Trump administration announces overhaul of H1B visa program requiring higher pay • Hacker News Board

Re: Trump administration announces overhaul of H1B visa program requiring higher pay

#231

Post by verst » Tue, Oct 06, 2020, 11:00 PM UTC

SpicyLemonZest wrote: post #112

notJim wrote: post #75

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> The H1B program has been abused for a long time What's the abuse?

A majority of H1B visas are currently issued to relatively low paying consulting firms, who are then hired by big enterprises in place of their more expensive technical employees. This isn't supposed to be legal - you're not allowed to hire H1B employees if an equally qualified American could have filled their role - but due to the specifics of how the program is administered you can often pull it off with that kind…

Check this out: https://www.uscis.gov/sites/default/files/document/data/Appr...

Contrast that with the previous year: https://www.uscis.gov/sites/default/files/document/data/Appr...

You can see that the outsourcing firms have fewer and fewer approvals. Of course with this latest change it will decline more.

Re: Trump administration announces overhaul of H1B visa program requiring higher pay

#232

Post by dudul » Tue, Oct 06, 2020, 11:00 PM UTC

jedberg wrote: post #196

dudul wrote: post #140

Earlier quoted context omitted.

How would you avoid seeing 500M indians/Chinese landing in America on the very next day? I think there is a middle ground between the disaster that are immigration laws today, and full open borders.

You would still have to have a job lined up to get a work visa. So there would need to be 500M new jobs. If our economy grew by 500M new jobs, that would be unequivocally good. Those 500M people would be paying taxes, buying goods and services, paying for housing, etc.

Ok that was missing from your original statement as a condition. Some work visas dont need a prior employment offer as precondition.

I still think that it would drag salaries down significantly. I know employment and salaries are not a zero sum game, but the offer/supply ratio is a parameter.

Re: Trump administration announces overhaul of H1B visa program requiring higher pay

#233

Post by runarberg » Tue, Oct 06, 2020, 11:00 PM UTC

3pt14159 wrote: post #206

There is a lot of political science research that speaks to growing xenophobia when immigration is unleashed. I understand the sentiment—I'm very pro-immigration—but with respect to domestic policy my primary goal is stability and faith in government. Personally, I like how my country, Canada, does it. Points based system that rewards multiple factors, including skills, employability, and fluency in English and Frenc…

Xenophobia is more expected, when the immigrant population is ghettoized, alienated, given fewer opportunities and stricter policing, and made to compete with the local population for limited jobs.

A more reasonable policy would be to make sure the that doesn't happen. Say by abolishing racist policing, better urban planning, better labor laws, and partly socialized job market.

EDIT: Changed wording, previously incorrectly stated that immigration was natural under these circumstances.

Re: Trump administration announces overhaul of H1B visa program requiring higher pay

#234

Post by belltaco » Tue, Oct 06, 2020, 11:00 PM UTC

chairmanwow1 wrote: post #189

Overall, I really support these changes. However, this piece really struck me as a big mistake: "Under the changes, an applicant must have a college degree in the specific field in which he or she is looking to work. A software developer, for example, wouldn’t be awarded an H-1B visa if that person has a degree in electrical engineering." Some of the best software engineers I know are graduate degree holders from neu…

This one is also a particularly terrible move:

>“ Because those required wage increases take effect this week, existing H-1B holders looking to renew their visas might not qualify unless their employers raise their salaries accordingly.”

Copying from my comment below, this is likely to backfire.

Since remote work has become acceptable and they already know the ins and outs of the job, many of these folks losing their visa will just be allowed to work remotely from India or Canada where it's trivial to get a work visa if you have a job offer.

This means the US economy will lose all the taxes and local expenditure in the economy by the family like rent, food, travel, vacations, utilities, medical expenses, entertainment, cars, home sales, etc. etc. And if that works out, the next hire may just be directly hired in India or Canada itself.

If I were in the Canada govt, I'd immediately create a way around the travel ban for workers who's visas didn't get renewed to be able to move to Canada after following a strict quarantine protocol. If the worker was able to work remotely in the US using Zoom, why can't they do the same job remotely in the same time zone in Canada using the same remote working tools? This might be a once in lifetime opportunity for Canada to grow their tech sector, especially if Trump gets re-elected and puts further restrictions.

There is already a small industry in Canada where a company takes a few % of the billing rate in order to sponsor and hold a Canadian visa for people who lost their H1B visas due to increased and inconsistent rejections over the past few years, but whose employer is willing to allow them to work from Canada. This moves a lot of money to Canada.

Also, some tech companies have been outright moving jobs to Canada because they can hire from a global workforce and Canada has been welcoming them. This is going to intensify.

https://www.npr.org/2020/01/27/799402801/canada-wins-u-s-los...

https://www.usnews.com/news/best-countries/articles/2020-07-...

