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Microsoft has urged its employees on H-1B and H-4 visas to return immediately

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Re: Microsoft has urged its employees on H-1B and H-4 visas to return immediately

#21
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Earlier quoted context omitted.

Microsoft can also just pay the fee right? My understanding is that it’s on the employer to pay, not the individual. Given that these are incredibly skilled folks this would certainly be annoying if you’re Microsoft (like any other tax or fee) but given the value they get from each employee it seems like $100,000 isn’t much.

Have you ever worked for a large corporation? Do you think there’s an intranet website where you can just go click on the “Send $100k Wire Now” button? It’s going to take a long time while Microsoft figures out if they will actually pay these fees and which budget it should come out of. Meanwhile, if you didn’t return by Sunday, you’re locked out of the country and unable to show up for work which will result in your…

> Meanwhile, if you didn’t return by Sunday, you’re locked out of the country and unable to show up for work which will result in your termination fairly soon.

I’m actually curious, have you worked at a large corporation before?

It would be atypical for the scenario you are describing to occur given that there has been a US government policy change that’s of no fault of the employee who is still eligible to work in the United States.

Folks aren’t going to be sitting around on Monday morning saying jeez Billy on the H1B visa didn’t show up to work today and we have no clue why, guess he is fired!

Within business units at this scale there are small, dedicated teams that manage contractors, vendor contracts and licenses, keep track of employees on visas, report that information for compliance purposes, etc, and they are almost certainly communicating with their employees who are currently out of the country to provide arrangements and additional details as things progress.

Re: Microsoft has urged its employees on H-1B and H-4 visas to return immediately

#22
>Some employers have exploited the program to hold down wages, disadvantaging U.S. workers,

Change "Some" to "All major employers". I worked at a fortune 500 company in IT and all they hired were H1B employees over the past 15/20 years. The last raise we got that was above inflation and health insurance increases was before 2000. I left 2 years ago and after I left they fired almost everyone in the IT Dept I was in and replaced them with H1B.

So I hope this sticks. Plus remember, H1B people should make a fair wage too, all too often their salary is set by their contracting firm and is far far lower then what we got.

Re: Microsoft has urged its employees on H-1B and H-4 visas to return immediately

#23
post #10

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Many people on H1Bs work for nonprofits or hospitals, or are otherwise publicly funded.

This doesn’t appear to apply to people on cap-exempt H1-Bs.

All cap-exempt institutions that I know of are treating it as if it does. There has been no clarification as of yet.

Re: Microsoft has urged its employees on H-1B and H-4 visas to return immediately

#24
Get your relatives and family out of this shithole and start a new life somewhere else. Why paying taxes for fat crooks? Why working your ass off for major companiel that dont pay taxes? I more and more understand people leaving their home country.

Re: Microsoft has urged its employees on H-1B and H-4 visas to return immediately

#25
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Not just vacations, but also business trips. They come up with these rules on a Saturday morning. If you’re a visa holder outside the country and you don’t return to the US by Sunday, you’ll be asked to pay a $100k ransom to re-enter the country where your life and work and children are. Amazing level of contempt for ordinary foreigners who came into the country legally.

Microsoft can also just pay the fee right? My understanding is that it’s on the employer to pay, not the individual. Given that these are incredibly skilled folks this would certainly be annoying if you’re Microsoft (like any other tax or fee) but given the value they get from each employee it seems like $100,000 isn’t much.

There is no mechanism to actually pay the fee

Re: Microsoft has urged its employees on H-1B and H-4 visas to return immediately

#26
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[flagged]

Are you suggesting that people who potentially moved to the US for employment perhaps from the other side of the globe, give everything up immediately and make a 180 and find a new job in another country? Do you have some examples as to how this could work?

No, but it is practical: you can consider your life in the US and what you've built up there as an immigrant pretty much lost or at least hanging by a silken thread that can be capriciously cut at any moment. This all depends on the whims of the dictator. Almost anything is better than that.

Remember that the purpose of the Berlin wall was not to keep the West out but to keep the East in. You're at the stage where 'in' and 'out' are being defined and if you have the choice I'd go for 'out' even if that means a temporary - large - setback.

Re: Microsoft has urged its employees on H-1B and H-4 visas to return immediately

#30
post #12
post #3

[flagged]

Are you suggesting that people who potentially moved to the US for employment perhaps from the other side of the globe, give everything up immediately and make a 180 and find a new job in another country? Do you have some examples as to how this could work?

I'm suggesting that people who were thinking of moving to the US think again.
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