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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

#201

Post by Always_Anon »

rayiner wrote: post #92
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…

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

You're getting down voted for this heterodox opinion. Flooding the West with foreigners is orthodoxy to the left. Any other opinion is heresy.

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

#202

Post by alephnerd »

coredog64 wrote: post #192
alephnerd wrote: post #180

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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?

It does when those people who leave have a chip on their shoulder due to bad experiences with the US.

For example, the founder of Zoho (Sridhar Vembu - I actually lived in the same apartment complex in the Bay Area that he started Zoho at) has become a NatSec cabinet advisor to Narendra Modi's administration, and has a chip on his shoulder about his experience dealing with US immigration. It was a big reason he returned to India.

Wang Huning, the Chairman of the Chinese Politburo and Xi Jinping's right hand man - soured on the US after his experience dealing with the US as a student.

A good friend of mine from college in the ML space who's parents are pretty high up in the ruling party of a major SEA state has been constantly complaining to me and them about how they lost 2 chances at the F1 to H1B conversion, and every single time became more and more ambivalent about the US. They can end up returning to SEA and make a large company, but they will also have a chip on their shoulder about the US.

Another good friend of mine was an Indian national who specialized in EE and Condensed Matter Physics (semiconductors type work) - even did grad school in it at a Stanford type program. He left the US to work for a major Chinese company in SEA because immigration in the US was horrid.

Plenty of Israelis feel the same way now about the US due to similar experiences.

The US Immigration system exudes a sense of American exceptionalism because voters say "Love it or leave it". But the people who leave end up becoming successful, but still angry at how much effort and stress was expended for naught.

China is now a near peer in 2023. There's no reason to fuel anti-Americanism in India, SEA, LatAm, etc and push them to the other side.

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

#203

Post by neofrommatrix »

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…

I went through the EB-1 process and finally got my GC. I applied in my 6th year of working in industry. The work done towards your PhD counts as work experience, if I remember correctly. A couple of people I know applied in their second year in the industry.

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

#204

Post by geodel »

danking00 wrote: post #63

Watching friends work through the decades long journey of citizenship, going to prestigious undergrad institutions, getting PhDs, publishing in journals, teaching part-time while working full time in industry, all just to get the right to stay in the country they’ve lived since they were 18 is fucking depressing. I doubt I’d qualify for EB-1 [1]. I’d have qualified for EB-2 at 28 when I attained five years of work ex…

> It just all seems cosmically unfair.

Huh, it is unfair in the same sense that football, basketball or movie stars are living in mega mansions or penthouses and flying in private jets while millions in US struggle for basic needs in US.

Most H1B coming from India are among top 1-2% of India's vast population and thats pretty fucking huge luck. Going through normal wait of immigration process, which no one forced them to undertake btw, is a kind of elitist thinking where any delay in fulfilling upper class want is an untold atrocity inflicted upon them.

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

#205

Post by greatpostman »

edgyquant wrote: post #82
thenaturalist wrote: post #21

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The economy is not a zero sum game. The US created literally all relevant consumer technology in the last 30 or so years and demand for tech talent has exploded ever since. Having a competitve sector/ economy which regularly pushes the edge of innovation and hence expands demand (both on sell and supply side) is actually what keeps salaries up. This logic is as deeply flawed as often as it comes up.

Yes it is. Every foreign employee getting that tech job is a US citizen from the Midwest not getting it. Fuck this dishonest talking point, I know people coding since high school working at Toyota plants while people from overseas with entry level skill sets have employers move them to the west coast and land jobs (for whatever reason.) It’s favoritism, it’s cronyism, it’s a nation putting its own struggling people l…

Yup, people love to deny this but it’s true

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

#206

Post by alephnerd »

allemagne wrote: post #199
blasphemers wrote: post #143

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 comp…

> Restrict them and who's to say how startups will find loopholes

We'll just open offices in Israel, Eastern Europe, and India instead and pay 70% of a US salary. It already started happening in 2019, and avalanched during the pandemic.

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

#207

Post by rufus_foreman »

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

The US has had periods where immigration was relatively unrestricted, and periods where it was heavily restricted.

>> Restricted immigration actually lowers wages

The US passed laws restricting immigration after World War I (Immigration Act of 1917, Immigration Act of 1924). These were in effect until 1965.

Wage growth was slower to non-existent after restrictions on immigration were removed compared to the period when they were in effect. The evidence from US history does not support your assertion. You can deny the law of supply and demand, but you can not repeal it.

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

#208

Post by geodel »

logicchains wrote: post #164
BeetleB wrote: post #145

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Now this hypothetical version of myself waits as short as two years (China-born) and as long as eleven years (India-born) China and India are the outliers. For most people, pre-pandemic (and post financial meltdown), the wait was under 2 years - almost everyone I know got it in under 2 years (EB-2, MS or higher degree). If you weren't born in China/India, and had an "advanced degree" in a STEM field (i.e. MS or hig…

>China and India are the outliers They're not outliers in the sense that a significant percent of the world's population come from those two countries, so disadvantaging them disadvantages a significant fraction of the world's population.

As long there are countries boundaries there will be disadvantage. I don't think we are implementing that total amount of earth's resources be divided equally among total number of earth's inhabitants.

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

#209

Post by rayiner »

aiisahik wrote: post #112
rayiner wrote: post #92

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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

I hire a ton of engineers in LATAM who have no interest in migrating to US. They get paid well in USD, they live in kings and queens in their respective low cost countries. In fact, looking at their live inspired me to make the decision to leave.

It sounds like a good deal for them. Plus, they don’t have to leave their families and social networks behind.

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

#210

Post by stackskipton »

linuxftw wrote: post #24
lgleason wrote: post #4

Expect further downward pressure on US tech salaries.

People in tech have blinders are. We're already in tech, so we don't see the repercussions. Entry level jobs are almost non-existent, they're all going overseas and to indentured servants.

>Entry level jobs are almost non-existent, they're all going overseas and to indentured servants.

Which is now having impact on hiring higher level positions because we broke the pipeline of Jr. -> Mid Level -> Sr.

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