Trump administration cracks down on H-1B visa abuse | Hacker News Reader

Trump administration cracks down on H-1B visa abuse

money.cnn.com

315 pointsmolecule394 comments

The title is a bit misleading. This directive seems to target 3rd party H-1B contractors such as Tata and Infosys, rather than 'High Tech' companies that directly hire engineers such as Google, Apple, and Microsoft. Companies that hire H-1Bs directly and employ them onsite shouldn't be affected by this policy change.

I think the linked CNN Money article provides a better explanation of the motives behind this change http://money.cnn.com/2018/02/23/technology/h1b-visa-abuse/in...

In my experience attempting to get an entry-level programming job at Microsoft (while I lived in the area), they get a lot of hires through hiring agencies, all of whom ask you what your legal residence status is as their first question (which I have to say is highly discouraging when being unable to score an entry-level CS job in one's own country).

That's pretty much standard for all recruitment agencies in the USA and EU as they want to avoid being fined heavily.

I am not sure but in the UK employing some one without the legal right to work has no defence even if they had perfectly forged passports/documents.

I had to (as some one with all 4 grandparents being natural born uk citizens) have had to take my birth certificate to register at a local high street agency.

I'm not sure what's supposed to be notable about that? The only company I've ever interviewed with that didn't ask what my legal residence status was very early on in the process was a startup with a poor understanding of employment law. You can't assume that people who can't actually legally work for you won't apply for jobs anyway and asking it later would just waste your time.

I've never not been asked my residence status, ever, in direct or agency hires, in my entire career.

It's most likely (almost certainly) a legal obligation. Each time I had to furnish a SS card as well. A non-citizen SS card has a disclaimer on it saying it's not valid for work authorization alone.

I've never not been asked my residence status, ever, in direct or agency hires, in my entire career

You probably have been asked for documentation that gives you permission to work. The Department of Labor has a list somewhere (can't find it right now) of what constitutes a work permit, and the employer has to accept anything that conforms.

My wife ran into a particularly obstinate HR drone once who wouldn't accept what she had. She asked company counsel if her documentation was in order and received a phonecall from HR to please come in and sign paperwork before the day was over. Yes, federal law has teeth.

It's not the Department of Labor, it's the Department of Homeland Security.

https://www.uscis.gov/i-9-central/acceptable-documents/list-...

lucky you

Would you please stop posting unsubstantive comments to Hacker News?

https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html

The question employers are supposed to ask is whether you are legally authorized to work; 'residence status' is not relevant (and indeed you could get into trouble for refusing to hire someone who is authorized to work on the basis of their visa/residence status).

Well, I guess it depends on the actual wording that was used, and I'm by no expert on the subject (by any stretch of the imagination). However, some visa's require sponsorship, and as far as I know it is perfectly legal to not hire someone if they are in the process of getting (or are planning to get) a visa that requires a sponsor -- in other words, they are expecting your company to sponsor them.

There are financial and legal reasons why a company might not hire you if you were in this situation. There is more hassle for the company, and additional expense. They may or may not think any particular candidate is worth the additional hassle and expense. So it is a perfectly legitimate question to ask ( again, assuming it is asked in an appropritate manner ).

Right - if you need a sponsored visa to work then, until you have that sponsorship, you are not authorized to work in the US. So if you ask someone this question, and they answer ‘no’, then if you really want to hire them anyway you can look into sponsoring them for a visa. But if they answer ‘yes’ (and provide the necessary documentation to prove it), you aren’t then supposed to care how they acquired that authorization.

This is complicated a little for transferable sponsored visas like the H1B. Someone already on an H1B might reply ‘yes’ to the work authorization question, but with the caveat that you would need to take on their sponsorship. Technically, their answer should be ‘no’. They aren’t authorized to work for anyone other than their sponsoring employer, in a specific location, with a specific job title. As I say, the point is that if the answer is ‘yes’, not ‘yes but’, or ‘no’, then you’re not permitted to discriminate. Asking someone with work authorization questions about their visa type should be as much of an interview no-no as asking a candidate if she’s pregnant.

Only exception is certain jobs can place citizenship requirements because of security clearance requirements.

Precisely! Anyone familiar with this issue would know this is actually helping major high tech companies. But to most Americans who don't really know what is the deal with immigration, why let a chance to attack Trump administration go? :)

This isn't going to help high tech companies.

EB1-C is a Green Card category for multinational managers. It is supposed to be used to move job creating foreign nationals to US.

Till 2010, the body shop and consulting companies didn't use it much. However as rule tightened since 2010, these companies started using EB1-C to most low cost labor to US and delaying Green Card for everyone else.

With EB1-C you can get Green Card within an year, cutting in line in front of everyone else from India.

With this ruling, these companies are going to double down on EB1-C.

Just one more thing to fix then.

Even if these companies wants to double down on EB-1C, it’d still be much harder to bring in low skill tech workers as “multi-national managers”

I understand companies like Tata have job-titles like “Account executive” for (relatively) low-level employees which meets the “Executive-level employment” critter and rule for EB-1 classification - even though the term “executive” is clearly overloaded and inappropriate in this context.

USCIS aren't fooled by job title inflation. Applications for these sorts of visas require substantial supporting documentation - typically org charts, detailed descriptions of responsibilities, resumes of people who report to the visa applicant, evidence of compensation commensurate with the claimed responsibilities, etc.

This is like criticizing cracking down on bank robbing by saying that now the criminals are going to rob restaurants instead.

This isn't criticizing bank robbing. It's just saying that cracking down on the bank robbing, might not make restaurants any safer. Only claim was that restaurants (hitech companies might benefit).

Not just this but I've seen this in general last year. Reminds me of the media in a communist country: they better insert "glory to people's party" somewhere in the piece to increase the chance of passing the censorship filter. Here they have to somehow mention Trump. They could be talking about interior decorating, but unless they bring up Trump they won't get it approved by the censors.

‘Cracks down on abuse’ doesn’t really sound like an attack.

Ok, we've changed the URL and title to that from https://www.npr.org/sections/thetwo-way/2018/02/23/588469561.... Thanks!

The current title, implying abuse by Infosys, Tata et all is hyperbolic borderline xenophobic.

If the way Infosys and Tata use the H-1B visa is abuse then so is how Microsoft, Google and Facebook use it.

"Trump Administration Restricts H-1B Worker Visas Coveted By High Tech" is the title.

> If the way Infosys and Tata use the H-1B visa is abuse then so is how Microsoft, Google and Facebook use it.

Infosys and Tata enable companies to abuse H-1B laws. Disney use them.

Your statement also imply that Microsoft, Google, and Facebook is abusing too and no difference between Infosys and Tata. There is a small difference that I've stated but all of them are abusing it.

The point of contention is not that the Indians are stealing our job. The point is the people who are using H-1B visa are unable to negotiate wages which depresses their American counterpart wages.

Don't generalize that Indians are stealing your jobs. Google has 1000+ eng roles open at this time - if Americans are qualified, then they can totally get all of them. The fact of the matter is that America does have talent shortage for high end tech roles. Also, this misconception that Indians are paid less for high end roles is purely that - if you are able to crack Google eng role, you will get paid $200k+ or more depending on your level.

Note that I am making a distinction between Google eng roles and those tech roles which Infosys and TCS hire for. For the latter the play is cost arbitrage such as replacing Disney engineers with Indian eng who can do the same work for lower cost.

However, I want you to be aware of the real talent shortage which is present there on the high end tech side.

I agree with the general gist of what you are saying. But specifically with respect to Google, should a company that openly admits it optimizes for a low false positive rate even though it knows that means a high false negative rate really be sympathized with when they say they can't find enough people?

WHat are you talking about? If you have ever worked in top tier companies (which it seems you haven't), you will notice how much time, energy and money they spend on recruiting good engineers and still come well short of their targets. Be real, open your eyes and stop diverting.

Did you even bother reading and understanding before responding? You didn’t say anything at all about false negatives vs false positives. You gave no indication that even understand those concepts. Instead you choose to brag about your work experience and tried to put me down based on a wild guess about me.

Did you really think this response was going to convince anyone of anything? If you are so smart maybe try applying that intellect to your reading comprehension and communication skills.

I don't care what you think and whether I can convince you of anything.

Your response about false positives and false negatives is a strawman argument. Why does a low false positive single out non Indians and not Indians? Also, this is not only a phenomenon with Google - the same is true for Facebook, Amazon, Netflix etc. All have 100s (if not thousands) of eng roles open right now and is up for grabs whoever is qualified.

> Infosys and Tata enable companies to abuse H-1B laws

How is helping all people of the world compete fairly abusing the law? Aren't we all free people of the world? Why should anybody be privileged just because he was born in a certain country?

>>Your statement also imply that Microsoft, Google, and Facebook is abusing too and no difference between Infosys and Tata.

This is largely true. These days Microsoft and Google do not outsource to Infosys and Tata. They set up their own centers in Bangalore, that way they can even quality control at many levels and the net result is the same.

The fact that Infosys and Tata aren't involved is just a minor detail here. Practices as a net do not change.

> The point is the people who are using H-1B visa are unable to negotiate wages which depresses their American counterpart wages.

That's just a rephrasing of "they're taking our jobs": rejecting foreign competition of similar qualification because it's cheaper.

I don't think there is nothing wrong per se with this position; it would be impossible to maintain any decent standard of living for the middle class citizenry with an open border policy where everyone from Afghanistan or Centrafrican Republic can freely enter the country and claim any low level job available. Many of such jobs, the result of government spending specifically aimed at economic development and creation of opportunity, so in limited supply in the short run.

Where this policy backfires and turns to rent seeking is protecting very well paid professionals from foreign competition simply because they have the adequate lobbying power. The economic progress is retarded and consumers pay much more for the services of those professionals - doctors are a good example.

Ideally, the visas should be granted simply to anyone making a high enough paycheck (with criminal liability for anyone artificially inflating it). If you are making more than $100.000 net per year, you are in absolutely no need of protection from unfair foreign competition, as such a measure pushes the increased price of your work onto the rest of citizens who earn less, possibly much less.

Mass labor being paid to much is somewher around #837 in the list of problems we need to solve.

Microsoft, Apple, and Google, among other big tech companies, are some of Tata and Infosys’ largest clients, so it’s not as clear cut as it might seem. They get to avoid hiring more “expensive” FTEs by using these body shops.

Is this about stopping more non-white people from coming to the US?

I think it targets the small consultancies that operate in US. This is where I have seen all the scams happening. These consultancies don't bring people from India, they hire Indians who did MS in US (I am Indian, so only know about them), mostly those on OPT. Those people are desperate for a job (if they don't get H1B within I think 18 months, they have to go back) and are willing to do anything. Most of them come to study in US after taking big bank loans and it would be a lose for them to go back if they can't work for at least 2-3 years in US.

