I really wish that someone would do the right thing and fix H-1B by attaching the visa to the person, not the job/employer.
That would help fix sooo many of the objections to this program. But perhaps most importantly it would mean people on this visa would not be indentured servants , with the possibility of visa revocation hanging over them.
Frankly the whole original point of H-1B was to bring in awesome people and encourage them to stay if they showed they brought enough value.
It should, as you said, be attached to the person with a fixed term (10 years?), then at the end of the term there should be a "job interview"-like process where it is determined if this person has brought enough value. If they succeed hand them a Green Card.
Employers should still help them get the initial H-1B to show they have a job and that their credentials are credible. But after that the employee alone should hold the H-1B and be allowed to jump ship if they're unfairly treated or poorly compensated (after all the point of H-1B was never to get CHEAP labour, it was to get GOOD labour).
The fixed term also gives them more personal security, without the threat of being kicked out with little notice.
Getting an H1B is 90% of the way to getting a green card but with that weird company control, so why not cut the crud and do like the UK and Australia do: have a point based system that allows immigrants to directly apply for talent-based permanent residence?
> In many ways, the RAISE Act returns us to the dark ages of American immigration policy. If enacted by Congress, this new legislation would cut the number of immigrants entering the United States by half. It would do away with family-based immigration, which reunites thousands of families every year and introduces a points-based system for potential immigrants which is stacked in favor of wealthy, highly-educated, English-speaking applicants. In short, it is the most far-reaching remaking of American immigration policy in more than 50 years.
Now, if the RAISE Act applies to only the H1-B program then your claim would be accurate and I think the bill would have a lot of support.
Simply because a fixed term before a Green Card gives us more data on how this individual is likely to perform in the US, not their country of origin. That's the whole point after all.
Plus at least in the UK they don't immediately get permanent residence.
And yet still a vast improvement over the status quo in my opinion.
The ten years is a fixed term, it can currently take at least that long but you can be deported earlier if you get fired from your job and are unable to find alternative employment compatible with your H-1B visa.
It might be unnerving knowing you may have to leave in ten years time, but imagine how unnerving it would be to potentially be fired every single day and get deported that same year. That's what is currently going on.
The US immigration system is notoriously backed up. Even family-based green card processing are backlogged by 5-6 years last I’ve heard.
It’s a perverse situation where people affected have no power to request any changes or improvements, and people who have power to do so, are not affected in the least, so there is no real incentive to improve anything.
Employment based applications are current for people from most countries. The big exceptions are Chinese, Filipino and Indian immigrants.
There is a 2-3 year wait for 4th category Mexicans, Guatemalans, Salvadorans, and Hondurans. Given the possible qualifications for this category, I suspect that these are mostly immigrants subject to child abuse, neglect or abandonment within the US.
Immediate relatives (spouses and minor children) of US citizens can always get a green card. I think that this process is fairly quick.
The family based process looks much more backlogged. If you're a brother, sister, or married (adult?) child of a US citizen, you will be stuck waiting for at least a decade. If you're an unmarried adult child of a US citizen or green card holder, you're looking at a 5-6 year wait unless you're Filipino (10+ year wait) or Mexican (20+ year wait). If you're the spouse of a green card holder, the wait is "only" 1-2 years.
> Even family-based green card processing are backlogged by 5-6 years last I’ve heard.
As of the most recent visa bulletin, the (quota limited) family-based categories are 2-13 years behind (different in each category) globally, with some countries much worse, notably Mexico where one category is at the same 2 year backlog that the category has globally, and the rest are 20-22 years behind.
In addition, some people who have succeeded in the green card lottery actually oppose any change that makes immigration situation better. Maybe that's "us vs them" mentality?
"after all the point of H-1B was never to get CHEAP labour, it was to get GOOD labour"
I find that to be naive. It's not because a politician says that something is for X that it's really for X.
Especially considering that if for some reason good labor was rare and in demand, it would mean higher wages for this good labor.
Follow the money...
"(...) then at the end of the term there should be a "job interview"-like process where it is determined if this person has brought enough value."
Why do you want to add citizenship to the deal? If the salary alone is not a good enough incentive, perhaps it needs to be higher. Otherwise you're just selling citizenship in exchange for lower wages.
H1B was never created as a path to immigration. It was always designed around a single purpose: temporarily filling a shortage for a specific position until a qualified American could be found.
