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H-1B visa fraud alive and well amid anti-abuse efforts

theregister.com

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Re: H-1B visa fraud alive and well amid anti-abuse efforts

#81

Post by terse-broccoli »

pkoiralap wrote: post #52

Something that I personally feel unfair about the H1B lottery is that it doesn't consider where you live and what you are currently doing. Students that graduate through a STEM degree get to work for 3 years in their OPT (Optional Practical Training). This extends then to them having 3 chances (one per year) at getting the H1B. Now what's unfair is that an employer in the US can apply H1B for employees living oversee…

So basically you want to extend the luck/financial privilege that those people have had to be able to study in the US to extend to additional advantages for future visa applications. Not sure that I’d clasify that as fair, personally. As you mentioned, they already get multiple chances at a H1-B already.

Side note: my understanding is that there’s already a secondary lottery for people who hold a US masters (the advanced degree petition). If you are not selected in the first lottery, and you meet that condition, you get placed in a second lottery which has much better odds as there are far less people who meet this criteria (it also makes up almost 25% of the total H1-Bs granted). So basically each year you have 2 chances, and there are better odds for one of those chances.

Re: H-1B visa fraud alive and well amid anti-abuse efforts

#82

Post by Muromec »

Rinzler89 wrote: post #2

Every system who's main job is controlling or gatekeeping a limited resource in high demand will 100% always get abused to some extent for personal gain or for profit. Same with housing. Especially when there's litte to no negative consequences for those caught abusing it. Like why wouldn't you? If you don't abuse it, then you're basically leaving money on the table versus your competitors who do abuse it. Until law…

Wait, one can file fraudlent applications for visa sponsorship, get caught and will not be banned for like 5 years from the system? Why? It makes no sense

Re: H-1B visa fraud alive and well amid anti-abuse efforts

#83

Post by abswest »

kachurovskiy wrote: post #79

In Germany visa applicants are evaluated based on merit without a lottery for decade and it's working well. US could do something similar instead of using a hole in the fence but it doesn't look like the decision making system is capable of making hard decisions like that.

what numeric metric do you use to assess that it is "working well" in Germany?

Re: H-1B visa fraud alive and well amid anti-abuse efforts

#84

Post by tivert »

rtkwe wrote: post #67
pkoiralap wrote: post #52

Something that I personally feel unfair about the H1B lottery is that it doesn't consider where you live and what you are currently doing. Students that graduate through a STEM degree get to work for 3 years in their OPT (Optional Practical Training). This extends then to them having 3 chances (one per year) at getting the H1B. Now what's unfair is that an employer in the US can apply H1B for employees living oversee…

I would expect that to be partially counter balanced by companies being more willing to sponsor someone already in the US over someone currently overseas? Haven't had to go through that process fortunately but seems likely from a practical standpoint.

[replying to deleted child comment]

> Sponsored green cards take like 1.5+ years to process, so someone could be OPT the whole time but the employer would have to get the application rolling quickly after hiring or else risk their employee having to go back to their home country for some period of time when OPT runs out and the green card is approved.

Add to that:

1. Some (many?) companies do not file for green cards right away, because they like to keep their employees tied down with an H1-B. I think my employer has a policy of not applying for a green card until the employee has 5 years or service or something.

2. IIRC, there are country-based quotas for employment-based green cards, so it could take very much longer than 1.5 years to get one. E.g. I think it can take 10+ years for an Indian to get one. Though I think having an active application for one is enough to stay in country for H1-B holders (though I'm even less sure about OPT holders).

Re: H-1B visa fraud alive and well amid anti-abuse efforts

#85

Post by ashayh »

kachurovskiy wrote: post #79

In Germany visa applicants are evaluated based on merit without a lottery for decade and it's working well. US could do something similar instead of using a hole in the fence but it doesn't look like the decision making system is capable of making hard decisions like that.

