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New U.S. immigration rules spur more visa approvals for STEM workers

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Re: New U.S. immigration rules spur more visa approvals for STEM workers

#131

Post by BeetleB »

aiisahik wrote: post #80

I'm an Australian citizen who has lived in the US for over 20 years, gotten degrees from Yale and Berkeley. I've worked as a software engineer for over 10 years and am currently a cofounder. I'm so put off by the immigration process in the US that I have decided to leave the US permanently. Don't worry - i still work for the same US based company remotely from a more cost effective nation. I just don't pay your taxes…

For those confused: Unfortunately, the US focuses on your origin (where you were born) rather than your nationality. alisahik is an Australian citizen, but was not born there. My guess is he was born in India, which has an absurdly long queue in the US immigration process.

Really sucks.

Re: New U.S. immigration rules spur more visa approvals for STEM workers

#132

Post by BeetleB »

psychlops wrote: post #87
aiisahik wrote: post #80

I'm an Australian citizen who has lived in the US for over 20 years, gotten degrees from Yale and Berkeley. I've worked as a software engineer for over 10 years and am currently a cofounder. I'm so put off by the immigration process in the US that I have decided to leave the US permanently. Don't worry - i still work for the same US based company remotely from a more cost effective nation. I just don't pay your taxes…

You should try the Australian immigration process.

Unless things changed recently, Australian immigration is much easier for a person of his profile.

Re: New U.S. immigration rules spur more visa approvals for STEM workers

#133

Post by rayiner »

jmyeet wrote: post #49

I'm a little surprised to see a number of anti-immigraiton comments on this thread, some of which you could describe as reactionary. The US is and always has been a country of immigrants. Your idea of who is and isn't an immigrant is simply a question of what time window you choose. In 1800, the US had a population of ~2 million. by 1900 it was ~50 million. You want to guess how itt got that way? Let's dispense of th…

> The US is and always has been a country of immigrants

Settlers founding new places are different from immigrants. The US was created by British settlers. Its language, laws, political system, and to a great extent its culture are British. If you look at various statistics, the Anglo countries share strong commonalities, even though people of British descent are now a distinct minority in the US (while being a majority in Britain, Canada, and Australia).

Over time, other people moved in. Those were immigrants. But for a long time it wasn’t immigration as we know it today. Many of them created greenfield communities, settling large swaths of the Midwest, etc. Those communities were pockets of Germans, etc., in a country that was still distinctly British.

“Immigration” since the 20th century looks quite different again. Immigrants aren’t founding new greenfield communities, they are moving into (and changing) existing ones. The place where I grew up is culturally unrecognizable now thanks to immigration (both of foreigners and of people from other parts of the country).

Re: New U.S. immigration rules spur more visa approvals for STEM workers

#134

Post by polygamous_bat »

rayiner wrote: post #101
jmyeet wrote: post #52

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Why do we need a quota for qualified people getting work visas (or green cards) at all? We don't.

Because we don’t want an unlimited number of foreigners moving into the country? Like it or not that’s the reason Congress won’t touch the issue, right?

Please check the requirements for each of the "national interest waivers" and tell me how many "unlimited foreigners" meet that requirement.

Re: New U.S. immigration rules spur more visa approvals for STEM workers

#135

Post by kjkjadksj »

dudul wrote: post #71
jmyeet wrote: post #49

I'm a little surprised to see a number of anti-immigraiton comments on this thread, some of which you could describe as reactionary. The US is and always has been a country of immigrants. Your idea of who is and isn't an immigrant is simply a question of what time window you choose. In 1800, the US had a population of ~2 million. by 1900 it was ~50 million. You want to guess how itt got that way? Let's dispense of th…

> The US is and always has been a country of immigrants. Your idea of who is and isn't an immigrant is simply a question of what time window you choose. In 1800, the US had a population of ~2 million. by 1900 it was ~50 million. You want to guess how itt got that way? Just because we needed and encouraged immigration 200 years ago doesn't mean we have a duty to never adjust policies based on current needs and realiti…

Most towns in this country outside of coastal cities that do have significant immigration are hollowed out. Look at St. Louis or countless other cities satellite imagery, and tell me its somehow prudent to have every other parcel abandoned and razed as if it were bombed during a war for lack of any population growth for a half century.

Re: New U.S. immigration rules spur more visa approvals for STEM workers

#136

Post by tcmart14 »

manuelabeledo wrote: post #109
bsdpufferfish wrote: post #78

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The myth is that these measures must be taken because of "shortages of workers" when there are plenty of US citizens in STEM who are underemployed. This narrative is purely a lobbying effort.

