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Vancouver tech surges as U.S. immigration reform idles

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Re: Vancouver tech surges as U.S. immigration reform idles

#221

Post by refurb »

Dewie wrote: post #180
refurb wrote: post #134

Earlier quoted context omitted.

A recent gallup survey says 150M people would move to the US if they could, the UK was a distant second at 45M [1]. As for the lottery, how else could it be done? There is a cap on H1-B visa each year. The USCIS receives more applications than spots the first day you can apply . [1] http://www.gallup.com/poll/153992/150-million-adults-worldwi...

> A recent gallup survey says 150M people would move to the US if they could, the UK was a distant second at 45M Now adjust those numbers to the population of those countries... oh look, the UK all of a sudden came out ahead. All of these studies comparing numbers usually just boils down to "The US is big". It has been brought up elsewhere that Canada, for example, has more immigrants as a percentage of population. B…

If the reason is the US is big, why would you look at it on a per-capita basis? Maybe adjust for land size? Then the UK would really come out ahead!

Re: Vancouver tech surges as U.S. immigration reform idles

#222

Post by davidw »

wyclif wrote: post #171
davidw wrote: post #161

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Not job related, but family related: if you're married, here in Italy, you can stay, end of story. Effective immediately. In the US, the process is something like 6 months, although apparently there was/is a backlog, and they were taking something like a year to process applications for spouses . It gives you an idea of how screwed up the system is.

It doesn't take a year for spouses through USCIS. More like a few months.

This NYTimes article says that, in some cases, it does:

http://www.nytimes.com/2014/02/09/us/program-benefiting-some...

They don't seem like edge cases, either, they just hit a slow spot in their processing.

Re: Vancouver tech surges as U.S. immigration reform idles

#223

Post by pyre »

paul wrote: post #89
pyre wrote: post #71

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Well, in some cases it's that the people coming from overseas are willing to get paid less for the same job. The 'evil capitalist' sees this as a way to get cheaper labor. I think that this can be alleviated without being anti-immigrant though. For example, make it easier for H1Bs to move between jobs and/or start their own businesses so that they don't have to feel so tied to the employer that they don't want to ris…

Again, it's a zero-sum thinking error to assume that there's some fixed number of jobs and therefore more people equals lower pay. I would have made substantially less at Google if it weren't for all of the foreigners making the company a success :) I agree that H1B transfer restrictions are bad though. If people are good enough to let into the country, then they should be free to switch jobs just like anyone else.

> Again, it's a zero-sum thinking error to assume that there's some fixed number of jobs and therefore more people equals lower pay.

I'm not stating the "more people" == "less pay". I'm stating that foreign workers are willing get paid less money, regardless of what the job pool is. They have fewer options available to them, so they accept "worse" pay for what maybe essentially the same job.

Also, the amount of jobs that are available at any point in time is fixed. Jobs are created when a company has a need to fill. Jobs aren't created just because there is an excess supply of unemployed people. They don't spring into existence out of nowhere.

Do companies create more positions just to accommodate the influx of foreign workers? Or do the amount of jobs stay the same regardless?

Re: Vancouver tech surges as U.S. immigration reform idles

#224

Post by mediocrejoker »

Xylakant wrote: post #203
bdamm wrote: post #166

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's not so bad if you spend some of that time raising children :)

What if the spouse does not want to raise children but rather would prefer to work. What if the partners would prefer to both raise the children and both work less? "Just go raise some children" just promotes the gender inequality that people have been trying to fix for ages.

Are you assuming BrainInAJar is a man and the mentioned spouse is his wife, and not vice versa?

Re: Vancouver tech surges as U.S. immigration reform idles

#225

Post by rgbrenner »

mhurron wrote: post #215
Dewie wrote: post #180

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> A recent gallup survey says 150M people would move to the US if they could, the UK was a distant second at 45M Now adjust those numbers to the population of those countries... oh look, the UK all of a sudden came out ahead. All of these studies comparing numbers usually just boils down to "The US is big". It has been brought up elsewhere that Canada, for example, has more immigrants as a percentage of population. B…

Why does a per-capita number make any sense here?

Because a large country is able to absorb more immigrants than a small country. 150M is 2x the population of the UK, but less than 50% of the US. So it would make sense that the US would have a higher quota than the UK.

