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Comment by at-fates-hands | Hacker News Reader

I saw that too and was going to comment on it.

I'm starting to see a lot more companies who are starting to outsource their work to H1-B's and even moving a lot of their work to India.

My sister worked at Cargill for 20 years and just recently found out her entire department (enterprise application development) with all her developers were being canned and the jobs sent over to India.

Hell, the current project I'm on, we have a team of 23 people and myself and one BA are the only American born people on the team. The rest are all from India and have to go back in a few months when their H1-B visas expire.

Two years ago, I found out Thomson Reuters were in the process of outsourcing 80% of their development in a combination of H1-B's and work going directly to India.

I always thought as a developer my job would be relatively safe and I could work in a nice stable corporate environment - guess I was wrong.

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H1B is not outsourcing. They are full time local workers by definition.

It's amazing companies can get away with firing people and then hiring H1Bs, who, by the government requirements, can't take a citizen's job place.

But didn't you know there was a massive STEM worker shortage?!

H1B is not outsourcing.

By definition perhaps, but not in practice. When a company replaces long term employees with H1B's, the H1B's are (in my experience) typically employed by a third party such as a foreign based service provider. Most of the largest users of H1B's are outsourcing agencies.

>> who, by the government requirements, can't take a citizen's job place.

The ironic part of my project is now my manager is under pressure because they want to start converting people to full-time and I'm the only one eligible since the rest of the team all have to go back to India soon.

In my 1:1 meeting's my manager is always frustrated since the executives want more full time people, but keep bringing in H1-B's. They just don't get it.

If you read the labor department site on H1B, "not replacing an American job" is actually not a requirement. Highly skilled, yes. But the part about the resume needing to perfectly suit just the H1B application (which, I've heard about for years, and even seen it done) actually I couldn't find it in the law. Seems like it's folk lore.

>>If you read the labor department site on H1B, "not replacing an American job" is actually not a requirement.

It's an implicit requirement. In order for the H1B application to be approved, the company needs to demonstrate that American workers with equal skill were not available to fill that position. The amount of paperwork required for this process is insane. The application needs to show things like job postings on local newspapers, online ads, etc. as well as a list of who applied and why they got denied (or got offers but rejected them).

The requirement is that the alien must be paid a prevailing wage. I'm not sure what an "implicit" requirement is, but if you can find anywhere it actually says "you must try to hire an American first" I would love to see it...

[1] - http://www.uscis.gov/eir/visa-guide/h-1b-specialty-occupatio...

You are looking in the wrong place. The requirement I mentioned is enforced by the Department of Labor, not USCIS. It's part of the "labor certification" process, which is a pre-requisite to the H1B application. See this page:

http://www.dol.gov/compliance/guide/h1b.htm

Specifically:

>>H-1B dependent employers and willful violator employers must attest to the following three elements addressing non-displacement and recruitment of U.S. workers:

>>-- The employer will not displace any similarly employed U.S. worker within 90 days before or after applying for H-1B status, or an extension of status for any H-1B worker;

>>-- ...

>>-- The employer, before applying for H-1B status for any alien worker pursuant to an H-1B LCA, took good faith steps to recruit U.S. workers for the job for which the alien worker is sought, at wages at least equal to those offered to the H-1B worker. Also, the employer will offer the job to any U.S. worker who applies and is equally or better qualified than the H-1B worker. This attestation does not apply if the H-1B worker is a "priority worker" (see Section 203(b) (1) (A), (B), or (C) of the INA).

Thank you so much for pointing that out! So these requirements apply specifically for "H-1B dependent employers" and "willful violator employers".

I found this flier [1] defining "H-1B dependent employers".

  An employer is considered H-1B-dependent if it has: 
  
  • 25 or fewer full-time equivalent employees and at least
    eight H-1B nonimmigrant workers; or 
  • 26 - 50 full-time equivalent employees and at least 13 H-1B
    nonimmigrant workers; or 
  • 51 or more full-time equivalent employees of whom 15 percent or
    more are H-1B nonimmigrant workers.

So I take that to mean if you are a large company, you just need to keep H-1B below 15 percent of your TOTAL FTE (not just your engineering FTE) and the requirement to take good faith steps to recruit U.S. workers for the same job does not apply. Would you agree?

I have to believe the requirement must not apply... because any good faith effort to hire a U.S. worker for the 95th percentile H-1B job would result in a U.S. worker being hired. If it actually did apply in most H-1B cases, then I want to sign up for the class action suing basically every tech company there is that has ever hired an H-1B.

EDIT: Thinking more on the 15% threshold for large companies... that is incredibly high. Seems like it's off from where it reasonably should be by more than an order of magnitude!

EDIT 2: Also, there is this: "H-1B dependent employers who wish to hire only H-1B workers who are paid at least $60,000 per year or have a master's degree or higher in a specialty related to the employment, can be exempted from these additional rules."

[1] - http://www.dol.gov/whd/regs/compliance/FactSheet62/whdfs62C....

The problem with H1B is that it is half-sourcing. Sure, they are full time local workers, but they also lack the ability to quit and stay in the USA. So they aren't truly part of the local job scene either.

The system needs to be changed so that a tech worker who gets pulled over can quickly get residency and a path to citizenship.

I'd also make sure that anyone graduating from an decent American university gets permanent residency. If we are going to let Stanford or UIUC charge these people 40k a year to go to school and become some of the finest engineers, they should be able to be American Engineers.

Sure, they are full time local workers, but they also lack the ability to quit and stay in the USA.

As long as they find a new job before they quit, they are fine. Every prospective H1B I've ever met knew this and was completely willing to jump ship if their first US-based job sucked.

H-1B status is a form of slavery for the visa-holder, unless they are smart and get a second visa somehow. If an H-1B is terminated, they must leave the country immediately - the employer's final responsibility to the visa-holder is to buy them a plane ticket hom. They could potentially sue their employer for wrongful termination but if they cannot stay in the country to pursue their case, this is extremely difficult.

What is all means is that for an abusive employer, H-1B employees are perfect. They are supposed to get paid more than the prevailing wage, but can be worked to death, and effectively deported if they won't and can't do what they're told to do.

This sounds like Cargill warped back to 2004.

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