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Comment by curiousllama | Hacker News Reader

This is a backdoor immigration cut, nothing more. COVID is irrelevant.

Remember that it's not just new entrants that need H1B processing: it's immigrants currently in the country that need to transfer their visa type (e.g., former students moving from OPT to H1B). What, are they supposed to leave or risk being denied a visa forevermore?

Not to mention, they've already paused green card processing and shut down most offices that process F1 (student) visas. The US just doesn't want high-skilled immigrants anymore.

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Some, but not all, H1B immigrants are highly skilled. Some are fodder for body shops, some are used to avoid having to pay market rate. This behavior has been documented in great detail.

I do not believe it unreasonable to take measures to encourage hiring of citizens over importing workers when official unemployment is near 15%, and unofficially, closer to 20%. Your typical tech company is likely to be sophisticated enough to onboard skilled workers outside the US and support them working remotely, in which case, they are not impacted by this policy.

Then change the rules to make it more difficult for the body shops maybe?

Doesn't seem too hard

> Doesn't seem too hard

Apparently it is, as it has not been done.

Politically hard most likely, instead of technically hard.

Any proposal? They change the rules almost yearly to try to patch loopholes. What do you suggest?

> They change the rules almost yearly to try to patch loopholes

I haven't seen much in this way. As for what I would propose (if the quotas would be kept)

- Go through the applications by higher salaries first

- Limit the number of hires per company by number of current employees (something like 1 H1-B for every 5 employees - as an example)

- Make the visa transferable after a while

- This would advantage even more the companies that can already more easily hire talent. Also, would you have audits to make sure salaries are not changed 2 months after hire? - Would it work to hire 5 front desk managers to hire 1 engineer on H1B? - It already is. Also fairly cheap, just a few grands for the hiring company, cheaper than recruiter fee.

Companies will always find a loophole. Smarter people than you and me (like, law smart) will start cranking at it to help them.

Yes the rules would have to be more tightly specified (for example, keeping the same salary for a year, or the employee count be for the same position)

Especially in the US where people make a competition of adhering to the letter but not the spirit of the law (explains a lot about how the US sees GDPR)

But that doesn't play as well in the court of public opinion.

Much "better" for the GOP to do this and claim, "Look, we're trying to keep the brown people out!" And it's good for the Democrats too, "Look at those racists! Vote for us instead!" Neither side has much to gain from doing the right thing.

Lots of large American businesses are contracted to those companies, and have interests in preserving their contracted rates.

What is tech unemployment? Still in the single digits?

Sounds like it's still above 0, which means you should be forced to source local talent before you're permitted to source from outside the country.

It's so strange to me that this viewport is controversial, but "Buy Local" (which I have yet to encounter someone who is against supporting local businesses) is not. This is the labor version of "Buy Local".

So Buy local, not buy the best? Not advocating either way honestly, but is local more important if the H1B candidate is markedly better?

Of course, problems are complex. Important to whom? Do I care if your business gets someone who is slightly less exceptional if it means you have to hire a fellow citizen? Can you prove objectively the person you're hiring on a visa is more qualified, and that your hiring process doesn't just suck in general (even Google doesn't do hiring well, as has been shown with internal recruiters submitting hiring committee participant packets back to the committee without their knowledge, and the committee wouldn't even hire themselves)? These are important questions when setting public policy.

Clearly, my personal opinion is to prioritize local labor over you as a business optimizing your opinion of "top talent". I will trade some quality over supporting Local, and if that's a decision we make as a country, I would not be opposed and will vote for representatives who support such policy. One person's "nationalism" is another person's labor solidarity.

In any given field, there's a certain base level of applicants who are never hired because they're completely incompetent in their chosen line of work, i.e. a lot worse than slightly less exceptional. Are you okay with your team being forced to carry someone with negative productivity who happens to be "local" over anyone, no matter how highly skilled, who happens to be foreign born?

