High-skill green cards get lame-duck push in Congress
mercurynews.com
mercurynews.com
Companies are certainly willing to take advantage when there is an oversupply of labour and decrease wages. When there is an undersupply of labour it is hypocritical for companies to complain that there is an not enough workers without first increasing salaries to entice workers into that area.
But when a companies like Apple, Google and Microsoft, that are making billions in profit each year are claiming they can't find employees, and have been caught colluding to keep salaries down, it rings a little hollow to say that they can't increase salaries to increase demand.
Why is this particular bill aimed at people with advanced degrees only? The majority of software engineers only have undergrad degrees and don't really need anything more than that. This is my case and I'm up for a wait of probably 3-4 years for an employer sponsored green card.
The green card lottery is an odd beast and frankly I think is my best bet of getting a green card (coming from a relatively low lottery program participant country of Australia).
In these issues someone always raises the "what about domestic workers?" argument, which takes one of two forms:
1. Immigrant workers are taking jobs that domestic workers could do or could be trained to do; and
2. The increase in supply is dampening the earning potential of those in the field.
(2) might well be true but this isn't a bad thing. Doctors in some countries are scarce because the de facto doctor's "union" seeks to constrain supply, raising the cost of health care. For example, by restricting the number of university places in medicine.
Or, in Australia, runaway capital projects have raised the cost of construction to absurdly high levels, particularly in Western Australia, such that you really can't build a house for less than $300,000 anymore. Higher construction costs raise the cost of everything. This (IMHO) could ultimately paralyze the economy.
As for (1), speaking just about software engineers, there is a worldwide shortage of competent software engineers. There are (IMHO) at least 10 times as many masquerading as software engineers. I am shocked when I see candidates with 10 years of experience who can't write a for loop in the language of their choice on a whiteboard.
Given a worldwide shortage, it's better to have as many of them as possible.
As for entrepreneurs, frankly I think states should have the right to collect a special tax (in addition to other taxes) for anyone who wants to come to the US and start their business. That tax is to cover infrastructure and government services that person uses. Let them stay on that as long as they're willing to pay and until such time as they can shift to an immigration category based on the size of their business (these categories already exist).
Also, let the spouses of H1B holders have a job. I'm an Australian and on an E3 visa (specifically for Australian professionals). One advantage of this is the E3D (spouse visa for an E3 holder) allows that spouse to work. Just FYI.
Do you realize how easy it is to get an undergrad degree in Asia? A vast majority of undergrad degrees there are a joke. What are we going to do? Use Fizz Buzz to evaluate who is qualified to get a green card? I sympathize with you but the problem is that "advanced degrees" is essentially code word for has a degree from a U.S. university which I suspect they want.
> The green card lottery is an odd beast and frankly I think is my best bet of getting a green card (coming from a relatively low lottery program participant country of Australia).
Agreed. If the employment based green card was my only option, I am fairly certain I would emigrate to Canada or some other destination rather than spend 10+ years tied to an employer waiting for a Green Card.
> 2) might well be true but this isn't a bad thing. Doctors in some countries are scarce because the de facto doctor's "union" seeks to constrain supply, raising the cost of health care. For example, by restricting the number of university places in medicine.
> As for (1), speaking just about software engineers, there is a worldwide shortage of competent software engineers. There are (IMHO) at least 10 times as many masquerading as software engineers. I am shocked when I see candidates with 10 years of experience who can't write a for loop in the language of their choice on a whiteboard.
I kind of agree with you but good luck getting a politician who is beholden to U.S. voters to agree to that. There are already rants about "immigrants stealing jobs" and depressing wages. Free market economics is not highly encouraged around these parts.
> Also, let the spouses of H1B holders have a job. I'm an Australian and on an E3 visa (specifically for Australian professionals). One advantage of this is the E3D (spouse visa for an E3 holder) allows that spouse to work. Just FYI.
Again, there is a reason that doesn't exist. It is hackable: One person comes in through an H1B and another person gets through the system and "steals a job from a deserving American". Also, how do you handle the situation where the H1B is technically tied to one employer and another employer is somehow gaining by being able to hire their spouse? I suspect the reason it exists for Australians is the low numbers of Australians coming which means the system has been hacked (yet).
I have experienced it on me and know what it's like when your wife cannot work, it's fucked up... If you're an american living in US then you will not understand how difficult it can be for the wife and husband. Look at it from another perspective: if family members are allowed to work then they 1. learn the language 2. better integrate into society 3. grow their career 4. become useful for the economy. You should also consider that wife is not husband's property (also true for the reverse case). If she's not allowed to work than she becomes overly dependent on the husband.
I mean com'on I'm so tired of this high-level discussions on immigration, these are people's lives you're talking about. Would you like to lose 5-10 year of your twenties, thirties only to obtain better visa? Would you like to be in the position when you're in a foreign country for multiple years and you cannot break up with your spouse only because of the visa, unless you're willing to go back to your "home" country that is not home to you anymore?
