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Comment by tablespoon | Hacker News Reader

>> Part of the H-1B process is to prove you (hiring company) can't find and equal American citizen to come work for you.

> This is true for a company sponsored Green Card application, not H-1B visa.

IIRC, that's typically gamed. It's been awhile, but I knew a couple of guys who went through that and I recall they postings "to find an American citizen" were written hyper-specifically in order avoid hiring anyone, and if anyone actually applied, I'd imagine the interview would have been tough with a predetermined outcome.

It's a crappy system. Tests like that should be at the start, not at the end. If they're at the end, it just wastes everyone's time and subverts the test: even if you think the company should hire more Americans, are you going to undermine your coworker in such a way that they may get deported? Is it fair to do that after someone's put down roots? (No.)

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That and many a time the companies do the job postings on things like local newspapers, which no one reads. This way, the companies get to prove that they posted the job someplace, but no one responded to it. USCIS and the DOL don't care either, as everyone gets to show "see, we are following protocol".

Or late night radio ads asking people to snail mail a resume with a specific job reference code. The chances that someone qualified for the job both hears the ad and is in a position to write down an address and reference code are basically nil.

That is incredibly funny.

Notices are required to be posted in office breakrooms. Now that we have a lot of remote first or remote only companies... how does one see those notices? :)

Because of this exact problem, our company paused immigration for half a year in 2020. Our law firms were concerned that posting notices in an empty office could be considered in bad faith.

Nowadays, it is seen as acceptable to post it virtually, let's say on an HR page on SharePoint, in addition to the physical notice in whatever office there may be. For certain areas we also considered mailing a notice to all employees in the area, but I don't know if that ever happened. The idea is that the physical notice covers the letter of the law, and the electronic notice covers the spirit.

I don't know if DoL has issued any guidance since then, but at the time there wasn't any.

Yeah it is worth pursuing. Other tricks companies play is posting notices in different breakrooms organized by job function.

Probably goes under the category of "bad faith effort" which should lose in court.

The pragmatic albeit unpopular response to that is: Do not put down roots while on H-1B as you are not guaranteed anything yet.

This is true on any visa in any country. It’s like playing “life in expert mode,” dealing with unfamiliar customs, languages, and currencies; all while trying to make a living.

Yes, and that's why the immigrants who make it are the best and brightest. The average ones didn't cut it.

Living in the US is a privilege not a right until you become a citizen.

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