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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

#251

Post by yxhuvud »

jtzhou wrote: post #157
exstudent wrote: post #63

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Why don't you want open borders? You haven't said why it's bad.

Immigration is very important for all countries, but assimilation takes time. (If you believe in the country enough to want to immigrate there, then the existing culture must have some value.) Ask Syria, Iraq or South Sudan, how they are enjoying their open borders. Meanwhile, Iceland, Japan and other countries are doing fine. Arguably, they could be richer if they allowed in more immigrants, but I'll take the rule o…

Uh, Japan is definitely not doing fine. They have massive demographic problems that would be helped a lot by a more liberal immigration policy.

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

#252

Post by yxhuvud »

blutoot wrote: post #214
sjy wrote: post #200

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That is not true for all nations. Australians can apply for an E-3 visa, which is essentially an indefinitely-renewable H-1B with fewer restrictions and no lottery.

Yeah well most of us aren't fortunate to be born in a wealthy nation like Australia.

I'd be pretty surprised if most people on HN was not living in a country that was as rich as Australia or richer.

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

#253

Post by shiven »

djb_hackernews wrote: post #229
projectmayhem wrote: post #178

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

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

King of the hillock you mean?

Seriously, why do so many people go through the utter shit that is the US system, rather than go/stay back home?

There is only one Apple, and it is in California. So say all their products. Comparing it to any other company in the world is like, well, comparing apples to oranges! You may have made your peace with eating oranges, not everyone is willing/can/ready to give up that easily.

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

#254

Post by VLM »

induscreep wrote: post #250
VLM wrote: post #213

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"$100K+" I'm sure that was proposed as ridiculous, but you have to keep in mind that there's only a programming labor shortage in two, maybe three cities on the coasts. For a national program like this lottery, every non-citizen the .gov lets thru will result in many social program costs not only for the one citizen who won't be employed and at a higher pay rate, plus all the downstream effects of lower salaries and…

> every non-citizen the .gov lets thru will result in many social program costs not only for the one citizen who won't be employed I don't think F1/H1B visa holders are entitled to ANY social programs. They HAVE to pay medicare/social security, but they cannot avail any of the benefits.

I'm referring to the local STEM workers who operate at a class based disadvantage.

Its fundamentally a zero sum game, actually its a declining sum game for anyone middle class or below. So a guy from Canada or India or whatever gets a job, that means the local who would have gotten it is unemployed, mom and kids on welfare, etc.

Also there's a local utility who advertises for a $60K CCIE as part of their H1B program and aside from the $100K+ local who now has to work at walmart or pull cable or something, there are secondary effects on the local marketplace such that the $60K H1B can't participate in the local economy from retail to home construction quite like the now unemployed formerly $100K local. So that's $40K/yr not going to walmart / real estate developers / whatever. True, every penny of that $40K goes to the execs bonuses, but they might not live in that area (or even in that country) and there is a declining economic effect as fewer people have money (A poor dude with his first $100 bill contributes toward more economic activity (velocity of money, etc) than a rich dude with his millionth $100 bill)

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

#255

Post by Tyr42 »

exstudent wrote: post #87
afafsd wrote: post #83

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>We should be giving more visas - not less or the same amount reclassified. True, but you should also be doing more to exclude the people who don't have visas, which is the main reason the US immigration system is currently broken. I lived in the US for a few years, did everything legally, queued up at embassies, paid endless fees, and saw that everywhere I went I was surrounded by people who had entered the country…

What harm were those people actually causing you?

It's also comparable to GPL compliance too. The companies that do open source their code and comply are leaning on the FSF to make sure their competitors are also held to the same standard. If the FSF let them off, then why should anyone spend any effort complying?

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

#256

Post by dragonwriter »

watwut wrote: post #243
lsc wrote: post #205

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>Of course, in many countries the ability to get an advanced degree is not very dependent on being wealthy I... find your assertion to be unlikely. Of course, I could be wrong. Do you have statistics? Is there a country where there is not a very strong correlation between high parental income and advanced degrees?

The correlation in Europe tend to be between parental education level and child education level. The correlation between parental income and education level of the child is weaker. Being educated does not imply being wealthy.

This is true in the United States (there is a very strong correlation between wealth and education level, but the correlation between parent's education level and child's education level is stronger than the correlation between parent's wealth and child's education level; IIRC, there still some evidence that the wealth plays some role independent of parent's education level in determining child's education level, but its a smaller role.)

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

#257

Post by peeters »

gdilla wrote: post #241

I am a Canadian-American, and I wish Canada actually did more to exploit US immigration dysfunction. Unfortunately, I think the weather gives Canada a bad rap. I'm not even joking, Canada needs a tropical island. That's really the last step to really compete with sunny California.

> I'm not even joking, Canada needs a tropical island.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Proposed_provinces_and_territor...

Lobby your MP! :)

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

#258

Post by inoop »

induscreep wrote: post #248
inoop wrote: post #235

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I tried for O, but was told my resume was not strong enough, even with a PhD from a good European university, and several a-rank publications.

Have you tried for an EB1-A green card? Contact one of these online lawyers (wegreened/hooyou), and they will evaluate your CV for free. I personally know a few (non-US) people who avoided the H1B problem this way.

Thanks for the advice, I'll look into it.

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

#259

Post by rayiner »

hkmurakami wrote: post #162
WildUtah wrote: post #136

Earlier quoted context omitted.

An auction is the obvious solution. Submit bids with your application for the fee to be paid yearly to the USA and the highest bidders get the H1-B visas. There's no need to raise the cap and all the Apples and Googles get all the applicants they want. Today the majority of H1-B visas go to Wipro and Infosys and the like for low paid tech grunts; Apple won't have any trouble outbidding them. And those tech grunt comp…

With an auction system like that, basically every small business will be out of the picture then.

Not necessarily. A small company that generates say $1 million per engineer would be in a better position to outbid an Infosys type shop that might be bigger, but generate a lot less revenue per engineer. And indeed, that's the beauty of the auction: it would ensure that the people getting visas are the ones whose positions will generate the most net value to the economy.

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

#260

Post by fredgrott »

my solution to the H1 Lottery mess

Charge for the H1 but have no quotas

Let market demand and ability to pay tell how many H1s come in

But, with a twist..home country has to have a similar program for US workers wanting to work that country so that the economies of both countries have a chance to rise due to flexibility of worker immigration

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