Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

Trump administration announces overhaul of H1B visa program requiring higher pay

wsj.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

751–760 of 1001 posts

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

#751

Post by gopi »

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…

For Engineers and Doctors from India, its takes more than 20 years to get Green card now. Its because of the arcane country quota system which assigns the same numerical quota for each country regardless of population, so India and Monaco get the same number of Green cards.

This is the remnant of the pre-1965 racist immigration country quota system which allowed only European whites into US.

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

#752

Post by StreamBright »

reissbaker wrote: post #200
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.

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…

>> I'm not sure that narrowing degree qualifications is a win

Yep this is a problem, some (many) H1B people do not have a relevant degree in CS, not sure how this will work out for them.

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

#753

Post by bduerst »

jeremyjh wrote: post #423
zouhair wrote: post #418

Earlier quoted context omitted.

My question is then: what this changes? the company will just keep the indentured worker working longer to recoup. Am I missing something?

It would mean less downward pressure on wages for everyone.

H1B visa holders already require being paid more than the prevailing wage for the same SOC job in the same area.

And no, the consultant chop shops haven't been an issue for at least four years now since USCIS started cracking down on them.

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

#754

Post by raz32dust »

kinkrtyavimoodh wrote: post #475

People who oppose H1B fundamentally believe that foreign workers should not be allowed to enter the American labor pool thereby depressing the wages here. Fair enough. While on the margin, it is true that if a company can't hire a foreign worker, it _might_ be forced to hire a local worker in the short run. But in the long run, restricting labor this way only increases the chance of that job moving entirely abroad, e…

I think it's more like ~100k USD in Bangalore vs ~250k USD in the US if you include stocks. (Checking typical L4 Google salary in Mountain View vs India in levels.fyi)

Companies do prefer to have most of the development done in the US as far as possible, because there are intangible benefits from being in one time zone/in the same office etc., and for that office to be in the country which brings in most of the revenue.

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

#755

Post by sg47 »

flurben wrote: post #269
tshaddox wrote: post #184

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I’m surprised that there is no discussion on this thread about the impact to people who haven’t done anything wrong. Existing H-1B holders should clearly be grandfathered in, but those aren't the only people who have done nothing wrong. What about the would-be future H-1B holders who would have benefited from working while making less than the new requirements? In other words, the vast majority of people who are go…

American visa programs are run for the benefit of americans. Whether or not the visa holder benefits is incidental and not the point of US law.

For every job that's done by an immigrant, there are 10 that are moved overseas. Politicians have taught people here to look at the immigrant as the boogeyman while they silently kill regulations that prevent jobs being offshored.

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

#756

Post by epicureanideal »

StreamBright wrote: post #752
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…

>> I'm not sure that narrowing degree qualifications is a win Yep this is a problem, some (many) H1B people do not have a relevant degree in CS, not sure how this will work out for them.

Really? What degrees have you seen from software engineer H1B candidates?

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

#757

Post by tootahe45 »

epicureanideal wrote: post #685
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…

The pay level still isn’t high enough. Minimum pay of about 170k in San Jose for a software engineer? That’s not a specialist, that’s average for a small startup.

As a New Zealander, this level of pay just baffles me. Is the US the only place where SWE's get paid well compared to other professions?

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

#758

Post by herbstein »

iagooar wrote: post #750

For such a liberal country, the US have a very strict immigration control. In Europe, many countries are rather the opposite - the state has much more control yet immigration matters are much more relaxed. I am genuinely curious where this „tradition“ comes from, maybe some historians or experts in geopolitics here?

I'd wager the answer is that you're mistaken as to how much control the government exercises over its citizens in Europe.

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

#759

Post by refurb »

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.

How familiar would you rate yourself with Middle East politics? From people I know who are quite deep into it, it’s actually a very significant change to the geopolitical balance of the region that will likely have a lot of ramifications going forward.

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

#760

Post by bduerst »

pseudalopex wrote: post #350
dmode wrote: post #145

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Offering competitive wages has always been part of H1 requirement

In theory.[1] [1] https://www.epi.org/publication/h-1b-visas-and-prevailing-wa...

EPI is a Washington think tank funded by American labor unions.

I wouldn't take anything they publish about foreign labor seriously, especially how they cherry pick stats on that report.

Post reply on HN