[HN Gopher] Tech firms' nightmare: Vanishing green cards
___________________________________________________________________
Tech firms' nightmare: Vanishing green cards
Author : mavelikara
Score : 99 points
Date : 2021-09-26 18:20 UTC (4 hours ago)
(HTM) web link (www.axios.com)
(TXT) w3m dump (www.axios.com)
| geodel wrote:
| One of thing that is not discussed a lot in these discussion of
| 20-100 year wait times for India origin H1B people is that one of
| the big abuser of Employment based GC are India based WITCH
| (Wipro, Infosys, TCS, Cognizant, HCL) companies via EB1C visa.
|
| So who get these EB1C visa? Well technically International
| managers but over a decade and half these WITCHs have brought
| hundreds of thousand mid level, non-technical account managers on
| L1 visa and filed for their green cards which are processed in
| say six months as opposed to decades for H1B folks. Due to this
| rampant misuse, the availability of employment based green cards
| is reduced drastically for H1B folks around same time.
|
| EB1C abuse is one of the biggest source of green card delays for
| H1B folks. And since it is legal in letter of law all this abuse
| go unnoticed.
| ldjkfkdsjnv wrote:
| The horror of H1B bosses not being able to only hire H1Bs from
| their own country!
| cletus wrote:
| As someone who has gone through this process let me summarize
| some of the issues this always raises:
|
| 1. Green cards have a per-country cap (of 7%) but there is no
| per-country cap for work visas. This creates a bottleneck since
| India has the same quota as French Polynesia;
|
| 2. Applications for work visas and green cards from low-value
| employers, specifically IT body shops (eg Tata) are clogging up
| the system. Relatively few of both of these categories are
| actually being given to high0-value employers like the Big Tech
| companies;
|
| 3. H1B visas are for 3 years and can be renewed once, for a total
| of 6 years. After this there needs to be a gap of a year. But if
| you have a pending green card application you can stay
| indefinitely;
|
| 4. Demand exceeds supply (being the annual quota), which leads to
| a lottery situation. One of the few things the previous
| disastrous administration proposed that I actually agree with was
| the proposal to prioritize work visas based on compensation
| rather than handing them out randomly. This would help combat the
| body shops in (2);
|
| 5. The bottleneck in (1) means people from certain countries,
| most notably India, means employees may be in the queue for
| decades. This is actually an advantage for those aforementioned
| body shops. it is a modern form of indentured servitude. The
| employee can't leave nor complain about conditions because then
| they lose their application and have to return home;
|
| 6. This can go on so long that children of said employees age out
| of the system before their parents are granted a green card. If
| when granted a green card you have children under the age of 18
| they automatically become permanent residents. After that, they
| don't. This can mean that children who turn 18 may need to leave
| the US and return to a country they have possibly never known.
| This is barbaric and inhumane;
|
| 7. Before the pandemic there were proposals to alleviate this
| situation by removing the per-country cap. The pandemic stalled
| this and it seems to be dead. I personally think this was the
| wrong solution as it means we would spend the next 3-10 years
| where only backlog applications would get processed. As such,
| it's likely to be met with resistance from other immigrant
| groups. We need a better solution; and
|
| 8. If a person is granted a green card and has a spouse and 2
| children that counts as 4 in terms of the quota for employment-
| based green cards, both in total and per country of birth. This
| too is problematic.
| Nesco wrote:
| > If when granted a green card you have children under the age
| of 18 they automatically become permanent residents. After
| that, they don't. This can mean that children who turn 18 may
| need to leave the US and return to a country they have possibly
| never known. This is barbaric and inhumane;
|
| I disagree with you, it put the young adult (it's 21 and not a
| 18 I think) in a complicated situation. However H1-B was never
| voted to be a path towards permanent residency but as a three-
| years work visa, the parents should take this into account from
| the beginning
| cletus wrote:
| Two counterpoints:
|
| First, the H1B visa in particular is classified by law and by
| USCIS as an _immigrant intent_ visa. That is to say that it
| 's not incompatible with having intention to immigrate to the
| United States. Put another way: this specific case was
| thought about and included in the visa system so you can't
| argue it wasn't the intent. It explicitly was.
|
| Second, there's no reason why someone should be in work visa
| limbo for 20 years. That's by choice (of the US government).
| Having made that choice, you're somewhat responsible for the
| consequences. That includes not deporting people to a country
| they may have no memory of and may not even speak the
| language.
|
| This same issue is relevant to DACA recipients (aka
| "Dreamers") who are typically children who through no choice
| of their own were brought to the United States as young
| children and know nowhere else as their home. It is cruel and
| unreasonable to deport such people to countries they have
| never known.
| paxys wrote:
| Re: 4 - the problem with compensation-based H-1B prioritization
| is that the skills gap in the country doesn't correlate very
| well with salaries. A hospital in rural Kentucky that needs
| immigrant doctors and nurses to serve a critical need to the
| community isn't going to be able to compete with a Silicon
| Valley startup that is burning through VC dollars and offering
| new grads mid-six figure salaries.
| mdorazio wrote:
| I personally don't see this as a problem. If you cannot
| afford to pay for the workers you need then something is
| wrong with your business model and you need to fix it or the
| community (read:voters) need to deal with not having your
| service. In the case of a rural hospital it's a combination
| of several things within the US healthcare system being
| completely messed up, but shoving H-1B workers in to plaster
| over the problems is not the solution we need.
| syshum wrote:
| The hospital in rural Kentucky needs a physical person in KY
|
| Silicon Valley does not, I am not sure why SV would not just
| hire the programmer in India, instead of bringing them to
| Silicon Valley, infact I am pretty sure we are going to see
| that more and more in the next few years
| cletus wrote:
| This is a solvable problem. There are already categories for
| different occupations. You could put nurses (for example) in
| their own category with their own quota.
|
| Rand Paul, of all people, actually had a pretty reasonable
| alternative to the 2019 bill [1] that took a different
| approach: nurses were simply excluded from the annual quota.
|
| [1]: https://www.cato.org/blog/sen-pauls-believe-act-raises-
| skill...
| paxys wrote:
| That is a band-aid fix, not a solution. Sure Congress can
| pass a bill to exclude nurses from the quota. Then do they
| pass another bill when the shortage is over, to prevent
| abuse? What if the year after there is a shortage of
| welders? Should companies rely on Congressional action
| every few months and for every profession?
| cletus wrote:
| That's not necessarily true. In determining priority
| categories, Congress is free to delegate that power to
| USCIS, the Secretary of Labor or another official or
| agency.
|
| It's worth nothing that all H1Bs are technically priority
| occupations. Part of the process is to receive a labor
| certification that demonstrates you, as an employer, were
| unable to fill the position with a US citizen or
| permanent resident.
|
| That itself is a whole can of worms because the system is
| heavily gamed to ensure that many such positions remain
| technically unfulfillable locally. For example,
| advertising such jobs where people are unlikely to find
| them and apply for them (eg in newspapers).
|
| Now for big tech jobs, that need is genuine. For the body
| shops, it isn't. Despite attempts in the system to ensure
| such jobs are paid a fair market wage, they are not. The
| only people who take them are those Indian nationals who
| are so desperate to emigrate to the United States that
| they are willing to endure pseudo-indentured servitude
| for possibly decades if they and their family can have a
| better life.
|
| That's a noble goal to be sure but we shouldn't enable
| employers to take advantage of them so. Even worse, in
| doing so, they're costing genuinely good jobs in big tech
| because of the lottery system.
| OldHand2018 wrote:
| You're right, and since the H1-B has effectively been
| "captured" by west coast tech companies, there are only a
| small handful of Senators that care to really fix it.
|
| Perhaps the best band-aid fix is to add H1-B quotas by
| state, because then you might end up getting enough
| support throughout the nation for an actual solution. The
| military industrial complex has a lesson for us to learn?
