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DHS to Propose Amending H-1B, F-1 Regulations
- manuelabeledo 3y agoThe only thing they need to address regarding H-1B visas, and L-1A/B visas for that matter, is the absence of employer caps. There is a big difference between the startup co-founder and the foreign talent recruited by FAANG companies, and the crap IT consultancy companies pull all the time.
- atonse 3y agoWon't they just create tons of shell companies then to get around the caps?
- manuelabeledo 3y agoThen that should be illegal as well.
- tomohelix 3y agoNot if the cap is tied to total employee. A shell company with 100 registered employees can't sponsor more than 10 people for example. They can't get around this as there are tax records of who being paid by whom. This would force company to hire American, reduce fraud, and still being favorable to the big boys paying the lobbying fees. Win win for all who matters (not specifically the regular folks, if they do, it is accidental...)
- sokoloff 3y agoWhy would it force employers to hire Americans if it's tied to total employees? 90 offshore and 10 H1-B employees is still only 10% H1-B. The entire premise of the H1-B program is when there is a shortage of qualified/available domestic labor. Turning around and tying hiring in the program to having 9x as many domestic employees seems like it's so counter to that notion that not even the government would create such an inanely contradictory policy.
- thmsths 3y agoI thought there was something like that already (although much softer), if a company is deemed H1B dependent any additional application for an H1B becomes harder.
- manuelabeledo 3y agoSurprisingly enough, H-1B visas are still assigned by lottery, which is arguably the worst imaginable way of doing it.
- burnte 3y agoThere's a lot more than that they need to address. Fake job listings with rock bottom salaries so they can claim they can't find US workers, paying H1B people far below market value, job-shopping in personal networks when someone loses an H1B job (favor trading to get a "job" while they find another real job to keep their H1B status) are all huge issues. Another issue is employers using H2B status against employees to extract unpaid labor, lower wages, and unethical behavior or else they'll be fired and reported instantly.
- manuelabeledo 3y ago> Fake job listings with rock bottom salaries so they can claim they can't find US workers, paying H1B people far below market value... H-1B salaries are public [0], so it is easy to debunk this. The minimum prevailing wage for the area and location is in place for this very reason. > ... job-shopping in personal networks when someone loses an H1B job ... If anything, this demonstrates that the current system is inhumane, and it should be more lenient towards H-1B holders. [0] https://h1bdata.info https://h1bdata.info
- burnte 3y ago> H-1B salaries are public [0], so it is easy to debunk this. > The minimum prevailing wage for the area and location is in place for this very reason. Unfortunately wage fraud and theft are real things that happen. You don't have to believe me, you can find buckets of H1B holders who will verify this. I've seen it myself, I've been in IT for 30 years and seen personally, many times, everything I listed in my comment.
- manuelabeledo 3y agoI would like to see some concrete proof of this, though. I myself was a visa holder not long ago. Outside of Internet forums, I haven’t been able to find anyone who would claim that visa wage fraud exist.
- codeisawesome 3y agoExcited to see what positive changes are forthcoming for startup entrepreneurs!
- ashconnor 3y agoApparently this will have an impact on almost all non-immigrant visas [0]. [0] - https://twitter.com/David_J_Bier/status/1715416997704462398 https://twitter.com/David_J_Bier/status/1715416997704462398
- spullara 3y agoH-1Bs should be given out in salary descending order with no randomness.
- sokoloff 3y agoI can think of no better way to ensure that H1-B holders are concentrated in the Bay Area, NYC, and Seattle...
- jen20 3y agoSo put a cost of living adjustment on it.
- mlboss 3y agoThis does not work for non tech, non Silicon Valley employers. Non tech businesses that depend on foreign skilled labor will never be able to compete.
- deleted 3y ago[deleted]
- paxys 3y agoA business depending on foreign labor while offering subpar salaries so no domestic employee wants to work for them is the perfect example of abusing the skilled visa system. If the change makes them unable to compete then great, that's a bonus.
- VirusNewbie 3y agowhy should it?
- nwiswell 3y agoThe real answer? Because non-tech companies pay lobbyists, too.
- adrr 3y ago
- VirusNewbie 3y agoI've run into FAANG teams where everyone on the team is like an H1-B. Hmm....
- ldjkfkdsjnv 3y agoSomehow they could only find talent in the same country they all originated from!
- legolas2412 3y agoWhile that can obviously happen, here are a few more thoughts 1. Most grad students are also Indians, and the OPT (->STEM) -> H1B is a common path to employment based visas. And US universities are not unreasonably favoring Indians. 2. A lot of Indians are stuck in H1B status, because of the discriminatory and racist country cap. People stuck in H1B for 10+ years as of now, and potentially multi-decades wait in the future, while other countries get green card right away. 3. India does have many good schools, a focus on engineering, a huge population, and not so many good local opportunities. And at the end of it all, instead of blaming all Indians (do I represent my country when I attempt to immigrate, or am I an individual trying to not live in that damn country?), maybe USA should actually value high skill labor. Handing off a high skilled labor visa by lottery is a joke, instead it should be called a high-luck visa.
- malwarebytess 3y agoWhat's funny is nobody said India, and here you go talking about India. I don't know why you deny Indian racial discrimination. There's a huge problem with Indian's discriminating. Not only discrimination against non-Indians, discrimination based on caste/skin color of other Indians. It's a huge problem. I've seen it run rampant in every single IT Department or tech firm I've worked at which leverage offshore & H-1B employees.
- VirusNewbie 3y agoIronically I wasn’t talking about indian teams, and I personally have had great experiences being hired by Indian immigrants.
