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Executive order expected to suspend H-1B, other visas until end of year

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Re: Executive order expected to suspend H-1B, other visas until end of year

#251

Post by ra7 »

andrewgodwin wrote: post #8

I'm (worriedly) curious how this will affect people trying to change jobs on a H1-B, as technically you need to file a new petition each time, and I can see them somehow denying those too.

Extremely risky, I’d say. There would be people who have already changed jobs pending H1B transfer authorization (since premium processing was suspending earlier), also called joining “on receipt”. Normal processing takes weeks to months and if their transfer applications end up getting rejected now, they lose visa status.

Re: Executive order expected to suspend H-1B, other visas until end of year

#252

Post by P_I_Staker »

awillen wrote: post #22
Forgeties79 wrote: post #4

This has gotten very old very fast (beyond the obvious cruelty). I have several friends who keep watching their colleagues just have to up and leave over this and it’s causing a ton of issues for businesses that employ folks on work visas in general. It’s just disruptive to be disruptive/feed the base.

It's just silly... even if you're a nationalist, isn't the prospect of bringing over talented people from foreign countries to work in America and help our companies profit plus deprive their home countries of their skills a really, really good thing?

No, it's just a way to bring in cheap labor, and bring salaries down. That's it. It's very rarely the case that there's genuinely no one here that can do the jobs. It's widely know that companies are making no legitimate attempt to hire a citizen. I'm not saying this is a good move, and I'm not commenting on the morality of it (ie. who says someone from another country shouldn't be competing for your job)

Re: Executive order expected to suspend H-1B, other visas until end of year

#253

Post by fredfoobar »

BeetleB wrote: post #224
tracer4201 wrote: post #176

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There’s nothing illegal going on here. I posted earlier that I was at an oil and gas company in Houston, a Fortune 10 company at the time. We had IT contractors from Larsen and Toubro. As an example, one guy who reported to me was paid < $20 an hour after L&TI and another contracting company in the middle took their cut. He wasn’t thrilled with that situation but his other option was to quit and go back to India. The…

Paying H1-B less than prevailing wage is illegal/fraudulent. However, there are many legal tricks to get around it.

if you know them, make them public, push them to be illegal. Also, I'm curious to know what those "tricks" are.

Re: Executive order expected to suspend H-1B, other visas until end of year

#254

Post by triceratops »

tinyhouse wrote: post #111
blntechie wrote: post #48

Earlier quoted context omitted.

No official details yet but apparently 1) all issue of new visas will be delayed 2) current visa holders won’t be allowed at port of entry So it doesn’t affect current visa holders in the country unless they travel outside the country and have to enter back. Need to see what are the broad exceptions.

Not letting people in status travel and come back is crazy. It just shows the lack of common sense of the US government. It's the same lack of common sense of the US police and why it's such a mess (besides the systematic racism). Those people wouldn't leave the country as a result - all it means is that you prevent them from visiting their family, sometimes even in emergency situations. It has nothing to do with job…

> It just shows the lack of common sense of the US government...you prevent them from visiting their family, sometimes even in emergency situations.

With this administration, the cruelty is a feature, not a bug.

Re: Executive order expected to suspend H-1B, other visas until end of year

#255

Post by [deleted] »

retortio wrote: post #59

H1-B was intended for highly skilled workers that the US had a real shortage of. But now it's just being abused to bring in captive workers that are willing to accept lower wages and worse working conditions than otherwise while crowding out US workers. What if, instead of bowing to corporate greed which cares not a bit for our country or our people, we actually invested in our own population and trained them to do t…

[deleted]

Re: Executive order expected to suspend H-1B, other visas until end of year

#256

Post by ckaygusu »

armada651 wrote: post #215
ckaygusu wrote: post #168

Earlier quoted context omitted.

No, you do not need a visa to STAY in the country. Legal status and having a visa in your passport is not tied together. Your legal status is shown in your I-94. You can get into the country in a status, and adjust to another, without having a visa to reflect the new status. If you leave the country and want to get back in, however, you need to have the right visa. Again, a visa is only required to have a CBP officer…

Your I-94 still has an expiration date, if you can't renew your Visa then your I-94 will expire eventually. Once the I-94 expires your stay is illegal. Also you're still overstaying your Visa, which is going to affect your future applications. Also how would you transition to another visa when applications are suspended? You'll have to live in the United States without a job in the hopes the suspension is lifted befo…

You are still conflating legal status and visa in an improper way.