| tfehring wrote:
| If there are more prospective immigrants each year who are
| qualified for US jobs paying (say) $250k+ than the total
| number of available slots, that's a pretty clear and
| unambiguous signal that the cap should be raised. Really I
| don't see a reason to have any cap whatsoever on immigrants
| with that level of earning potential as long as appropriate
| anti-abuse measures are put in place.
| VictorPath wrote:
| > This can mean that children who turn 18 may need to leave the
| US and return to a country they have possibly never known. This
| is barbaric and inhumane
|
| Alternatively, if you apply to a temporary job where you swear
| for the visa that it is temporary work and not a job, and it
| only lasts for 3 years which you keep renewing, maybe they made
| a mistake in doing this - spending 18 years renewing a 3 year
| visa 6 times. They're free to return home at any time, they
| abused this visa system and are now expecting to be rewarded
| for it.
| toast0 wrote:
| > They're free to return home at any time, they abused this
| visa system and are now expecting to be rewarded for it.
|
| The system allows them to apply for permanent residency while
| on H1B and stay indefinitely while the application is
| pending. How is doing what the system specifically allows
| abusing the system? If this was actually intended as a 3-6
| year visa program, you wouldn't be allowed to apply for
| permanent residency and stay indefinitely.
|
| That the backlog is so long that it's essentially impossible
| to know if you'll be able to get permanent residency for you
| and your children before they become old enough that they can
| no longer stay because of your status is kind of crazy. It
| depends on how many people die or otherwise abandon their
| applications before you (if there's a deep enough recession
| and you can keep your job, you might shave a lot of years off
| the wait). It doesn't make a lot of sense to me that if your
| parents applied for permanent residency when you were 5 and
| it took 15 years, you'll have status, but if it takes 16
| years (i think the actual relevant age is 21, but adjust in
| case it's 18), you won't. There really should be some
| transfer of status to these children, at least if they've
| been in the process for at least 5 years.
|
| One set of my grand parents immigrated here in the mid 1900s,
| but it was easier then, you showed up at Ellis/Angel Island
| and weren't in an excluded group and that was it. There
| wasn't a decade+ long wait if you happen to come from a
| country with lots of people who want to be here. For many of
| the family residencies, if you were born in Mexico, current
| priority dates are from the 1990s. I can't imagine asking a
| sibling to move to be closer to me and them saying OK, I'll
| move in 25 years or so.
| dan-robertson wrote:
| If the H1-B is not meant to be a path to citizenship, why are
| people on H1-Bs allowed to apply for green cards? Other
| 'temporary' work visas do not allow for this
| Cederfjard wrote:
| What's your take on the dual intent concept? What does it
| mean and why was it introduced?
| Factorium wrote:
| H1B visas should also have a per-country cap. Having a within-
| country male gender cap would also be useful, to encouraging
| overall equality and diversity in the immigration intake.
| curun1r wrote:
| As far as 4 goes, ratios are a better solution to the body shop
| problem. There's no need to even limit the number of work visas
| granted so long as the companies that are able to hire
| foreigners also hire the requisite number of Americans in
| similar positions.
|
| There are a number of other advantages to this too. For one, it
| helps immigrants integrate better the more Americans they end
| up working with. The current system can result in silos where
| immigrants mostly work with other immigrants. And it helps
| Americans to work alongside skilled workers by giving them
| increased learning opportunities. It also works better for
| lower-paid skilled positions like nurses and scientists who
| don't have to compete with higher-paid tech workers for visas.
|
| I'm okay with giving an unlimited number of visas (background
| checks required) to any company that employs at least 70%
| Americans in each salary band. At worst, it creates an
| incentive to hire unqualified Americans just to get access to
| foreign talent, which is still a win for this country.
| q-big wrote:
| > This can mean that children who turn 18 may need to leave the
| US and return to a country they have possibly never known. This
| is barbaric and inhumane;
|
| I would rather suggest to change
|
| > 3. H1B visas are for 3 years and can be renewed once, for a
| total of 6 years. [...] But if you have a pending green card
| application you can stay indefinitely;
|
| to "You didn't get a green card in this timeframe? Bad luck -
| go home." This would solve the mentioned problem with children
| and also the mentioned problem
|
| > 5. [...] it is a modern form of indentured servitude. The
| employee can't leave nor complain about conditions because then
| they lose their application and have to return home;
| Cederfjard wrote:
| > You didn't get a green card in this timeframe? Bad luck -
| go home."
|
| Please excuse an uninformed question, but does anyone get a
| green card within that timeframe?
| thaumasiotes wrote:
| Yes, it's not hard to do. Marry an American and it will
| take much less than 9 years to get a green card, if you
| want one.
| ergocoder wrote:
| This may not be a popular opinion.
|
| I'm not sure why US is so against getting more of the best and
| the brightest, meanwhile we are pushing to get more refugees
| instead.
|
| H1B/greencard often acquires the very best mind of foreign
| countries. More is good.
|
| At the current state, we try hard to get less the best and the
| brightest and more refugees.
|
| I understand there's a humanity reason for the refugees. But why
| can't we do both?
| bfjyo68b wrote:
| > At the current state, we try hard to get less the best and
| the brightest and more refugees.
|
| You are biased because you are Indian. It's apparent in the way
| you type.
| ergocoder wrote:
| I'm from south east asia. So, nah.
| axiolite wrote:
| > I'm not sure why US is so against getting more of the best
| and the brightest
|
| Because it's being used to drive wages down and American
| workers are getting fired from their jobs.
|
| > H1B/greencard often acquires the very best mind of foreign
| countries.
|
| Fine, change the H1-B rules so emigrants get full resident
| status immediately, and can work for any company without any
| setbacks to their status. Right now H1-B visas are modern
| indentured servitude, and makes non-residents far more
| appealing to companies.
|
| It's also responsible for the lack of job training by
| companies. Why have an employee learn new skills on your dime
| when you can find a foreigner who got experience at some other
| company, or perhaps just with the good sense to exaggerate
| their resumes...
| mpweiher wrote:
| > Because it's being used to drive wages down
|
| Silicon Valley salaries are being driven down to half a
| million dollars a year by H1Bs.
|
| Riiiight.
| paulgb wrote:
| > Because it's being used to drive wages down and American
| workers are getting fired from their jobs.
|
| America controls something like 80% of the world software
| market (depending how you measure it) with ~5% of the
| population. I'm very skeptical that this would remain true if
| domestic companies were restricted from hiring the top talent
| in the world.
|
| There are arguments for and against immigration (full
| disclosure, I'm an immigrant), but the "steal our jobs"
| rhetoric is based on the false counterfactual that you could
| get rid of immigrants but keep their jobs.
| axiolite wrote:
| > the "steal our jobs" rhetoric is based on the false
| counterfactual
|
| I didn't say "steal", but it's absolutely happening all the
| time:
|
| "Information technology workers at Southern California
| Edison (SCE) are being laid off and replaced by workers
| from India. Some employees are training their H-1B visa
| holding replacements, and many have already lost their
| jobs."
|
| https://www.computerworld.com/article/2879083/southern-
| calif...
| belltaco wrote:
| Cost cutting is good when it happens in other industries
| and helps software engineers by driving down costs, like
| tech hardware. But once it comes to their own, suddenly
| 100 to 400K salaries are not enough.
|
| >The unemployment rate for tech occupations dropped to
| 1.5% in July, according to the "Employment Situation"
| report released today by the U.S. Bureau of Labor
| Statistics (BLS) reveals. (#JobsReport). That's the
| lowest level since August 2019 and is close to the
| historic low of 1.3%. Aug 6, 2021
| paulgb wrote:
| Sure, but my point is that cases like this are possible
| for the same reason that the US is able to own 80% of the
| software market. You can't expect to have one without the
| other.
