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US burns through all high-skill visas for 2015 in less than a week

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Re: US burns through all high-skill visas for 2015 in less than a week

#111

Post by foolinaround »

tokenadult wrote: post #26

What is that makes the United States such an attractive place to immigrate to for people whose skill sets could take them almost anywhere in the world? (In other words, why is that successive sessions of Congress can basically count on lots of people desiring to live in the United States, thus setting up an environment in which immigration regulation is restrictive rather than open?) (I'm genuinely curious about this…

the US is reputed to have the best engineering colleges, that attract the best talent.

Re: US burns through all high-skill visas for 2015 in less than a week

#112

Post by stephencanon »

crazypyro wrote: post #53
JOnAgain wrote: post #31

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Or just rank em by salary/comp. More skilled people => more valuable to the economy => receive higher salary => more likely to get visa (=> pay more in taxes).

Wouldn't this create the obvious problem of companies artificially increasing comp.? How do you judge that? Seems like its asking for trouble. They already do this a little bit with advanced degrees.

Yes, they would increase the compensation until they were paying the same rate they would need to to hire a citizen (which should already be the case, in theory).

Re: US burns through all high-skill visas for 2015 in less than a week

#113

Post by purringmeow »

mkohlmyr wrote: post #103
tokenadult wrote: post #26

What is that makes the United States such an attractive place to immigrate to for people whose skill sets could take them almost anywhere in the world? (In other words, why is that successive sessions of Congress can basically count on lots of people desiring to live in the United States, thus setting up an environment in which immigration regulation is restrictive rather than open?) (I'm genuinely curious about this…

(Personal opinion) It isn't the United States that's attractive. It's the tech-hubs within it. I would never seriously consider moving anywhere but a handful of cities / areas in the US. The eco-systems in those places are still years ahead of London or Berlin. I moved from Sweden to the United Kingdom to attend university for similar reasons. The university culture is different (much better) here, and there is more…

I am an Eastern European living in Central Europe.

I moved because University and because of the better living/work conditions.

However, if I had the chance I would probably move to the US. Maybe CA, but I am still on the fence. The things stopping me are the super expensive health care, work-life balance and higher crime rates.

Re: US burns through all high-skill visas for 2015 in less than a week

#114

Post by Balgair »

gnufied wrote: post #57
nairteashop wrote: post #12

Does anyone know why the number of visas isn't capped on a per-company basis? Last year, apparently 40,000 of the 85,000 available visas went to outsourcing companies, and one outsourcing company, Cognizant, got 9,000 visas! http://www.npr.org/blogs/alltechconsidered/2013/04/03/176134... At my last job, we tried to get an H1 for just one person, and failed in the lottery! I feel there would be much less abuse of the…

As a Indian, I would love if Visa to outsourcing firms are restricted. Take Cognizant for example, they can't compete for salary with most startups in Bangalore or Pune (and work is not great as well) and yet people want to join them, just for onsite allure. On other hand, I would love to have a easier way to start a business in US and a Visa program that helps US economy. DISCLAIMER: I run a services startup in Bang…

Hey, thanks for the 'disclaimer' there. That you are honest and thought that your opinions may be unduly influenced and that we should know it shows real maturity and a concern for others. Really, I do appreciate it. Keep up the good work. You are one of the people that makes HN great. Thank you.

Re: US burns through all high-skill visas for 2015 in less than a week

#115

Post by ebiester »

lolwutf wrote: post #73
ebiester wrote: post #48

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There are only a few really good places to live for an educated worker. Japan, Australia, Western and Northern Europe, Canada, and the US. I will operationalize "good" as "an intelligent worker can make an exceptional living relative to their country of origin." Each of these places only take a limited amount of immigrants each year. Some are more difficult based on the national language -- learning Danish isn't more…

With the advent of remote work upon us, I find it hard that you'd be limited to those countries. In fact, literally the ENTIRE WORLD is your oyster, assuming you can reliably, regularly find power, wifi, and a team that'll work with you on your timezone's timeframe.

It's not that easy to emigrate from developing world to slightly more advanced developing world in many cases. Sometimes, it's easier to go straight to the top 20.

