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I have no problem with foreign labor growing our economy in ways that the local labor cannot; I have a problem with systematically disempowering that labor to m

I have no problem with foreign labor growing our economy in ways that the local labor cannot; I have a problem with systematically disempowering that labor to make it more attractive than equally capable domestic labor, because it cannot negotiate or advocate for itself effectively. An H1B program that addresses these power dynamics and stops undermining the rights of worker will reach equilibrium and show what American workers can do and what should be hired for externally. This issue is about capital vs labor, don’t miss the forest for the trees.

alistairSH 2y ago
100% agree. And I’m not sure what the fix should be… does fixing the power dynamics of the H1B accelerate the offshoring of knowledge workers? Certainly, my PE-owned employer is a MASSIVE proponent of offshore “centers of excellence” and the majority of our hiring is in Bangalore IN or Puebla MX. Cheaper and easier than H1B, I assume.
- wat10000 2y ago
  I think we should zoom out a level. Why is the H1B so well tailored to bringing in underpaid foreign labor and making them powerless in the employment relationship? It’s because large business interests have captured government. It’s the same reason the government never really cracks down on illegal immigration. Illegal immigration could be cut by an order of magnitude by strictly enforcing the laws against employing them. This is never done, or even proposed. Why? Because large business interests benefit from the way things are. The purpose of the system isn’t to prevent illegal immigration, it’s to provide a underclass of cheap, powerless labor. Until this government capture is reversed, we’ll never have rules that are beneficial for the average American or the average immigrant, except possibly by accident.
  - blased 2y ago
    > It’s because large business interests have captured government On the other hand the 1965 Hart-Celler Act started the importation of asians under the guise of abolishing "racist" policies that restricted immigration and mostly let in people from the west. Frankly it should have never been passed and the country and labor market would be MUCH better off. Bush Sr sealed the deal by bringing in the H1B. Between the Bushes, Clintons and Obamas we've been systematically screwed over and debased. In retrospect, Pat Buchanan and Ross Perot were spot-on correct about practically everything.
    - browserman 2y ago
      [dead]
  - jltsiren 2y ago
    I don't think it's capture. In a free market, businesses are supposed to use regulations to their advantage. If the regulations don't achieve their goals, legislators are supposed to change them. The latter part often doesn't happen in the US. Not because the Congress is captured by business interests, but because it's dysfunctional. And the society as a whole is somehow unwilling to admit that the US needs large-scale immigration to function. Just like almost every other developed country. At the high end, every developed country is a net importer of talent in industries where it's above the average (relative to the size of its economy). And at the low end, there are essential jobs that are inherently too bad for most citizens and too demanding for most of those who can't find better jobs. The best practice these days is making temporary work permits industry-specific. If there is labor shortage in an industry, just let in anyone with the skills and no obvious red flags. And if there is labor surplus, only let actual talent in. If an immigrant loses their job, they can try to find another in the same industry without excess bureaucracy. And then give a straightforward path to permanent residency for those who have been in the country for N years without causing too much trouble. Illegal immigrants largely work in fields such as agriculture, construction, and maintenance. The pay is inherently low, because the fields are labor-intensive the outputs are expected to be affordable to most citizens. Many jobs are seasonal, and many require you to live near the worksite (instead of with your family). Most are physically demanding and require a good work ethic. Once a country gets rich enough, it usually discovers that citizens who can't find better jobs often don't have what it takes to do these jobs.
guestbest 2y ago
Disempowered workers is the whole point of the H1B program. Also, what is the point of importing all this labor to replace a local labor pool when we have a global internet, zoom, GitHub, basically free international calls, etc. If works needs to be done on site, why not move the company to India or whoever the labor is needed so it’s not so disruptive to families and workers?
- facialwipe 2y ago
  If works needs to be done on site, why not move the company to India It’s cheaper to transport Indian services than transport Indian goods.
- kylehotchkiss 2y ago
  For real. Elon should just open up a large Bangalore office. He would have no shortage of the best and brightest (Tesla is highly regarded in India, right?) and that would help give him more leverage to reduce pricing there, and given how many Indians I see driving Teslas in USA, BMW/Mercedes/audi there would have good reasons to worry. I’m not anti H1B at all, I more think it’s a shame how limited they are to just tech. Please oh please bring us more doctors. Our stupid arbitrary caps on annual doctors produced is part of the healthcare cost problem. Even if we dropped that, we’ve already brainwashed ourselves to believe med school is a 6+ figure expense
  - deleted 2y ago
    [deleted]
  - ghufran_syed 2y ago
    H1b visas are not limited to tech, doctors and other professions can use them too. In fact, it's easier to get an H1B as a doctor, since many hospitals are non-profit, so the number of such H1B visas is not numerically limited
- brookst 2y ago
  I think your second point answers your first: it is better for the US to import talent than to export companies, so if that’s the choice then these programs are no-brainers. But what I fear is the belief that it is better to have a poorly educated populace plus imported talent than it is to have a well educated populace. That seems to be the real policy issue here and it’s kind of terrifying.
rapsey 2y ago