| VictorPath wrote:
| > hiring the top talent in the world
|
| This is the wording of H1b visas as well - hiring for
| talent with special skills that can't be found by workers
| in the US.
|
| Studies by Norm Matloff detail, and anyone with experience
| with Cognizant coders know that these are not visas which
| are only going to "top talent". It is going to imported
| coolies in order to undermine wages, and have a captive
| workforce tied to the company, effectively unable to leave.
| reissbaker wrote:
| I think H1Bs and green cards are two separate issues.
|
| It's incredibly dumb how many smart people the US turns away
| -- especially those who have gone to US schools (which are
| partially federally funded).
|
| H1B visas are toxic, because it's easy for companies to abuse
| H1B workers since their visa is tied to their employment with
| that company. But green cards -- we should be handing those
| out to educated foreign nationals like candy.
| UncleMeat wrote:
| > Because it's being used to drive wages down and American
| workers are getting fired from their jobs.
|
| Knowledge workers create jobs. Software begets more software.
|
| > Fine, change the H1-B rules so emigrants get full resident
| status immediately, and can work for any company without any
| setbacks to their status. Right now H1-B visas are modern
| indentured servitude, and makes non-residents far more
| appealing to companies.
|
| A lot of people desperately want this, but it is tricky to
| make improvements since any federal discussion of immigration
| immediately widens to include all forms of immigration.
| civilized wrote:
| Canada and Australia have point-based systems that roll out
| the welcome mat for skilled workers. Unlike the H-1B, these
| systems are not set up as indentured servitude for wealthy
| tech companies.
|
| Too bad the US can't have the same... because of corporate
| lobbyists as well as anti-meritocracy factions on both
| right and left, who serve as patsies to the rich by
| protesting any change to the current system.
| paxys wrote:
| > Because it's being used to drive wages down and American
| workers are getting fired from their jobs.
|
| That is a myth. Every single study done in this area shows
| very clearly that skilled immigration helps the economy and
| creates jobs/increases wages. It's weird that tech employees
| who make six figure salaries the day they graduate are the
| ones blaming H-1B visas. Chances are you wouldn't have a job
| (or at least a much more shitty job) if these immigrants
| weren't here building the entire US tech industry for the
| last 40 years.
| axiolite wrote:
| You should really read past the first sentence before
| replying. I have no problem with immigration, only the H1-B
| system.
| ergocoder wrote:
| > Because it's being used to drive wages down and American
| workers are getting fired from their jobs.
|
| Following the same logic, my manager up to Sundar Pichai is
| driving down my wage and stripping me of opportunity.
|
| If they didn't exist, I would have been a Google CEO and
| earned $200M a year?
|
| That's absurd
| axiolite wrote:
| > That's absurd
|
| Uhh, yes... What you said is certainly absurd. It has no
| relation to my comment, however.
|
| H1-B visas are being used very directly to drive down
| wages. US workers are fired from their jobs, replaced by
| H1-B visa "contractors" and left to go find other jobs, or
| sometimes offered the option to apply for their old jobs,
| at reduced wages.
|
| One of the stated requirements for H1-B visas is that they
| will not replace a US worker, but that is being quite
| flagrantly violated. The program is constantly abused and
| needs to be completely ended and replaced.
| belltaco wrote:
| Yea the 20% unemployment rate in tech and 30K/yr tech
| salaries prove your point. /s
| effingwewt wrote:
| Both your statement and parent's are both true.
|
| H-1s are being used to drive down tech wages, and are
| also used as a way to create indentured servitude in that
| the worker leaves or is fired they lose their visa.
|
| At the same time tech is and has been vastly overpaid,
| WFH is bringing wages down too.
|
| The overpaid tech argument was always 'well you need
| engineers and you' _need_ to be in SV so you need to pay
| whatever FAANGs are. But that bubble is bursting before
| our eyes, and just like last pop, they simply can 't
| believe it until the end.
| ericd wrote:
| Oh? Is there a salary bubble pop in progress that I've
| been missing? Or at I misunderstanding your statement?
| joe_the_user wrote:
| H1b pulls in lots of people. The majority get "chewed up
| and spat out" and go back to their home country. A minority
| indeed can make it, going to consultant/entrepreneur etc.
|
| There's no reason for a high tech American worker to view
| this situation as remotely in their particular interests.
| No only does it lower but it allows companies to maintain
| their grueling coding schedule, a system that burns out a
| whole lot of people.
| addicted wrote:
| The math simply does not add up.
|
| There are approximately 4million software developer jobs
| in the US.
|
| There are only 65k H-1B visas given out every year. And
| not all of them even go to software engineers (doctors,
| finance professionals, etc. all enter through the H-1B
| route).
|
| And the H-1B visa lasts a maximum of 6 years.
|
| Let's be generous and assume all 65k visas are going to
| software professionals. That means at any point of time,
| you only have 390k H-1B visa holders (this is not
| correct, but I will get to that a little later). So your
| claim is that 390k visa holders are driving down the
| wages for the 4 million software professionals?
|
| More damning is the fact that we are talking about an
| industry where people can and did work remote and
| offshore, and there are over 20million software
| professionals in the world. A software engineer working
| in Kiev is far more likely to have an impact on US
| software engineer wages than the 10% who may be on an
| H-1B in the US. Furthermore, the US software engineer's
| wage is kept higher by the fact that the same engineer is
| working for Microsoft for 125k minimum in Seattle, than
| they are working for Microsoft for closer to 50-60k in
| Microsoft's massive Hyderabad campus.
|
| I did mention the exceptions.
|
| 1) Visa abuse. The late 2000s and early 2010s saw a lot
| of visa abuse. However, by the mid 2010s both the Obama
| and Trump administrations cracked down on this, and it's
| fairly trivial at this point.
|
| 2) EB1 visa holders. Due to the fact that the US
| immigration system was last updated in 1990, you have a
| situation where Chinese and Indians are singled out when
| they have an approved green card petition and forced to
| wait years and decades. As a hack, on the backs of the
| approved green card, which the US is unable to actually
| give them, they are given a much worse offering of an
| H-1B which has inflated H-1B numbers. But these are not a
| reflection of the H-1B visa, and more a reflection of the
| failure of Congress to fix the green card process. This
| does inflate H-1B numbers quite a bit, but the article is
| talking about how the administration is missing an
| opportunity to greatly resolve precisely this issue.
|
| The 100k green cards that the administration is wasting
| instead of giving to already approved green card
| applicants, would almost certainly reduce the number of
| H-1B holders by an almost 1:1 relationship almost
| immediately.
| joe_the_user wrote:
| Your statement above is either confused or intentionally
| deceptive [this post edited as I tried to parse your
| claim]:
|
| "US has just over 580,000 H-1B visa holders, says USCIS"
| [1]
|
| The figure you quote, 65K, is, (as you do say) the number
| of H-1bs issued _per year_. But that 's not comparable to
| 4+ million statically existing software jobs and
| contrasting the two figures gives the wrong impression -
| the impression that H-1bs don't impact software job
| market where clearly they do.
|
| -- Could 500K influence a job market of 4 million?
| Obviously, notably when they are concentrated in certain
| area but just generally, you don't need another 4 million
| to change a supply and demand equation.
|
| Given this, I'd say the rest of your argument falls
| apart.
|
| I'd note that I'm not "anti-H1b", I'm anti the entire
| sweat shop system I describe above. I'd agree with other
| posters who suggest H1b holders should be able to choose
| the employer as soon as they enter the country.
|
| [1] https://economictimes.indiatimes.com/nri/visa-and-
| immigratio...
| ashtonkem wrote:
| * immigrants.
