Dear Congressman Gutierrez, Please Lift Your Hold On Silicon Valley
techcrunch.com
techcrunch.com
The OP mentions the Democratic Party (and the Obama White House) and its opposition to HR 6429, which basically "trades" 55,000 'diversity' visas for the same number of STEM visas. This was actually discussed on HN a few months ago (http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=4845982).
The OP says: "I would have voted for visas for 50,000 smart foreign students graduating with STEM degrees from U.S. universities over bringing in 55,000 randomly selected high-school graduates from abroad." In short, he says he would have made the trade.
Unfortunately, Republicans would love nothing more than to do this on immigration and call it day. To independent/swing voters, they can brag that they're not intolerant of immigrants, and in fact authored legislation that opens the doors to 55,000 immigrants exceptional in STEM. To their base, they can say there is no net increase in immigration, and they've resisted on any leniency to the immigrants currently here in the US, including the poisonous word "amnesty."
The OP claims to support elements of comprehensive immigration reform, but then basically says, "well our technology industry is suffering, and there seems to some common ground there, so can't you just agree to more STEM visas and fix the H1-B system and then go back to arguing about amnesty?"
This just isn't going to happen, because there will no longer be an argument -- Republicans will just resist any further attempts at reform. So I am glad this is the stance of people like Congressman Gutierrez. The OP said: "I hate to say this, but women in Saudi Arabia have more rights than the spouses/wives of H-1B workers; it’s inhuman the way we treat them and destroy careers and families." Well, that is a problem with our current immigration problem, but we have other problems too, such as the 22 million illegal (or undocumented, if you prefer that term) immigrants in the US. They are not exactly sitting flush with their rights, careers, and families.
We need comprehensive reform because we have a comprehensive problem. So ultimately the OP just comes across to me as, "fix what I want, even though politically, it will basically ensure that other people interested in other parts of immigration reform will get fucked." At best it's naive. At worse it's selfish.
And if you want federal government representatives that don't have to go through such stupid partisan gyrations, then you should do everything you can to elect different representatives.
Are you trying to escape poverty, war, and persecution? Well, if you can code me up this idea real quick...
I.e., people who were unable to convince an immigration official that they really were "trying to escape poverty, war, and persecution".
There is no quota on political asylum. If you can convince an immigration official that you'll be persecuted if you go home, you don't get sent home.
In reality, as far as I can make out, the choice was made to prioritize speed over accuracy in the amnesty process with the result that there was quite a lot of fraud, and little was done to strengthen border security; of course there's a limit to how much you can realistically secure a ~2000 mile long border, notwithstanding the fantasies of some about installing an electrified double wall with a minefield in the middle (actual proposal I heard last year some some primary candidate). 'Business Republicans' like immigration because it fits with a free trade ethic and also provides the treasury with a hedge against demographic trends that are skewing the ratio of taxpayers to retirees downwards, while also serving as a secondary and fiscally 'free' source of foreign aid in the region. 'Social Conservative Republicans,' however, tend to be far more ideological and dogmatically insist that no compromise is possible. I personally feel there's a correlation between the absolutism of such political positions and the sincerity of their belief that bad people are going to spend eternity in a lake of fire, presumably for the entertainment of those sitting up in heaven.
Apparently they've learned from Reagan's mistakes.
Also, if you still hunger for talent, consider the fact that the cost of living is high due to low housing density.
Build more apartments and start hiring old people.
I find very hard to hire good developers in the Valley. Offering 140k does not help much, I always have to go the long route (convince them we're growing, find a personal challenge etc).
Ryan Smith (Qualtrics) said the same thing: some developers needed 2 years of convincing.
$140k * 0.33 / 12 months = $3850 a month
I remember we worked out that my ex-wife's $42k salary in flyover America was actually more money than Google's prospect of paying me $125k in Mountain View several years ago.
Real estate prices are like that in the Bay Area because of the disaster of failed housing and education policy in the region and the state. It doesn't have to be that expensive, but voters and politicos aren't going to fix it so you either live with it or move.
For example if I talk to a Netflix engineer and promise work-life balance (no weekend, 7 hr/day average vs 12 hr), I still need to go 180k+ with 2k bonus?
http://www.glassdoor.com/Salary/Netflix-Salaries-E11891.htm
How about Google? 145k+ with 60k bonus?
If you hired workers like you shopped for housing, getting rid of unrealistic expectations based on prices from years past, you'd find them much easier to recruit.
