Immigration Bill Could Change How Silicon Valley Sources Foreign Talent
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That is a welcome change.
I do not see this as part of the ongoing China/US trade “issues”.
1. Is it fair for high-skilled Indian-nationals to wait 10+ years for a GC?
2. Is it fair that indian consultancy bodyshops overwhelmed the IT market and H1B quota and then brought down the wages of IT professionals via C2C, 1099, OPT/CPT, fake resumes and other tricks?
3. Is it fair that indian GC backlog will delay GC for other nationals, in case the 7% limit is lifted?
I would say since Indians enjoyed getting the majority of H1-Bs, they should also bear the consequences of hitting the country limit. Otherwise, it would only benefit Indian nationals only at a cost of other nationals.
I am not even talking about nurses and other professions that will be harmed by this bill.
Btw pretty much NO other country in the world has national origin quotas. Are you saying that racially discriminatory provisions put in place to satisfy southern segregationists that no other country follows are fair??
If America wants diversity in immigration, then the country limit is doing its work perfectly as was designed.
I dont agree with you that "US system is subjecting indians" - this is manipulation. You failed to mention that fact that there is entire industry of bringing Indian engineers into US from Hyderabad (and cities like that) via student visas, H1-B, and then GC. It is this system that is flooding the immigration with H1-B and then GCs that put family immigration and other category GCs in a very long backlog
Not comparing the backlogs to Japanese internment, but if you look up the history of immigration law you'll realize that the country limits in the 1965 law always had racist intent.
While it was sold to the American people as not affecting demographics ("Secretary of State Dean Rusk and other politicians, including Sen. Ted Kennedy (D-MA), asserted that the bill would not affect the U.S. demographic mix."), this turned out to be extremely false, as pretty much any demographic chart will show.
No, it's not. The H1Bs that the bill benefits are already in the US and have been living there for several years. The lack of a green card is stopping them from switching jobs, which lowers their salaries which hurts the job market. It also stops them from starting up their own companies and creating jobs for everyone.
>You failed to mention that fact that there is entire industry of bringing Indian engineers into US from Hyderabad (and cities like that) via student visas, H1-B, and then GC. It is this system that is flooding the immigration with H1-B
Body shops and US companies prefer Indians instead of other nationalities because they would be stuck in the backlog which makes it really hard for them to switch jobs, so they can be paid less while reducing turnover costs. This bill will equalize things so people from other nations will be on a level playing field.
H1-B is a temporary visa for 3 years, and was designed as such. This is not a guaranteed GC, so let's talk about who is abusing the system from working as intended, rather than lifting systemic barriers that will hurt everybody (including american citizens that will lose their jobs really fast)
The bill does not add one new green card or one new H1B visa so I have no idea of what people like you keep talking about. Looks like the fake news and propaganda has won. I give up.
>Now are paying for it by being in a queue.
Yea lets punish rural doctors for being born in India.
https://money.cnn.com/2018/06/08/news/economy/immigrant-doct...
1. CV/resumes for H1-B candidates - are 90% fake, inflated experience -> that leads to hiring overseas nationals over domestic professionals.
2. Usage of training visas (cpt/opt) for actual work. The training visas are for training entry-level students, not just a work authorization for experienced foreign IT specialist working for entry level wages.
3. Lower effective wage in the industry, due to inability of Department of Labor to depress wages. They go around the rules by creatively choosing specialty occupation codes to determine prevailing market wage and make foreign-brought IT talent way cheaper than domestic ones.
4. Outsourcing itself allows greedy companies to slash full-time staff and increase profits, as foreign IT nationals require fewer/cheaper benefits than domestic -> that's why C2C and consultancies in general are in high demand
there are countless other examples of how the system was abused that I can go on and on forever.
And it is often in the interest of each country to prevent an influx of additional (lower wage) workers in trades that already have enough workers.
A parallel can be seen of how Walmart entered rural and small town America years ago and killed many local businesses. It also lowered local wages, because the primary job became Walmart Checker.
If you are a country of 330 million people, and you do not put limits on countries 5X larger, then you will find your citizens less employed and lower income.
This is not racist, nationalist, or any other label. I suppose you could label it "localist", whereby you favor local resources over remote ones.
The excuse used by tech companies starting around 2000 was that there were not enough talented local workers, so importing cheaper (and often lower skilled) workers was the answer. That's not to imply that all foreign labor is lower skilled. However, displacing local workers with foreign workers without some quality control, especially where the pay is lower, will result in an accumulation of lower skilled workers.
Pretty soon they are replaced by foreign nationals either onshore or offshore using "workforce augmentation" companies that are consultancies
Let's talk about the entire picture, if we want to discuss immigration "fairness"
"localist" -> you're looking for "xenophobic".
Isn't a K1 visa related to marriage? That's nice for people who happen to be marrying a national, but that doesn't apply to most people.
Getting permanent residence in any foreign country is going to be a more difficult process than getting a tourist visa. I think you're underestimating how much harder the American system is, and how things really are easier for US citizens in other countries.
To take a random example, Americans can apply for work permits while physically within Germany[1]. After some years of residency (I think it's 3) one can apply for a EU Blue Card if one has a college degree and an employment contract of EUR 53k/year[2] (easily attainable by a software engineer in Germany).
So your average HN US citizen software engineer can:
1. Interview with a German company on video chat
2. Visit visa-free for an onsite interview
3. Sign offer, apply for work and residence permits after relocating. Permits are for the duration of the employment contract
4. Get a Blue Card after 3 years
Which honestly sounds like a breeze compared to what a foreign-born software engineer would need to do to work in the US:
1. https://www.internations.org/go/moving-to-germany/visas-work...
supply/demand in action, and difficulty of the immigration process is just an indicator of that
Besides there are lots of reasons to emigrate to Germany besides the money - minimum 5 weeks' vacation every year, employee-friendly labor laws, cheaper healthcare and childcare, college, more interesting city centers all sound pretty good to me.