Read the regulations. This idea of H1 as a path to a green card is just a fraudulent use of that visa. I am not opposed to people getting green cards — I am opposed to the idea that the H1B is some kind of back door to permanent residency.
May be I don't quite understand this - a "proper" employment based immigrant visa is one of https://travel.state.gov/content/travel/en/us-visas/immigrat.... Which is what most H1B folks apply for. Not sure how H1b is a backdoor for permanent residency.
Is your point that immigrant visa takes however long it takes (>10 years for Indians), and if one is already here on H1b, they should not expect H1b to be indefinitely extended until immigration visa is approved?
For pretty much all countries other than India, there are no practical issues, since they get permanent residence well before their H1b expires.
The problem is magnified for Indians to the extent that their lives are basically in suspended animation for several years
> This idea of H1 as a path to a green card is just a fraudulent use of that visa.
Wrong; it's explicitly, legally a dual-intent visa, unlike other non-immigrant visas in which immigration intent is prohibited and grounds for visa revocation. The idea of it as a path to permanent residency is explicitly part of its legal design, and so using it that way is not at all fraudulent.
When I worked for Amazon, I felt bad for the people working there on visas. They never felt like they could say no when pressured into working through the weekend.
After uprooting your family and bringing them to the States, you have zero bargaining power. It's a pretty dark system.
I am on an H1-B visa. I would say no to working on weekends.
Changing jobs is actually relatively painless with an H1-B visa. The only risk is that you have to find a new job in relatively short amount of time if would get fired.
You can say no, because in the worst case you would "only" have to go back to Germany. But what about people who are from countries like Pakistan etc.? They would rather work on weekends than to have to go back.
I worked at amazon with a number of H1Bs and they were never asked to work on weekends AFAIK(and I get notifications for commits into our repo and never particularly noticed any weekend activity).
About "indentured servants" - there is always a choice - I'm specifically talking about H1b workers and not people who are running away from their home countries for their lives.
The choice is not to play this game and go back. Of course there are consequences, but its all about the mindset and staying away from building one's life/mindset around "h1b -> greencard -> citizenship". For me, it is one possible outcome in my life.
Also the lottery is a bandage due to the fact that TCS and other "IT companies" applies for hundreds of visas and doesn't care how many of them come true as opposed to companies that want to hire one or two specific professionals but can't.
The number of lottery tickets one application gets should be proportional to the salary (for example, 1 ticket for every 10k salary after 80k/yr)
I don't think that's the case. Right now a ton of the H1-B visa's are given to various IT contracting companies, which use them to suppress wages. Those companies know that their people can't easily leave (and wouldn't be qualified for lots of other companies anyways), and so they can pay them less than they would US citizens.
The bigger tech companies aren't using the program to suppress wages though, they're using it to bring in highly skilled employees. For example, there is a ton of hiring in the AI field and grabbing up foreign workers who are skilled in this area is a huge economic advantage for the US. The tech companies want these people, not some dude who took a three month course and is now "qualified" to work on a helpdesk.
It's in the best interest of these tech companies to reform the H1-B program to make it more viable for these highly skilled workers. Unfortunately the big fear right now is that any reform attempts will be used by the current administration to crack down on all H1-B holders instead of simply reforming the system so it fits the original purpose.
Isn’t the purpose of the visa for a company to fill a hard to fill position? If that’s the case, it doesn’t make sense to give that visa to some random worker since the purpose is for a business to fill a specific role for which there is no suitable American.
H1B is not an immigrant visa. It’s a temporary visa. Also pretty much everywhere in Asia has the same kind of visa and it’s always tied to the employer. This kind of visa isn’t some uniquely American outlier.
While that's great in theory what it actually does is suppress wages of US citizens. By having a separate class of "indentured servants" who have no choice but to work for the specific company or they'll be deported they are removing leverage from the labor market that would otherwise force the company to pay a more solid wage. Combine that with the fact that companies can easily find ways to claim that there are no suitable American's available for the role (even when there clearly are, they're just more expensive) and you have a system which is ripe for exploitation.
If the claim that there is no suitable American for the specific job then it shouldn't matter who the employee is. Either the skills are available in the existing market, and thus any employer can find someone, or those skills are in more demand than there is supply and all companies are likely to have a shortage.
Allowing H1-B's to transfer from one job to another easily would solve a lot of the issues that has come up with the program. It would make is to the wage suppression techniques would no longer apply, making the system more fair to both US citizens and highly skilled foreign workers.
