4 ms·

When reading the comments of the users at the NYTimes article, there is another thing that pisses me off: all those xenophobic comments that say "send the forei

by ardit33 18y ago

When reading the comments of the users at the NYTimes article, there is another thing that pisses me off: all those xenophobic comments that say "send the foreigners home" etc. etc. They forget that more than half of techonlogy companies had a foreign born founder. If these idiots had their way, probably many technology companies (which make about 17% of the US economy) wouldn't had existed today. I am all about have good filters, to let the smart people (that there is a need for) in, and give them full rights of movement/freedom (no H-1B shackles), but just kicking people back home is a recipe for future economic malaise. And one of the senators that is raising a big ruckus is from Alabama! (I the bottom of the barrel in technological terms). I hope people stop listening to these populist voices, unless you want your country look more like Alabama. It kinda looks like a version of: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GFG2P-toC6k http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GFG2P-toC6k

geebee 18y ago
Dude, I hear you. But you need to recognize how much abuse and fraud there was and continues to be in these programs. I agree that there are some idiodic trolls out there, and they're easy enough to refute. But you should not equate all criticism (even very intense and angry criticism) of this program with this kind of "idiotic xenophobia". First, a recent repot on the H1B visa showed that 6 of the top 10 users of this visa were Indian outsourcing companies - using the visa to cycle a worker through the US and then back to India. Of the remaining four in the top 10, two were US based outsourcing companies. According to Ron Hira, some of these companies were paying their "critical workers that couldn't be filled with Americans at any price" a $12/hr wage! I don't think it's fair to lump talented engineers with this sort of program, but this is the sort of thing that sounds almost designed to rouse populist anger. Here you have Microsoft and Google claiming that the cap is too low - but then you see that most of these visas are snapped up by non-US companies that are mainly interested in moving jobs offshore as quickly as possible. That screams for reform, but instead, the response was always to just lift the cap even higher. People often point out that a high percentage of tech companies have one or more foreign born founder. Andy Grove and Sergey Brin are often mentioned. However, these folks didn't come to the United States on a work-related visa. The US takes over 1.2 million immigrants a year - and many of these folks become founders of tech companies. To me, this would imply that we don't need an H1B visa to keep the pipeline open - our existing immigration system is already bringing plenty of talented folks here. We need reform, badly. I think it's very important that the US be open and welcoming to top talent from around the world. But I think we instituted a program that pretty much enabled employers in the US to fire ordinary US citizens and replace them with ordinary foreign nationals under the guise of bringing in "Best and brightest." We need intelligent reform (which should not, in my opinion, amount to unlimited visas for anyone who wants one). But instead, we may throw the baby out with the bath water. This is what happens when the powers that be fail to reform an obviously broken system to the point where populist anger takes over.
- physcab 18y ago
  That's incredible. Do you have some good articles that describe the problem? I've actually never heard the opposing viewpoints.
  - geebee 18y ago
    Here's a link to the original story on businessweek (the link is msnbc, but the original story was on businessweek) http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/17048048/ http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/17048048/ The quote from Ron Hira was on an NPR dicussion program... http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=14241565 http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=1424156...

by ardit33 18y ago

geebee 18y ago

Dude, I hear you. But you need to recognize how much abuse and fraud there was and continues to be in these programs. I agree that there are some idiodic trolls out there, and they're easy enough to refute. But you should not equate all criticism (even very intense and angry criticism) of this program with this kind of "idiotic xenophobia". First, a recent repot on the H1B visa showed that 6 of the top 10 users of this visa were Indian outsourcing companies - using the visa to cycle a worker through the US and then back to India. Of the remaining four in the top 10, two were US based outsourcing companies. According to Ron Hira, some of these companies were paying their "critical workers that couldn't be filled with Americans at any price" a $12/hr wage! I don't think it's fair to lump talented engineers with this sort of program, but this is the sort of thing that sounds almost designed to rouse populist anger. Here you have Microsoft and Google claiming that the cap is too low - but then you see that most of these visas are snapped up by non-US companies that are mainly interested in moving jobs offshore as quickly as possible. That screams for reform, but instead, the response was always to just lift the cap even higher. People often point out that a high percentage of tech companies have one or more foreign born founder. Andy Grove and Sergey Brin are often mentioned. However, these folks didn't come to the United States on a work-related visa. The US takes over 1.2 million immigrants a year - and many of these folks become founders of tech companies. To me, this would imply that we don't need an H1B visa to keep the pipeline open - our existing immigration system is already bringing plenty of talented folks here. We need reform, badly. I think it's very important that the US be open and welcoming to top talent from around the world. But I think we instituted a program that pretty much enabled employers in the US to fire ordinary US citizens and replace them with ordinary foreign nationals under the guise of bringing in "Best and brightest." We need intelligent reform (which should not, in my opinion, amount to unlimited visas for anyone who wants one). But instead, we may throw the baby out with the bath water. This is what happens when the powers that be fail to reform an obviously broken system to the point where populist anger takes over.

physcab 18y ago
That's incredible. Do you have some good articles that describe the problem? I've actually never heard the opposing viewpoints.
- geebee 18y ago
  Here's a link to the original story on businessweek (the link is msnbc, but the original story was on businessweek) http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/17048048/ http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/17048048/ The quote from Ron Hira was on an NPR dicussion program... http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=14241565 http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=1424156...