[HN Gopher] H-1B visa holders scramble for jobs after 2022 tech ...
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H-1B visa holders scramble for jobs after 2022 tech layoffs
Author : lxm
Score : 62 points
Date : 2022-11-21 20:16 UTC (2 hours ago)
(HTM) web link (www.bloomberg.com)
(TXT) w3m dump (www.bloomberg.com)
| time_to_smile wrote:
| Sadly this is going to really change our tech community. I
| suspect many US citizens, especially at large US companies, have
| no idea how many colleagues', coworkers' and friends' ability to
| stay in the United State ultimately rests on their being a strong
| demand for tech talent.
|
| Most of our discussions around the system impact of layoffs have
| been in regard to changes in TC long term, but I personally think
| that's minor compared to potentially saying goodbye to some
| friends for a long time.
|
| The issue is not just this current scramble, but if the job
| market in tech does shrink and continue to do so we're going to
| see the number of places sponsoring H1B shrink tremendously.
| Estimates are hard to come by accurately, but the number of H1B
| holders in tech is fairly large, this could be a change that
| quite literally changes the face of tech in the US.
| evbogue wrote:
| https://archive.ph/sqZoN
| throwaway_9_7_5 wrote:
| As a Former H-1B holder I'm really surprised how few people think
| about the intention of the program: A temporary worker program to
| bring highly skilled labor into the country (or allow them to
| stay longer) (temporarily) as demonstrated by the needs of a
| _specific_ employer.
|
| Let's not pretend there is some huge injustice here. This is a
| risk we must take into account as immigrants.
|
| None of us have the automatic right to stay and work here, and
| that isn't the intention of the program. Immigration is not a
| right, it is a privilege.
| 22SAS wrote:
| As a current H1B holder, I agree. I always say that visa
| workers may not realize it at first but the day they stand
| outside the consulate for their visa interview, they indirectly
| agree to whatever headaches come with being on an H1B (or any
| sort of work visa for that matter).
| commandlinefan wrote:
| > As a current H1B holder, I agree
|
| It seems like the only people who _do_ understand the program
| are the people who are directly participating in it.
| miscaccount wrote:
| though i agree with you overall, right now the system is
| totally not working for indians and to a some extend chinese.
|
| The current wait time for indians is over 100 years whereas all
| other countries get their green card in a couple of years(after
| green card sponsorship).
|
| This makes the system crushing the Indians who have roots for
| more than decades.
|
| For people who would say , you should have seen it coming ,
| recently the demand from other countries are too high that wait
| time for indians are in decades at minimum
| throwaway_9_7_5 wrote:
| I see your point. Yes for those born in countries with
| traditionally high immigration rates the system is broken.
| Even if an employer can demonstrate they need to retain a
| particular person if this employer later needs to terminate
| the employee for unrelated reasons you are screwed.
|
| I think the H-1B to EB-2 and EB-1 process should be improved
| to not be subject to immigration rates.
| 22SAS wrote:
| I am an Indian H1b holder. The system is not meant to be
| beneficial for a nationality or a group of nationalities.
| Indians very well know that the green card waiting times are
| super long, and yet they'll come here, give birth to kids,
| buy a house, etc. All on a temporary visa with a very, very
| long waiting period for their green card. Maybe don't try to
| set roots if you know that you will not get permanent
| residency?
| UncleMeat wrote:
| Even though it is a privilege, I think it is still important to
| treat people with kindness and respect. The way that the US
| treats people on h1bs, especially if they are from countries
| with extremely long waits for green cards, is heartless, in my
| opinion.
|
| There are a lot of things that we don't _have_ to do to help
| our fellow human but that we still _should_ do.
| forrestblount wrote:
| Hoping this is helpful for some of the folks affected:
| https://www.bridge.legal/resources/free-legal-services-for-l...
| mechanical_bear wrote:
| Are you trying to suppress wages for citizen tech workers? This
| is how you suppress wages for citizen tech workers.
| UncleMeat wrote:
| Software engineers create jobs for software engineers. The
| _reason_ why you can make 4x more money in SF than in London
| is because the entire world flocks to SF to work in software.
| Those H1B workers are _making_ you money, not costing you
| money.
