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Andrew Ng: The suspension of H1B is bad for the US and bad for innovation
- gringoDan 6y agoPatrick Collison tweeted a powerful graph that quantifies this: https://twitter.com/patrickc/status/1275288642022289410 https://twitter.com/patrickc/status/1275288642022289410
- peteradio 6y agoHow is that quantifying impact on the U.S. innovation? It shows people being moved out of a bunch of countries and to another but I see no demonstration of that positive impact.
- gringoDan 6y agoThe graph is not just people, but specifically inventors. The US has a giant net influx of inventors (some of whom arrive on a H1B), which presumably creates wealth, jobs, etc.
- devalgo 6y ago>some of whom arrive on a H1B Isn't this the key part, isn't that graph rather irrelevant to the H1B discussion if it doesn't specifically point out the H1B numbers? As an aside the H1B is an abusive system that depresses technical wages and oppresses the visa holders who can lose their residency on the whims of large corporations.
- tomp 6y agoHow many of those really arrive on H1B, and how many of those have no other options? I was told that even I could apply for some "talent visa" (the one that fashion models often use) because I competed in the math olympiad... the bar seems to be set incredibly low (speaking of myself, not the models).
- nine_zeros 6y agoI would recommend googling the process and try it out. Just try to find out if it is actually easy before commenting.
- deleted 6y ago[deleted]
- andrenotgiant 6y agoMy news and social media feeds are almost universally negative about this. Who is happy about H1B Visa suspension? Who was advocating for it?
- Supermancho 6y agoEveryone I know, including me? There is _no_ shortage of workers for virtually any industry. There is a shortage of people willing to work for submarket rates.
- automated_toast 6y agoExactly. Whenever business leaders moan about 'shortages', they say "We can't find Americans to do the job" when they mean "We can't find Americans to do the job at the shitty wage we want to pay"
- automated_toast 6y agoAnd it's not a race thing, it's a money thing. Hong Kong Chinese don't want paltry wages so they import Filipinos. Lebanese don't want paltry wages so they import Sri Lankans. Even black South Africans don't want paltry wages to they import Zimbabweans.
- spatley 6y agoIt's not a race thing, it's a money thing. The U. S. cotton agriculture workers don't want to work for nothing so they import Africans.
- Supermancho 6y agoThe US Railroad liked Chinese immigrants, etc. That's what happened, for the same reasons that H1B visa hires are popular.
- Daishiman 6y ago
- czatt 6y agoAs an intended MBA applicant for the class of 2021, the recent uncertainty around H1B visas makes me very uneasy and disappointed. I was forced to leave the U.S. back in 2016 despite having an investment banking job and paying meaningful taxes, which was incredibly frustrating. I was hoping for another shot at living and working in the US after completing an MBA, and now it looks like there either won't be a chance or it will be at best a shot in the dark. I am now seriously considering avoiding U.S. schools altogether and applying for top business schools in Europe such as LBS and INSEAD.
- automated_toast 6y agoBon Voyage! There are enough Americans who need an MBA degree. And there are more than enough Americans who can do an investment banking jobs.
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- dang 6y agoYou can't do this here and we've banned the account. If you don't want to be banned, you're welcome to email hn@ycombinator.com and give us reason to believe that you'll follow the rules in the future. https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html
- jimbob45 6y agoThe other poster was remarkably rude for no reason. I’d say that you don’t really want an H1B though. What you want is a concrete and easily accessible path to citizenship that takes your high-skilled degree into account. To that end, I would support broader immigration reform rather than trying to fix the irredeemable H1B program.
- gbronner 6y agoH1B is terrible for the employees, and for those who work alongside them. Companies try to slow down green cards, and use H1Bs as virtual indentured servants. They also fake looking for Americans- in practice, many of the jobs are earmarked for a specific person, and you are wasting your time applying for it. Losing your job as an h1b requires you to leave almost immediately, which isn't great for anyone. Hopefully they'll reform the process to focus on bringing talent into the country without chaining it to a specific company
- btilly 6y agoThe "without chaining it to a specific company" is critical. When the employee is chained to a company, the company has every incentive to lie then treat the employee poorly. When the employee is not chained to the company, the company has incentives to tell the truth then treat the employee well.
- evgen 6y agoUnfortunately the reality is that there is absolutely no one who is interested in pushing a visa scheme like this. Employers are not interested in going through effort and paperwork for an employee who can jump ship for a better offer down the street once they are in the country. Other employees are not interested in increasing the supply of similar labor that will drive down their market value. The only ones who are interested in a visa like this would be foreign-born skilled workers looking to immigrate, and they are going to lose the fight over who gets the visas with people who have no specific skills but family in country since that family can vote. There is no constituency for such a visa, so it is never going to happen.
