Tech companie use the H-1B visa program at a time of mass layoffs

I’m not sure where this idea that H1B employees are underpaid comes from. When you consider the wage requirements, and the fact that a company is required to cover most of the costs of the H1B process, an H1B worker almost certainly costs more to the company than a non H1B worker, with additional risks (such as their visa being declined at any point requiring the company to spend potentially tens of thousands of dollars in lawyer fees to intervene).

The one advantage that H1B workwrs provide companies vs non H1B employees is that they cannot switch jobs easily, because the constant renewals mean they would need to justify the expenses to each new company, and many companies simply do not accept H1Bs because of the costs and complications involved.

The difficulty in moving jobs is also evidence of the fact that companies arent just dying to hire H1Bs for the sweet low wages.

Edit: What’s actually absurd is that the US has the highest wages in the world by far for industries in which H1B employees can work, and people think that this is bringing down their wages. Oh, also the people who do think this have absolutely no idea about how the program works, what costs are involved, how employers actually think about hiring an H1B worker (avoid unless absolutely necessary), and how much H1B workers contribute to the economy.

They also can’t seem to make the obvious connection that if the H1B program didn’t exist, the people doing those jobs wouldn’t stop existing. They would go back to their countries where they will do the same work at a fraction of the salary they were being paid in the US and still enjoy a dramatically higher standard of living. As opposed to being paid more than their colleagues, while paying US taxes and receiving absolutely 0 benefits from the government.

Every H1B employee paid taxes to fund the government handing out free money to Americans over COVID. 0 H1B employees received a penny from that money even as their American colleagues who did the same work, and paid the same taxes, got hundreds of dollars back.

It not absurd, they’re the reason we have over half our jobs. Your thinking is too short term and ultimately very destructive.

If anything, the H-1B program should be augmented, and employment-based green cards should not be linked to how nice your employer is.

It makes far more sense to enforce basic employment laws than pretend employers aren't willfully negligent in their hiring practices

Those people are exactly what any red-blooded American should want immigrating here, lest we alienate them so that they go back to China and start the Jet Propulsion Laboratory there.

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Qian_Xuesen

Protectionism, Xenophobia and/or Racism actually costs a LOT economically. We’re much more affluent when we attract and retain the greatest talent in the world rather than block them from working here.

There was a Ranch Market down the street from where I used to live in Phoenix where they didn’t even pretend they were located in the US — everything, and I mean everything, was in Spanish.

Which I didn’t mind too much as they had pretty good prices and I know enough Spanish to not starve to death. The deli was actually really good.

There was another Ranch Market that specialized in Chinese food. Never ventured into that one because I knew if they had Lucky Cats I’d have a Lucky Cat. Talked to one random guy who’s wife (think he said she was Vietnamese) would go there to buy live fish and other Asian delectables.

Canada is the country that needs to be looking at pumping the brakes soon; they’re talking some wild immigration numbers given the size of their native-born population.

I think it’ll be fascinating to see how Canada comes out the other side of the “homogenous to multi-cultural” rapid immigration pipeline that the United States has been (badly) traversing since 1965.

But I’m mostly concerned about the apparent “reverse assimilation” happening throughout IT. I’ve personally witnessed multiple departments clearly adopt de facto racially discriminatory hiring practices that apparently can go beyond race into caste dynamics - I lack the cultural knowledge to determine the truth of the “won’t hire below a certain caste” thing, but have had multiple India-born acquaintances bring it up in unrelated casual conversation.

Edit: fwiw, I happen to agree with several of your Chinese dude’s example opinions - but I get what you’re saying as far as the whole “why are you even here if you feel that way?”