|
| You emigrate from a country and immigrate to another. When
| speaking of people becoming new residents somewhere they are
| immigrants who have immigrated.
| farmerstan wrote:
| My friend who is on H1B is being paid almost $1M/yr TC at
| FAANG. H1B is not driving the price of wages down.
| effingwewt wrote:
| That's simply one case where it worked out, out of the how
| many that are issued?
|
| I'd argue only ever hearing about one who made it, as
| opposed to personally knowing several for whom it did not,
| further drives the point that it's a broken system.
|
| Put simply - anything a business wants is to increase
| profit and power, never not once have they made a decision
| to help their employees.
| ergocoder wrote:
| I don't think that is odd. In business we aim for all
| sides to win.
|
| Business get more profit and power. Employee also get
| more money and quality of life.
| novok wrote:
| I think L-1 visas are more employer bound. Changing jobs on
| an H1-B is possible, it's just more paperwork and annoyance.
| In tech although, most employers are willing to go through
| that paperwork, so for certain industries that isn't really a
| barrier in practice as you sit and wait for some lawyers to
| do some paperwork for you. Getting rid of leetcode would
| probably do more for people's job liquidity.
| axiolite wrote:
| > Changing jobs on an H1-B is possible
|
| It's possible _now_ (it previously was not), but it resets
| the H1-B worker 's immigration process back to the start as
| well, leaving them in limbo for years longer. And they are
| taking a risk that the new job might not work out and if
| they don't find another quickly, they'll be expelled from
| the country.
| [deleted]
| novok wrote:
| No it doesn't, once you have a priority number it adds
| you 'to the line' and might set you back about a year-ish
| if you change jobs once its your turn to get a green
| card. It's the priority number waiting period that makes
| it suck a lot, not the 1.5yrs it take to get a green card
| from H1B if you don't have any priority number queue
| waiting.
|
| You just need to get that priority number ASAP from the
| first job, which might take a year or less, and then wait
| X number of years for it to be 'your turn' and then stay
| at last the job where you'd actually get your green card
| for a year or two, which is already pretty typical job
| behavior already. Most people stay at a job for a year
| minimum, and once you get promoted up the ranks, they
| stay at places multiple years.
|
| In those X in-between waiting years you can change jobs
| without it materially effecting your immigration timeline
| in any serious way. Even then, if you get a good
| opportunity you can change jobs in exchange for waiting a
| year or two longer for your green card, which is a choice
| you can make.
|
| It's far from 'indentured servitude', just some annoying
| paperwork barriers that makes it more expensive for firms
| to hire you, because it costs money and time to hire an
| H1B than a person with a green card or citizenship
| already. And yes, you cannot go work with risky
| employers, which limits you to big tech and startups at
| the series B+ stage of funding. There are even cases of
| successful people who have founded startups with H1-Bs or
| some other immigration visa with a lot of hassle. Which
| in the scheme of things as history has shown, has ended
| up not to be that bad :D
| syshum wrote:
| H1B visa is an abusive system that lowers the wages for high
| skilled positions, while allowing employers to hold an
| employee's immigration status over their head as an extortion
| tactic to abuse said employee.
|
| Many people myself included fully support increased immigration
| but oppose the H1B visa program unless serious reforms are made
| to it.
| Rapzid wrote:
| > lowers the wages for high skilled positions
|
| This could be viewed in a lot of ways. In theory a severe
| labor shortage in an industry could cause a massive increase
| in wages. However that may not be sustainable long term and
| could lead to industry collapse if it can't compete with
| other countries who are not experiencing such severe
| shortage, or if the market demand drops significantly due to
| increased prices.
| newhotelowner wrote:
| > I'm not sure why US is so against getting more of the best
| and the brightest, meanwhile we are pushing to get more
| refugees instead.
|
| You have to balance & diversify. Who is going to open
| restaurants? Who is going to build houses? There is more than
| science & engineering.
| habeebtc wrote:
| Exactly. Immigration grows the economy. Period.
|
| The economy is made up of people. People make up the labor
| supply curve,and people make up the product and services
| demand curve.
| Rapzid wrote:
| Yeah, there seems to be tons of data showing this. Even
| that illegal immigration is a net positive to the economy.
|
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Economic_impact_of_illegal_im
| m...
| akomtu wrote:
| Humanity reasons? The US is getting old and it brings two
| problems: old people need tons of cheap service workers who
| would work for food; and old people tend to be very
| conservative and vote red. Importing hoards of refugees solves
| both problems. This is also why we see this counterintuitive
| drive to fast track those refugees to green card status and to
| give them voting rights.
| ergocoder wrote:
| > old people need tons of cheap service workers who would
| work for food
|
| I don't think this is the reason why we accept refugee... to
| be low-skilled low-paying workers.
|
| We accept them because they cannot live in their home
| countries due to political reasons (and etc.), so we extend
| help for humanity reason.
| akomtu wrote:
| Then we should extend help to the entire Mexico. If Mexico
| is good enough place to live, then migrants should stay
| there. If it's not good enough, because "political
| reasons", then we should extend our "humanity reasons" to
| the entire Mexico.
| ergocoder wrote:
| Not that I'm in support of this.
|
| But I believe that is what a lot of people on Dems' side
| support: open borders and accept anyone from mexico.
| temp8964 wrote:
| The reason it won't work is exactly because you want "both".
|
| Everybody with a reasonable mind knows many southern border
| crossers are not refugees but illegal economic immigrants. And
| we don't have a national policy to import unlimited low skill
| workers.
|
| Right now the situation is as simple as this: legal immigrants
| are held hostage for illegal immigrants.
| ardit33 wrote:
| I am an H1B to GC, and the above comment is correct! I am not
| sure why it is being downvoted. H. Clinton (when she was at
| state departmet) and Obama had a chance to make a sweeping
| change to the H1B program, and make it easier for smart
| people to immigrate and get their GC. Many Republicans were
| on board on this.
|
| The democratic party denied this, they wanted a more
| 'comprehensive' reform, and tied H1B with the 'low skilled'
| and illegal immigrant reform as well. The republicans were
| not on board with that, even though they were willing to
| reform the H1B.
|
| They basically held the H1B suferes/intenured servants,
| hostage to advance their agenda. (they thought they will be
| winning the 2016 election). That didn't happen, and Trump got
| elected, and the rest is story.
|
| The tech lobby should be really nervous about what Hillary
| Clinton just said
| https://www.vox.com/2016/7/11/12106796/clinton-
| immigration-v...
| epistasis wrote:
| > Everybody with a reasonable mind knows many southern border
| crossers are not refugees but illegal economic immigrants.
|
| This is an extremely political opinion, not a "reasonable"
| one.
| chitowneats wrote:
| Asylum law is very clear about who qualifies and who does
| not. It narrowly allows people suffering from persecution
| in their home country, on account of their race, religion,
| nationality, membership in a certain social group, or
| political opinion.[1]
|
| It does not apply to anyone and everyone seeking work, or
| those who want to live in a more wealthy nation.
|
| [1] https://www.uscis.gov/humanitarian/refugees-and-
| asylum/asylu...
| temp8964 wrote:
| There is nothing political about it. Either they are or
| they are not. Either I am wrong or I am correct. Asylum
| seeker != refugee.
| crisdux wrote:
| It is reasonable. Refugee means people fleeing conflict and
| persecution - not economic hardship. Our elite circles have
| very recently redefined refugee in quite a revolutionary
| way.
| collaborative wrote:
| Aren't people fleeing drug gang death threats fleeing
| persecution?
| rayiner wrote:
| No they're not. They're fleeing shitty conditions created
| by the society they come from.
| ng12 wrote:
| No. According to US law you must be persecuted based on
| your belonging to a protected category to qualify for
| asylum.
