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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

#281

This isn't bad timing really, we just had a year of layoffs and have a federal election just around the corner. The people who are interested should read up on Trump's previous immigration policy, which looks to be considerably more favorable to domestic citizens https://www.migrationpolicy.org/news/trump-h1b-changes-miss-...

[deleted]

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

#282

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The US doesn’t understand the social burden of integrating an immigrant, and the resulting social conflict. Meanwhile, the prospective immigrant gets to stay in their homeland (most don’t really want to leave, money aside). If tax dollars are the issue, just tax the company.

What kinda immigrant are you talking about? The immigrant they are housing in NYC hotels who arrived with 3 kids from Venezuela? Or the software engineer with a US college degree paying $>50k / year in income taxes to state and federal government? Because you know that they are only restricting the latter type of immigrant.

I think the immigrant with three kids from Venezuela is probably easier to integrate in a way than a skilled immigrant who was typically an elite back home. I think the latter folks are more likely to bring their culture with them and try to change America.

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

#284
post #250

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think you missed the entire point of my post above. The US's biggest strength is it's soft power at the elite level. Because of bad experiences like immigration, the US has been losing influence as foreign decision makers soured on the US due to crap treatment.

He didn't miss the point. You're missing the point that if these people soured the US because it was hard to immigrate, they are being very hypocritical. It's hard to immigrate anywhere ("crap treatment"), including the countries they came from.

It's somewhat difficult to immigrate to most places, but usually the difficulties can be resolved in weeks or months. The US level of difficulty is an exception, not the norm.

Or more accurately, the processes are obfuscated and full of inexplicable delays. Why would someone even consider hiring a lawyer for something as simple and common as employment-based immigration? And how can the green card process take longer than a few months?

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

#285

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

> 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.

> your resume didn't reflect

One observation I've made throughout the years of reviewing tech resumes - if I get a resume from a U.S. citizen, I (and anybody else) immediately know the difference between MIT/Stanford vs. "The University of Wisconsin" without even researching it. OTOH, I have no idea what the difference between the University of Hyderabad vs. the University of New Delhi, and there's not really a good way for me to tell. Foreign applicants actually have an _advantage_ over U.S. citizens in that the person reviewing their resume will almost certainly bin all of the resumes into the same "ok, has a degree" vs. a potentially unconscious "ah, ok, couldn't get into an ivy league".

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

#286
post #138

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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).

I mean they're not rated on ACTIONS. They're rated on their PRODUCTION UNITS; of which an ALLOWANCE yields twice as many PRODUCTION UNITS than a REJECTION yields.

So; clerk are incentivized to grant a patent as it takes less effort and yields more production units. If a patent is of poor quality and later is invalidated in a lawsuit; the clerk will not lose production units. Therefore; the clerk is incentivized to grant patents as they count as more production units and not penalized for granting a patent they shouldn't've.

https://www.uspto.gov/sites/default/files/Examination%20Time...

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

#287
post #4

Expect further downward pressure on US tech salaries.

My employer cannot hire H1Bs. They are prohibited by law. All employees must be US citizens. They pay extremely competitive rates. They are the reason for and a source of complaints regarding gentrification in my area. edit: as an example the starting rate for high school work-study and college interns is the hourly equivalent of $78k/yr plus the same benefits as full-time employees from the second they show up. The…

Sounds like a NewSpace company... but not SpaceX.

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

#288
post #130
post #59

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You don't have to look far, Canada has already implemented a point based system for granting permanent residence to skilled workers. It assigns scores to applicants based on education, skills, employment offer, language speaking ability, etc. I believe it can be a good starting point for a more objective selection criteria than the current system which is more based on luck. https://www.canada.ca/en/immigration-refug…

Trump attempted to implement a points based system and was met with fierce resistance: https://www.pewresearch.org/short-reads/2019/05/17/key-facts... https://www.forbes.com/sites/stuartanderson/2020/08/06/h-1b-...

The utility of a point system is that it makes the criteria legible—the problem wasn't the fact that it was a points system, the problem was in the details of the system.

The second link you posted lists a large number of anti-immigrant ideas that Trump had. That was the general tenor of his administration as I personally experienced it: rhetoric about unauthorized immigration, actions against legal immigrants.

(I used to be on an H1B and got my green card last year.)

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

#289

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What kinda immigrant are you talking about? The immigrant they are housing in NYC hotels who arrived with 3 kids from Venezuela? Or the software engineer with a US college degree paying $>50k / year in income taxes to state and federal government? Because you know that they are only restricting the latter type of immigrant.

I think the immigrant with three kids from Venezuela is probably easier to integrate in a way than a skilled immigrant who was typically an elite back home. I think the latter folks are more likely to bring their culture with them and try to change America.

You're right actually. Have you seen how many Australian coffee shops there are in New York? Crikey! Changing America one cup of flat white at a time. Tough work.

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

#290
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…

Are you familiar with the idea of Chesterton’s fence?

Why do you think we have such a convoluted immigration scheme?

Can you think of ways to exploit the system you have suggested?

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