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New Evidence USCIS Policies Increased Denials Of H-1B Visas

forbes.com

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Re: New Evidence USCIS Policies Increased Denials Of H-1B Visas

#31

Post by whath1breal »

mavelikara wrote: post #27
User23 wrote: post #24

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There are 265 million professional soccer players according to FIFA* and 736 were in the world cup. If the US accepted foreign developers at the same rate, that is 0.00027%, then of the 14.6 million that would be 41 individuals rounding up. So yes, they would comfortably fit in a large conference room. * https://www.fifa.com/mm/document/fifafacts/bcoffsurv/emaga_9...

Let me repeat the question I asked above - why is a good developer not considered to posses "specialized knowledge in a field of human endeavor"?.

I don't think the violations of H1-b law are coming from the clause you quoted.

It's coming from the parts about: 1) the employer must try to hire Americans first for the job and needs to be able to show that they haven't been able to hire Americans for the job 2) if the employer laid off people in essentially similar jobs recently before or after the H1-b application, the application is not supposed to go through 3) they need to pay the H1-bs the same wage as similar non-H1-b people at the company, or the prevailing wage of the area (whichever is greater)

I have personally seen all of these violated, would not be surprised if the vast majority of H1-bs are violating at least one of them. It's violated intentionally and everyone is doing it, because they can hire H1-bs cheaper and they have better retention (or less job mobility). Frankly it's a disgrace.

I personally am not anti-immigrant and would prefer the immigration laws to be more efficient, and spread the immigration over a wider range of jobs, instead of disproportionately affecting my profession (software engineering).

Re: New Evidence USCIS Policies Increased Denials Of H-1B Visas

#32

Post by __sr__ »

User23 wrote: post #9
e9 wrote: post #2

India has more applicants than all other countries combined times 2.5 I wouldn't be surprised if a lot of them are fraud and legitimately rejected https://www.uscis.gov/sites/default/files/USCIS/Resources/Re...

Having worked with H-1B "principal engineers" who can't write a bash script, I'm thinking yes, this is true.

People who work primarily on Windows have trouble writing bash scripts. That’s not exactly surprising.

Re: New Evidence USCIS Policies Increased Denials Of H-1B Visas

#33

Post by HNNewer »

User23 wrote: post #9
e9 wrote: post #2

India has more applicants than all other countries combined times 2.5 I wouldn't be surprised if a lot of them are fraud and legitimately rejected https://www.uscis.gov/sites/default/files/USCIS/Resources/Re...

Having worked with H-1B "principal engineers" who can't write a bash script, I'm thinking yes, this is true.

this. I've worked with C++ "senior" engineers who weren't understanding compiler errors because they've written 2 main() [!!!] functions in code

Re: New Evidence USCIS Policies Increased Denials Of H-1B Visas

#34

Post by __sr__ »

Broadly speaking, there are two types of H1B applicants[1]:

1. Applicants being hired directly by US companies like Amazon, Google, Microsoft etc. These applicants have either worked for a while at one of their offshore subsidiaries or were hired directly after a thorough interview process. They are typically paid on par with their US counterparts. These applicants are usually very good at what they do — regardless of their educational background — which is why they were hired in the first place.

2. Applicants working for outsourcing companies who are being sent to work for their clients. Unfortunately, not all of them are good and are hired mostly to reduce costs.

Most of the stereotypical immigrant engineers fall in the second category. A lot of them moved to the US in late 1990s and throughout the 2000s. Companies like Microsoft, Amazon, Google, Apple etc. don’t typically hire incompetent people — barring a few exceptions which may have slipped through the cracks.

Unfortunately, the second category of applicants give all of them a bad name.

I don’t know exactly how this can be solved completely. Perhaps H1Bs should be allowed to stay in the country after quitting their jobs for a certain period of time so they can look for another one — eliminating low employee mobility? Perhaps the minimum H1B wages should be increased — eliminating the low cost H1Bs? Perhaps there should be additional scrutiny for applicants going to work for a third party client? Perhaps there should be subcategories of H1B with different limits for the two types of applicants? Perhaps a combination?

