Bill Would Double Cap on H-1B Visas | Hacker News Reader

Bill Would Double Cap on H-1B Visas

washingtonpost.com

16 pointsmuriithi19 comments

As an H-1B holder I see this bill doesn't adress two major concerns: 1. Fraud from certain indian sweatshop companies. 2. True mobility of the H-1B visa holder.

I cam in this country when i was 17, finished high school, college (full scholarship), and then work. I'd like to think I am an asset to this country, pretty smart, making good money (and paying lots of taxes), while my current company still can't fill some of it's positions. There is clear lack of good talent in this country. So, please don't say that I am displacing american jobs, as I clearly am not.

It was hard for me to get the H-1B, mainly b/c that year (2003) the cap was reached fast. Unfortunately a lot of indian big sweatshop companies abuse on these H-1Bs, by hiring cheap labor from home and displace local americans. I can't say these guys are good at all, or better than americans, they are just cheap.

There are few ways to prevent it, and one way would be to not to allow companies to hire more than 1/3 of their workforce in H-1B, and not allow sweatshops to use them as a form of job in-sourcing.

I'd like to have the H-1B programm to bring in the truley bright people (scientist, techies, doctors, professors), that will be an asset to this country.

2. Allow true protability. Sure, I can change my job with current rules, but if I am filing for green card I am basically slave of my company. If I do change my job I might have to restart everything from the beginning which is a huge hassle. There are plenty of people that put up with low wages, bad treatment just to get that green card.

The line is huge, and it takes a long time. Allowing people to file for a green card for themselves, and not the employeer do that, will bring a positive change. As long somebody is employed and useful, their green card application should be good. Then People wont put up with low salaries.

Ah, and the other thing that blows majorly is that if you are unemployed for more than 60 days, you are out of status (illegal) and have to leave the country. So, a lot of smart H-1Bs can not join early stage startups, or start them as the current immigration system doesn't allow that.

Even sergey brin was out of status for few months, while starting google. For him, it was a happy story at the end, but for many others might not be. If your startup doesn't go well, you might find yourself un-employable, as there will be immigration red flags.

As I say, the only americans that complain about H-1Bs taking jobs, are the ones that do low level tech support jobs, or something at some big boring corp. I don't know any good and bright programmer that is unemployed.

At present, it is arguably a very poor idea for the average American to earn a PhD in science (or anything else). I am concerned about removing the cap on visas for foreign graduate students in science.

When there is an unlimited supply of foreigners willing to work for nothing, salaries for graduate students will surely be depressed even further. I suspect they may decrease to the minimum wage. I suspect few Westerners, with much better options, would be willing to work for the minimum wage for the better part of a decade.

There may be an increase in the number of PhD graduates as a result of their cheapness. Of course, the salaries for professional researchers would then drop. Very suddenly, scientists will become a cheap commodity.

These new visas may be a good thing for business, but I fear they are a disaster for any American making a career in science.

Economic fallacy of the make work bias. If scientists become cheap commodities, they will start to switch jobs until the salaries equalize the other options again. Case in point: In the early 1800s about 98% of the US population was in agriculture. Now the number is less than 2%. In the middle, farms started to get commodotized and it became less and less lucrative to be a farmer so farmers switched to higher paying jobs. Imagine what would have happened if 98% of us were still in farming?

I think I'd like to be a neo-farmer in 2008. With a little land, a few solar panels and access to clean water I'm sure most of us here could make a go of it. Multi-purpose robots are coming soon - they'll be able to help out when the harvest arrives.

So you welcome [Asimov's] Caves of Steel scenario. Why not.

Added to my reading list. I'll try to track down the 1989 BBC radio version.

I don't think that idea applies in this case.

The imported scientists have less natural job mobility than native scientists for several reasons: racism, poor English, and cultural differences.

They probably also have serious artificial barriers to switching jobs and industries because of their visas.

This law is removes the enormous artificial benefit of American citizenship (due to military, cultural and financial dominance) from one industry (science). This will change science dramatically compared to other industries.

Should a student prefer a career in an industry with artificial barriers firmly in place (like law or finance or management or even plumbing) or a career where American citizenship affords no benefit (like science or migrant farming)?

What kind of a future do you imagine in which science is analogous to subsistence farming?

Something like this: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=B3DyxaCYlfg&fmt=18

The only answer is to give them full citizenship and make them Americans.

The real problem is those companies that (1) grab up all those slots en mass (2) pay the workers they bring over next to nothing (3) charge massive fees to these poor workers. Everyone loses.

It doesn't sound like everyone loses if the companies get cheaper labor, the workers get a chance to work even if for less than they would if they were US citizens, and the more routine tech jobs get filled which probably creates more interesting jobs for those who are actually passionate about their field.

I'm not familar with any information about US companies charging massive fees to the workers. Is there a source for that part of your comment?

Correction, the companies that I have experience with were not US based.

I will elaborate on why everyone loses. The workers lose because they are paid less than if they were free to find the highest paying job, and have to invest a large amount of money to get here (points 2 and 3.) America loses because the workers are forced into earning less money than they would if they didn't need to go with these companies to give them more than a remote chance of getting a visa. This undercuts American workers (point 1.)

The governments may let these companies do this is because the companies pass off their process as selecting higher quality visa candidates. Immigrants like them because they know they will not be turned down for a visa if they go through the company (and getting turned down causes problems later - what the hell??). Still, bad.

Not all H1-b visa holders are programmers. A good chunk of them are actually IT workers with specializations like implementing SAP, PeopleSoft etc ERP packages. Same for Database administrators. Even bigger than this list is the number of people engaged in maintaining some godforsaken legacy MIS or such software at a huge corporation.

While these jobs might not appeal to a hacker or a good computer science graduate, there are just too many such jobs. Most H1-b aspirants are quite happy to take them.

About the H1-b visas for foreign students at US universities, I think it is a good idea, though not at the numbers listed in the article. I think 30-40000 H1-b visas for students graduating from US universties should be good enough to cater for the niche companies like Microsoft, Google etc. Imagine a Stanford or MIT graduate go away from US because he cannot work here? While not all students at MIT or Stanford is a foreigner, those who are there still have to apply from the same pool of H1-b visas which is open to just about any one.

Although the bill may slightly lower the salary for many American workers, especially scientists, it is necessary. It would allow America to brain drain the rest of the world and in doing so greatly help America's economy. Furthermore, the immigrants wouldn't only fill jobs they could also become entrepreneurs or small business owners and created new jobs.

...said Squanto.

If you are referring to colonization and how that hurt the Native American population... that is not the same of the current conditions.

America is a country of immigrants. Yet, every group of immigrants is angry when a new group comes in. Though, once the new groups come and assimilate and work and pay taxes and create a great culture... America is better for it.

Your argument is a tautology. "America is better for it," is true, because America is always being redefined as it changes. "The groups who comprised America a 100 years ago" are perhaps not better for it. It is a trivial thing to point out that AmerIndians are quite a bit better off in every measurable aspect of their lives than 500 years ago. Every has improved but the real estate/sovereignty situation.

What I don't get sometimes is Americans being all like "Oh noes they'll steal our jobs for lower pay!" Well then, you should work for lower pay too, no? Competitive global market, get over it.

Then again, if you think about the country protecting the people, we'll end up weaker than countries like India and China where all the engineers and compsci majors are at...

So therein lies the problem: For the sake of the state, or for the sake of the people? Democracy vs. Whatever, at its finest.

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