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Facebook Settles with U.S. Gov over Improperly Reserving Jobs for Immigrants

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Re: Facebook Settles with U.S. Gov over Improperly Reserving Jobs for Immigrants

#51

Post by a-and »

a-and wrote: post #49

In this thread there seems to be a lot of misunderstanding regarding both the Permanent/Temporary visa distinction, as well as what Facebook did. The lawsuit refers to the Permanent Labor Certification process - the process of certifying that a position cannot be filled by a US citizen. This is one of the first early steps of an employer sponsoring an employee for a Green Card (so called immigrant visas, not H1-B). I…

To add - when this process fails, tech companies rotate employees out to a remote office (often in Canada). The US loses tax money which the employee would have paid and the position remains filled.

Re: Facebook Settles with U.S. Gov over Improperly Reserving Jobs for Immigrants

#52

Post by Zigurd »

nrmitchi wrote: post #39
busymom0 wrote: post #36

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> good intentions on both sides creating hell Not really. The immigrant folks who get brought in on these visas are basically exploited for harder work on lower wages in comparison to locals. FAANG tech companies care about low labour cost, employees who won't complain and won't report shady stuff going on in the company. H1B visas are perfect for that. Immigrants make up nearly 3/4 of silicon valley tech workforce:…

When it comes to the topic of H1-B exploitation, there is no way I'm going to say that it doesn't exist. But I will say that there is a huge gap between FAANG H1B, and Tata/Infosys/etc H1B abuse.

This. FAANGS have the money and the high end needs to use H1-B correctly. If they aren't doing it right, they have no excuse. More visas should be directed toward companies that are doing the right thing.

Re: Facebook Settles with U.S. Gov over Improperly Reserving Jobs for Immigrants

#53

Post by elzbardico »

davidw wrote: post #22

The elephant in the room: make it too hard to employ talented foreigners, and sooner or later companies will just open up offices there, rather than here. Remote work has only made this easier. I want smart, hard working, talented people coming to the US, myself.

Make those companies pay their taxes. Reform education, invest on infrastructure. Tada! plenty of jobs without the need of magic.

Re: Facebook Settles with U.S. Gov over Improperly Reserving Jobs for Immigrants

#54

Post by NovemberWhiskey »

outworlder wrote: post #46
spamizbad wrote: post #34

Earlier quoted context omitted.

My understanding is its only before you can sponsor a visa. H1 transfers do not require such efforts. The other way companies do this: creating job ads that look impossible to fill by requiring 5 years of experience in a technology that's only been around for 2 years. Surprised Facebook does this as they certainly have no issue paying domestic employees top dollar.

> My understanding is its only before you can sponsor a visa. H1 transfers do not require such efforts. What do you mean H1 transfers? You need to prove that there are no US citizens able to fill the role before you sponsor a H1 visa. You also need to do the same thing again (only much more detailed, including prevailing wage determination yada yada) before you can sponsor for permanent residency. L1 (intra-company t…

>You need to prove that there are no US citizens able to fill the role before you sponsor a H1 visa.

Pretty sure that's wrong; the requirement for an H1 is a LCA (Labor Condition Application) which is primarily a prevailing-wages thing along with some other labor condition items (e.g. there's not a strike ongoing at the location where you're trying to hire).

Only companies flagged as H1 dependent or 'willful violators' need to certify that they've attempted to hire locally.

Re: Facebook Settles with U.S. Gov over Improperly Reserving Jobs for Immigrants

#55

Post by a-and »

outworlder wrote: post #46
spamizbad wrote: post #34

Earlier quoted context omitted.

My understanding is its only before you can sponsor a visa. H1 transfers do not require such efforts. The other way companies do this: creating job ads that look impossible to fill by requiring 5 years of experience in a technology that's only been around for 2 years. Surprised Facebook does this as they certainly have no issue paying domestic employees top dollar.

> My understanding is its only before you can sponsor a visa. H1 transfers do not require such efforts. What do you mean H1 transfers? You need to prove that there are no US citizens able to fill the role before you sponsor a H1 visa. You also need to do the same thing again (only much more detailed, including prevailing wage determination yada yada) before you can sponsor for permanent residency. L1 (intra-company t…

An H1 transfer is when an active H1-B visa is transferred from one company to the other.

