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A loophole in immigration law is costing thousands of American jobs

latimes.com

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Re: A loophole in immigration law is costing thousands of American jobs

#41

Post by freehunter »

murbard2 wrote: post #35
A_COMPUTER wrote: post #22

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Because I am legally and morally compelled to pay taxes to my country, and in exchange my country is legally and morally compelled to look out for my interests and well-being--not to find the fastest and most economical means to replace me. It's called the social contract, that is my moral calculus.

Valentino Mancini has been coming to your grocery store and he's offered to protect you against fire hazards. He made such a compelling offer you couldn't refuse it, and you've been paying him off for years. Valentino protects you, he's been looking out for you. Like when they tried to build a K-Mart in the neighborhood, and the developer had an unfortunate accident. But here's the thing, Valentino's consigliere has…

Oh right, because the government is like the Mafia. Yeah that whole anarchy thing totally works.

Re: A loophole in immigration law is costing thousands of American jobs

#42

Post by smrtinsert »

curiousDog wrote: post #3

As an Indian, I really really hope they ban Tata and Infosys (or any other Indian outsourcing company) from getting H1-B visas. The people they bring over are the bottom of the barrel in India and have no interest in Computer Science whatsoever. They suck at their jobs. They can't write a single paragraph in English without grammatical errors. Furthermore, incidents like these will perpetuate xenophobia against the g…

You get what you pay for. We have great outsourcers but they are well compensated and work for boutique firms. The run of the mill outsources are terrible as you've stated.

Re: A loophole in immigration law is costing thousands of American jobs

#43

Post by freehunter »

jes wrote: post #13

I stumble a bit over the concept of American jobs. The jobs belong to the people who are offering them, don't they?

American jobs = jobs in America. Jobs that can be offered to anyone approved by the American government to live and work in the country.

Theoretically you could hire anyone. You just couldn't expect them to show up to the office unless the government lets them into the country. If the company doesn't like this, they can let the person work in their own country instead of coming to America, but then that's not an American job anymore.

Does that clear things up?

Re: A loophole in immigration law is costing thousands of American jobs

#44

Post by murbard2 »

freehunter wrote: post #41
murbard2 wrote: post #35

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Valentino Mancini has been coming to your grocery store and he's offered to protect you against fire hazards. He made such a compelling offer you couldn't refuse it, and you've been paying him off for years. Valentino protects you, he's been looking out for you. Like when they tried to build a K-Mart in the neighborhood, and the developer had an unfortunate accident. But here's the thing, Valentino's consigliere has…

Oh right, because the government is like the Mafia. Yeah that whole anarchy thing totally works.

The government is different from the Mafia in many ways, and similar in other ways. Analogies are helpful as a source of moral intuition.

What matters in this example is that two wrongs don't make a right.

If it's morally wrong to prevent immigrants from finding jobs in the US, then the fact that the parent has paid taxes is irrelevant. Using it to justify preventing immigrants from getting jobs in the country is begging the question.

Re: A loophole in immigration law is costing thousands of American jobs

#45

Post by evanpw »

jqm wrote: post #40
hackerboos wrote: post #18

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"By American standards, keeping someone from leaving India seems pretty equivalent to condemning them to life-long poverty." That's a bit of a leap. "Can you imagine someone making (with a straight face) the argument that people from Detroit shouldn't be allowed to move to San Francisco to take a better job, because they'll steal jobs from and drive down the wages of SF natives? What's the difference?" Probably the f…

It's more than a leap because it implicitly states that the only way a citizen of India can avoid poverty is to come to the US, and I'm pretty sure there are no shortage of wealthy Indians who became so without immigrating.

Absolutely. I don't mean that it's true on a case-by-case basis, only on average. If you force a large number of Indians who want to move to the US to stay in India, then you will keep a large-but-not-quite-as-large number of people in (relative) poverty.

Re: A loophole in immigration law is costing thousands of American jobs

#46

Post by sologoub »

kjksf wrote: post #12

Something doesn't add up in this article. According to the article, 50-60 year olds IT specialist who "install, maintain and manage Edison's computer hardware and software" are making $80-$160k / year ($120k on average). Those salaries seem to be 2-3x market rate for such work. Even the salaries paid to the new, outsorced people ($65-$70 average (sic)) are on the high side for someone who installs software. The artic…

The software they work is probably a lot more complex and customized to Edison. The article notes that some systems are involved in emergency response, which would make the system a lot harder to maintain due to the more stringent requirements.