H1B jobs should only be for way above average payed positions. You get the geniuses from other countries and keep the average domestic worker. But that would mean government working for its citizens not for the 1% so it will never be changed to something like that.
- bryanlarsen 2y ago
  The O-1 visa is the "genius" visa. There is no cap on the number of O-1 visas. So eliminating the H1B would have the effect you desire.
  - rapsey 2y ago
    Yeah but O-1 requirements are very high and unnecessarily bureaucratic. Simply having the rule of H1B jobs needing to be way above average paid for the position fixes all the abuse problems. But considering the Tesla situation the abuse is probably a feature not a bug.
casey2 2y ago
Work makes the man. Compulsory general education and workers rights (to not work) has systemically disadvantaged native-born workers. That is understandable for back breaking labor were death is commonplace but it simply isn't justifiable for office work nor most construction and landscaping work. OUR economy is not growing when there are millions of men who sit at home staring screens all day bumming off the government and their parents, many more million are in prison. Either cancel free money and food program, draft them for much needed infrastructure work or run them out of major cities to fend for themselves, trimming the fat. I for one am fine with the most intelligent and driven workers coming into the country, they are the ones that make life worth living. I am not fine with lazy countrymen who think billionaires own them something.
behnamoh 2y ago
solution: - make it mandatory for H1-B visa holders who came to the US directly (i.e., didn't go to college here) to leave the US within 5 years. - enforce equal pay: "if you hire an H1-B, you should pay them the same amount as you would a domestic worker." - allow H1-B visa holders to move between jobs; don't tie it to one company. - Obviously, put a cap on #H1-B approvals per year and make sure this number doesn't exceed the number who are leaving (see #1).
- to11mtm 2y ago
  > make it mandatory for H1-B visa holders who came to the US directly (i.e., didn't go to college here) to leave the US within 5 years. This kinda already exists. H1-B is is 3 years and can be extended to 6, but after that you can only get an extension for specific reasons (such as pending naturalization actions like a green card.) > enforce equal pay: "if you hire an H1-B, you should pay them the same amount as you would a domestic worker." That's how it's 'supposed' to work, that said I think that's part of why we see 'junior' software engineering roles wanting a decade of experience (since the H1-B will take the lower title/pay.) > allow H1-B visa holders to move between jobs; don't tie it to one company. IMO this is a big one and contributes a lot to H1-Bs getting abused by employers.
  - sir0010010 2y ago
    I think H1Bs should not even be required to hold a job at all. The offer they initially receive from the "sponsoring" company is useful to prove high skill. At that point, they get a fixed amount of time in the US and if companies (whether original or other US companies) want them to work, they have to convince them to work with pay, benefits, working conditions, etc. This would put H1Bs on a closer to level playing field with US talent - there would no longer be a bargaining power advantage to hiring from India over Missouri.
- toast0 2y ago
  > allow H1-B visa holders to move between jobs; don't tie it to one company. I'm not super familiar with the rules, but there is a way to transfer to a new company, and IIUC, that's not part of the cap, and I think you're allowed to start at the new company while the application is pending rather than needing to wait for it to be processed. I don't know if this is current, but I had heard that pending permanent residency applications would reset if you switched companies. That's a huge deal if your birth country has a long backlog on greencards because of the per country limit.
blased 2y ago
> This issue is about capital vs labor The issue is about how a nation serves its people, and whether it protects American people and their culture. America is not an economic zone but a nation with a responsibility to its citizens not random foreigners handed visas.
- deleted 2y ago
  [deleted]
- ThrowawayR2 2y ago
  On a plaque in the Statue of Liberty is the poem "The New Colossus" by Emma Lazarus, seen by many immigrants as they reached the United States: "Not like the brazen giant of Greek fame, With conquering limbs astride from land to land; Here at our sea-washed, sunset gates shall stand A mighty woman with a torch, whose flame Is the imprisoned lightning, and her name Mother of Exiles. From her beacon-hand Glows world-wide welcome; her mild eyes command The air-bridged harbor that twin cities frame. "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!" The United States was built on welcoming immigrants and achieved its greatness in no small part on the efforts of immigrants.
  - Redoubts 2y ago
    Are you suggesting this is policy ratified by congress?
  - salawat 2y ago
    >Your huddled masses yearning to breathe free, Woefully out of date. We don't even politically understand the concept of freedom anymore. Hell, just look at how much of our jurisprudence is pinned on the "Interstate Commerce" clause, which somehow applies to purely Intrastate commerce. Furthermore, the vaunted "freedom" provided nowadays is the freedom to die for refusal to accept the current yoke of the "captains of industry" who ran off with the reins of our legislative, executive, and judicial branches. The United States is post any ideal expressed on that plaque, and too afraid of the people already here to even live up to it's founding ideals as written. The only way anyone wants to get anything done is to ship in people who ultimately won't suffer the consequences of the work they're doing, then weaponizing the output of that work against the group of people here who refused to enable them in the first place.
cmxch 2y ago
Then by all means have a good chunk of the compensation packages directed to the non-citizens go towards massive checks for the citizens that (as loosely defined to include the widest possible group) the fraud and abuse of the program since it was popularized. If you want the best and brightest, it shouldn’t be a problem to pay for the damages towards citizens.