- dclowd9901 6y agoThey would be if the employee was genuinely worth the hassle. Plus you can imagine most companies would put someone on a contractual basis if the “chaining” wasn’t implicitly part of the visa, which may, in itself, render such an idea moot.
- 6y ago
- btilly 6y agoH1B visas provide employers every incentive to lie to import cheap talent and work them hard. There are ways to meet the very real need to import the best brains from around the world. But H1B isn't set up to do this very effectively. Off the top of my head, a better option would be to allow immigration with a $60k bond to the government that has to be paid down at $1k/month by the current employer. With the employee in question able to transfer jobs at any time with the bond transferring to the new employer.
- sjg007 6y agoWhat would a bond accomplish? It seems easily gamed by say an insurance company that would pay the bond for premiums.
- tomp 6y agoThe employee would need to be skilled enough, to generate enough excess value, to make it worth it for everyone (the employee, the company, ...) over hiring a local worker.
- btilly 6y agoThe bond would serve two purposes. The first purpose is to pay for background checks and any costs that the immigrant might incur in the USA. (For example it would pay for deportation if the immigrant broke the law.) The second is to serve as proof that the immigrant is enough in demand that the government should believe we get a net positive from their admission to the USA. And not exactly onerous proof - it is only a fraction of what has to be paid in salary and benefits. Also note that this is only a partially baked proposal. I am sure that there are much better options than this, just as this is would be likely to work better than the current H1B program does.
- sjg007 6y agoCompanies already pay for background checks etc... Applying for an H1B is not free.
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- automated_toast 6y agoI for one am ecstatic about this. I want less competition for my role, not more. It is hard to compete when the top 5% of every other economy comes in and crowds me out.
- blueblisters 6y agoIf your job can be done remotely, you will likely face more competition, not less. Restricting the H1-B will only lead to companies following the talent back to their countries with lower costs of living. Moreover, the current restriction has barely any bite. It only restricts workers who are not in the US from getting a visa until December 2020.
- automated_toast 6y agoThen those countries will eventually get a higher cost of living, and live the good life. That's a good outcome as well.
- nine_zeros 6y ago> I for one am ecstatic about this. I want less competition for my role, not more. It is hard to compete when the top 5% of every other economy comes in and crowds me out. Factory workers in 80s and 90s said the same thing. All it did was price American factory workers out of the labor pool completely, moving jobs elsewhere. American greed and I-got-mine-fuck-you attitude is exactly why US will not remain a global superpower country anymore.
- automated_toast 6y agoI don't want America to be a global superpower. Too expensive. I'd rather be a quiet, happy country that just takes care of its own and chillaxes.
- shadowfox 6y agoI doubt that would satisfy the ego of most regular Americans, to say nothing about the leadership. Exceptionalism is very deeply ingrained here.
- automated_toast 6y agoMost H-1B to green card conversions are never really offered as competitive jobs. The job postings are so ludicrously specific that they are targeted to that one exact person. Plus, the pay is always lower. If we can't do the job ourselves, we shouldn't have the job.
- chabons 6y agoDo you have a source for that "the pay is always lower" comment? As far as I know, visa status doesn't affect compensation for employees in the same full-time role at FAANG + Microsoft, though I only have direct experience with one of these companies.
- adrr 6y agoAll the h1b salary data is public. If you search any of the Faang companies, the salaries seem in line with market rates. I would also love to see a study that shows otherwise.
- automated_toast 6y agoIs the salary public or also the stock options?
- chabons 6y agoI don't think the stock options would be public, since it's discretionary at most companies, and varies from person to person. Anecdotal as it is, from my experience at Microsoft the stock sign-on and annual bonus don't correlate with visa status.
- Daishiman 6y agoThe message has been loud and clear: do not emigrate to the US because no career advancement is worth constant uncertainty about your possibility to build a life. Middle income emigrants nowadays have a choice of multiple countries with a high standard of living and job opportunities, in addition to the many new opportunities that have been created by offshoring and satellite offices. In the past 4 years I have seen all my software engineer and PhD friends choosing Spain, Switzerland, Austria, Germany and Denmark to emigrate. I have discarded the US for potential MBA studies since then too. Desperate poor refugees will just take whatever country takes them as anything is better than war or genocide, so ironically this does very little to dissuade the most desperate, which I would assume would be one of the primary targets of these xenophobic policies.