There is a reason this regulation didn't follow the normal rule-making and public comment period. Very likely this wouldn't have happened if there wasn't an imminent election.

Re: Trump administration announces overhaul of H1B visa program requiring higher pay

#235

Post by ketzo » Tue, Oct 06, 2020, 11:01 PM UTC

mamon wrote: post #216

notJim wrote: post #67

The new rule is that H1B workers need to earn higher salaries relative to the distribution of salaries in their profession. The worker must make the 45th percentile wage, where previously it was 17th. Won't this primarily hurt people early in their career, or does it also take into account experience level?

I think this is by design. You don't want to issue visas to "people early in their career" - those jobs should go to Americans first. You only hire from abroad if there really is a shortage of specialists in some profession, and you want those professionals to prove their worth in their home country first, before allowing them to the US.

Well, it's possible for there to be a shortage of early-career specialists. Even now, with CS majors stuffed to the brim across the country, entry-level software engineering salaries keep rising and the big companies hire as fast as they can.

I see your point broadly, but I think it's possible for that to be true and to also take university-grad H1-B employees.

Re: Trump administration announces overhaul of H1B visa program requiring higher pay

#236

Post by munk-a » Tue, Oct 06, 2020, 11:01 PM UTC

3pt14159 wrote: post #206

There is a lot of political science research that speaks to growing xenophobia when immigration is unleashed. I understand the sentiment—I'm very pro-immigration—but with respect to domestic policy my primary goal is stability and faith in government. Personally, I like how my country, Canada, does it. Points based system that rewards multiple factors, including skills, employability, and fluency in English and Frenc…

I was surprised, when I got my citizenship, just how limited the family reunification up here is, but I'm also okay with that. It might be different for people who come in via refugee channels (they've been forced to leave their home and may not have a valid and safe path to reunify if they need to) but, as an elective immigrant the only automatic ins I've got are nephews and nieces in the case of orphaning. I'm pretty okay with that.

While the rest of my US family is freaking out a bit right now I think it's a lot more just to bring in folks looking for work with skills to support them.

Re: Trump administration announces overhaul of H1B visa program requiring higher pay

#237

Post by fmajid » Tue, Oct 06, 2020, 11:01 PM UTC

jedberg wrote: post #9

Credit where credit is due, this is a good move. The H1B program has been abused for a long time. It sounds like these changes should help make it too expensive for the fraudulent abuse to continue.

It would be simpler to award the limited pool of H1-Bs in order of descending wages, and cross-check with the IRS afterwards to verify those salaries are actually paid. That would kill all the bottom-feeding body shops.

Re: Trump administration announces overhaul of H1B visa program requiring higher pay

#238

Post by [deleted] » Tue, Oct 06, 2020, 11:01 PM UTC

mrkurt wrote: post #207

ed25519FUUU wrote: post #120

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Wouldn’t that cause a large displacement of the existing labor force and significantly drive down wages?

This is the intuitive belief, but the research doesn't really prove that: https://www.cato.org/cato-journal/fall-2017/does-immigration... There are studies showing a slight decrease in wages, studies showing a slight increase in wages, and studies showing nothing conclusive. There's basically not enough scientific consensus to use for decision making, which means it's more a moral choice than an economic one.

[deleted]

Re: Trump administration announces overhaul of H1B visa program requiring higher pay

#239

Post by mc32 » Tue, Oct 06, 2020, 11:01 PM UTC

acituan wrote: post #181

mc32 wrote: post #59

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Why not make companies sponsor underprivileged kids who need the opportunity just as much but don’t get as much consideration?

Because a good chunk of immigrants are underpriviliged kids of the world, when you compare the GDP levels of their home countries to the US. That and US doesn’t need to pay a dime for them developing their skills while getting to skim the cream of the crop.

It’s not the responsibility of the US govt, companies or people to underwrite other countries’ underprivileged people when we have our own we fail to care for well enough.

We had a revolution and a civil war and unrest to fix our own failures. They can work to improve their own self determination. Look, Panama 25 years ago was a basket case. But now they are one of the better economies of the southern cone.

Re: Trump administration announces overhaul of H1B visa program requiring higher pay

#240

Post by Lammy » Tue, Oct 06, 2020, 11:01 PM UTC

menage wrote: post #201

JohnBooty wrote: post #114

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You're bound to the employer that sponsors your visa. Lose your job? You're effectively deported. Your employer has... well, a power imbalance over you, to put it nicely. I'm not sure how the proposed changes will play out for American workers. Theoretically, treating H1B workers better could benefit American workers: there is less incentive to callously replace them with underpaid H1B workers. On the other hand, Ame…

If you can find another employer to take over the sponsorship, you can transfer (without having to deal with the visa quota gantlet).

Do you think the possibility of finding a new job makes H1B workers feel any more capable of standing up for their beliefs at work and maybe saying "No" when asked to build something evil?