Trump administration announces overhaul of H1B visa program requiring higher pay • Hacker News Board

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

#691

Post by drivebycomment » Wed, Oct 07, 2020, 5:30 AM UTC

tuna-piano wrote: post #527

I see a lot asking for the specific salary numbers but no answers. I believe (could be wrong) that the required wage increase for old->proposed new H1B requirements changes would be close to the below examples: 1)Software Developer in Chicago - Old $71k->New $105k 2)Software Developer in San Francisco - Old $96k->New $145k My Opinion: 1. Free trade is generally good. That includes things, people and ideas. But the ef…

See https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=24705367 for the estimated wage ranges with the proposal.

Re: "gratefulness". I don't see on what basis you're concluding that somehow grandparents were more grateful and the current H1B workers are less so. It seems purely anecdotal at best, and more likely a declinism bias. Regardless, why does it matter whether H1B people feel grateful or not for US ? It may matter for their own mental health, but it clearly doesn't for the rest of us living in this society - what matters is whether they can support themselves, and whether they follow the law and integrate with the society.

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

#692

Post by unishark » Wed, Oct 07, 2020, 5:30 AM UTC

Florin_Andrei wrote: post #658

reissbaker wrote: post #200

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The higher pay seems like an overall positive change to reduce the prevalence of "body shops" and so that H1-Bs aren't an easy way for companies to lower overall pay rate. I'm not sure that narrowing degree qualifications is a win; high-skill immigration is a significant boon to America's economy, and I think ability to do the work, and American company willingness to pay above-rate salaries (legally mandated now to…

What makes the immigration process in the US truly horrific is the extraordinary time it takes to approve or reject a greencard petition. In many cases it takes years - or even over a decade or more. That's insane. People bring their spouses here, they have kids who are born and go to school here, and all along the way their immigration status is uncertain. And meanwhile they are tied to whatever job they're in. It's…

The time to process applications is indeed on the order of months.

https://egov.uscis.gov/processing-times/historic-pt

I believe the I-140 is for employment-based green cards.

The long wait times are due to annual quotas by country, not slow handling of paperwork.

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

#693

Post by digianarchist » Wed, Oct 07, 2020, 5:32 AM UTC

908B64B197 wrote: post #25

This is a great move. The current H1B program made no sense at all. If I wanted to hire: A smart graduate from EPFL, Polytechnique or ETH Zurich who interned at CERN and has contributed to the Linux kernel for a software engineering job at a unicorn startup or A grad from a second tier "technical college" in India with a visa refusal rate of ~90% for a job doing manual UI testing and QA for a body shop my only path f…

Wouldn’t the Swiss grad be better served applying for the O1A visa?

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

#694

Post by rmk » Wed, Oct 07, 2020, 5:32 AM UTC

908B64B197 wrote: post #25

This is a great move. The current H1B program made no sense at all. If I wanted to hire: A smart graduate from EPFL, Polytechnique or ETH Zurich who interned at CERN and has contributed to the Linux kernel for a software engineering job at a unicorn startup or A grad from a second tier "technical college" in India with a visa refusal rate of ~90% for a job doing manual UI testing and QA for a body shop my only path f…

For "exceptional" people, there's the O-1 visa category. But candidate no. 1 likely would not qualify.

You seem to think that the H1 program should place candidate 1 over candidate 2.

Let me give you a counterexample: Suppose you are hiring candidate 1 to write an app that will help you single men find hot women to date in a 5 mile radius in your 4-billion dollar, VC-backed startup.

The second candidate is being hired into the body shop that has been contracted to develop a UI for a CAT scan machine produced by a major healthcare company.

Now tell me who should be preferred.

It's possible to make many value judgments like you and I have done, but at the end of the day they can't all be incorporated into the immigration law. Making the market the arbiter of what's valuable appears to me to be the least bad option, and strengthening that is the best, given the constraints. It still won't make the law conform to everyone's tastes, though.

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

#695

Post by ChicagoDave » Wed, Oct 07, 2020, 5:35 AM UTC

dodobirdlord wrote: post #602

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.

The new rules will work through the end of the year and the entire program is shut down (no new visas). My guess is that corporate America will hold its breath until the election. A Biden administration is likely to be much more H1-B friendly. But if Trump were to win, corporate America would turn to virtual offshore talent moreso than it has in the past. Labor cost is labor cost. If the rules make it expensive here, talent acquisition will happen where it is less costly.

