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Trump administration announces overhaul of H1B visa program requiring higher pay

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Re: Trump administration announces overhaul of H1B visa program requiring higher pay

#301

Post by gumby »

chrisseaton wrote: post #255
sushshshsh wrote: post #202

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I would absolutely speculate that this requirement was made to block many good candidates. After all, the point of a visa system is to constrict the pool of potential candidates anyway.

> After all, the point of a visa system is to constrict the pool of potential candidates anyway. No, that's not the point. If that's what you wanted to achieve then you'd be best off not having any visa system. So obviously this is not what they're optimising for.

> If that's what you wanted to achieve then you'd be best off not having any visa system. So obviously this is not what they're optimising for.

If you want to change an existing system, slice the salami thinly.

Whether they intend it or not they are optimizing for moving a lot of work overseas. They seem to think the economy is the same as in 1945. And even to get to 1945 the US imported a ton of nuclear physicists and other scientists.

Re: Trump administration announces overhaul of H1B visa program requiring higher pay

#302

Post by pstrateman »

belltaco wrote: post #234
chairmanwow1 wrote: post #189

Overall, I really support these changes. However, this piece really struck me as a big mistake: "Under the changes, an applicant must have a college degree in the specific field in which he or she is looking to work. A software developer, for example, wouldn’t be awarded an H-1B visa if that person has a degree in electrical engineering." Some of the best software engineers I know are graduate degree holders from neu…

This one is also a particularly terrible move: >“ Because those required wage increases take effect this week, existing H-1B holders looking to renew their visas might not qualify unless their employers raise their salaries accordingly.” Copying from my comment below, this is likely to backfire. Since remote work has become acceptable and they already know the ins and outs of the job, many of these folks losing their…

> Since remote work has become acceptable and they already know the ins and outs of the job, many of these folks losing their visa will just be allowed to work remotely from India or Canada where it's trivial to get a work visa if you have a job offer.

You will not be granted a work permit to work remotely for an American company in Canada.

Canadian Immigration is actually quite strict.

Re: Trump administration announces overhaul of H1B visa program requiring higher pay

#303

Post by yashap »

chairmanwow1 wrote: post #189

Overall, I really support these changes. However, this piece really struck me as a big mistake: "Under the changes, an applicant must have a college degree in the specific field in which he or she is looking to work. A software developer, for example, wouldn’t be awarded an H-1B visa if that person has a degree in electrical engineering." Some of the best software engineers I know are graduate degree holders from neu…

Yeah, the high level idea of “get H1Bs back to their original purpose” (hiring high skill employees in sectors with labour shortages in America) makes a lot of sense, and I say this as a major Trump hater. It’s a good idea. But some of the implementation details really suck, and this is a key one. It’s incredibly common for outstanding employees in technical fields to come from non-traditional backgrounds.

Screwing up details like this could be simple incompetence - the Trump administration is quite bad when it comes to putting “yes men” with little relevant experience in key decision making positions. Or it could be malice - a strongly anti-immigrant policy disguised as something less anti-immigrant. I can easily see it being either one.

Re: Trump administration announces overhaul of H1B visa program requiring higher pay

#304

Post by cma »

majormajor wrote: post #261
belltaco wrote: post #234

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This one is also a particularly terrible move: >“ Because those required wage increases take effect this week, existing H-1B holders looking to renew their visas might not qualify unless their employers raise their salaries accordingly.” Copying from my comment below, this is likely to backfire. Since remote work has become acceptable and they already know the ins and outs of the job, many of these folks losing their…

> Since remote work has become acceptable and they already know the ins and outs of the job, many of these folks losing their visa will just be allowed to work remotely from India. This means the US economy will lose all the taxes and local expenditure in the economy like rent, food, travel, vacations, utilities, cars, home sales, etc. etc. And if that works out, the next hire may just be directly hired in India itse…

Doing it all through Canada gives them he same time zones and a just one additional legal system to deal with.

Re: Trump administration announces overhaul of H1B visa program requiring higher pay

#305

Post by obviouslynotme »

jedberg wrote: post #9

Credit where credit is due, this is a good move. The H1B program has been abused for a long time. It sounds like these changes should help make it too expensive for the fraudulent abuse to continue.

I remember the first time I walked into the "residence" for a major contractor's H1B visas. They were packing a dozen people in a 3 bedroom apartment in a bad area of town. You then see how they are treated by their companies at work, and it disgusts me.

This is why you can't have second-class citizens like this. They are terrified to go for help if they even know how. It's even worse for undocumented workers. At least they can quit though. H1B workers are tied to their sponsors, which has to stop.