alistairSH 2y ago

100% agree. And I’m not sure what the fix should be… does fixing the power dynamics of the H1B accelerate the offshoring of knowledge workers? Certainly, my PE-owned employer is a MASSIVE proponent of offshore “centers of excellence” and the majority of our hiring is in Bangalore IN or Puebla MX. Cheaper and easier than H1B, I assume.

wat10000 2y ago
I think we should zoom out a level. Why is the H1B so well tailored to bringing in underpaid foreign labor and making them powerless in the employment relationship? It’s because large business interests have captured government. It’s the same reason the government never really cracks down on illegal immigration. Illegal immigration could be cut by an order of magnitude by strictly enforcing the laws against employing them. This is never done, or even proposed. Why? Because large business interests benefit from the way things are. The purpose of the system isn’t to prevent illegal immigration, it’s to provide a underclass of cheap, powerless labor. Until this government capture is reversed, we’ll never have rules that are beneficial for the average American or the average immigrant, except possibly by accident.
- blased 2y ago
  > It’s because large business interests have captured government On the other hand the 1965 Hart-Celler Act started the importation of asians under the guise of abolishing "racist" policies that restricted immigration and mostly let in people from the west. Frankly it should have never been passed and the country and labor market would be MUCH better off. Bush Sr sealed the deal by bringing in the H1B. Between the Bushes, Clintons and Obamas we've been systematically screwed over and debased. In retrospect, Pat Buchanan and Ross Perot were spot-on correct about practically everything.
  - browserman 2y ago
    [dead]
- jltsiren 2y ago
  I don't think it's capture. In a free market, businesses are supposed to use regulations to their advantage. If the regulations don't achieve their goals, legislators are supposed to change them. The latter part often doesn't happen in the US. Not because the Congress is captured by business interests, but because it's dysfunctional. And the society as a whole is somehow unwilling to admit that the US needs large-scale immigration to function. Just like almost every other developed country. At the high end, every developed country is a net importer of talent in industries where it's above the average (relative to the size of its economy). And at the low end, there are essential jobs that are inherently too bad for most citizens and too demanding for most of those who can't find better jobs. The best practice these days is making temporary work permits industry-specific. If there is labor shortage in an industry, just let in anyone with the skills and no obvious red flags. And if there is labor surplus, only let actual talent in. If an immigrant loses their job, they can try to find another in the same industry without excess bureaucracy. And then give a straightforward path to permanent residency for those who have been in the country for N years without causing too much trouble. Illegal immigrants largely work in fields such as agriculture, construction, and maintenance. The pay is inherently low, because the fields are labor-intensive the outputs are expected to be affordable to most citizens. Many jobs are seasonal, and many require you to live near the worksite (instead of with your family). Most are physically demanding and require a good work ethic. Once a country gets rich enough, it usually discovers that citizens who can't find better jobs often don't have what it takes to do these jobs.

