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Comment by dfadsadsf | Hacker News Reader

You are writing like we are talking about rocket scientists.

PERM applies to both EB2 and EB3 (so in real world anyone making from as low as $50k+/year depending on role qualifies) and most bodyshops apply for green card for all employees - it's just part of business cost. For EB2 PhD is not needed - MS from online paper mill is enough. For EB3, any degree works.

It's not tens of thousands in cost - it's below $10k all in. PERM Fees to USCIS are around $1200.

The whole system is abused to the end and need to be completely gutted and redone so high end engineer working for Google making $700k was differentiated from Wipro employee making $80k. Right now they are in the same queue. Prevailing wage is a joke as it does not include stock options and does not reflect real salary levels.

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Hilariously enough, a real rocket scientist, e.g. a NASA scientist, has an average salary around 100K. SWE salary is heavily inflated and even the flawed process we have now is better than one where you only look at the absolute amount of compensation. Why, most scientist jobs requiring PhD pay less than 200K.

https://www.glassdoor.com/Salary/NASA-Scientist-Salaries-E73...

https://www.salary.com/research/salary/posting/senior-scient...

I no longer know the current prices for EB2 total cost. But years back I know the cost was >10K+ per employee, accounting for multiple filings, expedited filings, lawyer fee, etc. I doubt it would be below 10K now. Even an NIW can cost 15K easily by going to a law firm and personally haggle the price with them. Can you tell me how do you know EB2 cost less than 10K?

An online paper mill graduate would have a very hard time passing EB2 vetting. Where would they get the paper citations, the impact, the achievements required? Unless they have years of experience in which they made clear they are valuable enough to the field. That is why I said experienced masters. And you think USCIS don't look at what institution the applicant comes from?

EB2 has separate sub categories. Regular EB2 does not require papers or citations. It just needs an advanced degree or equivalent in experience. The categories that benefit from papers, citations etc., are EB2-NIW and EB1A/B. Those don't require PERM as USCIS takes on the role of the adjudicator there. PERM is handled by Dept. of Labor.

> An online paper mill graduate would have a very hard time passing EB2 vetting.

Nope. Not at all. I am rather intimately familiar with lot of people who have gone through that vaunted EB2 vetting with their fake US or foreign degrees, fake job experiences at fake companies with fake addresses and so on.

Few may get caught but most of them will get through the system with enough persistence.

Aerospace engineers at SpaceX earn 133-212k according to Glassdoor: https://www.glassdoor.com/Salary/SpaceX-Aerospace-Engineer-S...

NASA scientists don’t work on rockets; they design experiments for space missions and stuff like that.

Why should someone making 700k be any different than an 80k employee?

Nurses make way less than 700k and should probably be the absolute top of the list.

I think their unstated assumption is that higher pay = higher skill = harder to find.

Why do you get to pick which occupations are most worthy?

> Why do you get to pick which occupations are most worthy?

Citizens of Republics are given the inherent right to debate matters of public policy concern.

That right is inalienable, not given.

Good catch.

I don't, it's an example that compensation is by far the worst criteria.

I personally think that there should be an open door - don't be a drag on society - policy. If you can get a job, pay your bills - welcome to the USA.

Because if there was actually a shortage of $80k employees the salary would increase. There is no better way to determine where there’s a shortage than the salary.

That is categorically not how salaries work. SWE compensation is high because impact per worker is high, and because adding people doesn’t scale linearly, not because they’re somehow much more in demand.

Are you implying that there is an intractable shortage of CEOs in America, that it's MBA education system has utterly failed to meet demand for?

Would that explain why their salaries have skyrocketed over the past few decades?

Gosh, it all makes sense now!

There is shortage of world class CEOs in America. If we talk about Fortune 500 (the only ones where CEOs make a bank) - there are literally less than a thousand people who are or have been CEO of such companies. If we accept immigration system premise (you are qualified and are in similar role outside US right now) the pool of available candidates is likely few dozen people worldwide. The fact that millions of people may want that role is irrelevant as they are not qualified.

MBA education system is irrelevant too as it does not produce CEOs - it produces L4/L5 PMs few of whom after 30 years of stellar career will climb to be CEOs.

> Nurses make way less than 700k and should probably be the absolute top of the list.

actually, nurses are. The process apple discriminated in from the article, nurses are considered by statute to be "approved" so they just move on to the next step (i140/i485 or visa) which is just a rubber stamp assuming all the documents are in order.

> nurses to bypass the PERM certification process is the Schedule A designation. Schedule A is a list of pre-certified occupations that the Department of Labor (DOL) has determined there are not sufficient U.S. workers who are able, willing, qualified, and available. Because of this, employers seeking to hire foreign workers in these occupations do not need to go through the labor certification process, which is what PERM involves.

Why do you hate nurses and want their salary to go down? You understand that result of nurses getting top of the list priority will be lower salary? You can probably drive nurse salaries all the way down to 30k if US recognizes Philippine nurses degrees.

There is society need to drive down unreasonable salaries (700k at Google) - at minimum more cool stuff will be done in US. It’s much less clear that there is society need to drive down middle class salaries.

What % of approved PERM applications do you think had a salary of $50k? Clown.

5-10%? You would be surprised. I know person who got green card with ~$40k salary working as logistics manager in transport company.

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