Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

Trump Administration to Slash Green Cards by 50%, Affecting H1-B/EB

alcorn.law

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

31–40 of 120 posts

Re: Trump Administration to Slash Green Cards by 50%, Affecting H1-B/EB

#31

Post by learc83 »

arcticbull wrote: post #10
hourislate wrote: post #3

Thank goodness. The Indian H1B folks have over run DFW. I was just told today that one of the H1B folks is going full time and the company is doing the paper work to make it happen (Green Card). It's a shame because they could have certainly hired a local person or a kid out of school but I suppose they can pay this person a pittance in comparison. H1B program needs to to be done away with. It is being gamed and no l…

It's clear you've never been on the employer side of an H1 petition let alone a green card, or spoken to an immigrant before. H1s cost $6000+ and are available 4 days out of the year in April, and even then you have a 33% chance of getting one. And should you get one you can't start until the new USCIS fiscal year in October. What about that makes you think they'd rather hire a foreigner? The green card burden is yea…

>Also, your statement about H1s getting paid way less isn't usually true, they're required to be paid the prevailing wage for the job they're doing in their geographical area.

That's easy to game and not enforced very well.

>there's some good reasons

Often that good reason is that if they're fired and can't very quickly find another employer, they'll have to leave the country. And if the company is sponsoring a green card, depending on where they are in the process if they change employers, they'll be moved back in priority.

Employing a workforce full of H-1B visa holders means you have a workforce with drastically reduced mobility. That alone is worth the price for many employers. Add to that the fact that it's relatively easy to get away with something like hiring someone for QA and making them do development work (to bypass prevailing wage requirements) and H-1Bs are a lot more attractive than you seem to think.

Re: Trump Administration to Slash Green Cards by 50%, Affecting H1-B/EB

#32

Post by closeparen »

mc32 wrote: post #17
godzillabrennus wrote: post #8

This will send shockwaves through corporate America. I was at a Capitol One office last summer talking to their engineers. It was over 90% H1-B visa holders. Either they have to open foreign offices in other countries for talent or hire American citizens. It'll be interesting to see how it plays out.

We need to take a page out of the old Russian system. Get the younger generation prepared for a STEM field to excel. The USSR did a lot of things in hamfisted ways, but one thing they did right was strengthening their STEM education and cranking out very good scientists and mathematicians. We can do that too, if we put the effort into it. Instead we crank out liberal arts kids and other low value add degrees --I mean…

What are you talking about? There are far too many STEM graduates already. Brilliant people with PhDs from great schools often can't find living-wage work in their fields.

Becoming highly educated in STEM isn't just low-value-add, it destroys value: a smart person wastes years of his life and productive capacity training for a research position he'll never get, then (optimistically) gets a programming or finance job which barely (if at all) leverages a few of his undergrad classes.

The economy, and basic human compassion, require that we stop wasting these people's youth and loading them up with debt. We need drastic cuts to STEM programs until we're producing graduates at somewhere near the rate at which we're hiring them.

That, or a massive investment in private sector R&D and public grant writing such that the output of the existing STEM education machine can find decent, relevant work.

Re: Trump Administration to Slash Green Cards by 50%, Affecting H1-B/EB

#33

Post by tanilama »

mc32 wrote: post #17
godzillabrennus wrote: post #8

This will send shockwaves through corporate America. I was at a Capitol One office last summer talking to their engineers. It was over 90% H1-B visa holders. Either they have to open foreign offices in other countries for talent or hire American citizens. It'll be interesting to see how it plays out.

We need to take a page out of the old Russian system. Get the younger generation prepared for a STEM field to excel. The USSR did a lot of things in hamfisted ways, but one thing they did right was strengthening their STEM education and cranking out very good scientists and mathematicians. We can do that too, if we put the effort into it. Instead we crank out liberal arts kids and other low value add degrees --I mean…

To have a Russian/China system, is not really that easy.

Russian/China system builds on a competitive hierarchy of exams to basically classify people into buckets according to their intelligence level. Even though it may be good on a national scale, it is indeed a cruel system to individuals. Your confidence or personality is least of this system's concern, and living a micro society where score is literally everything and the ones with low score will be looked down upon by teachers and peers alike and being told constantly low score meaning no future, I doubt such system will be welcomed here by American society for, you know, greater good.

Disclaimer: survivor of such system, not really miss it though. It almost destroys my love for science, which only recovers many years later.

Re: Trump Administration to Slash Green Cards by 50%, Affecting H1-B/EB

#34

Post by KevinEldon »

This article is an interpretation of original reporting done by Politico [1]. From the original article.

"legislation would also mark a broader shift away from the current immigration system, which favors those with family currently in the U.S., toward a merit-based approach."

"Those admitted to the U.S. on the basis of merit have accounted for less than 10 percent of all legal immigrants over the past 15 years"

"Trump praised the virtues of the merit-based models of Canada and Australia"

1: http://www.politico.com/story/2017/07/12/trump-legal-immigra...

Re: Trump Administration to Slash Green Cards by 50%, Affecting H1-B/EB

#35

Post by mc32 »

closeparen wrote: post #32
mc32 wrote: post #17

Earlier quoted context omitted.

