4 ms·

Not just vacations, but also business trips. They come up with these rules on a Saturday morning. If you’re a visa holder outside the country and you don’t ret

• ericmay 1y ago
  Microsoft can also just pay the fee right? My understanding is that it’s on the employer to pay, not the individual. Given that these are incredibly skilled folks this would certainly be annoying if you’re Microsoft (like any other tax or fee) but given the value they get from each employee it seems like $100,000 isn’t much.
  • phyzix5761 1y ago
    Incredibly skilled? More like incredibly low paid. H1Bs are mostly used now to save money not to fill high skilled jobs. I know US citizens who have 10+ years of experience as software engineers and have been out of work for a year now. The $100k will try to take that advantage away from employers.
    • axiosgunnar 1y ago
      [dead]
    • lmz 1y ago
      [flagged]
      • Smeevy 1y ago
        What does "globalist" mean again? Please explain that to me so I can understand.
    • Muromec 1y ago
      Why can't they set a salary cutoff for visas at something like 1.5x of median salary in the same industry? That's what EU does. No lottery, no degree requirement even -- if the company wants you to pay above the market, they can, otherwise, nah. This of course creates another problem -- highly paid foreigners price locals out of the housing market, but hej, we can always blame that on refugees, right.
      • hshdhdhj4444 1y ago
        The salary cutoff is set and it’s met. Wanna raise the salary cutoff go for it. But the people claiming that there is no salary cutoff and that H1B visa holders are incredibly lowly paid are simply lying. Like any other rule or law there are people who break the rules and laws. Usually the way they prove the salary is not being met is by pointing to the tiny fraction of people breaking the law. It’s like saying we should get rid of anti murder laws because murderers exist.
    • risyachka 1y ago
      I also know people with 10 yoe. But when I dig into it almost always those people have a massive list of requirements for the job they want (remote/short commute/no overtime ever/etcetc) Though it is reasonable to ask whatever you want you must understand there are always someone more desperate (and often with higher skills) that will take that job. So the fact that 10yoe can’t find a job doesn’t mean anything. Usually this is either too many demands from seeker or skill issue. Or they don’t eant to take lower salary. If a company was willing to pay 70k for a developer you must be delusional to think they will suddenly decide to pay 100k+ for local talent. They will just get a remote contractor
    • tayo42 1y ago
      People keep saying this but all my peers in tech companies on h1b were paid the same as me.
    • milch 1y ago
      10 YoE means nothing. Let's not pretend there isn't a massive skill gap in software engineering. I've interviewed and worked with 10+ YoE people in my company that I wouldn't trust with junior work on my team.
  • pavlov 1y ago
    Have you ever worked for a large corporation? Do you think there’s an intranet website where you can just go click on the “Send $100k Wire Now” button? It’s going to take a long time while Microsoft figures out if they will actually pay these fees and which budget it should come out of. Meanwhile, if you didn’t return by Sunday, you’re locked out of the country and unable to show up for work which will result in your termination fairly soon.
    • trollbridge 1y ago
      Employers have said these workers are critical and they can’t find any workers already in America to do these roles. FAANG are by far the largest users of H1-B. They also have billions of dollars and access to excellent lawyers. They can pay up for this; an excellent employee is certainly worth more than $100k per year to them. Think of this more as a tax levied on some of America’s wealthiest businesses.
      • Workaccount2 1y ago
        I think it's mostly targeted at these IT firms that are 75% H1-B doing help desk for $50k/yr.
        • more_corn 1y ago
          So create a policy that specifically solves that. This is madness.
      • Aurornis 1y ago
        > FAANG are by far the largest users of H1-B. The H1-B is used across many industries, not just tech.
      • chatmasta 1y ago
        The data is publicly available. Microsoft is the largest US employer of H1-B with about 5,000 H1-B workers. So we’re only talking about $500m. They could probably find that stashed in the basement of one of their offices.
  • JBorrow 1y ago
    Many people on H1Bs work for nonprofits or hospitals, or are otherwise publicly funded.
    • trollbridge 1y ago
      This doesn’t appear to apply to people on cap-exempt H1-Bs.
      • JBorrow 1y ago
        All cap-exempt institutions that I know of are treating it as if it does. There has been no clarification as of yet.
    • usernamed7 1y ago
      i have never heard of this and nothing i've read has indicated this; it's always been tech companies large fortune 500's. I did some googling and am not finding anything to support this claim, either. If you've got sources i'd love to see them.
      • JBorrow 1y ago
        You should look up 'cap-exempt H1B'. Many postdoctoral researchers, research staff, and doctors use the H1B program.
    • deleted 1y ago
      [deleted]
    • taminka 1y ago
      only a very small percentage i think, for example only 4.2% work anywhere in the medical field [1] [1]https://www.uscis.gov/sites/default/files/document/reports/ola_signed_h1b_characteristics_congressional_report_FY24.pdf https://www.uscis.gov/sites/default/files/document/reports/o...
      • JBorrow 1y ago
        Yes, that's tens of thousands of people.
