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Comment by moomin | Hacker News Reader

Disclosure: my wife used to be on a work-permit scheme similar to H1B.

The problem with all of these schemes is they're tied to a particular job. You give up that job, your right to remain is toast. This makes it hard to move to competitors and artificially depresses wages. In turn, this artificially affects native workers in the same industry.

I think the solution here is more capitalism, not more government. Anyone coming to work shouldn't be limited in who they work for. You'd find this flow of cheap labour dry up awfully fast if they could get better jobs.

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In comparison, the visa (technically, "residency permit") scheme in Japan (widely viewed as a xenophobic, anti-immigrant country) is tied to the person. You get sponsored in by an employer in a field, and then your residency is tied to you being employed in that field. You can instantly turn around and quit that job and find another one in the same field. Policy is you have 30 [or was it 60?90? something like that] days to find a new job or voluntarily forfeit your residency. You will only need to prove that though the next time you renew your residency permit.

They also make it very easy for skilled labour to immigrate. You just need a degree in your field and a sponsoring employer. There are no quotas, no need for the employer to prove they tried to find a local at above market rates, fees aren't onerous, etc.

The xenophobic view comes partly from how there aren't many skilled workers who want or can work in Japan (relatively low wages, Japanese language requirement) but mostly from their reluctance to allow unskilled labour in (which the US accepts via illegal immigration and Europe accepts via refugees)

H1B holders also have 60 days to find a new job after quitting/being fired from their old job.

https://www.uscis.gov/news/news-releases/uscis-publishes-fin...

Does the new job need to continue to sponsor under the H1B program? If so that's not comparable.

What exactly do you think is sponsoring H1B? The company just pays a one time fee for applying for your permit which is negligible compared to how much engineers are paid. They don't have ongoing expenses related to work permit.

The fact remains that many employers don't want to get involved, and don't. Last thing you want as an employer is uncertainty.

The xenophobic view also comes from how you're treated if you are a visible minority there, comments from elected officials, the hoops you have to jump through to become a permanent resident...

Plenty of unskilled workers are from other parts of the European Union. I doubt refugees make up significant numbers of skilled workers in the EU.

> Plenty of unskilled workers are from other parts of the European Union

I think this mainly applies to the U.K., but I'm mainly basing that on anecdotes and the last time I looked a the numbers (ages ago) so I'd be happy to be corrected

I agree. Skilled immigration doesn't have much of a downside for the US in my opinion, but immigrants do need to be free to decide what skills they choose to pursue, in response to market signals.

If silicon valley finds that people with the skills to become software developers prefer other fields, that's the market's answer. Forcing immigrants to work as software developers as a condition of living and working in the US is a horrible solution.

Immigrants must be free to participate in labor markets as they choose, without their options dictated to them by corporate "sponsors". Any attempts to "reform" this visa tat doesn't address this core issue (which in my opinion is also a basic human rights issue) is going to fail.

General skilled immigration would be good for the US, and I've love to see the H1B replaced with something that truly preserves the rights of the immigrant to choose his or her own path in life. If becoming a dev in the valley isn't part of that, well, that just means that skilled immigrants have found something higher value to do. Silicon valley can compete for them, just like everyone else, but I see no reason to interfere with the proper functioning of labor markets to make sure they get to hire on their own terms.

Maybe private offices, and less "young people are just smarter" gaffes would be a good place to start?

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