>That's when firms bring on H-1B visa holders but don't give them work and don't pay them the required wages while they wait for jobs.

I can 100% guarantee that the top Indian companies do not engage in this practice. Every single one of them have a policy that if the H1B employee doesn't have a project for 2 weeks to 1 month, they must go back to India. And they get paid the full amount mentioned in their offer letter for the duration they are in US. And they are also paid for expenses that arise from having to go back to India. This includes lease breakage, air fare for the H1B holder and their family and a few other expenses. For "benching", the only exception I have seen is the Indians they hire from US. Those people get to stay on bench until the company can find a new project for them. But they are still paid in full.

>if an employer can't prove the H-1B holder is "more likely than not" needed for the full three years, the government might issue the visa for fewer than three years.

This has already been the case. I have seen many H1Bs getting visa approved only for 1 year.

Large software companies pay premiums. Tata, Infosys, Cognizant, et cetera are the bad actors. https://www.economist.com/news/business/21714994-it-firms-ne...

Moving to temp account for this comment.

I have been in US for 15 yrs now. Came here for my masters and still on H-1B today. I’m one layoff away from having to uproot my family and moving back. My girls have only known this as their country.

I earn way above market and have paid plenty in taxes over the years. Because for tax purposes you are considered a permanent resident after 1 yr. Someone brilliant came up with this.

I never complained about my situation because I always have a choice to leave US and it is my decision to stay. Most in my situation feel that we deserve to be bumped up over random lottery and unskilled immigrants. I don’t because I don’t feel this entitlement. Maybe the current generation is unskilled but their future generations could go on to create a lot of value. Some even become President.

Finally this year I’m considering moving out of US. In media it sounds like an awesome place but a glance at the indexes show a different story (education, social security, health care, even freedom). Every time I drop my kids at school I’m worried about them. It all seems not worth it anymore.

>Finally this year I’m considering moving out of US. In media it sounds like an awesome place but a glance at the indexes show a different story (education, social security, health care, even freedom). Every time I drop my kids at school I’m worried about them. It all seems not worth it anymore.

I left after being in the US for 5 years. I pretty much felt the same way.

It's still, also by many indexes, one of the safest countries in the world, despite the objectively isolated issues you see in the media... Unless you come from another top OECD, coming back doesn't sound like a great deal.

Which, realsitically, should be your comparison set.

What's your definition of "isolated issue"? Most people use it to mean a random one-off that isn't part of a pattern, which can't reasonably be applied to mass shootings in the US at this point.

Mass shooting and terrorist atacks are still extremely rare events, very much like plane crashes, compared to the many other ways one could get killed or injured.

So your definition of "isolated issue" is an extremely rare event and not an event that isn't part of a larger pattern?

Call it isolated issue, call it extremely rare, whatever it is, it’s not worth taking into account when deciding to live in the US or not.

I agree that mass shootings aren't a large statistical risk for an individual. I'm only objecting to the use of language that suggests they aren't a systemic issue.

Why not send the kids to a private school?

Probably even a cheap one is better than any public school?

This is exactly why H1B should be ended. It's very unfair to people. Replace the diversity lottery with an immigration policy that prefers admitting skilled people.

https://www.quora.com/As-an-expatriate-why-did-you-leave-the...

This is a good thing.

And I say this as an Indian H1B worker who's actually left the US because of the broken immigration system.

I spent 8 years working for a big tech firm, and left the country when I realized that I was essentially never going to get a green card, despite my application being approved 4 years ago. The queue is now decades-long.

I worked directly for a giant tech company that you all know, and was paid a very good salary, easily at par with a US Citizen. I know of so many people who gamed the system, working in cahoots with consulting companies that exist solely to scam people.

Now I live in Canada, working for the same company, making the same amount of money, but as a Permanent Resident here. Life is so much simpler because I don't need to worry about capricious immigration policy, and being treated with suspicion at the border every time I fly back home.

Your system is broken and needs to be fixed. Now, I don't think your current administration is going to fix it, but who knows.

Read the first paragraph and thought"come to Canada!". You delivered.

Are you paid/employed in cad or usd? If the latter is it hard with PR?

I'm paid in CAD.

I'm lucky - my employer was sympathetic to my situation, I had built good relationships with senior management, and what I do (I'm not an engineer) is a skill that they don't have in abundance, and I had a global role in any case.

All these factors contributed to them moving me to Canada without a major hit to my salary.

There is a difference (I get paid about USD 10K less), but that's more than made up in the lack of healthcare costs (I pay absolutely nothing for healthcare coverage in Canada), and most importantly for me, peace of mind.

Also, I couldn't realistically switch jobs in the US without tons of paperwork. As a PR, I am treated exactly like a citizen and could easily switch if I got a better offer.

Agreed. I'm about to get PR, same boat. Thanks for the info and enjoy canada!

If you are earning good money then you arent paying zero for healthcare. Perhaps your employer is covering it, but canadas health system isnt totally free. In BC i paid a monthly fee, not much but something. Prescriptions and such also arent totally free.

Well, if you want to pedantic, sure. I know I pay taxes, and the taxes fund healthcare. Obviously it's not "free".

However, my out of pocket costs are zero. My employer pays for prescription drug coverage and dental care, but that isn't deducted from my pay check. It's over and above my salary.

In the US, I was paying nearly $600 a month from _my_ paycheck for equivalent healthcare.

>>However, my out of pocket costs are zero.

No your out of pocket costs are hidden, abstracted away, and hard to quantify so you never know if you are actually getting a better value, it only seems that way because you lack the proper levels of information to make an informed opinion.

Similar to how the True cost of National Defense is abstracted away and shifted to the US by virtue of your proximity to the US... Canada has a much much smaller national defense cost (which they can use that saving for national healthcare) because they know the US would never allow an invasion/attack to the Continent of the North America,

Agree ! I was 3 years into my H1B and I called BS on that. Moved out of US sometime back with a Canadian PR. Living happily thereafter. Gets paid more than US, because no more visa or greencard shackles.

My spouse started working too unlike in the US where she was not "authorized" to work on H4. We are well ahead economically than was in the US and planning to buy a home soon and settle.

Seriously, what kind of country says that just because someone is on a work visa that their spouse cannot work !! Why cant ACLU take this up because DACA gives more PR for them ? Take cue from Canada, they too have temporary work visa, but the dependent spouses are free to work. The plight of H4 spouses..sigh.

The right to work is a basic human right. And they say other nations violate human rights because they block social media !! but wont allow my wife to work because she was married to me and on an H4 visa. Hypocrisy at its best.

So I left all those bullshit behind.

> This is a good thing. […] I was essentially never going to get a green card, despite my application being approved 4 years ago

Correct me if I'm wrong but as far as I understand the greencard path for H1B workers seems unrelated to the number of H1Bs issued but more to which nationality H1Bs go to. Since Indians are more likely to apply in the first place the wait time will stay ridiculously high unless the actual quota for greencards is increased.

Yes, you're right.The country based quotas are the real issue.

However, this issue stems from the fact that the US has no real high-skills immigration path the way Canada, Australia and a bunch of other countries have.

Because of this, an H1 worker from a body shop is equal to a rocket scientist from MIT if they're both Indian.

Look, I have nothing against the body shop H1 worker who's only trying to make a better life for himself - what I don't like is companies that exploit Indians (and other nationalities) and the American public alike.

We all get screwed together, and the US should have sensible immigration policy that works to improve the lives of its citizens.

Of course Americans shouldn't be exploited.

Of course you should be trying to attract the best and brightest - but also lower skilled workers who can fill jobs that have a low supply of labor (all the illegal immigrants are working away in this space).

Immigration is an important aspect of public policy, and by having a broken system, your government is not doing its job.

+1 I absolutely agree with you. I've been on H1-B and saw a lot of abuse from both big tech and startups (most abused were people from countries like India because a lot of them will do anything just not to go back). In big tech I saw people being indirectly threatened by not proceeding with their green card so that they work on weekends etc. I wouldn't take that crap so I kept leaving and transferring H1N but others were too scared and it really affected my view of H1B. Startups are also a problem, but more because of ignorance rather than malice. Once I transferred my H1B to a startup who really sold me on everything from being stable and funded to growing fast etc, so I moved my family across the country and on my first day CEO said they have 1 month of money left in the bank...

The rocket scientist does have a different path to immigration, as a 'person of exceptional ability'. This is, granted, a higher bar and more limited than the typical 'high skills'-promoting immigration policies of some other countries.

As a sibling comment has mentioned, there are high-skills immigration paths in the US, they just aren't very well known, and have a very high bar to clear. It's not great, but it does exist. I personally know 2 Indians who got their green card in a matter of months.

That said, the Canadian system, while definitely better than the US system, still isn't that great, and not something to model after. Specifically, it gives too much weight to credentialing, which is unfair in its own right, and still very much subject to gaming.

I personally believe in complete free movement of labor (which totally existed before, the current state of things is relatively young), but that seems politically infeasible around the world right now. Brexit is an example of even taking a step back from it. Maybe this will someday happen in my lifetime.

Quite a few of my friends are now applying for Canadian PR. Having suffered under H1B, its amazing how employee friendly the Canadian system is. I can be in India, apply for PR, get a decision in 3 months or less. Then I can go there, find a job. Never have to depend on an employer, never at the mercy of customer or some random visa officer or a CBP agent or lottery. I get to be in control of my life.

If Americans don't want H1Bs, its all fine. Kick all Indians out. But why a nation that claims itself to be the land of freedom, who routinely criticizes other nations including India for human rights violations, allow such a visa system to exist all these years, I don't know.

H1B is not about the employee, it is about the employer.

I am 100% for more immigration, hell I favor open borders completely. However as much as I am in favor of more immigration, and I am staunchly opposed to the H1B program.

Isn't this an oxymoron. Open borders completely, but against H1B program.

Not at all, H1B allows employers to hold immigration status over the head of their employers, threatening them with possible deportation or other effects if they do not accept working conditions, pay or other items that would be unacceptable to a person that did not have their immigration status tied to their employment.

I am for individuals, not corporations. Ever wonder why large companies are always pushing for more H1B but never for Full Immigration reform.

They like the power in balance H1B creates

Yeah, but you already got hundreds of thousands individuals here in H-1 status, and thousands more wanting to join them, for lack of any other options. Then what?

Seems quite logical to me: completely open borders make H1B obsolete.

H1B is an awful visa as far as work visas around the world go.

> But why a nation that claims itself to be the land of freedom, who routinely criticizes other nations including India for human rights violations, allow such a visa system to exist all these years, I don't know.

I think going to Canada is the most rational thing for tech workers and people without papers too. I keep wondering why it hasn't been happening more.