Decisions in the US are made by big tech lobbyists, who want the supply of semi-indentured labor who can't jump jobs at a moment notice to continue as usual.

Re: H-1B visa fraud alive and well amid anti-abuse efforts

#86

Post by shagie »

confidantlake wrote: post #71
citrin_ru wrote: post #35

Earlier quoted context omitted.

A counter argument I've seen - with auction only IT companies will be able to hire H-1B workers and other industries like healthcare and pharma and even chip production will be out-priced. Different industries have different level of salaries. $200k/y salary may suppress SDE wages in Silicon Valley but it is well above market rate for an electrical or a chemical engineer.

So raise wages in those industries.

The revenue per employee in nearly every industry other than software development cannot compete with that of software development.

There is no way to raise the wages of a teacher or for that matter, a civil engineer (https://h1bdata.info/index.php?em=&job=civil+engineer&city=&...) to that of a software developer and have that organization remain competitive or within budget.

Saying "raise the wages in those industries" is equivalent to "let's raise salaries of a school district by 20x and raise the corresponding taxes to compensate."

The issue is that high tech software development compensation is disproportionately high because the corresponding revenue for those companies is likewise high. This is only an issue if you are trying to say that other industries should match it or are competing based on the same scale. I do not begrudge high tech their revenue and compensation, but rather believe that if we paid everyone with a college degree where a H1-B could be employed 250,000 / year that it would cause even greater problems.

Re: H-1B visa fraud alive and well amid anti-abuse efforts

#87

Post by weberer »

freeone3000 wrote: post #57
shagie wrote: post #32

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Not "high value", but rather "high skill". Some examples of occupations that need a professional degree in order to be filled. Information Technology Software engineers Database administrators Teachers Primary Secondary University Health care professionals Physicians Nurses Dentists Psychologists Engineers Civil Chemical Mechanical Industrial Surveyors ... and Fashion models With an auction approach, would the softwa…

It might be my naiveity, but, shouldn’t highly-skilled and in-demand professions be the highly valued ones? Something’s gone terribly wrong if there’s few teachers, it’s hard to get new teachers, but the price of teachers remains the same. It makes no sense from a labor standpoint.

>Something’s gone terribly wrong if there’s few teachers, it’s hard to get new teachers, but the price of teachers remains the same. It makes no sense from a labor standpoint.

Its because the state has a near monopoly on hiring teachers, so they can keep wages artificially low.

Re: H-1B visa fraud alive and well amid anti-abuse efforts

#88

Post by gibbonsrcool »

bluGill wrote: post #80
gibbonsrcool wrote: post #70

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Even if the pay by salary amount is fair, these workers can be exploited to work more hours than their non-H1B colleagues such that if their pay was broken down hourly it would be comparatively lower.

Back in their home country they are probably expected to work those same hours (or more!) for a lot less money. By our standards it is exploit, but often for them it is better.

I understand their incentives. But the fact that they are exploited here, just less so still, makes the exploitation wrong. The H1B program needs to end.

Re: H-1B visa fraud alive and well amid anti-abuse efforts

#89

Post by Muromec »

achow wrote: post #33
shadow28 wrote: post #13

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That could potentially be solved by having different buckets for different regions and industries? Seems like that'd be a much fairer system than the current lottery one.

Different regions can be easily gamed by opening PO Box offices in all the regions.

Well, then you check tax return of employees -- if they don't actually reside in the same region, the last person who touched the immigration form is getting a date with a rattan stick.

Re: H-1B visa fraud alive and well amid anti-abuse efforts

#90

Post by johnnyjeans »

kachurovskiy wrote: post #79

In Germany visa applicants are evaluated based on merit without a lottery for decade and it's working well. US could do something similar instead of using a hole in the fence but it doesn't look like the decision making system is capable of making hard decisions like that.

The US system combines both merit and lottery. The lottery is maintained because it's an effective bottleneck on the volume of applications, which is substantially higher than what Germany is receiving.
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