| quacked wrote:
| It's no use. I agree with you, but most of the people who
| want to help H-1Bs see it as reductive and archaic to try and
| promote the welfare of your own citizens over that of
| foreigners.
| dahdum wrote:
| It's promoting the welfare of a certain very privileged
| class of citizens, of which you belong, at the expense of
| overall American interests.
| quacked wrote:
| I'm not sure what you mean.
| ben0x539 wrote:
| As a foreigner, I find myself forced to agree with those
| people.
| quacked wrote:
| Everyone is a foreigner under most frames of reference.
| SideQuark wrote:
| >promote the welfare of your own citizens over that of
| foreigners
|
| Isolationist countries end up with poorer people, in the
| same way if you made an isolationist state, county, city,
| or household, would simply end up making you poorer.
|
| It's a shame more people don't read economics widely enough
| to understand this.
| quacked wrote:
| An "isolationist country" and a "country that ensures
| that its natural-born citizens are well-provided for
| before admitting new labor that will compete harder for
| lower rewards" are not necessarily the same thing.
| rayiner wrote:
| Do they? The Scandinavian countries have almost no
| skilled immigration, and had very little unskilled
| immigration until recently. Sweden still seems like a
| pretty great place to live.
| alvarezbjm-hn wrote:
| This is a service to facilitate H1B sponsorship
|
| "Lowering America Citizen Wages" is a problem with American
| Companies paying less to foreigners, not with foreigners
| being available for hire.
|
| The comment is xenophobic
| euos wrote:
| As ex-H1 immigrant I will dare to explain.
|
| Companies are paying absolute minimum they can. It is only
| rational.
|
| The problem is with expectations. A lot of H1 workers are
| used to a much lower quality of life than native workers.
| US graduate would want to have a 40 hour work-week,
| separate bedroom, 401k and such. For a foreign worker from
| a less reach region 401k and medical are not a requirement,
| sharing a bedroom with 3 other guys is not an issue.
| Working round a clock is fine as long as you can send money
| to your family back in the old country. Oh, also in US you
| can afford a car that will make you look super-successful
| on social media.
|
| Do you really want to drive down quality of life for
| everybody.
| throwaway_9_7_5 wrote:
| The majority of H-1 workers (in my experience as a former
| H-1 worker) went to university in the US and then
| transition to H-1B. They have the same salary
| expectations as their American peers and get the same
| offers.
|
| Maybe this salary injustice exists for H-1Bs being hired
| from abroad, but it doesn't exist _initially_ for most
| H-1Bs when entering the job market. Of course 2 years
| into the job is a different story because H-1Bs have less
| negotiation power to seek out other jobs and get good
| retention offers etc
| euos wrote:
| I would seriously doubt that most H1 workers come from US
| colleges. It is a common knowledge that most H1s go to
| Tata/Infosys and friends.
|
| Also, I would wonder: 1. How much of those foreign
| graduates went to college solely for a visa. 2. I would
| also expect that those graduates have much lower
| expectations from the life style. Young men don't really
| need a lot of money and have a lot of time to spend at
| work.
| verst wrote:
| Tata/Infosys etc are some of the largest single employers
| of H-1Bs, but collectively it really does seem that the
| majority of new H-1Bs every year are in fact issued to
| people already in the country on F-1 student visas.
|
| Go ahead and ask any immigrant who had a H-1B about their
| path. I am confident you will come to the same
| conclusion.
| diebeforei485 wrote:
| They might have the same expectations, but their manager
| certainly knows that they are visa dependent and can
| assign a higher workload to them than they would to their
| peers who have green cards or US citizenship.
|
| (Some of these peers might be their classmates from a US
| university, who got their green cards near-instantly by
| virtue of being born in a smaller country).
| dahdum wrote:
| It's a net gain for America to have more skilled tech
| workers. If that means slightly lower wages for everyone, so
| be it. Given the number of large tech companies founded by
| immigrants, I'm not certain wage suppression is a given
| anyway.
|
| I feel the same way about doctors and other highly paid
| skilled professions, and immigration as a whole.
| thrown_22 wrote:
| The benefits are split $200,000 for faang and -$150,000 the
| rest of the country though.
| SideQuark wrote:
| Conversely, if the sector grows, it may well be that all
| workers in it make more. This has been the trend in many,
| many high tech scenarios.