Re: Vancouver tech surges as U.S. immigration reform idles

#226

Post by vidarh »

mhurron wrote: post #215
Dewie wrote: post #180

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> A recent gallup survey says 150M people would move to the US if they could, the UK was a distant second at 45M Now adjust those numbers to the population of those countries... oh look, the UK all of a sudden came out ahead. All of these studies comparing numbers usually just boils down to "The US is big". It has been brought up elsewhere that Canada, for example, has more immigrants as a percentage of population. B…

Why does a per-capita number make any sense here?

Because it is a better proxy for how it will affect society in terms of ability to absorb more people, ranging from tax payer base to things like cost of infrastructure projects to handle the population growth.

Re: Vancouver tech surges as U.S. immigration reform idles

#227

Post by talmand »

afafsd wrote: post #183
0xab wrote: post #168

Earlier quoted context omitted.

In terms of immigrants as a percentage of population the US is nothing special. Canada has a lot more (closer to 19% instead of 14%). Many European countries have statistics similar to that of the US (Sweden has a bit more, the UK a bit less, etc). But I digress. The problem with the existing system is that it is insane and a waste of resources. One has to get a lawyer and wait for a long time with no certainty in th…

It's interesting, actually. In some ways the US is actually the small-government low-regulation country that it likes to pretend to be, but in other areas it's just a labyrinth of aggresive mollases-paced bureaucracy. Examples: Example: the DMV. In both Australia and the US the procedure for getting my licence renewed is the same. I go into an office, I fill out a form, they take a picture, and I get a licence. The d…

To be fair, that's a US state problem and not a US problem.

I have had driver licenses from multiple US states. My experiences on the matter vary in extreme measures from one state to the next. This is mostly based on local laws, resources, and demand.

One time, it took hours but I had license in hand before leaving the building. In another case it took around twenty minutes and I had license in hand before leaving the building. Things are different in different places.

Then again, I've never had a license from California so that's a pain I haven't endured.

Re: Vancouver tech surges as U.S. immigration reform idles

#228

Post by bitL »

inoop wrote: post #66

Earlier this year I interviewed for a research/engineering position at Apple. I was offered the job, took it, and went into the H1B lottery. It took the USCIS four months to let me know that my application was not selected, even though it was filed under 'premium processing', and the draw had been done using a computer in the first week after submissions closed. Since the job required me to be in Cupertino, the deal…

Get O visa, as a PhD holder you should be fine. E visa is also a possibility, though it costs at least $100k to get in.

Re: Vancouver tech surges as U.S. immigration reform idles

#229

Post by djb_hackernews »

projectmayhem wrote: post #178
inoop wrote: post #66

Earlier this year I interviewed for a research/engineering position at Apple. I was offered the job, took it, and went into the H1B lottery. It took the USCIS four months to let me know that my application was not selected, even though it was filed under 'premium processing', and the draw had been done using a computer in the first week after submissions closed. Since the job required me to be in Cupertino, the deal…

I have a friend in a similar situation (eerily similar). Apple moved him to Vancouver to reside until they can get a visa for the US, but in the meantime more & more employees are being 'stationed' in Canada, which opens up the opportunity to simply setup a facility there instead of hustling the US system. Canada has been a regular "holding pattern" location for Europeans trying to get to the US. It's about time Cana…

Is that really ideal for someone who is at the top of their craft to be put into purgatory in Canada when they really want to immigrate to the US and settle down?

If it were me I'd rather be king of the hill in my home country over putting my life on hold like that.

Re: Vancouver tech surges as U.S. immigration reform idles

#230

Post by exstudent »

dropit_sphere wrote: post #164
exstudent wrote: post #87

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What harm were those people actually causing you?

While it would of course lower afasd's blood pressure to relax and let it go, his question needs to be considered. Anyone telling law-abiding would-be American immigrants to wait their turn comes off as either oblivious or downright malicious if they tacitly condone, um, "extralegal" immigration. As an American, frankly, it's embarrassing.

I agree that would be hypocritical. I didn't tell him to wait his turn though, I told him I support open borders.

If he wanted to come into this country illegally, I personally would have no problem with it. Maybe then though, he'd see that those people don't have it easy since they obviously won't be getting high-end engineering jobs like that and will realize they are no threat to anyone whatsoever.

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