guestbest 2y ago

Disempowered workers is the whole point of the H1B program. Also, what is the point of importing all this labor to replace a local labor pool when we have a global internet, zoom, GitHub, basically free international calls, etc. If works needs to be done on site, why not move the company to India or whoever the labor is needed so it’s not so disruptive to families and workers?

facialwipe 2y ago
If works needs to be done on site, why not move the company to India It’s cheaper to transport Indian services than transport Indian goods.
kylehotchkiss 2y ago
For real. Elon should just open up a large Bangalore office. He would have no shortage of the best and brightest (Tesla is highly regarded in India, right?) and that would help give him more leverage to reduce pricing there, and given how many Indians I see driving Teslas in USA, BMW/Mercedes/audi there would have good reasons to worry. I’m not anti H1B at all, I more think it’s a shame how limited they are to just tech. Please oh please bring us more doctors. Our stupid arbitrary caps on annual doctors produced is part of the healthcare cost problem. Even if we dropped that, we’ve already brainwashed ourselves to believe med school is a 6+ figure expense
- deleted 2y ago
  [deleted]
- ghufran_syed 2y ago
  H1b visas are not limited to tech, doctors and other professions can use them too. In fact, it's easier to get an H1B as a doctor, since many hospitals are non-profit, so the number of such H1B visas is not numerically limited
brookst 2y ago
I think your second point answers your first: it is better for the US to import talent than to export companies, so if that’s the choice then these programs are no-brainers. But what I fear is the belief that it is better to have a poorly educated populace plus imported talent than it is to have a well educated populace. That seems to be the real policy issue here and it’s kind of terrifying.

rapsey 2y ago

H1B jobs should only be for way above average payed positions. You get the geniuses from other countries and keep the average domestic worker. But that would mean government working for its citizens not for the 1% so it will never be changed to something like that.

bryanlarsen 2y ago
The O-1 visa is the "genius" visa. There is no cap on the number of O-1 visas. So eliminating the H1B would have the effect you desire.
- rapsey 2y ago
  Yeah but O-1 requirements are very high and unnecessarily bureaucratic. Simply having the rule of H1B jobs needing to be way above average paid for the position fixes all the abuse problems. But considering the Tesla situation the abuse is probably a feature not a bug.

casey2 2y ago

Work makes the man. Compulsory general education and workers rights (to not work) has systemically disadvantaged native-born workers. That is understandable for back breaking labor were death is commonplace but it simply isn't justifiable for office work nor most construction and landscaping work. OUR economy is not growing when there are millions of men who sit at home staring screens all day bumming off the government and their parents, many more million are in prison. Either cancel free money and food program, draft them for much needed infrastructure work or run them out of major cities to fend for themselves, trimming the fat. I for one am fine with the most intelligent and driven workers coming into the country, they are the ones that make life worth living. I am not fine with lazy countrymen who think billionaires own them something.