I have yet to encounter a group work setting where you didn't have to carry weaker team members versus everyone being the strongest in their field. Maximum optimization is a fantasy. Such is life. I have learned to take enjoyment in giving others the opportunity to level up, even if they turn out unable to (I'm paying it forward, many have done the same for me in my career).

So, yes. I'm not only okay with it, I embrace it. Every day is a new day to have the opportunity to try to help someone become a better version of their professional self.

This can be solved so easily. What does countries do when they want to promote their product? They add tariffs to imports? Do the tariffs work? Totally different question but it has a change at the margins.

So you want the best but not necessarily local? At the same time serving the needs of the locals? Introduce a tariff? Not the couple of thousand dollars worth of processing fee, but a 20% tax on the salary earned : every single dollar, salary, bonus, stock : everything. This gives you a free market. No one stops you from hiring an H1, but if gives local talent 20-25% leg up over an H1 talent. [ Numbers are of course negotiable but I do not see any number below 20-30% being effective. ]

>Sounds like it's still above 0

Because of frictional unemployment, it's neither possible nor desirable for the unemployment rate to reach 0.

>which means you should be forced to source local talent before you're permitted to source from outside the country.

This is already a requirement; H-1B employers must attest that they can't find an employee domestically and have made a good faith attempt to do so.

>It's so strange to me that this viewport is controversial, but "Buy Local" (which I have yet to encounter someone who is against supporting local businesses) is not. This is the labor version of "Buy Local".

Buy Local is not enforced by the jackboot of the federal government. You're free to hire only non-visa workers for your business.

> * H-1B employers must attest that they can't find an employee domestically and have made a good faith attempt to do so.*

How effectively is this enforced? The arguments against these visa is that companies know how to game this requirement. They specifically write job descriptions in a way that’ll fail to find someone locally, so they can hire cheaper immigrant labor.

And cheaper isn’t just lower salaries, they’ll also cause fewer waves and be more accommodating. An employee who depends on your employment to stay in the country is more likely to put up with abuse.

> They specifically write job descriptions in a way that’ll fail to find someone locally

I see this all the time with the job descriptions

Maybe then easing the restrictions on immigrant employees might be the solution.

Max 60 days of unemployment over your whole career, when many companies need a month to go from offer to starting, makes being fired a fatal affair. H1B applications being cancelled, if someone switches companies means in the first few years, changing companies is even worse.

Oh, you've been working in the US for 20 years ? Hard luck, you still don't have a permanent residency because of some archaic system. No, your wife can't work in the US either. Also, you can't avail any of the benefits you already pay taxes for. You lose your job and your child is a US citizen ? Hard luck, take them back to where you came from. Because, having immigrant parents is a crime enough to banish even your own citizen.

The visa system is built to encourage abuse. Just because the trade off is worth it, doesn't mean it is fair or a favor. It is a system built to be of maximal benefit to America. Which is fine, but let's not pretend it is some sort of gift that is granted to people of other nations. It's the govt. driving a hard bargain because they know they can.

Now, my career does grow 2x as fast and I do make 2x as much by working in the US. I also do not have kids, partners or a life in the US, that it would destroy me to leave the country. I am also fortunate enough to be in a company that doesn't usually fire willy-nilly. So, I continue to stay. But, in 5 or so years, I wouldn't be too sure.

I’m genuinely curious as to what one of these job descriptions look like. I’m not at all doubting the existence of this sort of behavior.

One common tactic is adding more duty requirements to the description. For example, the job description would ask a database admin to manage multiple database products but, in reality, they'd only be managing one.

Finding someone with knowledge of multiple products would be hard, so they list all of them. When they can't find someone with those skills, they ask for a visa to find someone who can.

In reality, that person doesn't actually know and won't actually be managing all those products.

That method is so common, it's listed on the gov't website:

> The H-1B worker is not performing the duties specified in the H-1B petition, including when the duties are at a higher level than the position description.

https://www.uscis.gov/report-fraud/combating-fraud-and-abuse...

