11 ms·

Michael Moritz on immigration reform

119 points by vj44 14y ago

programnature 14y ago
I support this reform, but we should consider the unintended consequences. Tying US citizenship with graduate work will incentivize universities to treat graduate students like slave labor, moreso than they are already. This is a recipe for exploitation.
- blizkreeg 14y ago
  There is an unintended consequence for everything, including inaction.
  - programnature 14y ago
    That kind of reasoning is what got us into Iraq. I'm simply suggesting thinking through the consequences rather than simply cheerleading. For example, would we be comfortable with 90% of science students being not from the US? What if we make a system where no one born in this country can actually afford to do graduate work? Remember, the foreign-born students don't have the kind of undergrad debt load that we have in the US.
    - blizkreeg 14y ago
      You are so, so misguided in your thoughts. I came to this country for graduate studies and took on a loan for a portion of it, amounting to almost $20K. Took me the better part of 2 yrs to pay it back. I came from a modest family background. While I didn't have an undergrad loan, I certainly didn't have any money to back me up. Most foreigners grow up with far fewer resources than you did in this country. The USD is still stronger than 99% of currencies. While I don't dispute that college education is ridiculously overpriced here, that is a different, unrelated problem.
      - programnature 14y ago
        This is not about you, this is about what is good for the country. Is it good for the country to disincentivize graduate work for people who are born here? Is it good for the country for every STEM lecturer to have bad english language skills? This is already the norm at many state schools, and makes people drop those subjects because they can't understand or relate to their teachers. Of course it is hard for immigrants to relate to the spoiled "fat" americans, but the social and cultural realities exist and are not trivial.
        deleted 14y ago
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    - mpyne 14y ago
      I wouldn't be comfortable with 90% necessarily, but at the same time if these 90% want to come to the U.S. and remain (for at least some nominal period of time) and contribute to U.S. interests then I'd rather that they were over here working to make the country great instead of wherever they came from. Fixing education here in the U.S. is itself an important task but it's orthogonal to immigration. If our kids want to do basket-weaving instead of STEM then the next best thing is to let those from overseas who want to come to the U.S. and work actually do so. But there should be plenty of capacity in the universities for non-immigrants to get STEM majors if they want. At least I had no difficulty. Despite all the mud the U.S. has on its name internationally, the country is still in a great position to execute a "brain drain" (for lack of a better term) and it would be pretty foolish to miss out on that, especially as the world becomes increasingly specialized.
    - enraged_camel 14y ago
      >>That kind of reasoning is what got us into Iraq. That's a pretty incredible kind of Godwin you just invoked there.
- websymphony 14y ago
  No it won't. Universities don't treat students like slaves, professors do. And they don't have any additional incentive of doing it more than they already do, just because of this reform.
  - programnature 14y ago
    Sure it does. This instantly makes the degree more valuable to the foreign student. Thus the university can extract more work for lower wages from them. Wages for teaching are not set by individual professors, and thats where most of the poorly compensated labor is.
- splintercell 14y ago
  Your own suggestion overlooks the unintended consequences of what happens right now. Right now the people become slaves of the companies they work for because their immigration status is tied to their companies. You think its the option between not getting exploited and getting exploited by the university, but in reality its the option between getting exploited by the companies which sponsor work visa vs getting exploited by the university. Finally, why can't you leave the choice on the people themselves, you're helping the immigrants in anyway by not allowing corporations or universities to be able to hire them easily.
- pepr 14y ago
  I'm a foreign graduate student doing my Master's degree at a relatively well-known university in Texas and I really don't feel like a slave. The pay is modest (15K/year for 20h/week) but it is sufficient to live comfortably and occasionally travel (I travelled 6 weeks last summer all over US). And I don't feel like any of my fellow students are slaves either. No crazy hours, no crazy pressure on results. Maybe it's worse for PhDs or at better (research) universities?
- moultano 14y ago
  >we should consider the unintended consequences. What would you recommend we do as a result of considering them? Without getting a more substantial position from you, this reads like concern trolling.
- eshvk 14y ago
  So right now, the way the system is setup, you can in theory move from a PhD from a fairly popular university to a EB-1 Green Card. So it is not like the path to citizenship doesn't exist. (It is another matter that the process is convoluted and requires pages and pages of documentation.) The article is sketchy on the details so I assume they are talking about extending this benefit to Masters students. I am not so sure how I feel about this. For every school that is highly competitive and tries to bring in the cream of the immigrant class, there are enough schools that use the Masters program as a way of injecting an easy $100K into their coffers. Having said this, I can say one thing from personal experience though: Universities are way better at treating their students than the H1B system. At least at my university, the way the system was setup, you would have to really fuck up for you to get kicked out of Grad. School and this is one of the top ten C.S. schools. On the other hand, the way the H1B works, your manager might not like the fact that you sit and you get fired and you are immediately out of status. This means that you work constantly with that pressure in your head. If you are in the unlucky situation of having been born in India or China, this runs for a few years. This is not something you will hear people from industry clamoring for reform.
twoodfin 14y ago
I don't think it's xenophobia that's preventing us from "stapling a green card to every diploma," as Mitt Romney put it while advocating for the idea. Making immigration easier for educated workers is popular and has fairly broad bipartisan support. So why hasn't it happened? Many of those in favor of a "comprehensive" solution are wary of letting the most popular parts of immigration reform pass individually, lest they end up with the less popular remainder (some form of normalization for existing undocumented immigrants) standing on its own and thus harder to pass. Similar logic worked against passing a real "DREAM" act prior to the President's somewhat dubious selective-enforcement scheme. Relatedly, there's a strong feeling among some reform advocates that focusing on skilled labor from Europe or Asia at the expense of unskilled labor from Central and South America is yet another example of discrimination and at least metaphorical fence building. Why help those who are already well off enough to get a college degree in the U.S.?
- mpyne 14y ago
