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There is legit use of H-1B, which helps make America the leader in tech. Top tech companies like Google, Microsoft, Apple and Amazon would not be top tech compa

There is legit use of H-1B, which helps make America the leader in tech. Top tech companies like Google, Microsoft, Apple and Amazon would not be top tech companies without this immigration. Then there are abusers... for example back in 2016 Disney hired a bunch of H-1B workers and immediately laid off American workers, and then required those American workers to train their H-1B replacements. The abuse must be stopped, it hurts everyone. The legit use must be encouraged, and expanded -- it makes America strong, and creates jobs.

asadotzler 2y ago
Why on earth are you giving Big Tech a pass here? Are you effing kidding?
bdangubic 2y ago
there is very little legit use of H1B, the tech companies are abusing it by not hiring US employees in lieu of getting underpaid H1B’s who have no option to leave for a better opportunity or higher pay (or to unionize) - modern day white collar “slavery”
- rbanffy 2y ago
  The customer (companies) don’t think the price for US employees is a good deal and prefer to find a cheaper option that can’t quit as easily. In market terms, H1B workers are simply a better product - slightly cheaper (because companies can game the system) and more predictable (because they can’t show the employer the middle finger).
  - jollyllama 2y ago
    No, you missed the point of the GP. The companies don't want them because they are cheaper, they want them because they have less rights. > who have no option to leave for a better opportunity or higher pay (or to unionize) The companies don't want cheaper labor. They want slave labor.
    - rbanffy 2y ago
      You are missing the point: if they have fewer rights, they are cheaper in the long run.
      - jollyllama 2y ago
        Perhaps we're getting into semantics. Sure, fewer rights necessarily implies cheaper, but not the other way around. "Cheaper" alone fails to get to the heart of the matter.
  - cmxch 2y ago
    As stated up thread, treat that as an externality that the business ends up paying to the citizens. Offer them an opportunity to fully uncap their favorite programs on the condition that a large chunk of total compensation (with minimums and locality adjustments) will be paid to citizens that essentially doubles or triples most citizen salaries.
  - bdangubic 2y ago
    ^^ what he said ^^
  - master_crab 2y ago
    This is correct and yet kinda misses the point. The market exists specifically because of one of the most fundamental and basic of government functions: who is allowed to enter the country and work. Those market economics revolves around whatever the government decides to do: firstly when it created the H1B system and now when all the politicians are arguing over how to handle the abuse of the program. I’d call it something more along the lines of “regulatory capture” than a freely operating market.
    - rbanffy 2y ago
      > regulatory capture It's been like that for quite some time. A lot of political power coming from economic power is a sure way for a democracy to transition into a kleptocracy.
- breadwinner 2y ago
  Here are the folks who contributed to the "Attention is all you need" paper [1] which changed the world as we know it, and the countries they came from. I rest my case. Ashish Vaswani: India Noam Shazeer: USA Niki Parmar: India Jakob Uszkoreit: Germany Llion Jones: USA Aidan Gomez: British Canadian Lukasz Kaiser: Poland Illia Polosukhin: Ukraine [1] https://arxiv.org/abs/1706.03762 https://arxiv.org/abs/1706.03762
  - deleted 2y ago
    [deleted]
  - gregw2 2y ago
    They are all able to get O-1 visas for having extraordinary merit. (It may be true some get them via lying as with anything.) Elon came in on an F visa, Trump hired maids via H-2. If the conversation is about H-1B, a list of names is not enough for an argument. There probably should be some level of difficulty between H-1B and O-1 in my view.