I don't know what the Bay area (or other metropolae) are like cost-wise, but judging from replies to your comment, my current wage requirements are well below theirs, but only because where I live is dirt-cheap (comparatively). Unfortunately, most offers I have received have also wanted me to relocate, and I flat out don't want to, especially while taking a virtual pay cut. Even doubling my current salary, as one recruiter offered, would only barely keep my same standard of living in New York.
All that aside, I don't consider myself a "rockstar ninja ubercoder". I don't think I even crack the top 25%; I might be in the top 40-45%. I could also be wrong. And much as I love writing software, I also like my other hobbies too much to work on software more than about 50 hours a week. Of course, I've always been of the opinion that it's not the hours that matter, but the value produced, and I'm always looking for ways to do things faster and with less effort.
There's unprecedented momentum for overhauling the dysfunctional immigration system in one fell swoop. Doing so on a piecemeal basis is the approach that we've taken for the last 15-20 years, and it doesn't work; it's like trying to roast a turkey one side at a time, and goes a long way towards explaining the mess of inconsistencies that is our immigration law.
Finally, Congressman Gutierrez is a Representative, not a Senator. Although he can lobby against piecemeal legislation, and has done so to maintain awareness of the larger issue, he's not a senator and has no power to hold or filibuster a bill, or even block it via committee. Vivek Wadhwa knows this perfectly well and should eschew the sort of misleading rhetoric in the headline. It's all very arguing to 'free the H-1Bs,' and I support his agenda completely on that, but frankly the H-1Bs are on easy street compared to the people who have no visa at all and have no legal avenue at all to file for one.
For the sake of disclosure, I'm an illegal alien, so I'm not unbiased in this matter (albeit more by experience than because I'm directly affected by the upcoming legislation; I'm married to an American).
By the way, you do realize your high salary increases income inequality, right? (In both the US and the world.)
[1] Choosing India to personify this example simply because I lived there.
I am a startup visa supporter but I have no delusions that in many cases it will be giving the privileged more privilege. It's goal is to spurn innovation in the US and make us richer - it's NOT a force in global equalization.
My last job was in India, so I know a bit about it. The living conditions of the "middle class" in India are generally well below that of the poor in the US. Upper class lawyers and executives in Bandra and Colaba (richer areas of Mumbai) were little better off than people in housing projects in the US.
The very richest people were able to afford luxuries like 23/7 (undrinkable) water, electricity, or maybe even a car. In contrast, about 70% of the US poor have a car and nearly all have water+power. But you are right that those who could afford a car could also afford a driver.
The bulk of immigrant software engineers might have been rich by Indian standards. But they were very likely poor by US standards.
This graph makes the point well: http://economix.blogs.nytimes.com/2011/01/31/the-haves-and-t...
The top 5'th percentile in India is poorer than the bottom 5'th percentile in the US.
Income inequality is not the problem, but it sure sounds nice to the voters. Livability of lower income folks is the problem. Doesn't matter if there is only $100 difference between the lowest and highest wage earners if everyone is starving. I wish we spent less time being envious of the rich and lucky and spent a lot more time looking at ways we can use technology to make lower wages more livable.
I'm not opposed to H1-B immigration as a principle (my father was an H1-B), but the only consideration should be how that immigration serves American interests.
It also makes the jobs of the Americans already working there less stable (as terrified Raj isn't going to leave).
In the same way that being fit makes obese people feel singled out?
Nobody would dream of criticizing the fit person for making the obese seem fatter in comparison though, because it is plainly clear that when a person gets fitter other people don't become fatter. Despite how the variance of the population changes depending on how fit or fat individuals get, the fit person is not to blame for the obese. Dieting does not make others fatter, and having a high salary does not make others poorer.
True, which is why I don't care about inequality.
I'm just pointing out that jquery's point is mathematically wrong - his high salary increases inequality. Immigration would reduce it.
We don't need more visas with these level of unemployment.
Wrong.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lump_of_labour_fallacy
This article is pretty political though. I think I would have flagged it.
I admit that this won't make much sense if you haven't taken some economics classes, it's counter-intuitive.
Or people who come for a few years and send it all home. Or live here for years, sending vast percentages of it home.
>paid for them to be educated or nursed through childhood
We have already paid anything there we had to, so they're sunk costs for non-immigrants. The cost of aid programs, retraining and the like are pain points for non-immigrants and the government.