To put it differently, think of a system that routes phone calls. Twilio and Plivo are great examples of such systems and are very reasonably priced. BUT you cannot route 911 calls through them[1] because they do not offer E911 support out of the box. Doing so would expose them to liability should their systems fail. Your home landline is required to have this and you pay quite a bit more. (Though if you ask me, WAY too much for what it really is.)

Bottom line, critical/emergency systems cost more to run and maintain, with people bearing the responsibility costing more.

[1]https://www.twilio.com/help/faq/voice/what-kind-of-phone-cal...

Re: A loophole in immigration law is costing thousands of American jobs

#47

Post by geekam »

curiousDog wrote: post #3

As an Indian, I really really hope they ban Tata and Infosys (or any other Indian outsourcing company) from getting H1-B visas. The people they bring over are the bottom of the barrel in India and have no interest in Computer Science whatsoever. They suck at their jobs. They can't write a single paragraph in English without grammatical errors. Furthermore, incidents like these will perpetuate xenophobia against the g…

Companies like TCS and Infosys bring cheap labor mostly on L1 and not on H1. Most of the H1's I know are US graduates and majority are MS/PhD in CS. It is the L1 visa that allows a company to bring in cheap labor because the limitation on minimum salary by the DoL is not as stringent as H1. For H1 visa, a company has to file for labor certification with DoL and they decide what the minimum prevailing wage for a particular zip code, the skillset and the experience is. [1]

Having said above I agree that the H1 visa IS being abused but the main issue is L1, not H1. there was about 20% abuse a few years ago and there was a huge crackdown by the USCIS and DoL on those doing that.

[1] http://www.immihelp.com/l1-visa/l1-visa-h1b-visa-comparison.... See the "Prevailing wage", "DoL approval", "Education requirement"

Re: A loophole in immigration law is costing thousands of American jobs

#48

Post by sologoub »

While the article isn't the best written piece I have ready, it as enough facts for me to be outraged as the customer. The rates Edison charges aren't exactly super high to begin with, so me as a consumer saving a few cents here and there isn't going to move the needle.

I would much rather see a company that enjoys monopolistic protection from the government be barred from pulling such stunts. Edison can be viewed as a quasi government entity and absolutely benefits from their monopolistic position. In return, their duty should be to watch out for the greater good of the community that funds it, including employment for individuals from those communities.

If they were subjected to true open market competition, my opinion of this would be vastly different... but they are not.

Re: A loophole in immigration law is costing thousands of American jobs

#49

Post by abort »

It is unfortunate whenever I see that anger being directed at the indian worker who is just trying to make a living by working his ass off at a fraction of the pay on contract. The Congress isn't closing loop holes, the companies exploiting this are companies where most of the top management are americans and finally the indian outsourcing companies giving kickbacks to get the big contracts and paying only a tiny fraction of that.

Re: A loophole in immigration law is costing thousands of American jobs

#50

Post by evanpw »

kbenson wrote: post #34
evanpw wrote: post #15

Let's say for the sake of argument that every Indian immigrant displaces one American from their job. Under what moral calculus is that a bad trade? The per-capita income in India is almost exactly 10 times less than in the US. By American standards, keeping someone from leaving India seems pretty equivalent to condemning them to life-long poverty. Can you imagine someone making (with a straight face) the argument th…

Because I believe morally the correct thing to do is not the thing that reduces poverty quickest in the short term, but reduces it the most in the long term. I do not believe economics is a zero-sum game, which would imply that the moral thing to do is to reduce our own fortunes to increase that of others less fortunate. I think that some countries, being extremely successful, can both help guide other countries into…

> Because I believe morally the correct thing to do is not the thing that reduces poverty quickest in the short term, but reduces it the most in the long term.

I completely agree with this. It's my take on the evidence that immigrants tend to have little effect on wages of native workers on average (except possibly at the bottom of the education distribution), and huge benefits for the immigrants themselves. (As you say, economics is not zero-sum). You just hear more from the small concentrated group of people who are displaced than you do from the large diffuse group who have new customers.

In the other direction, if "brain drain" from poor countries to rich countries was keeping the former poor, then restrictions might be justified to keep skilled workers from leaving. But no one seems to really believe this: restrictions are almost always on immigration, not on emigration.

> Altering major aspects of that system should not be taken lightly

Absolutely. I don't advocate totally open borders tomorrow, but it seems to me that they could be much more open than they currently are without any drastic consequences.

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