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Comment by itissid | Hacker News Reader

I think the shortest fix for the violation part(Corporate/Ed tech loophole and the Implementation/Consultant loophole) is some boots on the ground for DHS to investigate worksites. If there is enough economic incentive vested in any one area, sooner or later people will game it. And the H1B business is very lucrative. Putting in oversight to such a thing is hard without boots on the ground/human resources. AFAIR Visa program is run entirely on applicant fees making to slapstick to a bill even a harder sell given how much congress frowns upon spending.

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I think it would be much cheaper and more effective to just auction the the slots (by how much the employer is willing to pay the employee); otherwise, you're just in a quagmire of "is this really a startup for purposes of the exemption", "is this person's role really close enough to Deep Learning Expert", "is this really what similar workers" make, etc -- a hundred loopholes to exploit.

Given what "boots on the ground" typically means for federal agencies (i.e. armed raids), your suggestion makes me twitchy.

You don't need armed raid to audit visa compliance. You need one bespectacled guy with a briefcase. It's true that most of the US law enforcement wants to look like military and tries to use armed troops way out of proportion (I mean, Library of Congress and Department of Education have their owned armed response units, because regular police isn't tough enough to deal with education issues anymore, apparently) - but I hope it's possible to avoid going full Steven Seagal in this case.

You're right that it would be possible with something akin to a health department visit, but need rarely has anything to do with armed raids.

> DHS to investigate worksites

This is not a man in suite arriving at site via Uber asking polite questions. This is mostly a SWAT team storming through all doors and killing dogs if any an then taking away all your documents, interviewing all employees. In short that is end of business to you.

Remember they will not come alone. They will bring sleuths from all other departments and you will be fined for not having appropriate number of fire extinguishers and for not having a separate bin for dry cells.

You clients will avoid you and your landlord will be upset.

This is mostly a SWAT team storming through all doors and killing dogs if any an then taking away all your documents, interviewing all employees. In short that is end of business to you.

Yes. That is exactly what I want employers thinking when the offer of cheap H1-Bs tempts them. Let's have a lot more on-site enforcement, please.

And a few horror stories in the media would be a great benefit to Americans.

Even a kick-ass ex-Googler is not worth it. Heck, I will divorce my wife if she opens up my house for potential DHS raids.

I smell Schadenfreude here !

Jokes apart the boots on the ground regulatory approach increases compliance cost for everyone even for someone who has employed a potential Turing award winner foreigner.

No it won't. It's not fun to live in a country where only way to make people to follow the law is to have armed raids that kills their dogs and destroys their homes. That should be exception reserved to dangerous violent criminals, not the first resort when some paper lacks proper signature.

That's nice. The typical H1-B employer has been breaking the law and ruining prospect for American families for decades and there's no enforcement of the rules in sight anywhere. At this point, we'll take whatever means of enforcement we can get.

This is what blowback from years of privileged abuse of the law looks like.

Heck, the entire Trump phenomenon is what blowback from extended abuse of elite privilege looks like. It isn't pretty, but the elites refused all other means of curbing their exploitation.

> The typical H1-B employer has been breaking the law and ruining prospect for American families for decades

No it wasn't. Typical H1B employer has been following all the laws to the letter, filling a crapton of paperwork and paying a crapton of money to the lawyers for it. And has been paying tons of taxes and creating tons of jobs and amazing things we are all now using. There are a bunch of a-typical abusers, which need to be reined in, but one does not need jackbooted stormtroopers for this, one needs a competent lawyer and an accountant. It's not a fortress of Dr. Evil, it's paperwork.

> no enforcement of the rules in sight anywhere

Nobody argues against enforcement. I argue against enforcement with idiotic overblown supermacho glamour attached. I understand everybody wants to feel like Captain America, but if you look at those movies closely when Captain America gets to business, it usually ends up in a couple of cities leveled to the ground. I'd rather take an accountant, thank you very much. When interdimensional space reptilians attack, we'll be sure to call the Captain then.

> Heck, the entire Trump phenomenon is what blowback from extended abuse

Blowback is usually not something good. That's exactly my point. Enforcement - yes. Going overboard and hurting the cause you try to fix - no.

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