| Factorium wrote:
| The major issue with the USA right now is insufficient housing.
| Adding more people will only make this worse.
| 29athrowaway wrote:
| The requirement for H-1Bs are: 1) bachelor's degree or
| equivalent from any institution on the planet, 2) an employment
| offer.
|
| While there are many brilliant people working on H-1B visas,
| H-1Bs are people with bachelor's degrees, not necessarily "the
| best minds".
|
| The advantages provided by the H-1B system are:
|
| - As a country, get the benefits of educated people without the
| economic cost of having to raise and educate them.
|
| - As a company, more leverage over employees, and in many
| cases, you get employees with lower compensation expectations.
|
| - The visa last 3 years and it can be renewed once, giving you
| 6 years before a green card is required. In this way, you get
| the most productive years of an educated adult.
|
| The disadvantages are:
|
| - Wage depression.
|
| - More competition for local workers.
|
| - The process of degree certification is done by attorneys not
| educational institutions. Most 4-year programs are eligible for
| H-1B, but not all foreign 4-year programs are equivalent to an
| American Bachelor's degree.
| Rapzid wrote:
| That's not the full list of requirements for the H-1B; not
| for the applicant nor for the employer.
| 29athrowaway wrote:
| Sure. The employer has to advertise the position openly and
| give time for domestic employees to apply. Offers,
| including salaries, have to be published. There's a lot of
| paperwork included, LCAs, etc... The quota system.
|
| I oversimplified it too much, but effectively for an
| employee the most important requirement is a bachelor's
| degree or equivalent.
| ergocoder wrote:
| The disadvantages are meh.
|
| This is like saying "if tim cook and anybody who is smarter
| than me doesn't exist, I will be apple ceo and earn 200m a
| year.".
|
| If these smart people didn't work for apple, apple wouldn't
| exist in the first place.
|
| I can assure you h1b wage depression is minimal.
|
| We of course should get rid of h1b abuse. There is always an
| improvement.
|
| But we should not get fewer h1b people...
| mxd3 wrote:
| I suggest you look into the companies that are actually
| hiring and getting the bulk of the H1B visas. Because it
| may surprise you, it's not top tier tech engineers at
| Facebook, Apple, etc. It's companies like InfoSys and
| Cognizant. [1]
|
| The business model of these companies is to provide workers
| at a cost below what it costs in the US. This business
| model is a big reason why they are so successful. At scale
| these companies drive cost, and wages down. US workers then
| need to accept lower paying jobs. The worst thing about it
| is the wage depression here is most felt by the low-tier
| tech workers, not the well paid SV engineers.
|
| And they don't always follow the rules either. Infosys and
| Cognizant have been caught up in legal trouble for visa
| fraud. [2]
|
| [1] https://www.uscis.gov/tools/reports-and-
| studies/h-1b-employe... [2]
| https://www.documentcloud.org/documents/1347409-usa-v-
| infosy...
| gremloni wrote:
| You have to go through and pass an employment interview for a
| job 3x the average American wage at the minimum. That's a
| hefty requirement already and probably better than any
| standardized test for gauging ability.
| stevenwoo wrote:
| IIRC the H1 permitted under the proviso of "Aliens of
| Distinguished Merit and Ability" was changed to H1B in the 1990
| Immigration and Nationality Act to jobs falling under the name
| "Specialty Occupations" and "Fashion Models", so it was changed
| _from_ getting the best and the brightest to something else. It
| _could_ be used for getting the best and brightest, but that is
| not the only purpose.
| sys_64738 wrote:
| With remote work are we really in need of GCs anymore?
| pope_meat wrote:
| Who do you owe taxes too out of your paycheck?
| sys_64738 wrote:
| Wherever you are domiciled.
| User23 wrote:
| Incorrect if you are a US citizen. By default, on global
| income, a US citizen owes both US taxes and whatever taxes
| the country of residence charges. Thankfully many countries
| have tax treaties with the USA that avoid at least some of
| this double taxation.
| theflyinghorse wrote:
| I would imagine American companies can easily outpay anyone on
| the global market of remote workers. No GC really just sounds
| like a problem for the non-american companies who are now
| competing for their local talent with tech giants.
| paxys wrote:
| The entire situation is a shitshow. I know multiple families who
| immigrated to the US on H-1B for tech jobs 20 years ago but are
| still waiting for residency. Green cards are legally available
| but USCIS just won't process their applications, citing lack of
| resources. Now as their kids - who were as young as one year old
| when they came here - turn 21 they are being deported to their
| "home country", that they have zero connection with.
|
| There is no DACA/DREAM equivalent for these people even though
| they did everything 100% legally and have greatly contributed to
| the US economy. There are estimated to be >960,000 people
| currently stuck in this limbo, mostly Asian and mostly in tech
| (https://www.fwd.us/news/per-country-cap-reform-priority-
| bill...).
| Consultant32452 wrote:
| We are in a 4th and 5th generation hot war with China. They are
| killing tens of thousands of our citizens by not stopping the
| illegal fentanyl trade even after we pointed them to the guy
| running it.
|
| The government has had a few high profile arrests of academics
| not claiming their Chinese income which they are required to do
| for national security reasons.
|
| There will be more squeezes on Asian people in the coming years
| and no one will really say why directly.
|
| This is not an endorsement of any particular policy, but an
| explanation.
| pbaka wrote:
| Yeah, if only somebody arrested the Purdue pharma owners...
|
| Oh wait, not those culprits, scratch that, those people with
| a DOJ deal... You mean the other ones from the other side of
| the Pacific... gotcha...
| andi999 wrote:
| Here you could sue them to process the application; is this not
| viable in the US?
| sharmajai wrote:
| That's being tried [1]. Although, it's not going well [2].
|
| [1] https://www.visalaw.com/onboarding-mass-litigation-
| clients/
|
| [2]
| https://twitter.com/LilySAxelrod/status/1437846756394520582
| ashtonkem wrote:
| Generally no. The US has relatively tight rules on when and
| why you can sue them.
| throwdecro wrote:
| Yeah, it's really unconscientious to have a system where the
| stakes are so high behave so unpredictably. People make
| important decisions based on how things are supposed to work.
| Whatever the "correct" parameters for immigration are, the
| system really should behave predictably.
| [deleted]
| rayiner wrote:
| This is a terrible situation. As the kid of an H1-B I can't
| imagine being in that predicament.
|
| At the same time, this is what happens when the basis of your
| immigration system is "legislation by hostage taking." Ever
| wonder why the H1B says "temporary" status on paper, and you
| have to pretend like you plan to go back home at some point?
| ("Dual intent?") That's because it's because it was never
| designed to be a permanent immigration system. No permanent
| immigration system designed for that purpose would let you
| build your life in the country first and then decide only a
| decade later whether you'll be allowed to stay. It's absurd.
|
| Since the 1960s the executive branch has been doing with
| fragile regulation or executive action things that it can't
| achieve consensus to do through Congress. The 1990s reforms
| that created the H1B did nothing more than paper over the most
| egregious shortcomings of using a temporary worker visa as the
| main vehicle for permanent immigration. DACA is a prime example
| of what happens when your political system is so broken that
| you have to use executive action because you can't get
| concensus in Congress. And it shows how fragile that can be.
|
| Folks considering immigrating to America should understand: H1B
| is not meant for permanent immigration. Proceed at your own
| risk. Maybe try the more sensible immigration regimes in
| Australia or Canada.
| laurencerowe wrote:
| > Ever wonder why the H1B says "temporary" status on paper,
| and you have to pretend like you plan to go back home at some
| point? ("Dual intent?")
|
| As I understand it the "dual intent" means you don't have to
| pretend you plan to go back home at some point. After I
| switched to an O-1 from an H-1B for a new job I was advised
| not to leave the country while my green card application was
| in progress because applying for a green card could
| potentially be grounds for denying entry at the border on a
| visa like the O-1 without the dual intent.
