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It is a problem with H1B because it undermines the whole idea of selective immigration. H1B is pitched to the public as a way to get "the best and brightest" fr

by rayiner 11mo ago

It is a problem with H1B because it undermines the whole idea of selective immigration. H1B is pitched to the public as a way to get "the best and brightest" from foreign countries. But because of family reunification, the decision to admit one skilled worker actually means one skilled worker plus potentially dozens of other people with no qualifications whatsoever. Bangladesh gets around 50-60 skilled immigrant visas a year, but the Bangladeshi population in the U.S. has someone grown from under 10,000 in 1990 to over 270,000 today. That's the product of family reunification. Voters who supported H1B thought they were voting for a handful of Bangladeshi doctors and engineers, and instead they got Little Bangladeshes popping up all over the country.

triceratops 11mo ago
> But because of family reunification There you go. You identified the actual cause yourself. > the decision to admit one skilled worker actually means one skilled worker plus potentially dozens of other people with no qualifications whatsoever. "Potentially no qualifications" is doing a lot of work there (strangely). What are the odds that only one person in the family is well-educated? And isn't IQ supposedly heritable? I'm personally neutral on family reunification. It undermines fairness but helps family cohesion. I understand arguments in favor of and against it, and there probably isn't a single right answer. I'm not convinced family members without any qualifications or a means of supporting themselves in the US would even leave their country. What's the point? And if they're truly useless, their relative who would otherwise sponsor their immigration visa might prefer just sending them some money. It would be cheaper than financially supporting them here. > instead they got Little Bangladeshes popping up all over the country From the little research I did, Bangladeshi-Americans have higher educational attainment and household incomes than the median. America has always had ethnic neighborhoods - German/China/Korea/Japantowns, little Italys. What's the issue?
- venturecruelty 11mo ago
  >From the little research I did, Bangladeshi-Americans have higher educational attainment and household incomes than the median. America has always had ethnic neighborhoods - German/China/Korea/Japantowns, little Italys. What's the issue? Some people have problems with other people's skin color.
  - deleted 11mo ago
    [deleted]
  - rayiner 11mo ago
    The key difference between Scandinavian enclaves in Minnesota and Little Bangladesh isn't "skin color." It's order versus disorder. First world versus third world. Humans aren't just differently colored blank slates.
    - toomuchtodo 11mo ago
      You’re spot on, people are confusing economics and cultural assimilation concerns with racism. I don’t believe you’re racist (based on your comments), you’re just pointing out a loophole that allows mass migration via a skilled worker visa program (whether intentional or not) of a cohort of immigrant who might experience challenges assimilating into their target country culture. Culture isn’t magic land, it’s people, and their social values and norms. Are mass migrants via family reunification assimilating and adopting the culture of their new home? That’s an important question for those offering residency and potentially a path to citizenship. Very similar to why many European countries are offering economic migrants a return path to their country of origin when social and economic integration has failed.
      - rayiner 11mo ago
        Here’s a secret: Not only am I ethnically Bangladeshi, I enjoy Bangladeshis! I enjoy weddings where the aunties harass the couple about immediately having kids. I live 10 minutes from my parents and subject my Anglo wife to elaborate and overbearing family obligations and face saving rituals. Seeing Anglos with adult children waiting for grandkids that will never come genuinely fills me with existential dread. That is an entirely different consideration, however, than the economic and social effects of immigration of people like me in sufficient numbers to culturally reshape parts of America.
        flag_fagger 11mo ago
        [dead]
- rayiner 11mo ago
  The point is that H1B is marketed as selective immigration of highly skilled immigrants, but in practice it enables mass migration. Whether you think mass migration is a good thing is a different, and irrelevant, point. If you put "our immigration policy should enable the formation of places like Little Bangladesh" it would lose handily at the ballot box. (By the way, Bangladeshi Americans are poorer than the average American: "In a 2013, NPR discussion with a member of the Economic Policy Institute and co-author of the book The Myth of the Model Minority Rosalind Chou who is also a professor of sociology. One of them stated that 'When you break it down by specific ethnic groups, the Hmong, the Bangladeshi, they have poverty rates that rival the African-American poverty rate.'" https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bangladeshi_Americans https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bangladeshi_Americans)
  - triceratops 11mo ago
    > By the way, Bangladeshi Americans are poorer than the average American The Wikipedia article is inaccurate. It claims that Bangladesh-Americans have a median household income of ~$59k. The actual sources cited by the article both say it's $78k: https://www.pewresearch.org/short-reads/2025/05/01/key-facts-about-asians-in-the-us/ https://www.pewresearch.org/short-reads/2025/05/01/key-facts.... https://www.pewresearch.org/social-trends/fact-sheet/asian-americans-bangladeshis-in-the-u-s/ https://www.pewresearch.org/social-trends/fact-sheet/asian-a... I don't know what's up with that. $20k is obviously a big difference.
BriggyDwiggs42 11mo ago
I don’t mind more Bangladeshes. Seems like your whole issue is that they’re a different ethnicity. Kids born in the US are citizens and you have no good reason to think they’re worse somehow.
- rayiner 11mo ago
  You think you don't because you don't know anything about the culture and any contact you have with the community is superficial and arm's length. I'm Bangladeshi--my family has no knowledge of even a single ancestor from anywhere else. Bangladeshis aren't just Iowans with darker skin. Our mothers socialize us very differently from birth.
  - BriggyDwiggs42 11mo ago
    Okay, but I don’t interact much with Mormons either. Doesn’t bother me that there’s a Mormon enclave. Not my thing.
    - rayiner 11mo ago
      That’s a great example, but with one key difference. Mormons went out and built their own society in the middle of nowhere on land nobody else wanted. But how would you like it if tens of thousands of mormons moved into your town and reshaped it according to their culture?
    - deleted 11mo ago
      [deleted]

