5 ms·

Unfortunately, looks like my comment lost the first half somehow... anywhere, here's what I meant to put first... First, thanks for addressing this in a reason

by geebee 18y ago

Unfortunately, looks like my comment lost the first half somehow... anywhere, here's what I meant to put first... First, thanks for addressing this in a reasoned way. The issue gets emotional sometimes. That said, I disagree with your arguments. A recent study of the H1B visa showed that the majority of these visas go to Indian outsourcing firms, not American companies looking for top talent. I have no doubt that many talented people come to the US on this visa, and that these people are well paid, but that appears to be less common. Most of the H1Bs are awared to rank and file workers, so I think much more displacement than innovation is going on here. I also think that we could easily create a visa (with full mobility rather than indentured servitude) that we could award in smaller numbers to higly talented foreign nationals. I strongly object to your use of Sergey Brin as an example of why the H1B is important. Keep in mind that the writer of this article had no problem with engineers and scientists immigrating to America, he was just opposed to a specialized visa created specifically to increase the number of engineers. An engineer who immigrates independently of the visa program (as is the case with Sergey Brin, who grew up in the US and chose to study CS once he was here) would argue for the latter - that we don't need a specialized visa to get these kinds of people here! (... then continue with the rest of the post, thanks)

lionhearted 18y ago
Thanks for the reply - After you that the majority of H1-B's are going to Indian outsourcing firms, I took a look at the demographics and stastics to see if that's true. Here's what I found: India accounts for the most H1-B visas at 102,382 since 2005. The next highest is the United Kingdom at 30,755. That's interesting - India does account for 25% of H1-B's, however the rest of the top 10 is: UK, Canada, Mexico, France, Germany, Japan, China, Venezuela, South Korea. Six of the top 10 are wealthy countries with high standards of living - the people from those countries are quite likely skilled professionals. The government should work to clear up and end abuses of the H1-B program to bring unskilled laborers over here, but that's not what the majority of the program is doing. Giving visas not bound to employer would straighten most of that out right away - it would take away the incentive for employers to get crummy people, because they couldn't pay undermarket wages. As for India - I think the reason India is so highly represented is the same reason Ireland was 150 years ago: It's a poor country with people who want to work hard and make it in America. I think some people (not you) cite the India thing and plays as a sort of latent racist card. "Those damn Indians, taking our jobs!" Why shouldn't Indians come over here? There's some damn brilliant Indians with nothing going on for them in India. The best and brightest want to come here, just liked we've seen whenever there's been a famine or poverty in a country. America's been built by people who came here for a better life. So okay, only 25% of H1-B's are to Indians, and not all of those (obviously) are outsourcing firms or an abuse of the program. As for the Sergey Brin comment - the author was writing how we should restrict immigration because it costs Americans jobs. My point is if immigration was stricter in the 70's and the Brin family hadn't been allowed to come to the USA, then we'd all be worse off. I say get as many bright and hardworking people here as possible, however we can, and loosen up immigration for anyone who'll be a good citizen in a field there's demand for. I agree with you that we should cut down on unskilled laborers abusing the program, and get better filtering criteria. But I've worked with some amazing Indian coders, and those are people I'd love to have over here to drink tea with, sit on the beach with, talk code and business and Chess, and see them raise their kids to be Americans if they get citizenship, or be grateful for the contributions they made to our economy and way of life if they go home.
- geebee 18y ago
  You're correct that India accounts for most of the H1B visas, but my comment was actually referring to the companies that bring in H1B workers, not the nationality of the H1B workers themselves. Here's a link to an article on msnbc: http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/17048048/ http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/17048048/ "data for the fiscal year 2006, which ended last September, show that 7 of the top 10 applicants for H-1B visas are Indian companies. Giants Infosys Technologies and Wipro took the top two spots, with 22,600 and 19,400 applications, respectively. The company with the third most applications is Cognizant Technology Solutions, which is based in Teaneck, N.J., but has most of its operations in India. All three companies provide services to U.S. companies from India, including technology support and back-office processing." This article raises the point that H1B visas may actually facilitate and accelerate the trend toward moving jobs offshore. Some people think this is a worthy goal - source the labor where it can be provided most economically. But then we should be honest about it, and agree that our national policy will be to assist foreign corporations in moving development jobs offshore. Then our own young people can take that into consideration, along with our government's decision to protect sectors like law from foreign competition, when choosing a graduate degree and career. I also disagree with you that the writer of the article is opposed to immigration, and he definitely makes a strong case against the claim of "playing a race card". Here's the quote from his article: "What's more, the H-1B issue is separate from the debate concerning an overhaul of sadly confused and outdated immigration framework as a whole. Friedman's hardworking Indian immigrants would still have an opportunity to come to the United States and make their contributions as citizens-to-be if H-1B were suspended, using the regular immigration framework." So this writer is clearly not opposed to Indians (among others) immigrating to the US. The question is: should there be a special visa program designed specifically to bring more engineers to the United States than we'd get through the normal process of immigration? It's a reasonable question, but it really is separate from the more general question of whether people should be allowed to pursue a better life through immigration to the US, or even whether we should try to bring more "educated people" here in a general sense. The H1B is used specifically to increase the number of engineers, and it seems pretty obvious to me that if you do that to engineering but not to other fields, you'll deter young Americans from entering engineering relative to other fields that are not targeted by work visas.