| nrmitchi wrote:
| > and you have to pretend like you plan to go back home at
| some point? ("Dual intent?")
|
| This is backwards. Dual intent means that you _do not_ have
| to "pretend"; having an immigrant-intent, expressed by
| things like applying for permanent residency (marrying a US
| citizen), does not invalidate an H1-B in the same way that it
| invalidates an O-1, TN, etc.
| [deleted]
| peterlk wrote:
| Anecdotally, many emigrants (a dozen or so) that I know are
| now choosing to go to Canada. The US has lost a significant
| amount of its shine over the last few years for them, and
| their skilled labor is going elsewhere.
| VictorPath wrote:
| > immigrated to the US on H-1B for tech jobs 20 years ago
|
| They didn't immigrate, they came on a 3-6 year work visa and
| chose to get 3 year extensions. I wouldn't choose to settle in
| a country if all I had was a 3 year work visa. They're not "in
| limbo", they're people working on 3 year work visas. If they're
| unhappy they're free to move back to Bangalore or wherever they
| came from.
|
| I have no problem with making life easier on them like allowing
| someone on a 3 year H1B visa switch companies without penalty,
| but you're trying to stretch a law allowing 3 years of work for
| workers we supposedly can not find in the US into a promise of
| a green card, and it is not. If what you're saying is the case,
| the H1B laws would have never passed. An inch was promised and
| you act as if it was a promise for a mile.
| m_ke wrote:
| How else do you expect people to immigrate here if not on a
| visa?
| VictorPath wrote:
| People don't immigrate on a visa. You immigrate when you
| have a green card or citizenship. Someone on a 6 month
| tourist visa or 3 year H1B employment visa hasn't
| immigrated, they are on a visa allowing them in the US for
| that time period.
| m_ke wrote:
| Here's the US immigration page:
| https://travel.state.gov/content/travel/en/us-
| visas/immigrat...
| paxys wrote:
| You didn't answer the question though. What is the
| "ideal" way to immigrate to the US according to you?
| [deleted]
| rayiner wrote:
| Aside from some unusual visa rules, the only permanent
| immigration route Congress has created is family
| reunification. Congress has never created a skilled worker
| system for people intended to immigrate permanently. H1B is
| a temporary worker visa that has been abused to serve that
| role, but that wasn't the intent:
| https://www.salisbury.edu/administration/academic-
| affairs/fa...
|
| > The H1B is a temporary visa. The alien must be coming to
| temporarily fill a position that may, or may not in itself
| be temporary. The employer must attest that the alien's
| services are needed temporarily. The letter of appointment
| and other documents must stipulate the temporary nature of
| the appointment.
| gumby wrote:
| Not technically true else that would be the only GC
| criterion.
|
| I'm just being a nit picker though: I concur: that was
| the overwhelming stated _intent_.
| belltaco wrote:
| If that was the intent of the law then why does the law allow
| people past the 6 year cap to keep renewing H1B forever if
| they're waiting for a green card?
| Jare wrote:
| That is one of the most uncharitable comments I've ever read
| on HN
| VictorPath wrote:
| It's great that the Fortune 500 companies who lobbied for
| these visas are doing so out of such charitable motives -
| tying tech coolies to companies on 3 year visas. The whole
| thing is charitable motives, not stockholder profit. I
| guess the secret wage collusion by Jobs, Schmidt and
| Silicon Valley companies was for charitable motives too.
|
| Every day on HN is a new front page story on Chinese yellow
| peril full of comments about how the west should go back to
| the old colonial motif of sending the navies into China.
| But you just saw the most uncharitable comment ever,
| congratulations.
| rayiner wrote:
| I don't read it as realistic. H1B is clearly spelled out in
| the law books as a "temporary worker visa," but people have
| treated it as a path to permanent residency. What was
| offered on paper was an inch, and the expectations were
| built into a mile. (And to be fair, that is the fault of
| everyone involved, from the government to employers, but
| also immigrants who didn't read the fine print.)
| 8note wrote:
| Ithe H1b is a dual intent visa mind you, vs something
| like the TN, which doesn't allow you to apply for a green
| card
| addicted wrote:
| The problem with your statement is that the people being
| discussed here are ones who have applied for a green card,
| and already been approved. Their application has been vetted,
| they've proven that they serve a need in the economy, and
| background checks have been completed. However, the number of
| annual green cards have been capped, so even though it's
| approved, it cannot be given to them yet.
|
| The fact that they are working on an H-1B visa is an
| embarrassing hack to make up for the fact that the US has
| made a promise to these families that they haven't been able
| to keep for decades.
| VictorPath wrote:
| > However, the number of annual green cards have been
| capped, so even though it's approved, it cannot be given to
| them yet.
|
| The wordplay and sophistry around this amazes me. They
| either have gotten a green card or they have not. A
| background check shows they are not a member of al-Qaeda,
| great. That is not a green card. No one has promised them
| they are going to get a green card.
|
| These are people here on a 3 year work visa promising the
| work is temporary and they have special skills no American
| worker can fill. They're here under false pretenses and are
| now claiming they have been promised green cards, when that
| never happened. If they'd been promised a green card they
| would have a green card.
|
| Also, as green cards are limited per country, and there are
| such a high number of green card applications from India, a
| green card application by an Indian is more of a lottery
| ticket than from most countries.
| mpweiher wrote:
| This is patently untrue.
|
| The H1B visa is _explictly_ and _intentionally_ a "dual
| intent" visa.
|
| https://www.h1bvisalawyerblog.com/dual_intent_what_does_i
| t_m...
| diebeforei485 wrote:
| Actually, the "background check shows they are not a
| terrorist" is the step that hasn't been done yet. That
| happens during the final step prior to receiving the
| green card.
| whoisburbansky wrote:
| The promised inch is effectively a mile for anyone born
| anywhere but "Bangalore" as you say, so why the griping?
| dudul wrote:
| Isn't an H1B only renewable once for a total of 6 years? Maybe
| it has changed but I think it was like that when I had one ~12
| years ago.
| paxys wrote:
| It can keep getting renewed indefinitely if a green card
| application has been filed and is in the backlog.
| dudul wrote:
| Got it - thanks for the clarification.
| pjscott wrote:
| People argue a lot about governments making decisions they
| disagree with, but something that I think is under-appreciated is
| the damage from _unpredictable_ decisions. If you know how the
| government is going to act on some issue, for better or for
| worse, then you can make plans around that. What do you do if
| their future actions are an ever-shifting mystery? A few examples
| come to mind:
|
| 1. The Keystone XL oil pipeline was proposed in 2008.
| Construction was blocked by the Obama administration, unblocked
| by the Trump administration, and then re-blocked by the Biden
| administration, at which point the company trying to construct it
| gave up. In total, this process took 13 years and huge amounts of
| money, and nothing came of it. If there had been clarity and
| consistency in the government's policy here, the thing would
| either have been approved or rejected much sooner -- and either
| would have been a big improvement on what _actually_ happened.
|
| 2. Covid-related rules have had much more harmful side-effects
| than they would have had if they were easier to predict. Rules
| surrounding masks, distancing, indoor and outdoor dining, and so
| on, all seemed to change a lot more frequently and arbitrarily
| than necessary in most places. To change the rules when the
| evidence and situation changes is one thing; changing them in
| seemingly random ways for dubious reasons is another. Even if the
| reasoning behind the decisions were consistent and well-thought-
| out, which is doubtful, there are advantages to having a
| predictable but sub-optimal policy rather than jerking everyone
| around in pursuit of perfection.