This is absurd. People on H1-B pay taxes like Americans - i.e Social security, Medicare, State, federal, sales, property...
They're, however, not eligible for ANY of the social safety net they subsidize America for, (no social security, unemployment, Medicare, etc). They're overwhelmingly peaceful, law abiding residents with higher education, most earning in the top 5%.
Abuse of the system is not by the recipients, but the companies enabling the abuse - punish the companies, not the innocent, tax paying, peaceful, law abiding residents who don't wake up every morning saying "Today, I want to replace an American job and suppress some wages, dream FUCKING LIFE".
If this law does pass, I believe those being asked to leave should sue the US for repayment of Social security and Medicare taxes paid - after all they're non resident aliens and should be taxed as such. Ludicrous restrictions like not being allowed open their own businesses, killing any chance of monetizing a side hustle is another opportunity cost that the govt. cannot compensate for - and it may even be illegal, after all bringing an idea to life is free speech!
Most of all, if this is squarely an anti-India policy, India should return the favor in kind and add tariffs to American businesses & individuals benefiting from trading with India. A page from Trump's own playbook is the only answer that'll get through to him.
Some background, this is regarding the intermediate status once you have maxed out your 2 H1b visas for 3 years, and have applied for a green card. There are queues per country, with the one for India being the longest at 12 year (1).
Not allowing green card petitioners to stick around will hit hundred of thousands of foreigners that are almost certain eligible for a green card, but just have the bad luck of being stuck in a queue. They will have to leave the USA and many will abandon their green card efforts.
I'm sure a lot of employers will not like this, so the chance of this happening would seem slim. However with the current government one never knows.
While this is anecdotal it does worry me that we invest (as a society, in the general sense) in educating people in the US and then don’t do enough to keep them here. It should be easy to obtain a permanent work visa after graduating. You’d need controls like perhaps a minimum degree earned, minimum number of credits earned/years in school and approved institutions but it seems feasible. It would do a lot to retain people that not only we’ve invested in, but who (hopefully) have had a chance to integrate culturally at a young age and formed friendships and connections that will help anchor them.
First, I don't really think there is a shortage of college degree-earning people in this country. Second, your plan is just a giveaway to colleges... they can charge whatever they want as gatekeepers to visas earned in the USA.
I dont know the ground reality, however as per documentation for SDE jobs paying above 50k EUR or so you get it with a labour market check alone. While in US, you also have a 20 to infinite year waitlist for getting a green card (Indians, EB3).
Well these jobs aren't worth the pay American expect to be paid. As how LCD tv's costed >$2000 in 2012 and not it just costs ~$500. These low quality jobs pay goes down. If not the low paid H1B workers, these jobs would have been outsourced to those countries. These worker didn't update their skills for changing times. I still keep reading new stuff to keep myself updated and my wife complains that I am always with computer and books. I am an immigrant in H1B, been here over 10 years. I agree like any system people will find ways to abuse it, like Wall Street abused sub prime mortgage and brought the whole world to knees. We should come up with better ways to regulate the system rather than racially profile and oppressing us.
Well these jobs aren't worth the pay American expect to be paid
It really sounds as if you're agreeing with the critics from the article mentioned. From that article:
According to federal guidelines, the visas are intended for foreigners with advanced science or computer skills to fill discrete positions when American workers with those skills cannot be found. Their use, the guidelines say, should not “adversely affect the wages and working conditions” of Americans. Because of legal loopholes, however, in practice, companies do not have to recruit American workers first or guarantee that Americans will not be displaced.
Too often, critics say, the visas are being used to bring in immigrants to do the work of Americans for less money, with laid-off American workers having to train their replacements.
yeah an obvious way to improve the program is to require the applicant to have much more added value than the average American worker. I would argue that salary is the best but still a very poor indicator. What about fields where the average salary is low like agriculture or areas like North Dakota where the cost of living is low and therefore salaries are low? I think the USCIS should start to calculate these numbers per industry and geographical area
It's a hardened belief that jobs are a zero-sum game — and from this arises the idea that every skilled immigrant takes away a job from a U.S. worker. This isn't true. More skilled, educated workers will actually add to the economy — and grow the economy.
> The administration is specifically looking at whether it can reinterpret the "may grant" language of the American Competitiveness in the 21st Century Act to stop making the extentions. The act currently allows the administration to extend the H-1B visas for thousands of immigrants, predominantly Indian immigrants, beyond the allowed two three-year terms if a green card is pending.
