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U.S. Changes Visa Process for High-Skilled Workers

wsj.com

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Re: U.S. Changes Visa Process for High-Skilled Workers

#221

Post by mc32 »

arcticbull wrote: post #212
mc32 wrote: post #198

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Countries should do what makes sense for them. Canada is behind, they want to jump start their tech sector. They’re not a challenge to the US, China, Japan or even Russia. So good on them. We have a need for some specialists and we have a need for many low skills laborers. We need a system to evaluate need, address it appropriately and manage the foreign workforce to the advantage of Americans. Panama is free to invi…

Don’t you want America to stay ahead? I’m getting dizzy from all these moving goalposts.

Canada is just about a tenth of our pop. Worrying about them is like worrying about Japan taking over the world in 1990. It’s not possible due to population realities. Let them succeed a little.

Re: U.S. Changes Visa Process for High-Skilled Workers

#222

Post by ab_1717 »

barry-cotter wrote: post #145
travisoneill1 wrote: post #56

They should assign limits based on salary, lets say 150% of industry standard, not education level. There is no measure of skill less meaningful than a degree.

Just fill the quota based on salary from highest base salary to lowest until you run out of visas. Who cares about industry standard?

This leads to a problem where locations with generally lower wages, while also needing skilled workers, cannot compete with locations that have generally higher wages.

Re: U.S. Changes Visa Process for High-Skilled Workers

#223

Post by zjaffee »

reedhen32 wrote: post #40
luckydata wrote: post #13

Honestly this is a good thing. Right now the H1B is a bullshit immigration program for cheap engineers from India and China designed to depress wages in silicon valley. A change is sorely needed, this is not big enough but it's definitely a step.

What a weird world we live in though, where PhDs and Masters with a steady job still have to wait 7-10+ years for citizenship, while people can just flip over the fence in the southern border and get citizenship via asylum or birthing kids

A person with a PhD can easily get a green card, and if there was an amnesty law that passed today I'm sure it would be just as open to H1Bs as it is to any other illegal immigrant.

Re: U.S. Changes Visa Process for High-Skilled Workers

#224

Post by arcticbull »

mc32 wrote: post #221
arcticbull wrote: post #212

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Don’t you want America to stay ahead? I’m getting dizzy from all these moving goalposts.

Canada is just about a tenth of our pop. Worrying about them is like worrying about Japan taking over the world in 1990. It’s not possible due to population realities. Let them succeed a little.

This is the strangest anti-immigration stance I’ve ever heard: don’t let them in so the small countries can win a round or two. I mean, ok, you win this one? Maybe this is what being tired of winning looks like ;)

Re: U.S. Changes Visa Process for High-Skilled Workers

#225

Post by mc32 »

arcticbull wrote: post #214
mc32 wrote: post #168

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It’s not a problem in and of itself but it’s illustrative of our lax policy.

How does that make the policy lax? Compared to what, zero admissions?

We allow millions in legally every year. Birth tourism often involves immigration fraud. It’s seldom prosecuted = lax enforcement.

So, no, we still would allow millions of legal immigrants in. We’d just crack down on unregulated immigrants.

Re: U.S. Changes Visa Process for High-Skilled Workers

#226

Post by wycs »

tossaccount123 wrote: post #167
femiagbabiaka wrote: post #162

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Software engineering isn’t most professions. Salaries have been going up more than a decade accounting for inflation. If 10 million software engineers dropped in Silicon Valley, a lot of things would happen (for one there’s nowhere for them to live). But that’s not what’s happening.

It was hyperbole to show the effect of supply and demand More and more I notice how similar software engineers are beginning to sound like the "Made in America" factory workers who said China could never do their job. Never take the present comfy situation for granted

Anyone who thinks China is not full of extremely talented software engineers does not know anything about China.

Re: U.S. Changes Visa Process for High-Skilled Workers

#227

Post by Ar-Curunir »

tossaccount123 wrote: post #147
joshe wrote: post #94

I've worked with a few H1-B holders in Silicon Valley and they're awesome. A great improvement would be to allow H1B holders to change jobs easily (maybe after a year). It's too easy for them to get stuck in not great situations. It would be great for everyone if they could move to better fitting jobs, especially for startups who have trouble running H1-B programs. If you are, like me, a software engineer, you should…

>To prime your intuition a bit, consider how woman and minorities more than doubled the work force from the 1960s to 1990s with no loss in jobs or lowering of wages. You do realize there hasn't been a raise in real wages since the 70s when you account for inflation right? Coincidentally during that same time period the income gap exploded because the wealthy had plentiful cheap labor and were able to pocket the produ…

No, wealth inequality increased because we stopped taxing rich people.

Re: U.S. Changes Visa Process for High-Skilled Workers

#228

Post by zjaffee »

travisoneill1 wrote: post #56

They should assign limits based on salary, lets say 150% of industry standard, not education level. There is no measure of skill less meaningful than a degree.

This would weirdly exert a greater downward pressure on salaries, as companies will have a higher supply of higher skill workers rather than just workers as a whole.

Re: U.S. Changes Visa Process for High-Skilled Workers

#229

Post by baby »

luckydata wrote: post #13

Honestly this is a good thing. Right now the H1B is a bullshit immigration program for cheap engineers from India and China designed to depress wages in silicon valley. A change is sorely needed, this is not big enough but it's definitely a step.

I've posted that before, I'll repost that here

From Michio Kaku[1]: "The United States has the worst education system known to science. Our graduates compete regularly at the level of third world countries. How come the scientific establishment of the US doesn't collapse. If we are producing a generation of dummy. If the stupid index of America keeps rising every year [...] how come the scientific establishment of the US doesn't collapse. Let me tell you something. America has a secret weapon. That secret weapon is the H1B. Without the H1B the scientific establishment of this country would collapse. Forget about Google, forget about Silicon Valley, there would not be a Silicon Valley without the H1B. [...] You realize that in the US 50% of all PhD candidates are foreign born. [...]"

the rest of the video is pretty good too. I recommend watching it.

[1]: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-fphPeRvhjQ

Re: U.S. Changes Visa Process for High-Skilled Workers

#230

Post by yangchi »

peferron wrote: post #199
seanmcdirmid wrote: post #130

Earlier quoted context omitted.

H1B's are immigrant visas, they terminate in greencards after one renewal. The only problem is that a few countries have long lines (India, China, Philippines) on how many greencards can be granted this way per year. That should be done away with.

> H1B's are immigrant visas No, H-1B visas are explicitly nonimmigrant visas for temporary workers. [1] > They terminate in greencards after one renewal No, they don't. You can apply for a GC, but there's nothing automatic about the process, and the GC is not guaranteed to be approved either. [1] https://www.uscis.gov/working-united-states/temporary-worker...

No. It's dual-intent: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dual_intent
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