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The next US president won’t be great for H-1B visas

• 908B64B197 6y ago
  The H1 reform is a great move. The current H1B program made no sense at all. If I wanted to hire: A smart graduate from EPFL, Polytechnique or ETH Zurich who interned at CERN and has contributed to the Linux kernel for a software engineering job at a unicorn startup or A grad from a second tier "technical college" in India with a visa refusal rate of ~90% for a job doing manual UI testing and QA for a body shop my only path forward is H1. They'll both be listed as "computer related occupations" and apply for the same visa in the same quota. Does that makes any sense to anyone?
  • koluna 6y ago
    Do you feel the need to repost the exact same argument word-for-word? https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=24702805 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=24702805
• deadalus 6y ago
  https://outline.com/XarLGs https://outline.com/XarLGs
• hn_throwaway_99 6y ago
  Thank God. H1-B is a dishonest, abusive program that preys on both foreign and native workers. Some of the arguments in this article arguing against a higher wage floor for visa holders are extremely weak. I'm in favor of a much fairer immigration program (starting with not tying a visa-holder to an employer), and H1-Bs in their current form are not it.
• hehetrthrthrjn 6y ago
  How is wage-based visa allocation denying entry-level applicant visas a bad thing? If there are entry level roles to be filled they should be filled locally since they're low skill/experience by definition. If you're going to develop talent you should develop local talent. The deal is that you give foreigners the opportunity because they offer valuable skills.
  • dmode 6y ago
    It is not just entry level roles. H1B also fills universities, nurses, doctors, young startups. They are not going to compete with $400k salaries at FAANG
    • hehetrthrthrjn 6y ago
      Clearly wage discriminants needs to be within job types otherwise they're meaningless. I'm sure any honest implementation would be on that basis.
• whoisjuan 6y ago
  A someone who benefited from the H1-B program I’m 100% behind the idea of adding higher wages requirements. I went to Carnegie Mellon and met some of the smartest people there and it crushed my heart seeing some super talented people lose on the lottery several times and be forced to go back home when they already had an employer in the US paying them 100k+ and willing to go great lengths to keep them. I was lucky enough to get a visa in my first lottery draw, but that was the only reason I got to do what others couldn’t. Luck. They lost against those consulting companies that exploited the program with impunity for years. So the QZ article author here is wrong. Whoever is the next US president, this is the best thing that could have happened to the H1-B program.
  • thechao 6y ago
    I’ve never understood why H1-B applications weren’t sorted by compensation (salary): higher salaries go first. Seems like a trivial way to prevent visa farming.
    • inesta 6y ago
      Won't that unfairly benefit big companies?
      • kofejnik 6y ago
        Nothing unfair about that; salary is a very direct measure of demand for specific skills
        • jlokier 6y ago
          > salary is a very direct measure of demand for specific skills Only economic demand. Not demand in the more common meaning as need. See the other comment about H-1Bs being for nurses too. They aren't going to be offered FAANG salaries but that doesn't mean the country doesn't need nurses. It means there isn't enough money in the part of the system that pays for nurses to compete with FAANG salaries to get them (and all the consequences of that, such as having to pay all other nurses FAANG salaries as well). If you followed the chain I guess you could argue that the economic demand for advertising is higher than economic demand for healthcare, like it or not. But that would be a really screwed up way of assessing the best way to assign H-1B visas for the benefit of the country.
• vsskanth 6y ago
  You can take all kinds of policy positions on a campaign, but any president cannot really do much to the H1B system without passing laws. Passing a new immigration bill is very hard since there are so many competing interests benefiting from the status quo and there is very little to gain electorally. The current administration tried using executive action and regulatory approaches to fulfil their agenda and both keep getting struck down in courts. The new upward revision in wage levels are also expected to have the same fate. There is simply very little regulatory leeway on H1B visas since they are encoded in law. It is highly unlikely for a democratic administration to spend political capital changing H1B when they have bigger priorities (healthcare). At the end of the day, Indians are the only affected population on H1B due to backlogs and aren't a strategic voting bloc for democrats. Everyone else gets a green card in a couple of years anyways. They are more focused on undocumented and family based immigration. A broken immigration system and the H1B status quo is expected to last for a while unless there are external factors (collapse in international student numbers, US emigration, US companies moving jobs out of the country) forcing action.
  • rayiner 6y ago
    > The current administration tried using executive action and regulatory approaches to fulfil their agenda and both keep getting struck down in courts. The new upward revision in wage levels are also expected to have the same fate. There is simply very little regulatory leeway on H1B visas since they are encoded in law. That’s not accurate. The original law in the 1960s was designed to be very different, and one of the basic bargains was that it wouldn’t increase net immigration. That ended up being false because Presidents ended up using executive action and regulations to depart from the original design. For example, Clinton narrowing the public charge exclusion to refer to only cash welfare. Indeed, the H1-B system was never intended to be a vehicle for permanent immigration. That was created by administrative fiat too. Trump’s administrative changes were to make the system more consistent with what the law actually says.
