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Disclaimer: I'm an immigrant. There are companies like Cognizant/InfoSys/Tata/... whose business model is based on abusing the H1B system, and that's obviously

Disclaimer: I'm an immigrant. There are companies like Cognizant/InfoSys/Tata/... whose business model is based on abusing the H1B system, and that's obviously wrong and I'm quite surprised they get away with it. I'm not defending that. To those who broadly argue against skilled visas, consider this: Most H1B immigrants are between 20-30 age range. The prime age to join the workforce. Think how much investment you have to make on a child's health care and education to make them into a highly skilled workforce. It would at least cost you 1$M and probably much more. Now all these immigrants have learned your language, passed job interviews, and are competing to come to your country to give you 1$M and help your economy. Why would you not want that? People seem to think that number of jobs is a limited constant and if you stop immigrants that will have a positive effect on the economy. But in reality companies can simply just scale. If they have more workforce they can do more. Things get done faster and they just make more profit. Stopping immigration obviously would dent the economical growth. Never mind that many top tech companies in the US were founded by immigrants or children of immigrants. To those who say we must invest in local workforce, I wonder why would you have to stop immigration to start investing in local workforce? As if allowing immigration would reduce the amount of money for investment, while in reality immigrants pay taxes. I personally have paid hundreds of thousands of dollars in taxes so far. I'd be happy if this money was used to educate the American workforce. However I know that it doesn't. I would like to see that change.