We've lost our collective shit over immigration in the us. Trump is a temporary aberration, either that or our country will have to fall apart eventually, and we'll split up into different countries, and a lot of us would immigrate to Canada or something.

Our years of easy economic growth and high salaried and widespread middle class jobs is ending (even before we lose most trucking jobs) and we are worried collectively about the future. A more rational approach would be improve education, figure out how to get better paying jobs and help industries-its more than cutting taxes on rich people and re-train people that don't have good jobs. We are stuck in a different direction, blaming others, with backwards policies that are supposed to increase employment opportunities in many decaying industries that are mostly or completely pointless.

Our visa policy has been screwed up and we've had this insane split about immigration for years - fears of people coming in from 'outside' and taking our limited number of new jobs, but needing at least lots of farm workers and low skilled workers. Never mind that when my forebears came to the us that was 'good immigration' from today's view, even though we've always had mixed feelings about it.

So as our lack of good jobs becomes more acute, the pressure against immigration planning just increases. And since we failed to do much to help the people who have lost their jobs for whatever reasons the last 40 years, all those people are feeling ever more desperate and subject to huckster political claims.

I think unless there is an amazing massive failure of our current political leadership, and probably even if that happens, we will have a really hard time changing our immigration "strategy". I mean we already had the iraq war 2 debacle, destruction of that country, thousands of americans died, the economy crashed, and we still ended up where we are now politically.

>I think going to Canada is the most rational thing for tech workers and people without papers too. I keep wondering why it hasn't been happening more.

Because you can easily double your salary working in the US. That and the fact that Canadian winter can be brutal for months out of the year.

What's the point if you live under a threat of deportation all your life!

Do you know how much paper work has to be done to file a petition. I have around 20 pounds in weight of past paperwork!. Every petition is 100s of pages. Even if you have an approved petition, you have to go for Visa stamping where there is a 8-10 page questionnaire, waiting in line on 2 separate days and answer questions.

It's all really fucked it. You can do it for maybe 1-2 years. Not for decades.

There are many Indians in US, who would be screwed if they lost their jobs in US. They work for the outsourcing companies and if they have to move to to India - their quality of life will take a big dive. There if they make 80k USD, they will make 20-30k USD in India and have a much worse quality of life. These people wouldn't go back unless they are forced to. And they save every penny they can, because they are trying to be ready for the worst case scenario.

However, anyone who is highly skilled - they can get a job anywhere.

Being in US is like being in a decades long dating relationship where you counterpart raises questions on the relationship and threatens to throw you out every few years. However, some people want to get married and settle and it makes sense for them to move on!

> I think going to Canada is the most rational thing for tech workers and people without papers too. I keep wondering why it hasn't been happening more.

Because the US still has the vast majority of prestigious tech companies and still has the edge in innovation. That may be changing long term, but at least on the short term, this is the truth. The opportunities you get at Microsoft or Amazon are unmatched.

People will gladly prioritize wealth and career at a Big 4 company vs a nice stable life at some not well know Canadian company.

you talk like there are no big tech companies in Canada. Every US tech company that's a household name (and many more than that) has offices in Canada with engineers in them.

This is not Trump. This bullshit with regards to legal immigration at least has been going on for 15-20 years under Democratic and Republican administrations.

> Having suffered under H1B, its amazing how employee friendly the Canadian system is.

> If Americans don't want H1Bs, its all fine. Kick all Indians out.

If you like the Canadian system then you should love Trump. That's exactly the direction he wants to take the US.

So far, the only news I have seen about H1B reform is articles such as these, where they are supposedly making it harder for companies who game the system to get the visa. I hope he will change it to a merit based system and free the people from employer dependency completely.

I'm in the same boat as you were. 16 years of being in the US and no green card in sight even though I've been approved thrice over. I could potentially become a permanent resident in 2022 but even that's not guaranteed at the rate the process is going. If I may ask, what was the tipping point that made you decide to move?

I think this is the problem in the USA. If someone wants to come here to work, pay taxes and be a reasonable citizen why not allow it?

The system is definitely broken, I want to see change immediately.

You won't have a green card until 2022, but you will have permission to stay in the country.

Yes, except that I won't be able to switch jobs easily or grow in my career as fast as I want to. Every time I go to India, I have to do this elaborate dance to get my Visa stamped. I haven't traveled out of the country enough just for this reason. It's very stressful. I have a child who was born here and doesn't want to go back. I'm really stuck here for no other reason than the fact that the immigration system is horribly broken. Every American (white person) in my management chain thinks I'm skilled enough to be here in the country and pay me north of $400k. Terrible state of affairs. I'm a well-paid slave or at least feel like one.

I feel so great for you! Finally, I am moving out. Enough dealing with the immigration crap here!

I waited for 8 years too. Didn't let immigration stall my career. Built a company, sold it to one of the top tech companies in Bay Area. Building another company to solve a really tough problem. But man it has been stressful! USCIS keeps getting hung up on technicality and makes it as difficult as possible to live here.

Meanwhile I have paid millions in taxes in US.

People who are in the lowest part of the value chain, will always find a loophole - there is too much money at stake and they don't have any other choice!

Accomplished people will move out or stop coming! US, keep doing this and eventually H1B will be just be a tool for cheap labor! Best talent from India, doesn't come to US anymore! And most of who are still here will move out!

I applied for EB-1. They need 3 criteria. Accepted 2 criteria (extra ordinary contribution to my field and leading role in organizations). They rejected the media and press criteria because most of the press about my company's acquisition, while mentioned me by name, was about the company and not me. And BTW I was Founder of the company and built it from scratch.

In any other country, one of the criteria that they accepted would have been enough.

If you are talented and from India, don't waste your life in US. Where ever you go, jobs will follow you. Move out as soon as you can!

Good bye US!

>I applied EB-1. They need 3 criteria. Accepted 2 criteria (extra ordinary contribution to my field and leading role in organizations). They rejected the media and press criteria because most of the press about my company's acquisition, while mentioned me by name, was about the company and not me. And BTW I was Founder of the company and built it from scratch.

That is such BS. I was gonna try (I have some publications and stuff) but that's about it. Now I feel like I am rotting away here.

Going for EB-1 has been one of the worst decisions of my life. I wasted 2 years collecting paper work, getting letters, wasting money and waiting!

It really a luck thing. And if you have to go premium. You will find out sooner!

Lawyer adviced the same. Told me it was almost impossible for me to do EB-1 and it was all about luck. I don't really want to do that. It's just frustrating seeing people I went to school with years ago from other countries become greencard holders so quickly without even doing grad school or STEM.

It's not luck as in buying a lottery ticket. If the case is not strong and not well prepared - it will definitely get rejected.

But if the case is really strong, and the petition is really strong - it's possible that you might get lucky and they might approve it.

It depends on which officer did you get, which side of the bed they woke up and did they have a fight with their spouse recently!

It really sucks!

>>Going for EB-1 has been one of the worst decisions of my life. I wasted 2 years collecting paper work, getting letters, wasting money and waiting!

Also depends on the company and the leverage you have with the manager in the company. Plenty of people from India have gotten GCs in that category in months after arriving to US.

So yeah, Its luck by most means. Life is unfair, if its any consolation, think about this aspect of luck. There are likely more merit people in India who haven't even gotten as far as you. Is it unfair for them and their lives to be compared to you.

> That is such BS. I was gonna try (I have some publications and stuff) but that's about it. Now I feel like I am rotting away here.

Don't get too disparaged by this example. It depends a lot on the individual reviewer. Yes, that sucks, but it also means that in many cases it's not as hard as the in the quoted case.

I'm not nearly as successful as you but have similar frustrations with the US immigration system. I'm a co-founder of a company that has employed a couple dozen Americans for a few years now and decided to leave the US when it became clear there was basically no path for me to get a green card. Oh well.

This sounds great! Congrats on cutting your losses!

Notably, people who do not come from India or China can apply under EB-2 NIW instead of EB-1, so the requirements are lower. The spirit of the Chinese Exclusion Act lives on!

EB-2 works under same priority order, whether NIW or not. Only benefit of NIW is that you don't need to do PERM (which is labor certification).

So, EB-2 NIW - doesn't help people from India - because it is really easy to get a EB-2. I have 2 approved ones which are useless!

It sounds like you might be in a position where EB-5 is an option. It does take a long time though (I just got my conditional green card and filed my I-526 3 years ago). It sucks that they wouldn't count your media mentions, sounds like you had bad luck with the reviewer.

Does it take so long! When were you able to file your I-485 - so that you have EAD and AP

It’s funny how people are criticizing USCIS here (not that it is not to be blamed for lacking) and not their fellow Indian men for running such consultancies in the first place and exploiting talent backhome and luring them here in hopes for green cards before they realize it’s close to impossible and by that time these consulatancies middle-men would have already milked them enough. Creating awareness among Indian backhome is first step in discouraging consultancies abusing them. US has always been an open market for anyone to come here, take advantage of it and make ones dreams come true. US educated Indians stuck in green card queue is not entirely because of USCIS ineptness but also Indian “consultants” clogging up the queue. It feels there should have been a separate visa category for these “consultants” altogether.

It's the system which is enabling people to take advantage, and only system can fix it through changes in law!

When the system allowed segregation, whom do you blame more - the system which allowed it or the general people who were taking advantage of it.

> When the system allowed segregation, whom do you blame more

That is easy - the people who were taking advantage of it.

E.g. I have the right to be a racist dirtbag - but if I act like a racist dirtbag that is on me and not on the system.

If you paid millions in taxes personally, then you have sufficient funds to qualify for investor/job creator visa (which in turn leads to a green card as well). I have family that were able to accomplish this with as little as 500K and 2 years, but depending on the scenario it can take as much as a couple million dollars (depending on location and nature of business). I am sure this is stuff your attorney must have explained to you so probably there is context I am missing here.

The process is non-definitive. A few years after you invest the money, you get a provisional green card and if the 10 permanent jobs are created after 2 years from that point, you get a permanent Green Card. Too many ifs and buts.

I thought EB-1 was more definitive and I felt that I was the right fit for it.

However at this point I am kind of done!

Which country would you recommend a skilled immigrant go to in present day ?

>I applied for EB-1.

Did you use an immigration lawyer for that?

Same here man. I'm getting sick and tired of immigration in this country. The whole country is worried about illegal aliens and no one cares about us.

And this is not new with trump. Been on h1b for years. It just got worse over time under obama. Americans dont care about indians. Either we don't get our voices heard too much, or we are just a slightly wrong shade of brown ("people of color" - ha!). Go care about illegals.... I'm just tired of dealing with immigration and then getting shat on by "pro immigration" people who dont care about Indians (and frankly Chinese).