Economics in one of those subject matters where vast swaths of it are only taken as real by some people in the field. Without knowing exactly what you're talking about (this labor lump policy doesn't seem to be settled economics from the cites), the fact there was a class on it doesn't necessarily mean it's something we should be making decisions on.
We have already paid anything there we had to, so they're sunk costs for non-immigrants.
...apart from the interest on the debt accrued in doing so.
Economics in one of those subject matters where vast swaths of it are only taken as real by some people in the field.
OK...and it's a lump of labor fallacy, not a lump of labor policy, and it is about as settled as anything gets in economics, having been called out as a fallacy in 1891 by DF Schloss. I defy you to find me any economic theoretician who believes int he notion of a 'lump of labor'. Even labor unions, traditionally the holdouts on this issue, have abandoned this position in recent years and accepted the importance of consumption as a factor of demand.
H1Bs still seem bad.
I was born on the inside of the city walls so I am richer than the serfs. God bless the Baron who keeps us rich and them poor
BTW I am completely pro-immigration, so don't take this as a slam against immigration. My ideal world would be where geography is irrelevant as far as jobs go, which should naturally normalize wages across the world -- no more need to migrate for economic reasons. Since that is unlikely to happen in the foreseeable future, the question is do we choose jobs or wages.
Regardless of which side of the fence one falls on, three things need to be fixed:
1. Do not tie the H-1B to the employer 2. Allow spouses of H-1B holders to seek employment 3. The H-1B has no country quota, so remove the country quota for employment based green cards
Why don't you go ask skilled textile workers or industrial workers like machinists or welders what they think about the issue? You can find them at McDonalds.
What gives you the right to live the good life just because you were born within some semi-arbitrary boundary? Why do they have to live the life of poverty when they have nearly the same skill set as you?
It is inevitable. The only reason that the overseas programmers havent taken all our jobs already is that there is still too big a communication gap (language, culture, remote enviroments, etc). Once that barrier is reduced, web/mobile programming will go overseas.
The circumstances of my birth meant that my parents, my children and I live a wonderful, comfortable life. Why shouldn't I want to protect that? I want my son's children to have better opportunity than I have.
And, why should I want to enable some corporation to make a fortune by chipping my neighbor's prosperity away? At the end of the day, the savings associated with labor arbitrage mostly beef up the party line. Shoes cost just as much as they did before production was shipped off to China. So does software.
Call me a decadent, unethical and plain awful person, but I align myself with my family's best interests.
For example, it's much easier to find an American mathematician or physicist than to find good elder-care staff (there's something of a glut of physicists, and shortage of elder-care workers). Yet this reform would propose singling out pure mathematicians and physicists for preferential immigration, while not allowing an elder-care worker to immigrate on the same terms?
In the more general case though, the STEM system is just designed to make it easier to get the people deemed more important, just like the Canadian system. The only way that they differ is that perhaps the Canadian system determines importance more accurately. I am sure the STEM system wasn't intentionally made worse, that's just the sort of thing that happens sometimes.
So the less that happens in D.C. ... the less pain for the citizens of the U.S.
I suppose I could retort "People who reject anything based on pointing to the founding fathers are pretty much trying to ignore actual history and substitute some glorified version."
but...
No, just stating a bit of fact about the origins of the system. Something that is good practice in analyzing why a system is as it is. Checks and balances were much more important than efficiency. In fact the executive branch's quest for more "efficiency" with national programs started in the 1920's and continuing through today have done great harm to the checks and balances enjoyed by the people and the states.
It wasn't exactly a bed of roses with all parties in agreement at the start. The election of 1800 would be a pretty good example of how divisive this country has always been. There has never been the civility that modern politicians believe existed before today.
We came as group ( http://www.ldn2sfo.com/ ) to learn about what makes Silicon Valley special, about the pay-it-forward culture, about the optimism and support, about the venture culture.
The stand-out questions at almost every session and meeting that we had was this: "How are the immigration issues overcome?"
Most of us will take the things we've learned and just apply them to where we are, knowing that even if we individually overcome the hurdles we are unlikely to achieve the same for our teams and people we would love to hire. Only a very few of us are likely to take on the immigration challenge.
Instead, the immigration issue will lead most of us to re-evaluate our local advantages such as access to talent (London does not have the scarcity issue of Silicon Valley for example), cheaper housing, free health... and because of the immigration spanner in the works, those suddenly seem to be bigger advantages.
They're not really that big an advantage... but the immigration issue is that big an issue.
I wouldn't worry too much about that one... when you're a success you'll get sued for something no matter where you are based.