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Comment by CapitalistCartr | Hacker News Reader

"We" don't need anything in this. Immigrants don't assimilate the moment they get here. They never have. The old saying is, "The parents don't speak English, the children are bilingual, the grandchildren speak English". There have always been ethnic neighborhoods, as long as there's been immigration.

Having said that, H1Bs are indentured servitude.

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Being lived as an H1-B for about 5 years of life then on EAD and then on GC. The initial couple of years on H1-B is exploitation (not even close to any kind of servitude), but since 2006, I was fairly compensated. May be there are horror stories out there, but you have to understand most of the H1-Bs are educated enough and have contextual nuance with regard to jobs and salary matters, very few have to be indentured servants. The talented H1-Bs that come on body-shop boats, switch their employer to a more easy to work for company. Yes, H1B means being tied to hip of a company, but there are enough firms out there that really work. The problem with smaller companies is the HR and Legal are too ignorant about the whole process and needs baby sitting from the H1B holder himself.

I am not denying exploitation of H1B but certain companies but I think you have a skewed view, it does not apply to majority of the situations.

As someone who came from Europe to the U.S. on an H1B and then won a GC through the lottery: it never felts at all as indentured servitude.

At some point I managed a group of 10 people and had insight in the salaries of 40 engineers. There was no correlation between H1B status and salary, and we weren't given instructions either about giving less to H1Bs. Increases were purely determined by employee performance.

I understand that it can be frustrating for local STEM candidates to compete against foreigners, but let's not forget that those locals include the full spectrum, from best in class to worse, whereas those H1B candidates have a much higher chance of already being top talent. You can't fault companies for choosing the best.

Unlike a TN visa for Canadians or an Australian E-3 visa, the H-1B is an immigrant visa that is one of the few paths to a green card.

So they're actually the opposite of indentured servitude where there's a path to permanent residency and citizenship. Unlike many other visas that people use to work in the US.

YMMV but I know at least one E-3 holder that ended up with a green card.

The E-3 isn't explicitly a dual intent visa but my understanding is that you can't be denied an E-3 specifically for having applied for a green card. If you're on an E-3 and are seeking a green card talk to an immigration lawyer.

Apologies I threw that in there, I agree with you -- as much as I believe it hurts those groups to do such a thing.

Agreed -- absolutely indentured servitude.

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