Executive order expected to suspend H-1B, other visas until end of year

It explains a non-trivial logical connection, showing how something that could look unpopular from the surface, would pay off in the long run. Except you cannot make comments like this in public anymore. Because all it takes is an angry mob leader shouting "%USERNAME% is %CLICHE%ist" and that's it. Your employer fires you, your friends abandon you, you are socially bankrupt in an instant.

There are many bright people our there with great perspectives to share. Except they have to maintain radio silence, because they are not willing to take that risk. So the only voices to be heard are the most extreme ones that have nothing to lose.

I sincerely hope we can overcome this and get people to discuss problems and work together on solving them before our civilization sinks into medieval barbarism.

The war on drugs - have unfairly targeted minorities breaking up families and when they get out of jail, its harder to get a job because of their criminal record. No matter how good the education system is, if the students home life is unstable, education suffers.

Government funding through court ordered fines and tickets that also cause people to enter the criminal justice system when they can’t afford to pay. They end up in jail and lose their jobs. Again an unstable home life.

Lack of affordable higher education. Also, colleges love to give spots to non US citizens because they pay the full tuition costs.

Education funding is based on local property taxes. The rich get richer and the poor get poorer.

Growing up in a poor area, I went to some of the "worst" schools you can imagine (one even had to get shut down) and I had one of the most inspiring history teachers there, that I still remember to this day. And all the other teachers were great too. It's not the fault of the teachers when students are too busy pencil fighting and throwing basketballs at the teacher's head, rather than studying.

What on earth do you mean with "low quality education"? I certainly didn't see that in the worse schools I went to. I think people misunderstand term "bad schools" and take it literally to mean that the schools are bad. this is completely incorrect. When people say "bad schools" it means the students who went to the school performed bad on standardized tests. It's not a reflection of teachers, or schools or funding. I went to such schools and still did just fine, so did many others.

As some one who worked in US and returned to India. Let me tell you immigrants will support this as soon as they get their US passports and Green Cards.

It's just which side of the fence you sit on. Once these people have a stake in your country, they magically shift their loyalties to the exact opposite position to what they had before.

In India itself, many of these elites oppose policies like Right to Education Act. knowing well they can fund their kids higher education in foreign countries, and eventually their kids getting settled in US. They don't want poor people to have literacy or any edge in education. Meaning, less competition the better. Why work for Right to Education, when your kids go to expensive private schools, tuitions, coaching classes and then foreign universities, with jobs and citizenships overseas. You want less competition and lesser poor people and underprivileged people studying so that more opportunities are freed up for your kids.

People are deeply selfish at a personal level and unless they have a stake they feel no need to change. I honestly feel things in India will improve with fewer visas. People will work for good domestic education facilities once they realize they are trapped in their own country.

At this point, more money is not going to help. Education in the US is fundamentally broken. Combination of "no child is left behind" and standardized testing (because everything else will be called discrimination) ensures uniformly bad results. If you pour more money in, it's just going to be wasted on bureaucracy and busywork.

So H1-B is actually a great idea. If we can't educate, let's attract well-educated people from elsewhere. They want to live here, so we can choose.

We don't mind buying electronics made in China because they can do it better and cheaper, why not do the same with people. Finland seems to be doing just fine with education at a fraction of US cost, let the market do its thing and flex the comparative advantage.

https://nces.ed.gov/programs/coe/pdf/coe_cmd.pdf

We have the technology to amplify a great teacher's lecture to millions. However, the education system relies on the model of interactive lectures given to a class of people of whom many are not acutely interested in the subject. Following that lecture, parents are drafted as involuntary teachers to help their kids with homework. If the student's parents have sufficient background, this works. Else, we end up with the situation where students continue to fall behind as their parents are unable to teach them.

We need to bootstrap our students' learning to the minimally accepted level that sustains self-directed learning. I would define that as mastery of arithmetics as first phase and algebra as second phase. However, we are talking about mastery that does not require a review, which means spending more time on in-depth training without jumping ahead.

Such classes should be separate from mainstream math classes so as to not to bore those of us who already have achieved that mastery.

I am working on this.

What you are saying is how can the US turn their bottom tier performers to match this

Nothing lights a fire under your ass as realizing you are a layoff away from leaving the country and having to start over

You need to change the cultural mindset. You need to build more colleges. Computer science programs are already maxed out. You need more professors.

Good parents with good parenting skills raise good kids. Bad parents/single parents - it is much harder to raise kids and give them good education.

if you want reforms - you need to adopt Scandinavian policies in America (high taxes, universal healthcare, universal childare, universal K-12, universal college system) - that way it will be easier to raise well educated kids

The only requirements to meet is 10 years of work in the US (i.e. "40 quarters of coverage (QC's)"). I spoke to someone from India sometime ago, who had come to the US in their late 40s or early 50s. They were planning on going back to India after they had accrued 10 years of tax-paying years in the US, so they could collect on Social Security Old-Age when they retired in India.