> ... when there are plenty of US citizens in STEM who are underemployed. Where, exactly? Unemployment rate among STEM graduates is half of that of the general population [0]. Salaries are also substantially higher [1], and keep getting higher [2]. [0] https://ncses.nsf.gov/pubs/nsf23315/report/stem-unemployment... ). [1] https://ncses.nsf.gov/pubs/nsf23315/report/stem-median-wage-... . [2] https://www.newscientist.c…

I'm not seeing it either. The only engineers I met who are 'under employed' either left the field intentionally, decided to go backpack Europe for 3 years after they graduated (some fields it definitely seems like if your not in the field for awhile the value of your degree vanishes), or they graduated and moved to a place where I live with a ChemE degree looking for ChemE jobs when we have maybe 2 companies in town that hire a small number of ChemEs. It is a highly desired location, so why pay an inexperience ungrad when you can score a ChemE moving into the area with a decades experience at a good price.

Another good one. We hired a person with a MechE degree with experience working at JPL into our customer support because they are so in love with the area because of easy access to winter activities (snow shoing, skiing, etc).

Re: New U.S. immigration rules spur more visa approvals for STEM workers

#137

Post by apwell23 »

danking00 wrote: post #100
apwell23 wrote: post #77

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> At 33 years old I’m still two years shy of the 10 year minimum for EB-2 [2] not sure what your link has to do with age requirement that you mention. eb2 has no age minimum. You also wrote bunch of other falsehoods like visa renewals requiring lottery, renewals don't count against yearly visa quota. Most of the stuff in your comment is not correct.

I’d be delighted to be proven wrong but the ten year minimum experience comes from the second reference: > Letters from current or former employers documenting at least 10 years of full-time experience in your occupation EDIT: I see where you misunderstood. I emphasized the age to show how long someone would be waiting for a non-precarious situation. I’ll edit above. Apologies if I’m unclear, I mean getting the H1-B…

> Letters from current or former employers documenting at least 10 years of full-time experience in your occupation

Thats if you are in the second row in the table above. i.e "Exceptional Ability".

You don't need it if you have masters or bachelors + 5.

> Meanwhile, they’re trying to maintain work authorization

There is no 'meanwhile' , they are not in eb green card queues without going though the h1 lottery first. In no case are you going though h1b lottery and in green card queue concurrently.

Re: New U.S. immigration rules spur more visa approvals for STEM workers

#138

Post by abduhl »

lesuorac wrote: post #125
bumby wrote: post #26

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Currently all the layers in patent application process is incentivized to ignore quality. Not just "incentivized to ignore quality", they aren't duty-bound to consider quality at all. The PTO evaluates applications for novelty, not quality. The three main relevant parts of the US Code are: 35 USC Sec. 101: is it patentable? (i.e., it must be a process, machine, process, or manufactured good. It can't be something l…

I would disagree and claim the patent office is "incentivized to ignore quality". The clerks are expected to do a certain amount of work per week and granting a patent counts as more work than denying a patent.

Patent examiners are rated on office ACTIONS. Grants and denies both count as actions, although denials often take more effort (and complaints from the potential patentee).

Re: New U.S. immigration rules spur more visa approvals for STEM workers

#139

Post by estebank »

cogman10 wrote: post #51
toomuchtodo wrote: post #29

Earlier quoted context omitted.

As a US citizen interested in improving the visa process who regularly interfaces with policymakers, propose an objective rubric that is better and I will get it in front of policymakers. Can't guarantee an outcome, will guarantee the effort. Patent quota is bullshit, but also "I know talent when I see it" (even though I do and how I hire) isn't going to fly. Sorting hats are hard, Goodhart's Law, etc. High level, yo…

Degree from a recognized school. Verified work history in the field. Those wouldn't be perfect metrics, and they might be easy to fudge. So it then becomes a question of if disqualification of the capable is worse than qualification of the incapable. I personally prefer to let more people in than less. It's not like it's smooth sailing in the US if you can't do skilled work.

Degree and work history are already a significant part of evaluation on L1/L2 and H1B visas.

IIRC 3 years of work experience are considered equivalent to 1 year of college education, which allows those who didn't get a degree but have extensive experience to also have an avenue for obtaining a Visa.

Re: New U.S. immigration rules spur more visa approvals for STEM workers

#140

Post by sfblah »

toomuchtodo wrote: post #29
FirmwareBurner wrote: post #3

>“You don’t have any accomplishments,” the lawyer told him. “You don’t have a patent, or even a product.” That scolding spurred Sanjay to make a list of what he needed to do to achieve his goal of staying permanently. He improved the technology his AI-based firm was developing, expanded its customer base, and filed for a U.S. patent, which was awarded earlier this year. In May those efforts paid off, allowing him to…

As a US citizen interested in improving the visa process who regularly interfaces with policymakers, propose an objective rubric that is better and I will get it in front of policymakers. Can't guarantee an outcome, will guarantee the effort. Patent quota is bullshit, but also "I know talent when I see it" (even though I do and how I hire) isn't going to fly. Sorting hats are hard, Goodhart's Law, etc. High level, yo…

How about: “Has had a job for 3 consecutive years paying $250k or more per year and has paid federal income taxes proving it.”

I know plenty of people in this boat from India who wait 15 years to get a GC because of our idiotic process.

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