171–180 of 275 posts
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I too believe there has to be reform, but I also believe this is Apple being lazy/doing this for convenience. If the individuals are more skilled than citizens, the Apple should have been prepared to open the interviews for those jobs to everyone (including citizens and permanent residents), selected the (person they knew to have been) the best and gotten the paperwork in order. The subterfuge would be completely unn…
There is no such thing as correct class. Broadly speaking, there are temporary workers who can eventually become permanent residents. And almost everyone needs to go through the same process which involves this PERM business. And everyone needs to participate in this charade of hiring someone once, then pretending that they don't have the employee, and then emerging victorious by putting out an ad that only that pers…
The laws governing immigration are very specific about the distinctions between visa classes and the requirements for each class- and the devil is in the details.
> The competition and interviews already happened when the person was first hired.
Perhaps, but that is your and Apple's (tacit) opinions. The government of the United States disagrees, and Apple just paid $25 million dollars to avoid getting this issue in front of a judge.
The difference in perspective, AFAICT, is you think a GC is a reward for getting a job after besting others (including citizens) in interviews. The government's contention is that the bar is higher: PERM is for jobs no American citizen or permanent resident are able and willing to do[1]. There are separate visa classes for being merely good, and being irreplaceable. Pretending that a candidate who is in the former group belongs to the latter by posting jobs on a noticeboard in an unlit basement without stairs is dishonest.
1. "The DOL must certify to the USCIS that there are not sufficient U.S. workers able, willing, qualified, and available to accept the job opportunity in the area of intended employment"
My company's goal seems to be to hire every Indian south of Hyderabad. I do wonder when Americans are going to wake up and realize these high-paying jobs could be going to them.
I have worked at other FAANGs where I see certain immigrant managers only seem to hire other immigrants from the same country...
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Yeah.... Except that this is not true. There's not enough talent in US, so we have to seek elsewhere. American graduates have these starry eyes and want to work mostly in two types of companies FAANG or early stage startups... Who's going to go to work at pharma companies, banks, electric companies?
I don't even think this was true when people were saying it 5 years ago, but it's definitely not true now. Literally yesterday I met a kid doing sales at Microcenter with a CS degree who couldn't find a dev job after 1.5 years of searching. Go to any programmers meetup in your city and there will be dozens of people trying to network into a dev job. Look up any video online of "I applied to 500 jobs" from people tryi…
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Right but the argument (the good one) isn't that they're paid less - it's that you're paid less because they are available. If US employers couldn't import workers they'd have to pay you more.
I don't really believe it. The companies would just offshore to a country with more preferential immigration treatment. Remember that plan for a boat in international waters where programmers who can't get visas would work for companies in San Francisco with the same time zone? That's what limiting immigration would accomplish. Immigration has maybe one effect, increasing the tax base.
Reading into the press release, there is a distinction that probably escapes most native citizens here: they are talking about EB2 visa, not H1B. PERM certification is not the same labor certification done in H1B. PERM is a much more rigorous and demanding process and it costs a lot more money than anything related to H1B. The reason is because it leads to a green card, not just a work permit. Often, it requires an a…
PERM is one stage in the Green Card process. (it goes: PERM -> I140 -> I485. https://maggio-kattar.com/three-stages-employer-sponsored-pe...)
https://www.uscis.gov/green-card/green-card-eligibility/gree...
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> Obviously you displaced a US citizen [...] I'm not sure this is obvious. 1) Apple is a multi-national company, and hires an employee in the UK. 2) This employee relocates to the US At what point do they displace the US citizen? All Apple jobs are not earmarked for US citizens (+residents, etc...), and they're already doing the job when they move to the US. Unless they're hired abroad for the express purpose of relo…
According to TFA, the discrimination happens when Apple doesn’t adequately look for a U.S. employee and instead chooses to to relocate you to the US. How is that not obvious? If Apple is happy to hire you in the UK and you’re happy to live there, the DOJ isn’t going to ask many questions.