To my american friends, you dont realize how racist the immigration system is currently. Forget refugees and "muslim bans". Those are really nothing compared to how Indians and Chinese are treated. I'll show you: https://travel.state.gov/content/travel/en/legal/visa-law0/v...

Do a search for "FINAL ACTION DATES FOR EMPLOYMENT-BASED PREFERENCE CASES"

See that table. There are a few salient points:

1. That table shows where the queue pointer is right now. "C" means at the head of the queue (no entries, everything being processed). If it is a date, that is the date that is currently being processed (for all intents and purposes).

2. Notice the special columns for the different nationalities. So they discriminate based on national origin. But, only 5 to 7 countries are special cased. Everyone else (including all refugee countries, muslim countries, etc) fall under "Rest of World" ("All chargeability areas..").

3. Now notice the INDIA column. The date is 01Jan07 for EB3. This means, for someone with a Bachelors degree, they have to process people who applied 11 years ago. Let that sink in. No other race has to face this discrimination. EB2 (masters or phd) is not much better either. You have to be a genius (EB1) to get a greencard 'now' without a queue ... at the same level as a Bachelors graduate from Iran, Saudi, Somalia, whereever. .

Anyway, hopefully you can empathize a little bit with Indians and Chinese who did things by the book and stop focussing so much on illegals.

If there was zero discrimination no-one from any other country would stand a chance due to the sheer population size of India & China.

Would have thought this was obvious.

It’s fairer to the rest of us.

That's not true. People from every country would have the same chance. Petitions would be processed in the order they were received regardless of nationality. How would that be unfair to anyone?

Trust me man, you haven't seen the ugly side of many liberal "pro immigration" folks. At least the guy you are responding to is being honest.

It is unfair because it doesn't allow someone to jump the line. A totally unfair system (sarcasm).

There is no "order they are received" for H-1B. You have to apply on the first of April and literally win a lottery.

If you remove the national origin quotas (it has little to do with race and everything to do with where you were born), then it would be the exact same process for green cards except you only have a limited number of chances before you cap out the time on your visa and get sent back. How is that a better, less capricious system than the current one for anyone who isn't Indian or Chinese?

The US political system gives disproportionate power to states with smaller population. The US immigration system is disproportionately more difficult for countries with lots of applicants. That's what the US looks at as fair - giving each state or country a fair shot, not each individual.

> If you remove the national origin quotas (it has little to do with race and everything to do with where you were born)

Yeah, those things aren't correlated at all. Come on.

> then it would be the exact same process for green cards except you only have a limited number of chances before you cap out the time on your visa and get sent back.

No it wouldn't. There's a different system in place for permanent visas than for temporary ones. Viz. a waiting list. The grandparent post linked the visa bulletin which explains how it works. You have the tools at hand to educate yourself, there's no excuse for ignorance.

> How is that a better, less capricious system than the current one for anyone who isn't Indian or Chinese?

Because human being are human beings, not 1 billionth of India or China. It is a bedrock principle of contemporary liberalism (small l) that people ought be to treated as individuals. The remnant of the pre-1965 racist national origin system is a disgusting anomaly of a worse time.

> The US political system gives disproportionate power to states with smaller population. The US immigration system is disproportionately more difficult for countries with lots of applicants. That's what the US looks at as fair - giving each state or country a fair shot, not each individual.

One terribly unjust system originally put in place to protect slavery doesn't define the United States' entire notion of fairness.

In any event it is nonsensical to talk about giving a country a shot. Countries aren't going to immigrate to the US, people are.

Yes, I am aware that there is currently a different system, for green cards. I am aware that your proposal is to process each application in the order that it is received. What exactly do you think is going to happen to go from here to there? On one hand, you need to deal with the backlog. On the other hand, if you are going to "fix" the system, you should fix it in such a way that, in the future, there will be no backlog. How would such a system be different than what I described? The alternative is to turn the green card backlog into a problem for immigrants of all nationalities rather than a problem for immigrants of some nationalities.

You should perhaps learn a bit more about the history of the country which you want to immigrate to. Slavery had nothing to do with representation in the senate. It had everything to do with protecting Connecticut, Delaware, and New Jersey from New York, Georgia, and the Carolinas.

The green card diversity lottery is based on exactly the premise I mention. Applicants from countries with low rates of immigration to the US have a great chance of winning. Applicants from countries with high rates of immigration to the US are ineligible to apply.

> You should perhaps learn a bit more about the history of the country which you want to immigrate to.

Because no one could possibly be opposed to per country caps unless he were a disgruntled Indian.

I was born in New York. My parents were born in New York. Three of four of my grandparents were born in New York. The fourth grandparent was born in Germany. His parents died in a concentration camp because they couldn't come to the US with their teen children. You see they had be been born in Eastern Europe and the racist national origin system was designed to prevent too many people born in Eastern Europe from coming to the US. Kind of like how you don't want too many people born in India or China to come to the US.

> The green card diversity lottery is based on exactly the premise I mention.

With your encyclopedic knowledge of American history I'm sure you are aware of the political origins of that program.

> The green card diversity lottery is based on exactly the premise I mention. Applicants from countries with low rates of immigration to the US have a great chance of winning. Applicants from countries with high rates of immigration to the US are ineligible to apply.

Sure. But that has nothing to do with employment-based green cards.

By all means, choose for diversity when it comes to other types of immigrants (extended family, lottery, etc). But it makes no sense to consider country of birth for skilled worker green cards, where employers hire based on talent - and especially so when the beneficiaries already live here and pay taxes here.

> The alternative is to turn the green card backlog into a problem for immigrants of all nationalities rather than a problem for immigrants of some nationalities.

Sure, but a 3-4 year wait for everyone (while living here) is literally an order of magnitude lower than the current 60-year wait for those born in India. Problems like not being able to switch jobs, kids having to leave when they turn 21, etc, are just less likely to occur when the wait is shorter and more transparent.

In order to prevent a shock to the system, per-country caps should be phased-in over 2-3 years. That way, those currently in the system will all get their green cards in the expected 1-1.5 year timeframe, while future applicants will know, prior to applying, that the wait will be 4 years for everyone. HR392 does this.

Think a 4-year wait would be too long? First, let me point out the hypocrisy. Second, a solution then is simply to increase the employment-based numbers, from 140K currently, to around 220K (these numbers include immediate family: spouses and minor kids). This is hard politically, because Democrats would also want to increase chain migration and other categories.

If the backlog is truly 60 years, then it will take 4.2 years of giving every single employment based greencard to Indians to clear that backlog. This ignores the backlog that exists for Chinese applicants.

The fact is that the backlog will get longer in every year that more foreign temporary workers apply for green cards than there are green cards available. So what might start out as a 4 year backlog in (say) 2020 will get longer each year by as long as 1 year (if there are, say, 280,000 H-1B petitions every year and the worst case of 100% of them applying for greencards occurs).

If it really is a matter of going from <2 year wait for non-Chinese, non-Indians and a multi-decade wait for Chinese and Indians to a <4 year wait for everyone, forever, because there will no longer be an accumulation of a backlog, then it is a no brainer for the US to make that change in policy. I believe that that scenario is a fantasy and the actual result of HR 392 will be a multi-decade wait for everyone. The solution to that will, IMO, turn into a lottery similar to today's H-1B process.

> except you only have a limited number of chances before you cap out the time on your visa

That's not true - anyone with a submitted I-140 can renew their H-1 or L-1 visa indefinitely in yearly increments. See sections 104 and 106 of AC21.

> If there was zero discrimination no-one from any other country would stand a chance due to the sheer population size of India & China.

If there was zero discrimination on country of origin, each qualified individual applicant within a given VISA category would be situated equivalently regardless of nation of origin.

India, China, Mexico, and the Philippines (I may be missing one or two other countries) would see an increased number of total immigrants to the US and other countries less, but that's because the per country of origin limits currently put individuals of those countries in a worse position, not because the present system is fair and removing the per country limits would be unfair.

I think we'd see more from Brazil peh Argentina, Indonesia, fewer from Mexico [unless undocumenteds don't count as immigrants]

India & China make up 35% of the entire worlds population. A fair system will admit a lot more people from those countries than others simply because there have more people.

That’s why the system can’t be “fair”. Someone in the system is always going to be slighted.

The goal of the caps is diversity of immigrants. Making the system "fair" for countries like India and China is not the goal.

Do you know that India is more than in languages, cuisine, culture and history than whole of Western Europe. Just because they have common passport, doesn't mean that they are any less diverse.

If whole of Europe gets a single EU passport, does it suddenly make them any less diverse?

Its hilarious how "diversity" is supposed to be about thinking beyond race/nationality/skin color, yet the measure of diversity is how many different races/nationalities/skin colors you can collect.

If race does not matter, then why does "diverse" mean as many races as possible. Shouldn't it mean diversity of thought instead? If nationality does not affect personality, then why should diversity be about diversity of nations?

Hang on, why should someone from India have less of a chance just because they were born in India? They can't help where they were born, or that their country has a high population.

If there weren't country caps, then someone born in India would have an equal chance as someone from Sweden.

I argue what you're proposing isn't fair at all - it's clear that limiting by country is discrimination, not the other way around.

Now what I will grant you is that it'll skew population statistics for immigrants to the more populous countries. But that's just a function of global population distribution by nation.

Which again, isn't the fault of the applicant.

Or to put all this another way, should someone born in Vatican City have an extremely high chance to get in, versus someone from a country with several million in population? No.

You felt untrusted as a foreigner but imagine being born here and feeling the same way and vise versa. Luckily we sell this place well enough people still think the American dream is more than a dream.

> Your system is broken and needs to be fixed.

I couldn't agree more. The solution here should be to lift the per country cap on each visa category, which is a remnant of the pre-1965 overtly racist national origin system, and increase the overall number of employment based permanent visas. EB-2 and EB-3 (not including other workers), which are the main categories for high skilled workers, are only allocated around 70,000 visas per year. Compare that to the lottery system at 50,000 or siblings of US citizens at 65,000 per year.

While I am totally in favor of permanent resident visa programs being fixed, and am in general in favor of increased immigration including of high tech workers, the H1B is being abused. Not just by the Indian BPO companies like Infosys and Tata but also by multinational consulting companies like IBM and Accenture. If and when the EB2 and EB3 backlogs were cleared, I'd support: 1) eliminating the exemption rules for determining H1B dependent employers, 2) barring H1B dependent employers from filing any further H1B petitions until they were no longer dependent, and 3) apply the attestation requirements to any employer regardless of size that files at least 1000 petitions in a visa year.

Isn't this just unfair to say bright young people from Africa who don't have an industry turning out graduates

How are they any worse off under what I propose than the status quo?