They might as well do away with the H1-B program all together.
Not all H1B visas are granted for multi-year expirations. Many are granted for 6 or 9 months, and then the employer finds out that they need the person for longer and apply for extension.
Also, the Green Card is tied to employment, so if you stop working for an employer because your H1B expired and DHS refuses to renew it because of this new rule (if it goes into effect) then the person has to go to the beginning of the line / process to apply for the Green Card.
I understand that H1B is a non-immigrant visa, but if this change goes into effect, most people won't even apply for the H1B because it would make no sense. Probably what the Trump administration wants in the first place.
While it's described that way, I don't think the statement accurately conveys the right kind of meaning. US immigration law uses intent as a principle: if you're in the US on a non-immigrant visa and you're suspected of having intent to immigrate, then that's grounds for cancelling the visa. That makes sense for tourist visas.
But H-1B visas (along with L-, V- etc.) are explicitly dual-intent visas, so intent to immigrate doesn't put them at risk. So calling them non-immigrant visas is potentially misleading because they don't carry the same intent risk. They're a kind of halfway house.
Employment Based Green Card is for the future worker. The proper way it's supposed to work is that, when hiring for non-temporary positions, you go straight for the EBGC for the foreign worker. Who, of course, is not working for you yet so he gets his GC for the future job. And it's the way it worked before H1 program has been introduced in 1990.
What happens now is that people are hired in the H1B status, which is, by definition, a status for temporary worker. And then the vast majority of them suddenly realize that the job is not temporary (wow, surprise!) and they need to be in a permanent status to do this job, nobody else can (here is the proof that we tried to find somebody and failed, honestly!). So they need to go through adjustment of status (AOS) process to change their "temporary worker" status to the "permanent resident" one. Of course, while the process is going, the worker is in a vulnerable position. On one hand, he or she just claimed that they have been in the wrong status (by requesting it to be adjusted) so their temporary status became even more temporary, so to say. On the other, the EBGC has not been granted yet so the worker remains in the state of, essentially, temporary suspended deportation. For the great benefit of the employer, of course.
Don't you find this strange that so many companies fail to estimate permanency of their jobs? Don't you think they might be doing this intentionally in order to exploit the AOS process?
> They might as well do away with the H1-B program all together.
They can't do that by executive action; they are attempting to limit the program without Congressional action.
> I understand that H1B is a non-immigrant visa, but if this change goes into effect, most people won't even apply for the H1B because it would make no sense.
It makes perfect sense as a limited term work visa; this would reduce the significance of the dual intent nature of the visa that allows immigration intent unlike other non-immigrant visas, but that's arguably peripheral to the purpose of the visa.
As an immigrant on H1B, if it wasn't for the quality of work and people here in the valley, I'd definitely look to go elsewhere with my skills because of this incessant existential risk to our life in this country. This administration really stresses immigrants like me.
Like, are we staying here or are we not... can we plan to buy a house or not... should we plan our kids education here or elsewhere... should we save money here or elsewhere...
Pfft. Not sure if I'd have made the same decision going back 4 years. Friends who chased professional opportunities in Europe, Canada seem to have their visa stuff figured out. But over here, the rules just keep changing.
For what it's worth, as a fellow immigrant on a work visa (O-1 here… wasn't eligible for H-1B), the stress around a visa status is nothing new. It's been a constant struggle since I moved to the USA in 2009; and all 8 years of Obama were pretty bad too. Trump might be bad, but the immigrant struggles are nothing new, and won't change regardless of whether the administration is blue or red.
I guess so... but headline-grabbing news around immigration does seem to pop up more. And then I have to dive into that and figure out if this applies to us or not.
Definitely leaving a bad taste. Some amount of "lock-in" period to laws so that people can plan their lives better would definitely help. But hey... I'm no lawmaker.
Remains to be seen how this impacts the US universities. Part of the incentive for the international students to choose the US over other countries for higher studies is because there are some seriously great professional opportunities after the studies if you can immigrate. For example, our industry is centered in the US, the US is truly a super power in research, the US mindset (startups, relatively merit-driven systems) etc compared to other developed western countries.
If there is no clear path to immigration, and if high quality education becomes relatively easily available (see: western universities setting up centers in the east), that can dry up the desire to choose a US based university I think.
I'm an H1B visa holder, I think this is a step in the right direction. American Competitiveness in the 21st Century Act - should have never existed. It allows H1B visas to be extended beyond 6 years. No one should be forced to remain on abusive H1B visa for more than 6+ years of their life. It hurts everyone expect the SV tech giants.
