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I don't know the motivation of the poster authors, but the H-1B program is BS as stated in law. I've seen it abused with my own eyes. Corporations just want cheap and/or complacent labor, and use the "shortage" lie to get it. IT may be in an up cycle now, but it's had hard times also, such after the dot-com bust on the west coast, and citizens were being replaced or skipped during the hard times.

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Yep, being anti-h1b !== being anti-immigrant. Immigrants who are free to hop jobs are a key component of a vibrant, entrepreneurial, worker-friendly economy. Immigrants who are disposable, bonded labor undermine the freedoms everyone else has while also promoting inefficient labor allocation.

not sure if this organization actual feels that way though...

The only other realistic path to a green card for an Indian national, as far as I know, is L1 intracompany transfer (which has an identical effect on the local labor pool) or sponsorship from another American citizen, the latter of which the current administration and its supporters are attempting to limit.

I forgot to describe what I meant by "complacent" and you helped clear that up. Thanks! While it is technically possible for such a visa worker to hop jobs, it's not easy in practice, such that they are more or less indentured servants. They also often don't have families (yet) and so can work long hours.

By the way, "!==" (or "!=") means "not the same as" for you non-coders out there.

It seems like the most effective strategy for H1B applicants without truly exceptional skills is to pay a consulting company to mail thousands of fake applications and simply overwhelm US immigration with junk. Many of these people are then held semi hostage, have their immigration documents taken from them illegally, and are forced to pay annual dues to get the continued support of these companies in filing renewals for their immigration status.

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=10033111

https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2015/11/06/us/outsourcin...

https://www.quora.com/What-are-some-egregious-examples-of-H1...

Then it seems that the most sensible way forward is not to limit immigrants ability to immigrate, but to limit corporations' power to abuse immigrants, doesn't it?

Or even limit corporations' power to abuse workers altogether, so that Disney can't just lay off its entire IT staff and replace it with cheaper labor, but hey that would be business unfriendly!

The level of cognitive dissonance on HN every time this topic comes up is pretty impressive.

Even worse, many non-profits are exempt from the annual caps.

http://www.thenonprofittimes.com/news-articles/nonprofits-us...

"For-profit companies and many nonprofits come under a nationwide cap of 65,000 H-1B visas per year, plus 20,000 for an advanced degree exemption. Nonprofits are exempt from any cap if they are institutions of higher education; related to or affiliated with an institution of higher education; or a research organization."

I'm a lifelong Democrat (and socially and fiscally liberal) and I see this as an issue of social justice for American workers. Tech jobs are among the best paying jobs in the country, and if we're serious about income inequality then more (or very nearly all) of these jobs need to go to US citizens.

The US already has a generous immigration policy. H-1B is solely about access to cheap labor, and it should be ended immediately.

> I'm a lifelong Democrat (and socially and fiscally liberal) and I see this as an issue of social justice for American workers.

Why not take this one step further and make it “white Murican workers”? Or how bout “white straight males of aryan descent”?

There's nothing wrong with being against laws that weaken labor's bargaining power. Productivity and wages decoupled a long time ago. It's about time the working class started fighting back. It's obvious corporations want cheap labor, and claiming there's a "skill shortage" is an easy way to achieve that.

<< Why not take this one step further and make it “white Murican workers”? Or how bout “white straight males of aryan descent”?

American worker doesn't mean "white Murican worker". It means American citizen. American citizen isn't a synonym for Caucasian.

You're doing that thing that people do when we talk about H1-B. You're conflating opposition to H1-B with racism and xenophobia.

It's not racist or xenophobia to say that American workers should have first crack at economic opportunities in their own country. As noted in my original remarks, this is something we have to talk about if we're serious about addressing things like income inequality and equal access to economic opportunity.

I think it's utterly wrong to give the best economic opportunities to foreign nationals when there are imminently qualified US workers.

> It means American citizen.

orly? so you're excluding GC holders as well?

