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

#31

Post by arcticbull » Tue, Oct 06, 2020, 10:01 PM UTC

berryjerry wrote: post #28

arcticbull wrote: post #10

It's pretty amazing to me how anti-immigrant America is, for a country built on immigration, but I suppose it's always been that way. Benjamin Franklin hated the Germans in the 1750s [1]. For perspective, Canada, a country 1/10th the size of the US, brings in 30,000 refugees each year. The US brings in 18,000. This means Canada brings in 25X the number of refugees per capita than the US does. Canada, a country 1/10th…

The thing to remember about US immigration is that most immigrants simply over stay their visa. The US may bring less immigrants over but there is a reason you can press 2 for Spanish on nearly every single companies help line.

> The thing to remember about US immigration is that most immigrants simply over stay their visa.

That is patently false.

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

#32

Post by core-questions » Tue, Oct 06, 2020, 10:01 PM UTC

arcticbull wrote: post #10

It's pretty amazing to me how anti-immigrant America is, for a country built on immigration, but I suppose it's always been that way. Benjamin Franklin hated the Germans in the 1750s [1]. For perspective, Canada, a country 1/10th the size of the US, brings in 30,000 refugees each year. The US brings in 18,000. This means Canada brings in 25X the number of refugees per capita than the US does. Canada, a country 1/10th…

> This means Canada brings in 25X the number of refugees per capita than the US does.

> This means Canada brings in 20X the number of new immigrants per capita than the US does.

You assert this as though it's just automatically a good thing with no actual analysis as to the impact on Canadians. What happens to the cultural cohesion, wages, and living standards of Canadians when immigration is at such a rapid pace? Is this not a factor? Or is the sheer availability of cheap, undercutting labour just a natural capitalist good that we should accept regardless of the hard to measure, intangible impacts?

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

#33

Post by nrmitchi » Tue, Oct 06, 2020, 10:02 PM UTC

I'll give you that, but it seems like a much simpler solution would have just been improving the flexibility for an H1B worker to be allowed to work at any employer for the term of their status.

If an employer used an H1B in order to hire a foreign worker and then under pay them, the worker would just get another job that pays market rate, without the work status concern. Without the artificial control over the employee, H1B fraud, in this manner, wouldn't be worth it.

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

#34

Post by paxys » Tue, Oct 06, 2020, 10:02 PM UTC

While I'm in favor of the move, wages are just a band-aid fix. The core of the problem is that the premise of the H1B visa itself – extraordinary skill that cannot be found in the US – is complete bullshit. Everyone participating in the program (including the government) knows this, and yet they have to do the entire song and dance of years long approval processes, fake job listings, RFEs and whatnot.

Fix the real problem, and salaries will take care of themselves.

Another problem with simply raising the salary bar is that there are actually professions (especially in healthcare) that genuinely have a talent/supply gap. A small hospital in the midwest, however, isn't going to be able to compete with a hotshot SF startup with unlimited venture funding to throw at foreign hires.

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

#35

Post by mastazi » Tue, Oct 06, 2020, 10:02 PM UTC

arcticbull wrote: post #10

It's pretty amazing to me how anti-immigrant America is, for a country built on immigration, but I suppose it's always been that way. Benjamin Franklin hated the Germans in the 1750s [1]. For perspective, Canada, a country 1/10th the size of the US, brings in 30,000 refugees each year. The US brings in 18,000. This means Canada brings in 25X the number of refugees per capita than the US does. Canada, a country 1/10th…

FWIW I am an immigrant myself (in Australia) and I am in favour of strict regulation. Skilled migration schemes should bring in skilled people, I've seen many people migrating on a skilled visa only to end up making a living as taxi drivers.

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

#36

Post by jwagenet » Tue, Oct 06, 2020, 10:02 PM UTC

arcticbull wrote: post #10

It's pretty amazing to me how anti-immigrant America is, for a country built on immigration, but I suppose it's always been that way. Benjamin Franklin hated the Germans in the 1750s [1]. For perspective, Canada, a country 1/10th the size of the US, brings in 30,000 refugees each year. The US brings in 18,000. This means Canada brings in 25X the number of refugees per capita than the US does. Canada, a country 1/10th…

> of course these rules do not take into account equity based compensation

I would not consider startup equity equitable to salary compensation.

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

#37

Post by malandrew » Tue, Oct 06, 2020, 10:03 PM UTC

frequentnapper wrote: post #15

arcticbull wrote: post #10

It's pretty amazing to me how anti-immigrant America is, for a country built on immigration, but I suppose it's always been that way. Benjamin Franklin hated the Germans in the 1750s [1]. For perspective, Canada, a country 1/10th the size of the US, brings in 30,000 refugees each year. The US brings in 18,000. This means Canada brings in 25X the number of refugees per capita than the US does. Canada, a country 1/10th…

As a canadian immigrant, I'm actually against the ramping up of so much immigration because we do not have the infrastructure to support it. I liked the slow and steady pace of quality over quantity before liberals came into power.

There's a lot to be said for a slow steady pace. Society's relationship with politics tends to be oscillatory. If you push too hard in one direction (liberal or conservative), things swing back the other way and you end up with two steps forward, one step back and a loss of power for your team.

A more productive approach would be to set the cruise control just left of center and not get greedy. If you do that and simultaneously monitor and manage externalities of policies you see as progress, you'll probably see more mileage.

The complete lack of concern for externalities of policies and disregard for second and third order effects is why I've largely abandoned supporting most democrat positions. It's gotten so destructive that I'd rather stick with the devil I know than the devil I don't. And I would rather avoid oscillating between which devil has power since it's at the point in the reversal of political direction that the worst authoritarian abuses from either side happen.

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

#38

Post by vkdelta » Tue, Oct 06, 2020, 10:03 PM UTC

Without reading the whole IFR, what would be the minimum pay for h1b holder? Will it make harder for entry level F1 OPT students?

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

#39

Post by SECProto » Tue, Oct 06, 2020, 10:03 PM UTC

frequentnapper wrote: post #15

arcticbull wrote: post #10

It's pretty amazing to me how anti-immigrant America is, for a country built on immigration, but I suppose it's always been that way. Benjamin Franklin hated the Germans in the 1750s [1]. For perspective, Canada, a country 1/10th the size of the US, brings in 30,000 refugees each year. The US brings in 18,000. This means Canada brings in 25X the number of refugees per capita than the US does. Canada, a country 1/10th…

As a canadian immigrant, I'm actually against the ramping up of so much immigration because we do not have the infrastructure to support it. I liked the slow and steady pace of quality over quantity before liberals came into power.

Immigration to Canada has stayed very consistent over the last 20 years, check the wiki article [1] for details. It's not political (well, the rhetoric is political. The actual policies and statistics are not.)

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Immigration_to_Canada

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

#40

Post by mardifoufs » Tue, Oct 06, 2020, 10:03 PM UTC

arcticbull wrote: post #10

It's pretty amazing to me how anti-immigrant America is, for a country built on immigration, but I suppose it's always been that way. Benjamin Franklin hated the Germans in the 1750s [1]. For perspective, Canada, a country 1/10th the size of the US, brings in 30,000 refugees each year. The US brings in 18,000. This means Canada brings in 25X the number of refugees per capita than the US does. Canada, a country 1/10th…

First of all, I'm pretty sure the US accepts way, way more immigrants than that. Also, how is it anti immigration to ask employers to pay H1Bs a competitive wage? Yes the process is expensive, but so what? If you really needed H1Bs, you'd be willing to foot the bill. The program shouldn't be used to get access to cheap labor & it shouldn't be used to save money.