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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

#111

Post by random314 »

kfprt wrote: post #103
random314 wrote: post #101

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Its funny to see a Republican talking point of "welfare queens" being turned around to support socialism for local citizens and keep hard working immigrants out :D

America is a nation of citizens, not an international charity. Nor is it a corporatocracy in the legal sense.

But why build such a welfare state that is doomed to fail? Immigrants have built this nation over several hundred years through diligent hard work. Why the volte face towards socialism to reverse all this progress?

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

#112

Post by mmarq »

kfprt wrote: post #105
closeparen wrote: post #99

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The intelligence and conscientiousness required to do high-end software engineering work may well be uniformly distributed. But I think we're probably at a point where there's more capital looking to hire people like this, than there are Americans like this.

So most Americans are lazy and stupid? Only 7.7% of Americans work in tech, what about the other 92.3%, what are they? Note that's 7.7% of the workforce not population. https://connect.comptia.org/content/research/cyberstates-202...

We would be lying to ourselves if we pretended that we could turn all the Jobseeker’s Allowance material into software developers with some training, just for the sake of not hiring a Mexican or a Rumanian.

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

#113

Post by lacker »

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…

When U.S. workers did apply, the suit said, Facebook hired them into different jobs, reserving the open position for the H-1B worker.

For what it's worth, as an ex-FB engineering manager, this isn't how Facebook works at all. 99% of software engineers are not hired into an "open position". Facebook hires all software engineers that pass the hiring process without regard to whether they are US citizens or not. Then, after starting work for Facebook, there is a trial period where software engineers figure out what team they are going to work for, usually working a bit on a few different teams.

Unfortunately, immigration law seems to be written by people who had no familiarity with how modern large software engineering companies operate. Tech companies are essentially forced to make up "positions" for the purposes of immigration law. This makes the law pointless, except for the occasional fine for not obeying the meaningless rules precisely enough, which is just the cost of doing business.

There is just no way to make a company "first consider US citizens for every open job" when you don't hire one person at a time for separate jobs. What does that even mean when you are trying to hire 100 people a week, and you just want to hire the 100 best people you can find every week? This law fundamentally has an incoherent goal.

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

#114

Post by kfprt »

random314 wrote: post #111
kfprt wrote: post #103

Earlier quoted context omitted.

America is a nation of citizens, not an international charity. Nor is it a corporatocracy in the legal sense.

But why build such a welfare state that is doomed to fail? Immigrants have built this nation over several hundred years through diligent hard work. Why the volte face towards socialism to reverse all this progress?

Surely I would be amenable to such an argument if the frontier was still open, the safety net nonexistent, and retirement age death. We must face facts, the conditions of the past are not the conditions of today nor can our policies reflect an alien society. Call it what you will, I call it the will of the electorate.

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

#115

Post by nrmitchi »

closeparen wrote: post #80
Zigurd wrote: post #52

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

H1B is supposed to be about guest workers for short-term needs. Treating H1Bs as long-term career staffers who are going to buy houses, have kids, climb the ladder, etc. in the way that FAANG do, is a different kind of misuse, but it's also not in keeping with the spirit of the program.

An H1B is only "valid" for 3 years. It can be extended once for an additional 3 years.

It being FAANG doesn't change that.

Your argument appears to be against the fact that additional extensions are possible after an an individual has filed for permanent residency, but the process is delayed (often by a completely inhumane amount of time).

So your problem isn't so much with the H1B visa, but with the fact that people can apply for permanent residency and then be held in limbo for the rest of their life?

If it wasn't for the absurd delay in processing permanent residency applications, H1B's would only last for 6 years; well within the span of "temporary".

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

#116

Post by kfprt »

mmarq wrote: post #112
kfprt wrote: post #105

Earlier quoted context omitted.

So most Americans are lazy and stupid? Only 7.7% of Americans work in tech, what about the other 92.3%, what are they? Note that's 7.7% of the workforce not population. https://connect.comptia.org/content/research/cyberstates-202...

We would be lying to ourselves if we pretended that we could turn all the Jobseeker’s Allowance material into software developers with some training, just for the sake of not hiring a Mexican or a Rumanian.

Do we need everyone to be a software developer or just a few more? I'm sure we could increase the numbers if we actually tried.