  One other factor is the preceived threat of wage imbalances acting against U.S. non-naturalized citizens ("We'll be flooded with H1B's who will work for 25% less and undercut our sons and daughters!"). I'm not sure how much of an issue this actually is in practice but it's definitely something to think about, especially before we start stapling green cards to diplomas. > Why help those who are already well off enough to get a college degree in the U.S.? You answered your own question. It's about skills, not how much money the immigrant already possesses. The proof is in how famous India is for sending over tech entrepreneurs, despite being otherwise maligned by stereotype in many of the same ways that those from Central and South America are. They are able to come over and work here in the U.S. because they possess skills which are desired. If you look at immigration practice as being simply that anyone who wants to come to America and work hard should get a fair chance, then that is probably unfair. But there are those who argue that we should be selective and prioritize towards those who would contribute most. But I suppose all of this just adds to your argument that there's many competing factors in play here, even for a topic as obvious as this.
  - eshvk 14y ago
    > If you look at immigration practice as being simply that anyone who wants to come to America and work hard should get a fair chance, then that is probably unfair. But there are those who argue that we should be selective and prioritize towards those who would contribute most. Honestly, this happens today too. I recently acquired permanent residency through the diversity visa. The process was not fun for me and I am well educated and was able to hire a good lawyer. The number of inconsistencies in documents, the myriads of rules that one should follow all play into the favor of people who are already well educated, probably have deep pockets. This bugs me from a practical standpoint because if America is going to be anything other than a high-end service economy, you need the ability to let wage competitiveness to exist on all scales of the spectrum. Obviously from a ethical standpoint, this is highly unfair and a loaded die.
basiceconomics 14y ago
Michael Moritz is a billionaire investor. It's easy to understand why he'd like to increase the supply of technical labor in the US. This lowers his cost of labor, contributing to his further enrichment. Foreigners desirous of US citizenship similarly favor "immigration reform" for self-interested reasons. The marks here are American tech workers (and American workers in general) who buy into various elite rationalizations for why labor needs a pay cut so people like Moritz can pile up more billions.
- pc86 14y ago
  It's generally considered poor form to create a novelty account just to comment on a posting here.
mynameishere 14y ago
The xenophobia underlying current immigration policy Absolute, shameless liar. http://peoplemov.in/ http://peoplemov.in/
rdl 14y ago
I'd be a bit concerned about the "American schools are not performing, and getting worse, and thus Americans aren't suited to tech jobs" message, politically, even if it is largely true. The us citizen voters who will lose out (if they believe the economy is zero sum and of a fixed size) will think foreign competition will hurt them as the primary effect, and thus will vote against it.
- basiceconomics 14y ago
  Of course, all thinking people are aware supply and demand doesn't apply to labor markets.
  - rdl 14y ago
    It applies, but there are other economic factors which are even more powerful when looking at certain classes of labor market.
- rayiner 14y ago
  It's not even true.[1] "American schools are under-performing" is a bit of truthiness used by demagogues on various sides to support one of the following agendas: 1) discrediting the public education model 2) demanding more public money for educators 3) demanding more public money to subsidize employee training [1] See: http://super-economy.blogspot.com/2010/12/amazing-truth-about-pisa-scores-usa.html http://super-economy.blogspot.com/2010/12/amazing-truth-abou...
  - rdl 14y ago
    Yeah, I meant "even if the "us needs immigration message" is largely true", not that the American schools underperforming message is true. The thing is that immigration might increase supply, for a specific job, but there's the complementary goods/etc. aspect to people with different skills in entrepreneurial tech work, so it overall increases jobs available. (I do think some US schools underperform, but the big funding disparities seem to have been addressed. Demographics are a big thing, but it would still be good to figure out causes of and correct the lower performance of various minority groups, vs. just accepting it as natural)
rayiner 14y ago
Newsflash: tech industry investor wants immigration reform to increase supply of labor with tech skills, thereby decreasing cost. Whether you're for immigration reform or not, let's not ignore the Econ 101 here, and let's call a spade a spade. There is no such thing as a "shortage of engineers." The state and federal governments have spent literally a hundred years subsidizing the technology industry by building massive public research universities that pump out thousands of engineers each year. My alma mater (Georgia Tech) is precisely one such institution. When companies talk about a "shortage of engineers" what they mean is that there is a shortage of people willing to work as engineers at the prices they would like to pay. Of course, it's Econ 101 that if they raised the prices they were willing to pay, the number of willing suppliers would go up. I'm actually in favor of skilled immigration. My dad was an H1-B, and I have very bright friends who came here to study and struggled to get sponsorship. However, claiming that anyone who opposes the status quo is simply xenophobic is disingenuous. Let's not pretend that there isn't a trade-off between limiting labor supply to maintain wages and expanding it to make the U.S. a more attractive place to start a technology company. It is the people of the United States that defend our borders, and it is therefore the right of those people to decide who gets in those borders and who does not. The people are entitled to decide for themselves what kind of trade-offs they want to make re: immigration, based on what benefits them the most. One can make a credible case that the U.S. is in danger of losing it's place as an attractive place to start a technology company if we don't allow more skilled immigrants. One can also make a credible case, without any xenophobia necessary, that we already do a lot to create a large supply of engineers in this country, and that the U.S. is not in any danger of losing it's attractiveness at the moment, and that we'd rather enjoy the higher wages that come from limiting the labor pool.
- eshvk 14y ago
  > It is the people of the United States that defend our borders, and it is therefore the right of those people to decide who gets in those borders and who does not. The people are entitled to decide for themselves what kind of trade-offs they want to make re: immigration, based on what benefits them the most. One can make a credible case that the U.S. is in danger of losing it's place as an attractive place to start a technology company if we don't allow more skilled immigrants. One can also make a credible case, without any xenophobia necessary, that we already do a lot to create a large supply of engineers in this country, and that the U.S. is not in any danger of losing it's attractiveness at the moment, and that we'd rather enjoy the higher wages that come from limiting the labor pool. Although, I agree with your general point, I want to point out that the way the American system works, it is not exactly designed to figure out what the people want. Immigration is an interesting point where both Democrats and Republicans are under intense pressure by lobbyists to make sure high end immigration keeps flowing in (which cynical me agrees with you is for wage depression.). On the other hand, they completely ignore the fact that a huge swathe of the population has falled into the cracks with both border security broken and the fact that illegal immigrants have made a life for themselves here but have none of the benefits of a citizen.
MattGrommes 14y ago