Re: Trump administration announces overhaul of H1B visa program requiring higher pay

#306

Post by ajsnigrutin »

pwinnski wrote: post #160
cactus2093 wrote: post #142

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Genuine question, what type of fraudulent abuse are you referring to? I see this vaguely mentioned a lot without much to back it up, but I'm open to the idea that it happens. From my own anecdotal experience, I'll admit I have found the rules to be a little ridiculous. Company needs to post a sign in the office advertising the role to any Americans, wait a certain amount of time, and only then can offer it to an H1-B…

The abuse I've seen most often is that companies hire H1B workers and then contract them out to other companies, and the H1B worker can't change employers, and gets to watch most of what their time is billed for go to the original contracting company which often misleads the people about what they'll find when they arrive. The worker ends up with very few choices, and the companies at which the workers are working ar…

....or outright getting replaced by those workers:

https://www.nytimes.com/2015/06/04/us/last-task-after-layoff...

Re: Trump administration announces overhaul of H1B visa program requiring higher pay

#307

Post by coding123 »

It's a good idea, but it misses something very important.

The last company I worked at I was one of 6 developers in the US. The rest of the developers was a team in Pakistan - 30 to 50 employees. The 6 employees were paid about the same as the 30-50 in Pakistan (combined).

So before I would support this, I would support the US making remote technical work illegal without also increasing that pay to match the equivalent pay in the US.

Re: Trump administration announces overhaul of H1B visa program requiring higher pay

#308

Post by mlex »

nerdface wrote: post #96
sjg007 wrote: post #44

I mean they will pay H1bs higher but still doesn’t make a company pay a us citizen higher. Maybe it will open up space for lawsuits based equivalent responsibilities and help the equal pay for equal movement. Even excluding H1bs we know there are people doing the exact same work for vastly different

H1Bs usually require the employer to prove they couldn't find someone within the country.

This is incorrect. From https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Labor_certification#Difference...:

Temporary work visa: H-1B, H-1B1, or E-3

"The employer needs to demonstrate that the worker is being paid at least the prevailing wage for that region and occupation, and comparable to native workers in the firm, and that employing the worker will not adversely affect current workers. The employer does not need to demonstrate that there is no qualified native U.S. worker for the job."

Compare that to:

Employment-based visa (such as EB-2 visa, or EB-3 visa) that provides a path to permanent residency (a Green Card)

"The employer needs to demonstrate that there is no qualified U.S. worker willing to do the job at a comparable wage, and needs to have made a good-faith effort to recruit a native U.S. worker."

You only need to demonstrate an effort to recruit someone when applying for a green card.

Re: Trump administration announces overhaul of H1B visa program requiring higher pay

#309

Post by nrmitchi »

hal9000-tng wrote: post #258
Cherian_Abraham wrote: post #117

“ Because those required wage increases take effect this week, existing H-1B holders looking to renew their visas might not qualify unless their employers raise their salaries accordingly.” This is really bad. Families are going to get told to leave. I’m surprised that there is no discussion on this thread about the impact to people who haven’t done anything wrong.

> This is really bad. Families are going to get told to leave. I’m surprised that there is no discussion on this thread about the impact to people who haven’t done anything wrong. It's not a moral issue (except for the big H-1B mills that are gaming the system.) But nothing has changed: these are not an offer of citizenship. They are temporary work visas with no guarantees: an opportunity to do temporary specialty wo…

> these are not an offer of citizenship

No one said that it was, but there is a difference between submitting for an extension X months ago and fully expecting to get it, and then the rules changing out from under you and being told "No. I understand you've been here for 10 years, but pack up all your shit and leave".

5 years ago it was technically "and leave tonight" (which I'm sure you understand is unreasonable). Luckily now there is at least a 60 day grace period to look for something else, but still.

You are being rather unsympathetic to people who find themselves in this situation.

Re: Trump administration announces overhaul of H1B visa program requiring higher pay

#310

Post by ponker »

jedberg wrote: post #264
3pt14159 wrote: post #206

There is a lot of political science research that speaks to growing xenophobia when immigration is unleashed. I understand the sentiment—I'm very pro-immigration—but with respect to domestic policy my primary goal is stability and faith in government. Personally, I like how my country, Canada, does it. Points based system that rewards multiple factors, including skills, employability, and fluency in English and Frenc…

I like the Canadian system too, but it was recently pointed out to me that the Canadian system is biased towards wealthy immigrants. Many of the points are things that take money to get (like advanced degrees and knowledge of French). And then you end up with the "PhD taxi driver" problem too.

That's not a bug, it's a feature. Wealthy immigrants are more useful to a country than poor immigrants, unless those poor immigrants have a lot of promise which is most easily approximated by educational credentials.

The PhD taxi driver isn't a huge problem because it's voluntary on the part of the immigrant and usually those people send their kids to top universites.

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