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Comment by rfrey | Hacker News Reader

According to Wikipedia, 1.5% of Indian immigrants to the USA are Dalit. 90% are the high castes. That is interesting coincidence to your quoted statistic of 90% thinking this is a minor problem or no problem at all.

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US immigration policy also selects for high earners, the highly educated and skilled and the already wealthy, those belonging to such groups are also likely to be upper class in their home countries already.

Why not make it easy on people and post a link to the Wikipedia article?

I think you're talking about this one:

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

How is that information gleened? I can't imagine immigration asking "what caste are you?"

In a lot of cases you don't need to ask "what caste are you", you just need to ask "what's your name". For a vast majority of Indians their last name gives away their caste.

Castes come with plenty of cultural baggage, and the metaphorical 'secret handshakes' shared by people of higher castes can be used to suss out those of a lower caste even if the person of interest is trying to hide their background.

An Indian friend of mine several years ago explained it quite clearly to me: Who do you think has the resources to get an education, get an H1B, then travel halfway around the world? The guy whose parents are sleeping in the hallway?

Are you saying the US embassy in India discriminates based on caste when handing visas or the h1b process is discriminatory?

I think it is pretty obvious they mean that the pipeline of candidates for US work visas reflects the established societal privilege patterns.

I think the question is how much it (H1B) costs vs the person's disposable income, in addition to the cost of spending time pursuing it, having a place to do the paperwork, having a stable address and even a stable identity... I'm saying the people who make it to that embassy with the right paperwork are already highly filtered.

I saw this happen in front of my last week. A new coworker said he was vegetarian and the other asked if he was always vegetarian (Brahmin’s are usually vegetarian). Then he asks “oh Bangalore? What part? I used to live there, I know it well.”

In addition to surname, these are all questions that can be used to gather details about someone’s caste.

Or so I’m told.

Good question. I haven't read it, but the statistics come from this book: https://indianexpress.com/article/lifestyle/books/the-other-.... They probably outline their methodology.

The indian constitution provides reservations for Dalits and other social discriminated groups, many of the Dalits prefer these jobs rather than private sector, moving out of India to a western country is also a costly affair (via education or immigration programs), which many of the dalit families cannot afford. Many of the indians I know want to get out of the country, no wonder, upper caste indians, who has the economic means to move out make up the majority

Dalits (and many other "backward" castes) get reservations in education and government jobs and promotions all the way up to retirement. If they emigrate and their children become citizens of another country, the children would lose this benefit. These factors could be a reasonable deterrent to emigration, especially now that the difference in pay between India and western countries is not as high as it used to be.

that might be because some Dalits choose not to identify as such, could be a bit more

Is it really surprising that the poor and marginalized section of society in India isn't the one getting fancy degrees and immigrating to the USA for tech jobs?

I'd argue that if a higher-than-reported percentage of Indian immigrants are Dalit, that supports the idea that there's a problem.

Do you think it’s cheap to immigrate to the US? Even married US citizens can’t bring someone over unless they are middle class. Poor people are treated like shit in the US and no one cares.

Buts it’s funny when we start to care about a tiny portion of the poor people.

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