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New H1-B Visa bill doubles the salary requirements to $130K/yr

timesofindia.indiatimes.com

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Re: New H1-B Visa bill doubles the salary requirements to $130K/yr

#261

Post by tn13 »

How can an Indian or Chinese immigrate to USA under the current system?

Legally there is simply no way besides marriage. These people who are actually very skilled have a very good history of assimilating in the mainstream and being successful in USA are discriminated against.

As a student you have to lie that you will return to India, as a H1B you have to lie that you intend to return back. As H4 you have to sit quietly at home like an obedient biblical wife.

At the root of H1B is the a deep systemic hatred and racism against Asians.

Re: New H1-B Visa bill doubles the salary requirements to $130K/yr

#262

Post by dukeluke »

readhn wrote: post #239
mi100hael wrote: post #207

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Why's everyone so focused on IT? Everyone can learn how to code, it's not a real science. I think that's exactly why people are focusing on IT. The H-1B program is meant to allow companies to hire foreigners with rare skills that are hard to find domestically. In reality it's abused to import cheap labor and undercut average American workers doing common work like building applications or administering systems. The…

The abuse of h1b program by IT firms is the issue that has to be separated out and resolved on its own. There is no reason why we should send a freshly graduated physics scientist back to Uganda or whatever because he can't find an employer willing to pay him/her some abstract 130k salary straight out of school (which is A LOT OF MONEY). Again, when I hire - I do it strictly based on skills and experience. If I have…

I don't see any reason why h1b visa holders shouldn't have a high bar to reach. The whole point of the program is to bring the best of the best, not the average or mediocre, which could likely be filled by an American somewhere.

Re: New H1-B Visa bill doubles the salary requirements to $130K/yr

#263

Post by drzaiusapelord »

cmurf wrote: post #196
ones_and_zeros wrote: post #25

Here is the summary straight from the horses mouth: https://lofgren.house.gov/uploadedfiles/high_skilled_bill_sx... A few points: - This does not raise the salary requirement to $130k/yr. This only applies to employers that do not want to do the extra paper work for "attestations regarding recruitment and non-displacement of U.S. workers" - It takes a "market based" allocation strategy which allows "cash bonuses and…

Bloomberg suggests this is going to get upstaged by the administration's proposed changes; but they're not really revealing any details about the draft. https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2017-01-30/trump-s-n... This months old Vanity Fair article gives some insight that Trump feels there is a role for immigration policy to make it easy for foreign students getting good jobs in the U.S. and innovating here; whil…

>while his senior counselor and strategist thinks there are too many asians in Silicon Valley

The idea that you can have "too many" of any type of person is about an un-american as one can be. Somehow Trump has no problem with 'too many' chubby white supremacists in the white house. Oh right, whites get a pass on everything. Its only non-whites that have to worry about being too high profile or too successful as to not upset whites. Or dating/marrying white women.

This is straight up racism, open and direct from the white house. I'm not sure how anyone is tolerating this and why there isn't more of an uproar.

Re: New H1-B Visa bill doubles the salary requirements to $130K/yr

#264

Post by webmaven »

BhavdeepSethi wrote: post #75
lokithor wrote: post #27

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yup. The fact that compensation is included, is useless. Companies give you unvested shares worth tonnes that take > 4 years to fully vest. The attrition rates are so high, the sweat shops can get away with it.

None of the sweat shops offer equity.

Well, that can change, especially if the "equity" is in a worthless employing subsidiary that never turns a profit or has a liquidity event.

Re: New H1-B Visa bill doubles the salary requirements to $130K/yr

#265

Post by Steeeve »

amluto wrote: post #253

I think this is the entirely wrong solution because it misunderstands the problem. The problem isn't that the H1B requirements are off a bit. The problem is that H1B visa holders are essentially indentured servants. Say you're a foreigner who applies for an H1B job. Your employer does a bunch of paperwork, gets you an H1B visa, and imports you. Now you can't quit because you can't get a new job. Of course you get und…

> The problem is that H1B visa holders are essentially indentured servants. Say you're a foreigner who applies for an H1B job. Your employer does a bunch of paperwork, gets you an H1B visa, and imports you. Now you can't quit because you can't get a new job. Of course you get underpaid, and of course companies love their H1B workers.

Actually, the program dictates that people are paid above prevailing wage for their position.

But... people get miscategorized all the time. And they also get into big company loans from contractors like TCS for their travel to the US that they couldn't hope to pay without continued employment through them. They also get into bad contracts that include substantial financial penalties for leaving. And just because a company in the US is paying above prevailing wage, that doesn't mean that the employee doing the work is getting it. All of that leads to an environment that is very disappointing.

I do agree that doubling the salary requirement will not fix the real problems, but I don't see it as a problem either. If anything, people close to the edge will end up with a pay bump.