"lift the per country cap on each visa category, which is a remnant of the pre-1965 overtly racist national origin system"

I understand that pre-1965 it was used in a racist way, but isn't a per country cap a good way maintain a diverse group of immigrants today? I'd keep that, and add a gender cap, forcing a relatively equal distribution. I'd also greatly increase skilled immigration overall.

Exactly, if we got rid of the per country caps, the only thing it would do (beyond help the OP, surprise!) would ensure immigrants would be 80% Chinese and Indian.

I for one prefer the diversity of immigrants we get with the cap.

How are arguments like this any different than arguments for Jewish quotas back in the day? What happened to judging people for the content of their character rather than the color of their skin?

Making Indians wait for up to 70 years (a de facto Indian exclusion act) is extremely racist.

Are you against diversity? Because that's what the quota is there for.

Plenty of Indians can come to the US, we just want to leave room for others as well.

(1) If India hypothetically broke into 50 nations (at independence there were 556 states), this problem would not arise. Suddenly, India's diversity index would "shoot up".

(2) India itself is very diverse: ~30% speak the same language (Hindi) with different dialects. Rest speak over 16+ regional languages with distinct scripts and a 1000+ dialects. Someone speaking Tamil won't understand a Punjabi speaker and vice versa.

(3) If someone was born just 5 kms from say Gorakhpur in India , across the border in Nepal, they suddenly meet the diversity bar.

(4) Not sure why two immigrants from Austria and Germany are 'diverse' but two immigrants from India's Nagaland and Gujarat, who have different religions, cultures, languages (even facial features, if those count) are clubbed together.

(5) Logically extending your argument, you'd also agree with a quota system in all jobs classifications. For example, we should have a 12% quota for African Americans in Google's engineering team.

This is an asinine argument.

Merit, fit and an ability to contribute to the society should determine America's immigration policy not some racist concept determined by the accident of birth.

> Not sure why two immigrants from Austria and Germany are 'diverse' but two immigrants from India's Nagaland and Gujarat, who have different religions, cultures, languages (even facial features, if those count) are clubbed together.

That's an interesting point. When asked by others where I am from I normally respond with "I am from India" - but it would be more appropriate to say "I am from Tamil Nadu" (an Indian State north of Sri Lanka).

If someone was born just 5 kms from say Gorakhpur in India , across the border in Nepal, they suddenly meet the diversity bar.

And if they were born 9000 miles away in the US, they'd already be a citizen, so what's your point.

Listen, no system is ever going to be "fair" for every person.

And considering how often people talk shit about the US on HN, I'm surprised people don't just go to Canada or Australia instead.

What's so good about diversity?

Arbitrary country lines don't count for diversity, as somebody else pointed out. China and India have huge populations, and China at least has a huge land mass.

Why wouldn't we not "leave room" for others, especially if they weren't as skilled?

No, it isn't. Under the current system, there are no per-country limits on who can come to this country to work for a sponsoring employer.

The per-country caps only have the effect that some people need to wait longer than others for their rights, while still living here and paying the same taxes as you do, but not being easily able to switch jobs, not being eligible for certain jobs (eg. SpaceX), or certain research grants (eg. NIH), and being one layoff away from having to sell their house, sell their car, take their kids out of school, and leave on short notice.

If diversity is the goal, then the entire pipeline (H1/L1, potentially F1) should have per-country caps - that way, nobody living here is denied their rights based on where they were born. Raising the per-country caps on green cards to 100% to match the H-1B caps (aka eliminating them) is one way of achieving this, and arguably the most egalitarian - but it isn't the only way.

At this point now, I suspect some companies prefer hiring people from India/China because they know they'd be indentured. That aspect should be removed.

A lot of the reason for the difference between the US and Canada is simply demand. Both target an immigration rate of about ~1% of the population.

The demand to immigrate into the US far exceeds that limit while in Canada there are many years where they don't even hit the limit.

Hah, no.

The USA typically allows about 0.3% per year. Canada is around 0.8%. Per capita, Canada allows many more immigrants than the USA. (Since the USA's population is so much larger, USA allows more in absolute numbers.)

About 21-22% of Canadian residents are immigrants. About 14% of American residents are.

Where did your numbers come from? Did you pick peak years? Canada is higher but slightly. It still stands that the waitlist is way longer for the US than Canada.

  The USA typically allows about 0.3% per year.

That statistic omits those who enter/overstay illegally.

Good point. There are ~20 millions people in the US illegally, so that adds another 6-7% to those numbers.

20 million is an estimate of the total number currently present, not the number that immigrate illegally each year. There are about 400k new illegal immigrants per year[1] joining a population of about 320 million so that is about 0.1% joining the population each year.

[1] https://cis.org/Report/25-Million-Join-Illegal-Population-un...

The Pew numbers conflate completely different sources to deliberately underestimate the net count. For entrants, they count only working head-of-household adults. For exits, they count every single person leaving, even children. They then just subtract the latter from the former. This process understates the net entrants by a factor of at least three. Keep that in mind when quoting Pew, which is an interest group. On their "5 Facts" page, they even say, "the number of unauthorized immigrants living in the U.S. was lower in 2015 than it was at the end of the Great Recession in 2009", which contradicts even their own data, let alone the CIS reference you cite.

Why is this a good thing? Wouldn’t the good thing to be able to get a work visa if you want to work?

>>I know of so many people who gamed the system, working in cahoots with consulting companies that exist solely to scam people.

It's sort of strange you even write this. Almost all engineers from India 'gamed the system' in some way both back home and in the US to do anything they have done in the US.

The only thing not surprising to me is the way you talk. All Indians/ex-Indians I met while I was in US believed they deserved to be there and others do not. Therefore they should go back, giving them a chance. And of course everybody thought, everybody else should go back and only they deserved to stay. Not surprising, because Indians live the crab mentality day in and out.

Also the 'consulting company' bogey is so broken to repeated in these situations. Why do you think you deserved to be there and they don't?

I'm writing this form a throw away for obvious reasons. The H1-B system or the green card system does not distinguish between TCS/Infosys/etc.. and bay area engineers making a lot of money.

I made over $300k+/year at one of the large tech firms. Because the US limits green cards from people born in a single country to 7% (same upper limits to India / China and Montenegro), me and many of my friends have to wait 70+ years. (https://www.cato.org/blog/no-one-knows-how-long-legal-immigr...)

I paid a lot of money in taxes for a long time. Over a decade, this was taxation without representation.

Many of my american friends could not believe how bad the system was. It took several beer chats with hours of question answering before they realized that you had no way around this if you were born in India. Before anyone says EB-1, remember that EB-1 was meant for nobel laureates and requires a lot of luck to work out. It's ridiculous - a person I used to lead in my job who was born in Spain got their green card in under 2 years because of where they were born, while I had already waited a decade.

Life is short and there's no point waiting for 70+ years paying taxes without representation.

I'm back in India starting a company. The access to venture capital here is improving, and it's so much easier to be creative without having to worry about immigration status. If I hadn't move back to India, I would have moved to Canada. They have really got their immigration system right.

> the US limits green cards from people born in a single country to 7% (same upper limits to India / China and Montenegro)

As someone who doesn't know a lot about american immigration laws, that sounds surprisingly insane. Probably a stupid idea, but might it be preferable to become a citizen of another country - let's say Estonia, which seems to embrace immigration - just to use that citizenship to apply for a US green card?

You can't. The Green card quotas are based upon country of birth, not country of citizenship.

I was a beneficiary of an H1B in 99 from Switzerland (easily confused with Sweden that Trump wants qualified candidates from). After months of waiting I moved to the US, and got a green card five years later.

I’m grateful. I made my life here. But I think it’s not worth it, the America we all romanticized is long gone.

I think that that America actually never existed, it was all just propaganda.

I lived with my parents in the US over 2 decades ago. It was definitely a nice place back then. It's a place of extremes, with a lot of extreme bad and good.

I think that America existed for a short time after WW2 and maybe the time before 9/11.

That's when all that Suburban sprawl started and we all think of maybe when we think of "great USA." Nevertheless, I do think that propaganda (mainly Hollywood) is adding to that positive image.

Sounds like it started and ended with Bretton Woods

I completely feels the same. I am grateful for the education and opportunity that is offered, but I am losing purpose as time goes.

The America that I was dreaming of, might never exist in the first place. However, it is painful, now even a little bit enthralling to see it disintegrate at this speed.

Mr. Trump would like more immigrants from Norway, not Sweden (easily confused with Norway).

We all romanticized?

If you asked Trump supporters, he turning the US back to what many people romanticized.

And if you don't like the direction of the country, vote with your feet.

A lot of people are doing that, they’re calling it “marching”

Why would someone from Switzerland - a country that seems superior to the US in every relevant aspect for quality of life - move to the US?

If this actually does target the outsourcing firms, eg: Tata, Infosys, Cognizant, then this is good for tech. We need more experienced foreigners and not spaghetti code shops.

But really, the system is broken. A lottery is a horrible way to decide value or qualifications. Let in the people who truly deserve it, not the ones who flood the system with applications.

Point system, please.

But that gets gamed look at all the people who do a Bsc and the immediately a MBA to game points systems.

MBA's her originally designed for high flying corporate types in their mid 30's who where tapped for advancement.

So, account for that in the points system?

Why does the system have to be simple or even fixed?

Why not award the visas to the companies bidding for the highest salaries? This aligns incentives better for everyone I think. It would improve the talent pool and prevent the body shops from using the program to staff project managers who send work offshore.

With this approach wouldn't you help established companies against startups which provide compensation with more stock options and less salary?

Have a separate startup visa for complies below a fixed size?

And that's how you get Infosys/TCS to start/acquire a thousand consulting startups

This can have its own set of criteria, it’s much easier to protect a special purpose visa. For example just outright ban consulting on the startup visa.

Yes, startups can source americans until they grow to a certain size. Not a big deal.

Why involve companies at all? The visa should be tied to the individual, not the company. The goal should be to enable immigration of skilled/motivated people to the US.

The only role that appears to make sense for corporate involvement is that perhaps a company could select from individuals who have applied and are awaiting entry.

That would be a completely different visa program, and there are alternatives already. The purported goal of the H1B program is to enable companies to bring in foreign labor when they can establish that there is a labor shortage in certain specialized occupations. That was the legislation that was passed by congress. Of course we've found the actual administration of this program does little to meet those goals.

"Let's compare the number of H-1B recipients with the 1.1 million green cards that are issued every year. Why are we quibbling over 65,000 people that corporations are trying to recruit? And the government is trying to micromanage this? It makes no sense."

https://www.hpe.com/us/en/insights/articles/the-incredible-s...

Different concerns.

