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Facebook: greater than 15% of employees are H1Bs

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Re: Facebook: greater than 15% of employees are H1Bs

#91

Earlier quoted context omitted.

but these h1b holders live in your town, and possibly your next door neighbor. gotcha!

Only because they are here by breaking the intent and possibly the letter of the law. If they are here because they have real skills, great. I care while they're here. If they are drones used to illegally displace workers, boot them out. The reason it's not an "everybody's equal" thing is that a person in another country has less of chance of directly contributing to the betterment of the US. A native US has a higher…

fair argument. I will agree with you.

Re: Facebook: greater than 15% of employees are H1Bs

#92

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There are a lot of companies that do manage to hire people in the non-expert category though, and that is what screws up the situation.

There are lots of companies who do. But that's ignoring the elephant in the room, the "Big 3" Indian consulting firms who somehow manage to snag nearly 40% of the entire nation's allocation of visas.

If you think about it, it is a sophisticated form of rent-seeking - the Big 3 get the visas, so they are able to supply the workers, so they have to be the ones to get paid.

Re: Facebook: greater than 15% of employees are H1Bs

#93
post #83

Earlier quoted context omitted.

As an American, workers born in the USA are more important to me. I care more about my neighbor's employment status, safety, and happiness than the family down the street. I care more about the guy down the street than the family across town... etc etc etc... I care more about some family in some US state that I'll never visit than a family over in India. The closer they are to me, the more their success and problems…

Sort of like, "As a white person, white people are more important to me."? Do you think it is permissible for your town to pass a law that requires your neighborhood coffee shop to preferentially hire a barista from your town? Let me quote the parable of Sam and Marvin by the philosopher Michael Huemer to explain why I don't think your reasoning works. Excerpted from - http://spot.colorado.edu/~huemer/immigration.htm…

> Sort of like, "As a white person, white people are more important to me."?

Not at all. Because being born with skin pigmentation is not the same as building a community together, that shares local resources and markets.

Re: Facebook: greater than 15% of employees are H1Bs

#94

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> H1B allows 65K immigrants per year. H-1B allows zero immigrants per year, because it's a non-immigrant visa.

You are wrong, the H1B is a Dual intent visa, which means it can be used by non-immigrants as well as people trying to immigrate into the country.

Dual intent visas are non-immigrant visas for which it is not a violation of the visa terms for the applicant to intend to immigrate at the time they apply for and enter on the non-immigrant visa. (Non-dual-intent non-immigrant visas do not allow this, and immigration officials can and will exclude you from entry with such a visa if they believe you plan to become an immigrant.)

They remain, however, non-immigrant visas, and require a separate application for immigration, which is what allows immigration by the quotas applicable to the basis of immigration under which you apply, not the status under the dual-intent visa and it's quota.

Re: Facebook: greater than 15% of employees are H1Bs

#95
post #62

I don't see what makes workers born in America more important than workers born in any other country. Everybody should get the same chances.

Those people worked really hard to be born in America, dammit!

That's not the point. The point is, what happens to other Americans has greater impact on me, as an American because I live and work in the same communities.

What happens to someone in India will be of less concern.

Re: Facebook: greater than 15% of employees are H1Bs

#96
post #68
post #51

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"Ask not what your country can do for you, ask what you can do for your country." I will always put my fellow Americans first.

Why is the sentiment "I will always put my fellow whites first" bad but the sentiment you espouse not?

That is a truly poor application of logic.

It's not about being white, it's about living in the same social and economic communities. You really do not understand why a person might care more about what happens to their literal neighbor than someone half way across the world?

From where I am sitting, you are using race as a way to be deliberately inflammatory. Not a good look.

Re: Facebook: greater than 15% of employees are H1Bs

#97

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> H1B allows 65K immigrants per year. H-1B allows zero immigrants per year, because it's a non-immigrant visa.

This is nitpicking. And h1b is dual intent anyway so they are classified as immigrants

No, dual intent visas are non-immigrant Visa that don't prohibit entrants from having the intent to apply for immigration under some other provision. (Regular non-immigrant visa prohibit intent to seek immigrant status.)

Re: Facebook: greater than 15% of employees are H1Bs

#98
post #80

These threads always have a great mix of: * Subtle racism. * Zero-sum thinking. * Specifically, the lump of labor fallacy. * People not realizing that code is about the easiest thing in the world to ship back and forth between different countries: if a company is hell-bent on being cheap, they'll outsource rather than bring someone in. * A stunning lack of perspective on the benefits that immigrants bring to the econ…

> The lump of labor fallacy.

This is counter intuitive to average Joe on street but it is super surprising that the learned members of HN who otherwise seem to take interest in startups etc. fail to see the basic economic principles at work.

The only valid concern about immigration I see is about culture. Personally it is natural for people not to like people who are not like them. It is something we should overcome but still understandable.

> General fuzziness in terms of economic thinking

I am not sure how we can have a law that involves things like a "lottery"! US immigration laws violate some basic principles of law making => clarity/predictability/rewards law abiding people/learns from real world data.

H1B/F1 by definition encourages lying. A student can not be truthful when applying for F1. If I say I intend to apply for H1B after F1 my F1 visa would be instantly rejected. Not to mention young people can not predict promise their future that well either.

Re: Facebook: greater than 15% of employees are H1Bs

#99

Earlier quoted context omitted.

As an American, workers born in the USA are more important to me. I care more about my neighbor's employment status, safety, and happiness than the family down the street. I care more about the guy down the street than the family across town... etc etc etc... I care more about some family in some US state that I'll never visit than a family over in India. The closer they are to me, the more their success and problems…

but these h1b holders live in your town, and possibly your next door neighbor. gotcha!

> but these h1b holders live in your town

Temporarily.

Re: Facebook: greater than 15% of employees are H1Bs

#100

I don't see what makes workers born in America more important than workers born in any other country. Everybody should get the same chances.

Giving everyone the same chance would lower the quality of life of Americans. Why would Americans want to lower their own quality of life?
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