"Stripe’s engineering department would be at least twice as large if we could get working papers for the programmers we are eager to hire." It looks like Stripe has decided hiring foreign workers is the only solution to the problem instead of trying to find another solution. There are _plenty_ of good programmers who could work for Stripe in the US, maybe they just aren't attracted to the company, to living in SF, don't know about the company, etc. Maybe they should think about their hiring process more generally rather than waiting on hiring some particular group.
- Symmetry 14y ago
  Are there? I know a fair number of people who are unemployed right now, but none of them are programmers. Most of the places I've worked have been constantly looking for more competent programmers too.
  - muzz 14y ago
    Not sure why you are implying that only the unemployed can fill jobs. There is plenty of tech talent in the San Francisco area (shocking! I know) and people are free to switch jobs. If Stripe offered competitive-enough compensation, they should be able to attract them.
    - pepr 14y ago
      But that would increase prices for programming work to the point where some projects simply would not make financial sense. So there would less projects and therefore less non-programming jobs associated with those projects.
      - muzz 14y ago
        No, it would bring supply and demand into equilibrium, and ensure that resources are utilized where they have the most economic value. Econ 101 tells us that in free markets, price is variable that moves to equate supply and demand, resulting in neither shortage nor surplus.
ojbyrne 14y ago
"In Silicon Valley, which has always been blind to any attribute other than ability." I look at what laughably passes for management and leadership in the valley, and wonder if anyone actually believes that anymore.
tokenadult 14y ago
The unintended consequence I most fear from this kind of immigration law modification is the same unintended consequence I've observed from every attempt to tie real-world advantages to diplomas: watering down the diplomas. The blog post author writes, "It would be wonderful to provide foreign-born students with advanced degrees in STEM subjects from U.S. universities a clear path to permanent residency." From the lawyer's point of view, the interesting questions then follow. What is a foreign-born student? What is an advanced degree? What is a STEM subject? What is a clear path to permanent residency? I by no means oppose expansion of skills-based grounds for legal immigration to the United States. Mindful that all of my own ancestors arrived to the United States (or to the pre-independence colonies of Britain) in an era before there were any restrictions at all on immigration here, I'm generally quite supportive of expanded immigration to the United States. That improves the local cuisine, the local music, and the local economy in general. Mindful that my wife was able to find a legal channel for immigration to the United States (based on that status of being my wife, in that case) and that many of my friends and neighbors are first-generation immigrants to the United States, I am also aware that there quite a few channels to legal immigration to the United States already, some of which already strongly favor people with STEM degrees or STEM work experience. I'd be glad to see more people like that come into the country--that would be good for my personal local business of teaching mathematics to the children of people who are aware United States K-12 education underperforms (see my user profile for more details on that). But the tricky issue will be setting detailed criteria for immigration on those grounds and perhaps (or perhaps not) an annual number of visas issued on those grounds that fit an overall sound immigration policy for the United States. Anyone who doesn't think a simple policy proposal like that of the blog post kindly submitted here might be subject to abuse and fraud needs to think again. Immigration to the United States is very highly desired, and some people will cheat to attain it. There is no particular reason for United States voters to vote to make immigration any easier than it has to be to achieve some generally agreed national policy goal, despite own my pro-immigration opinions.
- jadc 14y ago
  I am sure you are not advocating a defeatist line of reasoning. Of course, any proposal could be subject to abuse and fraud. It is a matter though of moving things in the right direction or not. As to the questions you raise about how to define the requirements (what is foreign-born national, what is advanced degree, what is STEM), a possible start is the current "advanced degree exemption" for H1-B which currently grants an additional 20,000 H1-B visas. I am aware that those get filled up pretty quickly too but it illustrates my point that you can define some sort of requirements to answer the questions you raise. In this case, the requirements are: - degree must be from accredited US university/institution - master's degree or higher - foreign national (which is different than foreign-born national) is anyone who is not a US citizen or permanent resident
bhauer 14y ago
I've frequently discussed this, most often in dejected frustration among friends and colleagues. My wife went through a Ph.D. program in electrical engineering and 90% of her research group were foreign born. As native US citizens ourselves, we did not suffer the desperate living conditions to which Ph.D. students on a half- or quarter-RA subject themselves and their nascent families. But we observed it plenty. Many of her research colleagues were effectively deported (forced out of the United States) after graduation if they could not find a firm willing to sponsor them. Sponsorship is itself an exploitative and extremely costly endeavor. Many small companies cannot afford it. The situation seems to me a travesty from every angle I can conceive. The author of this article paints the situation adequately, but I want to add a few more points: 1. Since many of the more xenophobic among us Americans are strongly motivated by national defense, I find it especially important to paint the following picture for their consumption: educating these bright minds in the United States and then sending them packing may in fact exacerbate national defense. Considering how many engineering students arrive to our universities from nations we are fearful of (rightly or not) such as Iran and China, it seems especially naive to educate their brightest to the pinnacle of our ability and then send them home--especially since they want to stay here. Similarly, if your aim is to keep your enemies weak (and again, I'm not saying that's a good or bad thing, just that it may be what the more xenophobic among us desire), then certainly creating a brain drain within their society serves us at their expense. 2. A commonplace misguided belief that economics is a zero-sum game may also explain some xenophobia. This colloquially takes the flavor of, "they are taking our jobs." The only way to combat this is through repeating the point that immigration creates jobs. We as Americans are better off having these highly-educated job-makers in America than overseas creating and enriching companies that may end up competing with our own. As a free-marketer, I am not all that motivated by such an "America over everyone else" point of view, but if that IS your point of view, then again you should want these bright people staying here and creating jobs or bettering our firms rather than overseas in the hands of our competition. 3. It's quite frankly inhumane in many cases to send these students packing. Even in the relative squalor that they endure living, for example in Los Angeles on mere hundreds of dollars a month, they still want to live here and create a family here. The American dream exists in their eyes. Sometimes I think of those who were sent back and wonder whatever became of them, but I cut those thoughts short because no happiness comes from that. 4. Just as a minor point, can you imagine the feeling of being kicked out of the US after earning your Ph.D. here? I imagine it might breed a tinge of America hatred when they get back home.