EDIT: My point is, if you let person into your country don't put additional barriers. If it's a family you're talking about then benchmark all the family members and then decided whether to let them in or not, don't create second class citizens.
I am an immigrant on a visa, so yeah I do know both sides of the coin. The term "hackable" was used from the perspective of how USCIS looks at this.
> I have experienced it on me and know what it's like when your wife cannot work, it's fucked up... If you're an american living in US then you will not understand how difficult it can be for the wife and husband. Look at it from another perspective: if family members are allowed to work then they 1. learn the language 2. better integrate into society 3. grow their career 4. become useful for the economy. You should also consider that wife is not husband's property (also true for the reverse case). If she's not allowed to work than she becomes overly dependent on the husband.
I am sure you may have had bad experiences and there is no doubt that the situation can be hard. Let me offer a counter perspective: I know several immigrants who come here on H1B visas with their wives on H4 visas. From what I understand, they have two options currently :
1. Getting an F1 visa, going to school and then getting a job.
2. Getting a company to sponsor the person for an H1B and then switching from H4 to H1B.
Both of these situations are hard, no doubt but not impossible. I personally know people who have done them. Yes, they are limited to people who have the money to go to school or the skillset to get a job as an H1B.
> I mean com'on I'm so tired of this high-level discussions on immigration, these are people's lives you're talking about. Would you like to lose 5-10 year of your twenties, thirties only to obtain better visa? Would you like to be in the position when you're in a foreign country for multiple years and you cannot break up with your spouse only because of the visa, unless you're willing to go back to your "home" country that is not home to you anymore?
I personally will somewhere else if I had to wait that long. I refuse to believe that my situation (Or that of any high skilled immigrant who gets paid well and lives a regular middle class life) is worse than the countless undocumented immigrants who get exploited for decades and live under the fear of deportation. I am not trying to create a false dichotomy here but consider this from the perspective of the people who make legislation: Why are highly skilled immigrants supposed to be first in line compared to any one else who comes in?
> EDIT: My point is, if you let person into your country don't put additional barriers. If it's a family you're talking about then benchmark all the family members and then decided whether to let them in or not, don't create second class citizens.
I don't disagree with you in general. However, my comments were strictly from a policy perspective: The purpose of the H1B is to let people in so that they can temporarily fill a need for highly skilled labor. The rules associated with that visa are what they are.
What I dislike the most about H1B visa is that it is almost the only way to start working in the US which as you said aimed to temporarily fill a need for highly skilled labor. So what are the alternatives? I would be totally OK with H1B if it was limited to say 2 years with absolutely no possibility to extend it, people would not be lured to the USA with false promises of future improvement of their conditions. Last time I checked it was possible to lose H1B simply because of quota no matter how many years you've spend in the US, it's wrong.
I would like to compare it to Swiss B permit. It is very hard to get one especially because of quotas on the first time applicants, but once you have it you don't have to worry anymore. To extend it all you need is to be gainfully employed (you're not tied to your original employer). Process is rather streamlined and after 6 years you receive C permit which is similar to the green card. (disclaimer: some cantons are better some are worse, in Geneva and Zurich for example they can issue L permit instead of B which is limited to 2 years without notifying the applicant, basically you learn that you have L when it's too late...)
I understand that you were playing devils advocate in the original comment and I guess we agree on many points but there are many people that have never experienced it and cannot understand all the hardships of living in a foreign country with limited rights.
OK. Let me put it across in a different way then: Why should a person with no or little experience be allowed to take a job which could potentially be used by someone who is a citizen?
> What I dislike the most about H1B visa is that it is almost the only way to start working in the US which as you said aimed to temporarily fill a need for highly skilled labor. So what are the alternatives? I would be totally OK with H1B if it was limited to say 2 years with absolutely no possibility to extend it, people would not be lured to the USA with false promises of future improvement of their conditions. Last time I checked it was possible to lose H1B simply because of quota no matter how many years you've spend in the US, it's wrong.
So is your issue the time limitation itself or that time for which one can be on an H1B is two years rather than five years.
> I would like to compare it to Swiss B permit. It is very hard to get one especially because of quotas on the first time applicants, but once you have it you don't have to worry anymore. To extend it all you need is to be gainfully employed (you're not tied to your original employer). Process is rather streamlined and after 6 years you receive C permit which is similar to the green card. (disclaimer: some cantons are better some are worse, in Geneva and Zurich for example they can issue L permit instead of B which is limited to 2 years without notifying the applicant, basically you learn that you have L when it's too late...)
I agree that a better system must exist: Of late, I have come to the realization that the H1B is an evil system which is basically a form of white-collar slavery. However, it is going to be hard to build a scalable, robust system that benefits current citizens without exploiting future citizens.
