H1-B visa and the need for reform

...and they often leave with source code. (I've personally helped 3 companies deal with that very issue in the last year)

I very much doubt they don't understand this, it's not exactly rocket science. Boosting earnings QoQ or YoY to pop the share price can easily result in many millions of immediate payout in stock options, what happens in the longer term (to the corporation, to the country) is not necessarily a big concern for those who are temporarily calling the shots at any given corporation.

Would like to know how many instances have you seen where the home country got millions in this fashion.

Giving the option for permanent residency does not prevent anyone from returning to wherever they came from if they so desire.

A lot of EU countries have programs that do not tie the work visa with a specific job, at least for engineers. On the top of my head, Portugal,Sweden,Germany and Belgium do and France with implement some form of "tech visa" like that. Canada does too AFAIK. I think it's fair. "H1-B" should be paid as much as their local equivalent and shouldn't fear being fired.

I don't know the process, but 2 of my (American) coworkers recently left my company (in the US) to work for companies in Europe.

Didn't seem at all hard to get to work there. Don't know about permanent residency, though.

It depends on the country. It ranges from much easier (compared to the other way around) to quite hard. There may be quotas but no lottery involved though.

>Can an american get a work visa and get permanent residency in EU countries with ease

Nothing is easy, especially when it comes to moving countries.

I can offer insight on the Netherlands specifically. Other EU countries might have similar systems in place, though each is different.

There are generally three options for an American to move to the Netherlands for work:

1) get a highly-skilled job outright with a Dutch company that fulfills certain criteria in a position which cannot be filled locally. Not all companies are eligible to hire highly-skilled migrants from abroad (they have to apply to do so, and there are considerable costs involved). There are some nice tax perks to this (see 30% ruling).

2) start your own business with relatively small investment capital (<5000eur) and gain residence through the Dutch-American Friendship Treaty (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/DAFT)

3) get a Master's degree from a Dutch university, after which you'll have full access to the Dutch job market for one year, then you'll receive a highly-skilled migrant work visa

The above provide a path to a renewable residence permit for highly-skilled migrants. Typically you'll start working with a temporary 1-yr contract which, assuming things go well, will be extended for another year. After 2 years of temporary contracts and if the company still wants to keep you they'll give you an indefinite contract. After this, you'll next receive a highly-skilled migrant visa valid for 5 years.

An American is eligible for permanent residence after having lived uninteruppted in the Netherlands for 5 years and after passing an integration test. The integration test requires that you speak Dutch, though honestly this is not so difficult (it's at an A1 level and the tests are fairly basic; they also test your ability to function in the Dutch job market and society which is a bit silly to ask of a highly-skilled migrant who's already successfully lived there for 5 years).

I'm sort of in the process of gaining permanent residence. I have the time, the degree, the job, and most of the Dutch; it's only a matter of passing the test and submitting the paperwork. But since I have a 5-yr permit and permanent job contract already I'm not in a major rush.

edit: I feel like it's important to point out that the highly-skilled migrant permit is obtained for you on behalf of your employer, however it is not tied to that employer. You're free to find other work elsewhere without any retribution.

For France: It takes about one month to get a long term work visa for if you have a job (the name is a trick, it's just one year). Then you can upgrade from inside the country up to naturalization (it's a long journey, something like 10 years from first entry to passeport), you are not tied to your first employer after the visa is issued. There are some really disagreeable moments, when you have to go to the Prefecture, but I think the entire procedure is free*

* actually you might have to pay to get some translations certified, or if you want a lawyer.

I even know 2 Americans citizen who have a long term self employed permit.

One detail: you can travel all over the Schengen Zone for tourism, but you still can work only in one country.

I can speak for NZ. I originally got a Holiday Work visa (if you're under 30, America has several agreements. You can live and work in Australia, New Zealand, Ireland if you just graduated and a few other countries. I highly recommend them).

My holiday work visa ran out and I switched to an Essential Skills visa. I wish I had ticked the other box and gotten "Work to Residence." It cost more but you get a residence without travel restrictions after a few years. You can also apply for a full resident (a few thousand dollars) visa and you become a resident, but with travel restrictions. If you leave for more than six months, you lose it. If you stay past a certain point (I think it was 2 years or something like that), you can apply for a permanent resident without travel restrictions.

The US doesn't have the concept of "Resident without travel restrictions." If a customs agent asks you questions and thinks you don't actually live in the US (e.g. you only visit once a year), you can potentially lose that green card. It's arbitrary though, because the US is only of the only countries that doesn't do a customs check on exit (it's impossible to determine if someone overstays in America, unlike every other developed country in the world).

For most countries, to immigrate you must be on their essential skills list. I've considered getting another Australian visa (I lived there too; holiday work visa only), and the process involves putting in a letter of intent. If you're selected, you can apply. The fees are steep (usually a few thousand dollars), but if you're selected, you get residence and a window which you must arrive by. After a few years of holding a job or being able to support yourself in your field, you can apply for permanent residence.

Immigration without an essential skill is extremely difficult, for all countries. This is a stark contrast to immigration only a few decades ago, when countries like the US and Australia were in desperate need of all types of workers.

In Canada, you get an Open Work Permit as soon as you finish your degree. The length of the work permit depends on the type and length of the program. Once you get a proper job (full-time, related to your degree), you file for Permanent Residency, which if all checks out, takes around 6-8 months to process.

Source: did my undergrad in US, spent 5 miserable years on H1B tied to a single employer who kept delaying my PR application, because of which I couldn't travel freely internationally. Moved to Canada, finished my Masters, got my PR in 6 months. Now I can travel whereever I want. Thanks, Trudeau!