Re: New H1-B Visa bill doubles the salary requirements to $130K/yr

#266

Post by djsumdog »

koolba wrote: post #46
ones_and_zeros wrote: post #25

Here is the summary straight from the horses mouth: https://lofgren.house.gov/uploadedfiles/high_skilled_bill_sx... A few points: - This does not raise the salary requirement to $130k/yr. This only applies to employers that do not want to do the extra paper work for "attestations regarding recruitment and non-displacement of U.S. workers" - It takes a "market based" allocation strategy which allows "cash bonuses and…

> - Startups and small businesses will get 20% of the visas. It'll be interesting to see how this is gamed Probably the old fashioned way: Tata Startup Services, a wholly owned subsidiary of Tata Consulting Services.

I wrote about this earlier:

http://fightthefuture.org/articles/hr-170-will-all-large-com...

Basically bills like this will allow Tata, Wipro and others to just absorb all the talent within the industry. Some versions I've seen do restrict the wage increase to companies that have n% of their workers being H1-B employees, which seems a bit more reasonable.

Re: New H1-B Visa bill doubles the salary requirements to $130K/yr

#267

Post by winter_blue »

PeterisP wrote: post #136
winter_blue wrote: post #121

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I've commented on this before, at: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=13433540 I'm copying the comment below: --- I'm on an H-1B, and the thing that infuriates me about the dialogue on this is that they are effectively trying to ban skilled immigration, and exclude people like me from coming. If you don't qualify for the family-based or refugee route, employment-based immigration is the only viable pathway. The amo…

One could argue that H-1B is a visa that never was intended to apply for fresh graduates - it's a vehicle for "importing" specialists that USA doesn't have, bringing in unusual expertise that USA can't build locally. Yes, "People from outside who have lots of experience (and skill) and can command a much higher salary upfront" is the exclusive target audience for the intended goals of why the H-1B visa is implemented…

> Likely there should be some path for immigrant students to stay, but H-1B shouldn't be that path.

Perhaps they should create an exception that allows immigrant student to work for entry-level market wages for a few years after they graduate.

I mean, immigrants students will need some kind of visa that lets them work to stay here after school. It could be the H-1B, or something else.

But the only way they can stay is if that visa requires only paying what new graduates normally make.

Re: New H1-B Visa bill doubles the salary requirements to $130K/yr

#268

Post by matwood »

webmaven wrote: post #108
matwood wrote: post #40

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> OTOH, in low COL markets (eg. KC) this eliminates H1-Bs from consideration for most entry-level positions. Isn't that the point? I thought H1-Bs were supposed to only be used when the skill set required could not be found locally. This does not match up with entry-level positions unless there are no programmers in the area.

Well, do you want the price to reflect the wage of an average entry-level employee, or that of a talented one? I'm not sure the US should have as a goal keeping every foreign grad here.

What I want is to fix immigration so that people can move to the US, become citizens, and stay. The goal should be to not even need the H1-B program.

Re: New H1-B Visa bill doubles the salary requirements to $130K/yr

#269

Post by SeoxyS »

readhn wrote: post #57
hocuspocus wrote: post #56

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Also, hard science PhD students are typically hired on J-1 (when they stay in academia/research) or O-1 visas (if they find a relevant position the industry).

After you graduate you have to get h1b to work. Nobody is going to pay straight out of school biologist 130k.

You're misunderstanding the immigration system if you think you "need" to be on H-1B. H-1B is just one of many statuses you could get. O-1 is one that is perfectly appropriate for a brilliant PhD.

(Source: I am on an O-1)

Re: New H1-B Visa bill doubles the salary requirements to $130K/yr

#270

Post by Mvandenbergh »

mavelikara wrote: post #181
Mvandenbergh wrote: post #166

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It relies on the companies own estimate of the value of those bonuses... but bonuses are discretionary and the value of private company stock can be hard to determine. So you could have a salary of $90k, $10k of healthcare benefits, and $30k worth of "assumed" bonuses in the form of options, restricted shares, etc. which: a) you're not certain to get anyway (because they're bonuses) b) might not really be worth $30k

> the value of private company stock can be hard to determine The IRS uses 409A valuation. These valuations have been high enough to cause huge AMT burden to engineers. Sam Altman etc have written about it; Zoe Lofgren herself has been trying for years to fix it. Why do you think it is a joke?

I'm not an expert and 409A valuations are not a joke but the current rules around 409A valuations are there to prevent people valuing them too low to reduce taxes, not too high because - why would you?

Some scenarios: A company's "real" fair market value is $50 and this is also what they report to the IRS. They issue options with a strike price of $60, which are $10 out-of-the-money. This is an allowed transaction.

B) The FMV reported to the IRS is $40 but the "real" FMV is $50. Options are issued with a strike price of $50. The IRS thinks that these options are $10 out of the money and therefore allowed, but they should actually have been taxed more-or-less as income.

C) The FMV reported to the IRS is $60 but the "real" FMV is $50. Options are issued with a strike price of $65. The IRS is happy that these options are out of the money, which they really are. If the IRS audits and challenges the valuation, they may come up with a price closer to $50 but that only means that too much tax might have been paid which they're not going to be too upset about. Meanwhile, for the purposes of reporting compensation of their prospective H1B staff member, the barely out of the money options look a lot better than they should.

The IRS is set up to look for B, no-one looks out for C.

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