A loophole in immigration law is costing thousands of American jobs

Having said above I agree that the H1 visa IS being abused but the main issue is L1, not H1. there was about 20% abuse a few years ago and there was a huge crackdown by the USCIS and DoL on those doing that.

[1] http://www.immihelp.com/l1-visa/l1-visa-h1b-visa-comparison.... See the "Prevailing wage", "DoL approval", "Education requirement"

I think that some countries, being extremely successful, can both help guide other countries into successful strategies (there are hundreds of large scale economic experiments going on at all times by the nature of different states), and help bolster those countries that have followed strategies that were less optimal (global aid).

I do not believe this gives a blank check to some countries to ignore the less fortunate portions of the world, there is an obligation, enforced up by the reality of the threats these places produce, to attempt to help the world as a whole advance, which it largely has done over hundreds of years. This is analogous to the differences in the populace within a country, but I think it's easier for people to see it on a world stage, even if they don't equate it to income disparity within a country.

The global system we've been using, with countries largely distinct, has yielded great gains. Altering major aspects of that system should not be taken lightly, as unforeseen implications could cause great problems (would the world be served better overall if free movement between these countries caused a depression within America, and that happened to trigger a global depression?). That's not to say it shouldn't be tried. Indeed, as others here have posted, is seems the EU is trying this very idea out, to some extent.

Some how i doubt so, it's not a question of job displacement it's a question of competitiveness. An Indian developer will cost a fraction of what a US born developer costs even if they are working in the states. And why is that? Simply because it cost about a fraction of what it cost to bring you from infancy to your current stats to do the same to him. Cost of living in India is cheaper, education is cheaper, and well life overall is cheaper.

You have debts, whether they are direct debts say for example student loans or indirect debts to say your parents who brought you up and count on your direct and indirect support in the future.

Flooding the market with skilled workers who are willing to get paid much less tends to break it. No company in the world would say no dude keep the 120K a year + equity if you only ask for 35.

Highly skilled worker visas are there for a reason, they allow very specific people to migrate to the country to work.

The UK for example limits even inter-company transfer to salaries above 50K GPB(77K $), and limits open tier 2 general visas to salaries of 153K GBP a year and above.

There are exceptions for other classes of T2 such as elderly care workers etc.

But for the most part if a company wants to bring a highly skilled employee into the UK they have to either pay them a metric ton of money, or they have to be employed by the company and still get paid a fair wage (slightly less fair if you live in London, but even for London 50K isn't that bad for 1-4 years of experience jobs).

Also last time I've checked Detroit was still a part of the US, India currently isn't. Countries still take care firstly of their own citizens, unless you are advocating here for a complete globalization and abolition of all borders this is nothing more than a demagogic straw-man argument.

That's a bit of a leap.

"Can you imagine someone making (with a straight face) the argument that people from Detroit shouldn't be allowed to move to San Francisco to take a better job, because they'll steal jobs from and drive down the wages of SF natives? What's the difference?"

Probably the fact that Michigan and California are 2 states within the US and whilst America is protectionist (as are most sovereign nations) against other countries when it comes to labour (with few exceptions like the EU), there are laws that prevent this kind of protectionism between states.

Look at it this way. Indians are much richer than sub-Saharan Africans. But go over there and tell them that they have a moral obligation to allow African immigration. People will laugh at you, if you're lucky.

Because that is the difference. If you arguing that national borders are immoral... well, I might agree in theory. But many more things besides immigration change at that point, and we are not there right now.

To put it differently, think of a system that routes phone calls. Twilio and Plivo are great examples of such systems and are very reasonably priced. BUT you cannot route 911 calls through them[1] because they do not offer E911 support out of the box. Doing so would expose them to liability should their systems fail. Your home landline is required to have this and you pay quite a bit more. (Though if you ask me, WAY too much for what it really is.)

Bottom line, critical/emergency systems cost more to run and maintain, with people bearing the responsibility costing more.

[1]https://www.twilio.com/help/faq/voice/what-kind-of-phone-cal...

No, please, no. We know where that will lead. The so-called "Masters Cap" exists, that's another 20K H1B visa on top of the 65K quota for those graduating with a Masters degree from an American institution. Who could have guessed that that would lead to a cancer of taught masters degrees?

These degrees are cheap to put on (just define a few advanced undergrad classes as required for the Masters degree) and come at no extra cost for the university (the class needs to be taught anyway). Boof, it's free money and a guaranteed stream of desperate foreigners. These "let-me-stay-in-the-US courses" need to be killed dead, they aren't even education.

Meanwhile any foreigner with an actual degree still gets to jump through extraordinary hoops for the green card.

I think a new class of non-employer-dependent work visa for foreign graduates of US colleges and universities would be a great idea, if coupled with H1-B reform.

For example, there should be reform to wage calculations (e.g., forcing companies to use median or average calculations of the wage bands), a hard percentage cap on the number of H1-B employees and contractors a company can employ (in other words, getting rid of "H-1B dependent companies" under 20 CFR 655.736(a)), and tighter evidentiary requirements under 8 USC 1182(G)(i) regarding good-faith efforts to recruit US workers for a position.

Really, though, some of the current legislative brakes should be sufficient to curb some of these abuses. For example, 8 USC 1182(n)(1)(E) seems, prima facie, to be sufficient to deny visas to an H1-B-dependent company which is engaged in displacing US workers -- pretty much the textbook definition of Tata. The fact that it isn't being enforced indicates that there are regulatory problems as well as legislative.

My GF's dad teach meteorology and welding in Iceland (In Europe and Asia you'll still find that in a Uni), half of his students end up working these days in the states for companies like Caterpillar and the bigger ship yards, their starting salaries are between 80 and 120K and they are crying each year and trying to lobby for grants to get US students into these fields. Oil, Mining, and large scale construction and manufacturing which once were fields dominated by US companies are dying to staff various technical and engineering positions however with the current theme in US higher education they can only get workers these days from E. Europe, Russia and China for the most part.

Pushing some graduates out of software engineering and similar studies might actually be good for the US economy in the long run.

However doing it trough migrant visa's which take in people who are paid near to nothing and can't negotiate better terms since dismissal is equivalent to deportation is really not the way to go.

Ironically, driving down the cost of labor is great for rich people who are generally conservative and oppose illegal immigration.

Theoretically you could hire anyone. You just couldn't expect them to show up to the office unless the government lets them into the country. If the company doesn't like this, they can let the person work in their own country instead of coming to America, but then that's not an American job anymore.

Does that clear things up?

There are a few possible solutions to this, such as:

- Make it so once you have an h1b, you have the right to stay in the US for at least 1 year, whether your job is terminated, and make it easy for another employer to take over your h1b. This gives immigrants leverage over a bad employer, in the form of being able to go somewhere that will pay them more.

- Make h1bs go to the highest bidders: each company says what salary they're going to give the h1b holder, and those companies paying the most get the visas.