New U.S. immigration rules spur more visa approvals for STEM workers • Hacker News Board

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

#351

Post by apwell23 » Thu, Dec 28, 2023, 9:16 PM UTC

givemeethekeys wrote: post #275

klipt wrote: 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…

"Canadian work experience" is a generic reason often given to people who the company doesn't want to hire. It has happened to people I know. There can be many reasons: - Racial bias - Sexual bias - Age bias - Candidate's English / French ability. - Candidate's actual experience isn't relevant enough. - Candidate's personality. - Candidate's appearance. - Candidate's communication skills. Why would I give you the real…

Why do you have to give any reason at all. I never got any reason in USA 90% of the time.

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

#352

Post by dehrmann » Thu, Dec 28, 2023, 9:23 PM UTC

fooker wrote: post #290

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…

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?

Thinking about unintended consequences is good, but you're assuming more intentionality to existing laws than is actually there. It's convoluted more for political reasons than for pragmatic ones.

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

#353

Post by cyberax » Thu, Dec 28, 2023, 9:30 PM UTC

light_hue_1 wrote: post #118

hibikir wrote: post #89

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I would be surprised if it didn't, as other parts of the immigration system also warp post graduate education. EB-2 provides a much easier immigration route than EB-3, and EB-1 is easier still: Arguably the only road you can call easy if you come from countries that hit the per-country cap. The most reliable way to EB-2 is post graduate education. For EB-1, as listed here, will be patents and publications after a Ph.…

> This isn't because most international students love academia: It's because the immigration system, as described earlier, just makes the piece of paper they hand you so much more valuable that it'd be for someone that is already a US citizen. Nonsense. I've been at a typical STEM department at a top us institution for a decade and interacted with thousands of students. I can count the number of students who were in…

> There are easier ways.

Such as?..

If you're from a capped country, your options are limited. For EB-2/EB-3 the wait time for Indian nationals is around 12 years.

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

#354

Post by retinaros » Thu, Dec 28, 2023, 9:35 PM UTC

photochemsyn wrote: post #232

[flagged]

if that were true indians woudlnt be the highest-earning ethnic group in USA

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

#355

Post by retinaros » Thu, Dec 28, 2023, 9:37 PM UTC

jevoten wrote: post #310

_fizz_buzz_ wrote: post #296

Earlier quoted context omitted.

People on here don't seem to realize what an amazing asset it is that the US has a large pool of talented people that want to move there. I am from Europe and HN folks really like to look down on the European tech sector, but I would argue that the most important reason the US has a much stronger tech sector is because of the talent pool from around the world. Moving to Europe is a lot less interesting for people fro…

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".

wake up we have the lower income of mass immigration coming to western europe just like the US but unlike USA we dont have highly educated immigrants coming to europe

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

#356

Post by linhvn » Thu, Dec 28, 2023, 9:38 PM UTC

aiisahik wrote: post #262

dudul wrote: post #258

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Ensuring diversity of immigration sounds like an important criteria to keep in mind.

Really? 1. Is that why they give special virtually uncapped visa classes to Australia, Singapore, Canada and Chile while everyone else has to deal with h1B? 2. Do you think there are country based limits when admitting people through the southern border or granting refugee status?

They get a special, non immigrant work visa. If they want to apply for green card they subsequently need to apply for H-1B.

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

#357

Post by cyberax » Thu, Dec 28, 2023, 9:39 PM UTC

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…

> Yes it is. Every foreign employee getting that tech job is a US citizen from the Midwest not getting it.

That's simply not true. The alternative is often just not having this job at all. A tech startup without employees can just fail, without creating any jobs.

And the guy from the Midwest will be worse off in the end.

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

#358

Post by 8note » Thu, Dec 28, 2023, 9:41 PM UTC

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…

The US citizen from the Midwest could move to California and make a startup; they aren't gated by having a job beforehand.

On the other hand, if all the foreign talent congregates elsewhere, the Midwest kid will need a visa to compete with them.

The non-zero sum is that having all the people in one place makes more opportunities than if they weren't together.

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

#359

Post by retinaros » Thu, Dec 28, 2023, 9:42 PM UTC

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…

america hegemony exists since the germans rocket scientists immigrated to work at nasa. the tech sector is the same story.google pretty much created the web revolution and it was a russian immigrant leading it creating millions of jobs. the next big moment was musk, an immigrant with tesla.

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

#360

Post by theptip » Thu, Dec 28, 2023, 9:49 PM UTC

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…

My very high level wish is that immigration basically gave a free pass to anyone earning more than mean salary, since that by definition makes the nation wealthier.

I think you can derive generic and robust definitions of “exceptional” like this too; eg anyone that is getting paid $1m/yr is clearly exceptional. This is robust to Goodhearting because again, net contributor to the wealth of the country. (1m is an arbitrary number for discussion, obviously you can tune it to get the count you are looking for.)

Trouble is, “exceptional at art” is fundamentally subjective and won’t show up in salary. Similar salary concerns with “exceptionally talented PhD”. I think you need per-industry considerations here. Top N most-cited AI researchers should get a pre-filled green card sent to them.

Personally think we should be allowing any PhD or med school graduate from top institutions to stay indefinitely; so many talented researchers come to the US to study and then get kicked out. We want to keep these people.