America’s Need for Skilled Immigrants Isn’t Going Away • Hacker News Board

Re: America’s Need for Skilled Immigrants Isn’t Going Away

#291

Post by corpMaverick » Wed, Oct 24, 2018, 9:28 PM UTC

DataWorker wrote: post #266

CodeMage wrote: post #226

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Both of these would ensure that we can get smart and talented individuals from outside the US and would drastically improve the ability for the US to compete while continuing to provide broad-based wage increases. As an immigrant, I'm all for better and easier immigration system. As a parent of an 11 year old, I can tell you that what your country really needs is not more smart and talented immigrants, but better e…

Your opinion is obviously contradicted by the facts. The American education system is a major reason people immigrate here in the first place. Many of the best universities and research centers in the world happen to be in America. You may have some gripe about your kid’s teacher or whatever, but if you feel that a single data point from a parent’s biased perspective is more informative than the facts and statistics,…

May be, it is that the academic level after high school is much higher while the academic level in high school and below is very low.

Re: America’s Need for Skilled Immigrants Isn’t Going Away

#292

Post by NTDF9 » Wed, Oct 24, 2018, 9:38 PM UTC

My god! The amount of discussion here is nuts. Skilled immigration is already a settled case. Just look at how Canada and Australia does it.

America has the whole idea of skilled temporary immigration completely backwards. You want the equivalent of Ivy leaguers from other countries but want to treat them like slaves with a ton of documentation and constant fear of deportation?

That is not a life Ivy-League level folks of any country want to live. Just look at other developed countries. America has really not kept pace.

Re: America’s Need for Skilled Immigrants Isn’t Going Away

#293

Post by camelNotation » Wed, Oct 24, 2018, 9:38 PM UTC

CodeMage wrote: post #290

DataWorker wrote: post #266

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Your opinion is obviously contradicted by the facts. The American education system is a major reason people immigrate here in the first place. Many of the best universities and research centers in the world happen to be in America. You may have some gripe about your kid’s teacher or whatever, but if you feel that a single data point from a parent’s biased perspective is more informative than the facts and statistics,…

Maybe it's my fault, but I haven't found "easily accessible data" on the quality of elementary and middle school education, which is something a lot of people seem to be ignoring in this discussion. Sure, people might be motivated to immigrate here by your universities. Even when I was a teenager growing up in an Eastern European country, I had heard of MIT and dreamed of studying there. But there's a long road to go…

If you want your children to be educated well in most regions of the United States, you either need to do it yourself or through private schools. There are a small handful of public schools that have the funding and leadership to do it well, but they are rare - and usually located in the richest counties.

You can't pay attention to achievement metrics or school ranking systems either. They are almost all relative to American schools only and fail to measure well across different global education models. You may find your local public school as an "A" grade from some rating agency, but it means nothing. The only reliable metric is how many of the graduates are accepted into top tier liberal arts colleges.

Frankly, I'm not even trying any of that mess with my children. We teach them ourselves.

Re: America’s Need for Skilled Immigrants Isn’t Going Away

#294

Post by _iyig » Wed, Oct 24, 2018, 9:40 PM UTC

What is the difference between this headline and one that might read, “Americans’ Access to Affordable, High-quality STEM Education Needs to Improve?”

I’ve know too many friends and relatives, all American-born, who got into tech despite of rather than because of their state-funded primary and secondary education.

Re: America’s Need for Skilled Immigrants Isn’t Going Away

#295

Post by at-fates-hands » Wed, Oct 24, 2018, 9:40 PM UTC

CodeMage wrote: post #290

DataWorker wrote: post #266

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Your opinion is obviously contradicted by the facts. The American education system is a major reason people immigrate here in the first place. Many of the best universities and research centers in the world happen to be in America. You may have some gripe about your kid’s teacher or whatever, but if you feel that a single data point from a parent’s biased perspective is more informative than the facts and statistics,…

Maybe it's my fault, but I haven't found "easily accessible data" on the quality of elementary and middle school education, which is something a lot of people seem to be ignoring in this discussion. Sure, people might be motivated to immigrate here by your universities. Even when I was a teenager growing up in an Eastern European country, I had heard of MIT and dreamed of studying there. But there's a long road to go…

> that outcome being an apparent shortage of your own skilled citizens.

The interesting thing is even when we had millions of people out of work who worked in technical fields, SV and other major tech hubs were pushing for even more H1-B's.

It really has nothing to do with skilled citizens and more to do with the salaries they demand which tend to be on the scale of 1-3 times more expensive to hire and keep then the off-shore people they're hiring.

Just an anecdote for you:

I was hired as a contractor on a financial application at a major health care provider here in the states. I was the only US born developer on the entire team. That included developers, project managers, and scrum mangers, On a team of 18 people, I was the only American. Several times I overheard team members talking about salary and what they were getting paid. It was shocking to me that I was getting almost twice as much as they were per hour for virtually the same work.