SomeoneFromCA 6y ago
It is very strange that people in this comment section shout "nationalism, BAD" when someone says that skilled people should stay in their own country and potentially help these countries to grow out of poverty, and statements like the one you just made - essentially rob these country of talented people and bring them into US - is somehow not nationalistic and good.
- codelord 6y ago
  I left my country to escape a totalitarian regime. I think just because you are born in a place doesn't mean you have the responsibility to completely sacrifice your life. Humans collectively have an obligation to help lift poor countries out of poverty. The question is are you against immigration because you genuinely care about the poverty in my country?
  - tdrp 6y ago
    For me it wasn't totalitarian but "corrupt beyond salvation" (think bottom 50 on corruption index). A friend of mine recently went back and lasted six months before he came back to the US - he opened a startup and had to deal with bribes, threats, blackmail and "forced partnerships". I myself would never go back there.
  - braindead_in 6y ago
    Calling the Indian Government a totalitarian regime is stretching it a bit too much. India is still a paradise of liberty compared to China and some other countries in our region. Indians want H1B because they want to earn in dollars, plain and simple. All other reasons are secondary. H1B is modern-day bonded labor. You guys are the sugar slaves of this age, like it or not.
    - deleted 6y ago
      [deleted]
    - weyland108 6y ago
      Makes you a slave master nonetheless.
    - codelord 6y ago
      As far as I know I'm not from India.
    - triceratops 6y ago
      > H1B is modern-day bonded labor. That's a bit of a stretch, don't you think? Bonded laborers were forbidden to leave their jobs under penalty of the law (like actual prison time). H-1B holders are free to leave any time, they just experience a massive drop in income.
      - lsllc 6y ago
        It's not just a "massive drop in income"; if you get fired/laid off or want to leave your H1B job, you have 60 days to leave the country or find a new H1B job (which might not be so easy with quotas & applications etc).
- shuckles 6y ago
  By the very nature of a highly skilled worker, they likely cannot realize the full value of those skills without a certain economic and commercial context. It is definitely not the case that for most H1-B employees the counterfactual is "growing their own countries out of poverty." Most likely, the counterfactual is being another 75th percentile wage worker in a low income country. In addition, this line of reasoning totally discounts the very real benefit of foreign transfer payments from workers in the United States to their international families, often supporting large extended families.
  - SomeoneFromCA 6y ago
    Could you please express yourself in simpler English? I cannot understand what you just said - not a native speaker.
    - danaris 6y ago
      Their thesis is that many of the home countries of H1B visa holders do not have the social, technological, and economic infrastructure to support lots of jobs with the skills that they are able to use to their potential in the US. Thus, if they go home, they will not likely be "lifting their country out of poverty"—they will just be stuck in one of the jobs that is available there. Low-skill, low-pay jobs, without any prospect for advancing to something more like they would be able to do here. I don't know to what extent this is true, but this is my understanding of their post.
    - Leherenn 6y ago
      A highly skilled person can only thrive in the right environment. As an extreme example, take the best programmer in the world, and send him back 500 years in the past, he's probably not going to be very productive. (The counterpoint to this, which the GP didn't talk about, is that this person is still likely to be able to retrain and be productive in that society in other ways.)
- pbhjpbhj 6y ago
  Can you see how someone emigrating of their own volition and bringing their skills is different to a country purposefully trying to encourage immigration of skilled workers from [poorer] countries where there is a skills shortage. The end result looks similar but motivation matters.
- zerr 6y ago
  What we forget is actually an individual - relocation is a basic human right. There should be no lottery of birth.
- gizmondo 6y ago
  Why don't you go to one of those countries and help it to grow out of poverty? It's pretty easy to be generous at the expense of others.
yibg 6y ago
Also (if we leave aside the abusers like InfoSys etc), employers pay an additional cost for H1B visa workers (comparable salary + the cost of sponsoring the visa itself). Presumably this means there is a net benefit to the American company doing the hiring to be hiring these H1B workers. Seems like a win-win situation here all around. If the concern is with abuse, then let's crack down on that.
- amznthrowaway5 6y ago
  HN needs to stop pretending only companies like Infosys and Tata abuse the h1b. Even big tech companies like Amazon and Facebook hire h1b workers so they can create sweatshop environments. H1b workers are afraid of being deported if they do not perform well, and a certain percentage of workers are forced to be on the PIP plan every year in the stack ranking. Can even lead to suicides or suicide attempts. Ex: https://www.cnbc.com/2019/10/15/facebook-employee-i-was-fired-for-talking-about-colleagues-suicide.html https://www.cnbc.com/2019/10/15/facebook-employee-i-was-fire... https://www.businessinsider.com/amazon-employees-share-thoughts-about-suicide-survivor-2016-12 https://www.businessinsider.com/amazon-employees-share-thoug...
  - diebeforei485 6y ago
    Sure- but there is never going to be a perfect policy. Facebook Engineering typically hires people with degrees from great programs, or great prior experience. But most of the "IT" work done by InfoSys and others are things that can practically be done by Americans as well. It would take training, but it wouldn't take a degree from a top university. So - companies like InfoSys and Tata are a good place to start.
    - amznthrowaway5 6y ago
      Sure, but the big corp issue should also be addressed. Do you really believe a lot of big corp work couldn’t be done by other Americans? People like Zuck aren’t advocating for more h1bs under current rules out of the goodness of their hearts.
okapple 6y ago
H1B Employee with 100k Salary contributes $12,400 to Social Security and $2,900 Medicare every year. (Total:$15,300 per year). Majority H1B from India and China are stuck in green card backlog; with the current immigration system, they will never get the green card. Option for them is to stay in the USA on H1B in green card waiting queue or return home. (I do not think this is right or wrong people who are stuck in the queue, they chose to come to the USA and work here, it is up to that person to decide if they want to stay or go back or go to another country). After returning to home country from the USA, Social Security and Medicare deducted is a contribution to the USA (I am not saying this is right or wrong, just a fact).
- winter_blue 6y ago
  Just wanted to say that Social Security's Old-Age Income program is available to all non-citizens, regardless of immigration status. It is a good thing to be aware of. The only requirements to meet is 10 years of work in the US (i.e. "40 quarters of coverage (QC's)"). I spoke to someone from India sometime ago, who had come to the US in their late 40s or early 50s. They were planning on going back to India after they had accrued 10 years of tax-paying years in the US, so they could collect on Social Security Old-Age when they retired in India. With the exception of a few countries,the US government will in fact directly deposit money in your foreign bank account. [a] You don't need to have any ties to the US. The whole thing is actually quite profitable, if you've only worked in the US for 10 years. Per the formula [b], if they earned $130k per year, in 10 years they made $1.3 million (and contributed $198,900 at 15.3% in FICA taxes), which divided by 420 yields $3,095 - the AIME (Average Indexed Monthly Earnings). The benefits payable for it is: 960 x 0.9 + (3095-960) x 0.32 = $1,547. They can get $1,547 from age 67. If they live until 87, that's 20 years. And 20 * 12 * 1547 = $371,280. All other federal benefits, plus the other programs funded by FICA taxes (ie OADSI / SSI + Medicare taxes) including SSI, the other parts of OADSI, and of course Medicare, are not available to non-resident non-citizens (with a few exceptions). [a] https://www.ssa.gov/pubs/EN-05-10137.pdf https://www.ssa.gov/pubs/EN-05-10137.pdf [b] https://www.ssa.gov/OACT/COLA/piaformula.html https://www.ssa.gov/OACT/COLA/piaformula.html