|
| Or, we can let the skilled workers end up elsewhere, those
| places develop the next innovations, and soon the high paying
| jobs are not here, but have moved to those places willing to
| invest in talent.
|
| The main reason the US has such high salaries is not that we
| stopped skilled workers coming here - around 50% of Fortune
| 500 companies were started here by imiigrants.
|
| I, as a US citizen, want the world's best and brightest to
| come here, so I can learn, have to compete, and become part
| of improving tech sectors, not backwater xenophobic countries
| banning workers.
|
| It's historically extremely shortsighted to think that having
| to compete solely makes wages lower. If that were true, we'd
| all have lower wages than our ancestors, which is
| demonstrably untrue.
| bergenty wrote:
| It's a balance between siphoning brain away from the rest of
| the world and maintaining decent wages. Wages for developers
| are definitely not low, and that's the truth.
| throwaway2729 wrote:
| commandlinefan wrote:
| > not for a better experience for those on H1-B visa
|
| They don't seem to be super big fans of positive experiences
| for US citizens either.
| vkou wrote:
| I've spent three years on a TN visa, 6 on an H1-B, and I have
| not a single complaint about how I was treated by my employer,
| _relative to my peers_.
|
| The problem isn't at FANG, the problem is at shitty third-tier
| headshops.
| umanwizard wrote:
| Citation needed. Granted I'm a U.S. citizen, but this doesn't
| match anything I've heard from my many friends on visas at
| Meta.
| [deleted]
| asdajksah2123 wrote:
| This is definitely not true. FAANGs have done a lot of lobbying
| for improved conditions for those on H1-Bs, including the
| elimination of the caps that have people waiting for decades
| for the permanent residency, despite being approved for it.
| [deleted]
| 22SAS wrote:
| I am someone on an H1B visa myself. FAANG lobbies for things
| that make it easier for them to control H1B's in any way they
| can, while showing that they're all for a better experience
| for visa workers.
|
| Few instances were FAANG lobbied against immigration
| proposals or supported proposals which would give them a
| bigger advantage:
|
| 1. The Republican sponsored immigration bill in 2007,
| proposed to let applicants be able to apply for green card
| themselves, and that corporations would not be permitted to
| apply for green cards for their visa workers. Big tech
| objected, with their real motive being that if visa workers
| didn't require them for filing their green card applications,
| then that way they couldn't keep these workers for long
| enough in the few years that it takes for them to finish the
| application part of the green card process and for the worker
| to get their green card.
|
| Source: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Comprehensive_Immigrati
| on_Refo...
|
| 2. The infamous S-386 bill, which proposed that the country
| of birth quota be not applied to employment-based green card
| applications. FAANG heavily lobbied for it, not because it
| would make things a lot easier for the tons of Indian H1B
| visa workers (who form 75% of the H1b workforce in the US).
|
| A congressional study had proved that if this bill were to
| become law, then this would only provide temporary relief to
| the many, many Indians in the green card backlog. In less
| than a decade, Indians and all other nationalities would be
| back to waiting for green cards for a few decades; currently,
| non-Indian and non-Chinese applicants get their green cards
| within two years of starting the green card process. FAANG
| supported this bill, because if it were to become law then
| they'd be able to keep their visa workers around,
| irrespective of nationality, a lot longer than usual.
|
| Source: https://crsreports.congress.gov/product/pdf/R/R46291
|
| Pages 10 and 11 are of particular interest in the
| congressional study.
|
| As an Indian H1B myself, S386 was a piece of shit proposal,
| which would only help Indians who applied for green cards
| between 2011 and 2017'ish (no wonder they were and still are
| the most vocal supporters of that bill). Everyone else would
| still have to keep waiting for a few years to decades,
| including the ROW categories that have no waiting period at
| all.
| fooker wrote:
| >including the elimination of the caps that have people
| waiting for decades for the permanent residency, despite
| being approved for it.
|
| This has been been talked about several times, but never saw
| the light of the day.
| digianarchist wrote:
| People really need to stop with the hyperbole. It isn't the
| same at all and being on the Green Card backlog isn't H1-B
| "slavery".
| akashshah87 wrote:
| This is not true.
| https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/nation/2013/04/29/tech-c...
