Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

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

science.org

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

371–380 of 440 posts

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

#371

Post by bluecheese452 »

light_hue_1 wrote: post #108
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…

US PhD from top 50 institution in your field with a full-time job with salary over 100k/year. Simple and objective.

The only thing it would change would be every foreign worker gets a phd instead of a masters.

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

#372

Post by sunshowers »

abduhl wrote: post #368
sunshowers wrote: post #288

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 us…

This is a strange comment to read since, as far as I recall, the only details that were ever really shared before the overall plan was killed due to its political backlash are that it would be merits-based considering age, ability to speak English, job offers, and educational background and that it would shift the number of green cards away from being primarily awarded based on family ties to this new merit system. D…

Ah, I was going by the RAISE Act:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/RAISE_Act#Full_details_of_the_...

The goal of the RAISE Act was to substantially reduce family-based immigration while not increasing employment-based immigration to compensate for that.

I didn't realize Trump had his own plan (that was never going to be law anyway). But based on what I actually personally experienced Trump actually do, my Bayesian prior for it being helpful to immigrants is extraordinarily low.

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

#373

Post by sitkack »

FooBarBizBazz wrote: post #320
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…

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…

The layoffs were for wage suppression, if anything, they need more H1B to continue that wage suppression. I work in BigTech, we had layoffs and are also hiring like mad.

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

#374

Post by bluecheese452 »

thenaturalist wrote: post #21
lgleason wrote: post #4

Expect further downward pressure on US tech salaries.

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.

I don’t know man. I passed 2 FAANG interviews last year and then failed to team match because they froze hiring. I have the skills but no room for me, there are already 10s to hundreds of thousands of foreign workers thank you very much. Seems pretty zero sum to me.

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

#375

Post by bluecheese452 »

alephnerd wrote: post #107
edgyquant wrote: post #82

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.

Maybe 5 years ago, certainly not today. There have been massive layoffs in tech and plenty of smart people who never broke in.

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

#376

Post by bluecheese452 »

hasty_pudding wrote: post #321
alephnerd wrote: post #162

Earlier quoted context omitted.

We listed all these jobs remotely. There just aren't that many engineers who know OS Internals, eBPF, or XDP in Indiana compared to Tel Aviv or Bangalore.

I guarantee you theres tons of engineers with backgrounds in O.S./Networking that could learn those things very quickly. I bet most people working in it learned on the job. The certainly dont teach every single specific detail of the entire tech industry in universities. This is just gaslighting.

But none willing to work at the wages and working conditions that company is offering.

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

#377

Post by ProcNetDev »

peyton wrote: post #237
gourabmi wrote: post #225

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This "unlimited number" argument is a common dog whistle. If the Dept of Labor is certifying each one of the qualified immigrants and vetting the credentials, how is this unlimited?

Dog whistle for what? Calling for deportation? The comment is literally just “we can’t take every immigrant.” What other position is there?

We need every immigrant possible to pay for social security.

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

#378

Post by bluecheese452 »

remarkEon wrote: post #218
alephnerd wrote: post #162

Earlier quoted context omitted.

We listed all these jobs remotely. There just aren't that many engineers who know OS Internals, eBPF, or XDP in Indiana compared to Tel Aviv or Bangalore.

That is a policy problem. Opening up more immigration makes that problem worse, not better. It should be a question that everyone asks: why do US Universities not create an adequate supply of workers to meet the demand of the market? No one seems to care and the solution is always “just do more immigration”. Makes no sense.

They do. Companies just prefer to hire immigrants willing to work twice as long for half the pay.

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

#379

Post by bluecheese452 »

alephnerd wrote: post #206
allemagne wrote: post #199

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

The obvious response to that is to not allow companies that outsource jobs to sell in the domestic market.

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

#380

Post by bluecheese452 »

manuelabeledo wrote: post #109
bsdpufferfish wrote: post #78

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The myth is that these measures must be taken because of "shortages of workers" when there are plenty of US citizens in STEM who are underemployed. This narrative is purely a lobbying effort.

> ... when there are plenty of US citizens in STEM who are underemployed. Where, exactly? Unemployment rate among STEM graduates is half of that of the general population [0]. Salaries are also substantially higher [1], and keep getting higher [2]. [0] https://ncses.nsf.gov/pubs/nsf23315/report/stem-unemployment... ). [1] https://ncses.nsf.gov/pubs/nsf23315/report/stem-median-wage-... . [2] https://www.newscientist.c…

Try telling that to all the laid off tech workers or the new grads failing to find jobs.
Post reply on HN