  - fishywang 6y ago
bdcravens 6y ago
Much of what you say is true, but it's important to realize the H1-B is not designed with any of those benefits in mind. Its only purpose is to fill roles where there is no local talent.
- ReticentVole 6y ago
  The H1B is also not designed to support diversity or equality, which is crucial if we consider it a stepping-stone to long-term immigration (which many people want). It would seem reasonable to place an intake limit of 10% from any one country, and limiting males to a maximum of 49%. Right now, lets be honest, the H1B is giant immigration scheme for Indian males to get into the USA: 75% of applicants are Indian, and roughly 70% of applicants are male. https://tech.economictimes.indiatimes.com/news/people/three-fourths-of-h1b-visa-holders-in-2018-are-indians-us-report/66290031 https://tech.economictimes.indiatimes.com/news/people/three-... https://www.computerworld.com/article/3050365/how-many-h-1b-workers-are-male-us-wont-say.html https://www.computerworld.com/article/3050365/how-many-h-1b-... With these kind of diversity requirements, it would also be much harder for crooked companies like Infosys to racially discriminate against non-Indians: https://economictimes.indiatimes.com/tech/ites/infosys-faces-fresh-race-discrimination-suit-in-us/articleshow/76347038.cms https://economictimes.indiatimes.com/tech/ites/infosys-faces... The green card lottery visa has diversity metrics built into it explicitly, which is probably why it receives minimal negative attention.
  - tekknik 6y ago
    We shouldn’t focus on diversity for the sake of diversity. The purpose of H1-B is to attract talent but when you say a certain percentage need to be from a specific country, or of a specific sex or race then it’s not about talent (and is actually racist, “you’re not indian so you can’t have this job”). Why do we even tolerate ideas like this?
    - deleted 6y ago
      [deleted]
  - awarmteacup2020 6y ago
artificial 6y ago
O type Visas have no quota [0]. This is what the H1B are represented as though in practice suppress wages[1][2]. This issue is decades in the making and companies exploiting these programs earned their scrutiny. Especially when there's massive unemployment companies importing labor under these auspices need to be called out. [0] https://www.uscis.gov/working-united-states/temporary-workers/o-1-visa-individuals-extraordinary-ability-or-achievement https://www.uscis.gov/working-united-states/temporary-worker... [1] https://www.wsj.com/articles/a-new-look-at-the-h-1b-visa-programs-impact-on-american-workers-1489483811 https://www.wsj.com/articles/a-new-look-at-the-h-1b-visa-pro... [2] https://www.sciencemag.org/careers/2015/05/economists-h-1b-visas-suppress-wages https://www.sciencemag.org/careers/2015/05/economists-h-1b-v...
- peripitea 6y ago
  O visas are much harder to get than H-1B. I've hired a bunch of people via H-1B that we could not have hired via O. None of them were displacing American workers -- we would have hired just as many (or more) qualified American workers if they had been available too. So it seems disingenuous to imply that O covers the intended purpose of H-1B. (For the record, I agree that companies like Tata abuse H-1B and that sort of situation should be banned.)
  - learc83 6y ago
    >None of them were displacing American workers -- we would have hired just as many (or more) qualified American workers if they had been available too. Did you try increasing salaries until you could find applicants. I'm virtually certain that you did not. What you mean is that you couldn't find American workers at the price you were willing to pay, and because you weren't willing to pay the market price, you found another market. If you could hire 20 people on H-1Bs but you only have enough money to hire 10 local people. You have displaced 10 American workers.
    - peripitea 6y ago
      Please don't put words in my mouth. We were paying well over market rate. There simply are not enough qualified Americans to do all of the highly skilled jobs available.
pascalxus 6y ago
I can understand how this might seem unfair to immigrants. this part is completely wrong: "If they have more workforce they can do more". The demand for labor is not determined by the supply of labor, it's determined by the demand for those products. When companies higher engineers for example, they don't just go, "hey, we just had two brilliant engineers interview, so instead of highering 1, we'll higher 2." It never works that way. Companies need the amount of labor they need, and not one person more. The reality is there's a vast oversupply of labor right now in most fields. Wages have been stagnant for a long time. And even in the bay area, average engineering salaries lag behind the local COL. Furthermore, the US simply won't allow for enough housing to be built. Even with the population we currently have, there's no where near enough housing. this problem is only getting worse. Sure, it's just politics, it's a choice voters have made, but we're stuck with that choice. And, having more immigrants/increasing population makes it worse.
- winter_blue 6y ago
  Let's talk about immigrants that are being paid well, for a moment -- since Trump is seeking ban those people as well. (Also since I myself am one such immigrant, and I know several immigrants who were being paid extremely well, whose H-1B cases were denied by the US government under the guise of software engineering not being a "specialty occupation"[1]). A friend of mine last year got a job as a L5 at Google, for around $380k a year in total ($190k base + $28.5k bonus + approx $160k stock). Plus a sign-on of $50k. First year pay is $430k. He's not doing rocket science, or managing. He's an individual contributor writing back end code. Meanwhile, there are folks doing a similar jobs in Canada, who are making 100k CAD (on the high end), which is $73k USD. And the cost of living in big cities in Canada is shockingly high. Now, you were saying something about bay area salaries being low? The salaries are, if anything, over the top insanely high. Also, I'm trying to understand why companies go through all the processing delays, legal costs, frequent unjust denials since 2017, to hire someone who is not a citizen, while paying them well above the median for the job, if there is a supposed oversupply of talented top-tier skilled people who are looking for a job. The truth i that oversupply myth is just a lie, spun by people with anti-immigrant animus, plain and simple. I can't fathom the head space you would have to be in to think that salaries are low. Incredible arrogance and entitlement, combined with a generous dose of xenophobia probably. Instead of being thankful, there are people who want to cut off / deport / exclude people from working in the US (and I mean people making these high salaries). Also, I know a lot of H-1B holders with high salaries. I myself am one of them. (In fact I don't know any low-paid H-1B holders, but my social circles are all folks working at top companies or friends from other social groups.) The intense amount of hatred for immigrants on HN always continues to appall and amaze me. I usually tend to refrain from commenting on these threads, because the toxic amount of contempt and hatred for immigrants that I come across in these threads is extremely upsetting, but sometimes it's better to speak up, than be silent. [1] See: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=20671424 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=20671424
