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I'm Peter Roberts, immigration attorney who does work for YC and startups. AMA

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Re: I'm Peter Roberts, immigration attorney who does work for YC and startups. AMA

#251

Post by kevin_thibedeau »

jmyeet wrote: post #197
bubblethink wrote: post #193

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Since we are doing wishes and grievances, why have PERM at all?

The specificied purpose of PERM is to to fill a position that otherwiswe can't be filled by a US LPR or citizen.. If you need to hide your job postings on an internal physical caulk board in a basement and post them in only physical copies of The Columbus Dispatch then it should be pretty clear you're not following the spirit of the program. If, even after doing that, you then disqualify candidates for pretty fake re…

There is no legitimate reason to allow body shops to participate in the H1B program. They aren't creating the jobs that need to be filled. They're just parasites who are responsible for the majority of the fraud.

Re: I'm Peter Roberts, immigration attorney who does work for YC and startups. AMA

#252

Post by kevin_thibedeau »

jmyeet wrote: post #221
8note wrote: post #211

Earlier quoted context omitted.

isnit right to call it abuse? certain employers can use h1bs to fill specific employment needs really well, and have a ton of experience with both sourcing foreign labour and matching it to work that needs doing in the US. its doing exactly what the program is looking for, filling a labour quantity at the price employers are looking for. The US government is optimizing for being able to do some volume of technical wo…

Nothing will convince me that the likes of Tata and Infosys are a good use of H1Bs. And because they flood the system with H1B applications, other actually valuable positions go unfilled. If the customers for these bodyshops could save money by outsourcing directly to India, they would've already. And beyond those big bodyshops you have any number of smaller H1B fraud schemes eg [1][2][3][4]. If you're Indian-born an…

> If the customers for these bodyshops could save money by outsourcing directly to India, they would've already.

I worked for a company that did this. They had no H1Bs but did have an Indian subsidiary. The problem is you only get the third tier workers who can't make it into the body shops. Plus you have to deal with the time disparity.

Re: I'm Peter Roberts, immigration attorney who does work for YC and startups. AMA

#253

Post by mikeyouse »

throwaway219450 wrote: post #102
mikeyouse wrote: post #17

Our small company offers a remote paid mentorship for students anywhere in the world - often times, international students in the US want to apply but then there’s substantial confusion on whether they can be paid without jeopardizing their status. The stipends we pay are all 1099 and it’s mostly self-directed work so we’re a bit at a loss in regards to the CPT/OPT qualifications. Many end up forgoing their stipend w…

Maybe Peter can comment further, but my impression was that the definition of "work" is normally unrelated to whether it's paid or not, for F/J? If those students are actually concerned about staying in status, simply saying they're volunteering might not be sufficient.

Thanks - very useful to know that there is still risk for the unpaid ones.

Re: I'm Peter Roberts, immigration attorney who does work for YC and startups. AMA

#254

Post by Gabriel54 »

mettamage wrote: post #234

When you have an IR-1 in the process, but we decided to move to Europe is it then better to cancel that application or is it better to just let it go through the system and sort of cancel it at the point when we're invited for an interview?

Where are you in the process currently? Once the I-130 is approved my understanding is that you can delay at the NVC stage indefinitely. You just have to contact them at least once every 12 months, or log in every year to submit one or another document (basically they should see some activity on your case).

Re: I'm Peter Roberts, immigration attorney who does work for YC and startups. AMA

#256

Post by sharts »

throwaway2037 wrote: post #225
jmyeet wrote: post #188

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Generally lawyers need to be involved to make sure any rejections are compliant. There's a whole cottage industry around this. Personally, given the state of unemployment in the tech sector right now, I think it should be virtually impossible to fill a PERM right now because pretty much any position could be filled with a US LPR or citizen and the only reason it isn't is because the whole process is deliberately obfu…

> I also think that doing layoffs in the US should disqualify you from doing any PERM or sponsoring any visa for 2-3 years. I am sure this would have terrible second order effects. This does not sound well thought out. Also, many companies are so large that in parallel one part might be shrinking (or a division closing) and others might be growing. It is not always possible or reasonable to internally transfer 100% o…

Sounds perfectly thought out. They could be cross trained, etc. There’s always options.