Considering the problem has existed for long time and very smart people tried to find solution. I do not think there is really easy solution lurking around.

From my perspective US gives the best combination of features to a very large section of Indians who hold H1 visa. These are (relative)large american salary, a high quality 'Indian' lifestyle which includes large availability of movies, cricket, food etc and other assorted luxuries which in US are called middle class things but they are almost very top end luxuries back home.

The intersection of these features makes it very unique for Indians in US as compared to European/Canadian/Australian in US. If first world person get laid off, or decide to leave, it may be monetary loss but other things back home will compensate. But for most Indians it may a unequivocal loss in term of money and lifestyle.

The only solution I think is massive infrastructure improvement in India affordable at Indian salaries. This is very difficult to achieve. For now it is whining about traffic on US-267 or whatever in a luxury car vs 2-3 hr of soul crushing train and bus ride 1-way. So once things improve drastically back home people will have much less incentive to leave just for money.

> Don’t read too much into IBM, Accenture, CapGemini as being American companies —

Nitpick, but yeah, CapGemini is French ;)

IT outsourcing is not an H1B problem.

If they are hiring Indian workers in India, it has absolutely nothing to do with H1B visas. A comment above discusses that Accenture seemingly used Indian workers on H1B, but also alludes to simply outsourcing work to India. These problems are significantly different and arguing for H1B reform based on international hiring practices is misleading. I'm not saying the H1B system isn't a problem, but I don't think your "sources" backup your claims.

All of your sources are about hiring in India, not hiring Indian workers in the US.

It doesn't necessarily sound like any of this is H1B related, it's just job outsourcing.

I'm not saying it isn't a problem in it's own, but it's not relevant here. If they were indeed hiring Indian workers on H1Bs, and paying them less than their counterparts, then we can complain about that. Outsourcing != H1B problems.

Also, anecdotal, but the work I shipped out to India when working for KPMG was absolutely not work I wanted to be doing and being able to send it to colleagues in India to complete was pretty nice from my admittedly small world view at the time.

Yes. We are not entitled to anything, including being protected from competition of robots and those living in a low cost country.

What makes you think I haven't? Unless you think we should ban robots from taking jobs, I'm not sure what your point is.

As an immigrant, I _came here_ for capitalism, and you will have a hard time persuading me that Venezuela should be our role model. :-)

Thank you for answering. The intent of H1-B visas is only to offer immigrants jobs that cannot be filled by Americans.

American firms have been misusing H1-B visas to instead lower their STEM wage rates of American workers.

We don't need more STEM funding in the US. There are plenty of STEM graduates and the funding is already substantial for not only undergraduate but graduate (eg. fully funded STEM PhDs including living expenses).

In theory, giving employment for spouses would double the number of immigrants displacing American jobs from 85,000 to 170,000. Moreover, firms might choose a man (or woman) with a spouse in STEM that they can also employ. Thus, the number of spouses employed under President Obama's "back door" should be decremented from the 85,000 allocation.

> "Please stop talking about things you have no clue about. I have been in the US for 3+ years now on a H1B visa and during all this time my wife, who has an MBA, is not allowed to work here - which is absolute garbage."

I have lived here all my life and you have lived here "3+ years" and yet you say I don't know what I'm talking about.

The intent of the H1-B visa law is clear: It is meant only for STEM workers when there is no American to fill the role. That's it. Period.

American employment should come first. Sorry if you don't like that, but you can always return to your country and maybe there your wife can find a job.

Do you know that there are Americans with MBAs that can't find jobs? Don't you think they should have priority over immigrants?

> "You also greatly overestimate the amount of competent people in the US. Most companies, like FB and Google and Uber, and not hiring from abroad because its cheaper. They are doing it because there are not enough competent people in the US to fill the jobs."

Where's your evidence, because I completely disagree? You'll note that these firms you mention are not offering the same or higher wages for immigrants than Americans but lower ones.

I wonder if other's on HN believe as you do that there aren't enough competent Americans in STEM.

But since you're so knowledgeable, please cite the reliable evidence of this claim.

I like the idea of spouses being able to work, and I hope Trump doesn't get rid of that. I went through the same thing as you. But ultimately, you can't blame the US for the rule. You knew the rules when you came here. So did I. You weren't tricked into it.

> You also greatly overestimate the amount of competent people in the US. Most companies, like FB and Google and Uber, and not hiring from abroad because its cheaper. They are doing it because there are not enough competent people in the US to fill the jobs.

I disagree with this. I think companies abusing H1Bs aggravate the issue of lack of diversity in the tech industry based on my experience alone as a minority in the tech industry. There must be a good amount of competent people in the US, they just happen to be minorities. There's recruiters and even hiring managers at tech companies that believe that a South Asian, East Asian, European, white male/female is more competent than a Latino or African American male or female, based on their name alone. Being on hiring committees at a tech giant, I've found that bias is even greater when dealing with South Asian and East Asian hiring managers, who usually prefer to hire competent people from their countries (Sometimes requiring visas, sometimes not). I can't imagine it's that much different at other tech companies.

Firms often claim they want to hire on the basis of merit, but then don't offer the salaries necessary to hire on that basis. E.g., those that have higher abilities through merit deserve substantially higher salaries, based on merit.

The firms can find people on merit, but they are trying to lower the amount of money paid for people, so they seek immigrants to depress wage rates.

The history of the United States largely revolves around subverting workers.

Are you seriously doubting that large corporations want to drive wages down?

Let's not forget that that Silicon Valley was the epicenter of the largest wage fixing cartel in modern history.

Of course there is a plot to drive wages down.