downerending 6y ago
Here's a frank answer. I've worked with various foreigners and H1Bs over a long career and always enjoyed it. I worry sometimes that they're being seriously abused by their employers, but I figure that's for them to decide. I feel less positive about the program these days given that a number of companies have made it a point of pride to emphasize hiring of "diverse" employees, which seems in reality to be a pretext for H1B hiring that would not otherwise happen. This stings a little bit for me personally, as it's become clear that I'm losing some jobs to H1Bs. And I'm sure it really stings for native techies that can't find work during this incipient economic depression. (I'm old enough that being whacked by H1Bs just means unexpected early retirement.) For whatever reasons, I suspect the American base will continue to hollow out and turn into something different. It's a bit like British cuisine, which has (in my impression) been essentially overrun by Indian cuisine and that of other countries. Is that bad? I guess it depends on your point of view. Anyway, as long as the hiring is legal, I'm good with it. Certainly I've never met a colleague from another country that I didn't enjoy working with.
- FuckButtons 6y ago
  I’m English, there was no English cuisine before Indian food. The closest thing we had to a national dish was fish and chips, which frankly, is fucking awful. About all you can say for English food is that we make nice beer.
  - downerending 6y ago
    Well, indeed, maybe it was an easy mark. But still, "fish and chips" was a thing here in the US in the 1970s to 1990s at least, and I still remember "Long John Silver's" with great nostalgia. (Not sure a Brit would care for it, but at least it was freshly fried.) Mushy peas, on the other hand, are probably unsalvageable. Except, maybe, with a nice curry sauce... :-)
hintymad 6y ago
I know this will probably be flagged or voted down, but at least please understand that I truly want to see people in the US get better and more equal. Here it goes: if the US wants to invest in local talent, the US had better invest heavily in education. And I'm not talking about an-iPad-per-kid kind of investment, but investment to hire great teachers, lots of them, to public schools to the point that tutoring schools become a joke, investment to set up a system that can fire bad teachers -- the kinds who ask students in grade 9 physics class "which is heavier, pound or kilogram". Investment to ensure that even the poorest area can have public schools that are at least as good as KIPP. Investment to really keep students in their discomfort zone so they can learn every day. Investment that builds a system that really pushes the limit of every student instead of being complacent with the craps like "Kids can discover most math by themselves" or "left no kids behind" or "challenging math is systemic bias against the poor" or "math is racism" -- maybe they are, but then they are because our governments offer such low-quality education that family with means can get ahead by going to soul-sucking tutoring schools. Education is the key to local talent, and is the key to equality. Yet, what has the US done to make our education better?
- pps43 6y ago
  > the US had better invest heavily in education At this point, more money is not going to help. Education in the US is fundamentally broken. Combination of "no child is left behind" and standardized testing (because everything else will be called discrimination) ensures uniformly bad results. If you pour more money in, it's just going to be wasted on bureaucracy and busywork. So H1-B is actually a great idea. If we can't educate, let's attract well-educated people from elsewhere. They want to live here, so we can choose. We don't mind buying electronics made in China because they can do it better and cheaper, why not do the same with people. Finland seems to be doing just fine with education at a fraction of US cost, let the market do its thing and flex the comparative advantage.
- john_moscow 6y ago
  This comment is the reason why we need to rethink our current culture of censorship and social media outrage. It explains a non-trivial logical connection, showing how something that could look unpopular from the surface, would pay off in the long run. Except you cannot make comments like this in public anymore. Because all it takes is an angry mob leader shouting "%USERNAME% is %CLICHE%ist" and that's it. Your employer fires you, your friends abandon you, you are socially bankrupt in an instant. There are many bright people our there with great perspectives to share. Except they have to maintain radio silence, because they are not willing to take that risk. So the only voices to be heard are the most extreme ones that have nothing to lose. I sincerely hope we can overcome this and get people to discuss problems and work together on solving them before our civilization sinks into medieval barbarism.
neximo64 6y ago
Your description lacks the implications of being a market participant in the labour market.
raj_khare 6y ago
Exactly. H1B is great. Most people don't come to SV just for money. They are seeking interesting applications of technology, researching on breakthroughs, climbing corporate ladder etc. Whether you like it or not, most tech companies are run by immigrants. If someone is against that, I don't know whether you're afraid of competition or think that only natives have the sacred right to work on interesting stuff. I'm not saying I'm not against people who are abusing H1B. That should be banned NOW.
dragonwriter 6y ago
> Most H1B immigrants There are no H-1B immigrants. There may be H-1B holders who plan to become immigrants, but H-1B is a nonimmigrant work visa. > Now all these immigrants have learned your language, passed job interviews, and are competing to come to your country to give you 1$M and help your economy. No, they are competing to come and reduce the market clearing cost of labor and increase the returns to capital in our economy. Which is good for you if you are (1) one of the incoming laborers, or (2) a person whose main interaction with the US economy is via capital investment, not labor income. > To those who say we must invest in local workforce, I wonder why would you have to stop immigration to start investing in local workforce? You don't have to stop immigration. You do, on the other hand, need to stop importing labor in a manner specifically and selectively designed to avoid upward pressure on wages (and thereby, stop the incentive to develop domestic supply) for high-skill, high-demand positions and to terminate temporary residency when it no longer serves that purpose. Or, you need to better capture the returns produced by those means and direct them to domestic workforce development. I'm one of the most pro-immigrant and pro-immigration and anti-Trump, people you’ll find, and I would shed not a single tear if Trump managed to permanently kill, rather than merely temporarily suspend, the H-1B program.
- deleted 6y ago
  [deleted]
president 6y ago
> People seem to think that number of jobs is a limited constant and if you stop immigrants that will have a positive effect on the economy. But in reality companies can simply just scale. This is completely wrong. Jobs are zero-sum. One H1-B worker hired is one lost American job opportunity. It's not that hard to understand and taxes have nothing to do with this. Yes, companies can scale jobs but how often are they doing this and how does it help if they are also scaling up the number of H1-B workers?
bJGVygG7MQVF8c 6y ago
> Think how much investment you have to make on a child's health care and education to make them into a highly skilled workforce. Let me fix that for you: Think how much investment you miss out on — investment in a child's education to make them into a citizen who will carry your country's patrimony into the following generation.