Also, "you can make a ton of money here so there's no need to improve our processes" isn't a great argument for the US to make.
The vast majority of green cards go to majority-non-white countries - the chart at the bottom of https://www.pewresearch.org/fact-tank/2017/07/06/more-than-h... shows the country of origin breakdown.
How many whites vs blacks get visas in South African historically?
In either case, pretty much every source I'm aware of shows immigration to the US as predominantly non-white, so I'd like to see the claim that it appeases southern segregationists backed up by some evidence.
Regarding #2, the body shops are able to get away with it because of the long GC backlog for Indians. Hence companies like to hire Indians precisely because they will work for them for a long time without pay hikes because of the GC backlog, compared to hiring Americans or workers from other non-backlogged countries. This bill will take that away and equalize everyone's footing. You know the body shops and staffing companies hate this bill right?
>Is it fair that indian GC backlog will delay GC for other nationals, in case the 7% limit is lifted?
Yes, it is. It's called first come first served. That's like asking if it is fair that people who got into the queue at the DMV before you get to go to the counter before you. Yes, it definitely is.
What about some bright young kid from Saharan Africa doesn't get a fair chance at a H1b Visa.
And you could argue from a realpolitik view that allowing more sub Sharan h1b's would act as a counter to the Chinese Belt and Road would be a good policy
Why not? They can go the student, OPT route and a shot at H1B the same as anyone else. Plus they'll get a green card faster than any bright Indian or Chinese kid.
EDIT: Changed some wording and "engineer" to "bright kid"
Country quotas have existed across the globe and history for a reason. People inherently have in group preferences, they are nationalist, that includes migrants.
Looks like you need to advocate for national quotas on H1B visas, so you're barking up the wrong tree.
>Country quotas have existed across the globe and history for a reason
Not really. Do you have examples of other countries still enforcing a country quota on work visas?
2. The current lottery system should be replaced with highest salary first system. Show me the money, this would take away the incentive of using H1-B as cheap labor sourcing.
3. It is fair, for too long people outside of 4 countries pretty much walked in the park and got GC, refer to point #1. I prefer people stay in US for 10 years for the privilege of GC.
For people of equivalent degrees and skills as those Indians, the wait is often about 2 years for EB-2. So no, almost no equivalently skilled person needs to wait a decade.
The only meaningful response I can give to your questions is that "No. A fair solution to the problem is not possible". You have to pick what you are optimizing for. Whatever solution you come up with will have elements of unfairness.
The major concerns here are:
1. Whether it's OK for people to jump the queue (current system)
2. Whether diversity is important (currently, yes).
3. Whether it's OK for someone who has contributed with advanced degrees to the country for over a decade to find him/herself without a job and being booted out of the country. (currently, yes - putting the US in the same category as a bunch of Middle Eastern countries).
You're not going to devise a (simple) system that solves all 3.
Forget entirely about the well being of foreign nationals, take the most cynical and cold approach to them as if they did not matter at all. Look at americans: they would like to purchase goods and services at the best available price/quality ratio they can get, and they are forbidden from doing so explicitly by immigration law.
It is literally taking away liberties from the american people.
Just guesses. I'm very curious as to the feedback loops created on the overall system.
I don't know that the word "high-skilled" is used anywhere in the actual law(s).
There is "skilled" (EB-3) and "advanced degrees" (EB-2). The latter will usually require an MS degree.
i foresee a chinese tesla within a decade that costs a fraction of the price
https://thehill.com/blogs/congress-blog/technology/452194-fa...
“a significant portion of the lobbying done in favor of” the bill “was bankrolled by tech companies.”
Why any IT professional would trust in the big lobbying tech companies to act in their interests is beyond me.
Also, you would also be out of a job if all the tools you use as a programmer would have to be made by americans and not imported from cheap overseas labor.
A priviledge is not a right.
I truly believe that if Americans understood how the visa process worked, they would be appalled, even if they are hard nationalists. It's simply not rule of law, its crazy expensive and its just plain dumb. It would be easier to propose a special tax to foreigners that goes directly into the pockets of americans and remove all the restrictions altogether.
Foreigners would gladly accept a 10% surtax for alleviating the ridiculousness of immigration law.
Add: foreigners already pay surtaxes, but get no credit for them.
https://www.gov.uk/healthcare-immigration-application/how-mu...
Socialized medicine can't get here fast enough.
As for taxing incoming foreigners to give to Americans, that's not what most Americans want. What most Americans want (and i don't mean the white nationalists) is to not lose their job to a same or less skilled person for less pay.
Having fully experienced the dotcom implosion and subsequent H1B and outsourcing fest, I can attest that the only two groups that gained were the tech companies who lowered their expenses and the handlers/harvesters who brought people from their countries to the US, kept half of their hourly wage, and packed them 6+ to an apartment.
I'm willing to wager against this: normally people have a negative reaction to the idea that foreigners should be second-rate citizens with higher taxation systems, less rights and less benefits, but thats exactly the system you have now + uncertainty. I think a deal where explicitly foreigners can't get any state benefit and have a special foreign tax in exchange of freer immigration would be welcome by all citizens, regardless of rhetoric.
> I can attest that the only two groups that gained were the tech companies who lowered their expenses and the handlers/harvesters who brought people from their countries to the US, kept half of their hourly wage, and packed them 6+ to an apartment.
If programming became a job as menial as washing dishes in a kitchen, why would you want americans to do it.