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H-1B abuse is a real problem but not by Big Tech. The offenders are the bodyshops like Tata and Infosys. The bodyshops flood USCIS with Indian-born applicants

by jmyeet 2y ago

H-1B abuse is a real problem but not by Big Tech. The offenders are the bodyshops like Tata and Infosys. The bodyshops flood USCIS with Indian-born applicants because they don't really care who gets approved and who doesn't. Those that get approved get a US job. The system is designed to stop employers abusing the power this gives them over employees. They fail in a number of ways. First, part of the process is a Prevailing Wage Determination to make sure the employee isn't underpaid for that job in that geographical area. There is abuse here at the bodyshops where (IIRC) employees are paid less or not at all if they aren't currently farmed out to a third-party. This should be policed but I don't think it is, at least not effectively. Second, the real abuse comes from the H1B -> Green card pipeline. H1B visas don't have per-country quotas. Green cards do (max 7% per country as determined by the country you were born in, not your actual citizenship). Because so many H1B holders are Indian-born, the backlog for Green cards for Indian-born applicants is decades long. Now you can stay with an employer beyond your 6 years (the usual limit of 3+3 for H1B visas) if you have a pending PERM application. The employee can't really leave. If they do they have to file their whole PERM case again (but they retain their priority date at least) so this becomes like indentured servitude almost. Nobody has really addressed this H1B abuse nor dealt with the huge backlog. A few years ago there was a bill that sought to address some of the issues by essentially removing the per-country quota but the net effect would be that for many years, nobody but Indian-born applicants would get green cards (because they have earlier priority dates). And that bill died in Congress. But back to Big Tech: they abuse this system too but not so egregiously. If you wander around any Big Tech office you will find likely a cork board in some obscure corner of some floor with little traffic. It will have a bunch of job postings on it. If you look in the physical newspaper for your area, you will also find them. Why are these here? To "prove" that the employer could not find a US permanent resident or citizen to fill that particular position. You have to advertize that position through a number of channels and those channels are chosen to receive the fewest applicants because who in 2024 applies for a SWE job from a physical newspaper? If you do apply, there is a whole process to exclude you from the position. You'll be too qualified or under-qualified or your salary expectations won't match the advertisement. Or they'll find some other reason to strike you. All of this theater is so someone else's PERM application with USCIS can go through. To me this is also abuse.

ec109685 2y ago
> If you do apply, there is a whole process to exclude you from the position. You'll be too qualified or under-qualified or your salary expectations won't match the advertisement. Or they'll find some other reason to strike you. Why would companies want to do that? Big tech has wage scales and pretty rigorous processes to ensure even pay at level, so what is the incentive to be biased against US born employees there?
- mwigdahl 2y ago
  For one, because an H-1B holder is legally bound to the hiring company and can't seek work elsewhere. It is much higher level of employer leverage, particularly in a hot market.
  - UncleMeat 2y ago
    I've managed a team at one of the big tech companies for a bunch of years. I've managed a couple people on h1b, all with graduate degrees from premier US institutions. Never once have I heard anything even resembling "work your h1bs harder because they won't leave." They all joined on the same pay scale as legal permanent residents and were all evaluated through a process where nobody else in the room knew who was a legal permanent resident or not (I only knew because I needed to sign off on forms describing their job responsibilities to the government). At most this is some aggregate effect of "people changing employers less is good for employers generally." This doesn't really vibe as abuse of the program to me. I'd vastly prefer it if the policies gave people on h1bs significantly more confidence in changing roles and more time to find a new job should they lose their job, but is this really a decision of the tech companies rather than an output of the immigration policies?
    - jmyeet 2y ago
      So for Big Tech it's never as egregious as "work your H1Bs harder" or "pay them less". That just opens you up to a future lawsuit. In a hot market, your best chance of career progression and maximizing your compensation is to swap jobs every 2 years or so. Visa holders have a much harder time doing this. Additionally, there are additional burdens on the employer to hire visa holders. For a large company, this process is solved. You have lawyers on retainer. You have a pipeline for the paperwork. It's a non-issue. But an early stage startup? That's a lot less likely. So visa holders are, by definition, more limited in their job opportunities. Even if you can job hop, if your ultimate goal is to get a green card, you have a problem. Will your new employer sponsor your green card? How long will it take? Or are you better off waiting for your current process to go through? Best case, this whole thing takes just under a year. But it can take years completely randomly and there's nothing you can do about it (eg you get randomly audited). And if you were born in one of the four high-demand countries (India, China, Mexico, the Phillipines) you have an even longer wait. Also, after you get to 6 years on your H1B you really can't swap jobs anymore. You just have to wait for your green card at that point. Now that's not strictly true. There are self-sponsor options for both visas and green cards but the bar for these is much higher and you'll need to hire your own lawyer for this. So there's no directive on treating visa holders differently but bias creeps into the process. Why push someone for higher bonuses, more RSUs or promotions when they can't leave but another one of your "stars" can leave? This may not be conscious either. And it may happen on a level above you, as a manager, because your director is ultimately responsible for balancing out ratings and promotions across their org.