> This is already a requirement; H-1B employers must attest that they can't find an employee domestically and have made a good faith attempt to do so.

While this is true, what percentage of employers make an actual good faith attempt? I'd be shocked if it was even as high as 50%. In my experience, companies design job postings for a market where only an H-1B applicant could get the position.

As a private citizen you aren't legally mandated to buy local. I don't begrudge someone for buying local themselves but it's annoying when they want to force that decision on me.

At any rate I think your analogy makes more sense for services procured from outside the U.S. If you hire someone who then relocates to the U.S. they become local by definition.

Supporting local businesses, you say? Well then who would be upset by this:

https://www.facebook.com/831551/posts/10109802281855389

> It's so strange to me that this viewport is controversial, but "Buy Local" (which I have yet to encounter someone who is against supporting local businesses) is not.

“Buy Local” is so controversial in fact that the US government has entered into international agreements limiting it, which is why, e.g., country of origin labels are being removed from meat products. Capitalism and globalization go fist-in-gauntlet.

The fact that one side is overrepresented in empty PR while the other side operates quietly between the economic elites and the politically powerful obscures the disagreement if you don't pay too much attention.

==you should be forced to source local talent before you're permitted to source from outside the country.==

Sounds like pretty heavy-handed regulation. “Buy Local” doesn’t force anyone to do anything. It encourages consumers to choose a specific product, but all products are still available. Not really sure how they are similar.

> I have yet to encounter someone who is against supporting local businesses

I am. I'd rather just pay a higher income tax and have that fund UBI, and save myself the money by buying cheap instead of local.

Asking consumers to spend more money on feel-good slogans is the same as a regressive tax.

Your neighborhood is decaying? It's not because welfare is broken, healthcare is broken, and law enforcement is useless, it's because you, the working-class consumer made the wrong choice.

Also it's an awful Prisoner's Dilemma. If I'm faithful, it makes a tiny dent in the odds of any given business closing. Why not defect, if my vote won't count for anything in the end?

Why does it mean that? Just enact a law that requires equal payment for immigrants and locals.

The competition should be solely on skill and its a disgrace that companies are allowed to hire H1-Bs to save money.

Corporations need to be regulated to hell, it's been proven over and over.

Honestly you should have yo pay a premium for foreign workers. If you can’t hire a local to pick fruit at minimum wage then you have to pay a Mexican temp worker more to do the same job. The H1b worker should be in the top 20% of the pay scale not the bottom 20% if they are that good salaries should reflect that.

H1B's already need to exceed the prevailing wage, as determined by DoL.

You can argue about where they actually end up, but it's not the bottom 20%. Esp once you figure in immigration related overheads (that's staff, not just fees and travel).

Higher salaries for H1B's would require the right to change jobs easily, unlike now where there's a tremendous risk. And then there's L1's, who have no negotiation power at all.

There's no such thing as a long term labor shortage in a market economy. I've been hearing about these labor shortages since the 90s. Make no mistake, this is industry and government colluding to suppress your wages.

> Your typical tech company is likely to be sophisticated enough to onboard skilled workers outside the US and support them working remotely, in which case, they are not impacted by this policy.

Do you really think that ?

We have worked with team members in different time zones (Europe, India, China), and even with WFH it is a massive headache to work with someone whose schedule runs with a 12 hour offset.

Also, the COVID crisis makes relocation a massive pain in the ass for anyone who is being moved countries as of this time.

> This behavior has been documented in great detail.

Exactly, and still, time and again, the US govt. wants to solve the issue with a blunt tool that kicks everyone, highly skilled or not, out of the country.

It is easy enough to find companies like this. Ban companies that run IT consultancies from hiring H1Bs, unless they pay the market rate. Blanket ban companies who are known abusers (Infosys, TCS).

My faith in Hanlon's razor has dwindled over the last few years. This isn't incompetence. This is malice. The visa laws are always sufficiently less exploitative than the career/monetary gains of working here as an immigrant. (especially pronounced for Indian/Chinese candidates for whom a GC is impossible). I do not find that to be a coincidence.