by geebee 18y ago

lionhearted 18y ago

Thanks for the reply - After you that the majority of H1-B's are going to Indian outsourcing firms, I took a look at the demographics and stastics to see if that's true. Here's what I found: India accounts for the most H1-B visas at 102,382 since 2005. The next highest is the United Kingdom at 30,755. That's interesting - India does account for 25% of H1-B's, however the rest of the top 10 is: UK, Canada, Mexico, France, Germany, Japan, China, Venezuela, South Korea. Six of the top 10 are wealthy countries with high standards of living - the people from those countries are quite likely skilled professionals. The government should work to clear up and end abuses of the H1-B program to bring unskilled laborers over here, but that's not what the majority of the program is doing. Giving visas not bound to employer would straighten most of that out right away - it would take away the incentive for employers to get crummy people, because they couldn't pay undermarket wages. As for India - I think the reason India is so highly represented is the same reason Ireland was 150 years ago: It's a poor country with people who want to work hard and make it in America. I think some people (not you) cite the India thing and plays as a sort of latent racist card. "Those damn Indians, taking our jobs!" Why shouldn't Indians come over here? There's some damn brilliant Indians with nothing going on for them in India. The best and brightest want to come here, just liked we've seen whenever there's been a famine or poverty in a country. America's been built by people who came here for a better life. So okay, only 25% of H1-B's are to Indians, and not all of those (obviously) are outsourcing firms or an abuse of the program. As for the Sergey Brin comment - the author was writing how we should restrict immigration because it costs Americans jobs. My point is if immigration was stricter in the 70's and the Brin family hadn't been allowed to come to the USA, then we'd all be worse off. I say get as many bright and hardworking people here as possible, however we can, and loosen up immigration for anyone who'll be a good citizen in a field there's demand for. I agree with you that we should cut down on unskilled laborers abusing the program, and get better filtering criteria. But I've worked with some amazing Indian coders, and those are people I'd love to have over here to drink tea with, sit on the beach with, talk code and business and Chess, and see them raise their kids to be Americans if they get citizenship, or be grateful for the contributions they made to our economy and way of life if they go home.

geebee 18y ago
You're correct that India accounts for most of the H1B visas, but my comment was actually referring to the companies that bring in H1B workers, not the nationality of the H1B workers themselves. Here's a link to an article on msnbc: http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/17048048/ http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/17048048/ "data for the fiscal year 2006, which ended last September, show that 7 of the top 10 applicants for H-1B visas are Indian companies. Giants Infosys Technologies and Wipro took the top two spots, with 22,600 and 19,400 applications, respectively. The company with the third most applications is Cognizant Technology Solutions, which is based in Teaneck, N.J., but has most of its operations in India. All three companies provide services to U.S. companies from India, including technology support and back-office processing." This article raises the point that H1B visas may actually facilitate and accelerate the trend toward moving jobs offshore. Some people think this is a worthy goal - source the labor where it can be provided most economically. But then we should be honest about it, and agree that our national policy will be to assist foreign corporations in moving development jobs offshore. Then our own young people can take that into consideration, along with our government's decision to protect sectors like law from foreign competition, when choosing a graduate degree and career. I also disagree with you that the writer of the article is opposed to immigration, and he definitely makes a strong case against the claim of "playing a race card". Here's the quote from his article: "What's more, the H-1B issue is separate from the debate concerning an overhaul of sadly confused and outdated immigration framework as a whole. Friedman's hardworking Indian immigrants would still have an opportunity to come to the United States and make their contributions as citizens-to-be if H-1B were suspended, using the regular immigration framework." So this writer is clearly not opposed to Indians (among others) immigrating to the US. The question is: should there be a special visa program designed specifically to bring more engineers to the United States than we'd get through the normal process of immigration? It's a reasonable question, but it really is separate from the more general question of whether people should be allowed to pursue a better life through immigration to the US, or even whether we should try to bring more "educated people" here in a general sense. The H1B is used specifically to increase the number of engineers, and it seems pretty obvious to me that if you do that to engineering but not to other fields, you'll deter young Americans from entering engineering relative to other fields that are not targeted by work visas.