I wonder how many people who say "Oh God yes, please run Trump, please run" because they thought he'd lose badly now regret that attitude. Telling people to stop looking at the tech visa issue because the number of green cards dwarf it just invites a push towards a return to pre 1960s immigration policies.

What were the pre 1960 immigration policies? That was means-tested immigration right? That would align us with most of Europe as far as I can tell.

It was a system of quotas based on national origin, explicitly designed to maintain the "ethnic character" of the country, and either de jure or de facto banned Asian and African immigration.

Unless I am very much mistaken no one thought about immigration from Africa at the time because there was a trivial amount. Same reason as there were almost no restrictions on migration within the Western Hemisphere, it didn’t happen much.

There is still a quota based on national origin which leads to wait times of up to 70 years for people from India for employment based GCs and up to 130 years in the family based category for people from Mexico. The immigration system is a joke.

This is an accurate statement.

The reason why it is still brought up is because Teddy Kennedy and others assured the public that the 1965 Hart-Cellar Act (the real name of the immigration act) would not change the ethnic makeup of the country.

Clearly something in the law did change something...

Yes, there are still white supremacists who are angry about non-white people being allowed to live in the country and treated as equal citizens, that is also accurate.

If I understand it correctly the Trump admin wants to institute something more akin to the AU and CA visa systems --preferring people who fill skills voids in the US. It's not a return to pre-60's policies.

I think this aligns with most other modern economies out there. If anything, we're the outlier allowing randoms to come in without regard to skills or means.

Why is this controversial? Why would Americans prefer immigrants chosen at random through a lottery vs. those who are skilled and vetted? Or worse, giving illegal immigrants immunity?

I don't think it's controversial. Any country I've been to that can control ingress does control ingress and will promptly deport people who didn't enter the proper way.

Japan, S Korea, China, Singapore, etc., would be extremely hard for anyone to work off the books without having to resort to the underworld. Otherwise you may last a month or two, but most people will get kicked out without a visa. What's more regular police have the authority and responsibility to make sure anyone without a visa gets expelled.

Does that work even if the visa-less person can't remember which country they came from ?

This would be so rare that it'd be of little impact. That said, they would likely investigate who this person was, who originally employed them, and use those records along with any other trails left at points of entry and use that info to return the overstayer.

> Why is this controversial? Why would Americans prefer immigrants chosen at random through a lottery vs. those who are skilled and vetted

FYI: the immigrants who are chosen at random by the lottery are thoroughly vetted. They go through criminal and medical screening. All they win is the opportunity to be interviewed at a US consulate/embassy after the screenings; the interviewing officer (a US diplomat) considers skills and resources and decides whether or not to grant a visa. It's not as if they win today and buy a ticket tomorrow.

Not entirely true. For the diversity visa (green card lottery), there are (extensive) medical and background checks, but the US consulate does not consider skills and resources beyond verifying that you meet the minimum requirements (high school diploma). The consulate interview for this category is basically a rubber stamp.

However, as others pointed out, the DV is a small fraction of green cards granted, and the process for family based immigration may differ.

Source: I went through this process.

> the US consulate does not consider skills and resources beyond verifying that you meet the minimum requirements (high school diploma).

This is wrong; they use their judgement to gauge the likelihood of you ending up being a "public charge". Even if you meet the bare minimum (high school), but have no/inadequate skills and/or you are broke, I guarantee that you will not get a visa. This is what I meant by "skills and resources". It's most certainly not a "rubber-stamp", but might have seemed like it to you because you met the requirements.

Source?

Also, even if they verify you meet some minimum bar of being able to support yourself (which I was not asked about in my interview, other than turning up looking generally presentable), this is still a far cry from a more rigorous points-based immigration system. Per GP, DV immigrants are still basically chosen "at random".

You can look it up if you'd like, the above poster is correct. UCIS determines whether a green card applicant is likely to be a public charge.

They only ask you about in the interview if it looks like a problem. Otherwise they use the signficant amount of documentation you've already provided to make that determination.

What do you mean randoms without regard to skills or means?

You need either a family based justification (spouse or parent, mainly) or labor certification to apply for a green card. It's not a government defined point system, but an employer has to deem you worth the trouble to sponsor. Indirectly, at least, that measures the need for the applicants skills.

Means are also examined. E.g. to get a student visa you have to prove you can pay for tuition and living expenses without relying on working in the US.

> What do you mean randoms without regard to skills or means?

Perhaps mc32 means the diversity visa program?

https://travel.state.gov/content/travel/en/us-visas/immigrat...

This is a tiny fraction of new visas, but significantly opens up the possibility for genuine diversity immigration

At 50,000 Diversity visas per year, it is comparable to the number of new H1B visas issues per year (65,000).

Which is itself a tiny fraction of the number of yearly immigrants.

It's only a big deal because most of them are coming to work for 1 industry.

We don't allow people to come in without means. You can't even bring your spouse in unless you make a certain multiple over the federal poverty level.

People (relatives) sponsored by lawful immigrants are not means tested.

The sponsoring immigrant is means tested on their behalf.

At some point those people will be responsible for themselves and the sponsor's responsibility expires.

Only after the person either becomes a US citizen or has done 10 years of qualifying work.

That's not correct.

1st, the citizen who is sponsoring an immigrant is means tested.

2nd, UCIS must use their judgment to determine the immigrant has the means to support themselves and won't become a public charge.

This applies for all immigrants applying for permanent residency.

Also I'm not just talking about relatives sponsored by lawful immigrants, I'm also talking about relatives sponsored by citizens.

Btw unless a permanent resident is sponsoring their minor child, sponsoring another immigrant is generally a multi decade process.

Even the spouses of green card holders aren't considered immediate family and the average wait time when sponsoring is over a decade.

The proportion of H1Bs that are employed by actual tech companies, rather than technical consulting companies, is stark[1]. Having dealt with a number of the latter batch of outfits, through our customers that have outsourced their IT work to them, I would not be sad to see their business model go away. Neither would most of our customers, who tend to be regretting the experiment and trying to bring their IT back in-house, as soon as their contracts are up.

I think the H1B system is dumb. Educated, highly effective workers in in-demand fields are exactly the kind of immigrants you would want to fast-track in for real citizenship, rather than exploiting them in quasi-indentured servitude. The other category I found somewhat mind-blowing was the situation of a lot of my international classmates upon graduation; educate them for four years or more at a prestigious US university, and once they graduate, kick them back home and make it difficult for them to come back.

[1] http://fortune.com/2017/08/03/companies-h1b-visa-holders/

I agree but usa does not need to do this now because of over supply. They can play the carrot and stick game because h1bs are willing to wait 15+ year for green card. Even after that much wait, you are not guerenuteed to get green card.

Well some of that is universities charge more for international students and see them as a revenue stream.

What universities charge more for international students than for random, unaffiliated students from other US states?

Some state systems "discount" fees for state residents, but that's based on the premise that those families have been paying into the system.

It's not that they charge more (though I don't have evidence they don't), it's just that international students almost always pay full price.

American students may receive financial aid either from the government, or the university itself (scholarship or other aid). International students on the other hand usually don't. They pay full price. They make universities, particularly private ones, a lot of money.

I went to a good but not top private college on scholarship. Some undergrad majors such as business and the graduate business school were overwhelmingly international students. The law school is approaching 50% international students.

UW Madison charges a little bit more for international cs out of state. https://mbo.wiscweb.wisc.edu/wp-content/uploads/sites/194/20...

The additional surcharge is based on additional staff for the additional paperwork and programs (e.g. ESL) used by students from abroad. https://iss.wisc.edu/international-student-fee-increase/

I think that this is useful for companies who abuse the H1B.

I doubt that any of the big Four (Google, Facebook, Amazon, Apple) will have any problem with this, but the consulting body shops will be scrambling.

And, this is something else problematic for startups who want to import talent. You need to have some sort of legal/immigration department to deal with this paperwork, and most startups don't have/can't afford that.

Not directly related, but a friend of mine from India got a J1 visa for an internship at a big four rejected last week.

Sure. I'm just saying that the big four has the ability to deal with this contingency, and backing paperwork and documentation.

You don't get rejected out of hand for not being authorized to work in the USA currently.

Sure you do. Google, Apple and Facebook (and virtually every company in the Bay Area) have all stopped trying to get H1Bs for new grads with degrees from outside the US.

Microsoft is the exception for now.

H1b from India here and I think these rules are good. I am working in the US for the last 7 years and my green card (I-140) was approved 6 years ago. At the current pace it would take another 8 years to get my green card. It's hard for me to switch jobs, can't start any company, can't get promoted to management etc. There is uncertainty in almost all aspects of my life.

I am on H1b, I am not cheap labor. I get paid exorbitant amount of money for my skills. I seriously thought of moving to Canada, but because of our health issues with cold weather we could not move. I love this country, my life, prospects of success once I get my green card and quality of life that my kids would have.

But I am tired! I am so tired!

Why does being on a H1B prevent you from getting promoted to management ?

Source : Work at a big tech where several H1Bs have made it to the higher levels of management.

A green card application is tied to job responsibilities, role and job location. Switching to a new job location or accepting a new role (for example, switch from engineering to product management or for that matter other management positions) is hard. Such changes would usually require the whole green card to be restarted (LCA, hiring, cool-off period, PERM, I-140) and it easily takes more than a year and is stressful.

We're shooting ourselves in the foot so hard. China is expanding aggressively, and will likely be the next superpower. We need all the engineers we can get our hands on, or soon, people won't want citizenship here.

Then why doesn't the US produce more top quality engineers? It isn't as though the US lacks the population or resources to solve this problem domestically. My thinking is that Americans simply don't want it that badly.

We produce excellent engineers. We also want them badly. We just don't want to pay them.

I believe I am paid rather well for the work I do, but then I also live in an affordable area. Developers make far more than average wages and often much more than many other careers of similar experience/education requirements.

I don't believe wages are the problem or that suddenly inflating wages will magically blossom into a supreme talent surplus. It is possible to make 6 figures as a trash collector, without any education, if you work your ass off. Yet, I don't see people without college rushing into trash collection even though they probably earn less than half of that.

This logically doesn't make any sense.

What are they doing then, sitting on their ass at home? Emigrating outside of the US? If not, and they're working, and companies are still having trouble filling positions, how would paying the existing American engineers more fill those outstanding positions?

Yes, the whole point of this discussion is how the status quo makes zero sense.

When I was applying to job openings after college, the very few times I heard back from them, I was offered pay in the range of $15/hr, 35k, etc. for a junior software developer position. Luckily I eventually got something decent but it really is a problem with the companies. There are way more than enough programmers out there, companies just don't want to pay them/don't want to invest in junior devs anymore, as discussed here: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=16367997

What year was this in? It wasn't my experience in college in 2010-2015 at all.