> You're conflating opposition to H1-B with racism and xenophobia.

I'm conflating it with nationalism. Which it is. Nationalism and racism/xenophobia and other isms/phobias come hand in hand.

> I think it's utterly wrong to give the best economic opportunities to foreign nationals when there are imminently qualified US workers.

You think wrong.

I've spent 10 years in the US, getting my college and PhD degrees. These 10 years are the most intellectually formative period of my life, and I wholeheartedly want to contribute to the US.

As much as I abhor the H1B system, there is no other way for me to stay in the US. I'm genuinely curious -- what other options I may have in the US immigration system?

In a sense, you are correct that the US has a "generous immigration policy," e.g. babies born here get citizenship, family can easily sponsor relatives to come. However, for skilled workers, the system is very hostile.

I, too, care a lot about income inequality in the US. However, I think that solving that problem means targeting the low end of the income spectrum, i.e. giving people basic health care so they can think longer term, giving people access to education so they can learn to be productive. Giving tech jobs to Americans will help decrease inequality, but the effect will be so small.

<< what other options I may have in the US immigration system?

This discussion isn't about how to immigrate to the US.

<< However, for skilled workers, the system is very hostile.

Well I'm sorry you feel that way. You could always return to your home country and fight to make things better there. That's what I'm doing by opposing H1-B - I'm fighting to make things better here.

<< Giving tech jobs to Americans will help decrease inequality, but the effect will be so small.

Right, if the effect is so small, then why is it so important to YOU?

My understanding of your post is that you think the US doesn't need more skilled immigrant workers because those jobs should go to Americans first. That's a valid argument. Attracting skilled immigrants indeed have both cost (i.e. Americans don't get those jobs) and benefit (i.e. America get the best workers and become more productive). I think the benefit outweigh the cost, and you vice versa. That's another debate entirely, which I'm not pursuing here, but I do want to recognize the validity of your argument.

The original post I made, on the other hand, is not about whether the US should attract skilled immigrants. I just wanted to clarify that the US does NOT have a generous immigrant system for skilled workers, contrary to popular perception.

There isn't much else for you out there, which is why I certainly don't fault would-be immigrants for using the visa.

Would you have chosen to get a PhD if you already had citizenship and freedom to choose your path in life? Certainly some people who already have US citizenship choose to do so, but many opt out. Personally, I don't think studying what high tech companies tell you to study and working for them for the salary they tell you to work for should be a condition of immigrating to the US, and I don't want to see our immigration system run through their HR departments.

As for universities, well, it's great that you enjoyed your PhD program - I personally didn't and left with a MS. I feel that PhD programs are actually pretty abusive of their students, and I would oppose giving them any control over the immigration system either. I do think one of the reason they haven't experienced their "reckoning" (ie., a collapse in new students to exploit) is that they have established themselves as the gate keepers for a kind of new ellis island for skilled immigrants, and they can collect a toll in the form of many years of cheap research and teaching labor.

Again, I do agree that you personally didn't have a lot of options, and you don't have much choice but to worth within the legal boundaries our laws established. This certainly isn't your fault, at all.

I think most on both sides would agree that the program as-is is BS (kinda like a lot of topics these days). The disagreement is what you want to do to fix it. Do you want to give more power to the immigrants so that they are not abused by the sweatshops? Or do you want to simply get rid of the program?

That being said, I do believe that the group behind the ads is on the "ban the program and immigrants" side.

H1B salaries are more expensive than regular salaries for a lot of jobs: https://www.marketwatch.com/story/are-h-1b-visa-workers-real...

And the jobs where they're paid less, they're not much cheaper.

But, if you're one of the coding sweatshops, you're able to get away with gross abuses of labor law. You can work them to the bone, far more hours than you would a citizen.

Citizens don't have work hour limits. I've put in 100+ hours a week in jobs before.

Citizens can go find another job fairly easily. They don't get deported if they get fired.

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