- qppo 6y agoThe largest H1-B visa sponsors are Cognizant, Tata, Wipro, Infosys, and Deloitte. None of those scream "innovation" to me. The system absolutely needs reform, and I think most people can agree with that. But that said, blanket bans on immigration by the white supremacists and nationalists currently running our government and deciding our immigration are probably not designed to help America or innovation either. The whole H1-B ban feels like something the admin could throw to their supporters without making too much noise in the press, because it affects very few voters and we have more pressing economic problems than the tech labor shortage.
- pentae 6y agoI wasn't aware that our government was currently being run by white supremacists. Do you have a source?
- akuchling 6y agohttps://www.npr.org/2019/11/26/783047584/leaked-emails-fuel-calls-for-stephen-miller-to-leave-white-house https://www.npr.org/2019/11/26/783047584/leaked-emails-fuel-... "For almost three decades, Jared Taylor has been publishing his ideas about race at the American Renaissance magazine and now at a website called AmRen, which is considered a mouthpiece for white supremacist ideology. ... The website is not well-known outside white nationalist circles — but it found an audience in White House adviser Stephen Miller."
- slowmotiony 6y agoSo Stephen Miller is a white supremacist now? He must be hiding it pretty well, since I've heard through hundreds of hours of his podcast with Raheem Kasam and he has never said anything remotely racist.
- tomjakubowski 6y agoStephen Miller, the one working in the White House, doesn't host any podcast. You are thinking of Jason Miller.
- devalgo 6y agoH1B is a scam. It allows employers to shortchange their workers and abuse immigrants who are beholden to them for their right to live in the US.
- ones_and_zeros 6y agoImmigration is good for innovation, the H1B system is not. This administrations rollout of the suspension is cruel, which is the point. H1B Reform/Replacement is needed, the status quo is not.
- president 6y agoIf H1B visas were actually used for rare skilled talent, it would be great for innovation. Unfortunately, the majority of H1B workers are no better than your average run-of-the-mill CRUD programmer.
- andrewla 6y agoAgreed completely. I feel like this administration exists simply to taunt Congress to take actual action with regards to its wild swings on various issues. Congress has given way too much power over to the executive, and having the most corrupt real estate developer in a city frankly renowned for the corruption of its real estate developers in charge of the executive should be teaching Congress that they need to actually exercise power rather than just handing it over to whoever is sitting at that desk.
- president 6y agoWhile Andrew Ng is devastated that an H1B worker and their family has to pack their bags and return to their home country, one American worker will have the opportunity to enter the job market and feed his/her family. EDIT: Unfortunately, we find ourselves in a situation where many engineers on HN are H1B workers themselves or start-up owners/affiliates who benefit and profit off of H1B workers so it's obvious that I'm against the tide here. For all the haters, tell me why my company needed to hire a large group of QA engineers to do manual GUI testing when this does not really require much more than a high school GED, if even. Honestly, look deeply past the corporate lobbyist agendas and your own personal biases and tell me H1B policies are not effectively a ploy to get around cheap labor. Yes, they are great when used properly to find rare and top talent but anybody who has worked in the industry knows this is rarely the case.
- fzeroracer 6y agoThe lump of labour fallacy is just that, a fallacy.
- deleted 6y ago[deleted]
- president 6y agoYes, in a vacuum. It ignores the fact that at a given point of time, there are only a limited number of jobs in the market.
- fzeroracer 6y agoNo, you've managed to completely misinterpret how the lump of labor fallacy works and fell for the fallacy again. Job demand is elastic. If tomorrow X of all immigrants who held a job in the US left, that doesn't mean X jobs open up. You're losing X customers and Y investors where Y is a subset of X. Jobs are not a zero-sum game and H1B does not exist just to take away jobs because inevitably some of those people will go on to create more jobs and companies in the US. Again, I will repeat: The lump of labor fallacy is a fallacy for a reason.
- anticonformist 6y agoSince I'm disagreeing with the majority here: I have nothing but love and respect for people of all countries. I also happen to disagree with the groupthink on the H1B for reasons that have nothing to do with being bigoted. 1. The H1B is unethical because it intentionally brain-drains countries. Why is it good for the U.S. to take the most educated (and wealthy) foreigners from their countries? Doesn't this hurt these countries? 2. The H1B is unethical because it advantages large corporations and rich immigrants over small businesses and locals. Small companies can't generally hire using H1B, so they lose out on the scam. The immigrants are disproportionately the wealthiest people from their countries. By buying expensive educations, their parents are buying them access to the U.S. Rich corporations helping rich people by exploiting others. 3. The H1B is unethical because companies commit fraud using it without consequence. It's an open secret in the tech world that the H1B (and other visas) are being used to lower costs (through lower salaries, increasing supply, and coerced retention) and not to hire for roles that could not otherwise be filled by locals. This is fraud and yet there is little to no enforcement. 99% of the H1B jobs could all be filled locally. It would just drive up costs for large corporations like Google, Facebook, Microsoft, and Tesla.