| yieldcrv wrote:
| The art of lobbying is to wait for power vacuums.
|
| Getting involved in immigration could stir a bipartisan hive
| causing further restrictions.
|
| Wait for other special interests to move to far extremes of
| their preferred parties, focusing on things that will never
| reach consensus, leaving the center unguarded.
|
| Thats worked really well for me any way.
| walterbell wrote:
| Related: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=33677860
|
| There are legal versions of that approach.
| bsimpson wrote:
| I've long been embarrassed that US immigration law so often
| errs on the side of xenophobia and cruelty.
|
| That said, I don't understand education+early career visas.
| "Come get an education at one of our universities, and then
| take your utility elsewhere!" If we're gonna train people, we
| should have onramps to employment so our economy can benefit
| too.
| blindriver wrote:
| You literally have no idea about the immigration policies in
| other countries. Some countries won't let you become citizens
| unless it's by blood no matter how long you've lived there
| (Japan). Many countries will force you to give up your
| citizenship if you want to get a new citizenship. The US and
| Canada have the most lenient and generous citizenship
| policies in the world.
|
| I personally think we should only confer citizenship on
| people who are in the country legally. There's too many
| tourist vacationers that come here to give birth to their
| child, incur hospital fees that they won't pay, and then fly
| back home. The fact it takes so long for actual good
| immigrants is terrible policy. My close friend from India who
| was making over $1 million per year at FAANG has been waiting
| over a decade for his Green Card. The system is a mess. He is
| also a proponent of very strong immigration rules because he
| sees how the rules are being bent and it's utterly unfair for
| those who follow the rules.
| 22SAS wrote:
| Japan definitely does allow naturalization for non-
| Japanese, source:
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Japanese_nationality_law
|
| Germany allows too since I have seen many, many first
| generation immigrants become German citizens.
| throwaway675309 wrote:
| Did you bother to read the article that you posted?
|
| "Foreigners over the age of 18 (or age 20 prior to April
| 1, 2022) may become Japanese citizens by naturalization
| after residing in the country for at least five years,
| renouncing any previous nationalities, and proving self-
| sufficiency through their occupation or existing
| financial assets."
|
| You have to renounce previous nationalities, whereas the
| reverse the United States is much more generous towards
| the possibility of dual citizenship.
| 22SAS wrote:
| I did, did you bother to read that the OP I responded to
| posted "Some countries won't let you become citizens
| unless it's by blood no matter how long you've lived
| there (Japan)"?
|
| I was pointing out that Japan does let people become
| citizens after they've lived there for a period of time,
| the OP was suggesting the complete opposite. Renouncing
| previous nationalities is not the same as Japan not
| allowing people to become citizens, no matter how long
| they have lived there.
| TheDong wrote:
| "You literally have no idea about the immigration policies
| in other countries"
|
| It's ironic that you say that, but are making claims that
| just aren't correct.
|
| "The US and Canada have the most lenient and generous
| citizenship policies in the world."
|
| This is widely agreed to be false. I'll refer to the
| following sites:
|
| https://flagtheory.com/ja/easiest-countries-to-become-a-
| citi...
|
| https://getgoldenvisa.com/easiest-countries-to-get-
| citizensh...
|
| https://worldpopulationreview.com/country-
| rankings/easiest-c...
|
| You'll notice there are many countries with 2 or 3 year
| citizenship tracks as the default, while the US's is 5
| years, and requires significantly more difficulty.
|
| The US isn't anywhere near the top of any of those lists.
|
| The US policy is certainly better than a lot of countries,
| but that doesn't make it "most generous in the world", just
| not "least generous".
| 988747 wrote:
| > I've long been embarrassed that US immigration law so often
| errs on the side of xenophobia and cruelty.
|
| That's the effect of being the single most desirable target
| for immigrants. If US immigration laws were any more lenient,
| it would be the most populous country on Earth already, way
| ahead of India and China.
| factsarelolz wrote:
| nostrademons wrote:
| There's a pretty wide range of hostility to outsiders,
| and the U.S. is not in the bottom half. The U.S. is
| basically embarrassing compared to...Canada, and maybe
| some smaller English-speaking countries like Australia,
| New Zealand, and Iceland. But compared to Russia, or
| Qatar, or even relatively developed countries like France
| and Japan, the U.S. is paradise for immigrants.