No one is being forced to remain on H1B visas for any length of time, you can always quit and leave any time.
This affects individuals who have green card applications pending and are being granted 1-year extensions while their applications are pending due to a country-based quota system and thus backlog.
The only way this would not affect these individuals is if they remove the quota and backlog and grant green cards immediately, but it doesn't sound like the Administration is planning to do that with the talk of "self-deportation" and all.
Instead, they just plan to stop the 1-year renewal and effectively kick these individuals out of the country, even if they like their current status and have been waiting for a decade for a green card.
I fail to see how this is a step in the right direction for these workers.
> No one is being forced to remain on H1B visas for any length of time, you can always quit and leave any time
I'm taking the abuse for a better life for my family.
>This affects individuals who have a green card application pending and are being granted 1-year extensions while their application is pending due to a country-based quota system and thus backlog.
The wait time is somewhere between half a century and three and a half centuries [1]
The Tech companies or the attorneys never tell their employees about this long wait time. Instead they just lie it being 5-to-10 years. It happened to me, I realised my turn will never come up only after waiting 10 years in the line.
I am guessing you are an Indian national currently on a H1B visa (given that you are apparently on an H1B visa and have been in the green card queue for 10 years).
If this comes to pass, you will either (a) be transferred to another country by your company if they like you enough or (b) lose your job and get kicked out of the US unceremoniously. How is this better for you or your family?
If you dislike the your job and the H1B program, you can leave right now on your own terms, rather than wait for the Administration to enact new policies to kick you out.
Sure, if there is comprehensive immigration reform that removes the queue for Indian-born applicants. Doesn't sound like that is what the current Administration is planning though.
I think at least some people on H1B like their jobs and company (and vice versa) even if the wait for a green card is currently indeterminate, and won't be too happy to see this happen.
> I wish no one else have to go through what I'm going through
So you think this is a good idea even though your family and you will likely be negatively affected by it if it happens? I assume the only reason that your family and you are still on an H1B is because, on balance, it is better to be in the US than somewhere else, despite you "taking the abuse".
I agree entirely. We should be shortening the path to permanent residency, not stringing out a temporary arrangement indefinitely. Having intelligent foreigners commit their future to the US is a win for everyone involved. Temporary foreign workers who are expelled after a short period creates an antagonistic relationship with the US, creates instability for workers while they're in the US and sends valuable assets back to their home countries.
Also, ratios should be in place to prevent abuse of immigrant visas. Ensuring that employers are only able to utilize immigrant visas when they're already employing a significant majority of Americans is also a win-win and prevents abuses like the consulting companies that hire almost exclusively foreign workers. It also socializes immigrant workers better to ensure that they're not isolated in immigrant groups with little exposure to US culture and language.
As an American, I'm less concerned with where someone was born than I am with where they want to live their life, raise their family and retire. The current H1B program doesn't seem aligned with getting immigrants to commit to a life in the US. It seems designed to encourage foreign workers to put their foreign life on hold for a few years to come to the US, make a lot of money (relative to what they'd earn in their own country) before returning to resume their lives there.
The rumored proposal is exactly proposing that the affected H1B workers (mostly Indians) should be "expelled after a short period" (of 6 years) and have no opportunity to get permanent residency, given that the path to permanent residency for these workers is really long right now.
I don't think the current Administration is planning to change anything w.r.t. green cards, since raising the limits or removing the per-country quota requires legislation.
I didn't say that I agree with the current administration and neither did the poster I was agreeing with. All I was saying is that I don't agree with the current H1-B regulations. There's a third approach that neither the Democrats or Republicans seem interested in that I feel would be of more benefit to both immigrants and our country.
Nobody is forcing anyone. It's a choice. The system is not perfect, but we still have a choice. Your choice was to stand in the line as a compromise for better life for your family.
I'm standing in the same line as you are, and I have the exact same choices. My choice is to leave the US and go back to India - and take all the money back to India, of course - the money that would've been spent in the US.
I do agree that some clarity on whether one will get permanent residence or not is better than this suspended animation we are all in today. Even a definitive "no - you have to go back" is better.
It's a step in exactly the wrong direction. This essentially makes it impossible for anyone from India or other countries with high numbers of H1-B visa holders who have applied for green cards to ever get a green card. If someone has worked in the US for six years, we should just give them a green card right away. We shouldn't kick them out of the country just because they happen to have been born in India.