> Do you really think that ?

Yes. I have worked at both at a successful (ie profitable) fully remote startup that employs hundreds of people, and now at an enterprise that is fully remote with thousands of employees across several continents. If you can't manage teams remotely, you can't manage.

Wow, that is a strong claim.

Not all companies are structured to be innately remote. My team for instance is really struggling to adjust to remote settings, despite having a flexible WFH setup and working closely with remotely located teams before.

It is little things. Relationships between colleagues get colder. The people I used to see daily were also great friends of mine. Giving constructive feedback and taking criticism is a lot easier when it is by a friend and face to face. Meetings lose the wonderful flow they can have when in person. Brainstorming and white boarding has all but disappeared.

The way I see it, with no offense meant. If your work can be done fully remotely. Maybe it isn't that difficult to begin with. Big decisions need big discussions and big consensus. My best progress has been made when I get a room together with a team mate, with a huge board and we brainstorm for hours on end. 90% of the time coding is the easiest part of the job. That it can be done remotely, doesn't alleviate the bottleneck much.

Or maybe if your team consisted of introverted, brutally objective people from the get go, who like the additional coldness of remote communication, then sure. But, it actively excludes a lot of the workforce.

I agree that it's management. I have two primary projects right now, and the difference couldn't be more stark.

One has most of the issues you describe, the workflow has gotten cold, meetings are mechanical, communication is poor, the team slack is dry. Problem solving is hard over email, only one person on the team proactively makes phone calls. And of the two offices, this one had the most people that would chime in on conversations from over the cube walls.

On the other project, management has taken the "overcommunicate" route to WFH. Everything feels collaborative, I talk to everyone often enough that nothing that would naturally come up in the office but might not be big enough for an email gets dropped. I have better insight into the electrical and mechanical engineer's tasks than I did while in the office, we identify points of future collaboration calls in meetings, and I've gotten to know people joining the project during WFH well enough over video calls that we now chit-chat over slack.

Perhaps the most striking sign of a culture difference is around 2/3 of people on both projects only turn their webcams on for calls regarding the 2nd project.

What percent of these roles do you think will actually go to local talent vs. be off-shored? If tech companies can outsource, than who is benefitting?

Related - Have you personally hired an H1-B employee? The H1-B process is a pain for employers. There's a lot of costs delays, uncertainty, and legal fees to hiring H1-B.

> Not to mention, they've already paused green card processing

This one is personal for me. I have a good friend who had been in the US for like a decade, and finally his green card application was going through before the pandemic hit. What’s going to happen to him? Are you going to leave him visa-less during a pandemic, and kick him out of the country on whatever few flights are available? Is his company supposed to magically rebound when they’ve just lost a key worker with tons of experience?

Throughout the campaign cycle this president motivated his supporters by talking about illegal immigration. Yet at every opportunity, they instead reduce legal immigration.

"The US just doesn't want high-skilled immigrants anymore."

This sucks, and it breaks a lot of Americans hearts. My grandparents were the first natural-born Americans of our family and we were raised to understand what that meant. It's of little consequence right now & on any personal level, but America is not a ubiquitous place and the pendulum swings forever.

It was the thing that, for most of my life, was touted as a singularly powerful foundation of American success and freedom: that anyone could come and build a life.

A more sober look at the reality suggests this myth was... less than true. Nonetheless, I always thought of it as an important ideal.

But you're right that the pendulum swings.

They shut down many other parts of the government as well, this isn't all targeted at Foreigners. My passport application was sent to them on March 10th, and they have no idea when it will actually be processed. I hope its before Oct, when I have my trip, then again, if things aren't better, I will probably cancel anyways.

That's a fair point. The gov't is struggling with internal capacity, just like businesses.

I think my sensitivity stems from the recent tweet: "WE WILL SHUT DOWN ALL IMMIGRATION" ...

