Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

USCIS announces strengthened integrity measures for H-1B program

uscis.gov

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

171–180 of 200 posts

Re: USCIS announces strengthened integrity measures for H-1B program

#171

Post by llampx »

sokoloff wrote: post #102
tock wrote: post #97

US immigration is an absolute nightmare especially for Indians. In Europe its simple. Job offer above minimum salary? Apply and get a blue card yourself. Has been in the country for over 5 years and speak the language? You get citizenship. In the US its nearly impossible to get a Green Card. Forget how difficult it is to get an H1B visa in the first place because of the lottery system.

Friends of mine pursuing Swiss citizenship had a much longer road than what you describe above. I know them to be pretty fastidious when it comes to paperwork exercises and they did not have citizenship after 10 years, though they indicated they were on a path towards it.

In Switzerland you have to apply for citizenship to the local government, and each one of them is xenophobic to various degrees. There are some famous cases where citizenship was denied because the person had a few speeding tickets, or thought that loud cowbells should be forbidden because they torture cows.

Re: USCIS announces strengthened integrity measures for H-1B program

#172

Post by trimethylpurine »

kube-system wrote: post #139
trimethylpurine wrote: post #116

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Based on pay, I would guess chemists aren't in demand.

Based on pay, you'd think childcare is in low demand and astronomers are in high demand. But that would be wrong.

Based on pay I wouldn't think that astronomers are in high demand, and neither does the Bureau of Labor [1].

Child care labor is in fact in low demand [2].

I think child care is expensive because insurance is expensive.

[1]: https://www.bls.gov/ooh/Life-Physical-and-Social-Science/Phy...

[2]: https://www.bls.gov/ooh/personal-care-and-service/childcare-...

Re: USCIS announces strengthened integrity measures for H-1B program

#173

Post by trimethylpurine »

thomasahle wrote: post #122
trimethylpurine wrote: post #118

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Are they really doing jobs that Americans wouldn't or couldn't do for that amount? Honestly curious about your opinion, since they are your friends.

Why would companies go through the hassle of getting H1B workers, if they could hire Americans for the same job at the same amount? Clearly there has to be either a shortage of the type of worker, or the Americans want a higher pay.

Several reasons come to mind including better laborers. But also politics, culturalism, tax incentives, racism, bribery. Employment law has a large share of the legal market, keeping with litigation. We should have no expectation that companies are only hiring for company profit. Employees and managers appear to be, often times, doing what's best for themselves.

https://www.grandviewresearch.com/industry-analysis/us-legal...

Re: USCIS announces strengthened integrity measures for H-1B program

#174

Post by appplication »

rayiner wrote: post #157
hirvi74 wrote: post #109

Earlier quoted context omitted.

In my experience, the special skills that many foreigners tend to have that many Americans do not is the ability to tolerate absolute and utter bullshit. I'm not kidding. I am not satisfied with my job/employer -- bad environment, bad culture, etc.. I have coworkers from all over. Of the non-US native ones that I interact with, they all absolutely love our job and/or employer. I've asked them about it, and I generall…

> Of the non-US native ones that I interact with, they all absolutely love our job and/or employer. I've asked them about it, and I generally get the sense that I could not survive in the conditions from which they originally came -- both at work and outside of work My dad’s an H1. (Before they created H1B in 1990.) He grew up in a village in Bangladesh. One out of five kids died by the age of five. He came in as a s…

This comment made me realize sometimes I’m such an entitled shit. Lately I’d been feeling legitimately depressed that I seem to have hit a career plateau, despite that plateau occurring at a very generous salary.

Re: USCIS announces strengthened integrity measures for H-1B program

#175

Post by kube-system »

trimethylpurine wrote: post #172
kube-system wrote: post #139

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Based on pay, you'd think childcare is in low demand and astronomers are in high demand. But that would be wrong.

Based on pay I wouldn't think that astronomers are in high demand, and neither does the Bureau of Labor [1]. Child care labor is in fact in low demand [2]. I think child care is expensive because insurance is expensive. [1]: https://www.bls.gov/ooh/Life-Physical-and-Social-Science/Phy... [2]: https://www.bls.gov/ooh/personal-care-and-service/childcare-...

The data at those links indicate the demand for child care workers is more than 40x the demand for physicists and astronomers combined. Yet, childcare workers make only slightly more than 1/5th the wage.

This is because skilled labor is not fungible and different jobs are on different demand curves.

Re: USCIS announces strengthened integrity measures for H-1B program

#176

Post by medvezhenok »

15457345234 wrote: post #160
29athrowaway wrote: post #103

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If there is more demand for chemists, the wages will go up which in turn will incentivize more Americans to pursue being chemist as a career.

> wages will go up The issue is that tech can pay exorbitant salaries compared to physical-world companies as the product they're producing has infinite reach and is often 'evergreen' It's the same issue as investment banking; when you can almost literally print the money you're paying salaries with you can hire everyone at any price. The issue is, that leads to the smartest people in the country all ending up at 'vi…

You just have to turn off the money printer and watch the tech money dry up

(What we’re seeing now)

Re: USCIS announces strengthened integrity measures for H-1B program

#177

Post by trimethylpurine »

kube-system wrote: post #175
trimethylpurine wrote: post #172

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Based on pay I wouldn't think that astronomers are in high demand, and neither does the Bureau of Labor [1]. Child care labor is in fact in low demand [2]. I think child care is expensive because insurance is expensive. [1]: https://www.bls.gov/ooh/Life-Physical-and-Social-Science/Phy... [2]: https://www.bls.gov/ooh/personal-care-and-service/childcare-...

The data at those links indicate the demand for child care workers is more than 40x the demand for physicists and astronomers combined. Yet, childcare workers make only slightly more than 1/5th the wage. This is because skilled labor is not fungible and different jobs are on different demand curves.

Maybe I misunderstand your argument. I thought your main point was that pay may be high despite demand being low, and vice versa. I'm sure there are exceptional cases where this is true, but the examples you provided illustrate something very much counter to your point.

In your examples, pay and demand are low for all three professions, chemists, child care workers, and astronomers, according to the BoL.

Re: USCIS announces strengthened integrity measures for H-1B program

#179

Post by WirelessGigabit »

I think part of the issue is that H-1B is a non-immigrant visa.

It's ridiculous for a country like the US to expect people to move their whole household for ... 6 years?

H-1B is actually slightly better than an L1*. At least with the H-1B you are allowed to change jobs if the new employer wants to do the paperwork. For the L1 you can't do that. The visa is tied to the current employer. You leave? You're out.

Re: USCIS announces strengthened integrity measures for H-1B program

#180

Post by NanoYohaneTSU »

jedberg wrote: post #4

It seems like it would be so easy to fix the H1-B program but no one wants to and I feel like I must be missing something. The purpose of the H1-B is to allow companies to hire foreigners with special skills that can't be found amongst US citizens. So why not just grant H1-Bs to the companies that are willing to pay their talent the most? Let any company apply and list a salary which they have to agree to pay for at…

According to your logic the H1-B program doesn't need to exist at all then. You can find all special skills within US Citizens. However what happens is that companies deny interviewees the chance so they can obtain H1-B workers for cheaper or for political power.

We need to abolish the program completely.

Post reply on HN