Torgo 14y ago
I don't think I could even count how many contractors I've worked with that were on H1-B's and yet were doing basic Struts and Dreamweaver code monkey work for my place of employment. Work so basic that it doesn't even need a software engineering or computer science degree. I have absolutely no idea if we have a shortage of "highly skilled" workers, but I've seen with my own eyes that H1-Bs are abused for work that definitely could be done by a citizen. So I'm not inclined at all to be sympathetic to the call for more H1-B's that will lead to just as much abuse, and leave the same shortage of actually highly skilled workers.
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greghinch 14y ago
Meanwhile many of our locally born students are graduating with unemployable degrees and wondering why they can't find a job. Maybe we can get our acts together and start raising children in this country who aren't under the delusion that everything they do is special, and that a degree in Sumerian with a minor in communications will entitle them to anything other than a pile of student loan debt.
- eshvk 14y ago
  I dunno. I went to school in India where almost everyone is shoehorned into the Engineering/Medical undergrad career. While, I don't think it is particular hard to not succeed at these professions, I am not convinced it is a good thing to do just because it is an economically prudent option. Sometimes, the purpose of going to school is to open the mind and expose it to different ideals. Maybe I am being a naive optimist but I would like to think that we can surely let some of the citizenry indulge in that without having to force everyone to join a technical shop to create a factory ready worker (much as is happening in India/China.).
  - greghinch 14y ago
    It's a fair point, and I agree we need to find a place for other academic pursuits as well. I think the problem is we have been giving students the impression that any degree is worth getting, and that simply isn't true. A bachelors in English from a liberal arts school is worth nothing. Now if you want to extend that and do post-grad work, then you are actually making an effort to persue a career in a field (probably academia). But too many just do the undergrad and then expect a job.
spikels 14y ago
I find it hard to believe that it would be bad for the US overall to let highly skilled people come here and work. They would increase innovation, grow the economy and raise employment as immigrants have done throughout US history. However I have to admit it would probably reduce the wages of similarly skilled existing workers at least in the short run. This is basic supply and demand: more supply means lower prices at least in the short run. For example would skilled US programmers be paid as much if any skilled programmer in the world could come here compete for their job? Probably not just look at the prices for contract programmers in India, Eastern Europe, China, etc. However in the long run almost everyone should be better off because the flip side of lower prices is greater volume: more innovation, economics growth and employment as well as lower prices. There are other less understood benefits such as immigrants increased likelihood to start businesses. Also in the long run it won't matter as much where people are located. Eventually most US skilled workers will be competing with similarly skilled workers throughout the world. So we might want to adapt to this future reality now as it will only get harder in the future. People piling up student loans need to know what future wages will be. Overall I think we should be willing to take the risk and accept some disruption now. It should help almost everyone in the long run and it will happen in some form anyway. But I can understand people's reluctance to personally bare the costs.
jpdoctor 14y ago
> Today, it is impossible to satisfy Silicon Valley’s appetite for engineers and scientists with people born in America. Well, at the price you're willing to pay anyway. Try competing with banker bonuses (or even gasp VC pay) and watch the population shift. Sounds like he's all for capitalism until he has to open his own wallet.
- enraged_camel 14y ago
  Wait, are you suggesting that software engineers currently do not make enough money (which is laughable), or that they should be paid as much as bankers (which is also laughable)?
  - jpdoctor 14y ago
    Laughable? There is a shortage. A capitalist believes that price solves supply issues. Are you not capitalist? Do you prefer a centralized planning, say from a gov't program to import people?
    - enraged_camel 14y ago
      There is a shortage of available engineers, period. It's not a matter of companies not paying enough.
smadaan 14y ago
I have one question: from the perspective of a sincere, hard-working individual who wishes to immigrate legally to the US, what hope is there if a proven advanced degree or experience is not going to do it?
- therandomguy 14y ago
  It is difficult only if you are from Indian or China.
isalmon 14y ago
Everybody who supports this bill should really read it first. There's SO much wrong about this bill that I don't even know where to start. 1) This bill will remove per-country quotas for Employment Based Green Cards. Just look at the backlog right now and imagine what would happen if these quotas were removed. 2) The cost of applying for H-1b will be INCREASED. What that means is that small companies and start-ups who struggle with hiring engineers will have to pay more for each one of them. It used to be 2-3K/application and for a small company it might be pretty substantial. At the same time companies like Wipro and Infosys will not even notice this increase. 3) The bill does not really help people who graduated here to STAY in the US. Yes, it will make it easier for them to get a visa, but what they really need is their green card. I was on H-1b for many years and the only thing I wanted during these years is to get my green card ASAP and start my own business. Take a look at Canada's startup visa that just was introduced. They bring new jobs to Canada by giving permanent residency to people who want to start businesses and CREATE jobs (not take the existing ones). Current US bill will NOT allow entrepreneurs to stay in the US, it will only help to bring more cheap labor from overseas, but will not solve the problem of talented people leaving the country.
- therandomguy 14y ago
  You are encouraging people to read it first... but then you say it provides only visas and not green cards while the text says, "...Overhauling the country's legal immigration system, including attaching green cards to advanced degrees...". What gives? http://goo.gl/MZuod http://goo.gl/MZuod
  - isalmon 14y ago
    That's a totally different bill... Which, by the way, is even worse.
- mavelikara 14y ago
  > 1) This bill will remove per-country quotas for Employment Based Green Cards. Just look at the backlog right now and imagine what would happen if these quotas were removed. Looking at the backlog, I notice that two countries where 1/3rd of world's population resides are over-represented. Removing the per-country quota reduces the decades-long wait which people from these countries have to put up with.
muzz 14y ago
One things conspicuously missing from the post is the idea that companies will set up foreign offices to hire the workers there if they can't hire them here. Maybe that idea died along with the whole outsourcing push of the mid-00s.
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ekm2 14y ago
The current immigration setup ensures that high skilled immigrants come into the country only as employees which understandably depresses salaries.Immigration reform on the other hand ensures that some of them have the autonomy to found companies which increases demand for more engineers and raises their salaries.

