Indian Outsourcing Firms Prep for Curbs on H-1B Visa Workers Under Trump | Hacker News Reader

Indian Outsourcing Firms Prep for Curbs on H-1B Visa Workers Under Trump

wsj.com

23 pointsprostoalex19 comments

Good. H-1B was intended to bring in top talent, not simply used as a profit padder while hurting incoming immigrant talent by keeping them under their thumb.

You can switch jobs on and H-1B easier than you could in the past. The notion they are endentured to the employer who first brought them over isn't true.

You can already switch employer when the petition has reached DHS. Hence it shall only take like 1-2 weeks ;)

It still is because the consequences of losing a job are far worse for an H1B candidate than others. Not to mention those stuck in green card processing limbo who are put in bad spots by employers that can shift them around and reset their process.

I should reword my comment a bit. I don't mean to say there are no strings but sometimes it is presented as H1-B's have no freedom to leave or power to get higher wages.

I don't think you're aware of the abuses that happen.

Bruce, you make a good point. It has become much much easier to work on h1 in past few years. However the situation is really worst for people stuck in a limbo. You can't travel freely, can't visit your family when you want. Lots of issues on airport and uncertainty about status. Its been this way for more than 10 years now

There are still ways to stop people switching.

There'll be lots of support for reducing H1Bs (including me) or more accurately allocating them (auction, etc).

Wondering if there is a valid reason to keep the high H1B count?

Reducing them? The original law was from the 60's when America had only half of the population...

Who had the other half? :)

Grammar Nazis

Reducing the H-1B count will only increase use (and abuse) of J-1, L-1, O-1 visas.

Doesn't the immigration system favor big corporations of the tech industry enough? You want to make it even harder for everyone else, without addressing the real issue?

Not sure I understand your argument - are you saying that because there are other loopholes in immigration for big corps, we shouldn't address the most abused one?

What makes you think the H-1 visa is the most abused when there are non-capped options that allow employers to pay even lower wages, with the added bonus of being non-transferable?

Today the H-1B quota is hurting only small companies that cannot afford the uncertainty and length of the process. By reducing this quota, the only companies you'll hurt are those.

MS, Amazon, Google and the like will keep hiring more people in Europe and Canada. When these people choose not to transfer, that's a net loss for the US economy.

Infosys, Tata and the like will shift their hiring pipeline to other types of visa.

If you have an issue with shitty US companies that want to pay lower wages for their IT, then fix your labor laws. Focusing on the H-1B is missing the forest for the tree.

> What makes you think the H-1 visa is the most abused when there are non-capped options that allow employers to pay even lower wages, with the added bonus of being non-transferable?

Please expound. If H1B is not the most abused way to get cheap immigrant labor, why is it that it's the only one we talk about?

Before people start complaining that the article is paywalled, here's how to read the article:

* Click on the "web" link at the top of this page

* It takes you to a google search results page

* Click on the link to the article and you can read it

* If it still does not work, open an incognito/private and repeat, it always works

If you're wondering why this works, it's because Google is is the referrer.

This did not work for me. Still paywalled.

I edited my comment, open a private window and repeat.

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