wanted to convert his visa to H1B (I think) they kept getting suitable candidates so had to rewrite the requirements so its only suited to him. He confided this to me as he felt bad but really needed that job.

newsclues 6y ago

The system was abused, and now there are consequences.

deleted 6y ago
[deleted]

president 6y ago

But you don't consider that maybe it's still a net positive that they were able to come to the US to get decent working experience for a number of years? At the same time, an unemployed American worker may now have a chance for the same job. How is this a bad thing?