119 points by vj44 14y ago

I support this reform, but we should consider the unintended consequences. Tying US citizenship with graduate work will incentivize universities to treat graduate students like slave labor, moreso than they are already. This is a recipe for exploitation.

blizkreeg 14y ago
There is an unintended consequence for everything, including inaction.
- programnature 14y ago
  That kind of reasoning is what got us into Iraq. I'm simply suggesting thinking through the consequences rather than simply cheerleading. For example, would we be comfortable with 90% of science students being not from the US? What if we make a system where no one born in this country can actually afford to do graduate work? Remember, the foreign-born students don't have the kind of undergrad debt load that we have in the US.
  - blizkreeg 14y ago
    You are so, so misguided in your thoughts. I came to this country for graduate studies and took on a loan for a portion of it, amounting to almost $20K. Took me the better part of 2 yrs to pay it back. I came from a modest family background. While I didn't have an undergrad loan, I certainly didn't have any money to back me up. Most foreigners grow up with far fewer resources than you did in this country. The USD is still stronger than 99% of currencies. While I don't dispute that college education is ridiculously overpriced here, that is a different, unrelated problem.
    - programnature 14y ago
      This is not about you, this is about what is good for the country. Is it good for the country to disincentivize graduate work for people who are born here? Is it good for the country for every STEM lecturer to have bad english language skills? This is already the norm at many state schools, and makes people drop those subjects because they can't understand or relate to their teachers. Of course it is hard for immigrants to relate to the spoiled "fat" americans, but the social and cultural realities exist and are not trivial.
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  - mpyne 14y ago
    I wouldn't be comfortable with 90% necessarily, but at the same time if these 90% want to come to the U.S. and remain (for at least some nominal period of time) and contribute to U.S. interests then I'd rather that they were over here working to make the country great instead of wherever they came from. Fixing education here in the U.S. is itself an important task but it's orthogonal to immigration. If our kids want to do basket-weaving instead of STEM then the next best thing is to let those from overseas who want to come to the U.S. and work actually do so. But there should be plenty of capacity in the universities for non-immigrants to get STEM majors if they want. At least I had no difficulty. Despite all the mud the U.S. has on its name internationally, the country is still in a great position to execute a "brain drain" (for lack of a better term) and it would be pretty foolish to miss out on that, especially as the world becomes increasingly specialized.
  - enraged_camel 14y ago
    >>That kind of reasoning is what got us into Iraq. That's a pretty incredible kind of Godwin you just invoked there.
websymphony 14y ago
No it won't. Universities don't treat students like slaves, professors do. And they don't have any additional incentive of doing it more than they already do, just because of this reform.
- programnature 14y ago
  Sure it does. This instantly makes the degree more valuable to the foreign student. Thus the university can extract more work for lower wages from them. Wages for teaching are not set by individual professors, and thats where most of the poorly compensated labor is.
splintercell 14y ago
Your own suggestion overlooks the unintended consequences of what happens right now. Right now the people become slaves of the companies they work for because their immigration status is tied to their companies. You think its the option between not getting exploited and getting exploited by the university, but in reality its the option between getting exploited by the companies which sponsor work visa vs getting exploited by the university. Finally, why can't you leave the choice on the people themselves, you're helping the immigrants in anyway by not allowing corporations or universities to be able to hire them easily.
pepr 14y ago
I'm a foreign graduate student doing my Master's degree at a relatively well-known university in Texas and I really don't feel like a slave. The pay is modest (15K/year for 20h/week) but it is sufficient to live comfortably and occasionally travel (I travelled 6 weeks last summer all over US). And I don't feel like any of my fellow students are slaves either. No crazy hours, no crazy pressure on results. Maybe it's worse for PhDs or at better (research) universities?
moultano 14y ago
>we should consider the unintended consequences. What would you recommend we do as a result of considering them? Without getting a more substantial position from you, this reads like concern trolling.
eshvk 14y ago
So right now, the way the system is setup, you can in theory move from a PhD from a fairly popular university to a EB-1 Green Card. So it is not like the path to citizenship doesn't exist. (It is another matter that the process is convoluted and requires pages and pages of documentation.) The article is sketchy on the details so I assume they are talking about extending this benefit to Masters students. I am not so sure how I feel about this. For every school that is highly competitive and tries to bring in the cream of the immigrant class, there are enough schools that use the Masters program as a way of injecting an easy $100K into their coffers. Having said this, I can say one thing from personal experience though: Universities are way better at treating their students than the H1B system. At least at my university, the way the system was setup, you would have to really fuck up for you to get kicked out of Grad. School and this is one of the top ten C.S. schools. On the other hand, the way the H1B works, your manager might not like the fact that you sit and you get fired and you are immediately out of status. This means that you work constantly with that pressure in your head. If you are in the unlucky situation of having been born in India or China, this runs for a few years. This is not something you will hear people from industry clamoring for reform.

twoodfin 14y ago

I don't think it's xenophobia that's preventing us from "stapling a green card to every diploma," as Mitt Romney put it while advocating for the idea. Making immigration easier for educated workers is popular and has fairly broad bipartisan support. So why hasn't it happened? Many of those in favor of a "comprehensive" solution are wary of letting the most popular parts of immigration reform pass individually, lest they end up with the less popular remainder (some form of normalization for existing undocumented immigrants) standing on its own and thus harder to pass. Similar logic worked against passing a real "DREAM" act prior to the President's somewhat dubious selective-enforcement scheme. Relatedly, there's a strong feeling among some reform advocates that focusing on skilled labor from Europe or Asia at the expense of unskilled labor from Central and South America is yet another example of discrimination and at least metaphorical fence building. Why help those who are already well off enough to get a college degree in the U.S.?