It's not the skills or education that are lacking, it's the cost of the labor which is considerably lower for off-shore talent or H1-B contractors.

Re: America’s Need for Skilled Immigrants Isn’t Going Away

#296

Post by cavanasm » Wed, Oct 24, 2018, 9:46 PM UTC

i_phish_cats wrote: post #247

CodeMage wrote: post #226

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Both of these would ensure that we can get smart and talented individuals from outside the US and would drastically improve the ability for the US to compete while continuing to provide broad-based wage increases. As an immigrant, I'm all for better and easier immigration system. As a parent of an 11 year old, I can tell you that what your country really needs is not more smart and talented immigrants, but better e…

Nice anecdote. Here's another theory: American kids are being priced out of universities with good CS programs because those universities have burdensome pension programs that can only be paid by importing international students with rich parents.

The fact that CS programs / education largely start at a college / university level is I think a bigger problem. A growing set of countries have such courses as required curriculum for all students, starting earlier.

Re: America’s Need for Skilled Immigrants Isn’t Going Away

#297

Post by nixme » Wed, Oct 24, 2018, 9:48 PM UTC

jorblumesea wrote: post #246

CodeMage wrote: post #226

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Both of these would ensure that we can get smart and talented individuals from outside the US and would drastically improve the ability for the US to compete while continuing to provide broad-based wage increases. As an immigrant, I'm all for better and easier immigration system. As a parent of an 11 year old, I can tell you that what your country really needs is not more smart and talented immigrants, but better e…

It really depends on the region and city, the US educational system has zero consistency across the nation. It also varies considerably by income, where rich school districts have educational standards above European levels, and where poor districts have standards on par with Latin America or even Africa. It's not that we don't produce educated people, it's we don't consistently produce educated people across the boa…

Carnegie Mellon is neither a state school nor what I would call affordable.

Re: America’s Need for Skilled Immigrants Isn’t Going Away

#298

Post by skksjsnaahs » Wed, Oct 24, 2018, 9:48 PM UTC

skksjsnaahs wrote: post #220

dudul wrote: post #71

Earlier quoted context omitted.

In theory it is not very complicated for a H1B to change employer. It simply requires the employer to file a petition to sponsor the H1B. It doesn't count towards the "seats" available yearly, and it's almost guaranteed to be granted. There is a small cost, maybe a few grands. If you think about it, it's way cheaper than paying recruiter fee fo example. In practice you're right though. Most companies have limited exp…

Word on the street from hiring managers is that it now takes > 6 mo to process such a visa transfer and you can’t get premium processing to speed it up. People are making offers to candidates with undefined start dates many months in the future. The candidate has to commit to switching jobs when the transfer is submitted. If current job gives them a promotion in the interim and they decide to stay, they can’t just ca…

Has anyone had success with an H1B visa transfer in the past few months? If so, I’d be very interested to hear and it would add more to the discussion than a downvote.

Re: America’s Need for Skilled Immigrants Isn’t Going Away

#299

Post by burfog » Wed, Oct 24, 2018, 9:49 PM UTC

bduerst wrote: post #33

firedrakerage wrote: post #11

I do not typically post, but these suggestions seem like genuine improvements to the existing system: "Kerr suggests allocating H-1Bs not by lottery as they are now, but by salary — the more that a company is willing to pay for a foreign worker, the quicker they can get a visa." "A second change would be to allow H-1B workers to apply for permanent residency green cards on their own, without having to be sponsored by…

The problem is that pay isn't uniform across skilled labor demand, and the purpose of the H1B program is to fulfill demand in the economy. If you set a quota and give to the highest bidder, you're going to see private sector executives and financial roles being filled in cities with high costs of living and competitive wages. Salary is a function not only of demand but also location and industry. This will discrimina…

I don't see rural and middle America crying out for more immigrants of any type. They won't be complaining, and it isn't proper to complain on their behalf due to whatever you judge to be best for them.

That leaves nobody to complain.

If you insist on deciding what is best for rural and middle America, I sure hope you don't object when they return the favor, deciding on your behalf that cities would be best off without any immigration.

Re: America’s Need for Skilled Immigrants Isn’t Going Away

#300

Post by i_phish_cats » Wed, Oct 24, 2018, 9:49 PM UTC

CodeMage wrote: post #281

i_phish_cats wrote: post #247

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Nice anecdote. Here's another theory: American kids are being priced out of universities with good CS programs because those universities have burdensome pension programs that can only be paid by importing international students with rich parents.

Everyone who focuses mostly on universities is forgetting that you have years of education to go through before getting to the university.

Well, as long as we are speaking in hyperbole, everyone needs to realize that K-12 CS education needs CS teachers, who are disproportionately not those international students who either get cushy jobs in SV or go home.