SomeoneFromCA 6y ago

It is very strange that people in this comment section shout "nationalism, BAD" when someone says that skilled people should stay in their own country and potentially help these countries to grow out of poverty, and statements like the one you just made - essentially rob these country of talented people and bring them into US - is somehow not nationalistic and good.

codelord 6y ago
I left my country to escape a totalitarian regime. I think just because you are born in a place doesn't mean you have the responsibility to completely sacrifice your life. Humans collectively have an obligation to help lift poor countries out of poverty. The question is are you against immigration because you genuinely care about the poverty in my country?
- tdrp 6y ago
  For me it wasn't totalitarian but "corrupt beyond salvation" (think bottom 50 on corruption index). A friend of mine recently went back and lasted six months before he came back to the US - he opened a startup and had to deal with bribes, threats, blackmail and "forced partnerships". I myself would never go back there.
- braindead_in 6y ago
  Calling the Indian Government a totalitarian regime is stretching it a bit too much. India is still a paradise of liberty compared to China and some other countries in our region. Indians want H1B because they want to earn in dollars, plain and simple. All other reasons are secondary. H1B is modern-day bonded labor. You guys are the sugar slaves of this age, like it or not.
  - deleted 6y ago
    [deleted]
  - weyland108 6y ago
    Makes you a slave master nonetheless.
  - codelord 6y ago
    As far as I know I'm not from India.
  - triceratops 6y ago
    > H1B is modern-day bonded labor. That's a bit of a stretch, don't you think? Bonded laborers were forbidden to leave their jobs under penalty of the law (like actual prison time). H-1B holders are free to leave any time, they just experience a massive drop in income.
    - lsllc 6y ago
      It's not just a "massive drop in income"; if you get fired/laid off or want to leave your H1B job, you have 60 days to leave the country or find a new H1B job (which might not be so easy with quotas & applications etc).
shuckles 6y ago
By the very nature of a highly skilled worker, they likely cannot realize the full value of those skills without a certain economic and commercial context. It is definitely not the case that for most H1-B employees the counterfactual is "growing their own countries out of poverty." Most likely, the counterfactual is being another 75th percentile wage worker in a low income country. In addition, this line of reasoning totally discounts the very real benefit of foreign transfer payments from workers in the United States to their international families, often supporting large extended families.
- SomeoneFromCA 6y ago
  Could you please express yourself in simpler English? I cannot understand what you just said - not a native speaker.
  - danaris 6y ago
    Their thesis is that many of the home countries of H1B visa holders do not have the social, technological, and economic infrastructure to support lots of jobs with the skills that they are able to use to their potential in the US. Thus, if they go home, they will not likely be "lifting their country out of poverty"—they will just be stuck in one of the jobs that is available there. Low-skill, low-pay jobs, without any prospect for advancing to something more like they would be able to do here. I don't know to what extent this is true, but this is my understanding of their post.
  - Leherenn 6y ago
    A highly skilled person can only thrive in the right environment. As an extreme example, take the best programmer in the world, and send him back 500 years in the past, he's probably not going to be very productive. (The counterpoint to this, which the GP didn't talk about, is that this person is still likely to be able to retrain and be productive in that society in other ways.)
pbhjpbhj 6y ago
Can you see how someone emigrating of their own volition and bringing their skills is different to a country purposefully trying to encourage immigration of skilled workers from [poorer] countries where there is a skills shortage. The end result looks similar but motivation matters.
zerr 6y ago
What we forget is actually an individual - relocation is a basic human right. There should be no lottery of birth.
gizmondo 6y ago
Why don't you go to one of those countries and help it to grow out of poverty? It's pretty easy to be generous at the expense of others.

yibg 6y ago

Also (if we leave aside the abusers like InfoSys etc), employers pay an additional cost for H1B visa workers (comparable salary + the cost of sponsoring the visa itself). Presumably this means there is a net benefit to the American company doing the hiring to be hiring these H1B workers. Seems like a win-win situation here all around. If the concern is with abuse, then let's crack down on that.

