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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

#111

Post by [deleted] »

disbelief wrote: post #104
refurb wrote: post #101

Earlier quoted context omitted.

One reason why non-American countries have "easier" immigration systems is often demand related. Your example "H1-B lottery" is precisely demand related.

Trust me, EU countries have their own immigration demand problems. Especially a place like Germany which has one of the few functioning economies in the block lately. People flock there looking for work. Other countries with huge immigration demand include England and Spain. There are simply better ways of dealing with high immigration demand than "dump everyone into a pot regardless of education/experience/viability…

[deleted]

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

#112

Post by afafsd »

exstudent wrote: post #88
afafsd wrote: post #86

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Whom should you select to let into your country? The same people you select as employees, only more so. We use "skilled migration" as a proxy for what we really want, which is people with good genes . If you have skills and good genes then you'll enrich the country not only in this generation but in all future generations to come. So an ideal immigration policy would involve some combination of testing for intelligen…

Good genes?! This is the most racist thing I've read on HN. I see why you have a throwaway account.

Uhhhhh, nobody mentioned race until you did.

If you think "good genes" is correlated with race, then I'd suggest that you are the one who is racist.

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

#113

Post by drpgq »

turar wrote: post #19

This is a repeat of the same story that happened the last time H-1B limit didn't meet the demand for visas. US tech companies, most notably Microsoft, opened "offices" in Vancouver. What happens next is that those employees will work for 1 year in Canada, and then will become eligible for L-1 intra-company transfer back to the US, side-stepping the H-1B quagmire.

As a Canadian, I sometimes wonder how much it really benefits the country.

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

#114

Post by _delirium »

blutoot wrote: post #51
bruceb wrote: post #49

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Pretty much every country has limits on immigration. It is hardly unique to the US. There are different cultures and traditions in the world. It takes for people to adjust to a new country and the country to adjust to them.

Actually white Americans don't seem to mind immigration from fellow white-majority countries, especially if it's from the developed ones. But that's an understandable phenomenon.

They don't now only because there isn't a lot of it, so it's not a political issue. How many recent German or French immigrants are there in the US? Not enough for anyone to notice. Back when there was large-scale immigration from Europe though, a lot of people minded, and formed parties specifically to agitate against the Irish/Poles/etc.

You see that now in Europe. UKIP isn't complaining only about muslim immigrants (though they complain about them loudest), but also about continental-European immigrants, especially eastern Europeans. I suspect something similar would happen in the U.S. if there were a large influx of European immigrants.

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

#115

Post by api_or_ipa »

As a young programmer within the Vancouver dev community, I can say that everyone from the UBC CS program to the local meetup scene to the local incubators, including GrowLab/LaunchAcademy, Invoke and Wavefront have done an exceedingly great job and preparing for this increase in business in Vancouver.

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

#116

Post by Mandatum »

refurb wrote: post #101
disbelief wrote: post #96

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Countries in the EU (and elsewhere) have more sane immigration systems. As a Canadian having immigrated to both Germany and the US, I can say that the US system is at least two orders of magnitude more difficult, costly, needlessly complicated, and in the end a lot of it comes down to luck (most of it bad). Germany has no lottery system, and renewal is very straightforward. I applied for my visa while in Germany as a…

One reason why non-American countries have "easier" immigration systems is often demand related. Your example "H1-B lottery" is precisely demand related.

To say non-American countries have easier immigration systems on the basis that it is demand related is in my opinion, absurd. Australia, New Zealand, UK, Canada and many European countries have massive demand.

However you'll find most of these countries have opted to sell residency, albeit through business and job investments. Generally skilled workers have to be sought for locally before they get someone over.

Using a "lottery" system just sounds crazy. It's still possible to buy citizenship, yet everyone else has to sit on the side-lines and take a number. Sounds like a weird plan created on a whim..

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

#117

Post by x0x0 »

paul wrote: post #67
x0x0 wrote: post #33

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If you are referring to recent proposed visa changes, you appear to be defining dysfunctional as not passing visa programs very beneficial to a tiny group of people: incubators like YC, and owners / large investors in tech dependent startups. As not a member of those groups, that's quite a stretch.

Given that I also mentioned state and local government, it should be clear that I'm referring to more than just immigration issues. I get your point though. I'm an evil capitalist who doesn't want to fund Americans because they are unwilling to give up 7% equity, or something like that. Maybe you think that Sergey Brin and Paul Graham stole their jobs from some hard working, native born Americans. That's the problem…

My point is you're asking for visa changes to directly benefit, well, you. With most likely only tenuous benefits for others.

And frankly, I do believe that Google -- and yes, YC too, viewing YC as somewhat of an umbrella organization of the companies it has incubated -- bear a certain responsibility to Americans that importing foreign workers has helped you sidestep. There's plenty of engineers here who can't / don't want to make large life sacrifices to live in the bay area. Where is your (or Google, or YCs) leadership on things like: community problems in the bay area (housing, transportation), education, engineering pipelines, etc. Google and YC's diversity numbers are pathetic [1], and that lack of diversity represents lots of potential employees that are already here.

Given the way you defend your proposed changes is to claim opposing them means you think foreigners are stealing jobs or some such stupidity, I think it clarifies our positions.

[1] http://www.google.com/diversity/at-google.htm

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

#118

Post by [deleted] »

turar wrote: post #19

This is a repeat of the same story that happened the last time H-1B limit didn't meet the demand for visas. US tech companies, most notably Microsoft, opened "offices" in Vancouver. What happens next is that those employees will work for 1 year in Canada, and then will become eligible for L-1 intra-company transfer back to the US, side-stepping the H-1B quagmire.

[deleted]

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

#119

Post by jsolson »

cesarbs wrote: post #53
jsolson wrote: post #11

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It actually is a constant drizzle, though only in the winter. Rarely do we get proper rain. It's one of the few things I miss from Atlanta's weather. Frankly, Seattle's climate really is very nice compared to much of the United States (say, the entire East Coast and the Midwest). It is not as nice as chunks of the California coast, but I'll take my lower cost of living over the Bay and my 15 minute commute over the t…

I've been living in Seattle for 1.5 years and I have a hard time with this "we rarely get proper rain" everyone says. I've seen proper rain countless times. Sometimes it really pours. I thought I'd be able to walk around in the drizzle and not get very wet, but my experience is that it's not really drizzle and I get soaked after a number of minutes outside.

In Atlanta many afternoons in the summer include a 3pm thunderstorm. Downed trees, washed out roads (I'm looking at you, Ponce de Leon where you branch off to Decatur), and plenty of thunder and lightning. You'll be positively drenched if you're outside in it at all. Seattle rarely if ever sees rain like that.

A drizzle does mean there is actively water coming out of the sky. You will get wet, but a single layer rain jacket with a hood is sufficient to mitigate that. I suppose YMMV.

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

#120

Post by shane999 »

Vancouver guy here. I work for a media company as a part of a ~60 member software team. The fact is that probably less than ten people in the team are actually from Vancouver. Several of them are people who lived in the US on H1B visas that they couldn't get renewed. They come here "temporarily" but then like the lifestyle and stay.

I totally agree that the messed up US immigration system has benefited us here. I have experience with both immigration systems and the process in Canada was much easier than the US.

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