|
| 3. There are some federal student loan debt forgiveness proposals
| currently being considered in the US. I don't know how much, if
| any, will pass. If I were still in college, this would make me
| wonder: should I use money from a job to help pay my tuition, or
| just keep it? If I just take out more loans instead, and those
| loans get forgiven through a stroke of political luck a few years
| later, that's free money in my pocket -- but if that doesn't pan
| out, I'd end up paying a lot more interest. Whichever way
| Congress decides, I'd be better off knowing in advance -- but
| probably won't have that option, since the proposals seem to be
| (mostly?) retroactive in their design.
|
| 4. Finally, today's topic. If you apply for a green card, what
| are the odds that the paperwork just doesn't get processed? This
| is the kind of thing that would be really nice to know in
| advance, one way or the other.
|
| Without expressing an opinion on what the decisions _should_ be
| in any of these cases, I 'll say: there's no decision so bad that
| unpredictability can't make it worse.
| lgats wrote:
| over 250k in process... https://visa.ooo/form/I-918
| Cameri wrote:
| Apply to Canada!
| ergocoder wrote:
| Another unrelated note:
|
| I'd say it's infeasible to improve US education that can produce
| population as good as importing the best and brightest mind from
| foreign countries.
|
| Please note that I'm not against improving US education, but to
| think that we can improve it to the point that it can compete
| with importing the best mind from other countries is delusional.
|
| US has such a huge advantage on this part that an absurd green
| card system seems like a noise.
| adventured wrote:
| The US education system already produces people as good as the
| best minds from foreign countries. That has been the case for
| well over a century. It doesn't produce all the best minds, of
| course, no nation can do such a thing and that's why high-skill
| immigration is valuable whenever you can get it. The argument
| for the US taking in the best from around the world, is that
| more is better when it comes to that.
|
| The US is a massive, diverse place, filled with good and bad
| outcomes. Just as Europe or the EU are, just as Asia is. There
| is enormous poverty and tens of millions of poor education
| outcomes across Europe. There are literally over a billion very
| bad outcomes spread across Asia, Africa and Latin America in
| terms of poverty and education. Asia still has a billion people
| trapped in third world outcomes.
|
| The top quarter in the US will match up very well against the
| top quarter from most peer nations. There may be a few
| exceptions among tiny elite nations, like Switzerland, just due
| to the fact that 1/4 = 80+ million people in the US.
| ergocoder wrote:
| > The argument for the US taking in the best from around the
| world, is that more is better when it comes to that.
|
| Yes, that is better for US, no?
|
| This is also why US tech industry is absolutely eclipsing
| every other country's tech company combined.
|
| They have the best mind from all over the world working for
| them.
|
| My main point is that you cannot improve education that your
| average citizen is better than the best and brightest from
| other countries. It is infeasible.
|
| Now my main question for US is: why do we want to import
| fewer brightest mind from other countries?
| [deleted]
| User23 wrote:
| > I'd say it's infeasible to improve US education that can
| produce population as good as importing the best and brightest
| mind from foreign countries.
|
| While it certainly benefits you personally, can you see how
| offensive and frankly racist this is?
| ergocoder wrote:
| Why is it racist?
| User23 wrote:
| Because the majority of US citizens of school age are from
| historically disadvantaged minorities and you're saying
| they're just not good enough to compete with the East Asian
| global majority even with better education. In fact, you
| appear to be saying we shouldn't even bother to try and
| that people from wherever it is exactly you're from are
| innately superior. That's why it's racist and offensive.
| [deleted]
| ryan93 wrote:
| There are almost 8 billion people in the world and 320
| million in the US. Of course most talent is foreign. No
| one who wants green cards for engineers is arguing for a
| decrease in education funding
| lowkey_ wrote:
| This is a curiously US-centric view to take that
| simultaneously also doesn't acknowledge the U.S.' advantages
| and history.
|
| The U.S. population is under 5% of the world population --
| our competitive advantage has always been our ability to
| poach the best and brightest from across the world by
| rewarding them appropriately.
|
| It's very reasonable to say that our population alone can't
| compete with the best and brightest of every other country in
| the world, and that it's more important to continue being a
| place that attracts immigration.
| paxys wrote:
| It's really a numbers game. Just China and India combined have
| 2.8 _billion_ people, 10x more than USA. A lot of them are
| going to be geniuses.
|
| Since the 90s the USA has "won" by attracting the top talent of
| India, China and most of the rest of the world, resulting in a
| booming tech sector directly at the expense of those countries.
| Now in recent years immigration rules, politics and bureaucracy
| are making this less and less feasible, and you are already
| seeing the results. The next generation of teenagers worldwide
| are using TikTok, not Facebook or Instagram. Freshworks just
| had a $15B IPO and is shaking up the CRM market. There are
| countless other examples.
| sega_sai wrote:
| As an immigrant (first in the UK after than in the US, followed
| by return to the UK), I can say the annoying things about
| different systems are unpredictability and long delays. I agree
| that it is up to every country to set up the rules who gets to
| stay and under what conditions, but they need to be clear and
| predictable. I have found the UK system reasonable (although
| expensive) with a standard path of 5 years of working visa,
| followed by the indefinite leave to remain (green card) and then
| citizenship application (after another year). My impression of
| the US process was much worse with year long queues depending on
| nationality, quotas that are taken in first few days etc, and
| rules being changed on the hoof (in the last administration). I
| think that creates a really bad climate for people. And I do
| think the countries are responsible for making sure that migrants
| are treated fairly with clear well understood rules that are not
| changed unpredictably. For me this was one of the reason to go
| back to the UK as I didn't want to jump again through all the
| immigration hoops in the USA.
| tsumnia wrote:
| The issue is also bleeding into academia. International students
| have been struggling to get updated passports during the
| pandemic, which then blocks them from other things like driver's
| licenses.
| throwaway210222 wrote:
| If the tech firms are that desperate they can try dropping the
| must-be-US-timezone from their remote jobs descriptions.
|
| Or someone has to sit them down and explain what 'nightmare
| scenario' really means and when to use it.
| novok wrote:
| Rather open offices in canada and latin american and import
| workers there than deal with that timezone difference tbh. It's
| a super sucky work style and vast majority on both sides hates
| it.
| Grakel wrote:
| Maybe if the American education system wasn't horrible and
| getting worse, there would be a chance that the millions of
| unhappy American workers could get in on these job openings. Too
| many feelings and coddling, no rigor at all.
| echelon wrote:
| America has a small population relative to China, India, and
| the whole EU.
|
| America has giant tech and science industries and needs lots of
| workers to remain competitive.
|
| We're feeding these industries with lots of talent that is born
| here, but raising children has become increasingly complicated
| with the eroding middle class and desire to have fewer babies.
|
| Parents don't have support. It's not a fun or rewarding job,
| especially in a world where you can turn Netflix or TikTok on
| for a quick dopamine hit and plan on being childless.
|
| We can fill this need with immigration. We don't need less of
| it, we need more. These positions will be filled anyway, and if
| it happens abroad that will lower American competitiveness. Not
| bad for the world. Just stating this from America's
| perspective.
|
| But you also pointed to a problem that we should address
| domestically: making child rearing easier and desirable. We
| could provide assistance (time off, early childhood caregiving)
| and tax incentives.
|
| I also think a pragmatic, though inequitable, approach to
| developmental incentives would help. Tax breaks for parents or
| "fun money" for children who are involved in extracurriculars:
| STEM, music/arts, clubs, "leadership", etc.
|
| Kids would love to earn a salary to buy toys and games. Pay
| them a small stipend to follow an academic or artistic
| interest. Or be involved in a club of some kind. It doesn't
| have to be much of a monetary reward: $50/month or even less.
| It won't matter for rich kids, but will make a world of
| difference for the underprivileged.