- ldjkfkdsjnv 3y agoWhats funny is Americans are so adamant that their standards of living have been dropping for 30 years, but then support unfettered immigration. The immigration does boost the economy and leads to technical innovation, but there is a real cost to the standard of living. Also discrimination against Americans in H1B heavy companies is rampant.
- spamizbad 3y agoIf you're wealthier but your standard of living is dropping that can point to many things, but one big one is a labor shortage.
- ldjkfkdsjnv 3y agoTheres no labor shortage, companies have been reaping record profits and not paying it out to employees. Thats why the standard of living is dropping. Its basic economics
- vkou 3y agoUnemployment is at historic lows.
- ldjkfkdsjnv 3y agoUnemployment at historic lows, cost of living at all time highs. Something isnt adding up
- vkou 3y ago1. Rent-seekers are sucking up all the productive surplus out of the economy, raising the cost of a lot of things. 2. People doing work vital for society got raises, which was made possible by bargaining power that they gained from low unemployment. This, naturally, results in higher prices for anything that their labour produces. 3. Shortages. None of these are the fault of the immigrant boogieman.
- h1bf1throwaway 3y agoThis is a huge step forward. The issue of "immigration" is much more important than just building a wall or undocumented / illegal workers, yet those are the apparently the only topics routinely covered by the media. I spent 2 years on an F-1 visa, 1 year on OPT after that, 6 years on an H-1B working 12+ hours a day in a high paying job that few Americans consider doing. I delivered real value to clients, trained, managed and interviewed juniors, busted my ass effectively 24/7... In the wake of a "challenging market environment", I was one of 3,000+ laid off... only a few months before my green card arrived. I had never received a bad year-end review package. Apparently the firm 'forgot to check' my immigration status before making the decision. I have easily paid more than $1 million in taxes to Uncle Sam over the past decade. Yet I can't stay in the country unless I get some other visa. I can't get an H-1B because I've maxed out on the 6 years I'm allowed to stay. Which makes no sense, since the longer I've been here, the more experienced I am and the more I can contributed to the economy. I can't start my own company because there are no "real" work visas besides the H-1B, and all work visas require an "employer-employee" relationship, as TFA alludes to. I can't get a green card because that process would only allow me to start working about 24 months after pressing go. I can't marry an American because that's not a real solution and, most importantly, I'm already married. My choices are investing $800k in some shady project for a 0% return over 5 years to get an investor visa or going back to school for another F-1 visa that doesn't allow me to work. For a country founded by pilgrims and built in large part with the sweat and blood of immigrants, this situation feels unreal. Keep, ancient lands, your storied pomp!" cries she With silent lips. "Give me your tired, your poor, Your huddled masses yearning to breathe free, The wretched refuse of your teeming shore. Send these, the homeless, tempest-tost to me, I lift my lamp beside the golden door!"
- wing-_-nuts 3y agoI've heard heard many different versions of your story over the years of working in this industry. I'm firmly convinced that the h1b system is exploitative to the workers who use it. IMHO we should do away with it in favor of simply granting green cards (and later citizenship) to people who wish to come here based on a strict points based system like Canada. Sadly, our government is so captured and dysfunctional I doubt that will happen. I wish you the best of luck with your issues.
- wing-_-nuts 3y ago>Nobel economist Milton Friedman scoffs at the idea of the government stocking a farm system for the likes of Microsoft and Intel. "There is no doubt," he says, "that the [H-1B] program is a benefit to their employers, enabling them to get workers at a lower wage, and to that extent, it is a subsidy." https://www.computerworld.com/article/2576945/h-1b-is-just-another-gov-t--subsidy.html https://www.computerworld.com/article/2576945/h-1b-is-just-a...
- thedirtydozens 3y agoMost H1-B are paid around %10 percent less than citizens. In such a hard hit tech market to keep it going is kinda ridiculous. It's understandable if there are no applicants for jobs. But when there are 100+ applicants per position. It's a bit ridiculous to compete with non-nationals.
- h1bf1throwaway 3y agoBut not all H-1Bs, importantly. We shouldn't throw the baby out with the bathwater.
- h1bf1throwaway 3y agoAlso here are some real solutions to the H-1B program so I'm not accused of just sharing a sob story: 1. Offer a credible path to permanent residency: employers can pay less to H-1B visa holders because they know those employees have no real way out of the system. If H-1Bs could self-sponsor merit-based green card applications after, say, 2 years on the job, the market would naturally solve the wage gap. My employers delayed my green card application until the very last minute so that I would never consider quitting for a better, non H-1B job. 2. Minimum salary threshold: avoids blatant misuse of the program by companies that are effectively "offshoring" semi-unskilled labor to immigrants. 3. No lottery, unlimited applications: increasing the cap can be balanced by the minimum salary threshold. 4. Self-sponsorship for entrepreneurs: let me start a company in the US and give me, I don't know, 2 years to show some threshold of revenue, scale or profitability. If I can hit call it $500k in revenue, pay my own salary, and/or hire 10 people in 2 years, surely I should be allowed to stay? And if I can't, just ask me to leave? You can easily find me if I own a company, I'm not "undocumented"... The EB-2 NIW green card path already has some of these features in that you can provide a business plan and sponsor yourself for a green card, but that process takes years and you can't have a regular visa (even a tourist visa!) once you have applied for the green card. Which means the applicant needs to stay in the US without traveling abroad at all and not work for 2 years, which is tantamount to making them an illegal immigrant.
- klipklop 3y agoThe problem is not the h1b program. The real problem is when teams/orgs/companies start to only hire H1b and never seriously consider a US citizen. The lack of real oversight shows it’s mostly there for wage suppression. Like others said they downrank employees on hire to get wages down. There is so much fuckery with the program that is unfair to both domestic and (especially) h1b workers that it needs to be scrapped for a more fair replacement. Tech will fight tooth and nail to prevent this of course.