7 ms·

Every time I encounter the way our immigration policies treat various co-workers of mine, I'm ashamed and scandalized. They are the last people to be a "drain

Every time I encounter the way our immigration policies treat various co-workers of mine, I'm ashamed and scandalized. They are the last people to be a "drain on our economy" and they're effectively chained to their jobs, which seems so archaic.

dllthomas 12y ago
"they're effectively chained to their jobs, which seems so archaic." Not just archaic, but wrong. And even if we say "but they're choosing to be here, so it still must be better than what they came from" - which isn't entirely false, but ignores some things - it still means that the rest of us are competing with these extra-abusable workers which some companies might not mind paying a premium for on paper.
owenmarshall 12y ago
Reserve some blame for your company: the reason H-1B programs are so widely abused is because industry can't give up cheap labor.
- zabraxias 12y ago
  That's an oversimplification since the valley is the leading proponent of immigration reform (yes since the companies there will get better access to foreign workers) but every other developed nation seems to have a more sensible policy like allowing "work status" and not tying it to a specific company. Green cards effectively do that but unless you're Bieber or can afford the $1M investment visa you don't get one on day 1.
  - syntern 12y ago
    Green card is not a work permit, it is a residency status. People focus on the work part, but with choosing the green card, one is choosing between the US and the rest of the world for a very long time. First of all, it requires you to reside in the US, permanently (hence the official name). You don't move home for longer periods (e.g. years), as getting back in the US is not automatic. I understand that the US sees entering in the US as privilege, but these people usually help the US economy, and not burden it, so there is that. Second, it really limits your options. Suppose you decide to go outside of the US in just a few years after the green card, giving it up, and suddenly, for the rest of your life, whenever you enter in the US, you need to tell you life's story to the immigration officer and why you have applied for immigration status and what happened with it. And if you have connections, properties or investments in Europe, you will be always in limbo whether the European bank will decline business with you based on your US tax status. Going for a green card is a no-brainer for everyone who is going for US citizenship. Everyone else, take a better look on it, before you go for it.
    - tsycho 12y ago
      +1 to what you said. In addition, green cards take 6-12 years to process for those born in India or China (6+ years for EB-2, 10+ years for EB-3), so even if people want to get them, the wait duration is insanely long. And while your green card is being processed, you have significant restrictions in changing your company, job title or location, else you might be put back to the beginning of the queue.
    - CodeMage 12y ago
      > Going for a green card is a no-brainer for everyone who is going for US citizenship. Everyone else, take a better look on it, before you go for it. So what's the alternative? I'm asking out of honest curiosity, because H-1B seems to have at least two serious drawbacks: 1) if you want to switch jobs, you have to go through the lottery again (as far as I understand), and 2) your dependents are on H-4 visa, which means that they aren't allowed to get a job (except as a volunteer).
      - syntern 12y ago
        I'm on H1B too with H4 spouse. My alternative is just to go back to Europe, and live there - and considering several factors, it may not be that different from the US (in terms of overall better vs. worse).
      - abraham_s 12y ago
        1) Is not true. If you change jobs you don't have to go through the lottery again. It is just paperwork. 2) Is true and it is a big issue. It is sad to see educated spouses wasting their time here in the US
      - deleted 12y ago
        [deleted]
  - geebee 12y ago
    I agree that the US badly needs immigration reform, and that stories like this are painful to read. I see nothing productive about keeping someone like the author of this post out of the US, and I see plenty of harm. I do think the US needs a skilled immigration system (perhaps a points based system like Australia), and perhaps we should increase the allotment (the US currently takes in about 1.2 million immigrants a year through a fairly byzantine system that makes it difficult for someone with no close US citizen relatives to immigrate here). That's where my agreement with the lobbying efforts of large silicon valley companies ends, though. I'm not in favor of granting the HR departments of large silicon valley corporations control over the immigration system under the guise of immigration "reform". And while I do favor general skilled immigration, I don't think it should be specifically based on the notion of a tech or stem worker shortage, as I don't think the evidence supports this claim.