    • vsskanth 6y ago
      Immigration laws were passed and signed even after 1960s. Since I only focused on H1B in my original comment I will only seek to address that point. H1B changes were not implemented by administrative fiat. The AC21 act was passed to provide unlimited H1B extensions with an approved employment-based immigration application. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/H-1B_visa https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/H-1B_visa
• jacknews 6y ago
  The visa is meant to give highly talented people an opportunity to fulfill their potential by participating in the US economy, while also benefiting America. Sadly it has been aggressively abused by some companies to bring cheap labor into the US, actually undermining the local skilled labor system (eg why bother training Americans). H1-B does indeed need reform, and that does mean an end to the 'good old days' (good for who, though). All IMHO - I'm not even American, or Indian.
• qudat 6y ago
  Artificial geographical lines segregating people artificially. Remove our set of welfare programs and let anyone that can make it here, live here.
  • josephcsible 6y ago
    The problem is the second suggestion is politically popular but the first is not, and if you only do the second one, it obviously goes badly.
• remote_phone 6y ago
  3/4 of all H1Bs are going to Indians. Having some level of diversity from other countries doesn’t sound like a bad idea. On top of it, most of those H1bs are from Indian body shops gaming the system which is how they get so many H1Bs in the first place. So I’m okay with these changes.
  • amf12 6y ago
    Having some level of diversity from other countries doesn’t sound like a bad idea. No. H1B is a skills based visa and not diversity/family based. The only thing that should matter are the skills and not the country they come from. Steps should absolutely be taken to ensure the system can't be gamed and that only well qualified applicants get selected.
    • oh_sigh 6y ago
      Enforcing diversity is a way to prevent gaming. If the only thing that should matter is skills, it wouldn't make sense in any realistic scenario that 75% of H1Bs are coming from a country with 15% of the population.
      • amf12 6y ago
        > If the only thing that should matter is skills, it wouldn't make sense in any realistic scenario that 75% of H1Bs are coming from a country with 15% of the population. That's not really true. Skills the same, you would still see more people from SEA, Africa immigrating to the US than say people from EU, Australia, Canada. Most qualified people in developed countries can get the same or better standard of living staying in their home countries than people from countries like India.
      • kinkrtyavimoodh 6y ago
        Except the whole world isn't really competing for those Visas. The appeal of the H1B is the difference in quality of life between the home country and the US. It's not like the everyone in the world has a burning desire to pay California rent.
      • 6y ago
• jmeister 6y ago
  Every time H1b comes on HN, I see people making the same arguments over and over again. It’s a topic that never fails to provoke. I also wonder if it’s a different set of commenters each time..
  • HarryHirsch 6y ago
    Just talk to someone who has been on H1-B. Your ears will ring for days after. He will tell you what he put up with, and then he will tell you what colleagues and friends of his put up with. It's safe to assume that you are poorly informed, just go talk to some people on H1-B.
    • jacknews 6y ago
      No doubt. Many H1-B employees are essentially indentured slaves, and those who work with them then have to compete to that level.
    • dilyevsky 6y ago
      I was on h1b and know a dozen or more people who were/are on one. Your comment is pure fud
      • HarryHirsch 6y ago
        Rachel would disagree: https://rachelbythebay.com/w/2018/09/08/visa/ https://rachelbythebay.com/w/2018/09/08/visa/
        • deleted 6y ago
          [deleted]
• jmpman 6y ago
  “I am hearing from many constituents, who have been waiting over ten years, for a green card“ - Constituent - “ any of the voters who elect a person to represent them.” H1B are not US citizens, and politicians considering them their “constituents” are misrepresenting their true constituents interests.
  • runarberg 6y ago
    I feel like limiting voting to citizen (and therefor not granting voting rights to some residents) is one of these things we will look back at as a historic thorn before universal suffrage.
    • jmpman 6y ago
      I feel like looking back at H1Bs will show that it has driven down historically underrepresented ethnicities ability to pull themselves out of the poverty cycle.
