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

House votes to end country limits for skilled workers seeking green cards

washingtonpost.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

21–30 of 48 posts

Re: House votes to end country limits for skilled workers seeking green cards

#21

Post by cooldeal »

mwerty wrote: post #19
recoiledsnake wrote: post #16

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>This change means that each person gets treated fairly (in the mathematical sense) but each group does not. So, without this change, each group was getting treated fairly? Care to explain how multidecade wait times for the two biggest groups while the rest get visas in a matter of years is fairness? How is first-in first-out not more fair compared to discriminating on national origin? > It will certainly reduce the…

It's 'fair' for the groups in the sense that each group gets to send in an equal number of people per year.

It's not really fair when the size of the groups varies wildly.

Re: House votes to end country limits for skilled workers seeking green cards

#22

Post by tomjen3 »

Thumbs down.

When will the US realize that it is already far from its peak and that today there are (possibly) better alternatives elsewhere?

Get a point based system - now - or watch Chile, China and the rest of the world ROLFStomp you to death.

Re: House votes to end country limits for skilled workers seeking green cards

#23

Post by pelemele »

recoiledsnake wrote: post #16
po wrote: post #15

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Calling something fair or not is applying your morals to the situation. This change means that each person gets treated fairly (in the mathematical sense) but each group does not. It is sort of like how in the US House is representation by population but in the Senate is equal senators per state. Wether that is good or bad is up to us as a society. It will certainly reduce the diversity of the types of people getting…

>This change means that each person gets treated fairly (in the mathematical sense) but each group does not. So, without this change, each group was getting treated fairly? Care to explain how multidecade wait times for the two biggest groups while the rest get visas in a matter of years is fairness? How is first-in first-out not more fair compared to discriminating on national origin? > It will certainly reduce the…

>Care to explain how multidecade wait times for the two >biggest groups while the rest get visas in a matter of years >is fairness?

To be fair, each country gets quota for working visa based on a size of population. Unfortunately requests for working visa from those two countries outnumber that quota. This is the fact and everybody knows that. So if you are from country with more than one billion people where maybe 100.000+ ask for working visa per year you have to understand that the process can be complicated. And you have to understand as well that getting working visa here is a privilege, not a right.

Re: House votes to end country limits for skilled workers seeking green cards

#25

Post by cooldeal »

pelemele wrote: post #23
recoiledsnake wrote: post #16

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>This change means that each person gets treated fairly (in the mathematical sense) but each group does not. So, without this change, each group was getting treated fairly? Care to explain how multidecade wait times for the two biggest groups while the rest get visas in a matter of years is fairness? How is first-in first-out not more fair compared to discriminating on national origin? > It will certainly reduce the…

>Care to explain how multidecade wait times for the two >biggest groups while the rest get visas in a matter of years >is fairness? To be fair, each country gets quota for working visa based on a size of population. Unfortunately requests for working visa from those two countries outnumber that quota. This is the fact and everybody knows that. So if you are from country with more than one billion people where maybe 1…

>To be fair, each country gets quota for working visa based on a size of population.

Right now, that's not the case, each country is capped to 7% regardless of the population. Making it proportional to population would be much fairer than the current system.

>And you have to understand as well that getting working visa here is a privilege, not a right.

What a strawman. Maybe you should tell that to Mr. Lee who said the following:

> Hosin “David” Lee, president of the Korean-American Scientists and Engineers Association, said the bill would force engineers from South Korea to wait an additional two years in their immigration process to get green cards.

Re: House votes to end country limits for skilled workers seeking green cards

#26

Post by mdda »

rdtsc wrote: post #20
mdda wrote: post #7

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Actually, it's more farcical than you're thinking. Suppose I have a foreign employee that graduated in the US, and has worked for my company (on a valid OPT, followed by an H1B) for several years. In order to progress to the Green Card stage, I must prove that there are no other Americans that are suitably qualified, and willing to do the job. Thus, I have to put up an advert for the job, and interview applicants. Th…

An interesting test would be if there was a way to expedite the processes. Say pay more and it gets rushed and wait time is now only one or two years. Would employers do that or not? Otherwise aren't they actually interested in prolonging the process artificially ("Oh yeah our lawyers are working on it, get back with us in 5 years..." kind of attitude).

For H1B visas there certainly was an expedited process - a couple of times our firm paid ~$1000 to get the response within 2 weeks, rather than 'several months'. Reducing uncertainty was valuable to us, since otherwise we might have been mentoring an excellent employee who could be plucked out of the workplace by the INS on any random day : and due to the whole bureaucracy thing, any 'appeal' would be a huge, huge waste of time (and life).

Re: House votes to end country limits for skilled workers seeking green cards

#27

Post by mdda »

recoiledsnake wrote: post #13
thewisedude wrote: post #10

I am trying to understand the implication here. Does this bill mean Indians and Chinese ppl will have to wait 3-4 years only now? Also, I am not sure how its detrimental to Koreans (Some OP here seemed to imply that) ?

It makes it into a first-come first-served system. Indians and Chinese applying now might still have to wait a couple of decades. This primarily helps the people who applied in 2002 and the following few years and are still waiting.

And it's fair, in the sense that applicants from the UK might now also have to wait a couple of decades.

In my case (as a UK citizen working in NYC), it's a good job that the E-2 Investor Visa (which only exists for countries that the INS deems 'worthy') can be renewed indefinitely.

The flip side of this (and where it starts to get comical) is that as part of the E-2 approval process one has to "intend to leave" once the business is finished - which means that one cannot intend to embark on the Green Card path prior to getting the E-2 visa. It also means that all my (mandatory) payments for unemployment insurance are strictly throw-away money - since I could never claim unemployment in the US anyway. Ho Hum.

Re: House votes to end country limits for skilled workers seeking green cards

#29

Post by mwerty »

cooldeal wrote: post #21
mwerty wrote: post #19

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's 'fair' for the groups in the sense that each group gets to send in an equal number of people per year.

It's not really fair when the size of the groups varies wildly.

I completely agree but that does not contradict my earlier definition.

Re: House votes to end country limits for skilled workers seeking green cards

#30

Post by VladRussian »

congratulations to everybody on abolishing of one more instance of legal discrimination on ethnic grounds.

While it may seem like a zero sum game (as number of visas is still the same) and thus i have no idea how, yet still lets hope that like in other cases of abolished discrimination everybody ultimately wins.

Post reply on HN