If both incoming and outgoing positions are in the same geography and have the same responsibilities (e.g. a software engineer moving between Bay Area companies), the positions are considered equivalent.

> prevailing wage determination

You need to do this for H1 positions as well. You also need to file an LCA to prove the occupation is a "specialty" occupation. The process is in general quite similar.

Re: Facebook Settles with U.S. Gov over Improperly Reserving Jobs for Immigrants

#56

Post by Factorium »

davidw wrote: post #22

The elephant in the room: make it too hard to employ talented foreigners, and sooner or later companies will just open up offices there, rather than here. Remote work has only made this easier. I want smart, hard working, talented people coming to the US, myself.

Immigrants are brought into the US to fill existing positions under poorer conditions than US workers, and to generally boost aggregate GDP (mostly to the benefit of capital/land owners).

Canada and Australia have extremely generous immigration systems, but are backwaters for software development compared to the USA, and IT salaries are worse.

Additionally, there is no diversity or equality in the US H1B intake: Indians make up 75% of the intake, and 78% of them are male:

https://www.uscis.gov/sites/default/files/document/data/h-1b...

The H1B visa could be hugely improved if the intake was limited to 10% max from any one country and max 49% male from any one country. The US Diversity Lottery has per-country intake limits already.

Re: Facebook Settles with U.S. Gov over Improperly Reserving Jobs for Immigrants

#57

Post by BitwiseFool »

davidw wrote: post #22

The elephant in the room: make it too hard to employ talented foreigners, and sooner or later companies will just open up offices there, rather than here. Remote work has only made this easier. I want smart, hard working, talented people coming to the US, myself.

I want American businesses to look towards cultivating local talent first. I don't disagree with the desire to have "smart, hard working, talented people coming to the US" but from my experience big companies use H1B's as a means of getting cheaper labor and having more power/leverage over the individual.

Re: Facebook Settles with U.S. Gov over Improperly Reserving Jobs for Immigrants

#58

Post by BitwiseFool »

outworlder wrote: post #26
kfprt wrote: post #2

>The tech industry broadly relies on H-1B visas to plug gaps in their technical workforce, Does America not have schools or would Facebook rather just underpay foreigners? 14$ million is peanuts compared to the scope of H1B fraud.

> compared to the scope of H1B fraud. Which is largely overblown for political gain. Some companies abuse/have abused the program - mostly large consultancies. Focus on that. H1 is a US superpower. Companies can pick brains among the entire planet(many of those brains WANT to be picked). At essentially no cost to the country. Yes, each one will 'take' a job, but how many jobs are created by immigrants? The yearly cap…

>"At essentially no cost to the country."

What about citizens who are otherwise passed up for a career? I've worked with plenty of H1B's and none particularly stood out as "top minds" that were uniquely capable of doing the office work. While I have no doubt that the US is able to poach some seriously intelligent folks, I have a deep cynicism that corporations use H1B's to hire cheaply and bypass the obligations that come with hiring a citizen.

Re: Facebook Settles with U.S. Gov over Improperly Reserving Jobs for Immigrants

#59

Post by davidw »

kfprt wrote: post #45
Jensson wrote: post #37

Earlier quoted context omitted.

High skill immigrants are net pay tax payers, they help reduce the need to tax you.

That's not what I'm saying. If a company hires a foreigner instead of an American then that American doesn't have a job. If they don't have a job they are unemployed. If they are unemployed then they are a net cost to me the taxpayer. If we reduce unemployment we reduce the tax burden.

This is zero sum thinking, and it's been pretty thoroughly debunked.

We have more people in the US than in 1960, and far more programming jobs.

Re: Facebook Settles with U.S. Gov over Improperly Reserving Jobs for Immigrants

#60

Post by andy_ppp »

I’m surprised it isn’t all about money this, if you can find a job why shouldn’t you be able to live anywhere? Why shouldn’t it be up to the company to decide that the extra paperwork involved in bringing in a foreign national isn’t worth it?
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