Re: US burns through all high-skill visas for 2015 in less than a week

#116

Post by refurb »

pacaro wrote: post #85
hnnewguy wrote: post #62

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> What evidence do you have that the US is an attractive place at all You don't have to look very hard to see that the US is still very attractive for migration: about 1 million people, legal, permanent, per year for almost 3 decades[1] (and 1.5MM "temporary"). For comparison, Germany had about 800k in 2011, France 150k, UK 500k. [1] http://www.dhs.gov/sites/default/files/publications/immigrat...

This document is hugely important to understand. Thank you for posting. I always found Table 6 to be the most interesting, particularly in debates about immigration — I have a green card as a 9 year long EB3 process (Employment Based, 3rd class - the CIS doesn't value Philosophy degrees as highly as engineering degrees!) To take the last year for which data are published, 2011 A partial breakdown of new Permanent Res…

That's a great point to mention. US immigration policy is heavily biased towards family reunification. If you become a US citizen, you can sponsor your parents and children (if they are under 18) immediately, there is no quota.

Re: US burns through all high-skill visas for 2015 in less than a week

#117

Post by voteapathy »

tokenadult wrote: post #26

What is that makes the United States such an attractive place to immigrate to for people whose skill sets could take them almost anywhere in the world? (In other words, why is that successive sessions of Congress can basically count on lots of people desiring to live in the United States, thus setting up an environment in which immigration regulation is restrictive rather than open?) (I'm genuinely curious about this…

Well, the simplest answer is that incomes are way higher for certain positions, even for significantly less skilled work. I mean, engineers are a dime-a-dozen in China, but the pay is lower and STEM work is not nearly as glamorized as it is in the US right now. Doctors too. All the praise goes to business and financial managers.

Of course, if you're an international trailblazing software-engineering guru, yeah, you'll get fantastic opportunities pretty much anywhere. However, even fairly low-level IT work in the US can feed a new family (depending on your geography, of course), which is not the case everywhere in the world. And with recruiters banging down peoples' doors throwing jobs in peoples' faces, it's no wonder foreigners want to stay in the US.

Re: US burns through all high-skill visas for 2015 in less than a week

#118

Post by tarikjn »

nostromo wrote: post #81
JOnAgain wrote: post #31

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Or just rank em by salary/comp. More skilled people => more valuable to the economy => receive higher salary => more likely to get visa (=> pay more in taxes).

I think they should be auctioned off. (Either the company or the individual could pay the final auction price.) The end result is the same: the most valuable workers are let in. It'd also have a small, but nice benefit: a voluntary revenue stream for the US to spend on whatever it would like (perhaps improved education and training for citizens).

This is one of the things I proposed in a comprehensive high-skilled visa reform proposal: https://drive.google.com/file/d/0B_yEsHOtzN3yZ3JoYXlTdDh0R0k...

Never really got around finishing it and pushing it out tough, although I am curious to see what the feedback is on it.

Re: US burns through all high-skill visas for 2015 in less than a week

#119

Post by stephencanon »

blub5 wrote: post #36

"In 2013, 124,000 people applied for the combined 85,000 slots in the first five-day period." Considering that Americans seem to have little difficulty affording computers and software, yet continue to bankrupted by health care costs, wouldn't it make a lot more sense to give those 85k visas to cheap doctors from overseas to drive down medical costs, instead of giving them to cheap foreign programmers to drive down t…

That might make sense, if it wasn't for the fact that those "cheap doctors from overseas" can't practice medicine without a license, which requires that they complete an american residency program regardless of their existing qualifications. No matter how many immigrants you bring in, the number of residency slots is fixed (and is already smaller than the pool of qualified M.D.s). Residency exists in part to limit the supply of physicians and ensure that wages remain high. It's a nice little (100% legal) wage-fixing cabal.

Re: US burns through all high-skill visas for 2015 in less than a week

#120

Post by lotyrin »

throwaway7808 wrote: post #100
ericd wrote: post #78

Earlier quoted context omitted.

From an economic competitiveness aspect, as a country, we should be trying to get as many IIT graduates to be American citizens as we can.

And from an economic competitiveness aspect, as a world?

Who do we, as a world, compete with?
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