You get a work visa. There are typically 4 options. There are 4 major options (there are others that are less common):
1. H1B: requires a bachelor's degree or equivalent experience. There is an annual quota. There are now more applicants than visas so there is a lottery. If you don't get picked, try again next year. H1B is issued for 3 years and can be renewed for another 3. Beyond that, you have to leave or file a PERM application and you can stay while it's pending. H1B is transferable with minimal effort to a new employer;
2. TN visa: available to Canadians. It's a 3 year nonimmigrant intent visa that requires. It can technically be renewed repeatedly but CBP is free to decide you're really living here and just deny your visa. The conservative approach is that TN holders wishing to immigrate will transfer to an H1B when possible. H1Bs can have weird conditions like when and how often you can re-enter the country. Some countries don't allow re-entry beyond the first year so leaving means going to a consulate and applying for a new visa;
3. E3 visa: much like a TN but available to Australians. It's 2 years, nonimmigrant intent and not transferable. There's a quota but it's never been hit. Many wishing to get a green card will also try to get an H1B at some point;
4. L1 visa: large companies use this for transfers. Work in Canada or London for a year and then get transferred.
This brings us to PERM. It's basically a 2 step process:
1. File a PERM. This involves many steps like getting a labor certification. This takes 6-24+ months. USCIS may randomly audit you, which can add 1-2 years. They may have a reason too but but they also randomly audit a large number of applications, allegedly to stop the system being gamed. The reality is that it's arbitrary and capricious. Things may just randomly take 2 years longer for no reason at all. Once your number comes up (more on this below), you go to the next step;
2. File an adjustment of status ("AoS"). There are 2 forms that can be filed concurrently (I-141 and I-485 IIRC). This should only take 6-12 months. It depends on your service center though. If there's something weird about your application it may take longer with multiple rounds of RFE ("Requests for Evidence") that each take months to be examined.
PERMs have a total quota and a per-country quota (of 7% of the total). And by "country" I mean "country of birth". Your passport doesn't matter at all. If you're born to Norwegian parents in Mumbai, you'll be in the India queue and you don't want to be there. Expect to wait 10-30 years because there is a backlog in the millions.
Occasionally there's some talk of Congress reforming this but nothing much has changed in a long time.
So where's the abuse? It takes 2 forms:
1. The Department of Labor is meant to ensure you're not underpaid (ie exploited). But they look at average pay for software engineers in a geographic area. For a Big Tech company, this could be substantially higher. But they don't have to pay you that higher amount technically because you're beholden to the company. If you leave you need to file a new PERM (but you keep your priority date). Still, this might add a year or two; and
2. Oncd you have your green card you don't need work authorization anymore so you can freely take a new job. So if you're from India you're effectively an indentured servant for decades because of the backlog.
So H1Bs have no per-country quota but green cards do. We issue way more H1Bs to Indian-born workers than we issue green cards to so the queue is only getting longer. Bear in mind tooo that if you're a worker with a spouse and two children you'll need 4 from the quota not 1.
So these bodyshop companies that employ a lot of Indian nationals flood the H1B pipeline. It's why there's a lottery. The companies don't care who does and doesn't get a visa. These are relatively low paying jobs, which in practice have bad conditions. The threat of being fired keepes workers from demanding better pay and conditions let alone leaving.
Was apple engaging in these practices? I have no idea (and certainly no direct knowledge). But that's what PERM abuse looks like.
Honestly, work visas should just automatically convert to a green card after 6 years.
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This. If the PERM process at Apple is anything like what I saw at Facebook a couple of years ago, then all these “applicants” are actually people already working at the company on non-immigrant visas whom the company wants to retain. There is no reason to assume that they’re being paid any less than others at Apple. They’re already in the country and have been doing the work for years. Why not give them a path to a g…
> If the PERM process at Apple is anything like what I saw at Facebook a couple of years ago, then all these “applicants” are actually people already working at the company on non-immigrant visas whom the company wants to retain. Indeed. I really doubt Apple prefers foreigners in their hiring (it's a rather significant hassle to bring somebody in). If anything, citizens have some edge. But once an immigrant has been…