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Amazon has many tech workers on visas, and it can be extremely anxiety inducing around performance review time. Once a manager puts a target on your back, it's

Amazon has many tech workers on visas, and it can be extremely anxiety inducing around performance review time. Once a manager puts a target on your back, it's a major uphill climb to remove that target. And for someone on a visa you don't just lose your job, you get repatriated back to your home country unless you can quickly get rehired somewhere else. Edit: And not just you, your wife and kids too, even if your kids were born here and it's all they ever knew. The other side of this perverse incentive is it encourages overwork culture, hyper-competitive work environment, and promotion oriented architecture.

jedberg 5y ago
Much like tying insurance to employment, tying immigration to employment is an awful system. It's fine if you want to require someone to have a job to move here, but that requirement should disappear quickly. Make the employer guarantee to pay them for a year, and allow them to stay once that year is up. That would be a humane way to do it. It's so terrible that immigrants to this country have to live in constant fear of deportation if they don't have a job.
- dragonwriter 5y ago
  > It's fine if you want to require someone to have a job to move here For very special jobs of critical need perhaps. For broader economic immigration I’d rather have a visa categories requiring initial (and in some categories periodic subsequent) payment than a job requirement, either for initial entry or conitnued residency.
  - jedberg 5y ago
    So instead of requiring a job you want to require the immigrant to pay to stay? That's how you end up with only rich people getting to stay and also using it as a shortcut to immigration.
    - dragonwriter 5y ago
      > So instead of requiring a job you want to require the immigrant to pay to stay? Mostly, no, for immigrant economic visas I’d prefer “pay to enter”. For non-immigrant including dual-intent economic visas (e.g., replacing things like H-1b), periodic payment makes sense. > That's how you end up with only rich people getting to stay Visa categories gated on high-need, high-education job categories, especially when they also come with prevailing wage requirements, also only allow rich people to come or stay. Allowing payment (which can be subsidized by friends, family, or other supportive community) actually weakens the tie to personal wealth, though it does not (nor does it intend to; this is, after all, a proposed reform of economic visa categories, not family-based, refugee, etc. ones[0]) remove it entirely. > and also using it as a shortcut to immigration. I don’t see this as a problem. [0] though to the extent those are capped, i support allowing otherwise-qualified immigrants to pay to skip (and not take up space in) the queue, through a bidding system where the cost per supernumerary immigrant in a category is higher the more are admitted in a year. It serves the purpose of the limit (mitigating social costs of level of immigration) by an alternate means, and reduces the adverse impact of the limit, not just for the people paying but also for the people not paying. It’s a win-win-win change. (A loss for thr source countries, in many cases, though.)
- unishark 5y ago
  It's not just a US thing. The grace period to find a new job might be higher elsewhere though.
  - jedberg 5y ago
    Yeah a lot of countries are brutal in that respect, but it's still wrong.
- dudul 5y ago
  Aren't we confusing 2 different things here? Visas you get through employment - eg H1B - are specifically non immigrant visas. You are not an immigrant when you are in the US with an H1B. Are they restriction on green cards too? I thought once you got your GC you didn't lose status for being fired.
Der_Einzige 5y ago
Can you post evidence of American citizens being repatriated (children born here)? I thought birthright citizenship made this much more challenging, spawning problems such as "anchor babies"...
- mataug 5y ago
  If the parents of the children have to leave the country, the children are not going to stay back. A child cannot sponsor their parents for immigration benefits until they reach the age of 21. Anchor babies is a talking point to stir up controversy, and cause fear of immigrants.
- stadium 5y ago
  I am not an expert, but in the US I believe that children may have citizenship by birth, but the parents may still be on a visa for some time. But most parents aren't going to leave their kids behind. The situation is improved when a green card (permanent residency) is obtained. Then employment is not required to remain in the country.
  - mataug 5y ago
    Employment based PR depends on luck. If someone was lucky enough to be born outside of India / China, they will likely get their PR within 1 - 3 yrs. Otherwise they have to do everything in their power to stay in the good graces of their Manager, and skip level for decade(s).
- jfrunyon 5y ago
  A citizen must live in the US for long enough, and be old enough, before they are allowed to sponsor their family for residence. There's also no guarantee that their family would actually get their permit even if they pay the thousands of dollars and file the bajillion forms needed etc.
grumple 5y ago
As a manager, your job is to make your team work well for the benefit of the company. You do that by motivating them, by improving their skills, by removing barriers to their success. This idea of targeting your employees is absurd... who benefits? How does the manager benefit? Even if they were being selfish, the way the manager gets moved up is by the perception that the team is succeeding. Competitiveness is useless in professional engineering environments except as, at best, a cheap and temporary motivator imo. Learning to collaborate effectively is what's important.