| 988747 wrote:
| I meant "desirable" as in "there are many millions of
| people trying to get there, every year". Some of those
| people even risk their lives for it. How they are treated
| after they get there is a completely separate topic.
| calculatte wrote:
| Your understanding seems to be based completely off the
| agitprop the media passes off as "news" and the
| politicians push for donations. Provoking fear and anger
| is the preferred way to capture your attention. It's time
| to get out of the echo chamber and stop falling for it.
| factsarelolz wrote:
| > Your understanding seems to be based completely off the
| agitprop the media passes off as "news" and the
| politicians push for donations.
|
| The FBI is neither of those institutions.
|
| https://www.fbi.gov/news/testimony/threats-to-the-
| homeland-e...
|
| https://www.fbi.gov/file-repository/fbi-dhs-domestic-
| terrori...
|
| https://www.justice.gov/jmd/page/file/1398831/download
|
| https://homeland.house.gov/news/in-the-news/domestic-
| terrori...
| nebula8804 wrote:
| It remains to be seen if this is the beginning of a new
| century of US dominance thanks to the US's relatively
| good demographics or if the iceberg has hit the titanic
| and we don't know it yet. Your reasoning may contribute
| to convincing some top talent to skip the US but my bet
| is that if the economic winds change due to an empire in
| decline then those scenarios you listed become magnified.
| qazxcvbnmlp wrote:
| While these groups are certainly present, they are a such
| a small tiny fraction of a percent, that you can live a
| happy life without seeing or worrying about them.
|
| I lived in a small town that was known for white
| supremacy and in practice most people there could care
| less.
| factsarelolz wrote:
| According to Federal Agencies it is not a small tiny
| fraction, there are thousands of Domestic Terrorist
| activities.
|
| https://www.fbi.gov/news/testimony/threats-to-the-
| homeland-e...
| llampx wrote:
| Foreigners pay tons of money for the privilege of being at an
| American university, even state schools. Its really no
| comparison to in-state tuition. Its very good business for
| the universities. After that, the best find a way to remain
| in the country anyway, the rest are sent back through the
| ruthless H1B program.
| verst wrote:
| Most people will transition from F-1 student visa OPT
| (Optional Practical Training) which has a multi-year STEM
| extension to H1B. Essentially you have 3 chances to get a
| H1B if you can find an employer willing to go through the
| process _while_ you are already legally in the country.
|
| I have never met any current or former H1B holder who
| didn't enter the program through this route.
|
| I am a naturalized citizen who also followed this path.
| htkibar wrote:
| It brings money, and spreads influence. Solves a different
| type of problem.
| mistrial9 wrote:
| > xenophobia and cruelty
|
| this blames the reader of the comment indirectly, and calls
| to gather and act now to remedy these obvious and ugly moral
| traits
|
| yet, most readers (like me) have had nothing to do with
| setting the rules for this system, nor implementing them. In
| addition, it is large companies that routinely exercise the
| actual restrictions.. and yes I have seen it directly.
|
| Overall, this comment to flay and riddle the reader with
| guilt over this issue, is corrosive to unity.. and comes off
| as whiny and naive
| BitwiseFool wrote:
| >"I've long been embarrassed that US immigration law so often
| errs on the side of xenophobia and cruelty."
|
| The United States has some of the most generous and
| charitable immigration policies of all countries on Earth.
| The problem is that the sheer number of people trying to
| immigrate means that it appears cruel for turning so many
| people down. _Particularly_ when people don 't look into just
| how restrictive other developed nations are with their own
| policies.
| 22SAS wrote:
| This is correct. Most European countries have much more
| stringent immigration policies. Switzerland is a great
| example, where the process is longer and also they checks
| to see whether an applicant has indeed assimilated well,
| are a lot better.
|
| Western nations need to adopt more stringent immigration
| policies and also be much more rigorous in testing how well
| the applicants have assimilated. Most of the current 1st
| gen. immigrants hardly make any effort to assimilate.
| thaumasiotes wrote:
| Modern US culture holds that assimilation is an evil to
| be avoided. The old metaphor of the "melting pot" has
| been tossed out in favor of a "salad bowl". Assimilation
| is the opposite of diversity, and since diversity is
| good, assimilation is bad.