- rantwasp 6y ago> 99% of the H1B jobs could all be filled locally that’s a bold claim. do you have a any sources to back that up? also, just because someone that is only interested in the financial aspect does a bootcamp, does not mean that they can immediately ramp up and do the work someone else has a formal education in and has been doing for 10 years. that’s not how life works.
- clairity 6y agowhile you make some good points, your intent seems to be "america first", which often veils less egalitarian aims (not implying that of you specifically however). i'd rather advocate "innovation first", and the "america first" part will follow, but without the discriminatory baggage. personally, i think we should abolish h1b's in favor of wider, streamlined immigration. bring all the innovators here, up and down the income spectrum. open labor markets and let them work to sort out value and allocation, rather than restricting them through political means and effectively only allowing large companies to take advantage of the arbitrage of all that. that would actually make america great again.
- dckeyjqmon 6y agoI came to the US from Canada under TN status, and later switched to an H1B so I could get a green card. I used to think it was a good thing, but I have since changed my mind. The Wikipedia article for the H1B outlines most of the problems, but I'll talk about my experience. When I moved from Canada to the US (for a software engineering role), I thought I getting a huge raise. It was about twice what I was earning in Canada prior, so for me personally it was a big step up, but what I didn't realize at the time is that they were actually paying me about 50% below the market rate in the US. At the time I was making about $56k/year in Canada (in CAD, about $40k USD), and I was hired at around $85k/year in the US. This was in 2009. What I realized soon after, was that someone with my experience was making about twice that much in the US. It wasn't until I got a green card (which took 5 years) that my salary adjusted upward to the market rate. The company that helped me get my green card was Airbnb, but even back then they hired me (while I was still on a TN) well below the market rate. I managed to negotiate my salary up, but I was still anchored near the bottom of my cohort. While working at these companies (including Airbnb), I felt trapped because I could not easily quit or search for a better paying job. My employers knew this, since according to the rules I'm required to leave the country if I lose or quit my job. Many companies also don't want to deal with H1Bs or TNs because they don't want the fuss of dealing with immigration problems. While waiting for my green card to arrive, I was trapped at Airbnb for about 2 years. They actually fired me from my job before my green card arrived, and were kind enough to let me wait a few more months until I had the card in hand before I officially left the company. In those months I pretty much just sat around, enjoyed the nice lunches and dinners, and hung out with coworkers. I think immigration is great, but I think these employment based visas only work well for employers. They make it easy to hire cheap workers at below market rates, and have them stick around because they can't leave. I think we need real immigration reform, or, better yet, allow companies to hire the best people and make it illegal to discriminate based on nationality. The TN/H1B system is just legalized discrimination.
- thejynxed 6y agoWe have labor laws forbidding discrimination based on national origin, and yes, some corporations use H1-B and related visa systems as a loophole around those laws to discriminate based on national origin and more than likely the rest such as race, ethnicity, etc. In my time spent in tech-related fields I have certainly seen companies provide more favorable benefits and overall treatment to say, Ukrainian SysOps vs their counterparts from India or Bangladesh.
- airstrike 6y agoAny blanket statement in this thread or elsewhere that reads like "H-1B visas X" is probably wrong, as the visa is used by a wide range of employers and employees. That is probably the biggest issue with the visa. It's meant to do one thing but abused to be solve many other needs, some of which are needs society really doesn't want to solve (hiring cheaper labor for positions Americans could easily fill) Attempts to solve this problem should start by shining a light on the many current uses of the visa, figuring out which are worth safeguarding and which are worth eliminating and then discussing how to reform this particular visa (and possibly create others) to address the worthwhile needs.
- jimbob45 6y agoCounterpoint: I’d rather gut the H1B system and ease the path to citizenship. The H1B system just exists for employers to pay lower wages to skilled workers. I would much rather those workers get fast-tracked to citizenship instead. Letting them leave with the money they make here isn’t in our best interests and neither is preventing them from changing companies, which allows employers to underpay them. I would heavily support using the H1B as a probationary period to test assimilation into the US before granting full citizenship but that’s not really in the spirit of the program at that point.
- nsm 6y agoThe reality is that the US government has done NO meaningful progress on immigration reform to guarantee a path to citizenship for skilled people. This leaves H1B as the only option and now that is gone too, but only due to executive order. I find it hard to believe there will be any meaningful reform under any administration. Particularly until they can get out of this habit of clumping all kinds of immigration (legal and illegal, skilled and unskilled) into one bill, so that nobody can agree on anything.