| syshum wrote:
| >>We're feeding these industries with lots of talent that is
| born here
|
| Are we though? I am not seeing it. The education system, even
| universities are still often behind the times, and getting a
| CS degree or CIT degree is not going to help you much in a
| modern company (or even a legacy company)
|
| the skills gap for recent graduates is huge, though
| personally I am somewhat glad for this because we need to get
| away from the system of credentials, at least university
| credentials.
| Grakel wrote:
| I agree with a lot of your points, but I think a good
| education system would be able to train huge amounts of
| Americans to do whatever work was needed. Along with the
| parenting incentives you mention. We don't need more
| immigrants, we don't need a much larger population. There's a
| lot of room in this country, and that's a good thing. Some
| people want to densify everything.
| ryan93 wrote:
| You cant train huge amounts of people to do serious
| intellectual work you have to be born with that ability.
| Most people born that way arent american since most people
| arent american
| Grakel wrote:
| Yet in America there are vast numbers of smart people
| getting left behind educationally.
| neartheplain wrote:
| >but raising children has become increasingly complicated
| with the eroding middle class and desire to have fewer
| babies.
|
| False premise. Lots of Americans want to have kids, they just
| can't afford it [0]. This reality hits immigrant families
| too. Unless housing, childcare, healthcare, and higher
| education are once again made affordable to the middle class,
| mass immigation is and will remain an economic Ponzi scheme.
|
| https://www.nytimes.com/2018/07/05/upshot/americans-are-
| havi...
| stadium wrote:
| There are so many free or low cost resources to learn tech
| skills. Time is the only investment needed.
|
| I'd argue that some of the best software engineers slash
| developers I have worked with came from non-cs backgrounds like
| engineering or business. They learned on the job, after hours
| on their own time, or in a bootcamp program.
|
| And it's more pleasant to work with people that have a sense of
| humility and some empathy so I'm all for the feelings
| education.
|
| Here are a couple examples of free resources. Google "{my city
| or state} free coding bootcamp" and there are tons more.
|
| https://adadevelopersacademy.org/
|
| https://www.builtinchicago.org/2020/11/12/chicago-coding-tem...
| mkr-hn wrote:
| How do you identify which courses/bootcamps are worth the
| time and a good fit if you don't already have skills that
| obviate the need for the training? It's a catch-22. Sifting
| through reviews is a skillset on its own, so that's no help.
| The abundance of options only compounds the problem.
| stadium wrote:
| Just like anything else in life. Ask around, pick up the
| phone, send an email requesting more info, ask for
| references.
|
| And if you are in a position to share time or money, find
| and organization that provides these services and help them
| with outreach or mentorship. It's something within reach
| for a lot of folks already in tech.
|
| In minority communities with first generation immigrants
| they may not know that services like these exist. Try to
| spread the word within those communities too through local
| community groups.
| coffeefirst wrote:
| People say this a lot, but it isn't true. What Americans
| schools are is _inconsistent._ There 's ~14,000 different
| public school systems that vary wildly from place to place.
|
| Claims about American schools, good or bad, are almost always
| either about a specific place or kind of place.
| VictorPath wrote:
| There is too much coddling of children in kindergarten in
| American schools. They should be learning the basis of non-
| abelian groups and wave function collapse, not finger painting
| and talking about their feelings. Other states should be like
| Mississippi and bring back corporal punishment for naughty
| students.
| syshum wrote:
| Can we just agree that both extreme are bad.
|
| Hitting kids with rulers is bad
|
| Having Safe Spaces where people talk only about micro
| aggression, participation trophies, and how everything is a
| systemic *ist of some kind is also bad...
|
| We can have an education system free from both
| Grakel wrote:
| Completely agree. Let's just learn.
| stadium wrote:
| If I have to Google to understand what type of elementary
| school education you are selling, you are clearly not
| qualified to know what kindergartners should or shouldn't be
| learning about.
| seryoiupfurds wrote:
| Come to Canada, we'd love to have you here.
|
| https://www.canada.ca/en/services/immigration-citizenship.ht...
| anyfactor wrote:
| Tech firms have "adapted"(*) to capital gains taxes through using
| tax havens and they will surely adopt to declining green cards.
|
| As I am applying to US software consultancy firms as a remote dev
| I see more or less 80% of them will explicitly mention that they
| have an office in Eastern Europe or in India. I have heard
| stories of managers on H1b asked to open and manage offices back
| in their home countries.
|
| Industrial production has successfully left United States for bad
| policies and better opportunities. So will the tech scene.
| ashtonkem wrote:
| This is directly contrary to my experience. I see no evidence
| of a shift towards international talent, even with remote work,
| if anything I've seen the exact opposite.
|
| Oh, and it's "adapt" not "adopt".
| VictorPath wrote:
| Walking around Sunnyvale over 20 years ago, I expected
| Silicon Valley to diffuse, at least across the US. If
| anything, tech is more centralized in the Bay than ever. Tech
| isn't even diffuse across the US or California, never mind
| people who speak another language 10 time zones away.
| ashtonkem wrote:
| We'll see post-covid, the push towards remote among line
| level workers is very strong, but the most "diffuse"
| possibility I see is that each region ends up with its own
| tech hub. Denver, Austin, New York, etc. There is very
| little chance that these will ever fully replace SV though,
| but they let tech hire people who would refuse to move to
| SV.
|
| The time zone issue you mentioned is the real killer.
| Working across time zones is hard. It's easy to dismiss
| them until you've had to work with a Ukrainian team who is
| a solid 9 hours off phase with you.
| [deleted]
| [deleted]
| VictorPath wrote:
| > Industrial production has successfully left United States for
| bad policies
|
| Industrial production is a Chinese farmer screwing bolts on an
| assembly line for $3 an hour after the harvest is done.
| Software is (among other things) soliciting and reviewing
| specifications and then coding it up with dependency injection,
| unit/e2e/integration testing, interface contracts and so forth.
|
| An assembly line is the same thing over and over, software is
| different for each spec.
| dan-robertson wrote:
| I think this is just a stupid description of industrial
| production (as well as software development.) I think silly
| to assume that assembly-line workers in China are somehow
| more stupid than their counterparts in the U.S. (which I
| think is what you were hinting at by describing a Chinese
| farmer, though I'm also confused as to why you think farmers
| are particularly stupid too.) Indeed in the U.S. most more
| educated people have more opportunities whereas in China
| factory work can be a better choice leading to certain higher
| qualities of workers. Though obviously the average education
| standard in China is lower.
|
| Industrial production involves expensive inputs, energy, the
| procurement and maintenance of large, very expensive
| machines, and some skilled and unskilled labour. Many of
| those do better with scale and within the borders of a single
| country. Perhaps it was once true that the only advantage of
| Chinese manufacturing was cheaper labour, but I don't think
| that is true anymore. Why would so many hi-tech devices be
| manufactured in China? The margins are often large so they
| could be produced in richer countries, and labour is cheaper
| in other countries too so perhaps costs could be reduced
| elsewhere too. I think the answer lies in all the existing
| expertise in, and production of high tech goods and
| components in (certain parts of) China.
| baybal2 wrote:
| What about raising salaries, so more Americans will finally get
| interested in these jobs?
| Supermancho wrote:
| The sarcasm obscures what you are trying to communicate. The
| post looks like random noise generated by ML.
| dboreham wrote:
| Literal whataboutism.
| Kluny wrote:
| Talk english, pal.
| thrower123 wrote:
| Tough. I have litte sympathy for companies that have been abusing
| the H1B system to import indentured servants at substandard wages
| for decades. The list of top H1B sponsors is a murderers row of
| the most awful bodyshops.
|
| https://www.myvisajobs.com/Reports/2021-H1B-Visa-Sponsor.asp...
___________________________________________________________________
(page generated 2021-09-26 23:01 UTC)