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

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

#331

Post by nitwit005 »

skybrian wrote: post #93
justinhj wrote: post #76

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think you’re putting the cart before the horse. Why is there a shortage of low skilled workers in a country of 400m? Because you have illegal workers who’ve driven the price of that work below what the market legally supports. If the law was effectively enforced those low skilled jobs would pay enough for Americans

Vegetable and dairy farmers would go out of business, if prices can't be raised due to competition from imports. You'd need tariffs as well, and people would need to put up with significant price increases at the grocery store. There are not many Americans who want their kids to grow up to be farmhands or migrant workers. If you can speak English, you're better off in retail. For immigrants, there is a valuable benef…

If you want to provide an industry life support, the normal thing to do is to just subsidize it. Importing people desperate enough to work for low wages in poor conditions seems both odd and explotative.

I personally lack a romantic attachment to these industries, but in general people seem fairly happy to support something like the dairy industry.

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

#332

Post by mehrdada »

yangchi wrote: post #230
peferron wrote: post #199

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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

The term Immigrant Visa in US immigration specifically refers to a visa that would confer permanent residency (i.e. green card) upon entry to the US. H-1B is definitely not one. It is a non-immigrant visa. Immigration intent, e.g. “dual intent” that you are referring to is distinct from the fact that H-1B is a non-immigrant visa. It simply refers to whether you are eligible for the non-immigrant visa if you have a predisposed intent to immigrate permanently in the future. For example, if you are applying for a non-immigrant visa with non-immigrant intent like F-1, you are asserting that you do not intend to permanently immigrate at the time of your application. Dual intent visas do not have such restriction, thus you can apply for a green card without jeopardizing your eligibility for a dual-intent non-immigrant visa, but that does not mean the non-immigrant visa comes with the privilege or path of immigration in and of itself or confers any such benefit.

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

#333

Post by scarejunba »

GreaterFool wrote: post #321
xtreme wrote: post #243

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Canada's Express Entry system for skilled immigrants gives you more points if you attended college in Canada. Giving priority to people who have already integrated into the society makes perfect sense to me.

At the same time that kinda cripples the ability to hire highly-skilled foreigners, isn't it? It's artificially limiting the pool of viable candidates. Just imagine a PhD (or even a Master's degree holder) from Europe, a leader in their field. With this system they are at a huge disadvantage and so are companies that would like to hire them. As someone mentioned this system will just lead to straight to masters degre…

Canada is points-based. These guys you have in mind lose on one category and win on another category. That's why points-based systems work. You get to say "Speaking French in my country is as valuable as if you held a Masters degree from here". There are so many bases to add up to the value that anyone with that skill would almost certainly make it.

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

#335

Post by damnyou »

mc32 wrote: post #73
pertymcpert wrote: post #62

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You can't get citizenship by giving birth in the US. And asylum is a special case, it's not really a normal immigration route.

Not the person giving birth but the progeny. Most countries ~164 out of 194) are jus sanguinis (you inherit nationality of parent(s)) we are one of the exceptions with jus soli. We even have “birth tourism” taking advantage of our liberal policy.

Jus soli is a civil rights issue. Jus sanguinis has led to many cases of intergenerational oppression. Giving up jus soli would be like giving up the Civil Rights Act.

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

#336

Post by BadassFractal »

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.

Is that actually true though? I remember reading / hearing in podcasts that now it takes two people working full time to get the same lifestyle we had when only one member in the household was expected to work.

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

#337

Post by thaumasiotes »

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…

> American's used to be able to support large families of 4+ kids with only 1 working parent. Now you have households with both working and they can't afford to have kids.

I'm broadly sympathetic to your viewpoint, but this isn't accurate. Children are fundamentally not expensive. The problem is that couples believe they can't afford to have kids, not that they actually can't afford them.

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

#338

Post by raz32dust »

fxfan wrote: post #306
raz32dust wrote: post #273

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Homogeneity is good only if you are moving towards the optimal goal. Diversity is good to bring in new ideas which helps adjust the goal and keep the society robust against failure. Like autocracy vs democracy. If you have a benevolent godly dictator, that's perfect. But we accept that no such ideal exists, so democracy is the compromise. Diversity in the workplace exerts the same goal. It lowers efficiency, but effi…

I don't see what you added to my comment. I already said diversity of ideas and background is good- diversity purely based on color to make a star trek movie is not.

Racial diversity is a proxy to background/idea diversity since different races come from different backgrounds and have different ideas of reality. Organizations are pushing all kinds of diversity, not just one based on color. Race just happens to be easy to measure. That doesn't make it wrong, it is somewhat in the right direction though it might not be optimal.

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

#339

Post by s_y_n_t_a_x »

skybrian wrote: post #93
justinhj wrote: post #76

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think you’re putting the cart before the horse. Why is there a shortage of low skilled workers in a country of 400m? Because you have illegal workers who’ve driven the price of that work below what the market legally supports. If the law was effectively enforced those low skilled jobs would pay enough for Americans

Vegetable and dairy farmers would go out of business, if prices can't be raised due to competition from imports. You'd need tariffs as well, and people would need to put up with significant price increases at the grocery store. There are not many Americans who want their kids to grow up to be farmhands or migrant workers. If you can speak English, you're better off in retail. For immigrants, there is a valuable benef…

That's the same argument the southern states made for their plantations.

Do you support slave labor?

If you want to support an industry, you subsidize it, you don't import workers to work for breadcrumbs in terrible conditions.

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

#340

Post by jayd16 »

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…

By this logic, any increase in productivity is bad because it reduces labor scarcity. That's just not how it works.

> if we dropped 10 million software engineers in Silicon Valley from around the world, guess what?

Guess what, we'd get a lot more overseas clients as they wrestled with the labor shortage abroad. (Although, the real problem would be the humanitarian crisis in housing 10m more in SV overnight, ha)

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