- akhilcacharya 6y agoUnfortunately this administration would never want to “ease” anything. There was a time in which fast tracking skilled graduates of American schools was a bipartisan consensus - those days are gone.
- 1-6 6y agoH1B = Modern day slavery It has all the same characteristics. Large corps 'sponsor' a worker; smaller ones can't. The slave worker gets to enjoy a somewhat better life under their master but can't run when their master is a viscous slave driver. If the slave wins the green card lottery or comes into a lot of money, they can eventually get freedom.
- rantwasp 6y agothat’s just wrong. look up AC21. you can switch jobs on H1B. for an employer it’s easier to do the paperwork for this vs a full-blown H1B.
- atlgator 6y agoBeg to differ. H1B's may live the high life in Big Tech, but that is not the experience of most H1Bs. For the rest, it is akin to indentured servitude. They are dramatically underpaid compared to American counterparts and unable to change jobs without losing your place in line for citizenship. I have worked with Indian subcontractors that have waited 20 years! H1B is nothing more than the wealthy using labor arbitrage to exploit foreign workers at the expense of American workers.
- thomaspaine 6y ago>I have worked with Indian subcontractors that have waited 20 years! And you think this suspension will help them?
- automated_toast 6y agoNot interested in helping them. Interested in ending a system that is not working out well for Americans.
- atlgator 6y agoThe solution is not to increase them, that's for sure. The solution is to abolish the quota system which Democrats keep upholding for their Big Tech overlords.
- esalman 6y agoLooking at the details, this allows for transitions from F1 and OPT status to H1B. However it suspends H1B stamping, meaning you probably cannot leave USA. Having said that, there's been rumors of some form of restriction or suspension of OPT as well. I am researching on brain function and mental health. As a grad student I make less than what many Americans get in unemployed benefits. I think you'll be hard pressed to find any American willing to do my job. My mom was denied US visitor Visa several times, I need to travel abroad to see her and this suspension will force me to rethink my future in the USA.
- umvi 6y agoThere are 2 sides to every coin. It can be frustrating/demoralizing to American software developers as well, when they go to interview for a job, to see they are competing with an absolute flood of Indian and Chinese H1Bs. Then, when all of your interviewers are Chinese and Indian as well and you don't get the job, you sort of feel like the victim of favoritism and that you've been pushed out of your own country's industry by foreign nationals.
- deleted 6y ago[deleted]
- quineoa 6y agoIs it ridiculous to consider that you fail your interviews because you’re not as good on a global level because some countries have better work ethic than others and better education systems than others even if America considers them to be “lower than”. Adobe and Microsoft CEOs went to the same high school and it wasn’t in the US ;) - jealous American student
- mehrdada 6y agoOr you may fail at interviews because for you it’ll be conducted in English vs their native language. Not a hypothetical. At least an anecdote. Old colleague casually admitted to this despite company policy. Also note that most interviews are known to be more extreme than the actual job needs: e.g. leetcode is the interview; random CSS manipulation is the actual job. I wonder how hard would it be to teach a top 15% high schooler in America to do that stuff.
- copperx 6y agoTop high schoolers can develop algorithms. The average high schooler can manipulate CSS, no problem.
- throwawaygh 6y agoRight. Most software engineering isn't the sort of hard-to-source skilled labor that the H1B program was intended to provide. Until we can be honest about that and have a real healthy debate about allowing the sort of mid/low skill labor that smart high schools can do, our immigration will continue to suck and breed resentment on all sides. NB I'm pro-mid/low skill immigration. But these H1B conversations are intractable without first pointing out that, if the goal is low/mid skill immigration, then we need to fight for a new visa class aside from the H1B.
- vsskanth 6y agoIMO all this uncertainty is due to a lack of action from Congress on immigration. US Citizens need to come to terms with their immigration priorities - how many and what kind of immigrants do we need in the US, and vote for representatives who promise to bring this to a conclusion. H1B, in its current state combined with green card laws have led to a massive group (600K+) of permanent non-immigrants in the US. This leads to a lot of pain and heartbreak for people who follow all the laws, pay all taxes and looking to establish a stable life. Many of these folks have US citizen kids. Many don't realize how difficult it is to keep up with all the paperwork just to ensure you are in legal status in the US. The level of arbitrary regulation by USCIS is only making everyone's life painful while not solving the root cause (H1B abuse).
