Free H-1B for laid off tech-workers

In the case of "S" and "M", those wages are below median for the country and in some cases not even livable for the first 6 years of a career [1, 1a], and people struggle with rent well into middle age [2]. For better or worse, Science and Mathematics are case studies in "limitless immigration" and the result is wage suppression to the point of not being able to afford rent on a shared apartment and food at the same time.

NB: this isn't an argument against immigration. We should welcome all. But we should also truly require reasonable prevailing wages, no matter what. Otherwise everyone loses.

[1] https://www.nature.com/articles/d41586-022-03478-x

[1a] graduate students are often instructors of record on courses and conduct funded research. These are jobs.

[2] https://www.science.org/content/article/professors-struggle-...

We all know that this is the ground truth, but wow that video was damning. And that's not even the body shops that regularly engage in straight immigration fraud (like faking resumes entirely), but regular companies being advised as to how they can fraudulently circumvent the necessity of hiring a local American worker before seeking cheaper foreign labor.

What's even worse about this is that there are many many highly skilled and qualifies foreign workers in the US on H1B that absolutely deserve to be here in the roles they are filling, and their presence is negatively impacted by the sheer quantity of fraud that surrounds the H1B program through things like what is shown in the video and the behavior of body shops.

Damn - I was H1B and even I’m appalled

But everything checks out to what I saw: throw every qualification or certification into the job ad, no one could seriously match it

That video isn't even about H1B. It's crazy how little techies know about the legal immigration system, the tech forums are always in mass confusion over it.

If the supply goes down as a response to falling demand that's not going to help anybody's wages...

Except this company is trying to make it easier to keep these people here to depress wages during a downturn.

Actually, even in a downturn, kicking out H-1B's may well do more harm than good for US citizens on average.

1. The person who has to leave won't use any goods/services in America anymore, further decreasing demand on the economy at the worst time. H-1B's are generally well paid and can afford to spend money on goods/services when employed, which probably usually sums up to more than one job's worth of labor (and not just unskilled labor, things like legal counsel too). Especially if they have family. In particular, while they are still unemployed they cost 0 jobs but still consume, so kicking them out is a guaranteed net negative until they find the next job. Which they would be most likely to do when the upturn begins, at which point it wouldn't matter anymore.

2. They are laid off and didn't find a new job. So they _aren't_ consuming a job in the US that an American could have filled - instead, the job is gone. On the contrary - if they _had_ retained/found a job in the 60 day window, they would have been allowed to stay. And they might not have gotten a new job before the next economic upturn. So the expected cost of letting them stay is more than 0 jobs but also less than 1 job.

3. It might help improve the odds for current job seekers competing for a limited job pool, but as H-1B's are on average highly qualified (the H-1B category is for specialty occupations), the job that the H-1B might have held will still not be available to most Americans and companies will probably end up with worse qualified employees (otherwise they wouldn't have hired an H-1B in the first place). So companies will be worse off, which is probably also bad for Americans as a whole on average. And those Americans who are likely hit hardest by the downturn - lower skilled labor - don't benefit from it at all.

4. The reduced supply of highly qualified labor may contribute to delaying the next economic upturn. This can have very severe mid term consequences. We see this in other areas, for example the chip shortage is _still_ causing serious issues. And considering how slow the US immigration system moves, it unlikely a (skilled) labor shortage would be any easier to solve than a chip shortage.

5. Kicking H-1B's out also means they will take any property and savings with them, instead of keeping them in the US market. Tech worker investments can be significant.

6. It is possible that their departure may lead to a job moving overseas, which is strictly worse for Americans than the job being in America and just held by a non-American (taxes etc.). Both because of reduced high skilled labor supply in the US, and because if they were already attractive enough to be employed as an H-1B, imagine how attractive it would be to get the same employee overseas, at a lower price point, and maybe with a better chance of long term retention if the company works on a new H-1B with them. All the US labor market protection mechanisms (prevailing wage determination, labor market test, etc.) don't apply to non-US subsidiaries...

Also, not deported. Deportation is one option for what happens after breaking laws and being put in removal proceedings (another would be voluntary departure). All H-1B's that I know are acutely cognizant of immigration laws and would leave if they can't find a job rather than risk incurring a ban. Either in 60 days, or maybe longer after applying for a period of satisfactory departure. Of course this distinction is primarily important for that person; the outcome for those who stay may be the same but let's have empathy.

How ? Its a downturn already

It may be easy to overstay, but it is not easy to retain a good middle class lifestyle long term. For example:

1. Mandatory I-9 verification means you will not be able to work at any large or non-shady company. No more highly paid tech jobs.

2. You can not re-enter and therefore you cannot leave, e.g. to see your parents in your home country, business trips or international vacations.

3. You cannot renew your drivers license past your visa expiration date. At best you can get a worse alternative (depends on state; AB60 in California) that lets you drive and not much more.

4. You would live in fear of ICE. After going through the legal immigration system, I cannot even imagine the stress of interacting with the illegal immigration system.

5. At that point your chance of naturalization is gone. Even everything else being equal, leaving and legally coming back on another H-1B would've been a _much_ more appealing option.

And I don't think any illegal immigrants would be laughing at the efforts of legal immigrants. I am shocked that you would write that. I am pretty sure nearly all illegal immigrants would love to follow a legal path if there was one that was achievable for them. After all, undocumented immigrants currently pay billions of dollars in state and federal taxes every year.

> It baffles my mind why anyone would immigrate here legally, considering how laughably easy it is to overstay (or cross one of our multi-thousand mile borders or coasts).

It’s not easy - and not an easy life compared to having a valid work visa

Just dumping my thoughts on the topic in general;

H1B is quite problematic in its design for sure, a sensible approach would be to determine the need for a certain job group / skill set and give people relatively long residence permits (i.e. 5 years) to come and build a life with the option to naturalise at the end. A skilled worker won’t change professions usually as that is a huge undertaking.

Instead you have company controlled visa structures where market swings can result in quite a bit of losses.

Almost anything can be seen as wage suppression, however creating a healthy market for both parties is much more important than some people significantly earning more at the expense of unfulfilled need.

> Sure some abuse occurs in H1b, but it has also been the path of entry for many immigrants.

You are not even remotely addressing the concerns of the person you are replying to. Saying the program is a "path of entry for many immigrants" while true doesn't in any case obviate the fraud, in fact it's true even in cases of fraud, it's a tautology.

There are ENTIRE multi-billion dollar businesses that are entirely based on immigration fraud. This last fiscal year TCS alone made nearly $5B in profit on more than $25B in revenue, and their entire business model is based on immigration fraud. The entire WITCH segment (Wipro, Infosys, TCS, Cognizant, HCL) are structured to enable, support, and advance immigration fraud for profit.

> US tech workers are among the highest paid occupations in the nation

This does not obviate wage suppression, it's merely a testament to the real value of technology.

It's been litigated and proven beyond doubt that SV companies engaged in wage-fixing, including FAANGs like Apple and Google, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/High-Tech_Employee_Antitrust_L...

This type of behavior was a concerted effort that is provable that was taken to suppress tech worker wages. Immigration fraud is also a pathway to do so.

but musk was a millionaire… it's different if you can buy out the entire company sponsoring you

I think OP is suggesting that the position could be filled locally. Should H1-B be used to fill junior or mid-level positions? Certainly these positions require a lot of training and development work on the part of the company hiring them. That certainly is an argument against the applicants being at a high skill level.

People who are allowed here to work for a company should indeed be forced to leave when said company lays them off.