  - jleyank 12y ago
    This was not the case 6-7 years ago in Canada. US-ians entering on a NAFTA visa were tied to their particular employer. They were able to apply for Permanent Resident status on this visa, which was helpful. The only change I am aware of is a shift from 1-year to 3-year visas. PR applications require multi-year time-in-Canada (and Quebec Selection if applying from Quebec).
- shenoybr 12y ago
  While I've heard this argument over and over again that H1Bs are cheap labor, there is little hard evidence to support this. And while I agree, that there are cases of US visas (any visa, not just H1s) that are abused, generalizing the H1Bs as cheap labor is going too far. I speak from my own personal experience.
  - sbilstein 12y ago
    It's not always cheap labor, but when perusing the publicly listed wages for engineers on h1-b visas, they seem on average lower than the offers I've received for the same title at the same companies. It's hard to make any strong conclusions however, since most salaries are not published and just a job title does not say too much about how someone was hired into a company. I agree generalizing it as cheap labor is not fair, but I do feel sorry for my friends just starting their careers with a serious lack of job mobility.
  - Retric 12y ago
    I have spoken to HR people that say H1Bs's are 15 to 20k/year cheaper on average. The trick is disconnecting what they do from what their job title is. After that you just pay them less for the same job. That's not pure savings as there are plenty of paperwork costs etc, but you still end out ahead after ~1 year of work. O and just submit a lot of names to the lotto.
  - owenmarshall 12y ago
    The salaries of the average H1B worker compared to the average American worker are probably relatively close. But when I say H1B workers are "cheap labor" I'm claiming this on aggregate. If we take a charitable view that an H1B worker is paid $5K less than a non-H1B worker per year - and that's very charitable based on the numbers I've heard thrown around - a company like Tata or Accenture is looking at tens of millions of dollars in savings. Note also my characterization was not on the quality of the work produced by H1B workers: I've seen some good and some bad, just like everyone else really. But having artificially cheap labor is inherently bad, both for the laborers that can't negotiate something better & workers in the rest of the industry whose wages are deflated to match. Indeed, cheap labor is really only good for one group: the one that's constantly pushing to increase the H1B cap.
- mycodebreaks 12y ago
  So many engineers/professionals with H1B are hired by Microsoft, Google, Facebook and many others. Are you saying those programmers are getting paid lower than their non-H1B counterparts?
  - owenmarshall 12y ago
    I can't speak to specific companies. On aggregate, H1B workers are being paid less than non-H1B workers. It doesn't take long to see this in action: http://www.foreignlaborcert.doleta.gov/performancedata.cfm#stat http://www.foreignlaborcert.doleta.gov/performancedata.cfm#s... -- click around and ask yourself if those average wages look right. My state's average wage was what you'd pay a person coming straight out of college. I'd definitely wager that if you compared all Microsoft H1B software engineers to all non-H1B MS SE's, you'd see a drop in wages. But I don't have a reliable indication of non-H1B salaries at MS, so I can't say for sure.
    - seanmcdirmid 12y ago
      > I'd definitely wager that if you compared all Microsoft H1B software engineers to all non-H1B MS SE's, you'd see a drop in wages. Why would you think this? That information is publicly available; e.g. http://www.myvisajobs.com/Visa-Sponsor/Microsoft/356252_Salary.htm http://www.myvisajobs.com/Visa-Sponsor/Microsoft/356252_Sala... I'm not sure what the "average salaries" for non-immigrants are, but you can get an idea here: http://www.salarylist.com/company/Microsoft-Salary.htm http://www.salarylist.com/company/Microsoft-Salary.htm It doesn't look that different.
      - owenmarshall 12y ago
        > Why would you think this? Because that's been the pattern for most businesses. I doubt Microsoft is any different - why do you think it would be? > It doesn't look that different. The two pages you present compare "all MS salaries, globally" to "all MS H1B salaries, globally" - that's a meaningless comparison. A software engineer H1B is going to make more than a non-H1B tester. Note again, I'm not trying to indict MS for anything here: I'm simply betting that MS is enjoying lower worker costs by employing H1B workers, just like many IT companies do. I hope that's not the case, both for the H1B worker AND non-H1B workers.
omegaworks 12y ago
>they're effectively chained to their jobs Any restriction on the movement of free labor puts us all down. Their employers are less likely to treat them well because they know how dependent they are on the job just for the visa.