> This is a backdoor immigration cut, nothing more.

H1B is a non-immigrant visa.

> Remember that it's not just new entrants that need H1B processing: it's immigrants currently in the country that need to transfer their visa type.

Immigrants already admitted to the US can not get and would not benefit from a non-immigrant visa.

Non-immigrants in the US might seek a different non-immigrant visa, but preventing them from getting one is not an immigration cut. It does not reduce the number of immigrant visas issued.

> What, are they supposed to leave or risk being denied a visa forevermore?

Yes, non-immigrants are supposed to leave when their eligibility for their non-immigrants visa status expires. That's what a non-immigrant visa means. (Even dual-intent non-immigrant visas: those just do not prohibit you from entering with the intent of seeking an immigrant visa while in non-immigrants status, but doing so displaced another prospective immigrant, so cutting the number of people in a position to do it has zero effect on immigration.)

> Not to mention, they've already paused green card processing

Well, yes, that's an actual immigration cut. No need for a back door.

H1B is dual intent.

Dual-intent does not mean what you think it does. It means the visa beneficiary can be admitted on a non-immigrant visa even while having an immigration intent. If this has not been a non-immigrant visa then there would not be the need to designate it as a dual-intent ( there are no dual-intent immigrant visas) so, ironically, people who spam "dual-intent" as a refutal to the statement that it's a non-immigrant visa, in fact, just reaffirm the non-immigrant category of this visa.

What's your point? I'm saying just because H1B is officially a non-immigrant visa, you can still stay and a green card based on it (eventually).

There is no green card, which is based on any non-immigrant visa, including H1B. Body shops and some other companies use a promise of a green card to convince foreigners to join on H1B but it's not what H1B is for and it doesn't mean it's an immigrant visa or a part of the "path to green card". The whole practice, is, if not illegal then immoral.

> you can still stay and a green card based on it (eventually).

No, you can't.

You can apply for an immigrant visa based on any of the qualifications for such a visa without having to leave the country first if you can keep a current H1B or other dual-intent visa, but the H1B itself does not qualify you for an immigrant visa no matter how much time you stay on it.

> H1B is dual intent.

Dual-intent visas are non-immigrant visas where it is not a violation of the terms of the visa to apply for it with the intent of later seeking an immigrant visa without leaving the country.

If you do wish to immigrate after being admitted on a dual-intent visa, you still have to qualify for, apply for, and wait in the line for (if it is category with a backlog for your country of origin) an immigrant visa.

>This is a backdoor immigration cut, nothing more. COVID is irrelevant.

I think COVID is very relevant. But you are also correct that this action is in line with the present administration's immigration policies outside of COVID.

In the big picture on the global scale, we're looking at a back-peddling on globalization (which includes immigration and free trade). The echos of the Great Depression should be (but aren't) on the minds of policymakers and the public because this same isolationist and protectionist philosophy exacerbated the pain of the depression.

> in line with the present administration's immigration policies outside of COVID.

According to [1], the immigration rate under Trump has slightly increased compared to under Obama, and is at 3x what it was during 1960-1975. So the policies you refer to are nothing but ineffectual noise.

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Immigration_to_the_United_Stat..., table "Persons obtaining legal permanent resident status by fiscal year"

There are over 200k Indians who are stuck on h1b for more than 10 years. Most of which have us born kids. Makes no sense to have a 60 day freeze on h1bs

10 years in the U.S.? I thought the path to citizenship or green card was 5 years, or 7 years at most? This is really not a very fair system.

Each queue is managed by country of origin. Last time I read about it, each country would get, at most, 7% of the available GCs.

What is more fair? A guy from Island waiting 20 years because he is stuck behind 1 billion Indians? Or Indians waiting longer because more of their nationals are applying? Honestly, I don't know, but I know the 7% rule is justified. The idea is to avoid massive inbound diaspora that would be very hard for the country to absorbed culturally.