With the exception of a few countries,the US government will in fact directly deposit money in your foreign bank account. [a] You don't need to have any ties to the US. The whole thing is actually quite profitable, if you've only worked in the US for 10 years. Per the formula [b], if they earned $130k per year, in 10 years they made $1.3 million (and contributed $198,900 at 15.3% in FICA taxes), which divided by 420 yields $3,095 - the AIME (Average Indexed Monthly Earnings). The benefits payable for it is: 960 x 0.9 + (3095-960) x 0.32 = $1,547. They can get $1,547 from age 67. If they live until 87, that's 20 years. And 20 * 12 * 1547 = $371,280.

All other federal benefits, plus the other programs funded by FICA taxes (ie OADSI / SSI + Medicare taxes) including SSI, the other parts of OADSI, and of course Medicare, are not available to non-resident non-citizens (with a few exceptions).

[a] https://www.ssa.gov/pubs/EN-05-10137.pdf

[b] https://www.ssa.gov/OACT/COLA/piaformula.html

It would seem reasonable to place an intake limit of 10% from any one country, and limiting males to a maximum of 49%.

Right now, lets be honest, the H1B is giant immigration scheme for Indian males to get into the USA: 75% of applicants are Indian, and roughly 70% of applicants are male.

https://tech.economictimes.indiatimes.com/news/people/three-...

https://www.computerworld.com/article/3050365/how-many-h-1b-...

With these kind of diversity requirements, it would also be much harder for crooked companies like Infosys to racially discriminate against non-Indians:

https://economictimes.indiatimes.com/tech/ites/infosys-faces...

The green card lottery visa has diversity metrics built into it explicitly, which is probably why it receives minimal negative attention.

Even big tech companies like Amazon and Facebook hire h1b workers so they can create sweatshop environments. H1b workers are afraid of being deported if they do not perform well, and a certain percentage of workers are forced to be on the PIP plan every year in the stack ranking.

Can even lead to suicides or suicide attempts. Ex:

https://www.cnbc.com/2019/10/15/facebook-employee-i-was-fire... https://www.businessinsider.com/amazon-employees-share-thoug...

A friend of mine last year got a job as a L5 at Google, for around $380k a year in total ($190k base + $28.5k bonus + approx $160k stock). Plus a sign-on of $50k. First year pay is $430k. He's not doing rocket science, or managing. He's an individual contributor writing back end code.

Meanwhile, there are folks doing a similar jobs in Canada, who are making 100k CAD (on the high end), which is $73k USD. And the cost of living in big cities in Canada is shockingly high.

Now, you were saying something about bay area salaries being low? The salaries are, if anything, over the top insanely high.

Also, I'm trying to understand why companies go through all the processing delays, legal costs, frequent unjust denials since 2017, to hire someone who is not a citizen, while paying them well above the median for the job, if there is a supposed oversupply of talented top-tier skilled people who are looking for a job. The truth i that oversupply myth is just a lie, spun by people with anti-immigrant animus, plain and simple.

I can't fathom the head space you would have to be in to think that salaries are low. Incredible arrogance and entitlement, combined with a generous dose of xenophobia probably. Instead of being thankful, there are people who want to cut off / deport / exclude people from working in the US (and I mean people making these high salaries).

Also, I know a lot of H-1B holders with high salaries. I myself am one of them. (In fact I don't know any low-paid H-1B holders, but my social circles are all folks working at top companies or friends from other social groups.) The intense amount of hatred for immigrants on HN always continues to appall and amaze me.

I usually tend to refrain from commenting on these threads, because the toxic amount of contempt and hatred for immigrants that I come across in these threads is extremely upsetting, but sometimes it's better to speak up, than be silent.

[1] See: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=20671424

> the US simply won't allow for enough housing to be built

You don't see the connection here? Why do you think there will be enough housing even with less immigration? The "housing must increase value at all costs" mantra is responsible for this.

[0] https://247wallst.com/housing/2019/09/30/there-are-over-17-m...

[1] https://endhomelessness.org/homelessness-in-america/homeless...

In addition, this line of reasoning totally discounts the very real benefit of foreign transfer payments from workers in the United States to their international families, often supporting large extended families.

The end result looks similar but motivation matters.

The visa workers are second-class citizens and exploited by companies to keep cost low. It undermines all workers and in the long run undermines all nations involved. Take the US's relationship with China manufacturing where China has some of the worst pollution and is one of the largest world polluters as they do not adhere to any of the same regulations that nations of the west adhere to.

Currently there is the narrative that the US has a shortage of talented STEM. This is untrue. The shortage is due to a skewed labor market that suppresses opportunity for US citizens in the same way that a US manufacturer wouldn't be able to compete against a Chinese manufacturer not because we don't have the technology, demand, or resources, but that the difference in regulations makes it more costly.

These are the same people who claim that people should immigrate legally, but then close all legal avenues of immigrating.

(Lottery is difficult to win due to rampant abuse by certain Indian-US outsourcing companies)

For H1b, you can at least change jobs. An L1 cannot change jobs at all. So, you are completely at the mercy of your employer. Fortunately my employer is benign, but that is not the case for everyone.

