3 ms·
One demographic this policy seems to unintentionally trample is international students. There’s a pretty well-trod path of F1 Visa -> OPT -> (OPT STEM Extension
by beisner 6y ago
One demographic this policy seems to unintentionally trample is international students. There’s a pretty well-trod path of F1 Visa -> OPT -> (OPT STEM Extension) -> H1B -> (green card, if you’re from the right country). It’s a tall order to expect that all new grads from this path will be able to command such high salaries, and there’s an existing set of international students who have planned their lives on being able to get the H1B before OPT runs out.
In my opinion, we should encourage immigration through our higher-education system (and we have been doing so for decades). I generally agree that the loopholes allowing for below-market H1B roles should be closed, but I think that students/recent graduates should be treated differently. There’s a big difference between sourcing lower-wage foreign workers who don’t already have roots in the USA, and paying entry-level salaries to recent graduates who’ve been living in the US for years already.
Of course, some may take issue with the premise here, and might say that the F1 shouldn’t be issued with intent to immigrate. But I think that’s terrible policy; nearly all of my (uniformly brilliant, top-shelf) friends who came here on F1 had horrendous, soul-crushing experiences with work authorization, even though they provide tremendous value to companies and the country by being here.
- legolas2412 6y ago> we should encourage immigration through our higher-education system (and we have been doing so for decades) Having gone through the numbers just yesterday, I was very surprised. So, here's the correction for you. No, america does not encourage immigration through education and subsequent employment. Out of roughly 550k green cards per year, only around 15k are for educated immigrants coming through employment categories (eb1,2,3). For comparison, there are around 50k diversity visas given in lotteries, and 8k investors visas given out to anyone willing to buy a green card.
- unishark 6y agoPerhaps they should do a better job of taking ties into account somehow. But when there's a line a million people long, the rules need to be very clear and fair, else it's just up to the mood of the agent you end up dealing with that day. And a problem with any path being a sure thing is that it turns into a route to buy residency. People will line up to hack it. There's a lot of low-tier colleges in the US. And are you including MS degrees? Apparently some can be done in a year, plus internships (CPT) which is yet more work visa.
- TheCoelacanth 6y agoYou're correct on the impact, but I don't think it's unintentional. This administration is clearly trying to cut down on immigration in general.
- sieabahlpark 6y ago> This administration is clearly trying to cut down on immigration in general. Illegal immigration and immigration abuse through the dev shops which hire exclusively h1b and pay them worse. This new initiative makes the sweatshop less viable.
- triceratops 6y agoWhat makes you think it's unintentional? In addition to depressing educated, skilled immigration, it has the desirable side-effect of depressing revenues for "lefty, liberal, coastal, elitist" universities, who admit those international students and charge them full non-resident tuition.
- b20000 6y agothere is nothing high about this salary, the bay area and west/east coasts are insanely expensive places to live.