  - bdangubic 2y ago
    “rest your case” is too funny… this is 8 people, what about 63,992 other yearly recipients of this visa? what an compeling argument you are making (and this is former H1B-er writing here…)
    - more_corn 2y ago
      The point is that major contributions to American tech supremacy come from foreigners. Scrapping the H1B program would jeopardize us tech leadership. Those other 64k people contribute as well. If you want to argue the other side (I don’t know why you would) feel free.
      - bdangubic 2y ago
        how would you know whether or not american tech supremacy would not be the same without foreigners? of course you wouldn’t so this is silly line of argument :) the main reason for american tech supremacy is american military budget. and also that is next 876 reasons. H1B program won’t crack top-1000
- smrtinsert 2y ago
  H1Bs I've seen were treated worse than American workers or seemed to work at a roughly 60% of American jobs. No American would take a job posted for a 40% paycut, regardless of the title. The system is being gamed.
  - bdangubic 2y ago
    funniest thing is that there are still people who do not recognize this. it is a simple supply and demand. if there is no “supply” (no US workers can do job X and we need someone from Cameroon) this would mean that this is cream-of-crop position and you’d expect to see 20-30-40-50% premium on the salary to get the right person. I am US citizen and I may not apply for $140k/year job. But if you jack that up to $395k/year I just might. Instead, we’ll do H1B and not only underpay but also have employee by the balls for X mumber of years to do with as we please…
arcmechanica 2y ago
I'd argue, that just like with inventions, software has at least 100 people working on the same thing at the same time, who gets their first is what matters. Google et al would still be the same behemoths with or without H1Bs.
- breadwinner 2y ago
  Companies such as Google and Apple say they need immigrants because there aren't enough qualified workers in the US. Opponents say immigrants are depressing wages; these companies are only importing these workers in order to depress wages! Let's see who is telling the truth. Back in 1990s, a decent salary for a fresh graduate, at a top company like Sun Microsystems was $40,000. RSUs were unknown back then, and certainly fresh graduates didn't get any! If you adjust for inflation $40K in 1990 translates to $99K in 2024. Today a fresh graduate can get a $120K offer at a top company, and another $10K to $50K in RSUs. Do you see any evidence of wage depression? It does look like these tech companies are NOT importing workers to depress wages!
  - xpl 2y ago
    This argument doesn't hold because you don't know how much an average American SWE would be making today if there were no H1Bs — it could be $200k. > because there aren't enough qualified workers in the US It's often not a shortage of skills but a shortage of pay. Companies can also invest in growing local talent. There are tons of STEM graduates who cannot find jobs — because why hire a junior when there's a supply of Indian H-1B labor from shady consultancies, who won't complain or negotiate due to the constant threat of deportation? What needs to be done is to end the exploitative aspect of H1B visas. Recipients should have a direct, unconditional pathway to residency, independent of their employer's goodwill. It shouldn't be a modern slavery. Also, stop immigration fraud to prevent these visas from being used solely for cost-cutting and replacing local labor. Raise the minimum wage for H1B, introduce additional taxes — or just auction visas off, granting them to the highest bidder. So only the top talent would get them.
    - breadwinner 2y ago
Terr_ 2y ago
One problem is that the US Customs and Immigration Service is not legally permitted to blacklist blatant or persistent offending companies. It can only deny the problematic applications.

