4 ms·

I 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

I 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 ago
yeah. 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.
  - rantwasp 6y ago
    some of the voters clearly did not understand that obamacare==aca setting this aside, I don’t think anyone is saying that H1B was a perfect system, but IMHO the benefits from it greatly outweigh the downsides. We’ll see how this unfolds and what the medium and long term impact is (spoiler: people will think twice about coming to work/live in the US) My favorite example when it comes to what’s going on in the US is the Roman Empire. It lasted for 1000+ years but it did disintegrate when the people in power lost track of what made the Roman Empire great. I am not saying this is going to happen in the next 5, 10 or 15 years, but things are definitely shifting and the world your grand grand kids are going to live in is going to be radically different from what we call normal right now.
    - throwawaygh 6y ago
      Yes, I agree with you on policy. I disagree on political strategy. I think it's politically disastrous to go on using H1B how it's currently used. We need to admit that there's a lot of low/midskill immigration happening using H1B and then fix it. If we don't, then we'll lose the H1B entirely. Already you see that the H1B is wildly unpopular because of a few large bad actors. So, we'll lose the baby with the bathwater. As we are now. If H1B were used how it's supposed to be used, then it'd be a lot easier to say "hey why are we kicking out our best scientists, our tippy-top engineers, and our surgeons? It's not like anyone loses by having these people here -- clearly none of us can even quality for those jobs". Right now, that's just not an argument I can use to convince my uncle or grandfather to support H1B visas. That's a problem. Now we're going to lose even skilled immigration because of a few big abusers. Because of those politics, I would rather restrict H1B to its original intent and then have the debate about low/midskill immigration on its own terms. My argument is that your political strategy is bad, not that your policy imperatives are wrong :)
      - rantwasp 6y ago
        it bothers me that we are arguing about this when we know that you and I have probably put more though into this than Trump. I don’t believe a crackdown on H1B abuse would have been half as bad as what is going on now and the “strategy” adopted now is just pure failure. Failure that is going to impact everyone in the long term
tartoran 6y ago
It’s obvious Trump did it for votes. Regardless, and hope Trump will be wiped out in November, H1-B needs to be looked at and fixed up. It hurts too many people and advantages too many corporations.
- blisseyGo 6y ago
  So if he hadn't done something to fix it right now when 40 million are unemployed, everyone would blame him. But since he did something to fix it, you say "Trump did it for votes". You are unwilling to give him any win.
throwmehaweh 6y ago
> Please do not buy into the hype that this is the first step toward reform. Where in the official proclamation does it say that it's a first step towards reform? Answer: It doesn't. Rather it lays out exactly _why_ they're doing it to address unprecedented surge in unemployment. "American workers compete against foreign nationals for jobs in every sector of our economy, including against millions of aliens who enter the United States to perform temporary work. Temporary workers are often accompanied by their spouses and children, many of whom also compete against American workers. Under ordinary circumstances, properly administered temporary worker programs can provide benefits to the economy. But under the extraordinary circumstances of the economic contraction resulting from the COVID-19 outbreak, certain nonimmigrant visa programs authorizing such employment pose an unusual threat to the employment of American workers. For example, between February and April of 2020, more than 17 million United States jobs were lost in industries in which employers are seeking to fill worker positions tied to H-2B nonimmigrant visas. During this same period, more than 20 million United States workers lost their jobs in key industries where employers are currently requesting H-1B and L workers to fill positions. Also, the May unemployment rate for young Americans, who compete with certain J nonimmigrant visa applicants, has been particularly high — 29.9 percent for 16 19 year olds, and 23.2 percent for the 20-24 year old group. The entry of additional workers through the H-1B, H-2B, J, and L nonimmigrant visa programs, therefore, presents a significant threat to employment opportunities for Americans affected by the extraordinary economic disruptions caused by the COVID-19 outbreak." https://www.whitehouse.gov/presidential-actions/proclamation-suspending-entry-aliens-present-risk-u-s-labor-market-following-coronavirus-outbreak/ https://www.whitehouse.gov/presidential-actions/proclamation...