Re: I'm Peter Roberts, immigration attorney who does work for YC and startups. AMA

#257

Post by sharts »

BeetleB wrote: post #191
jmyeet wrote: post #188

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Generally lawyers need to be involved to make sure any rejections are compliant. There's a whole cottage industry around this. Personally, given the state of unemployment in the tech sector right now, I think it should be virtually impossible to fill a PERM right now because pretty much any position could be filled with a US LPR or citizen and the only reason it isn't is because the whole process is deliberately obfu…

> I also think that doing layoffs in the US should disqualify you from doing any PERM or sponsoring any visa for 2-3 years. This is a very SW mindset, and makes no sense in other circumstances. If my company canceled a large SW project, and laid off a lot of SW folks, why should that prevent them from sponsoring someone to work on nanoelectronics?

Uh because they are mot children? You cancel a project that was ill conceived, and we are to believe the second one is not also ill conceived?

Yes, if aren’t being responsible with your hiring then you don’t get to mess with the talent pool. People aren’t automatons.

Re: I'm Peter Roberts, immigration attorney who does work for YC and startups. AMA

#258

Post by garyfirestorm »

xingped wrote: post #208
BeetleB wrote: post #191

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I also think that doing layoffs in the US should disqualify you from doing any PERM or sponsoring any visa for 2-3 years. This is a very SW mindset, and makes no sense in other circumstances. If my company canceled a large SW project, and laid off a lot of SW folks, why should that prevent them from sponsoring someone to work on nanoelectronics?

In this day and age where every company is playing _very_ fast and loose with their LPR/citizen employees' lives and livelihoods, yes, I think PERM should be a very strict and easily lost privilege across the board for the whole company, not a right. If we had sane employee protections in this country maybe my opinion would be different.

I have been both on visa side of things and LPR/citizen side of things. I don’t understand this mindset lpr|citizen>>perm|visa. As if the perm/visa individual has no life and can easily pack a handbag and leave tomorrow. Not defending any processes here just pointing out people (perm or not) buy homes/cars have kids in schools etc and by the time they get to perm process they are pretty much ingrained here. The viewpoint of ‘discarding’ batches of perms sounds very hypocritical.

Re: I'm Peter Roberts, immigration attorney who does work for YC and startups. AMA

#260

Post by xingped »

garyfirestorm wrote: post #258
xingped wrote: post #208

Earlier quoted context omitted.

In this day and age where every company is playing _very_ fast and loose with their LPR/citizen employees' lives and livelihoods, yes, I think PERM should be a very strict and easily lost privilege across the board for the whole company, not a right. If we had sane employee protections in this country maybe my opinion would be different.

I have been both on visa side of things and LPR/citizen side of things. I don’t understand this mindset lpr|citizen>>perm|visa. As if the perm/visa individual has no life and can easily pack a handbag and leave tomorrow. Not defending any processes here just pointing out people (perm or not) buy homes/cars have kids in schools etc and by the time they get to perm process they are pretty much ingrained here. The viewp…

It's not about you, you're just an unfortunate individual caught in the crossfire, and in some ways I am sorry about that. However I think it's important for countries to look after their own citizens first before foreign peoples who want/have a job here. Yes, you may have made many efforts to integrate permanently, but if you're not on a permanent status yet, then those are choices you always made knowing you're still on a temporary status. It's not hypocritical at all.

Edit: I want to say that I am not saying this from a place of no compassion, however harsh my opinions may seem. I have multiple close friends that are not LPRs/citizens yet and have been the shoulder to cry on when things go sideways. I empathise, I do, but my opinion remains the same that countries should look after their LPRs/citizens strongly first.

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