How is this different from an American marrying a foreigner who then receives green card and can work wherever? He/she may not have any experience and yet will take over someone else's job. On one hand we have a person with expertise that is in high demand on the other hand we have a citizen who just happened to be born on the USA soil, why should we treat their families differently? Especially that we have confirmed that the former is an asset to the economy.
Also, a citizen has additional rights and responsibilities: E.g. voting is a right and a responsibility so is selective service. Economic productivity is only part of the civic responsibility of a citizen.
Anyway I respect your opinion and it certainly has merit, the only thing the I want to say is that, as you say, to prevent white collar slavery immigrants must be allowed higher mobility and their spouses independence.
Is there a country that does tech immigration "right" like Canadian health-care is compared to US health care?
I don't like the idea of discriminating who can be an immigrant based on what they know - or the model of what their income level is (ie. foreign corporate bigwigs get easy long term visas)
I also don't like the idea that immigration is being sponsored to get lower wage workers for the same position, how can we insure that high-tech immigrants are paid the same as a domestic worker and not being taken advantage of?
The worst problem I see with all of this is the idea that American colleges are not producing people who would be compatible for these jobs despite the millions of people who go into debt to get higher education. Maybe congress should be addressing that first and the timebomb of student loans and why college costs go up exactly based on what loans are available.
Erm..maybe the Canadian immigration system? They have a points based system where expertise in rare specialized skills gets you further up the value chain as far as getting a PR card. However, I am not particularly sure how robust their system is when compared to the American system and whether that setup would scale when ported here.
> I don't like the idea of discriminating who can be an immigrant based on what they know - or the model of what their income level is (ie. foreign corporate bigwigs get easy long term visas)
I like the diversity visa personally and don't agree with the idea that the 50K visas that make America a truly diverse nation should be poured into the pool of visas for tech ( A majority of which are really people of Indian and Chinese origin). Also, yes, I have heard of people "hacking" the visa system by coming in as corporate managers from foreign nations and easily getting green cards as "Aliens of extraordinary ability". However, you will have to understand that the U.S. is extraordinarily paranoid of the idea of people turning out to be public charges which I figure is why this discrimination exists.
> I also don't like the idea that immigration is being sponsored to get lower wage workers for the same position, how can we insure that high-tech immigrants are paid the same as a domestic worker and not being taken advantage of?
Well that is interesting, because I suspect that does happen pretty significantly in the industry especially when people born in India and China are involved. The process takes multiple years and if I understand it correctly, there are points where you can't leave your job for fear of starting over and losing years in the line. This to me is a situation that is ripe for exploitation.
> The worst problem I see with all of this is the idea that American colleges are not producing people who would be compatible for these jobs despite the millions of people who go into debt to get higher education.
This is a societal issue. I am not sure legislation can address this. In third world countries, there is extraordinary pressure to succeed and getting an advanced degree is one of the easier ways to get into the middle class or maintain your position in it. This is important especially considering that there is literally no safety net. On the other hand, one can exist just fine either as part of the middle class or the lower middle class with a minimal skill set in the U.S.
Nobody is forcing students to study in fields that have robust job opportunities. Are you suggesting that student loans ought to be portioned out based on field of study? An interesting idea, though probably not one that would gain any traction.
U.S. Bachelor's degrees usually take 4 years to complete, after which a U.S. Master's degree takes 2 years.
Many non-U.S. bachelor's degrees take only 3 years and as a result, the USCIS deems having a 3 year Bachelor's + 2 year Master's as being unworthy of a U.S. Master's degree, instead equating it to a U.S. Bachelor's degree.
Granted, they could have made more cash by going straight into programming - or banking for that matter - but they've got passion and intellectual curiosity, and in my book that's a good thing for a programmer to have.
That's not to say everyone with a postgraduate degree is great - I'm sure the population has its share of idiots and assholes, like every population!
This is plain wrong, last year the H1B visa cap was reached in June. The year before in November. I applied for the H1B visa for a job in SF, two years ago, but I missed the cap by one day. Hopefully the limit will be increased this year.
> Republicans are "trying to pretend they're pro-immigrant by this bill, knowing that it goes nowhere," said U.S. Rep. Zoe Lofgren, D-San Jose, the top Democrat on the House immigration subcommittee.
I run a visa-related site so I try to follow these things closely. There actually were 3 different candidates for such a STEM visa bill. Basically the republicans are trying to pass one that the senate is unlikely to accept at this point, hoping that efforts to muster up another bill following this will be exhausted. Failing that, they'll have passed a bill that satisfies their lobbyists.
Previously, Lamar smith tried to pass a different STEM visa bill that was failed under suspension, but was backed by Apple, HP, Intel, IBM, Oracle, etc.
We'll see how this goes.
I plan to do a writeup on this soon.