amznthrowaway5 6y ago
HN needs to stop pretending only companies like Infosys and Tata abuse the h1b. Even big tech companies like Amazon and Facebook hire h1b workers so they can create sweatshop environments. H1b workers are afraid of being deported if they do not perform well, and a certain percentage of workers are forced to be on the PIP plan every year in the stack ranking. Can even lead to suicides or suicide attempts. Ex: https://www.cnbc.com/2019/10/15/facebook-employee-i-was-fired-for-talking-about-colleagues-suicide.html https://www.cnbc.com/2019/10/15/facebook-employee-i-was-fire... https://www.businessinsider.com/amazon-employees-share-thoughts-about-suicide-survivor-2016-12 https://www.businessinsider.com/amazon-employees-share-thoug...
- diebeforei485 6y ago
  Sure- but there is never going to be a perfect policy. Facebook Engineering typically hires people with degrees from great programs, or great prior experience. But most of the "IT" work done by InfoSys and others are things that can practically be done by Americans as well. It would take training, but it wouldn't take a degree from a top university. So - companies like InfoSys and Tata are a good place to start.
  - amznthrowaway5 6y ago
    Sure, but the big corp issue should also be addressed. Do you really believe a lot of big corp work couldn’t be done by other Americans? People like Zuck aren’t advocating for more h1bs under current rules out of the goodness of their hearts.

okapple 6y ago

H1B Employee with 100k Salary contributes $12,400 to Social Security and $2,900 Medicare every year. (Total:$15,300 per year). Majority H1B from India and China are stuck in green card backlog; with the current immigration system, they will never get the green card. Option for them is to stay in the USA on H1B in green card waiting queue or return home. (I do not think this is right or wrong people who are stuck in the queue, they chose to come to the USA and work here, it is up to that person to decide if they want to stay or go back or go to another country). After returning to home country from the USA, Social Security and Medicare deducted is a contribution to the USA (I am not saying this is right or wrong, just a fact).

winter_blue 6y ago
Just wanted to say that Social Security's Old-Age Income program is available to all non-citizens, regardless of immigration status. It is a good thing to be aware of. The only requirements to meet is 10 years of work in the US (i.e. "40 quarters of coverage (QC's)"). I spoke to someone from India sometime ago, who had come to the US in their late 40s or early 50s. They were planning on going back to India after they had accrued 10 years of tax-paying years in the US, so they could collect on Social Security Old-Age when they retired in India. With the exception of a few countries,the US government will in fact directly deposit money in your foreign bank account. [a] You don't need to have any ties to the US. The whole thing is actually quite profitable, if you've only worked in the US for 10 years. Per the formula [b], if they earned $130k per year, in 10 years they made $1.3 million (and contributed $198,900 at 15.3% in FICA taxes), which divided by 420 yields $3,095 - the AIME (Average Indexed Monthly Earnings). The benefits payable for it is: 960 x 0.9 + (3095-960) x 0.32 = $1,547. They can get $1,547 from age 67. If they live until 87, that's 20 years. And 20 * 12 * 1547 = $371,280. All other federal benefits, plus the other programs funded by FICA taxes (ie OADSI / SSI + Medicare taxes) including SSI, the other parts of OADSI, and of course Medicare, are not available to non-resident non-citizens (with a few exceptions). [a] https://www.ssa.gov/pubs/EN-05-10137.pdf https://www.ssa.gov/pubs/EN-05-10137.pdf [b] https://www.ssa.gov/OACT/COLA/piaformula.html https://www.ssa.gov/OACT/COLA/piaformula.html
- fishywang 6y ago

bdcravens 6y ago

Much of what you say is true, but it's important to realize the H1-B is not designed with any of those benefits in mind. Its only purpose is to fill roles where there is no local talent.

ReticentVole 6y ago
The H1B is also not designed to support diversity or equality, which is crucial if we consider it a stepping-stone to long-term immigration (which many people want). It would seem reasonable to place an intake limit of 10% from any one country, and limiting males to a maximum of 49%. Right now, lets be honest, the H1B is giant immigration scheme for Indian males to get into the USA: 75% of applicants are Indian, and roughly 70% of applicants are male. https://tech.economictimes.indiatimes.com/news/people/three-fourths-of-h1b-visa-holders-in-2018-are-indians-us-report/66290031 https://tech.economictimes.indiatimes.com/news/people/three-... https://www.computerworld.com/article/3050365/how-many-h-1b-workers-are-male-us-wont-say.html https://www.computerworld.com/article/3050365/how-many-h-1b-... With these kind of diversity requirements, it would also be much harder for crooked companies like Infosys to racially discriminate against non-Indians: https://economictimes.indiatimes.com/tech/ites/infosys-faces-fresh-race-discrimination-suit-in-us/articleshow/76347038.cms https://economictimes.indiatimes.com/tech/ites/infosys-faces... The green card lottery visa has diversity metrics built into it explicitly, which is probably why it receives minimal negative attention.
- tekknik 6y ago
  We shouldn’t focus on diversity for the sake of diversity. The purpose of H1-B is to attract talent but when you say a certain percentage need to be from a specific country, or of a specific sex or race then it’s not about talent (and is actually racist, “you’re not indian so you can’t have this job”). Why do we even tolerate ideas like this?
  - deleted 6y ago
    [deleted]
- awarmteacup2020 6y ago

artificial 6y ago

O type Visas have no quota [0]. This is what the H1B are represented as though in practice suppress wages[1][2]. This issue is decades in the making and companies exploiting these programs earned their scrutiny. Especially when there's massive unemployment companies importing labor under these auspices need to be called out. [0] https://www.uscis.gov/working-united-states/temporary-workers/o-1-visa-individuals-extraordinary-ability-or-achievement https://www.uscis.gov/working-united-states/temporary-worker... [1] https://www.wsj.com/articles/a-new-look-at-the-h-1b-visa-programs-impact-on-american-workers-1489483811 https://www.wsj.com/articles/a-new-look-at-the-h-1b-visa-pro... [2] https://www.sciencemag.org/careers/2015/05/economists-h-1b-visas-suppress-wages https://www.sciencemag.org/careers/2015/05/economists-h-1b-v...