asadotzler 2y ago

Why on earth are you giving Big Tech a pass here? Are you effing kidding?

bdangubic 2y ago

there is very little legit use of H1B, the tech companies are abusing it by not hiring US employees in lieu of getting underpaid H1B’s who have no option to leave for a better opportunity or higher pay (or to unionize) - modern day white collar “slavery”

rbanffy 2y ago
The customer (companies) don’t think the price for US employees is a good deal and prefer to find a cheaper option that can’t quit as easily. In market terms, H1B workers are simply a better product - slightly cheaper (because companies can game the system) and more predictable (because they can’t show the employer the middle finger).
- jollyllama 2y ago
  No, you missed the point of the GP. The companies don't want them because they are cheaper, they want them because they have less rights. > who have no option to leave for a better opportunity or higher pay (or to unionize) The companies don't want cheaper labor. They want slave labor.
  - rbanffy 2y ago
    You are missing the point: if they have fewer rights, they are cheaper in the long run.
    - jollyllama 2y ago
      Perhaps we're getting into semantics. Sure, fewer rights necessarily implies cheaper, but not the other way around. "Cheaper" alone fails to get to the heart of the matter.
- cmxch 2y ago
  As stated up thread, treat that as an externality that the business ends up paying to the citizens. Offer them an opportunity to fully uncap their favorite programs on the condition that a large chunk of total compensation (with minimums and locality adjustments) will be paid to citizens that essentially doubles or triples most citizen salaries.
- bdangubic 2y ago
  ^^ what he said ^^
- master_crab 2y ago
  This is correct and yet kinda misses the point. The market exists specifically because of one of the most fundamental and basic of government functions: who is allowed to enter the country and work. Those market economics revolves around whatever the government decides to do: firstly when it created the H1B system and now when all the politicians are arguing over how to handle the abuse of the program. I’d call it something more along the lines of “regulatory capture” than a freely operating market.
  - rbanffy 2y ago
    > regulatory capture It's been like that for quite some time. A lot of political power coming from economic power is a sure way for a democracy to transition into a kleptocracy.
breadwinner 2y ago
Here are the folks who contributed to the "Attention is all you need" paper [1] which changed the world as we know it, and the countries they came from. I rest my case. Ashish Vaswani: India Noam Shazeer: USA Niki Parmar: India Jakob Uszkoreit: Germany Llion Jones: USA Aidan Gomez: British Canadian Lukasz Kaiser: Poland Illia Polosukhin: Ukraine [1] https://arxiv.org/abs/1706.03762 https://arxiv.org/abs/1706.03762
- deleted 2y ago
  [deleted]
- gregw2 2y ago
  They are all able to get O-1 visas for having extraordinary merit. (It may be true some get them via lying as with anything.) Elon came in on an F visa, Trump hired maids via H-2. If the conversation is about H-1B, a list of names is not enough for an argument. There probably should be some level of difficulty between H-1B and O-1 in my view.
- bdangubic 2y ago
  “rest your case” is too funny… this is 8 people, what about 63,992 other yearly recipients of this visa? what an compeling argument you are making (and this is former H1B-er writing here…)
  - more_corn 2y ago
    The point is that major contributions to American tech supremacy come from foreigners. Scrapping the H1B program would jeopardize us tech leadership. Those other 64k people contribute as well. If you want to argue the other side (I don’t know why you would) feel free.
    - bdangubic 2y ago
      how would you know whether or not american tech supremacy would not be the same without foreigners? of course you wouldn’t so this is silly line of argument :) the main reason for american tech supremacy is american military budget. and also that is next 876 reasons. H1B program won’t crack top-1000
smrtinsert 2y ago
H1Bs I've seen were treated worse than American workers or seemed to work at a roughly 60% of American jobs. No American would take a job posted for a 40% paycut, regardless of the title. The system is being gamed.
- bdangubic 2y ago
  funniest thing is that there are still people who do not recognize this. it is a simple supply and demand. if there is no “supply” (no US workers can do job X and we need someone from Cameroon) this would mean that this is cream-of-crop position and you’d expect to see 20-30-40-50% premium on the salary to get the right person. I am US citizen and I may not apply for $140k/year job. But if you jack that up to $395k/year I just might. Instead, we’ll do H1B and not only underpay but also have employee by the balls for X mumber of years to do with as we please…

arcmechanica 2y ago

I'd argue, that just like with inventions, software has at least 100 people working on the same thing at the same time, who gets their first is what matters. Google et al would still be the same behemoths with or without H1Bs.

breadwinner 2y ago
Companies such as Google and Apple say they need immigrants because there aren't enough qualified workers in the US. Opponents say immigrants are depressing wages; these companies are only importing these workers in order to depress wages! Let's see who is telling the truth. Back in 1990s, a decent salary for a fresh graduate, at a top company like Sun Microsystems was $40,000. RSUs were unknown back then, and certainly fresh graduates didn't get any! If you adjust for inflation $40K in 1990 translates to $99K in 2024. Today a fresh graduate can get a $120K offer at a top company, and another $10K to $50K in RSUs. Do you see any evidence of wage depression? It does look like these tech companies are NOT importing workers to depress wages!
- xpl 2y ago
  This argument doesn't hold because you don't know how much an average American SWE would be making today if there were no H1Bs — it could be $200k. > because there aren't enough qualified workers in the US It's often not a shortage of skills but a shortage of pay. Companies can also invest in growing local talent. There are tons of STEM graduates who cannot find jobs — because why hire a junior when there's a supply of Indian H-1B labor from shady consultancies, who won't complain or negotiate due to the constant threat of deportation? What needs to be done is to end the exploitative aspect of H1B visas. Recipients should have a direct, unconditional pathway to residency, independent of their employer's goodwill. It shouldn't be a modern slavery. Also, stop immigration fraud to prevent these visas from being used solely for cost-cutting and replacing local labor. Raise the minimum wage for H1B, introduce additional taxes — or just auction visas off, granting them to the highest bidder. So only the top talent would get them.
  - breadwinner 2y ago

Terr_ 2y ago

One problem is that the US Customs and Immigration Service is not legally permitted to blacklist blatant or persistent offending companies. It can only deny the problematic applications.