rantwasp 6y ago

yeah. 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.
- rantwasp 6y ago
  some of the voters clearly did not understand that obamacare==aca setting this aside, I don’t think anyone is saying that H1B was a perfect system, but IMHO the benefits from it greatly outweigh the downsides. We’ll see how this unfolds and what the medium and long term impact is (spoiler: people will think twice about coming to work/live in the US) My favorite example when it comes to what’s going on in the US is the Roman Empire. It lasted for 1000+ years but it did disintegrate when the people in power lost track of what made the Roman Empire great. I am not saying this is going to happen in the next 5, 10 or 15 years, but things are definitely shifting and the world your grand grand kids are going to live in is going to be radically different from what we call normal right now.
  - throwawaygh 6y ago
    Yes, I agree with you on policy. I disagree on political strategy. I think it's politically disastrous to go on using H1B how it's currently used. We need to admit that there's a lot of low/midskill immigration happening using H1B and then fix it. If we don't, then we'll lose the H1B entirely. Already you see that the H1B is wildly unpopular because of a few large bad actors. So, we'll lose the baby with the bathwater. As we are now. If H1B were used how it's supposed to be used, then it'd be a lot easier to say "hey why are we kicking out our best scientists, our tippy-top engineers, and our surgeons? It's not like anyone loses by having these people here -- clearly none of us can even quality for those jobs". Right now, that's just not an argument I can use to convince my uncle or grandfather to support H1B visas. That's a problem. Now we're going to lose even skilled immigration because of a few big abusers. Because of those politics, I would rather restrict H1B to its original intent and then have the debate about low/midskill immigration on its own terms. My argument is that your political strategy is bad, not that your policy imperatives are wrong :)
    - rantwasp 6y ago
      it bothers me that we are arguing about this when we know that you and I have probably put more though into this than Trump. I don’t believe a crackdown on H1B abuse would have been half as bad as what is going on now and the “strategy” adopted now is just pure failure. Failure that is going to impact everyone in the long term

tartoran 6y ago

It’s obvious Trump did it for votes. Regardless, and hope Trump will be wiped out in November, H1-B needs to be looked at and fixed up. It hurts too many people and advantages too many corporations.

blisseyGo 6y ago
So if he hadn't done something to fix it right now when 40 million are unemployed, everyone would blame him. But since he did something to fix it, you say "Trump did it for votes". You are unwilling to give him any win.

throwmehaweh 6y ago

> Please do not buy into the hype that this is the first step toward reform. Where in the official proclamation does it say that it's a first step towards reform? Answer: It doesn't. Rather it lays out exactly _why_ they're doing it to address unprecedented surge in unemployment. "American workers compete against foreign nationals for jobs in every sector of our economy, including against millions of aliens who enter the United States to perform temporary work. Temporary workers are often accompanied by their spouses and children, many of whom also compete against American workers. Under ordinary circumstances, properly administered temporary worker programs can provide benefits to the economy. But under the extraordinary circumstances of the economic contraction resulting from the COVID-19 outbreak, certain nonimmigrant visa programs authorizing such employment pose an unusual threat to the employment of American workers. For example, between February and April of 2020, more than 17 million United States jobs were lost in industries in which employers are seeking to fill worker positions tied to H-2B nonimmigrant visas. During this same period, more than 20 million United States workers lost their jobs in key industries where employers are currently requesting H-1B and L workers to fill positions. Also, the May unemployment rate for young Americans, who compete with certain J nonimmigrant visa applicants, has been particularly high — 29.9 percent for 16 19 year olds, and 23.2 percent for the 20-24 year old group. The entry of additional workers through the H-1B, H-2B, J, and L nonimmigrant visa programs, therefore, presents a significant threat to employment opportunities for Americans affected by the extraordinary economic disruptions caused by the COVID-19 outbreak." https://www.whitehouse.gov/presidential-actions/proclamation-suspending-entry-aliens-present-risk-u-s-labor-market-following-coronavirus-outbreak/ https://www.whitehouse.gov/presidential-actions/proclamation...