- roystonvassey 6y agoAmidst this debate, I think it’s worth looking at the EU Blue Card scheme [1]. A few key differences versus the H1B (correct me if I’m wrong - my understanding of H1B features are basis discussions I have seen here): 1. Not tied to a specific employer. At least theoretically this is the case though your residence permit clearly specifies your employer. 2. Family-friendly options where your family can join you with the initial visa application. Spouses/Partners are immediately eligible to work. 3. Integration courses for language and culture, offered for free usually, and for the entire family. 4. After 2 years, you can switch jobs and after an another year, you can apply for permanent residence. The steps and guidelines are clearly specified and all the laws side with the employer to ensure no exploitation or harassment. 1 - https://www.auswaertiges-amt.de/en/aamt/zugastimaa/buergerservice/faq/02a-what-is-the-blue-card/606754 https://www.auswaertiges-amt.de/en/aamt/zugastimaa/buergerse...
- rrrrrrrrrrrryan 6y agoThese differences all look like net-positives, but I've always wondered how well "integration courses" would be received in America. In conversations with Europeans, I've found that many people are pro-immigration "so long as they integrate," but I think this same statement might be perceived as (rightly?) kind of racist or culturally insensitive in America.
- roystonvassey 6y agoRelevant point but given that the US is much more diverse, an integration course might not be relevant but such an immersion course might help non-English/non-western candidates feel at home faster.
- tmoney1818 6y agoHere's an interesting alternative to the current H1B visa. It replaces the lottery with an auction. I imagine this would make companies think twice about hiring "cheap" foreign labor, but then again it might lower the salaries further given the extra burden on the sponsoring company. https://www.hoover.org/sites/default/files/uploads/aafs/2013/05/Estimating-the-Economic-and-Budgetary-Effects-of-H-1B-Reform-In-S.744.pdf?fbclid=IwAR26rlc-NO--YQZfUPQ-AoVXSfWP28_ZbthfGartLpxfPAQTLgqy2CzKZ30 https://www.hoover.org/sites/default/files/uploads/aafs/2013....
- tmoney1818 6y agoPosted the wrong link before. https://www.hoover.org/research/auctioning-temporary-visas https://www.hoover.org/research/auctioning-temporary-visas
- resters 6y agoMost of the stuff Trump has done in the name of "America first" has restricted economic freedom for Americans. Tariffs make it more costly for American importers to do business, and restrictions on immigrations deprive American firms of the freedom to hire the most qualified candidate. It is incredibly ironic that anyone views these moves to restrict freedom as beneficial to "America". They simply create small advantages for some at the expense of everyone else.
- pm90 6y agoIf you read the comments in this forum, you will immediately see how he gets support for these myopic actions. Everything from reneging from international treaties and institutions to long term policies that have been shown to benefit the country are axed for short term political gain at the polls. And the people, even on this forum, are duped by it.
- greenhatglack 6y agoThe purpose of all immigration is to generate voting cattle for political careers, soldiers and cheap labour. To deny this, is to either deny reality or to line your pockets. Even during the civil war Irish immigrants were used as cannon fodder. Some groups even realized that the burden/load on society can be used to further increase revenue if their companies are in the businesses of supplying services and/or products to governments with a markup. If there is generous amounts of tax money in the pool, there will be sharks at the cost of the working class - somehow (white/champagne) socialists are conveniently ignoring this.
- jsnenl52882hehd 6y agoI see a lot of comments that miss the point. H1B visas have their problems and the system could be greatly improved by reforms. But that is not the issue. We are talking about suspension of ALL H1Bs and J visas! Whatever you feel about the problems with the current system, it is a net positive for the US. It has some pernicious negative effects, but ultimately our economy benefits more by being able to draw and integrate top talent from all over the world. To put this in a context that might be more familiar to readers here, it would be like Google or Facebook putting a moratorium on aquihires, or implementing some other policy that hurts their ability to recruit. Please do not buy into the hype that this is the first step toward reform. The current administration has had 3.5 years to overhaul the H1B system and has done nothing to date. This is horribly short sighted and a strategic blunder. It will hurt American innovation and the American economy. It’s the type of move made Yahoo and AOL in the mid aughts that ultimately led to their stagnation and demise 10 years later.
- rantwasp 6y agoyeah. this is not about reform. it’s about having another bullet point on some stupid list to please the voters. some of the same voters that were so disoriented to understand that obamacare is aca.
- throwawaygh 6y ago> this is not about reform. Agreed. > it’s about having another bullet point on some stupid list to please the voters Agreed. > some of the same voters that were so disoriented to understand that obamacare is aca. Disagreed. The H1B system as it exists is not easily defensible, so Trump is basically unconstrained. It's easier to defend a system against executive abuse when the system is working as intended. There are things that Trump would like to kill by XO but which he will not kill because their popularity constrains his political capital. The less popular/functional a program is, the easier it is to justify screwing with it. You're saying that other commenters don't realize this is a political issue. I think it's exactly the other way around: you don't realize how much political support for skilled immigration H1B abuse has burned in the past 10ish years.