This is an interesting thought. I had the same sentiment when I was staying in Europe on similar conditions. Then the changes came and they at first seemed as worsen the situation, but instead was a change for better. As obusive visas were exchanged for others that offer better conditions.
I am curious, can you give an example where that happened?
In any case, I don't think that the current Administration is planning to overhaul the H1B system, given that a change in that visa policy requires legislation, and I don't think it is high on the list of priorities of Congress right now to do anything about this.
I worked for an international organization in Geneva, Switzerland that used to give out work permits that wouldn’t allow spouses to work, neither could we get a credit card. These were more like seasonal permits extended up to 3 - 4 years. Then with the change of leadership this was phased out. At first we thought that we’d have to leave, but then we saw that we were still needed, so they started to give us better visas.
Indian government is really corrupt and don't have any self respect. India should ban all American companies in Indian soil pushing Indians entrepreneurs down. Companies like Coke, Pepsi, KFC, McDonnell, Starbucks, Google, Microsoft, Amazon etc and away lot more should be banned to operate in India and Indian entrepreneurship should be promoted. if India does that, I ll any day go back to India as a proud Indian. Since India is corrupt and has no unity to stand up against American imperialism, I have to fight here to go up. This is ridiculous. As top 15% of this country benefit from me, I have to take stones from bottom 5% percent of losers who does't blame them for their position and hit on colored people to feel good about themselves.
This is not going to be a popular opinion. My opinion has kind of changed on H1B people. I have talked to a bunch of these folks and they were hating on other immigrants. Some of the people from South American countries are basically are coming here so they don't get killed.
Most of the H1Bs could get a job in their country and at least have some safety. Everyone is just trying to better their lives.
India Graduates vastly more people than america. Even if only 10% of them are any good that is a massive number of good people. I am not sayings only 10% are any good its just a number. American companies should just go over there if they want.
Did you know you can get perm residency in Canada and its not nearly as hard. Why hasn't Canada surpassed the US for tech jobs?
Vancouver, Montreal, and Waterloo are major tech cities. There's cutting-edge research paired with major companies and univerisites. You might have heard of a few small companies such as "shopify", "500px", or "kik". Canada is 6% tech.
But there's a bit of ramp-up delay. Canada has nearly the population of California. There's a practical limit to how fast growth can take place. There are also other factors, such as weather (it's -26C in Montreal today), and salary (you will earn less as a canadian permanent resident than you will on a H1B in the states).
It isn't lower population. Canadian culture has a bad case of tall poppy syndrome. I'm Canadian and the jobs in the US simply pay 50% more (before taking into account things like the exchange rate or taxes) than jobs in Canada do. Employers don't want to hire Silicon Valley level talent. If they did, they would pay to match. Canada's economy and policies actively encourage brain drain.
Cali has a 67% higher gdp than canada. Texas has the same gdp as Canada despite having 2/3rd the number of people.
I just think the importance of the H1B is a little overblown, but I am not opposed to to it either. I think if you can make it to the US and hold a job we shouldn't kick you out.
I don't know why you are being downvoted. This is essentially accurate. There may be a few other countries affected like the Philippines but no predominately white countries will be affected because their green card waiting lists are short enough that people from those countries can get a green card before the original six years expires.
Indians and Chinese received 82% of the H-1Bs in 2016. I don't know who's pretending the Trump isn't a racist, you have to be really deeply ignorant and incapable of rudimentary character assessment to dismiss his long history of racism: even if you just keep it to the recent history of birtherism.
It is time to stop incorrectly weighting race as a factor in American politics, as if it's a solved problem, or as if it's a central problem, or as if it's an unsolvable problem. But more importantly it's time to stop pretending most Americans aren't racist, or that the problem is getting better with Xers and Millenials. Ignoring the depth of racism in the country is how people draw the wrong conclusion that Trump is some kind of black swan event. As well as the very specious idea that this gets better with Millennials.
The American National Election Studies, the long-running, extensive poll of American voters, asked voters in 2012 a basic test of prejudice: to rank black and white people on a scale from hardworking to lazy and from intelligent to unintelligent. The researchers found that 62 percent of white people gave black people a lower score in at least one of the attributes.
