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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

#191

Post by JumpCrisscross »

jmyeet wrote: post #8

There's no changes that affect the real bottleneck: the annual quota on green cards and the per-country limits of 7% or children aging out. Those all require Congressional action and that's just not going to happen in the current political environment [1]. Here's my take: you get a work visa for 3-5 years that's tied to your employer and allows you to freely leave and re-enter the US. Believe it or not, we still have…

> you get a work visa for 3-5 years that's tied to your employer

Time spent getting a degree at an accredited American university should count as the same.

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

#192

Post by coredog64 »

alephnerd wrote: post #180
Clubber wrote: post #65

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is just a repeat of what started in the 90s (probably earlier). It's really a scheme for companies to get access to more talent to drive wages down.

News flash. The demand has started to slow down. 20 years ago, the Chinese backlog used to be in the decades range. Now it's 2 years. The Indian backlog used to be multi-decade too, but is now 11. Already, we've had engineers at portfolio companies decide to return to India to either earn a dollar salary or start their own startup. At this point, we've decided to straight up outsource jobs to India, Israel, and Easte…

> Now they'll make contributions to India, Eastern Europe

Good! There’s a billion people in India and plenty of opportunities for growth. The net benefit for all of humanity is larger if they stay there.

Put another way, is it really all that great that the US drains the top talent out of India and Eastern Europe?

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

#193

Post by geodel »

pavlov wrote: post #117
rayiner wrote: post #92

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That seems like a win-win. Hopefully remote work will reduce the need for immigration.

How is it a win for the United States if American companies are employing less people in the country, and instead are paying remote workers who pay taxes elsewhere?

So it is either that US company got better work done at cheaper price. Means win for US as it got a tiny bit competitive. That'd be pro-market argument.

Or another way that if US company has decided to not employ US born local at least those got employed overseas will not compete for housing, schools and other services for which they easily out compete locals if they are employed in US. Means another win. That would be pro-nativist argument. I know they are not much loved here but that's that.

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

#194

Post by Mountain_Skies »

vsskanth wrote: post #72
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…

I guess the rubric depends on whether policymakers view the employment based green card system as zero-sum or non-zero-sum. My proposal for green cards: zero-sum - points based system based on your current salary, taxes paid and the occupation shortage list OR straight up auction non-zero-sum - let people apply for a green card as long as they've stayed in the country for X years without any criminal infractions, hav…

Who creates the occupation shortage list and how is it protected from companies who want their jobs included on it to drive down wages and suppress workers' rights?

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

#195

Post by [deleted] »

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…

[deleted]

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

#196

Post by danking00 »

coredog64 wrote: post #184
danking00 wrote: post #154

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I suppose majority is factually true, but I think it’s worth being specific that nearly three billion people are in that situation.

How many of those 3B would qualify for an H-1B absent any caps? How many more STEM professionals could the US absorb at something close to current salaries?

For India alone, Wikipedia says ~8% or ~100 million have a BS. I was more focused on PR/citizenship in my post. I do not know what qualifies you for an H1-B.

In the second point, I only have an imprecise opinion which is that I’d rather suffer some loss of quality of life personally if the median human experience is raised.

Would you support kicking out someone who doesn’t qualify for an EB or H1-B (in practice, you’re kicking out non degree holders) for a foreign born person who does qualify? If not, it seems to me we are embracing a lottery of birth place. To be clear, I’d like to see substantially more freedom of movement even if it means reducing my quality of life.

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

#197

Post by yieldcrv »

satya71 wrote: post #6
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…

Not any more than other patent applicants. Currently all the layers in patent application process is incentivized to ignore quality. 1. Large companies pay a bonus for every patent applied and bigger one for approval. 2. Patent lawyers are paid for filed patents. 3. Patent office makes money on each patent. They view the review process as a cost center and optimize it for fast approval.

really, how much do large companies pay per patent? any data points?

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

#198

Post by fallingknife »

alephnerd wrote: post #160
lp0_on_fire wrote: post #149

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> We hire noncitizens because we didn't find the right talent we need. (the right talent at the shit-level wage we want to pay) is more often than not the rest of that sentence.

$200-300k base with 15% annual bonus and equity ($300k-750k when I was working at public companies. I can't speak to my portfolio company's equity practices) is not a shit wage. We needed people who understood stuff like XDP and worked on it for years. The talent pool for low level development, OS Dev, cybersecurity, networking, and some parts of ML is sparse in the US compared to Israel, Eastern Europe, China, and I…

The problem is that instead of building a domestic talent pipeline for high demand skills we take the easy route and grab immigrants for it. So the talent pipeline never gets built, and then we continue to be dependent on immigration. This is obviously not your company's fault because they are not policy makers, but if companies like yours were told "too bad, hire and train locally" you would get it done. e.g. I am a software engineer that currently has a TC of around $200K, and none of the skills you need, but I could easily be trained and learn any of that for a 300-750K TC at the end.

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

#199

Post by allemagne »

blasphemers wrote: post #143
alephnerd wrote: post #107

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> a US citizen from the Midwest not getting it No offense, but maybe your resume didn't reflect that you had the skills required. The companies I worked at and now portfolio companies of mine pay Bay Area market rate to both citizens and non-citizens. We hire noncitizens because we didn't find the right talent we need.

So basically you only have open engineering positions in the same few markets that every other tech company does and then you complain when you can't find enough engineers. Engineering talent doesn't only exist on the coasts, despite startup tech culture pretending it does.

Do companies have a moral obligation to distribute jobs geographically?

Assuming that the issue is that these positions weren't remote then if they decided that they're better served by workers that live locally then they're either right and you're asking them to harm their own interests for yours or they're wrong and they're just leaving money on the table for a competitor. If they aren't harmed for giving up a competitive edge then that monopoly power to just ignore the market is the actual problem.

Either way, work visas isn't even close to the most salient problem. Restrict them and who's to say how startups will find loopholes to avoid hiring who we want them to hire. Let's just cut out all the messiness and cut them checks directly. Call it reparations for the coasts ignoring the good honest midwest American talent all these years.

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

#200

Post by lgleason »

yieldcrv wrote: post #197
satya71 wrote: post #6

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Not any more than other patent applicants. Currently all the layers in patent application process is incentivized to ignore quality. 1. Large companies pay a bonus for every patent applied and bigger one for approval. 2. Patent lawyers are paid for filed patents. 3. Patent office makes money on each patent. They view the review process as a cost center and optimize it for fast approval.

really, how much do large companies pay per patent? any data points?

Someone mentioned Lockheed, at GE they had a program that was pushed really hard on software engineers/EE's etc. with a carrot of a bonus for patents accepted and approved.
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