jedberg 5y ago

Much like tying insurance to employment, tying immigration to employment is an awful system. It's fine if you want to require someone to have a job to move here, but that requirement should disappear quickly. Make the employer guarantee to pay them for a year, and allow them to stay once that year is up. That would be a humane way to do it. It's so terrible that immigrants to this country have to live in constant fear of deportation if they don't have a job.

dragonwriter 5y ago
> It's fine if you want to require someone to have a job to move here For very special jobs of critical need perhaps. For broader economic immigration I’d rather have a visa categories requiring initial (and in some categories periodic subsequent) payment than a job requirement, either for initial entry or conitnued residency.
- jedberg 5y ago
  So instead of requiring a job you want to require the immigrant to pay to stay? That's how you end up with only rich people getting to stay and also using it as a shortcut to immigration.
  - dragonwriter 5y ago
    > So instead of requiring a job you want to require the immigrant to pay to stay? Mostly, no, for immigrant economic visas I’d prefer “pay to enter”. For non-immigrant including dual-intent economic visas (e.g., replacing things like H-1b), periodic payment makes sense. > That's how you end up with only rich people getting to stay Visa categories gated on high-need, high-education job categories, especially when they also come with prevailing wage requirements, also only allow rich people to come or stay. Allowing payment (which can be subsidized by friends, family, or other supportive community) actually weakens the tie to personal wealth, though it does not (nor does it intend to; this is, after all, a proposed reform of economic visa categories, not family-based, refugee, etc. ones[0]) remove it entirely. > and also using it as a shortcut to immigration. I don’t see this as a problem. [0] though to the extent those are capped, i support allowing otherwise-qualified immigrants to pay to skip (and not take up space in) the queue, through a bidding system where the cost per supernumerary immigrant in a category is higher the more are admitted in a year. It serves the purpose of the limit (mitigating social costs of level of immigration) by an alternate means, and reduces the adverse impact of the limit, not just for the people paying but also for the people not paying. It’s a win-win-win change. (A loss for thr source countries, in many cases, though.)
unishark 5y ago
It's not just a US thing. The grace period to find a new job might be higher elsewhere though.
- jedberg 5y ago
  Yeah a lot of countries are brutal in that respect, but it's still wrong.
dudul 5y ago
Aren't we confusing 2 different things here? Visas you get through employment - eg H1B - are specifically non immigrant visas. You are not an immigrant when you are in the US with an H1B. Are they restriction on green cards too? I thought once you got your GC you didn't lose status for being fired.

Der_Einzige 5y ago

Can you post evidence of American citizens being repatriated (children born here)? I thought birthright citizenship made this much more challenging, spawning problems such as "anchor babies"...

mataug 5y ago
If the parents of the children have to leave the country, the children are not going to stay back. A child cannot sponsor their parents for immigration benefits until they reach the age of 21. Anchor babies is a talking point to stir up controversy, and cause fear of immigrants.
stadium 5y ago
I am not an expert, but in the US I believe that children may have citizenship by birth, but the parents may still be on a visa for some time. But most parents aren't going to leave their kids behind. The situation is improved when a green card (permanent residency) is obtained. Then employment is not required to remain in the country.
- mataug 5y ago
  Employment based PR depends on luck. If someone was lucky enough to be born outside of India / China, they will likely get their PR within 1 - 3 yrs. Otherwise they have to do everything in their power to stay in the good graces of their Manager, and skip level for decade(s).
jfrunyon 5y ago
A citizen must live in the US for long enough, and be old enough, before they are allowed to sponsor their family for residence. There's also no guarantee that their family would actually get their permit even if they pay the thousands of dollars and file the bajillion forms needed etc.

grumple 5y ago

As a manager, your job is to make your team work well for the benefit of the company. You do that by motivating them, by improving their skills, by removing barriers to their success. This idea of targeting your employees is absurd... who benefits? How does the manager benefit? Even if they were being selfish, the way the manager gets moved up is by the perception that the team is succeeding. Competitiveness is useless in professional engineering environments except as, at best, a cheap and temporary motivator imo. Learning to collaborate effectively is what's important.