The problem is not just the per country limit, but also that the total number of greencards available hasn't been updated in decades to keep up with the significant US and worldwide population growth, effectively reducing chances to get one.

Also, EB1/2/3 wasn't supposed to do diversity, that's what the diversity lottery is for.

Also, the limit could've been applied to visas instead of greencards. I don't see how keeping people in limbo inside the US for decades/lifetimes is reasonable. If they are here de facto permanently anyway, they should get a path to citizenship. A two-class society is wrong.

Depends on the country, for people from India or China, 10 years is generous even. For people from other countries ~5 to 7 years sounds normal.

H1B was always supposed to be a temporary worker program. People have been using it as an easier-to-get form of quasi-residency with the intention to move on to green cards. Everyone in the industry and govt have been winking and nodding at each other for so long that now there's a big pool of people who are basically residents without a right to stay other than nearly-automatic extensions. Govt gives businesses what they want with these workers, while superficially giving the public what they want with limits on green cards.

The green card process on the other hand just takes however many weeks or months it takes to process the paperwork. But there is a per-country limit per year. So if a vast number of people from your country are tying to immigrate you can end up in a really long line.

Citizenship has the requirement of being a permanent resident for a fixed number of years before you can apply.

> H1B was always supposed to be a temporary worker program.

At the same time there isn't any practical way of immigrating to the US other than being very rich, very specialized (and Outstanding) or a family member of a US citizen.

You are confusing quantity and quality. There are many more ways, including unskilled EB3 and DV, it's just too many people want to immigrate so, naturally, visas with less requirements run out faster/ have longer wait. E.g. there are just 5 or 10 thousand EB3 unskilled spots per year and, while DV is 50K, a country that had too many immigrants in the previous year cannot participate on top of the enormous number of applications from the ones, who do participate.

I have an Indian dev friend who's here on an H1B in exactly the situation that KorematsuFred describes. H1B is just a more sophisticated "Gentlemen's Agreement" (a racist way of using Asian peoples' labor while denying them the benefits of citizenship).

You’ve hit the nail on the head.

And yet knowing this, they still come. Why?

Different reasons for different people. Some combination of:

* It's better than the alternative, and it can be made to work, since once I140 is approved you can renew H1 indefinitely (unless sth goes wrong, like right now, but that's a risk that doesn't look so big initially when all is still well).

* The wait only became this bad around 2008 or so. At the time, nobody knew there wouldn't be a realistic chance to get to gc. A lot of people have been in the system since that time.

* It doesn't always start with wanting to move to the US permanently. You go to a US college, or move for a job in the US (maybe the company you've already been part of offered it, maybe not), thinking it'd temporary. Then you build a life, make friendships, and realize you want to stay.

* Or maybe your parents moved when you are a kid and the US is all you know. But when you turn 18, it's F1/OPT/H1 or go to a foreign country (that you happen to be a citizen of, but have no real relationship with).

Above are all real examples I personally know.

Also, while for non-Indian immigrants it is at least possible to get a gc eventually, this is also by no means certain. Very stressful as well.

Hah, the 10 years estimate is totally false.

Present estimates put it between 50 - 150 years. Yes, I kid you not. The path to GC for Indians, might as well be closed shut for all intents and purposes.

https://www.am22tech.com/eb2-india-predictions/

https://medium.com/@happy_sushi_roll/the-endless-wait-for-a-...

H1B != immigration

Edit:

From Wikipedia: Immigration is the international movement of people to a destination country of which they are not natives or where they do not possess citizenship in order to settle as permanent residents or naturalized citizens.

“ high-skilled immigrants anymore.”

That’s funny. I don’t see how project managers are highly skilled labor. I don’t see how QA testers are highly skilled labor.

But I do see how to get people to work harder for less.

> I don’t see how project managers are highly skilled labor. I don’t see how QA testers are highly skilled labor.

It's unfortunate that you've never worked with a good project manager or good QA testers. The high end of these fields are incredibly highly skilled.

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