dllthomas 12y ago

"they're effectively chained to their jobs, which seems so archaic." Not just archaic, but wrong. And even if we say "but they're choosing to be here, so it still must be better than what they came from" - which isn't entirely false, but ignores some things - it still means that the rest of us are competing with these extra-abusable workers which some companies might not mind paying a premium for on paper.

owenmarshall 12y ago

Reserve some blame for your company: the reason H-1B programs are so widely abused is because industry can't give up cheap labor.

zabraxias 12y ago
That's an oversimplification since the valley is the leading proponent of immigration reform (yes since the companies there will get better access to foreign workers) but every other developed nation seems to have a more sensible policy like allowing "work status" and not tying it to a specific company. Green cards effectively do that but unless you're Bieber or can afford the $1M investment visa you don't get one on day 1.
- syntern 12y ago
  Green card is not a work permit, it is a residency status. People focus on the work part, but with choosing the green card, one is choosing between the US and the rest of the world for a very long time. First of all, it requires you to reside in the US, permanently (hence the official name). You don't move home for longer periods (e.g. years), as getting back in the US is not automatic. I understand that the US sees entering in the US as privilege, but these people usually help the US economy, and not burden it, so there is that. Second, it really limits your options. Suppose you decide to go outside of the US in just a few years after the green card, giving it up, and suddenly, for the rest of your life, whenever you enter in the US, you need to tell you life's story to the immigration officer and why you have applied for immigration status and what happened with it. And if you have connections, properties or investments in Europe, you will be always in limbo whether the European bank will decline business with you based on your US tax status. Going for a green card is a no-brainer for everyone who is going for US citizenship. Everyone else, take a better look on it, before you go for it.
  - tsycho 12y ago
    +1 to what you said. In addition, green cards take 6-12 years to process for those born in India or China (6+ years for EB-2, 10+ years for EB-3), so even if people want to get them, the wait duration is insanely long. And while your green card is being processed, you have significant restrictions in changing your company, job title or location, else you might be put back to the beginning of the queue.
  - CodeMage 12y ago
    > Going for a green card is a no-brainer for everyone who is going for US citizenship. Everyone else, take a better look on it, before you go for it. So what's the alternative? I'm asking out of honest curiosity, because H-1B seems to have at least two serious drawbacks: 1) if you want to switch jobs, you have to go through the lottery again (as far as I understand), and 2) your dependents are on H-4 visa, which means that they aren't allowed to get a job (except as a volunteer).
    - syntern 12y ago
      I'm on H1B too with H4 spouse. My alternative is just to go back to Europe, and live there - and considering several factors, it may not be that different from the US (in terms of overall better vs. worse).
    - abraham_s 12y ago
      1) Is not true. If you change jobs you don't have to go through the lottery again. It is just paperwork. 2) Is true and it is a big issue. It is sad to see educated spouses wasting their time here in the US
    - deleted 12y ago
      [deleted]
- geebee 12y ago
  I agree that the US badly needs immigration reform, and that stories like this are painful to read. I see nothing productive about keeping someone like the author of this post out of the US, and I see plenty of harm. I do think the US needs a skilled immigration system (perhaps a points based system like Australia), and perhaps we should increase the allotment (the US currently takes in about 1.2 million immigrants a year through a fairly byzantine system that makes it difficult for someone with no close US citizen relatives to immigrate here). That's where my agreement with the lobbying efforts of large silicon valley companies ends, though. I'm not in favor of granting the HR departments of large silicon valley corporations control over the immigration system under the guise of immigration "reform". And while I do favor general skilled immigration, I don't think it should be specifically based on the notion of a tech or stem worker shortage, as I don't think the evidence supports this claim.
- jleyank 12y ago