Many SV companies recruited mostly useless interns like me and mentored us and paid us well over the median US household income. All in the hopes that we would become useful and join after graduation (at well over six figures salary).

And I'm Canadian so they were also paying flights, relocation, visa fees, etc. It doesn't make a lot of sense for them to do these things if it's so easy to hire an American developer at $50k, but maybe their hiring process is that broken?

2017. They could easily fly in students from other states too if they wanted. My experience was in NY.

The math doesn't work out.

China has four times the population of the US. The only way the US can consistently stay ahead in technology is attracting the best scientists and engineers from other parts of the world. The arms race of trying to produce more domestic engineers faster is one that China will win.

The math has not worked out for a very long time.

I mean, China has had a far larger population than the US for many decades and yet somehow the US had a lead for a large part of the 20th century.

How did US leadership _ever_ happen?

Other factors beyond population and human talent are important: how does each country educate its people, organize its research facilities and personnel, its industry, its economy, etc? Did a country encounter misfortune, war, pestilence, political instability, etc.?

I don't disagree with you though. China has created a method of economic decision making and industrial growth which is amazingly powerful. The US seems to be struggling, paralyzed, stagnant.

> mean, China has had a far larger population than the US for many decades and yet somehow the US had a lead for a large part of the 20th century. How did US leadership _ever_ happen?

I just gave a reasonable explanation. The US has always been a comparatively immigration friendly nation. We used to attract the best and the brightest.

Nikola Telsa, Albert Einstein, Elon Musk, Segei Brin - do those names sound familiar? They were all foreign immigrants to the United States. If they all stayed home or picked another country, the US would be weaker.

ok. i see the case you're making, but i still think the explanation for a nation's power and leadership depends upon much more than how many highly talented people it has.

i say that because all countries have highly talented people. and some countries (e.g. Nigeria, Indonesia, Japan, Brazil, Philipines, India) have large populations and thus large numbers of highly talented people. but that isn't enough to explain the big differences between nations as technological innovators, military powers, per capita wealth, etc.

for example, when i look at the war that led up to Britain's acquisition of Hong Kong in the 1841, i don't think i can explain much of the outcome by looking at how many highly talented people there were on each side. in 1841 China had a population of roughly 400 million while Britain had less than 30 million. China had a HUGE pool of highly intelligent, highly talented people. i see the same thing in Britain's colonialism in India. India had a VAST number of highly intelligent people.

does anyone doubt that China and India had more highly gifted people than Britain in the 1800s?

i guess i just don't see as much explanatory power in that one variable as you seem to see.

> i guess i just don't see as much explanatory power in that one variable as you seem to see.

I respect your skepticism, but at least I have an explanation. You point out problems but no solutions.

Immigration policy if not the entire answer is at least very plausibly a big part of the answer. Relatively open borders means that your nation draws upon the entire population of the world to attract the best and the brightest.

US can also stay ahead if China's party dictatorship continues to ignore the wellbeing of its people in favor of enriching Communist Party members, and the US stops dumbing down education.

The USSR was bigger than the US, and the USSR even invested heavily in education, but the US still won out.

The USSR was relatively close to the US in population, and the Space Race was neck and neck. The Soviets beat the US to outer space with Sputnik.

China has a way larger population relative to the US than the Soviets did. It's not even close.

Because nerds have lower social status, and sadly due to insane competition for popularity, it's quite hard to become good at math/science without being labeled a nerd.

What that means is fewer kids go to STEM schools and become scientists/engineers. This is a pipeline problem caused by culture, it's a very hard problem to fix.

For engineers already here, it's actually a good situation, because scarcity drives up wages; for major tech firms, it just means more hiring will be done in their international offices; for startups, it just means a different tradeoff, and having international connection to hire from other countries will become a competitive advantage.

expanding aggressively

Are they aggressively expanding their open boarders immigration policy? Hmm? Oh, they don't have such a policy? Golly, looks like they've been "shooting themselves in the foot" for a while now, 1000s of years really, so I guess it doesn't matter if we indulge in the same.

One Belt, One road is really taking off. South China Sea expansion with floating island bases and military protection of eco-depleting fish trawlers is soaring. they have rapid momentum, many talented people, good education, scalable infra and a powerful economy. they're building good relations and influencing a growing Africa, providing jobs and extracting industrial metals.

our economy needs all engineers fully employed, and as many more capable STEM immigrants as we can get our hands on. don't be lazy, don't be entitled, or America will be second-world, and our country irrelevant.

Do you want life in USA to be like life in China? Being required to wear a gas mask to walk down a street in town? Going to jail for disagreeing with a government official? Working in a sweatshop with no safety regulations?

China isn't exactly growing because of its immigration policies though.

The idea alone that no matter where on this planet I earn my income, I would have to pay US taxes makes me not want citizenship there.

I always find the concept of technology worker immigration to be a rather strange scenario. How the hell can the US be so dependent upon immigrants for work when there are so many Americans wanting to work for big technology companies?

This begs the question: Are Americans workers too incompetent at technology development? If so what is the cause of that problem?

It's solely to surpress wages.

I can promise you I am not experience anything remotely close to wage suppression or competition for employment. Perhaps this could be true for junior positions, but at the other end there are lots of opportunities available.

That being said if you honestly believe there is wage suppression then I recommend programming outside of office hours and getting as much practice as possible so that you can rise to a senior position where such problems are absent.

Tech companies like Google, Apple, etc. have a well known history in working together to suppress wages. You might be making a lot, but that doesn't mean you couldn't be making more.

That was just in the valley. I work for a company that makes more money than Google (Alphabet) and fortunately don't live anywhere near the valley. That also has nothing to do with immigration.

It impacted salaries for everyone in the industry. I don't live in the valley, and it impacted me.

I didn't say it had anything to do with immigration. But it does have to do with suppressing wages, which is what they comment you were replying to was suggesting as a motive. My point being that tech companies have a history of this.

If the high payers collude it has a knock on effect on the entire industry - its basic stats.

When some companies offered reduced wages, Facebook sucked up all the price-sensitive top talent for a few years, until companies got wise.

But not as high if there was no collusion

Incompetent? No.

Willing to work at the salary that employers want to ideally pay? No.

American software engineers with American degrees are expensive.

Employers see engineering as a cost sink and want to do everything possible to reduce budgetary pressures.

While some visa workers are incredibly talented (see: most of google's visa hires) most are just cheaper. Look at Cognizant, Tata, Infosys etc.

Just look at who is getting all of the visas from the program and it's clear what it's actually being used for. Importing cheap overseas labor and/or outsourcing, usually in tandem.

Interesting that this and other comments like it are being downvoted, I see nothing untrue or offensive about what you've written.

It makes no sense. What is happening to people who are being replaced by cheaper immigrants.

They either

1. Left tech due to low salaries from immgration. I don't think this is true because tech still pays higher than almost any other field.

2. Working in tech for low(er) salary, which contradicts the orignal claim that only reason for importing tech workers is for lowering salaries.

I am conflicted about talking about this, because I'm a us citizen software engineer and benefit from the shortage. I love to read the perspective of someone on the other side.

I think there are these different kinds of tech workers. For lack of a better term lets call them IT staff and software engineers.

IT staff builds some new systems but mostly puts pieces together to solve problems. This kind of job is easier to replace with moderately skilled foreign tech workers, maybe even working remotely, there's more supply here for this kind of worker. Then there is the harder to find software engineers who can work on new software from scratch, perhaps with more experience in this kind of worker. There's an incredible demand for this kind of person, that's unquenchable at least today (perhaps it used to be infinite for it staff but no longer). We really do need more of the second category of workers. Certainly a little smaller supply of workers means higher salaries, but when you need double the supply, you can restrain growth of the industry.

Can you please elaborate on how someone who is currently IT Staff become a true software engineer ? Apart from work experience alone, because that would be a chicken and egg problem.

Learn and practice programming in down time, then take a job interview.

that sounds right. education, experience, doing things, trying.

Are you saying people working in tech are paid too low nowadays in US?

Well, considering what Apple, Google, Intel, and other major tech firms did in colluding to not compete in hiring, this affected wages in the entire tech industry. So, one could make the argument that yes, working in tech is paying lower than what it's actually worth.

Are we being paid low? No.

Are we being paid lower than what we should be paid? I could see that argument being made.

All of the major tech firms could also just hire more aggressively in their overseas branches if the cost in hiring in US becomes too high. You’ll face globalization one way or another

As a tech worker I always feel super grateful that the job I like is also lucrative. There’s no end to greed.

Is it possible that we may get paid higher? Maybe

Do we deserve to get paid much higher than those equally talented people working elsewhere in the world? Or those who are super smart and hard working but not making much money just because they don’t work in tech? I don’t think so

It could also be that Tata and infosys undercut us hires so it becomes attractive to companies to now outsource.

> Willing to work at the salary that employers want to ideally pay? No.

I am not quite so sure my immigrant coworkers make noticeably less than I do, although I cannot really validate this claim either as I don't ask people who much they are paid.

> Employers see engineering as a cost sink and want to do everything possible to reduce budgetary pressures.

Yes and no. Employers see developers as a debt pool, because they are a cost factor unlike people in sales who actually generate revenue, but typically they see hiring, recruiting, and retention as even more expensive and riskier endeavors.

That drives all kinds of counter-intuitive behaviors regarding expenses and developers. Companies are typically willing to hire more developers than they need, because hiring is expensive and isn't always quick. Companies are also willing to prioritize slower more expensive technologies that require more developers so long as it means a reduction in recruitment and hiring risks.

I find that process horribly broken. Why is it so hard and deceptively untrustworthy to hire people generally in software? I don't believe it is the hiring process that is to blame, but rather the candidate pool in consideration for the required skills or experience.

> I cannot really validate this claim either as I don't ask people who much they are paid.

You should start. The only people who don't like you talking about compensation is your employer.

Well, that and a society full of people taught by years of public school that talking about finances is taboo.

It's not. The only person that gains anything from your inability to talk about compensation is your employer.

You lose a tonne of leverage while negotiating a raise / new job offer.

> I am not quite so sure my immigrant coworkers make noticeably less than I do, although I cannot really validate this claim either as I don't ask people who much they are paid.

I believe the starting compensation is part of the application and is public info. See http://h1bdata.info for example. You should be able to check your assumption.

Thanks, that certainly validates my assumption.

America has plenty of tech workers, but needs even more of them because high tech has become a major pillar of the economy. So the US doesn't need to be dependent on immigrants as long as it is willing to pare back its high tech industry by a factor of 2 or so.

Think of it this way - does a global company like Apple or Google want to hire just from the best in the US, or the best in the world?

If they hire from the best in the world, is it better for America if those hires are in the US paying US taxes, or overseas paying taxes to some other country?