- thomaspaine 6y agoITT: People criticizing the H1B program for reasons that have nothing to do with why it was suspended, or considering the fate of people/families who are already here on H1Bs. This is a pretty obvious move by the administration to discourage immigration, in any form. Could the H1B system be more equitable to workers, more efficient, less confusing, etc? Absolutely. But suspending H1Bs and green card applications like this does the opposite of all of that and throws thousands of families into limbo.
- totalZero 6y agoYou shouldn't dismiss comments about H1Bs that are divorced from the perceived motivations of the White House. The effect of suspending H1B is not dependent upon the motivations of the decision. The decision is substantial. It has consequences and externalities that extend beyond whatever single motive we could ascribe to the White House.
- guyzero 6y agoThis is disingenuous and only possible if you ignore the multiple other anti-immigrant changes the Trump administration has made.
- totalZero 6y agoAs I said in the other thread, please don't hurl epithets at people. If you disagree with me, you don't have to call me deceitful. Do you disagree that there are consequences and externalities to the H1B suspension that go beyond our best guess at the motivations of the White House? That's what I suggest in my comment, but you haven't addressed that at all.
- guyzero 6y agoI know the difference between "deceitful" and "disingenuous" and if I wanted to call you deceitful I would have. Besides,"disingenuous" isn't a name or pejorative, like calling you "ugly" or something. It's not an epithet. It literally means pretending to know less than you actually know which is exactly what I feel you are doing here. It does not require mind-reading to determine the intentions of the current executive administration around immigration. We have their previous behaviour with regards to different immigration policies to go on. I think that regardless of how anyone felt about the H1B program that this change is bad for America and was done for the wrong reasons. If this was about the H1B program then why suspend L1 visas, student visas and green cards? What does suspending au pairs have to do with H1B issues?
- oldsklgdfth 6y agoRelated to J1 visas, in my area they are used extensively to fill seasonal openings at resorts. A large proportion of the workforce is east European college students, working 2, maybe 3 jobs, over the summer.
- automated_toast 6y agoYeah those J1 visas must go too.
- hdivider 6y agoLike any other nation, the United States is in a competition for top talent. People who have other viable choices -- who are in many cases also those who stand a high chance to create a ton of value in the US -- will now put the US lower down in the priority list. As Victor Hwang put it [1]: "While other countries fight a global war for top talent, America just packs up the tent. Facts: - Immigrants start new businesses at twice the rate of native-born Americans. - Immigrants founded 44 of the 100 largest companies in America." [1]: https://twitter.com/rainforestbook/status/1275179964292366339 https://twitter.com/rainforestbook/status/127517996429236633...
- pl0x 6y agoI was an H1B and it was a terrible experiencing having to constantly move around.
- Overtonwindow 6y agoH1B is an excuse for companies to pay employees less, and treat them worse.
- justapassenger 6y agoWow, amount of discrimination in the comments here reminds of facebook political discussions. It's basically "I've once worked for a company with H1B, and it was a scam. Ergo all H1Bs are scam, should be eliminated ASAP, and they should go back to their own country!". Sadly, progressives and tolerance ends when it's touching your wallet.
- throwmehaweh 6y agoThe proclamation isn't even about ending H1B/H2B/J/L, it specifically says that it is to address the economic laborforce risk brought on by pandemic (thus it has expiration date).
- BenoitEssiambre 6y agoI hope this helps dissolve the network effects that gives an unfair advantage to the US and keeps the largest tech hubs there. We rest-of-the-worlders would like to partake also. What say you Musk? You already have Canadian citizenship, with the ice caps melting, it's not even that cold up here anymore.
- tempaccount4me 6y agoI am increasingly of the opinion that this is OK. Neither side is actually interested in a conversation. Businesses are not going to want to reform the H1B to make it less exploitative, and the people who think it's bad for Americans are not going to believe the stated pro-H1B case. People on the visa are stuck in the middle. I am sympathetic to both sides, but I have no easy solution to propose. End the damn thing and let's see what happens. Having been through the gauntlet a few years ago, this might seem like pulling the ladder up behind me. But, I would really like to see the Indian education/employment system diversify out of body-shopping or emigration and into more local innovation and progress. Maybe it won't happen, but something needs to change.