behnamoh 2y ago

solution: - make it mandatory for H1-B visa holders who came to the US directly (i.e., didn't go to college here) to leave the US within 5 years. - enforce equal pay: "if you hire an H1-B, you should pay them the same amount as you would a domestic worker." - allow H1-B visa holders to move between jobs; don't tie it to one company. - Obviously, put a cap on #H1-B approvals per year and make sure this number doesn't exceed the number who are leaving (see #1).

to11mtm 2y ago
> make it mandatory for H1-B visa holders who came to the US directly (i.e., didn't go to college here) to leave the US within 5 years. This kinda already exists. H1-B is is 3 years and can be extended to 6, but after that you can only get an extension for specific reasons (such as pending naturalization actions like a green card.) > enforce equal pay: "if you hire an H1-B, you should pay them the same amount as you would a domestic worker." That's how it's 'supposed' to work, that said I think that's part of why we see 'junior' software engineering roles wanting a decade of experience (since the H1-B will take the lower title/pay.) > allow H1-B visa holders to move between jobs; don't tie it to one company. IMO this is a big one and contributes a lot to H1-Bs getting abused by employers.
- sir0010010 2y ago
  I think H1Bs should not even be required to hold a job at all. The offer they initially receive from the "sponsoring" company is useful to prove high skill. At that point, they get a fixed amount of time in the US and if companies (whether original or other US companies) want them to work, they have to convince them to work with pay, benefits, working conditions, etc. This would put H1Bs on a closer to level playing field with US talent - there would no longer be a bargaining power advantage to hiring from India over Missouri.
toast0 2y ago
> allow H1-B visa holders to move between jobs; don't tie it to one company. I'm not super familiar with the rules, but there is a way to transfer to a new company, and IIUC, that's not part of the cap, and I think you're allowed to start at the new company while the application is pending rather than needing to wait for it to be processed. I don't know if this is current, but I had heard that pending permanent residency applications would reset if you switched companies. That's a huge deal if your birth country has a long backlog on greencards because of the per country limit.

blased 2y ago

> This issue is about capital vs labor The issue is about how a nation serves its people, and whether it protects American people and their culture. America is not an economic zone but a nation with a responsibility to its citizens not random foreigners handed visas.

deleted 2y ago
[deleted]
ThrowawayR2 2y ago
On a plaque in the Statue of Liberty is the poem "The New Colossus" by Emma Lazarus, seen by many immigrants as they reached the United States: "Not like the brazen giant of Greek fame, With conquering limbs astride from land to land; Here at our sea-washed, sunset gates shall stand A mighty woman with a torch, whose flame Is the imprisoned lightning, and her name Mother of Exiles. From her beacon-hand Glows world-wide welcome; her mild eyes command The air-bridged harbor that twin cities frame. "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!" The United States was built on welcoming immigrants and achieved its greatness in no small part on the efforts of immigrants.
- Redoubts 2y ago
  Are you suggesting this is policy ratified by congress?
- salawat 2y ago
  >Your huddled masses yearning to breathe free, Woefully out of date. We don't even politically understand the concept of freedom anymore. Hell, just look at how much of our jurisprudence is pinned on the "Interstate Commerce" clause, which somehow applies to purely Intrastate commerce. Furthermore, the vaunted "freedom" provided nowadays is the freedom to die for refusal to accept the current yoke of the "captains of industry" who ran off with the reins of our legislative, executive, and judicial branches. The United States is post any ideal expressed on that plaque, and too afraid of the people already here to even live up to it's founding ideals as written. The only way anyone wants to get anything done is to ship in people who ultimately won't suffer the consequences of the work they're doing, then weaponizing the output of that work against the group of people here who refused to enable them in the first place.

cmxch 2y ago

Then by all means have a good chunk of the compensation packages directed to the non-citizens go towards massive checks for the citizens that (as loosely defined to include the widest possible group) the fraud and abuse of the program since it was popularized. If you want the best and brightest, it shouldn’t be a problem to pay for the damages towards citizens.