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

#696

Post by zara_arias » Wed, Oct 07, 2020, 5:36 AM UTC

wu_tang_chris wrote: post #249

maerF0x0 wrote: post #125

> “America’s immigration laws should put American workers first,” Quotes like these irk the heck out of me. American workers is a subset of the populace and no, they should not be prioritized over other competing groups. For example, American Business owners, American Retirees, American disabled folks... It's a lot less about the specifics of this article/case and more about how the "Jobs" aim has become impossible t…

This is our country, where "we" are the people who already live here. Most of us were born here, many of us moved here, but we have a pretty good thing going on. New immigration should be a net benefit for our society and it should favor the side of the workers - e.g. Americans in general - not the bottom line of a business class looking for ever cheaper labor in order to extract additional money from their efforts.…

Hooray for feudalism, where people's place in society is determined by their birth.

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

#697

Post by doingmyting » Wed, Oct 07, 2020, 5:37 AM UTC

rayiner wrote: post #677

Florin_Andrei wrote: post #658

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What makes the immigration process in the US truly horrific is the extraordinary time it takes to approve or reject a greencard petition. In many cases it takes years - or even over a decade or more. That's insane. People bring their spouses here, they have kids who are born and go to school here, and all along the way their immigration status is uncertain. And meanwhile they are tied to whatever job they're in. It's…

It’s insane because it’s a kludge. The US doesn’t really have a general purpose skilled immigration visa. The H1B visa is a temporary worker visa. There is this whole legal fiction where, when you get one, you have to announce non-immigrant intent with a wink, then once you’re here you say “I just now changed my mind and I want to stay here, can I get a green card.” It was never designed to be a payday to permanent r…

The H1-B visa is a dual intent visa. There is no announ inc immigration intent with a wink. It's literally written into the law that it is ok to do so. I won't argue whether that's a good thing or a bad thing but simply saying it's a temporary work visa and leaving it at that is inaccurate at best and disingenuous at worst.

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

#698

Post by IfOnlyYouKnew » Wed, Oct 07, 2020, 5:39 AM UTC

bjornsing wrote: post #666

tequila_shot wrote: post #657

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Why is this on the top of the hacker news? The article talks about nothing that will stop the abuse. There are indeed a lot of RFEs that are being given out if you don't have a CS degree and apply for a Software Developer position already. The Pay structure that the article mentions is NOT true anymore. Take a look at the links[1], it's withdrawn and the rule is not valid. How is hiring folks with a CS degree for an…

You’re talking about H1B abuse that primarily affects non-US citizens. I can sympathize (and I’m not a US citizen), but you can hardly expect the US press or hacker news to have that perspective or use that terminology... right?

I would expect people working alongside these visa recipients, and even the public at large, to have some idea of the system and the problems they face. (Although, for the general public, farm labor should probably figure larger).

And, yes, I do usually expect people to have the capacity to sympathise with others. I would even assert that everyone will instinctively want to help when they see others suffering. It's called empathy and is among the basic human emotions.

There is an ideological stream in the US that has seen the success of the market mechanisms based on competition and selfishness and is now misinterpreting it to mean than any form of altruism is bad.

Closely related is the glorification of competition to a degree where people are entire oblivious to the fact that a market economy is first and foremost a mechanism of cooperation. This has gone so far as to make even the notionally educated and self-styled rational tech community grasp around for speculative theories trying to frame this issue in terms of zero-sum competition. They somehow prefer to believe this against all evidence, i. e. the number of high-profile startups founded by first- or second-gen immigrants. And thereby give themselves license to do what it is they either actually want all by itself, or what they consider a proxy for good things happening to them: hurting others.

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

#699

Post by paxys » Wed, Oct 07, 2020, 5:42 AM UTC

sisama wrote: post #664

I estimated the new prevailing wages for NYC/SF/SEA using z-scores and the new %-iles. For NYC: (I II III IV) = (116,003 137,323 160,321 203,405) For SF: (I II III IV) = (138,283 162,157 187,910 236,155) For SEA: (I II III IV) = (128,082 148,708 170,957 212,639) The level for an applicant is determined by their education + experience. Level I is supposed to correspond to an entry-level role requiring specialized skil…

What makes you think these are unreachable? They seem like somewhat standard salaries for SDE/senior/staff/principal to me.

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

#700

Post by kamaal » Wed, Oct 07, 2020, 5:43 AM UTC

obviouslynotme wrote: post #305

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 lea…

As a person who used to live like that in the US when I worked there. Its just how it is. US work opportunity is very expensive/valuable for us third world people(in my case India). Its like 70 rupees for a single dollar!!!. Time and opportunities are 70 times more expensive. Every minute, and every purchase matters. You have to make a dent every time you hit.

Its like the most important period of your life. There is little time for non-serious stuff.

You likely won't get a chance again. Even if you do office politics and get visas, you still need to beat the lottery and visa interview. Given how precious the opportunity and what you get out of it. You have to do all that.