H-1B visa fraud alive and well amid anti-abuse efforts • Hacker News Board

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

#181

Post by bedobi » Fri, Apr 12, 2024, 4:52 PM UTC

kelseyfrog wrote: post #168

rvba wrote: post #158

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Because there are billions of people in Africa, India, Pakistan and so on. And you cant just let them all in. Millions would come even from second tier countries if they could. Look at any war conflict, refugees would come to the western countries too, if allowed.

What does it mean, "second tier", and who gets to decide tier placement?

usually means “brown”

except even when white Western Europeans from first world countries immigrate, that too is also a problem because - you guessed it - they too be stealing dose jerbs

never mind that we’re talking about points based, highly selective visas for educated, experienced professionals, coming to work in fields the homegrown population don’t

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

#182

Post by darth_avocado » Fri, Apr 12, 2024, 4:58 PM UTC

jdhzzz wrote: post #164

darth_avocado wrote: post #141

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Sounds good in theory, but not at all practical. Apple just laid off 600 employees working on their electric car initiative, they moved employees internally where skills were transferable, but the rest were let go. But in your proposal, they would now not be able to hire for ANY job function on H1B.

Would a 1 year ban for H1B for Apple be that big of a problem after a "significant" layoff? Or maybe can only apply for up to a maximum of some (10%? 15%? 25%) percentage of the last year's layoffs?

I think 1 year is a lot of time in the industry for a blanket ban. If apple wants to get out of building a car but pivot into building AI (which is what they’re doing) or if a different company wants to reduce its sales and marketing footprint while increasing its dev efforts (a lot of tech companies are doing this), then these blanket bans are unreasonable and detrimental to everyone (customers, existing employees, shareholders including people’s retirement funds), including citizens.

However, say Apple fires 600 car engineers and then files for 400 H1Bs for 400 car engineering positions after 6 months, then they need to be held accountable. Which to a certain extent already happens. USCIS will often deny H1B petitions in such cases and green card processing (PERM certification part) is usually paused at a company level after significant layoffs. As of today Facebook and other tech companies that had significant layoffs last year, are not filing PERM applications for their current employees and they won’t for at least a year after the layoffs.

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

#183

Post by vishwanath1306 » Fri, Apr 12, 2024, 5:03 PM UTC

The worst part about H1B and subsequent immigration policies is that it doesn't value your contribution to the country. Someone doing a PhD in the US is usually on an NSF/NIH/DARPA/ grant, and contributing to critical research here. If they choose to to go into industry (academia has uncapped H1B), then they go into the same pool as someone from India working some basic task with some IT Consulting company.

Eventually, the PhD would need to leave despite the government spending close to half a million for their education. This is a huge waste of government resources, close to a billion plus dollars in a lot of cases.

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

#184

Post by karakot » Fri, Apr 12, 2024, 5:04 PM UTC

psychlops wrote: post #140

karakot wrote: post #117

I only have one proposal. If a company has a layoff in number of thousands, then the company should be barred from h1-b for a certain number of years.

That sounds like a huge push for outsourcing.

Everything is a push for outsourcing. Workers rights is a push (looking at you Boeing, moving from WA to SC). Ecological rules - looking at all toxic production which had been moved to the places with less accountabilities instead of fixing it. I'm pretty sure there're more examples.

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

#185

Post by ToxicMegacolon » Fri, Apr 12, 2024, 5:16 PM UTC

rvba wrote: post #158

bedobi wrote: post #123

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Lol, how are they "lax? And "significant issues" like what? According to who? You? Those countries are only afloat because of immigration. Their homegrown economies are uncompetitive ones based on resource extraction and the trades, and their populations are uneducated and unambitious.

Because there are billions of people in Africa, India, Pakistan and so on. And you cant just let them all in. Millions would come even from second tier countries if they could. Look at any war conflict, refugees would come to the western countries too, if allowed.

> Because there are billions of people in Africa, India, Pakistan and so on. And you cant just let them all in.

> second tier countries

Maybe you didn't intend it, but your comment reads like you have an issue with immigrants of certain racial profiles. I'd suggest rewording, unless of course that was your intent behind the comment.

It also comes off as racist/supremacist to term certain countries as "second tier". Unless of course, that is intentional on your part.

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

#186

Post by rqtwteye » Fri, Apr 12, 2024, 5:18 PM UTC

izacus wrote: post #97

rqtwteye wrote: post #59

Earlier quoted context omitted.

From my observation the number of highly qualified H1Bs is a small share of the total number. Most are average or below average that are held captive by Infosys and friends.

How did you make this observation? There's more than 500 thousand H1B holders, how did you analyze them to end up with this claim?

I made this observation by working in different companies and also looking at the statistics which companies apply for H1B. Amazon is far up and then Infosys, Tata and other body shops. Other tech companies are way down the list.

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

#187

Post by crappywappy » Fri, Apr 12, 2024, 5:27 PM UTC

Never understood why I have worked with H1B at past companies where a local person would suffice. We were just making basic web services. H1B is so abused it's not even funny.

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

#188

Post by wing-_-nuts » Fri, Apr 12, 2024, 5:28 PM UTC

aprilthird2021 wrote: post #177

wing-_-nuts wrote: post #100

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>“There is no doubt,” he says, “that the [H-1B] program is a benefit to their employers, enabling them to get workers at a lower wage, and to that extent, it is a subsidy.” -- Economist Milton Freedman

Of course it's a benefit to employers and of course talented people coming from poorer countries will work for less. That doesn't mean it isn't beneficial to the country as a whole, which, as I said, suffers from an aging, shrinking population with poor educational attainment metrics. Without H1B the CEOs of many tech companies wouldn't be here just to name one important contribution from this program

Well, that's your opinion. The way the law was written, it's pretty clear the intent was that we'd only import labor we could not get at home, and thus it would have no impact on worker wages. I think people forget that laws exist for the benefit of the people as a whole. If it's having any impact on the wages of citizens, that's clearly not in the best interest of the average US citizen.

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

#189

Post by karakot » Fri, Apr 12, 2024, 5:33 PM UTC

darth_avocado wrote: post #182

jdhzzz wrote: post #164

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Would a 1 year ban for H1B for Apple be that big of a problem after a "significant" layoff? Or maybe can only apply for up to a maximum of some (10%? 15%? 25%) percentage of the last year's layoffs?

I think 1 year is a lot of time in the industry for a blanket ban. If apple wants to get out of building a car but pivot into building AI (which is what they’re doing) or if a different company wants to reduce its sales and marketing footprint while increasing its dev efforts (a lot of tech companies are doing this), then these blanket bans are unreasonable and detrimental to everyone (customers, existing employees,…

so the actual workers [s]are harmed[/s]held responsible, not the companies.

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

#190

Post by pphysch » Fri, Apr 12, 2024, 5:37 PM UTC

fragmede wrote: post #162

pphysch wrote: post #152

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> If I were president, I would simply make the h1b go to the highest bidder The article makes clear that many H1B aspirants are manipulated into indentured servant like conditions and debt. Selling H1Bs would just amplify that class divide. I think the goal of the H1B system is to benefit American labor market, it's not a sort of "Ivy League" that is for elite reproduction.

The stated goal of the H1B system is to allow companies to import high skilled and high quality labor that isn't available in the US market, into the US. That it doesn't behave that way in practice is at odds with the intent of the program.

The labor market is highly political and any policy that significantly affects it is going to have lipstick on it. US politicians will never admit that the southern border issue is driven by the demand of US business (agriculture, manufacturing, services) for inexpensive+disenfranchised migrant labor, but that is the bottom line for a lot of the stakeholders.