Should the US government cater only to multinational corporations? Even when doing so leads to a declining quality of life for its citizens?

Every American's quality of life will go down when the next generation of tech companies that dominate the world economy come out of China and not the US because they can attract better people.

Can you explain that more? Does quality of life go down in every country which doesn't "attract better people?"

Did quality of life go up in China because it "attracted better people" or were there other reasons?

One of the things your comment made me think about is the US citizens I know who have relocated to other "less developed" countries in order to make their quality of life go _up_.

Does the quality of life for people in Japan go down because Google is headquartered in the US?

As a US resident, would my quality of life go down if Microsoft were headquartered in India, Facebook in Singapore, Google in Denmark, and Apple in Japan?

It all seems rather complicated and murky.

Chinese companies may attract better people, but people who live outside of China don't find China attractive.

I don't think your first question is valid to the immigration question. Every big company I have worked for simply opens a large office in India (or wherever) when they want to diversity their talent pool or business market. You can hire the best in the world and put them into a corporate office space owned by the company without bringing them into the US.

That's true to some extent, but it's not the same. Immigrants working in the U.S. at headquarters will have a different relationship with the rest of your team than people in a remote office 12 timezones away.

If you don't want your teams to be segregated by nationality then you will want people working in same place.

The corollary is - should US immigration policy be purposed to maximize Apple or Google stock value?

I was talking more about maximizing tax revenue for the US.

Same question. Should immigration policy, or government policy in general be purposed towards maximizing tax revenue? Surely that topic can't be ignored completely, but should it be the driving force of policy?

If you ask the same question, you'll get the same answer. Yes, why not?

Well, I didn't actually get an answer the first time. As to why not, because when I think about the role of government, maximizing tax revenue seems like it would be pretty low on the list of priorities.

Yes. It would be too simple to say we must focus on just one single priority.

The US has a big list of priorities: increasing GDP, protecting the environment, protecting laborers, providing medical care, protecting civil rights, enhancing tax revenue, taking care of the elderly, fighting wars, stopping disease outbreaks, curing cancer, exploring the solar system, patrolling the border, educating children, feeding everyone -- the list goes on and on.

All these arguments are about rebalancing and reordering these priorities.

Another perspective: does a global company like Apple or Google want to hire just from the cheapest in the US, or the cheapest in the world?

oh man. so great. the other side of the same coin.

If they wanted cheap, why would they put their HQs in Silicon Valley?

Google has an office in freaking Paris. It's not like international hires choose Silicon Valley over Paris because they're enamored with overpriced suburban living. It's just because they need to be at the HQ for better career advancement.

Disclaimer: I've been on H1B for 8 years and transferred it many times to big and small companies.

My observations:

1. USA has plenty of talent and they don't need generic engineers from other countries.

2. H1B workers are not underpaid

3. Only reason tech companies praising H1B is because their hiring process is broken. They select arbitrary interview questions and determine competency based on them. This is total bs and they end up passing on super intelligent US citizens then make bs claim that there are not enough tech talent in the USA.

4. USA does need specialists but they would come on O-1 visa anyways so H1B is not in picture here.

They are not incompetent, but if you're looking for the top performers (not saying it's the case with most H1Bs) you shouldn't restrict yourself to only Americans

I live in Canada but I am sure the hiring situation is not that different in USA,we had a job posting for Software devs and QA for almost 7 months in my previous work place, at one point we even told a candidate what topics we want them to study and be ready to talk but nah... this candidate came with zero preparation and it was after 7 months we found some one we liked (in terms of knowledge and fit). Just because a lot of people are waiting for jobs doesn't mean companies will hire them.

I see this as a failure of the US's public education system, and a twisted reward system.

The education seems focus heavily on making students happy/comfortable with themselves, and congratulate them on ever tiny achievements. Thus hard stuff like STEM is now avoided, because not good at them is definitely not the problem of the students, but the subjects themselves. Also the culture seems to discriminate against people who do have an interests in those topics, and punish them by isolation.

This deceptive system isn't really doing a good job that prepares students with self-confidence. Instead it cultivates an unique entitlement to blame the system for any personal issues. Which is the exact opposite of east asian system.

I think education needs to be repurposed as means to obtain knowledge through learning and a lot of practices. And as a selective system, the competitiveness of education shouldn't be avoided, where some people will achieve higher and access better resources and there is nothing wrong with it.

US's universities still have much of that perspective of education intact, but the high school education and below is just bad, and leave a lot of people unprepared.

As an alternative viewpoint, the RAND institute (a historically very pro-immigration organization) concluded that the American aversion to graduate degrees in STEM fields is rational and market driven[1]. In other words, STEM graduate degrees are not competitive with professional and other degree paths available to academically talented people in the US who have choice.

Americans, by this theory, aren't putting the effort into this difficult field because other grad degrees offer shorter completion times, lower attrition rates, higher pay, and better career stability.

Part of the purpose of the H1b is to create a pool of workers who don't have that freedom of choice, whose right to live and work in the US is controlled by tech corporations.

This is why I, along with a lot of others who would describe themselves as pro-immigration, don't support the H1B program. We're more than ok with talented people coming into the US, but see no reason why we should specifically use our immigration system to increase the number or STEM graduates above. Let people make their decisions according to their interests and market signals. If that means they don't become software developers in Silicon Valley in the numbers tech CEOs think they should, that's the market's answer.

[1]https://www.rand.org/pubs/issue_papers/IP241.html

This is really surprising to me. Compared to other high paying paths (medicine, law, MBA, finance), STEM degrees offer a much shorter completion time, lower debt, and higher starting salary. This holds even for engineering jobs, completely outside tech companies.

I do concede that the software industry can improve on attrition rates and career stability.

But on a simple time value of money front, I'm yet to come across a field of study in the American education system that pays more with lower debt than a STEM degree does.

Parent is talking about graduate degrees. You are talking about undergraduate degrees.

The claim that STEM degrees are not competitive with other degree paths in terms of professional success is obviously wrong.

Skimming the linked paper, it seems to be exclusively discussing PhD programs. Not sure how relevant that is.

Many politicians and tech ceos have discussed a severe shortage of US citizens getting advanced degrees in STEM fields. Here's one such link. There has also been legislation proposed that would have made this a formal part of the immigration system, again specifically for advanced (preferably PhD) degrees in STEM fields (notably not law, medicine or business). The legislation did not pass, though largely because it was bogged down in part of a larger (and failed) effort to negotiate a general immigration system.

https://www.computerworld.com/article/3089314/it-careers/cli...

This isn't the entire issue, I'd agree with that. But it is definitely a relevant piece. And it is notable that tech ceos and politicians are calling this a "shortage" when organizations like RAND are simply seeing a rational, market-based aversion to certain fields.

I'm in the odd position of completely agreeing that the US should have a skills based immigration system like many other countries, but opposing a particular focus on STEM, as I don't like the idea of coercing would-be immigrants into studying this particular field as a condition of coming to the US, and I don't agree that there is any "shortage" that can't be explained as the product of rational decision making about careers.

"citizens with graduate degrees" have almost 0 correlation to H1-B. H1-B only tend to have graduate degrees because they get into USA Masters degree programs (Masters degrees are moneymakers for universities, not competitive positions) on F-1 (student) visas and jump to H-1 B jobs. Those H1-B candidates aren't more competitive than US citizens with bachelors or self-taught.

H1-B employees tend to come from the best universities from all over the world. There are plenty of MIT and Stanford grads working at these companies, but the US has a large amount of graduates who decided to study STEM in worse universities with the promise of Ivy League salaries but without the skills.

The vast majority of foreign applicants to H1-B jobs get rejected, and stay in their home countries.

This is a major gift to the non infosys/Tata type employers. It looks good on the surface but it does nothing to address the real problem h1b causes. The power imbalance remains, the wage suppression continues, the greencard backlog remains and the government gets to wipe their hands and say they fixed it.

I think the best place for an Indian to be an entrepreneur is, surprise, surprise -- India. I faced this problem a decade ago and decided that it was better give up a green card than to give up on entrepreneurship and returned to India. I really cherish my decade in the US, and in many ways that country defined my liberal political views. But returning to India was the right decision. Still I feel sad for the this generation of smart young Indian graduates who may not be able to get the experience of working in a foreign country and really understanding its culture.

What exactly does this change? Now there's some extra paperwork? Presumably this wont be a problem for the companies already willing to shell out tens of thousands of dollars for the H-1B process.

It’s not just paperwork, it’s more chance to accidentally distort the truth. This increases risk substantially, and the chance for penalties to rise increases as well.

So the direct costs may not be huge, but the indirect costs just got raised quite a bit.

But not the H-2B visas that Trump uses for his properties. Hmm.

https://www.vox.com/policy-and-politics/2017/7/20/16003254/t...

It would be illogical for a businessman not to exploit the system within the bounds of the law. Those who don't get outcompeted. The behavior of businesspeople should not be expected to be the same as elected politicians.

Sure, but he is a politician, and so we are holding him to those stated standards.

Why shouldn't we judge a politican as a politician?

We shouldn't judge all his past behaviors under the lens of a politician because he wasn't a politician. He was a businessman. The fact that he is pushing for immigration reform while he historically exploited those systems shows that he is able to differentiate between necessary ruthless business tactics and civic duty.

I'm not.

These are things his companies are still doing since he's been a politician and the President.

So, I ask again: Why shouldn't we judge a politician as a politician?

Does this change anything ?. This is not something new. This is something that is being enforced already ( source: I am on H1 and doing this already). can somebody tell me what is different this time ?

Do you think this will put positive or negative pressure on wages for current and future US tech employees?

As an Indian who suffers from discriminatory policies of Indian government(reservation based on caste, gender and physical disability), if someone offered me an option to move to US(or any other developed country for that matter), but on a salary say 3x less than avg salary of US employee, I'd most likely accept it. The grass looks greener on the other side, and there is hardly anything to lose by trying.

If you really want to stop people from scamming the system, you need to make the system stronger.

When is the minimum salary requirement going into effect? Trump had promised $100k minimum salary. Now, paying immigrants $100k is foolish macro economic policy, when they’ve been shown to work for substantially less. The purpose of the $100k minimum is to make the US citizens more competitive, but there’s no reason the additional money needs to go to the H1B. Instead, the additional money should be a tax (say $40k for an H1B making $60k), and that money should be earmarked for scholarships for US citizens studying in the field occupied by the H1B. This increases the labor pool, which is the justification for the H1B system in the first place, and keeps these newly minted US citizen graduates competitive against the H1B flood. The policy should be supported by the left as it helps college students and by the right as it increases the labor pool, ultimately driving down wages using domestic labor and improving trade balance by dramatically reducing money sent overseas.

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