  • deleted 1y ago
    [deleted]
  • duped 1y ago
    There is no mechanism to actually pay the fee
  • cjbgkagh 1y ago
    Net income per employee at MS is $440K so if H-1B are so important then they can afford it. I worked at MS on a visa and it definitely felt like I was a second class citizen that managers could freely abuse without recourse, it didn’t help that corporate politics had become tribal. So while having a visa was beneficial to me personally I felt it lead to the degradation of the employment market, now a market for lemons, and this hurt Americans. High prices are a signal and people make career choices based on prospective income, many of America's smartest got the memo that Software Engineering was going to be taken over by H-1B Indians and they should pick a different career like law, finance, or medicine. So the program created the problem it was purporting to solve, the fact that the problem exists even though we’ve had H1-Bs for decades. The irony is that without the H-1Bs the US market might be attractive enough for me to return, sadly I’d need the visa. I’m content knowing the market isn’t being destroyed for Americans even if it means I can’t partake in it. That said I wonder if it’s more of a power grab with the discretion to grant exemptions being used to strong arm corporations to clamping down on criticism of Israel.
    • baobabKoodaa 1y ago
      > Net income per employee at MS is $440K MS with N fewer workers is not going to bring in N*$440K less net income. The incremental income added by an average employee is much less than $440K.
      • cjbgkagh 1y ago
        That they can afford it does not mean they should afford it, given the degradation of their flagship monopoly product I’m not sure if the H-1Bs are really helping all that much. My time there was absolutely dominated by bureaucracy, so much so that we spent 12 weeks planning a feature I knew I could do in 30 minutes, so I called a meeting and did it in front of them during the meeting, apparently that wasn’t respecting the process so I was punished for it.
    • Ar-Curunir 1y ago
      I’m sorry, but what? What part of your statement is relevant to the rapid and cruel enactment of the policy? Leaving aside whether or not it is unreasonable, the immediate applicability, over a weekend, of this policy, is that this thread is discussing. Not your smug satisfaction at the validity of the policy.
  • Igrom 1y ago
    While you're making a point in response to a specific post (and the OP), and so you're making a point strictly about Microsoft, an implicit premise that's supposed to strengthen your argument is that only the deep-pocketed Microsoft or its equals are subject to penalties. What about other companies for which this is a less manageable expense? And is it respectable and okay to switch up the law over the weekend if, and just because, the ones who are affected are large companies? Realistically, what's the rush to have the "law" (Congress?) come into effect two days after its announcement, beside making it a shakedown? Remember that policymakers anticipate, or should anticipate, second-order effects. Either Microsoft forks out $100k per employee, or the cost of coping with the new policy is pushed onto the regular Joe. In any case, this produces a sense of crisis and urgency that you'd criticize if it happened at a measly, inexperienced startup you happened to work at. The law changes three months ahead? Looks like I'll have to cancel my December plans. But when I'm on a holiday? Sure, let me pack my bags, get back to the nearest airport and take the first transcontinental flight. Or maybe Microsoft is flexible enough to have me shoulder the $100K to stay until the end of my holiday? I'm not sure how openly the measure was discussed beforehand (and on that point: the employees already have visas; why must they return, unless their visa is about to expire?), but it was promulgated _yesterday_.
    • ericmay 1y ago
      I agree with you with respect to timing, but I don't think it's too much of one thing or another, and just chalk it up to typical Trump Administration "move fast and make things dumb" approach to various policies. I guess it's possible they chose this weekend to enact the highest shakedown possible on H1B visa holders outside the United States, but I'm reluctant to give them that much credit. I think they just said here is the policy, go now and the inconveniences be damned.
      • intended 1y ago
        What you wrote reminds me of descriptions of the Soviet Union.
        • ericmay 1y ago
  • hshdhdhj4444 1y ago
    Ok. How does Microsoft pay the fee? Which online portal do they go to? What bank account do they wire a check to over the weekend? What reason do they give for the payment? What USCIS code do they enter? What USCIS forms do they fill that USCIS will then snail mail (because they’re still living in the 90s) an I-797A to the employee that they will present at the border for evidence of payment. What address will USCIS mail the document to (which will be a U.S. address) and how does the employee who is currently abroad get that document from their U.S. mailing address to their current location abroad? When are they gonna write the code for the lookup that the border agents can use to confirm the validity of this form and payment? Also, how does all this happen over a Saturday and Sunday? And even if there are answers to these questions where are those answers posted?
    • ericmay 1y ago
      Maybe Satya can call Donald Trump? I am sure he has his phone number. They can sort it
      • dvdkon 1y ago
        So if you want your employees to be able to go back from vacation and back to their belongings, you have to pay a large fee. And to pay that fee, you have to talk to the president personally, otherwise you're screwed. That's so dumb I can't believe you're suggesting it. In a rule-of-law country, lobbying the president should never be a solution to anything, much less routine bureaucracy.
        • ericmay 1y ago
          Yea yea I get it - but you’re also drumming up a hypothetical scenario about Microsoft suggesting they have no way to pay the fee - I’m just suggesting a solution, not suggesting the path forward or that the abruptness of this policy change is a good idea. Satya has a direct line to the president’s office and can utilize that to help solve this acute concern if there is, as you are very confidently asserting, “no way to pay” the appropriate federal agency.
        • 1y ago
• pclmulqdq 1y ago
  It leaked on a Friday night, so they ran with it.
• pimlottc 1y ago
  And _required_ visa renewal trips, as mrmansano's anecdote shows [0] 0: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=45312877#45313687 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=45312877#45313687