- domnickcobb 6y agoThe Problem is TRADE not H1B . ... every Enterprise level company has IT department in US. the CTO or the VP of the company wants to save money by going to offshore business model ... so how does this work, let say an infrastructure IT support in company consists of ( storage, database, network , System admins etc say about 150 employees) then a new CTO or VP of IT comes in and he decides to go for offshore model then enters the cheap low tech incompetent service companies from Asia bids these projects here .. let say 200 Million dollars for 5 years 24/7 support .. so these Body shopping company decides to have about 60 employees offshore and 10 employees onshore here in USA using H1b visa ... now the CTO of the company feels happy for saving money and starts firing ..sorry (Let go) of those 150 citizens..... this happens in every company across this country i know because I've seen it All.. now those employees who given their flesh and blood to those projects over years gets emotionally raged...at the time of KT( knowledge transfer) to those H1B onshore slaves.. saying you guys are taking our jobs away. and all that BS. BUT they forget One big Logic/common sense..that they lost their jobs because satanic .. crooked CTO's or VP of IT of their own company and due to the company it self .... not because immigrant came over H1B visa.. Let say for the argument of emotional mob .. that the H1b is completely removed by some revolution...do you really think the jobs will come back hahaha... those body-shopping companies will be more happy because that will give them a chance to make more money.. they will make 100% offshore and then they wont even keep those 10 h1b resources onshore.. they will make a deal with those crooked CTOs to operate everything from offshore ...so the emotional mob will be still unemployed even after H1B is removed .. the solution is the current administration should bring up the trade barriers a Bill to stop offshore business model completely which they wont do since this country is built and run by Rich CEOs.......
- archenary 6y ago1/ Yes, there are companies like Tata and Wipro who game the system to hire software developers at below market rate. This is absolutely a problem that should be addressed. Outright banning H-1B does solve the problem, but it is nowhere near optimal. For many skilled talents, H-1B is the only path to work in the U.S. Banning H-1B is throwing the baby out with the bathwater. 2/ No, there is no systemic difference in compensation for non-U.S. citizens at FAANG and equivalent. Compensation packages are formulaic. No one gets +/- X% just because they are a citizen or immigrant. If Google one day decides to pay H-1B 20% lower, they would lose out on a ton of qualified candidates to, say, Facebook. It'd require the entire conglomerate of FAANG, and whom they consider "peer" companies, to agree to suppress compensation for this to work [1]. It would also require everyone involved in the hiring process, many of whom were immigrants, to be onboard. I simple don't believe companies who compete for top talents would find this tradeoff worth it. I might just be living in a bubble, and am willing to be proven wrong. Just show me the data. 3/ Many successful companies are founded or led by immigrants who now happily call the U.S. their home. These are success stories that the country should celebrate, not chastise. You might think that Larry Page could've founded Google without Sergey Brin. You might be right, or wrong. The fact is we only have reality to observe. We don't have counterfactuals to compare against. [1] I know about the Steve Jobs no-poach email. That was also 13 years ago.
- pandaman 6y ago> No one gets +/- X% just because they are a citizen or immigrant. It's true. People get +X% because they negotiate. I believe citizens/LPRs have much stronger negotiation position: they can apply to companies, which do not consider H1B and they can walk away from any offer without catastrophic consequences even if they are between jobs so they can do "give me a raise or I walk" move at any time and not just when they have a next job lined up. I do not even mention supply and demand effects on the compensation for everyone here because it seems to be a very controversial concept. > Many successful companies are founded or led by immigrants who now happily call the U.S. their home. Can you give an example of such a company founded by somebody on one of the visas being discussed here?
- blisseyGo 6y agoThis is a good step. Companies abuse H1B visas and pay them less than what they would have paid citizens. I have so many friends who are paid 25-50% less for same jobs as citizens.
- LatteLazy 6y agoWhatever people think of H1B visas (and I'm generally very critical of these programs), since work from home is the new normal, will there be a drop in demand for visas? If Facebook have 9 engineers in an office, it makes sense to get the 10th into the country to join them. If 7 of those 9 work from home on any given day, does it really matter if the 10th is in <foreign place>?
- boruto 6y agoThis is good news for India. 60 percent of my classmates from a mid tier IIT work/study in US. This only increases competition levels for masters in India. GATE and PSU's would be frikin hard this and next year.
- gmanis 6y agoUnfortunately, I doubt this’ll happen. The set of kids going for MS are certainly not the ones looking at GATE. Besides, having a masters in India doesn’t improve your employability locally, so the opportunity cost of doing masters is quite high unless you’re driven by need to learn more or wanting to get into teaching.
- CRASCH 6y agoI would like to see them enforce equivalent salaries on H1B visas. There should not be a financial incentive for companies to do this. The original purpose was to bring in talent where it could not be found in the US. I believe this would be great for H1B visa employees and regular employees. If companies want to offshore they still can and they still do. Companies that currently abuse the system would hate it.