|
| This attitude is going about as well as you'd expect.
| 22SAS wrote:
| Europe is seeing the "benefits" of this policy, Canada
| will soon be next. The "geniuses" supporting all this do
| not realize is that this is how you destroy the culture
| that your ancestors built, screw up social harmony among
| different groups, and how your fuel the rise of people
| joining alt-right movements.
| yeputons wrote:
| > The United States has some of the most generous and
| charitable immigration policies of all countries on Earth.
|
| Depends on who is immigrating, doesn't it? The Diversity
| Visa Lottery is outstanding, true. However, I consider
| Germany's Blue Card superior to H-1B: you can get a visa in
| a few weeks once you have a contract and a BS degree. For
| H-1B, not only you have lots of paperwork and processing
| time, you also have to win the spring quota lottery. Unless
| you work for a university, they have separate quota.
| shmatt wrote:
| Part of the H-1B process is to prove you (hiring company) can't
| find and equal American citizen to come work for you.
|
| During a downturn in the tech sector, while companies are
| boasting about "cutting the fat" in their workforce by the tens
| of thousands. I'd assume it's much easier to find a citizen than
| it was a few years ago
|
| The companies admitting they over hired by thousands, also
| includes them claiming they needed immigrants they do not really
| need.
|
| This[1] article estimates 2,000 of the 23,000 tech workers laid
| off in November 2022 had H-1B visas. According to the U.S
| approach to immigration we should all be prioritizing the 21,000
| non-visa holders before we try getting people more jobs so they
| can keep their visa
|
| https://techcrunch.com/2022/11/11/answers-for-h-1b-workers-w...
| mingfli wrote:
| > Part of the H-1B process is to prove you (hiring company)
| can't find and equal American citizen to come work for you.
|
| This is true for a company sponsored Green Card application,
| not H-1B visa.
| tablespoon wrote:
| >> Part of the H-1B process is to prove you (hiring company)
| can't find and equal American citizen to come work for you.
|
| > This is true for a company sponsored Green Card
| application, not H-1B visa.
|
| IIRC, that's typically gamed. It's been awhile, but I knew a
| couple of guys who went through that and I recall they
| postings "to find an American citizen" were written hyper-
| specifically in order avoid hiring anyone, and if anyone
| actually applied, I'd imagine the interview would have been
| tough with a predetermined outcome.
|
| It's a crappy system. Tests like that should be at the start,
| not at the end. If they're at the end, it just wastes
| everyone's time and subverts the test: even if you think the
| company should hire more Americans, are you going to
| undermine your coworker in such a way that they may get
| deported? Is it fair to do that after someone's put down
| roots? (No.)
| throwaway_9_7_5 wrote:
| The pragmatic albeit unpopular response to that is: Do not
| put down roots while on H-1B as you are not guaranteed
| anything yet.
| 22SAS wrote:
| That and many a time the companies do the job postings on
| things like local newspapers, which no one reads. This way,
| the companies get to prove that they posted the job
| someplace, but no one responded to it. USCIS and the DOL
| don't care either, as everyone gets to show "see, we are
| following protocol".
| dvaun wrote:
| It is true if the employer is considered H-1B dependent[0].
| For employers with >51 employees if 15% or greater of the
| employees are H-1B workers then they must attempt to hire US
| workers first[1].
|
| [0]: https://www.dol.gov/agencies/whd/fact-
| sheets/62o-h1b-recruit...
|
| [1]: https://www.dol.gov/agencies/whd/fact-
| sheets/62c-h1b-depende...
| diebeforei485 wrote:
| To be clear, this is not the same level as the green card
| PERM process (which requires jobs be advertised in physical
| newspapers, etc).
|
| This simply says equally or higher qualified US workers who
| apply to the same job should be offered the job, but there
| is no need to seek out US workers.
| givemeethekeys wrote:
| It is easy to prove this - just create a requirement
| combination that is special to your target candidate:
|
| - Software engineer
|
| - Is able to effectively communicate in Italian and French.
|
| - Has 3-5 years of cultural experience in Southern Italy.
|
| - Culinary skills in contemporary Italian cuisine not required
| but nice to have.
| tcmart14 wrote:
| Addition: - Is willing to occasionally cook team lunch.
