Hacker News Reader

Comment by sarchertech | Hacker News Reader

It's wild to watch the zeitgeist among many programmers swap in real time from being against H-1B visas to pro H-1B visas the second Trump goes after them. It is possible for a stopped clock to be right twice a day. Left and right doesn't have to disagree on literally every single thing.

If you're on an H-1B and you get fired or laid off, you have 60 days to find a new job or be deported. That creates an underclass of workers who are willing to put up with much worse working conditions and work longer hours. That drives down working conditions and wages for everyone.

A $100k per year fee doesn't fix that, but it does make them so expensive that they are really only viable for $300k+ positions.

View on HN

You can take issues with the current (previous) H1B policy and the new one at the same time.

There was abuse of the H1B program, but this new EO also has issues. The biggest one currently is the rollout. There is no guidance, no mechanism to pay the actual fee, no clarity on if it applies retroactively to existing visa holders etc.

>You can take issues with the current (previous) H1B policy and the new one at the same time.

That's entirely true. But that's not what I've been hearing since this EO was announced. I've just heard pro immigration arguments about all the good H-1B visas accomplish with none of the downsides.

We must be reading different things. In the other post about this topic (https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=45305845) there were lots of discussions on the benefits of changing how the H1B program is run, with many in favor of this type of change.

I can't speak for others, but for me this seems like

1) a shakedown of corporations and / or

2) a way to ban immigration without being technically a ban

But overall I see this as another anti-immigration "policy" that's coherent with the rest of the anti-immigration policies from this administration. Hence the pro-immigration arguments.

Yup, whether the 100k fee will curb misuse remains to be seen. But giving people essentially 24h to react feels like utter bullshit causing totally unnecessary and avoidable chaos to LEGAL (and vetted from a background check standpoint) immigrants.

Sure everything Trump does is insane, but all I've been hearing is how "H-1Bs are good actually".

Where do you hear this? All I'm seeing is people praising this on X, people split here on HN, and people being downright racist towards Indians on Reddit h1b forums

Mostly my own friend group and r/programming.

Having skilled immigrants is good for the country. H1B right now is the primary way this happens. Crippling H1B goes against that.

Sure that can be your stance. But that's not we're talking about. I'm talking about people on the left who have historically been anti H-1B, but who have moved over to the pro H-1B camp because Trump acted against the program.

To that point though, there were ~40k O visas issued last year. And presumably that number would have been much higher if the H-1Bs were harder to get.

And unlikely H-1B the O visas actually have requirements that the person does have above average skills.

I understand. I'm not doing a good job communicating my position. I'm in the camp you're describing: I've historically been complaining about the H1B program and how it's run, I'm also pro H1B now after this announcement like you say.

To elaborate, I'm not pro or anti H1B per se. I'm for bringing in skilled immigrates with a reasonable qualification criteria. I agree that H1B has been abused in the past and should be reformed. I'm ALSO against just outright killing the H1B program without a replacement, which is what this EO seems to be trying to do. It's not because it's trump did it, it's because the of the chaos and confusion of this rollout (which I think is likely intentional) and because if this holds it'll cripple the H1B program which in turn will cripple the inflow of skilled immigrants.

Basically I'm against the H1B program as it was, but I'm in favor of keeping it as it was over what is being done here.

That’s fair.

I think as usual Trump did things in the most disruptive, ridiculous way possible.

I think there are enough Tech and finance jobs to pay the 8.5 billion that this will cost to bring in 85k workers.

Goomba fallacy.

> A $100k per year fee doesn't fix that, but it does make them so expensive that they are really only viable for $300k+ positions

It also incentivizes the CTO to promote a cost saving measure. For any job that doesn't absolutely require onshore presence, lets move it offshore. We can save 100k per position and also retain talent.

Companies have been offshoring jobs due to the tax rule change. Personally I know lot of Google teams which have been offshored. So, I don't understand why people think this will somehow cause job retention. Some jobs might be retained and more will be lost. Acting as if this $100k is somehow a good idea shows lack of understanding of how real world works.

In the meantime, rural medical teams who employ H1B doctors will be decimated. But before that these pesky billion dollar companies need to be taught a lesson.

Are you sure that the people supporting H1B now are the same people who opposed it before? Do you think it's possible the people in favor of H1B were quiet before because they were happy with the status quo, and the people against H1B are quiet now for the same reason? It's the squeaky wheel that gets the grease.

What's really wild is anyone seeing that the solution to the multitude of real and self-inflicted problems in this country is...

A shakedown of and a head tax on immigrants.

I wonder what's next. Maybe stealing their 401Ks and their SS contributions?

Replace "immigrant" with "Jew" and you have some idea of the human failings on display here.

That's clearly not a solution to any of the other problems in the country. But making a bad visa program more expensive to employers abusing it is potentially a way to mitigate it.

Here's Bernie Sanders comments on the H-1B visa.

"The main function of the H-1B visa program is not to hire “the best and the brightest,” but rather to replace good-paying American jobs with low-wage indentured servants from abroad."

It's funny that you quote Sanders on this, when this EO's solution to 'human beings are being mistreated' is not 'stop mistreating them' it's 'lets do our best to throw as many as we can out'.

It's right up there with Oregon's stance on slavery. (The state banned it and fought for the Union on the basis that it didn't want any --------- living in it, even enslaved ones.)

>when this EO's solution to 'human beings are being mistreated' is not 'stop mistreating them' it's 'lets do our best to throw as many as we can out'.

I mean everything the Trump Whitehouse does is a mess, but they said that this only applies to new applicants, so it's not throwing anyone out.

Bernie's quote mentions 2 classes of people being mistreated. H-1B workers and American workers. Since the H-1B workers are being used as leverage to mistreat American workers, reducing the number of new H-1B workers coming in is certainly one way to mitigate harm to American workers.

I don't know how many people we should let in under H-1B, but I'd prefer they get rid of the requirements to find a new job within 60 days. That doesn't mean I don't think that making the program more expensive isn't beneficial.

> It's wild to watch the zeitgeist among many programmers swap in real time from being against H-1B visas to pro H-1B visas the second Trump goes after them.

Trump isn’t going after them, he is converting them into another channel for arbitrary favoritism and graft.

Being against the H-1b as a bad system does not conflict with being against the way Trump is making that system worse.

Sure that's a thing he might do. I think the most likely outcome is that big tech ends up scooping up all the H-1B slots.

But that's not what I'm talking about. I'm not saying people were anti H-1B visa and now they still are, but disagree with Trump's "solution" I'm seeing comments full of "H-1Bs are good actually".

Reply on news.ycombinator.com