  This was not the case 6-7 years ago in Canada. US-ians entering on a NAFTA visa were tied to their particular employer. They were able to apply for Permanent Resident status on this visa, which was helpful. The only change I am aware of is a shift from 1-year to 3-year visas. PR applications require multi-year time-in-Canada (and Quebec Selection if applying from Quebec).
shenoybr 12y ago
While I've heard this argument over and over again that H1Bs are cheap labor, there is little hard evidence to support this. And while I agree, that there are cases of US visas (any visa, not just H1s) that are abused, generalizing the H1Bs as cheap labor is going too far. I speak from my own personal experience.
- sbilstein 12y ago
  It's not always cheap labor, but when perusing the publicly listed wages for engineers on h1-b visas, they seem on average lower than the offers I've received for the same title at the same companies. It's hard to make any strong conclusions however, since most salaries are not published and just a job title does not say too much about how someone was hired into a company. I agree generalizing it as cheap labor is not fair, but I do feel sorry for my friends just starting their careers with a serious lack of job mobility.
- Retric 12y ago
  I have spoken to HR people that say H1Bs's are 15 to 20k/year cheaper on average. The trick is disconnecting what they do from what their job title is. After that you just pay them less for the same job. That's not pure savings as there are plenty of paperwork costs etc, but you still end out ahead after ~1 year of work. O and just submit a lot of names to the lotto.
- owenmarshall 12y ago
  The salaries of the average H1B worker compared to the average American worker are probably relatively close. But when I say H1B workers are "cheap labor" I'm claiming this on aggregate. If we take a charitable view that an H1B worker is paid $5K less than a non-H1B worker per year - and that's very charitable based on the numbers I've heard thrown around - a company like Tata or Accenture is looking at tens of millions of dollars in savings. Note also my characterization was not on the quality of the work produced by H1B workers: I've seen some good and some bad, just like everyone else really. But having artificially cheap labor is inherently bad, both for the laborers that can't negotiate something better & workers in the rest of the industry whose wages are deflated to match. Indeed, cheap labor is really only good for one group: the one that's constantly pushing to increase the H1B cap.
mycodebreaks 12y ago
So many engineers/professionals with H1B are hired by Microsoft, Google, Facebook and many others. Are you saying those programmers are getting paid lower than their non-H1B counterparts?
- owenmarshall 12y ago
  I can't speak to specific companies. On aggregate, H1B workers are being paid less than non-H1B workers. It doesn't take long to see this in action: http://www.foreignlaborcert.doleta.gov/performancedata.cfm#stat http://www.foreignlaborcert.doleta.gov/performancedata.cfm#s... -- click around and ask yourself if those average wages look right. My state's average wage was what you'd pay a person coming straight out of college. I'd definitely wager that if you compared all Microsoft H1B software engineers to all non-H1B MS SE's, you'd see a drop in wages. But I don't have a reliable indication of non-H1B salaries at MS, so I can't say for sure.
  - seanmcdirmid 12y ago
    > I'd definitely wager that if you compared all Microsoft H1B software engineers to all non-H1B MS SE's, you'd see a drop in wages. Why would you think this? That information is publicly available; e.g. http://www.myvisajobs.com/Visa-Sponsor/Microsoft/356252_Salary.htm http://www.myvisajobs.com/Visa-Sponsor/Microsoft/356252_Sala... I'm not sure what the "average salaries" for non-immigrants are, but you can get an idea here: http://www.salarylist.com/company/Microsoft-Salary.htm http://www.salarylist.com/company/Microsoft-Salary.htm It doesn't look that different.
    - owenmarshall 12y ago
      > Why would you think this? Because that's been the pattern for most businesses. I doubt Microsoft is any different - why do you think it would be? > It doesn't look that different. The two pages you present compare "all MS salaries, globally" to "all MS H1B salaries, globally" - that's a meaningless comparison. A software engineer H1B is going to make more than a non-H1B tester. Note again, I'm not trying to indict MS for anything here: I'm simply betting that MS is enjoying lower worker costs by employing H1B workers, just like many IT companies do. I hope that's not the case, both for the H1B worker AND non-H1B workers.

omegaworks 12y ago

>they're effectively chained to their jobs Any restriction on the movement of free labor puts us all down. Their employers are less likely to treat them well because they know how dependent they are on the job just for the visa.