mpyne 14y ago
One other factor is the preceived threat of wage imbalances acting against U.S. non-naturalized citizens ("We'll be flooded with H1B's who will work for 25% less and undercut our sons and daughters!"). I'm not sure how much of an issue this actually is in practice but it's definitely something to think about, especially before we start stapling green cards to diplomas. > Why help those who are already well off enough to get a college degree in the U.S.? You answered your own question. It's about skills, not how much money the immigrant already possesses. The proof is in how famous India is for sending over tech entrepreneurs, despite being otherwise maligned by stereotype in many of the same ways that those from Central and South America are. They are able to come over and work here in the U.S. because they possess skills which are desired. If you look at immigration practice as being simply that anyone who wants to come to America and work hard should get a fair chance, then that is probably unfair. But there are those who argue that we should be selective and prioritize towards those who would contribute most. But I suppose all of this just adds to your argument that there's many competing factors in play here, even for a topic as obvious as this.
- eshvk 14y ago
  > If you look at immigration practice as being simply that anyone who wants to come to America and work hard should get a fair chance, then that is probably unfair. But there are those who argue that we should be selective and prioritize towards those who would contribute most. Honestly, this happens today too. I recently acquired permanent residency through the diversity visa. The process was not fun for me and I am well educated and was able to hire a good lawyer. The number of inconsistencies in documents, the myriads of rules that one should follow all play into the favor of people who are already well educated, probably have deep pockets. This bugs me from a practical standpoint because if America is going to be anything other than a high-end service economy, you need the ability to let wage competitiveness to exist on all scales of the spectrum. Obviously from a ethical standpoint, this is highly unfair and a loaded die.

basiceconomics 14y ago

Michael Moritz is a billionaire investor. It's easy to understand why he'd like to increase the supply of technical labor in the US. This lowers his cost of labor, contributing to his further enrichment. Foreigners desirous of US citizenship similarly favor "immigration reform" for self-interested reasons. The marks here are American tech workers (and American workers in general) who buy into various elite rationalizations for why labor needs a pay cut so people like Moritz can pile up more billions.

pc86 14y ago
It's generally considered poor form to create a novelty account just to comment on a posting here.

mynameishere 14y ago

The xenophobia underlying current immigration policy Absolute, shameless liar. http://peoplemov.in/ http://peoplemov.in/

rdl 14y ago

I'd be a bit concerned about the "American schools are not performing, and getting worse, and thus Americans aren't suited to tech jobs" message, politically, even if it is largely true. The us citizen voters who will lose out (if they believe the economy is zero sum and of a fixed size) will think foreign competition will hurt them as the primary effect, and thus will vote against it.

basiceconomics 14y ago
Of course, all thinking people are aware supply and demand doesn't apply to labor markets.
- rdl 14y ago
  It applies, but there are other economic factors which are even more powerful when looking at certain classes of labor market.
rayiner 14y ago
It's not even true.[1] "American schools are under-performing" is a bit of truthiness used by demagogues on various sides to support one of the following agendas: 1) discrediting the public education model 2) demanding more public money for educators 3) demanding more public money to subsidize employee training [1] See: http://super-economy.blogspot.com/2010/12/amazing-truth-about-pisa-scores-usa.html http://super-economy.blogspot.com/2010/12/amazing-truth-abou...
- rdl 14y ago
  Yeah, I meant "even if the "us needs immigration message" is largely true", not that the American schools underperforming message is true. The thing is that immigration might increase supply, for a specific job, but there's the complementary goods/etc. aspect to people with different skills in entrepreneurial tech work, so it overall increases jobs available. (I do think some US schools underperform, but the big funding disparities seem to have been addressed. Demographics are a big thing, but it would still be good to figure out causes of and correct the lower performance of various minority groups, vs. just accepting it as natural)

rayiner 14y ago

Newsflash: tech industry investor wants immigration reform to increase supply of labor with tech skills, thereby decreasing cost. Whether you're for immigration reform or not, let's not ignore the Econ 101 here, and let's call a spade a spade. There is no such thing as a "shortage of engineers." The state and federal governments have spent literally a hundred years subsidizing the technology industry by building massive public research universities that pump out thousands of engineers each year. My alma mater (Georgia Tech) is precisely one such institution. When companies talk about a "shortage of engineers" what they mean is that there is a shortage of people willing to work as engineers at the prices they would like to pay. Of course, it's Econ 101 that if they raised the prices they were willing to pay, the number of willing suppliers would go up. I'm actually in favor of skilled immigration. My dad was an H1-B, and I have very bright friends who came here to study and struggled to get sponsorship. However, claiming that anyone who opposes the status quo is simply xenophobic is disingenuous. Let's not pretend that there isn't a trade-off between limiting labor supply to maintain wages and expanding it to make the U.S. a more attractive place to start a technology company. It is the people of the United States that defend our borders, and it is therefore the right of those people to decide who gets in those borders and who does not. The people are entitled to decide for themselves what kind of trade-offs they want to make re: immigration, based on what benefits them the most. One can make a credible case that the U.S. is in danger of losing it's place as an attractive place to start a technology company if we don't allow more skilled immigrants. One can also make a credible case, without any xenophobia necessary, that we already do a lot to create a large supply of engineers in this country, and that the U.S. is not in any danger of losing it's attractiveness at the moment, and that we'd rather enjoy the higher wages that come from limiting the labor pool.

eshvk 14y ago
> It is the people of the United States that defend our borders, and it is therefore the right of those people to decide who gets in those borders and who does not. The people are entitled to decide for themselves what kind of trade-offs they want to make re: immigration, based on what benefits them the most. One can make a credible case that the U.S. is in danger of losing it's place as an attractive place to start a technology company if we don't allow more skilled immigrants. One can also make a credible case, without any xenophobia necessary, that we already do a lot to create a large supply of engineers in this country, and that the U.S. is not in any danger of losing it's attractiveness at the moment, and that we'd rather enjoy the higher wages that come from limiting the labor pool. Although, I agree with your general point, I want to point out that the way the American system works, it is not exactly designed to figure out what the people want. Immigration is an interesting point where both Democrats and Republicans are under intense pressure by lobbyists to make sure high end immigration keeps flowing in (which cynical me agrees with you is for wage depression.). On the other hand, they completely ignore the fact that a huge swathe of the population has falled into the cracks with both border security broken and the fact that illegal immigrants have made a life for themselves here but have none of the benefits of a citizen.

