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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

#601

Post by mypalmike »

DenisM wrote: post #281
nrmitchi wrote: post #33

I'll give you that, but it seems like a much simpler solution would have just been improving the flexibility for an H1B worker to be allowed to work at any employer for the term of their status. If an employer used an H1B in order to hire a foreign worker and then under pay them, the worker would just get another job that pays market rate, without the work status concern. Without the artificial control over the emplo…

I vaguely recall that the "indentured" h1b workers (as oppose to the "proper" h1b like I had) owe money back to home, and that debt becomes instantly due if they bail out. If they were super-stars they would be able to cover it from the Amazon signup bonus (and become indentured to Amazon - your signup bonus is due back if you bail out early). However superstars rarely end up in those jobs. We're looking at people wi…

*Edit : Apparently I misinterpreted the parent post. Please disregard.

Are you saying that Amazon's H1B workers are hired specifically for to their "kinda average" skills, lack of connections, etc.? Having been involved with hiring at Amazon, using these criteria would have to be part of a secret hiring system that parallels the one I was trained on which focused on raising the talent bar and avoiding bias.

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

#602

Post by dodobirdlord »

ChicagoDave wrote: post #564

In my mind, the benefits of the program have been mostly met. We've helped other countries increase their IT capability. Of course the offshoring of work will only increase with this change. Companies had been bringing work _back_ to the U.S. and now they will be moving it once again to offshore locations. It's not going to do what the administration thinks it will do...unless they started some nonsensical regulatory…

I think you’re missing something essential. There are only a limited number of H1B visas awarded each year, and they are awarded by lottery. Far, far more applications are submitted than slots are available, and most applications are rejected. After this change the number of H1B visas awarded isn’t likely to go down.

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

#603

Post by shams93 »

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.

However the best solution would be the replace h1b with just citizenship - if you have rare skills why shouldn't we offer immediate citizenship to the talented?

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

#604

Post by not_a_moth »

seanmcdirmid wrote: post #522
not_a_moth wrote: post #293

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Curious, you didn't agree with the ME work that got 3 nobel peace prize nominations?

I don't think we disagree with it, it just isn't very significant. A couple of city states agreeing to recognize Israel? Ok, a nice step forward, but it doesn't seem very substantial or that a real solution is in the works.

One of the nominators said:

"Trump has broken a 39-year-old streak of American Presidents either starting a war or bringing the United States into an international armed conflict."

Isn't this significant?

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

#605

Post by sedatk »

person_of_color wrote: post #380
sedatk wrote: post #319

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I’m a high school graduate and a self-taught developer. I got hired by Microsoft as a software engineer to the Microsoft Windows Core OS team based on my skills with an H-1B. I made Microsoft millions of dollars with my work. I’m now writing a book on software development published by Manning Books. None of that would have happened if such a criteria existed. That policy doesn’t make any sense at all.

How did you get hired as a kernel engineer without a degree out of college?

I had good amount of low-level programming experience with Z80 and x86 assembly, including implementing my own bootloader for a file system design of my own. I got the basic data structures and algorithms down and finally, I passed the interview. I had about 10 years of professional development experience when I was hired.

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

#606

Post by analyst74 »

shams93 wrote: post #603
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.

However the best solution would be the replace h1b with just citizenship - if you have rare skills why shouldn't we offer immediate citizenship to the talented?

That's what countries like Canada has, while they do have a work visa program, getting permanent residency is actually easier for talented folks.

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

#607

Post by Eridrus »

ravila4 wrote: post #434

I feel like this thread has a lot of bias coming from bad experiences in the computer science field. While I do understand the bad practices of many tech companies, I think the picture is very different when you look at careers in other STEM fields, such as biology, chemistry, and physics. H1B visas are very important for foreign students in these fields particularly those hoping to pursue careers in academia. H1B vi…

I think we should be expanding the H1-B program, but it is already oversubscribed and if this can reduce applications to the point where the lottery is not needed or is much more certain, I think that would be an improvement.

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

#608

Post by csa »

mypalmike wrote: post #601
DenisM wrote: post #281

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I vaguely recall that the "indentured" h1b workers (as oppose to the "proper" h1b like I had) owe money back to home, and that debt becomes instantly due if they bail out. If they were super-stars they would be able to cover it from the Amazon signup bonus (and become indentured to Amazon - your signup bonus is due back if you bail out early). However superstars rarely end up in those jobs. We're looking at people wi…

*Edit : Apparently I misinterpreted the parent post. Please disregard. Are you saying that Amazon's H1B workers are hired specifically for to their "kinda average" skills, lack of connections, etc.? Having been involved with hiring at Amazon, using these criteria would have to be part of a secret hiring system that parallels the one I was trained on which focused on raising the talent bar and avoiding bias.

My read was that OP was saying “kinda average” are typically in “indentured servitude” jobs.

Superstars can pay back money owed back home from an Amazon bonus... not sure if OP meant “from the start” or “if they bailed from indentured servitude job”.

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

#609

Post by lazyasciiart »

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.

Half of the world's French speakers are Africans who learned it for free. I'd be curious to see the demographics of Canadian visa awards - I wonder if this actually helps them be a little more open to immigrants from Africa than they would be otherwise.

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

#610

Post by webinvest »

AQuantized wrote: post #393
ethagknight wrote: post #366

Earlier quoted context omitted.

So this is amusingly similar to the argument against a minimum wage increase. People will lose their jobs, families will lose out. In either case, the employer is the actual baddie being forced to either raise the wage to an appropriate level or send the employee home (and then attempt to backfill the job with the local market, probably not easy). So if you are for an increased minimum wage, legislation at least in p…

There's a big difference between requiring a minimum wage for anyone and specifically requiring a higher wage for existing H1-Bs. In particular, the fact that H1-Bs will have to emigrate if it isn't increased.

It’s an H1-B temporary work visa. They are required to emigrate back regardless after 3 years or less.
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