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Comment by firstOrder | Hacker News Reader

> Does turning away highly skilled and educated people due to an artificial cap on visas sound silly?

This is a false way of framing things on many levels. First, as Norm Matloff has extensively documented, they are not all "highly skilled and educated people". Secondly, they can be given green cards and other such things, why is this specific visa necessary?

Also, if there's a shortage of talent, then the Silicon Valley CEO's can put an end to things like their conspiracy to drive down tech wages that is playing out in the courts, which is something that would obviously depress the number of engineers applying for jobs. Instead of the federal government cutting loans and grants to college students, they could expand them if they want more engineers.

And if there is some humanitarian concern for immigrants, there are waiting applicants from Africa who have far more of a humanitarian need to get into the USA then an Indian IIT graduate.

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>Also, if there's a shortage of talent, then the Silicon Valley CEO's can put an end to things like their conspiracy to drive down tech wages that is playing out in the courts, which is something that would obviously depress the number of engineers applying for jobs. Instead of the federal government cutting loans and grants to college students, they could expand them if they want more engineers.

You can't expect the Silicon Valley ~~CEO~~ Royalty to be bothered with something as plebeian as the free market. Much easier to get some programming serf imported to do the job and then throw them off the land once they aren't needed anymore.

>>need to get into the USA then an Indian IIT graduate.

I'm not from IIT.

But I guess it was Tom Friedman who said, It is a no brainer for the US to take people from IIT. Because you really have like the extreme best of India landing at US doorstep and practically begging to give them opportunities, to make US awesome.

Why would any country want to not have that kind of people?

If the supply of "highly skilled" people could not keep up with demand (which is what these companies lobbying Congress for uncapped H1Bs are effectively saying is the case), then salaries would be rising.

They are not.

/end of story. All other propaganda and testimony by these companies that say otherwise is bullshit.

That's not really true; if the supply could not keep up with demand, the companies would throw more resources at the problem of meeting their labor demand -- that might be raising wages (in the most simplistic economic models, that's the obvious thing), but it might equally be putting resources into lobbying Congress to allow increased immigration. If they expect lobbying to pay of greater returns for the investment than higher wages will, then that's where you'd expect them to put the resources.

Sorry .. that is totally disconnected from reality. Not only have wages NOT risen, they have stagnated (and not kept up with inflation). Further, if you look at the list (link is in this thread) of the companies along with the # H1Bs allocated to them/their ranking ... you'll see a certain big blue company in that list who is in the Top 5. They have been doing layoffs by the 1000s on a regular basis for years. I know. I work for them. I have seen personally at least 10 people on actively billing customer engagements (i.e., they were billing the customer, not riding the bench or working internally, etc.) layed off. These were highly skilled professionals with good reviews that were doing great work.

Further, I've seen many dozens of "replacements" come in in the form of H1Bs. These were literally DIRECT replacements. They were inexperienced and WORSE at the job.

This is no longer anecdotal. This is happening NOW. All over this country in the IBMs, Microsofts, etc.

It does not take a genius to see what is going on.

> Secondly, they can be given green cards and other such things, why is this specific visa necessary?

Normal path: H1B -> Green Card -> 5 yr waiting -> Citizenship

You will not get GC directly, unless: (a) Apply for GC lottery (b) Marry US citizen (c) Claim refugee status (d) Your US citizen relatives ask for it and you wait 8+ years to get it

Your employer can also sponsor you for a green card. Source: I'm doing that right now.

From an economic competitiveness aspect, as a country, we should be trying to get as many IIT graduates to be American citizens as we can.

And from an economic competitiveness aspect, as a world?

National laws are usually tailored to benefit that nation. Do you disagree that countries compete with each other?

Who do we, as a world, compete with?

Death.

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