    • jlokier 6y ago
      I agree, it's felt like a fundamentally wrong sort of thing for a long time to me. Same with prisoners being not allowed to vote. How can you have a representative democracy where only some of the people are represented, and laws are made that determine who goes to prison for political reasons (such as using cannabis for example)? The Brexit vote in the UK is a great example of this injustice. It is often cited as 52% voted for Brexit. But the people most affected are the residents from EU countries other than the UK. They are of all ages, and have been told, some their entire lives, that they have the same effective status as UK citizens in virtually every way. Unlike most systems, the EU-UK system did not require visas, documentation, or place restrictions on people. They were allowed to do virtually everything any citizen can do, and advised in effect that converting to actual UK citizenship is a pointless formality, which even the UK state would not encourage. In effect they were "virtual citizens" already. Many are part of multi-generation families in the UK by now. And then a decision which affects them most of all is passed without their input. There are millions of them. About 5.5% of the entire UK population. If they had been asked, there is no doubt from the numbers that the result would have gone decisively the other way. A prime example of "taxation without representation" and all the other things like that. On top of that, another group very much affected: UK citizens living in the EU. Some of those retired are now in difficult circumstances, as they lose rights where they are settled, and can't really come back to the UK either. Those living there long-term were not allowed to vote on the issue even though it severely affects them; that number is about 1% of the UK population. A prime example of "screwed without representation".
• H-1Bravo 6y ago
  Auction, auction, auction - but not with fees, with salaries. Set a cap on number of entrants, and then "auction" the slots. Adjust the cap on entrants annually. No showing of specific market need required, or educational background of the applicant. Just criminal background and health checks on the applicant. The bid is the (gross) pay of the role with a minimum commit of 36 months. Winning bids are paid to the employee (i.e. as regular income) over the first 36 months or until their employment with the sponsor ends, whichever comes first. (The fee paid is de minimis, just what's required for processing.) Employees who voluntarily quit or are terminated are free to take any other job paying at least what the sponsor's job paid, provided they do so within 3 months. The new employer does not need to bid or sponsor them. If the employee can't find a new role, they have to leave. In any case sponsor then pays the remaining bid/salary to the government over the remainder of the 36 month term. After 5 years keeping your nose clean and remaining employed making more than the starting pay at entry, get a green card and eligibility to apply for naturalization. At a stroke this would eliminate the abuses of H1-B - lowball salaries, exploitative conditions - and open a legitimate market for global talent. The sponsor has a strong incentive to vet the applicant and not abuse them, as they are on the hook for 3 years of comp whether or not they retain them.
  • sunshinerag 6y ago
    This is brilliant.
  • RyJones 6y ago
    I really like this plan. Perhaps the salary could go into escrow up front, to make the hook set harder on employers?
    • nrmitchi 6y ago
      Having to provide even a single year of salary up-front (or the 36 month commitment that the parent comment suggested) would be prohibitive to all but the large companies.
  • amf12 6y ago
    I like some of your points, and H1B desperately needs a revamp. However, a direct unadjusted salary based auction is a non-starter for the following reasons: - Non tech professions also hire people on H1Bs and don't pay as well as FAANG-likes do. - Wages are generally lower in non bay area locations. Employers in low COL areas might lose out to those in high COL areas. > Employees who voluntarily quit or are terminated are free to take any other job paying at least what the sponsor's job paid, provided they do so within 3 months. 3 months is generally not enough time to find a new job, finish immigration transfer formalities. This small duration to find a new job also leads to a lot of scams to maintain status.
• RickJWagner 6y ago
  I encourage all US voters to have a good look at all the available candidates. Besides clear political positions, there are differences in diversity, including a woman on the ticket. Cast your vote!
• deleted 6y ago
  [deleted]
• dmode 6y ago
  If there is a path to easy green card for international students with a master’s or PhDs, I don’t see why the rest of H1B cannot be wage allocated
• ab_testing 6y ago
  I don’t understand why USCIS and other tech forums spend so much time and energy on H-1B rules. How is it possible that 85K non immigrants with no rights are blamed for decimation of entire tech sectors. For comparison , the US allows one million immigrants (green card holders ) every year into the United States . Most of these immigrants come over in the family based immigration category. They are free to take any job, start any business and do any legal activity as US citizens. Yet it is the H-1B visa holders that are blamed for lowering of wages in the tech and engineering sectors and we spend a lot of political energy to make life difficult for them. Also whenever articles related to H-1B are posted, the most upvoted comments are usually comments that point to gross changes to the H-1B program. Those are just pipe dreams. There has been no meaningful legislation changes to H-1B program in over two decades and I don’t think that there is political capital to make those changes .
  • hairband 6y ago
    To me this is all political. With the election coming up, its in Trump's interest to look tough on immigrants. H1Bs are easy targets, they don't have any political rights, and a large number of them will likely never have those rights. You can't target family based immigrants because their families might already have been naturalized and have voting powers. The family GC recipients would also eventually get naturalized, and you don't want to upset potential voter base (however, tiny it might be). > There has been no meaningful legislation changes to H-1B program in over two decades and I don’t think that there is political capital to make those changes . This makes it even better. You get to throw punches which makes you look tough, but also doesn't really hurt the other side. Sort of win-win. Although I do think the other side in this is the H1B sponsoring employers and not the folks actually on H1B.