| jimbob45 wrote:
| 400,000 current H-1B visa holders[0] divided by 999 at-risk
| holders (article describes "hundreds") leaves us with less than
| 0.25% of the visa-holding population at risk. It's very possible
| that I'm heavily overstating that percentage. How is this even
| news?
|
| [0]https://www.stilt.com/blog/2019/04/h1b-visa-holders-in-usa/
| lucasmullens wrote:
| 332,000,000 people in the US divided by 999 at-risk holders
| leaves us with less than 0.0003% of the population at risk.
|
| I don't think percentages are useful here. Hundreds of human
| beings suffering is something I will always empathize with.
| snambi wrote:
| As a citizen, if I get laid off, I get a severance package and
| support from the state. It is ok if I get laid off. Temporary
| inconvenience, but family doesn't need to suffer. It is not the
| case for H1B visa holders.
|
| If H1B visa holder gets laid off, they need to find a job in 60
| days. That is a lot of stress. Suppose they find a in different
| state, they need to move. This is stress for the family and
| children as well. In the worst case, they may need to leave the
| country. It is harder, because they need to sell all their
| properties, move the stuff and relocate the family in an
| extremely short period of time. I think the H1B rules are
| draconian.
|
| IMHO, H1B must be reformed or abolished. In the current form,
| it only benefits big companies to hire great talent for cheap
| and keep under their control. Similar to bonded labour.
| bombcar wrote:
| How EXACTLY does it work for someone laid off from Twitter,
| for example? Does the 60 day clock begin the moment they were
| "laid off" or the moment severance runs out? Does it matter
| if the company puts them on garden leave instead of immediate
| lay-off?
| dragonwriter wrote:
| > How EXACTLY does it work for someone laid off from
| Twitter, for example? Does the 60 day clock begin the
| moment they were "laid off" or the moment severance runs
| out? Does it matter if the company puts them on garden
| leave instead of immediate lay-off?
|
| When they are no longer legally employed, with legal
| employment including any terminal leave. (But not extended
| by severance, even if that is calculated based on pay for a
| particular time period.)
| diebeforei485 wrote:
| Here have an immigration lawyer here writing[1] it's not
| the legal employment end date that matters, but the date
| productive work ended.
|
| But also it's not clear, and it might be the legal
| employment end date in some cases.
|
| 1. http://blog.cyrusmehta.com/2022/11/guide-to-
| terminated-nonci...
| bombcar wrote:
| Shit, by that metric for some of the jobs I have had the
| hire date and productive work ending date are the same.
| temp_praneshp wrote:
| The thing that grinds my gears (I'm a H1B holder) is that
| no one really knows the answer to this question, including
| immigration lawyers who post on linkedin). The general
| advice is to start the clock the day you are laid off.
| bombcar wrote:
| I suspect that is true in general - but in the
| _particular_ of Twitter I wonder if it legally counts as
| "garden leave" to get around the WARN act, meaning that
| those people are still "employed" by Twitter for the
| purposes of the H1B.
|
| It'd be kinda annoying if they could have it one way for
| the WARN act and it was another way for the H1B.
| diebeforei485 wrote:
| I think it would be helpful to ask USCIS to develop a
| clear policy.
| diebeforei485 wrote:
| The only way to know for sure is to wait after severance
| runs out and file a transfer to the new company.
|
| If USCIS denies your application, then the 60 day clock
| starts the moment you stopped working (for Twitter laid off
| folks, this has already started). If USCIS approves your
| application, then the 60 day clock begins the moment you
| stopped being an employee of the company (for Twitter laid
| off folks, this is January 4).
| iceburgcrm wrote:
| The moment they are laid off. The severance is an
| interesting question, do they even get it?
| paganel wrote:
| I personally didn't check the numbers, but even if the
| percentage is "only" 0.25% it gives a strong message to the
| rest of 99.75% that they should take care and especially that
| they should not make any fuss at their current job, otherwise
| they might risk losing almost everything they have built in the
| US. Not that the great majority of those 99.75% don't already
| know it.
|
| Related to this, it is high time for this indentured servitude-
| like legislation to be scrapped for good, but as long as the
| people affected earn relatively good money I guess we won't see
| a real move against it anytime soon.
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