Just for computation sake, there are more than a million tech workers waiting for the GC as per this article. They have been here over a decade, and been in the tech industry. So even if you take a conservative number, the saving each one would have made over the decade would be around 100k. So we are talking around a 100 billion dollars in saving which would go back to India or other countries if these workers were deported by expiring the h1b, insteading of spending it in the US. Do the americans want that?
While the H1-B program needs a lot of reform this isn't it. This is an attempt to get a quick change by throwing out a lot of people waiting for green cards rather than addressing the true issue of a lot of those visas being for cheaper workers rather than rare talent.
It's a good thing for America to bring in the brightest workers. It's not a good thing when American jobs are given to cheaper foreign workers. Disney is merely the tip of the iceberg, a case where the company goofed up and didn't put a secrecy clause in the agreement.
I rather like bhickey's suggestion of basing it on salary.
I also would like to see a change to contract law--allow someone to go before a judge and ask that a secrecy clause be struck as not in the public interest. This would only apply when the actions being protected appear to be basically illegal activity even if it might be within the letter of the law. (Being required to train foreign replacements certainly skirts the intent of the H1-B as it's obvious there are suitable Americans.)
This is explicitly racist: it will primarily only apply to Indians on H-1B seeking permanent residency, some of whom wait 10-15 years for their green cards. I would say that Indian-Americans working with the Trump administration with any decency should resign in protest of such actions, but I'm not sure they have a sense of self-respect to begin with.
Indian-American are non entities in American politics. Do you think Ajit Pai will resign ? A lot of them are pretty much house niers. Look at Bobby Jindal for example. The guy is pretending to be hard core Christian and a white. No one cares about immigrants.
my understanding :
Abuse:
Many companies bring in H1b with minimum wage and replace existing Americans doing the same job and qualified enough.
i had this experience with my colleage american who expresed his frustration of me replacing him. He has masters with 6 years experience. where as i have bachelors with 3 years experinece. My company brought me here with min wage required for h1b. This is strictly taking american jobs.
Rule:
While i am qualified enough to get another job where they could not find an american i would apply. So in the end its the companies that are carrying these cheap labor tricks. We as H1b dont know what thier interviewing and rejecting process for an american. If we are offered a job we take it.
How should these rule be made and how to fine companies that replace americans. how to identify skilled labor.
I dont agree that there are few americans with IT knowledge. In my past 10 years experience i have seen many with good knowledge and highly qualified. With my company going there and replacing them just because we quote less.
Sorry but i am frank. I am still on h1b renewal with awaiting GC pending. ( i lost hope of getting GC). SO folks dont blame people/ Just blame the system and companies who pocket profit keepig us in limbo.
But be ready to face the consequence. Because we all said to our visa councellor that we will return back to our home country during our visa interview.
Hey, please come to US to be a slave for 3 years, then get off my lawn once you'd like to be promoted into a free citizen! Your only value is that your value is lower!
Hmm are there many large tech companies left that do not have dev. offices outside of US? The place I work at has r&d offices in Germany, Ireland, India in addition to US. So if this goes through people can shift to working from whatever non-us office they like. The only effect on US is that tax revenue from salaries will go to Ireland, Germany, India.
I wonder how/if academia will be forced to pay more for talent as well, I know many labs where people have been for years on h1b's...
The growing protectionism policies by governments, will make the global market for skilled labor more lucrative as companies and organizations will have to pay more for talent (and to keep it).
Not sure if this is a good move but hopefully this will increase scrutiny on this $40B / year nightmare.
Aside from the valid CBP responsibilities DHS has due to absorbing that agency, I would estimate that 100% of their resources are wasted doing nothing.
This administration is such a clown act. H1B's bad/unnecessary. H2B's good/necessary.
I think it's obvious the idea is to be protectionist with tech jobs, making those people more inclined to vote for party/people who have enacted that protectionism. Meanwhile at the low end of the scale, competition is good to keep low end wages suppressed. It's protecting classism.
Here's an example of a local career placement service with thousands of qualified workers already in the county, and yet a certain politician snags 70 visas for cooks and maids.
Trump's H1B motivations are purely racist and both political parties are extremely racist towards Asians hands down.
The idea is to force Chinese and Indians to go back because there are the only two groups get affected as Green card queue for them is over 30 years now (if they apply today).
Just like minimum wage or other policies that have unintended implications this will harm US tech scene and marginally benefit India and China but it is the bigger loss for humanity.
That would help fix sooo many of the objections to this program. But perhaps most importantly it would mean people on this visa would not be indentured servants , with the possibility of visa revocation hanging over them.