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H-1B Willful Violator List of Employers

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Re: H-1B Willful Violator List of Employers

#51

Post by bgribble »

dudul wrote: post #38
bgribble wrote: post #17

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The US is a nation of immigrants. As it stands now, H1-B is one of the few paths for technically-educated people to get lawful work and eventual permanent residence and citizenship in the US. I don't think there's anything wrong with sponsoring an H1-B for a talented and qualified person who wants to live in the US. There's room, and there are jobs, and complaining about immigrants is just stupid. That said, the H1-B…

An H1-B is not a path to permanent residence. Having an H1-B does not help in any way with getting a green card. If you apply through employment the sponsoring company does not get any fee reduction, the application is not processed any faster. This is a completely independent petition. The only way you could say an H1B is a path to immigration is for the case where a non-immigrant meets a spouse and get a green card…

Sorry, I misspoke. You are right about it not being a "path" to permanent residence in any legal sense, and I definitely agree that it's not a humane or fair type of visa.

OTOH, in my (limited) experience, I have worked closely with a total of 4 H1B employees, and at least 3 of them are now permanent residents or citizens. I can't speak to the overall frequency of this happening, but that's my anecdata.

Re: H-1B Willful Violator List of Employers

#52

Post by ones_and_zeros »

akavi wrote: post #40
beeboop wrote: post #23

An obvious solution to this I've heard of before is to make the minimum salary for H-1B workers to be very high. Over six figures. If the talent is really so rare and difficult that you can't get it in the US, surely that talent is worth spending more money on. Any reason this would be unfair?

Why not "auction" them? Ie, allocate them to the positions companies are willing to pay the most for in descending order. You'd have to require that the company keep that salary in place for some number of years to prevent abuse, but that seems reasonable enough.

How far down does "descending" go? It'd be a race to the bottom.

Re: H-1B Willful Violator List of Employers

#54

Post by halflings »

A lot of consultancy firms abuse this system, BUT: not all H1Bs are "cheap labor". If you are not American and want to work in a tech company in the US, you don't have much choice: 99% of the time, you have to get an H-1B.

I once got a position in a very interesting startup in Palo Alto (with a salary significantly above average in the region), and the company was thrilled to have me join them (because there really is a shortage of candidates in my field)... until we learned that I didn't get my H-1B.

It's a lottery, the most stupid way to pick who gets to enter you country. American tech companies are so frustrated with this system that they often build offices in Europe just to be able to recruit local talent. Many companies moved to Canada because the immigration law is more flexible there.

It baffles me that some people believe most non-American employees are just "cheap labor". There are smart people on the other side of the pond as well!

Re: H-1B Willful Violator List of Employers

#55

Post by cwilkes »

bgribble wrote: post #36
tosseraccount wrote: post #24

Earlier quoted context omitted.

nation of immigrants Technically, most Americans were born in America.

Yes, but only about 2% have a significant ancestry in the Americas back more than 500 years. Relative to most of the rest of the world, almost all Americans are newcomers.

500 years? Like 20 years after Columbus?

Re: H-1B Willful Violator List of Employers

#57

Post by mc32 »

kinofcain wrote: post #9

None of the largest body shops being present on the list is sad. The H-1B program is all too clearly abused by large "consulting" firms to drive down wages and mistreat visa holding employees under the threat of deportation.

Probably because the large ones can follow the letter of the law. The smaller shops are probably the ones which are rally sloppy with their work. Just turning in paperwork has worked in the past and so they feel it will work again -- just procedural but sloppy, is my guess.

I guess if people are really bothered by a few unscrupulous employers abusing the system, there is nothing preventing someone from building an app to shame or report the employers to authorities who could fine these places. Maybe cut a deal to get a slice of the fine for every good lead. Gamify it so those who produce credible leads are weighted over those who want to cry wolf or are on a vendetta, etc.

Re: H-1B Willful Violator List of Employers

#59

Post by thingylab »

beeboop wrote: post #23

An obvious solution to this I've heard of before is to make the minimum salary for H-1B workers to be very high. Over six figures. If the talent is really so rare and difficult that you can't get it in the US, surely that talent is worth spending more money on. Any reason this would be unfair?

It's called a tariff. They're an incredibly blunt tool and they're generally not a good way to make anything "fair".

Also the rarity of a skill does not necessarily correlate to its economic output. So you would reduce the supply of workers for an arbitrary number of industries where wages are not higher than that number you just pulled out of a hat.

Re: H-1B Willful Violator List of Employers

#60

Post by dominotw »

beeboop wrote: post #23

An obvious solution to this I've heard of before is to make the minimum salary for H-1B workers to be very high. Over six figures. If the talent is really so rare and difficult that you can't get it in the US, surely that talent is worth spending more money on. Any reason this would be unfair?

This has been discussed ad infinitum

eg:

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=11188243

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=11224910

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