Having a proper points system (not one that is easily gamed) and giving people a greencard to enable them to change jobs would be a much better system. This would prevent low-skilled workers and the suppression of US salaries. And if there is a high demand, the US can just take those with the highest points (as the Australian system does).

There are two very good systems: 1. Australian 189 permanent resident system. Example of points:

https://www.am22tech.com/au/australia-points-calculator-for-...

There is limited positions, so only those with the highest points are selected.

(Compared to H1b where the bar is low and people are selected via lottery. This incentivises outsourcing companies to have 4 people apply for every one true position).

2. Japan's point-based high skill visa (Technical stream)

http://www.immi-moj.go.jp/newimmiact_3/en/system/index.html

Processing time for this is 5 days guaranteed and very easy to apply for (I got mine in 4 days).

This is not permanent residence, but you can apply for permanent residence after 1 year.

One means they want to limit immigration of brown people to as close to zero as possible while allowing white people from Europe with money to move here. Where they can't outright forbid anyone except white Europeans they want to increase the difficulty and bureaucracy to the point where virtually nobody gets through. If it takes 10 years to become a citizen great. If it takes 30 better. Let em die waiting.

Two lives in a fantasy land of law and order where the non criminal types could just queue up and prove that they are the right type of people and follow the law. In this fantasy land type one doesn't exist and the people sneaking in are proven to be bad people by the act of breaking the law. These people live in a world where the law exists to protect and privilege them and anyone not following it is clearly transgressing.

Virtually nobody whom we citizens are descended from waited 10 years, hired a lawyer, and filled out paperwork in triplicate and both types are hypocrites who are themselves a disease on the body politic. If you hear someone talking about how they are for "legal immigration" unfriend them, block them, don't hire them, don't associate. You can't fix them so contain the cancer.

The "Fixed pie fallacy" [1] is probably both one of the most important tenants of modern policy-making, yet it's rarely explicitly discussed or debated.

Cyclone_, your thinking relies on this fallacy, namely that if one person is working a job, that's one less job available. [2]

In reality, there is quite a bit of empirical research that indicates when people work (especially highly skilled jobs like in tech), it does not reduce (and may even increase) the jobs available to others [3].

1. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lump_of_labour_fallacy 2. https://www.nytimes.com/2003/10/07/opinion/lumps-of-labor.ht... 3. https://siepr.stanford.edu/sites/default/files/publications/...

US firms have a very long way to fall before they get even the least unattractive, relatively. A young person emigrating from Germany to the US working in a (now) good tech job there making 150,000 plus benefits will be out-earning their age cohort back in Germany 2-3x at the start of their career. Heck even at 120,000 that's likely 2-3x what a somebody with a Bachelor's here would get. That's a tremendous difference no career-focussed person would shy away from wanting.

a) Outsourcing generally produces lower quality result

b) You do not have an H1B leverage.

In actuality additional workers demand lots of things themselves that create net jobs. If more people within the carrying capacity of the environment/structures decreased economic prosperity every country in the world would be looking to shrink their birthrate as much as possible so that the decreasing population could have an increasingly large share of the fixed prosperity. We know of course that the reverse is true.

The fact that you're defending their cruelty because of the economy (that they fucked up!) is immensely disappointing.

We live in a capitalist economy which follows pretty simple supply and demand curves. Where there is a demand (cheap labor) there will always be a supply (even if it's the black market). Arresting sex workers doesn't stop people from hiring them, and arresting drug users doesn't stop the dealers.

Immigrants don't come to the US because it's fun or easy, there come here because there are companies willing to hire them, legally or not. So if there are too many H-1B holders competing with Americans, why not make it harder for companies to hire them over an equally qualified American, or punish the company for abusing the visa system just to get cheaper labor? Same with illegal immigration, why not fine or shut down businesses that hire illegal immigrants?

You say it's not pretty it's just reality and I accept that reality... but it's also needlessly cruel to punish job seekers and not the companies who are enticing them to come here.

I see this type of measure as something that has a xenophobic base. The economic problem can be approached by applying sanctions to companies that use visas for cheap labor, not to the immigrants. But that type of action will be seen from a part of the US society as anti-capitalist because it attacks companies and businesses. So a big chunk of the society prefers the xenophobic idea of blaming the immigrants because they "steal" the job positions, but very little is said about the companies that abuse from cheap labor to be competitive.

Canada on the other hand gives you PR on entry if you're skilled enough.

Money doesn't matter if it becomes an eternal struggle or impossible to maintain legal status.

#1 could change, some tech companies have started to realize they can offer more remote jobs and save money while offering salaries that are still very competitive to anyone not living in the Bay Area. #2 was already problematic before Trump. #3 is often better outside the US.

Look, my honest opinion is the abuses are generally bad, especially for immigrants who are being put in bad situations which because yet another thing the companies have as leverage over them, but then the people who should be targeted are the companies who are abusing the system, not the programs themselves which hurts everyone, especially the immigrants.

Going by these numbers (WARNING: PDF download): https://immigrationhistory.org/wp-content/uploads/2019/03/h-...

That shows what a short-sighted move this is on the part of the administration - just re-election theater, I guess.