We need to take a page out of the old Russian system. Get the younger generation prepared for a STEM field to excel. The USSR did a lot of things in hamfisted ways, but one thing they did right was strengthening their STEM education and cranking out very good scientists and mathematicians. We can do that too, if we put the effort into it. Instead we crank out liberal arts kids and other low value add degrees --I mean…

What are you talking about? There are far too many STEM graduates already. Brilliant people with PhDs from great schools often can't find living-wage work in their fields. Becoming highly educated in STEM isn't just low-value-add, it destroys value: a smart person wastes years of his life and productive capacity training for a research position he'll never get, then (optimistically) gets a programming or finance job…

Either companies i know don't know how to find the surplus of domestic stem students and thus hire from abroad (and actively complain about the changes), or maybe we just don't pay enough to syphon people away from the high paying liberal arts professions.

Who knows, maybe the administration is right, we have a glut and need to restrict outside pressure in those fields.

Re: Trump Administration to Slash Green Cards by 50%, Affecting H1-B/EB

#36

Post by KevinEldon »

godzillabrennus wrote: post #8

This will send shockwaves through corporate America. I was at a Capitol One office last summer talking to their engineers. It was over 90% H1-B visa holders. Either they have to open foreign offices in other countries for talent or hire American citizens. It'll be interesting to see how it plays out.

The title is misleading. The article and the source reporting from Politico [1] state that the intent is to shift to merit based immigration policies away from policies that favor individuals with family connections.

From the Politico article the legislation would "increase the number of green cards — which allow for permanent residency in the U.S. — that are granted on the basis of merit to foreigners in a series of categories including outstanding professors and researchers, those holding advanced degrees, and those with extraordinary ability in a particular field."

1: http://www.politico.com/story/2017/07/12/trump-legal-immigra...

Re: Trump Administration to Slash Green Cards by 50%, Affecting H1-B/EB

#37

Post by shortsightedsid »

masondixon wrote: post #30
arcticbull wrote: post #10

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's clear you've never been on the employer side of an H1 petition let alone a green card, or spoken to an immigrant before. H1s cost $6000+ and are available 4 days out of the year in April, and even then you have a 33% chance of getting one. And should you get one you can't start until the new USCIS fiscal year in October. What about that makes you think they'd rather hire a foreigner? The green card burden is yea…

India and China have over 1bn people. Their countries are inferior to he US in so many ways. Of course they want to come here, and if there was no cap on the number, they would drive the wages down to rock bottom. They will always be cheaper than US labor. And there are other advantages like employer loyalty because they cannot easily change job, which means employers can push them very hard and they won't quit - bec…

Not like the brazen giant of Greek fame, With conquering limbs astride from land to land; Here at our sea-washed, sunset gates shall stand A mighty woman with a torch, whose flame Is the imprisoned lightning, and her name MOTHER OF EXILES. From her beacon-hand Glows world-wide welcome; her mild eyes command The air-bridged harbor that twin cities frame.

"Keep, ancient lands, your storied pomp!" cries she With silent lips. "Give me your tired, your poor, Your huddled masses yearning to breathe free, The wretched refuse of your teeming shore. Send these, the homeless, tempest-tost to me, I lift my lamp beside the golden door!"

Re: Trump Administration to Slash Green Cards by 50%, Affecting H1-B/EB

#38

Post by jbhatab »

eksemplar wrote: post #7

I wonder why these changes are so welcomed by low-middle skill labour. Do they simply not see the big picture of what brain drain does to the total sum of opportunities?

are you actually serious? the lower middle class support Trump because of his job focused agenda. the man says the word job more than anything.

to correlate everything a president does with support of his general fan base is ridiculous. that's like saying democrats support murdering people with drones because Obama used that often. This type of logic is very divisive and dangerous.

Re: Trump Administration to Slash Green Cards by 50%, Affecting H1-B/EB

#39

Post by KevinEldon »

eksemplar wrote: post #7

I wonder why these changes are so welcomed by low-middle skill labour. Do they simply not see the big picture of what brain drain does to the total sum of opportunities?

I'm frustrated with this kind of response. You don't seem to have read the article and yet you're attacking an entire group of people suggesting they are too ignorant to understand what is in their own interest. The article and the source reporting on Politico [1] make it very clear that the intent is to increase merit-based immigration; where is the brain drain?

1: http://www.politico.com/story/2017/07/12/trump-legal-immigra...

Re: Trump Administration to Slash Green Cards by 50%, Affecting H1-B/EB

#40

Post by oblio »

shortsightedsid wrote: post #37
masondixon wrote: post #30

Earlier quoted context omitted.

India and China have over 1bn people. Their countries are inferior to he US in so many ways. Of course they want to come here, and if there was no cap on the number, they would drive the wages down to rock bottom. They will always be cheaper than US labor. And there are other advantages like employer loyalty because they cannot easily change job, which means employers can push them very hard and they won't quit - bec…

Not like the brazen giant of Greek fame, With conquering limbs astride from land to land; Here at our sea-washed, sunset gates shall stand A mighty woman with a torch, whose flame Is the imprisoned lightning, and her name MOTHER OF EXILES. From her beacon-hand Glows world-wide welcome; her mild eyes command The air-bridged harbor that twin cities frame. "Keep, ancient lands, your storied pomp!" cries she With silent…

That was before all the land was settled. And most likely meant for Europeans.
Post reply on HN