by rayiner 11mo ago

triceratops 11mo ago

> But because of family reunification There you go. You identified the actual cause yourself. > the decision to admit one skilled worker actually means one skilled worker plus potentially dozens of other people with no qualifications whatsoever. "Potentially no qualifications" is doing a lot of work there (strangely). What are the odds that only one person in the family is well-educated? And isn't IQ supposedly heritable? I'm personally neutral on family reunification. It undermines fairness but helps family cohesion. I understand arguments in favor of and against it, and there probably isn't a single right answer. I'm not convinced family members without any qualifications or a means of supporting themselves in the US would even leave their country. What's the point? And if they're truly useless, their relative who would otherwise sponsor their immigration visa might prefer just sending them some money. It would be cheaper than financially supporting them here. > instead they got Little Bangladeshes popping up all over the country From the little research I did, Bangladeshi-Americans have higher educational attainment and household incomes than the median. America has always had ethnic neighborhoods - German/China/Korea/Japantowns, little Italys. What's the issue?

venturecruelty 11mo ago
>From the little research I did, Bangladeshi-Americans have higher educational attainment and household incomes than the median. America has always had ethnic neighborhoods - German/China/Korea/Japantowns, little Italys. What's the issue? Some people have problems with other people's skin color.
- deleted 11mo ago
  [deleted]
- rayiner 11mo ago
  The key difference between Scandinavian enclaves in Minnesota and Little Bangladesh isn't "skin color." It's order versus disorder. First world versus third world. Humans aren't just differently colored blank slates.
  - toomuchtodo 11mo ago
    You’re spot on, people are confusing economics and cultural assimilation concerns with racism. I don’t believe you’re racist (based on your comments), you’re just pointing out a loophole that allows mass migration via a skilled worker visa program (whether intentional or not) of a cohort of immigrant who might experience challenges assimilating into their target country culture. Culture isn’t magic land, it’s people, and their social values and norms. Are mass migrants via family reunification assimilating and adopting the culture of their new home? That’s an important question for those offering residency and potentially a path to citizenship. Very similar to why many European countries are offering economic migrants a return path to their country of origin when social and economic integration has failed.
    - rayiner 11mo ago
      Here’s a secret: Not only am I ethnically Bangladeshi, I enjoy Bangladeshis! I enjoy weddings where the aunties harass the couple about immediately having kids. I live 10 minutes from my parents and subject my Anglo wife to elaborate and overbearing family obligations and face saving rituals. Seeing Anglos with adult children waiting for grandkids that will never come genuinely fills me with existential dread. That is an entirely different consideration, however, than the economic and social effects of immigration of people like me in sufficient numbers to culturally reshape parts of America.
      - flag_fagger 11mo ago
        [dead]
rayiner 11mo ago
The point is that H1B is marketed as selective immigration of highly skilled immigrants, but in practice it enables mass migration. Whether you think mass migration is a good thing is a different, and irrelevant, point. If you put "our immigration policy should enable the formation of places like Little Bangladesh" it would lose handily at the ballot box. (By the way, Bangladeshi Americans are poorer than the average American: "In a 2013, NPR discussion with a member of the Economic Policy Institute and co-author of the book The Myth of the Model Minority Rosalind Chou who is also a professor of sociology. One of them stated that 'When you break it down by specific ethnic groups, the Hmong, the Bangladeshi, they have poverty rates that rival the African-American poverty rate.'" https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bangladeshi_Americans https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bangladeshi_Americans)
- triceratops 11mo ago
  > By the way, Bangladeshi Americans are poorer than the average American The Wikipedia article is inaccurate. It claims that Bangladesh-Americans have a median household income of ~$59k. The actual sources cited by the article both say it's $78k: https://www.pewresearch.org/short-reads/2025/05/01/key-facts-about-asians-in-the-us/ https://www.pewresearch.org/short-reads/2025/05/01/key-facts.... https://www.pewresearch.org/social-trends/fact-sheet/asian-americans-bangladeshis-in-the-u-s/ https://www.pewresearch.org/social-trends/fact-sheet/asian-a... I don't know what's up with that. $20k is obviously a big difference.

BriggyDwiggs42 11mo ago

I don’t mind more Bangladeshes. Seems like your whole issue is that they’re a different ethnicity. Kids born in the US are citizens and you have no good reason to think they’re worse somehow.

rayiner 11mo ago
You think you don't because you don't know anything about the culture and any contact you have with the community is superficial and arm's length. I'm Bangladeshi--my family has no knowledge of even a single ancestor from anywhere else. Bangladeshis aren't just Iowans with darker skin. Our mothers socialize us very differently from birth.
- BriggyDwiggs42 11mo ago
  Okay, but I don’t interact much with Mormons either. Doesn’t bother me that there’s a Mormon enclave. Not my thing.
  - rayiner 11mo ago
    That’s a great example, but with one key difference. Mormons went out and built their own society in the middle of nowhere on land nobody else wanted. But how would you like it if tens of thousands of mormons moved into your town and reshaped it according to their culture?
  - deleted 11mo ago
    [deleted]