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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

#331

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What an amazing asset, to not even have a country, just an economic zone where you get to compete with talent from all over the world. To slowly become a despised minority in what used to be your country, but the economy does so well! I am also from Europe, and I pray the US doesn't give us this "amazing asset".

> What an amazing asset, to not even have a country, just an economic zone where you get to compete with talent from all over the world. Is this what europeans think the US is like? No country, just an economic zone? Mind if I ask how "just an economic zone" manages to produce cultural exports that most of the world has been predominantly consuming for decades? Is it the same "economic zone" that has some of the stro…

> Is this what europeans think the US is like? No country, just an economic zone?

Just enforcing your southern border is controversial and critically underfunded. I would say that is a minimum requirement to be considered a country.

> Hint: I wasn't even born american (but I am white, in case you were trying to pull that "of course you don't think so, because you are the minority being referenced" card), and I can assure you that I feel like less of a "despised minority" here than I do in my country of birth

Other groups in the US don't share your post-racial individualism: https://www.pewresearch.org/social-trends/2019/04/09/race-in...

And they're turning those feelings into official policy: https://www.city-journal.org/article/racial-discrimination-a...

To guarantee that minority status receives appropriate weight, the manual also suggests “placing contributions to diversity high on the list” or even making that “a criterion candidates must pass to make it to the second round”—for example, by “contributing to diversity” or “serving as a role model for URM students.” Since white candidates cannot “contribute to diversity” or “serve as role models” for students of different races, this guarantees that representatives of the correct races will get hired.

If, somehow, a committee still managed to hire white people or the wrong minorities, the manual suggests developing an audit process to identify criteria where “white candidates, male candidates . . . receive higher scores,” so that those criteria can be removed. Particularly, rigorous scientific practices like “publicly posting data, hypotheses and materials to guard against accusations of selectively reporting results or falsifying data” tends to “produce biased results”—namely, the hiring of white men. This was easily solved by “subsequently dropp[ing]” scientific rigor from “evaluation criterion” of candidate searches.

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

#332
post #86

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Your take sound reasonable and practical. The only problem with it is that the problems it solves are problems for people who don’t have a say in the matter. While the drawbacks it implies affects people who have a say in the matter. (Either through voting or lobbying) The fact that the current system imposes a form of long identured servitude on imigrants is not a bug but a feature. This benefits the employers in ve…

> The fact that the current system imposes a form of long identured servitude on imigrants is not a bug but a feature I was on the hill when the initial congressional negotiations over immigration began in the mid-2010s. The stumbling block has always been illegal immigration. [0] The Dems congressional leadership at the time decided that no reform on legal immigration would happen without illegal immigration reform…

> neither side really cared because immigrants (legal or illegal) can't vote.

This really is the alpha and omega of migration policies all around the world: the people affected don't have a say, and the people not affected use the issues to play hateful games.

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

#333

Earlier quoted context omitted.

L7 and L8 aren't staff. That's senior staff and principle. They're both pretty hard to get and are very small portions of any company.

That’s true. L6 offers are 700k to 900k plus whatever stock appreciation and refreshers. L7+ has nominal value of 1M+. My point is for the past several years staff has been clearing 1M W2 or more per year and the nominal offers are high 6 figures. L7 and L8 offers are nominally 1M. If I could make that money working on cool science and aerospace I would. When I graduated, Boeing, Lockheed etc wouldn’t give me the tim…

L6 being 700k+ is a top tier offer even from a big company. That’s an exceptional offer for staff. I know several people in staff roles and they were not offered that comp upfront. They get to that through appreciation.

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

#334
post #323

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What an amazing asset, to not even have a country, just an economic zone where you get to compete with talent from all over the world. To slowly become a despised minority in what used to be your country, but the economy does so well! I am also from Europe, and I pray the US doesn't give us this "amazing asset".

Immigration will be politically encouraged either way for demographic reasons alone. Pensioners are the strongest voting block in most of Europe and it will stay that way for the foreseeable future. Someone needs to be productive for the pension system to keep on working. As a European myself, I'd much rather have the comparably educated, motivated and talented immigration Switzerland and the USA get versus what the…

I'm not comfortable with this idea that we have to exploit immigrants to fund boomers' retirements.

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

#335
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…

The bottle neck is on purpose.

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

#336
post #299

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You should not take every immigrant. Take immigrants who bring their skills and productivity to you. Don't make their lives difficult with unnecessary hoops to jump through. Skilled immigration is not asylum or illegal immigration.

Well they are taking 100s of thousands immigrants as they see reasonable. What is problem with following established rules and timelines? Immigrants would surely be aware of those before even thinking of immigration. Besides if Europe / Australia / Canada have much simpler immigration why would any skilled/productive prospective immigrant would even think of US.

> Besides if Europe / Australia / Canada have much simpler immigration why would any skilled/productive prospective immigrant would even think of US.

US wages are significantly higher, and it also has a much more developed tech industry (picking the T from STEM since that's what I know about most).

The US's tech industry succeeds in spite of their immigration policies, not because of it

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

#337
post #236

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Disagree as it has no warranty you are good enough to keep a job, only that you could pay fees every year.

Sure. Nobody said you get citizenship. Just a work visa not tied to an employer.

There is no difference. The goal is to avoid a Canadian Vancouver situation

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

#338

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Pretty much every advanced economy is seeing stagnant population growth. Integrating immigrants is one of our most important skills and we need to keep practicing it.

Look how integration of migrants looks like in western Europe. Worshipers of economic growth don't see all the social issues mass scale immigration brings.

Western Europe hasn't really integrated its migrants well like North America has.

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

#339
post #256

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Isn't Canada full of foreign PhDs driving taxis because they qualify for permanent residence on points but then can't get jobs because employers want "Canadian work experience"? Canada also has a major housing crisis due to not building enough housing for population growth (which is entirely immigration, Canada's population would shrink without it). Doesn't seem their system works very well in practice. At least the…

I was going to say something similar. I don't believe in points any more. It just reproduces the class prejudices of overeducated people. The US has an abundance of "highly skilled" FAANG workers. It has a shortage of construction workers, plumbers, and electricians. The one "high skill" (really high class ) industry where I'd make an exception is medicine, because there are shortages there. But FAANG stuff? No, thes…

One can just adjust the points towards what you need, like Australia does. Me and then-wife applied about 15 years ago - she studied at the American school in Milan, graduated in the UK, and got a master and PhD in computational chemistry. I'd been living in the UK for a decade, working in IT. They said thanks but no thanks, Melbourne doesn't need you - whereas tradesmen, plumbers, miners etc have no problem whatsoever moving there, year after year.

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

#340
post #279

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Only a feature if you believe in the per country limit. The alternative is to just score everyone based on point based system and admit the highest scorers regardless of national origin.

> point based system Today if you're an illegal migrant and claim asylum, you get +inf points. If you're born in certain countries with long wait time, you get -inf points. Clearly the system today is working within your definition.

> If you're born in certain countries with long wait time, you get -inf points.

Re-read the parent comment again. They say "point-based system [...] regardless of national origin", which implies that the origin country wouldn't have any effect aka point-value (neither negative nor positive) attached to it.

> if you're an illegal migrant and claim asylum, you get +inf points

Bringing up the asylum visa category makes zero sense, because it was obvious from the context (both the parent comment and the entire thread) that the conversation was about a point system in the context of employment-based visas. Having a point-based system go cross-category or even used at all in most categories doesn't make sense.

So no, the system you described isn't working with their definition at all.

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