by jmyeet 2y ago

ec109685 2y ago

> If you do apply, there is a whole process to exclude you from the position. You'll be too qualified or under-qualified or your salary expectations won't match the advertisement. Or they'll find some other reason to strike you. Why would companies want to do that? Big tech has wage scales and pretty rigorous processes to ensure even pay at level, so what is the incentive to be biased against US born employees there?

mwigdahl 2y ago
For one, because an H-1B holder is legally bound to the hiring company and can't seek work elsewhere. It is much higher level of employer leverage, particularly in a hot market.
- UncleMeat 2y ago
  I've managed a team at one of the big tech companies for a bunch of years. I've managed a couple people on h1b, all with graduate degrees from premier US institutions. Never once have I heard anything even resembling "work your h1bs harder because they won't leave." They all joined on the same pay scale as legal permanent residents and were all evaluated through a process where nobody else in the room knew who was a legal permanent resident or not (I only knew because I needed to sign off on forms describing their job responsibilities to the government). At most this is some aggregate effect of "people changing employers less is good for employers generally." This doesn't really vibe as abuse of the program to me. I'd vastly prefer it if the policies gave people on h1bs significantly more confidence in changing roles and more time to find a new job should they lose their job, but is this really a decision of the tech companies rather than an output of the immigration policies?
  - jmyeet 2y ago
    So for Big Tech it's never as egregious as "work your H1Bs harder" or "pay them less". That just opens you up to a future lawsuit. In a hot market, your best chance of career progression and maximizing your compensation is to swap jobs every 2 years or so. Visa holders have a much harder time doing this. Additionally, there are additional burdens on the employer to hire visa holders. For a large company, this process is solved. You have lawyers on retainer. You have a pipeline for the paperwork. It's a non-issue. But an early stage startup? That's a lot less likely. So visa holders are, by definition, more limited in their job opportunities. Even if you can job hop, if your ultimate goal is to get a green card, you have a problem. Will your new employer sponsor your green card? How long will it take? Or are you better off waiting for your current process to go through? Best case, this whole thing takes just under a year. But it can take years completely randomly and there's nothing you can do about it (eg you get randomly audited). And if you were born in one of the four high-demand countries (India, China, Mexico, the Phillipines) you have an even longer wait. Also, after you get to 6 years on your H1B you really can't swap jobs anymore. You just have to wait for your green card at that point. Now that's not strictly true. There are self-sponsor options for both visas and green cards but the bar for these is much higher and you'll need to hire your own lawyer for this. So there's no directive on treating visa holders differently but bias creeps into the process. Why push someone for higher bonuses, more RSUs or promotions when they can't leave but another one of your "stars" can leave? This may not be conscious either. And it may happen on a level above you, as a manager, because your director is ultimately responsible for balancing out ratings and promotions across their org.