In any case, treating the two categories as one is probably not a great idea.

[1] I know I am generalizing here and that the world is not black and white and that there are exceptions. But in my experience, these are the broad categories.

Re: New Evidence USCIS Policies Increased Denials Of H-1B Visas

#35

Post by jogjayr »

bigcostooge wrote: post #12
mavelikara wrote: post #7

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Please explain why you think so.

I’m not the poster, but I’ve worked with literally hundreds of H1B workers directly, and while some were ~decent developers, the majority were not. Even the decent developers had no special skills that would qualify them for an H1b visa, however. With a 0% rate of qualified H1b recipients in my own experience, I can imagine that the “conference room” statement would be true.

See this other comment for an explanation of why you might not have worked with any decent engineers who were on H1B: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=17615528

Your experience doesn't mean that good engineers on H1B don't exist in large numbers. You just haven't encountered any.

Re: New Evidence USCIS Policies Increased Denials Of H-1B Visas

#36

Post by masonic »

mavelikara wrote: post #13
bigcostooge wrote: post #12

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I’m not the poster, but I’ve worked with literally hundreds of H1B workers directly, and while some were ~decent developers, the majority were not. Even the decent developers had no special skills that would qualify them for an H1b visa, however. With a 0% rate of qualified H1b recipients in my own experience, I can imagine that the “conference room” statement would be true.

I am a hiring manager at an SV tech company. I have interviewed and hired many engineers on H-1B visa. They all, in my understanding, posses the required " theoretical and practical application of a body of highly specialized knowledge in a field of human endeavor". The number of such hires definitely fill the biggest conference rooms I have seen. Also, when I attend reputable tech conferences, many speakers I meet a…

How many of your interviewees were over age 45 and had full working status (citizens or permanent residents)?

Re: New Evidence USCIS Policies Increased Denials Of H-1B Visas

#37

Post by User23 »

__sr__ wrote: post #32
User23 wrote: post #9

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Having worked with H-1B "principal engineers" who can't write a bash script, I'm thinking yes, this is true.

People who work primarily on Windows have trouble writing bash scripts. That’s not exactly surprising.

This was at a Linux shop.

Re: New Evidence USCIS Policies Increased Denials Of H-1B Visas

#38

Post by __sr__ »

User23 wrote: post #37
__sr__ wrote: post #32

Earlier quoted context omitted.

People who work primarily on Windows have trouble writing bash scripts. That’s not exactly surprising.

This was at a Linux shop.

That was meant as a joke.

While I agree that there are many incompetent people who have abused H1B and other such systems, I prefer to judge people on their individual merits and avoid stereotyping. I have worked with both the extremes.

See my longer response to the OP

Re: New Evidence USCIS Policies Increased Denials Of H-1B Visas

#39

Post by User23 »

__sr__ wrote: post #38
User23 wrote: post #37

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This was at a Linux shop.

That was meant as a joke. While I agree that there are many incompetent people who have abused H1B and other such systems, I prefer to judge people on their individual merits and avoid stereotyping. I have worked with both the extremes. See my longer response to the OP

I've never worked with a native employee with this particular defect for any appreciable length of time. They always get let go. The H-1Bs however, in my experience, don't. Why might that be?

Re: New Evidence USCIS Policies Increased Denials Of H-1B Visas

#40

Post by akhilcacharya »

gaius wrote: post #19
GauntletWizard wrote: post #3

Somehow, I don't see this article getting a lot of traction here on HN. I'm certain most of us have good friends and colleagues here in the US on an H1B Visa; I'm equally certain most of us have seen and experienced the abuse of the system. H1B's stated purpose is "Specialty Occupation"s. A lot of these Visas are being used to bring in workers for very generic IT helpdesk jobs. There's still many that are granted for…

whose appeal is not specialization but simply being cheap If there was genuinely a shortage of tech workers there would be no ageism (or any other sort of -ism) nor would there be these elaborate multi-day hoop-jumping interviews.

Why? There is a legitimate reason for having a high hiring bar. Obviously this doesn’t make ageism or discrimination acceptable of course.
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