peripitea 6y ago
O visas are much harder to get than H-1B. I've hired a bunch of people via H-1B that we could not have hired via O. None of them were displacing American workers -- we would have hired just as many (or more) qualified American workers if they had been available too. So it seems disingenuous to imply that O covers the intended purpose of H-1B. (For the record, I agree that companies like Tata abuse H-1B and that sort of situation should be banned.)
- learc83 6y ago
  >None of them were displacing American workers -- we would have hired just as many (or more) qualified American workers if they had been available too. Did you try increasing salaries until you could find applicants. I'm virtually certain that you did not. What you mean is that you couldn't find American workers at the price you were willing to pay, and because you weren't willing to pay the market price, you found another market. If you could hire 20 people on H-1Bs but you only have enough money to hire 10 local people. You have displaced 10 American workers.
  - peripitea 6y ago
    Please don't put words in my mouth. We were paying well over market rate. There simply are not enough qualified Americans to do all of the highly skilled jobs available.

pascalxus 6y ago

I can understand how this might seem unfair to immigrants. this part is completely wrong: "If they have more workforce they can do more". The demand for labor is not determined by the supply of labor, it's determined by the demand for those products. When companies higher engineers for example, they don't just go, "hey, we just had two brilliant engineers interview, so instead of highering 1, we'll higher 2." It never works that way. Companies need the amount of labor they need, and not one person more. The reality is there's a vast oversupply of labor right now in most fields. Wages have been stagnant for a long time. And even in the bay area, average engineering salaries lag behind the local COL. Furthermore, the US simply won't allow for enough housing to be built. Even with the population we currently have, there's no where near enough housing. this problem is only getting worse. Sure, it's just politics, it's a choice voters have made, but we're stuck with that choice. And, having more immigrants/increasing population makes it worse.

winter_blue 6y ago
Let's talk about immigrants that are being paid well, for a moment -- since Trump is seeking ban those people as well. (Also since I myself am one such immigrant, and I know several immigrants who were being paid extremely well, whose H-1B cases were denied by the US government under the guise of software engineering not being a "specialty occupation"[1]). A friend of mine last year got a job as a L5 at Google, for around $380k a year in total ($190k base + $28.5k bonus + approx $160k stock). Plus a sign-on of $50k. First year pay is $430k. He's not doing rocket science, or managing. He's an individual contributor writing back end code. Meanwhile, there are folks doing a similar jobs in Canada, who are making 100k CAD (on the high end), which is $73k USD. And the cost of living in big cities in Canada is shockingly high. Now, you were saying something about bay area salaries being low? The salaries are, if anything, over the top insanely high. Also, I'm trying to understand why companies go through all the processing delays, legal costs, frequent unjust denials since 2017, to hire someone who is not a citizen, while paying them well above the median for the job, if there is a supposed oversupply of talented top-tier skilled people who are looking for a job. The truth i that oversupply myth is just a lie, spun by people with anti-immigrant animus, plain and simple. I can't fathom the head space you would have to be in to think that salaries are low. Incredible arrogance and entitlement, combined with a generous dose of xenophobia probably. Instead of being thankful, there are people who want to cut off / deport / exclude people from working in the US (and I mean people making these high salaries). Also, I know a lot of H-1B holders with high salaries. I myself am one of them. (In fact I don't know any low-paid H-1B holders, but my social circles are all folks working at top companies or friends from other social groups.) The intense amount of hatred for immigrants on HN always continues to appall and amaze me. I usually tend to refrain from commenting on these threads, because the toxic amount of contempt and hatred for immigrants that I come across in these threads is extremely upsetting, but sometimes it's better to speak up, than be silent. [1] See: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=20671424 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=20671424

downerending 6y ago

Here's a frank answer. I've worked with various foreigners and H1Bs over a long career and always enjoyed it. I worry sometimes that they're being seriously abused by their employers, but I figure that's for them to decide. I feel less positive about the program these days given that a number of companies have made it a point of pride to emphasize hiring of "diverse" employees, which seems in reality to be a pretext for H1B hiring that would not otherwise happen. This stings a little bit for me personally, as it's become clear that I'm losing some jobs to H1Bs. And I'm sure it really stings for native techies that can't find work during this incipient economic depression. (I'm old enough that being whacked by H1Bs just means unexpected early retirement.) For whatever reasons, I suspect the American base will continue to hollow out and turn into something different. It's a bit like British cuisine, which has (in my impression) been essentially overrun by Indian cuisine and that of other countries. Is that bad? I guess it depends on your point of view. Anyway, as long as the hiring is legal, I'm good with it. Certainly I've never met a colleague from another country that I didn't enjoy working with.