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

#117

Post by bopbeepboop »

lacker wrote: post #113
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…

When U.S. workers did apply, the suit said, Facebook hired them into different jobs, reserving the open position for the H-1B worker. For what it's worth, as an ex-FB engineering manager, this isn't how Facebook works at all. 99% of software engineers are not hired into an "open position". Facebook hires all software engineers that pass the hiring process without regard to whether they are US citizens or not. Then, a…

> What does that even mean when you are trying to hire 100 people a week, and you just want to hire the 100 best people you can find every week?

That if over 100 Americans apply, “the 100 best people” needs to come from that group — not immigrants on visas which require a lack of American applicants.

> This law fundamentally has an incoherent goal.

I think you don’t like the goal.

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

#118

Post by nonameiguess »

lacker wrote: post #113
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…

When U.S. workers did apply, the suit said, Facebook hired them into different jobs, reserving the open position for the H-1B worker. For what it's worth, as an ex-FB engineering manager, this isn't how Facebook works at all. 99% of software engineers are not hired into an "open position". Facebook hires all software engineers that pass the hiring process without regard to whether they are US citizens or not. Then, a…

It's hard for law to cover all edge cases. Your comment about "modern large software engineering companies" seems to apply to 5 or 6 companies with enough profit to hire as many people as they want even if they may never use them for anything as a talent hoarding strategy, in contrast to the thousands of companies out there that still mostly hire to fill specific positions.

This specific regulation was finalized in December 2004, so yes, it obviously could not have taken Facebook's specific hiring practices into consideration given Facebook hadn't even existed for a full year yet and I think had 6 employees at the time.

You can certainly argue the law needs to change, but man, good luck. There are a lot of other aspects of immigration law that need to change with higher priority than this, but it's a political minefield that candidates love to campaign on but Congress won't actually touch with a 50 foot pole. Until then, I don't think the Department of Labor has much choice but to enforce the law as it exists today. It isn't up to them to change it.

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

#119

Post by kfprt »

darth_avocado wrote: post #107
kfprt wrote: post #100

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If you have both money and time and can't/won't find a solution then your business deserves to fail. That's capitalism. If everyone plays by the same rules then there is no competitive disadvantage. I am an optimist and believe that American corporations will rise to the challenge of reduced H1B abuse.

Sure everyone will play by the same rules in the local market and there wont be competitive advantage. But the world simply wont wait around for it. You’ll have the same labor working on similar problems, just not in America. Just look at how big tiktok is now. Facebook cannot afford to not hire and stick to domestic competitors.

Facebook does not get a vote. Whether or not they can afford something is immaterial.

On a separate note America's real competitive advantage is size. America can clone tiktok if need be.

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

#120

Post by lacker »

kfprt wrote: post #69
darth_avocado wrote: post #43

It’s a relic of a broken process. If you want to keep a foreign worker beyond 6 years, you can’t do that without applying for a greencard which in turn requires you to prove you don’t have a US citizen vying for the job, which should make sense. However the problem here is that the government instead of keeping a track of the country’s labor needs, outsourced this responsibility to the companies and that’s where the…

Couldn't companies also use the 6 years that they employ a foreigner to train an American worker to fill the position? A bachelors program is only 4 years and the company could sponsor it if they were in such desperate need.

Couldn't companies also use the 6 years that they employ a foreigner to train an American worker to fill the position?

The large tech companies are hiring thousands of software engineers each year and just want the best talent they can get. Maybe 75% of them hired to work in the US are US citizens. Sure, you can train new people, and they do train new people all the time. But you won't be able to get the same quality of software engineer if you restrict yourself to only US citizens - that's just common sense, adding more restrictions makes the recruiting job harder.

Now, the theory behind an H1-B is that you're supposed to be able to hire immigrants if they are bringing a valuable skill to the US. These immigrants are bringing a valuable skill to the US. It's just that the law imagines you have a single position to hire and doesn't make sense for situations like "we need to hire 5000 people with this skill set and there are only 4000 Americans that we could find with it".

What immigration laws should actually do is enforce that companies aren't underpaying immigrants compared to Americans. That will discourage companies that really only want immigrants so they can be cheap.

You could even add on a $10,000 fee per immigrant, paid by the company, to get the green card. That would make immigrants more expensive than US citizens, thus giving companies a financial incentize to hire Americans when possible. But for the large tech companies, who really are bringing exceptionally skilled people to the US, I think they would be happy to pay this fee instead of dealing with all risk and chaos in the current immigration system.

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