MattGrommes 14y ago

"Stripe’s engineering department would be at least twice as large if we could get working papers for the programmers we are eager to hire." It looks like Stripe has decided hiring foreign workers is the only solution to the problem instead of trying to find another solution. There are _plenty_ of good programmers who could work for Stripe in the US, maybe they just aren't attracted to the company, to living in SF, don't know about the company, etc. Maybe they should think about their hiring process more generally rather than waiting on hiring some particular group.

Symmetry 14y ago
Are there? I know a fair number of people who are unemployed right now, but none of them are programmers. Most of the places I've worked have been constantly looking for more competent programmers too.
- muzz 14y ago
  Not sure why you are implying that only the unemployed can fill jobs. There is plenty of tech talent in the San Francisco area (shocking! I know) and people are free to switch jobs. If Stripe offered competitive-enough compensation, they should be able to attract them.
  - pepr 14y ago
    But that would increase prices for programming work to the point where some projects simply would not make financial sense. So there would less projects and therefore less non-programming jobs associated with those projects.
    - muzz 14y ago
      No, it would bring supply and demand into equilibrium, and ensure that resources are utilized where they have the most economic value. Econ 101 tells us that in free markets, price is variable that moves to equate supply and demand, resulting in neither shortage nor surplus.

ojbyrne 14y ago

"In Silicon Valley, which has always been blind to any attribute other than ability." I look at what laughably passes for management and leadership in the valley, and wonder if anyone actually believes that anymore.

tokenadult 14y ago

The unintended consequence I most fear from this kind of immigration law modification is the same unintended consequence I've observed from every attempt to tie real-world advantages to diplomas: watering down the diplomas. The blog post author writes, "It would be wonderful to provide foreign-born students with advanced degrees in STEM subjects from U.S. universities a clear path to permanent residency." From the lawyer's point of view, the interesting questions then follow. What is a foreign-born student? What is an advanced degree? What is a STEM subject? What is a clear path to permanent residency? I by no means oppose expansion of skills-based grounds for legal immigration to the United States. Mindful that all of my own ancestors arrived to the United States (or to the pre-independence colonies of Britain) in an era before there were any restrictions at all on immigration here, I'm generally quite supportive of expanded immigration to the United States. That improves the local cuisine, the local music, and the local economy in general. Mindful that my wife was able to find a legal channel for immigration to the United States (based on that status of being my wife, in that case) and that many of my friends and neighbors are first-generation immigrants to the United States, I am also aware that there quite a few channels to legal immigration to the United States already, some of which already strongly favor people with STEM degrees or STEM work experience. I'd be glad to see more people like that come into the country--that would be good for my personal local business of teaching mathematics to the children of people who are aware United States K-12 education underperforms (see my user profile for more details on that). But the tricky issue will be setting detailed criteria for immigration on those grounds and perhaps (or perhaps not) an annual number of visas issued on those grounds that fit an overall sound immigration policy for the United States. Anyone who doesn't think a simple policy proposal like that of the blog post kindly submitted here might be subject to abuse and fraud needs to think again. Immigration to the United States is very highly desired, and some people will cheat to attain it. There is no particular reason for United States voters to vote to make immigration any easier than it has to be to achieve some generally agreed national policy goal, despite own my pro-immigration opinions.

jadc 14y ago
I am sure you are not advocating a defeatist line of reasoning. Of course, any proposal could be subject to abuse and fraud. It is a matter though of moving things in the right direction or not. As to the questions you raise about how to define the requirements (what is foreign-born national, what is advanced degree, what is STEM), a possible start is the current "advanced degree exemption" for H1-B which currently grants an additional 20,000 H1-B visas. I am aware that those get filled up pretty quickly too but it illustrates my point that you can define some sort of requirements to answer the questions you raise. In this case, the requirements are: - degree must be from accredited US university/institution - master's degree or higher - foreign national (which is different than foreign-born national) is anyone who is not a US citizen or permanent resident

bhauer 14y ago

I've frequently discussed this, most often in dejected frustration among friends and colleagues. My wife went through a Ph.D. program in electrical engineering and 90% of her research group were foreign born. As native US citizens ourselves, we did not suffer the desperate living conditions to which Ph.D. students on a half- or quarter-RA subject themselves and their nascent families. But we observed it plenty. Many of her research colleagues were effectively deported (forced out of the United States) after graduation if they could not find a firm willing to sponsor them. Sponsorship is itself an exploitative and extremely costly endeavor. Many small companies cannot afford it. The situation seems to me a travesty from every angle I can conceive. The author of this article paints the situation adequately, but I want to add a few more points: 1. Since many of the more xenophobic among us Americans are strongly motivated by national defense, I find it especially important to paint the following picture for their consumption: educating these bright minds in the United States and then sending them packing may in fact exacerbate national defense. Considering how many engineering students arrive to our universities from nations we are fearful of (rightly or not) such as Iran and China, it seems especially naive to educate their brightest to the pinnacle of our ability and then send them home--especially since they want to stay here. Similarly, if your aim is to keep your enemies weak (and again, I'm not saying that's a good or bad thing, just that it may be what the more xenophobic among us desire), then certainly creating a brain drain within their society serves us at their expense. 2. A commonplace misguided belief that economics is a zero-sum game may also explain some xenophobia. This colloquially takes the flavor of, "they are taking our jobs." The only way to combat this is through repeating the point that immigration creates jobs. We as Americans are better off having these highly-educated job-makers in America than overseas creating and enriching companies that may end up competing with our own. As a free-marketer, I am not all that motivated by such an "America over everyone else" point of view, but if that IS your point of view, then again you should want these bright people staying here and creating jobs or bettering our firms rather than overseas in the hands of our competition. 3. It's quite frankly inhumane in many cases to send these students packing. Even in the relative squalor that they endure living, for example in Los Angeles on mere hundreds of dollars a month, they still want to live here and create a family here. The American dream exists in their eyes. Sometimes I think of those who were sent back and wonder whatever became of them, but I cut those thoughts short because no happiness comes from that. 4. Just as a minor point, can you imagine the feeling of being kicked out of the US after earning your Ph.D. here? I imagine it might breed a tinge of America hatred when they get back home.

