H-1B: Federal judge backs government’s narrower view of ‘specialty occupation’

The system is gamified by outsourcing companies and body shops, that are more worried about their people in, play the numbers game and clog the H-1B and GC routes, make it difficult for everyone who is trying to do quality work without playing cheap tricks.

>Generally, a citizen of a foreign country who wishes to enter the United States must first obtain a visa, either a nonimmigrant visa for temporary stay, or an immigrant visa for permanent residence. Temporary worker visas are for persons who want to enter the United States for employment lasting a fixed period of time, and are not considered permanent or indefinite.

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

Does the U.S. need a real skilled immigrant visa? Maybe. That's really a separate question.

These firms have been abusing the H-1B system for years, giving the visa (and often the workers who have it) a bad name.

This means, regardless of wage(!), big companies have a bigger pool to hire from.

The purpose of the H1B program is for foreign specialists to do work for which no American worker can be found. It's not for foreigners to come to the US and go job hopping.

Job changes are very dangerous for H1-Bs in other ways and employers know it (and abuse it, nearly all of them). Basically if your employer finds out you're looking for a job and you don't already have another job lined up, they can fire you out of spite, and you'll have to GTFO the US within (IIRC) 2 weeks. There's absolutely no recourse. Even if you are in a protected class, you're very unlikely to sue unless you're in the US and have lots of money (which H1-Bs typically don't). So few people bother unless the situation is really dire.

It's not just H1-B either. F1-OPT gets abused in a similar fashion.

That said, i've noticed different "worlds" of H1B worlds, with different impacts upon other workers.

I did a govt job on the US East Coast (Richmond, VA) that had a lot of H1B contract workers, likely from one of these body shops. They were good people, and adequate if unimpressive coders. They were earning decent US wages and were painfully aware that losing or leaving a job left them no guarantee there'd be another for them in the US soon. Management abused the heck out of these people, establishing practices, expectations, and treatment of coders that were terrible. They put up with it, but but it lowered the quality of the workplace for everyone, and the employees and US citizens (naturalized or born) working there also suffered, and tended to leave when they could. I was one of them, which put me in Seattle on the West Coast...

...Where I found an entirely different world of H1B workers. These were not contractors, not through a body shop, and were definitely impressive in their fields (devs, architects, and QA/Test eng, along with a handful of PMs and Team Leads). Here there was no reduction of workplace quality - these workers had lots of extra annoyances I didn't have to worry about (example: apparently changing your job title during one period of time when applying for a green card restarts the multi-year process, so I knew of people that declined or postponed promotions!) but they could definitely find work elsewhere easily enough - should workplace be unbearable they'd bounce like the rest of us could.

Whenever the H1-B debate comes up, I reflect on the different impact the workers had on these offices, and the impact the H1-B rules had on those workers. Everytime one of my friends debated if it was worth pursuing a green card or naturalization, I saw the seeming idiotic result of the US chasing away workers that it said it needed, that had proven themselves, and that american companies had spent time and money in training and getting experience to.

Any other mechanism affords the opportunity for arbitrage, bureaucracy, legal leeches specialized in exploiting the process etc.

Won't that just mean the body shops create 100K subsidiaries?

I'm not just saying this to be facetious. There's a huge pressure on members of any marginalized group (women, immigrants, LGBTQ) to either be extraordinary or not matter at all. You have to make space for the people that aren't extraordinary.

I'm speaking as someone from a marginalized group. I've dealt with this pressure myself.

However I recently saw an opening where I work go to an H1B where there were other qualified candidates, which I don't like to see. I would rather see the H1B's have a more stable/easier path to permanent residency. Not only does it confer a longer term economic benefit to the US to have more skilled workers, it would (probably) make the worker feel more secure and stable in their life, and less beholden to stay somewhere working because their H1B status is being held over their head and preventing easy mobility.

Unless I misread the article, this looks like a crackdown to me. It's a BA level QA analyst job at an outsourcing shop.

Or we could focus on making the process uncloggable and work towards the free movement of labor which could add $78T to the global GDP.

https://www.economist.com/the-world-if/2017/07/13/a-world-of...

When there is a 6+ months wait from applying for H1-B for getting it approved or rejected, the very top candidates nor the fastest growing companies may not want to wait that long. So H1-B is by nature more appealing to companies who can play the numbers game.

Job specific degrees are always a boon-doggle and they really shouldn't be getting the jobs their degrees proclaim. School is the time for theory, but these Job-specific degree programs these days are just glorified bootcamps

Indeed. What the H1-B program should look is for workers paying taxes. I'd grant them from top to bottom until equilibrium. Except for a very small set of specific professions needed and still not making it (perhaps healthcare or education). US doesn't need QA analysts or consultants.

Note: I'm not from US.

Or american people in positions of power are free to use that power against their fellow citizens by importing people to do the same work for cheaper? 1859 Atlanta Ga called, they want their labor market back..

You could have a very different immigration system, but there's no sign that the currently elected representatives or the voters targeted for the next election want to have or even would tolerate a non-protectionist system.

This argument makes sense from the point of a business owner but not necessarily for the average American who will lose his job to a foreign worker that will work ungodly hours for considerably less pay. And over time, working ungodly hours will then become the norm and get worse and worse over time as the cycle continues. But yes, there is plenty of money to made if you're a business owner who can hire plenty of cheap and willing workers.

In most STEM fields, an MS has very little functional benefits. Oftentimes, it's the same with a PhD. In fact if you account for the tuition cost (of an MS) + opportunity cost (lost income and lost advancement) they can be net negatives.

> really don't think that there are any actual jobs that require nothing more than a BS degree and can be honestly considered for an H1B

Uh, software engineering? I know many people with only BS's in CS, Math, or Physics who are better than most people with MS's or even PhDs. I think nursing might also be valid (though that is more credential-based, we still need BSNs).

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dual_intent

OP clearly says they are not seeking your sympathy. And no, not everyone is gaming it.