The I94 expiration case can happen in practice. I don't know all possible cases, but at least for H1B done through change of status, you are not required to get a visa as long as you do not leave the country. And no, you r I-94 does not expire for three years, so it is entirely possible to complete a whole H1B period without a visa.

Re: Executive order expected to suspend H-1B, other visas until end of year

#257

Post by weyland108 »

retortio wrote: post #59

H1-B was intended for highly skilled workers that the US had a real shortage of. But now it's just being abused to bring in captive workers that are willing to accept lower wages and worse working conditions than otherwise while crowding out US workers. What if, instead of bowing to corporate greed which cares not a bit for our country or our people, we actually invested in our own population and trained them to do t…

I came to USA for education in 2008-09. Payed for my own education thanks to my parents and their sacrifice of lifetime savings. Did not take any govt funds for education. I graduated with a masters degree with Perfect 4.0 gpa . I worked my way up from financial crisis to working SV today. I have family, kids going to public school and also own a home. I don’t remember anytime taking a pay cut to stay in the country. It’s been more than 10years that I was legally here and always followed the law and I am still 5 years out at minimum from getting a green card. I rely on h1b renewals to keep going.... so it’s not exactly easy for me to pickup and go back to my home country where I haven’t stayed for 10+ years now to “fix” this problem.

There huge nuance which is missed when talking about H1bs ... there are body shops which do cut wages and should be stopped. However the immigration system in USA needs significant reform as well. It’s hard already to build a life for your family with a normal 3 year lease ( h1b duration) for this kind of misinformed political rhetoric to have unintended consequences.

Re: Executive order expected to suspend H-1B, other visas until end of year

#258

Post by fredfoobar »

pstrateman wrote: post #209
vsskanth wrote: post #172

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Reposting my response from a different thread: Every time you file an H1B Visa, you pay something called a ACWIA Fee (“American Competitiveness and Workforce Improvement Act of 1998”). For employers who have between 1-25 full-time workers, the American Competitiveness and Workforce Improvement Act fee is $750. For employers with 26 or more full-time employees, the fee is $1,500. [1] This fee was established to fund t…

That's 1-2 USD per person in the US. The couch cushions maybe?

Those employees pay taxes. They pay into the Social Security which they can't access.

edit: literally, do the math, 420K+ active H1-Bs, they should be at least making upwards of 70K per year, tax revenues should be upwards of a few billion dollars every year.

Re: Executive order expected to suspend H-1B, other visas until end of year

#259

Post by joubert »

austincheney wrote: post #233

My common sense frustration here is how can the US possibly have a critical shortage of developers on languages that are 20 to 50 years old? We have the third highest population in the world and claim to have excellent education, and these are high paying jobs at 2x-3x the national average yearly income. So what qualifies the shortage? Is it like agriculture where Americans are too entitled for the work? Are American…

“Foreign nationals account for 81 percent of the full-time graduate students in electrical engineering, 79 percent in computer science, 75 percent in industrial engineering, 69 percent in statistics, 63 percent in mechanical engineering, 59 percent in civil engineering, and 57 percent in chemical engineering.”

— https://americanaffairsjournal.org/2019/02/americas-stem-cri...

Re: Executive order expected to suspend H-1B, other visas until end of year

#260

Post by SomeoneFromCA »

retortio wrote: post #107
samfisher83 wrote: post #66

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You can look at the data, SV companies aren't paying H1B people low wages. Unless you think 200-300k is low wages.

One thing to remember is that in many cases H1-B workers are brought over by sponsoring companies which take a huge cut (I know cases of 40% or more) out of their salaries for the service of securing them the Visa. So those salaries might appear to be a certain number but the workers themselves may actually receive significantly less while some rent seeking company stashes the differences. I know for a fact that in m…

Lots of companies such as Mahindra, Wipro etc bring their people on B1, J1, L1 and employ them illegally. They receive INDIAN wages, while working in US, and the poor folks work just for bagging power back in India. For them, having worked in US increases potential wage in their home country.
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