Torgo 14y ago

I don't think I could even count how many contractors I've worked with that were on H1-B's and yet were doing basic Struts and Dreamweaver code monkey work for my place of employment. Work so basic that it doesn't even need a software engineering or computer science degree. I have absolutely no idea if we have a shortage of "highly skilled" workers, but I've seen with my own eyes that H1-Bs are abused for work that definitely could be done by a citizen. So I'm not inclined at all to be sympathetic to the call for more H1-B's that will lead to just as much abuse, and leave the same shortage of actually highly skilled workers.

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greghinch 14y ago

Meanwhile many of our locally born students are graduating with unemployable degrees and wondering why they can't find a job. Maybe we can get our acts together and start raising children in this country who aren't under the delusion that everything they do is special, and that a degree in Sumerian with a minor in communications will entitle them to anything other than a pile of student loan debt.

eshvk 14y ago
I dunno. I went to school in India where almost everyone is shoehorned into the Engineering/Medical undergrad career. While, I don't think it is particular hard to not succeed at these professions, I am not convinced it is a good thing to do just because it is an economically prudent option. Sometimes, the purpose of going to school is to open the mind and expose it to different ideals. Maybe I am being a naive optimist but I would like to think that we can surely let some of the citizenry indulge in that without having to force everyone to join a technical shop to create a factory ready worker (much as is happening in India/China.).
- greghinch 14y ago
  It's a fair point, and I agree we need to find a place for other academic pursuits as well. I think the problem is we have been giving students the impression that any degree is worth getting, and that simply isn't true. A bachelors in English from a liberal arts school is worth nothing. Now if you want to extend that and do post-grad work, then you are actually making an effort to persue a career in a field (probably academia). But too many just do the undergrad and then expect a job.

spikels 14y ago

I find it hard to believe that it would be bad for the US overall to let highly skilled people come here and work. They would increase innovation, grow the economy and raise employment as immigrants have done throughout US history. However I have to admit it would probably reduce the wages of similarly skilled existing workers at least in the short run. This is basic supply and demand: more supply means lower prices at least in the short run. For example would skilled US programmers be paid as much if any skilled programmer in the world could come here compete for their job? Probably not just look at the prices for contract programmers in India, Eastern Europe, China, etc. However in the long run almost everyone should be better off because the flip side of lower prices is greater volume: more innovation, economics growth and employment as well as lower prices. There are other less understood benefits such as immigrants increased likelihood to start businesses. Also in the long run it won't matter as much where people are located. Eventually most US skilled workers will be competing with similarly skilled workers throughout the world. So we might want to adapt to this future reality now as it will only get harder in the future. People piling up student loans need to know what future wages will be. Overall I think we should be willing to take the risk and accept some disruption now. It should help almost everyone in the long run and it will happen in some form anyway. But I can understand people's reluctance to personally bare the costs.

jpdoctor 14y ago

> Today, it is impossible to satisfy Silicon Valley’s appetite for engineers and scientists with people born in America. Well, at the price you're willing to pay anyway. Try competing with banker bonuses (or even gasp VC pay) and watch the population shift. Sounds like he's all for capitalism until he has to open his own wallet.

enraged_camel 14y ago
Wait, are you suggesting that software engineers currently do not make enough money (which is laughable), or that they should be paid as much as bankers (which is also laughable)?
- jpdoctor 14y ago
  Laughable? There is a shortage. A capitalist believes that price solves supply issues. Are you not capitalist? Do you prefer a centralized planning, say from a gov't program to import people?
  - enraged_camel 14y ago
    There is a shortage of available engineers, period. It's not a matter of companies not paying enough.

smadaan 14y ago

I have one question: from the perspective of a sincere, hard-working individual who wishes to immigrate legally to the US, what hope is there if a proven advanced degree or experience is not going to do it?

therandomguy 14y ago
It is difficult only if you are from Indian or China.

isalmon 14y ago

Everybody who supports this bill should really read it first. There's SO much wrong about this bill that I don't even know where to start. 1) This bill will remove per-country quotas for Employment Based Green Cards. Just look at the backlog right now and imagine what would happen if these quotas were removed. 2) The cost of applying for H-1b will be INCREASED. What that means is that small companies and start-ups who struggle with hiring engineers will have to pay more for each one of them. It used to be 2-3K/application and for a small company it might be pretty substantial. At the same time companies like Wipro and Infosys will not even notice this increase. 3) The bill does not really help people who graduated here to STAY in the US. Yes, it will make it easier for them to get a visa, but what they really need is their green card. I was on H-1b for many years and the only thing I wanted during these years is to get my green card ASAP and start my own business. Take a look at Canada's startup visa that just was introduced. They bring new jobs to Canada by giving permanent residency to people who want to start businesses and CREATE jobs (not take the existing ones). Current US bill will NOT allow entrepreneurs to stay in the US, it will only help to bring more cheap labor from overseas, but will not solve the problem of talented people leaving the country.

therandomguy 14y ago
You are encouraging people to read it first... but then you say it provides only visas and not green cards while the text says, "...Overhauling the country's legal immigration system, including attaching green cards to advanced degrees...". What gives? http://goo.gl/MZuod http://goo.gl/MZuod
- isalmon 14y ago
  That's a totally different bill... Which, by the way, is even worse.
mavelikara 14y ago
> 1) This bill will remove per-country quotas for Employment Based Green Cards. Just look at the backlog right now and imagine what would happen if these quotas were removed. Looking at the backlog, I notice that two countries where 1/3rd of world's population resides are over-represented. Removing the per-country quota reduces the decades-long wait which people from these countries have to put up with.

muzz 14y ago

One things conspicuously missing from the post is the idea that companies will set up foreign offices to hire the workers there if they can't hire them here. Maybe that idea died along with the whole outsourcing push of the mid-00s.

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ekm2 14y ago

The current immigration setup ensures that high skilled immigrants come into the country only as employees which understandably depresses salaries.Immigration reform on the other hand ensures that some of them have the autonomy to found companies which increases demand for more engineers and raises their salaries.