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My journey through the American immigration system as a computer engineer

software.rajivprab.com

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Re: My journey through the American immigration system as a computer engineer

#151
post #52
post #26

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Let me flip your question too: why do you think it matters?

Because all else being equal, that skew shouldn't exist. There is nothing inherent to Indian people (or any other people) making them better at these jobs, so there is value to understanding why their numbers are so high. And by value, I mean value to US citizens. It could show us how we can improve within the country, or it could expose fraud in the system. Or a mix of both.

> There is nothing inherent to Indian people (or any other people) making them better at these jobs, so there is value to understanding why their numbers are so high.

Their numbers are so high simply because they represent almost a fifth of humanity - there are almost as many Indians as there are people in Europe, South & Central America put together.

Re: My journey through the American immigration system as a computer engineer

#152
post #120

Sigh, I tried to follow what US Government was doing about this and eventually gave up but here is a short history: S.386 was introduced in the Senate by Mike Lee in 2019 [1] There was a unanimous consent on it in 2021 [2] but the bill expired (?) because Dick Durbin, senator from IL wont table it (I dont clearly understand the process in the Senate but some people who follow this had expressed anger at Durbin for no…

The history of this bill goes back further. It passed the House in 2011 as HR 3012 [1].

Note that we are told that Trump is racist and his opponents are not, but a lot of lawmakers with an axe to grind against Indians with 150-year immigration wait times [2] are prominent democrats.

[1] https://www.congress.gov/bill/112th-congress/house-bill/3012

[2] https://www.cato.org/blog/150-year-wait-indian-immigrants-ad...

Re: My journey through the American immigration system as a computer engineer

#153

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yea, but the USofA is supposed to be the land of the Free, all kinds of free, not just "you were not born here"-type free. The whole "give me your sick, your poor..." etc vibe. It's a little ironic at the very least that it's so hard to get into the United States, given its history.

I think the times of unclaimed land up for grabs are long over, and people need to get used to a steady state environment that the rest of the world has been in for millenia.

There has never been a steady state. The "unclaimed land" you speak of was actually claimed by native Americans, who have now been eliminated.

Re: My journey through the American immigration system as a computer engineer

#154
post #144

I'd definitely like our immigration system to be better executed even under the current overall goals; the arbitrary/capricious CBP officer at the border seems pretty bad. Most of H1B could be fixed if we could get rid of Wipro/etc. staffing agency abuse (almost entirely of people from India, but there are lots of Indian H1B who work for other companies and are fine); the process seems relatively non-abused by actual…

I thought the Wipro visa misuse was L1, not H1B?

Re: My journey through the American immigration system as a computer engineer

#155
post #82

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Are foreign peoples entitled to US citizenship? Where is the obligation to make the process easy and open to everyone coming from?

you’re looking at this from the wrong angle. ask yourself: why would the US allow these people to come and work here in the first place? it’s because they NEED them. from highly skilled tech workers to “unskilled” low wage workers. Immigration and pumping human capital into our economy is the way the US stays/stayed? dominant and a superpower. Close the pipeline and in 10-20-30 years innovation is gone ,the edge we h…

We've already closed the pipeline. The talent is going elsewhere. We're in decline now.

Re: My journey through the American immigration system as a computer engineer

#156
post #59
post #15

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The US government is supposed to first and foremost take care of US citizens, not just allow them to be pushed out of jobs because corporations would rather import cheap labor.

Oh, this tired talking point. In the tech labor market (as per the post) the labor simply isn't available. We don't generally see American software engineers languishing and unable to find jobs. I guarantee that the like of Microsystems, Google, and Amazon were not paying the poster a pittance.

>We don't generally see American software engineers languishing and unable to find jobs.

That was me from 2016 to 2018. Trust me, there are weirdos like me out there in the country that can't get a job. I decided to go all in on this exciting tech stack called Ruby on Rails. I heard all the cool kids were doing it. Spend all my life savings trying to get in on the action. What I didn't realize is that they were all unemployed......as a result I don't think Matz is so nice.

I'm ok now, wasting my life writing one line of code a day on software that does not make one lick of difference in this world (and no its not in ruby on rails): The American dream™

Re: My journey through the American immigration system as a computer engineer

#157

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>a border guard who is having a bad day. This is not to be understated. I was born a US citizen. Last time I entered the country, officers faked that a dog had alerted "on my anus", forcibly strip searched me, and fabricated a story that plastic baggies that they suspected 'could be drugs' were coming out of my ass. I was shackled and cuffed and dragged around the state of Arizona for 16 hours while publicly paraded…

Why did you deny an x-ray? I understand anal probing but don't understand x-ray?

The commenter had done nothing wrong, and anyway had no need for gratuitous exposure to radiation.

If you look at your comment, apart from the 4th amendment issues, it's kind of like a "have you stopped beating your spouse?" kind of question.

Re: My journey through the American immigration system as a computer engineer

#158
post #5

Indians account for 73.9 percent out of the total number of H1B visa holders in the USA. Now i wouldn't want anyone to be discriminated but still it makes sense to limit green card based on nationality

Why do you suppose that is? Indians are forced to remain on H1B visas for decades while other applicants move onto Green Cards.

Re: My journey through the American immigration system as a computer engineer

#159

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Not sure who you hang out with, but black, hispanic, and latino US citizens have a very hard time getting jobs despite having software engineering degrees. They end up in GS-5 equivalent military tech "careers" or crappy geek squad jobs.

If you have friends in each of these categories who are skilled, I’ll interview them. Job is onsite in San Francisco. Interview is leetcode style plus software design. Since it isn’t based primarily on past experience, it won’t matter that they haven’t had opportunity if they do have the skills. I’m in HFT. Only hire people I’d consider capable and I’m comfortable with our interview process. If they knock the intervi…

Nobody wants to work for your crappy startup. What you are asking for requires a lot of sacrifice and investment (living in an overpriced dump called SF, leetcode interviews, dealing with people like you) for not enough benefits hence thats why you rely on outside "help".

Re: My journey through the American immigration system as a computer engineer

#160

One thing the author did not mention is that there is a huge wastage of green cards every year by US immigration authorities. That wastage compounds the problem faced by immigrants. The wastage works like this - 1. Every country is allocated an equal number of visas per year . 2. However a lot of smaller countries do not come close to utilizing their full visa allocation 3. The remaining visas can be allocated to the…

> Looking at these numbers, it looks like a manufactured crisis to keep employment based immigrants in a constant state of flux so as to limit job hopping and limit their pay negotiation options.

Occam's razor suggests that, given how fucked up DHS, and USCIS in particular is, private sector pay negotiations is well below their noise floor.

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