Andrew Ng: The suspension of H1B is bad for the US and bad for innovation

Counterpoint: I’d rather gut the H1B system and ease the path to citizenship. The H1B system just exists for employers to pay lower wages to skilled workers. I would much rather those workers get fast-tracked to citizenship instead. Letting them leave with the money they make here isn’t in our best interests and neither is preventing them from changing companies, which allows employers to underpay them. I would heavily support using the H1B as a probationary period to test assimilation into the US before granting full citizenship but that’s not really in the spirit of the program at that point.

If you've already been accepted, consider looking into options for deferring your starting year. I saw an article on the WSJ a few weeks ago showing many students are doing that

And when the time comes to recruit during your MBA, please hit me up if you think you'd be a good candidate at a top boutique in NY

I can understand why you’d feel that was as an individual, but as an American, for my children’s sake, I want the top 5% of every economy to keep immigrating here. That gives the US an incredible advantage in terms of innovation and growth, and I believe that rising tide really does lift us all.

There are structural inequality issues and problems with upward mobility in the US which we urgently need to work on, but those problems are not caused by high skilled immigration, and economic stagnation would just make them worse. Telling the smartest people in the world that America doesn’t want them coming here any more (which is a side-effect of how the Trump administration has handled immigration issues so far, whether or not the intent), makes them a lot less likely to try and come here, and robs our future of the many incredible contributions those people would make in our communities.

I understand the economic fear that many in the US feel. I spent years unemployed and then underemployed after 2007-2008, and it was brutal. But I fear the US turning it’s back on it’s own history as a nation of immigrants, and it’s role as the aspirational “best place in the world” for the ambitious to come live and work, leaves us even poorer.

Really, we should just enforce the original intent of the H1B.

1. Companies that import labor when they had a perfectly acceptable local candidate should face severe fines, and Justice should be given a real budget for running these investigations as a matter of course. And the burden of proof to demonstrate you needed to import labor should be pretty high. If you don't do this, then H1B abuse will happen.

2. Companies should be forced to pay H1Bs significantly above prevailing wage, where "prevailing wage" is interpreted liberally instead of conservatively. H1Bs for software engineers making less than $200K (maybe 150K) in a major metro area is a pretty obvious violation of the intent of the H1B, imo.

NB: this will have the effect of making H1Bs a lot harder to get and keep. But I think this is the least evil of all possible worlds. In addition, we could also independently argue for increased immigration in general. But midskill immigration to fill jobs for which local qualified candidates exist should not be done through the H1B program. That's not what it's designed for, and that mismatch between program design and actual use is the source of a lot of H1B mistreatment.

I actually don't believe that ending the tie to an employer will help. I mean, we should do it anyway, but the abuse will continue.

Agreed completely. I feel like this administration exists simply to taunt Congress to take actual action with regards to its wild swings on various issues.

Congress has given way too much power over to the executive, and having the most corrupt real estate developer in a city frankly renowned for the corruption of its real estate developers in charge of the executive should be teaching Congress that they need to actually exercise power rather than just handing it over to whoever is sitting at that desk.