FuckButtons 6y ago
I’m English, there was no English cuisine before Indian food. The closest thing we had to a national dish was fish and chips, which frankly, is fucking awful. About all you can say for English food is that we make nice beer.
- downerending 6y ago
  Well, indeed, maybe it was an easy mark. But still, "fish and chips" was a thing here in the US in the 1970s to 1990s at least, and I still remember "Long John Silver's" with great nostalgia. (Not sure a Brit would care for it, but at least it was freshly fried.) Mushy peas, on the other hand, are probably unsalvageable. Except, maybe, with a nice curry sauce... :-)

hintymad 6y ago

I know this will probably be flagged or voted down, but at least please understand that I truly want to see people in the US get better and more equal. Here it goes: if the US wants to invest in local talent, the US had better invest heavily in education. And I'm not talking about an-iPad-per-kid kind of investment, but investment to hire great teachers, lots of them, to public schools to the point that tutoring schools become a joke, investment to set up a system that can fire bad teachers -- the kinds who ask students in grade 9 physics class "which is heavier, pound or kilogram". Investment to ensure that even the poorest area can have public schools that are at least as good as KIPP. Investment to really keep students in their discomfort zone so they can learn every day. Investment that builds a system that really pushes the limit of every student instead of being complacent with the craps like "Kids can discover most math by themselves" or "left no kids behind" or "challenging math is systemic bias against the poor" or "math is racism" -- maybe they are, but then they are because our governments offer such low-quality education that family with means can get ahead by going to soul-sucking tutoring schools. Education is the key to local talent, and is the key to equality. Yet, what has the US done to make our education better?

pps43 6y ago
> the US had better invest heavily in education At this point, more money is not going to help. Education in the US is fundamentally broken. Combination of "no child is left behind" and standardized testing (because everything else will be called discrimination) ensures uniformly bad results. If you pour more money in, it's just going to be wasted on bureaucracy and busywork. So H1-B is actually a great idea. If we can't educate, let's attract well-educated people from elsewhere. They want to live here, so we can choose. We don't mind buying electronics made in China because they can do it better and cheaper, why not do the same with people. Finland seems to be doing just fine with education at a fraction of US cost, let the market do its thing and flex the comparative advantage.
john_moscow 6y ago
This comment is the reason why we need to rethink our current culture of censorship and social media outrage. It explains a non-trivial logical connection, showing how something that could look unpopular from the surface, would pay off in the long run. Except you cannot make comments like this in public anymore. Because all it takes is an angry mob leader shouting "%USERNAME% is %CLICHE%ist" and that's it. Your employer fires you, your friends abandon you, you are socially bankrupt in an instant. There are many bright people our there with great perspectives to share. Except they have to maintain radio silence, because they are not willing to take that risk. So the only voices to be heard are the most extreme ones that have nothing to lose. I sincerely hope we can overcome this and get people to discuss problems and work together on solving them before our civilization sinks into medieval barbarism.

neximo64 6y ago

Your description lacks the implications of being a market participant in the labour market.

raj_khare 6y ago

Exactly. H1B is great. Most people don't come to SV just for money. They are seeking interesting applications of technology, researching on breakthroughs, climbing corporate ladder etc. Whether you like it or not, most tech companies are run by immigrants. If someone is against that, I don't know whether you're afraid of competition or think that only natives have the sacred right to work on interesting stuff. I'm not saying I'm not against people who are abusing H1B. That should be banned NOW.

dragonwriter 6y ago

> Most H1B immigrants There are no H-1B immigrants. There may be H-1B holders who plan to become immigrants, but H-1B is a nonimmigrant work visa. > Now all these immigrants have learned your language, passed job interviews, and are competing to come to your country to give you 1$M and help your economy. No, they are competing to come and reduce the market clearing cost of labor and increase the returns to capital in our economy. Which is good for you if you are (1) one of the incoming laborers, or (2) a person whose main interaction with the US economy is via capital investment, not labor income. > To those who say we must invest in local workforce, I wonder why would you have to stop immigration to start investing in local workforce? You don't have to stop immigration. You do, on the other hand, need to stop importing labor in a manner specifically and selectively designed to avoid upward pressure on wages (and thereby, stop the incentive to develop domestic supply) for high-skill, high-demand positions and to terminate temporary residency when it no longer serves that purpose. Or, you need to better capture the returns produced by those means and direct them to domestic workforce development. I'm one of the most pro-immigrant and pro-immigration and anti-Trump, people you’ll find, and I would shed not a single tear if Trump managed to permanently kill, rather than merely temporarily suspend, the H-1B program.

deleted 6y ago
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president 6y ago

> People seem to think that number of jobs is a limited constant and if you stop immigrants that will have a positive effect on the economy. But in reality companies can simply just scale. This is completely wrong. Jobs are zero-sum. One H1-B worker hired is one lost American job opportunity. It's not that hard to understand and taxes have nothing to do with this. Yes, companies can scale jobs but how often are they doing this and how does it help if they are also scaling up the number of H1-B workers?

bJGVygG7MQVF8c 6y ago

> Think how much investment you have to make on a child's health care and education to make them into a highly skilled workforce. Let me fix that for you: Think how much investment you miss out on — investment in a child's education to make them into a citizen who will carry your country's patrimony into the following generation.