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U.S. State Department pauses immigrant visa applications

wsj.com

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Re: U.S. State Department pauses immigrant visa applications

#341

Post by AlotOfReading »

ytoawwhra92 wrote: post #284
10000truths wrote: post #267

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Being paid the same as the other guy doesn't necessarily mean the wages themselves stayed the same. Adding H1B candidates to the talent pool exerts downward pressure on salary due to the law of supply and demand. I can't say for sure whether the allure of a green card or threat of deportation play a material factor in lowering the average salary that H1B immigrants are willing to accept. But in an environment where t…

The prevailing wage for H1B software engineers is a very good salary for most software engineers in the world. It's common for the prevailing wage to be double what that person could earn in their country of origin.

That's the parent's argument. Prevailing wage in country A is X. Prevailing wage in country B is Y, and according to your numbers X > 2Y. Person from country B emigrates to country A and accepts wage 1.9Y, putting downward pressure on the jobs in country A at wage X.

Re: U.S. State Department pauses immigrant visa applications

#342

Post by [deleted] »

binarymax wrote: post #251
doug_durham wrote: post #214

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's clear you are not a hiring manager. There aren't thousands of highly qualified engineers looking for work. I can't tell if this a troll post or not.

Yes, there are thousands of qualified engineers looking for work.

[deleted]

Re: U.S. State Department pauses immigrant visa applications

#343

Post by maest »

jimbo808 wrote: post #316
doug_durham wrote: post #214

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's clear you are not a hiring manager. There aren't thousands of highly qualified engineers looking for work. I can't tell if this a troll post or not.

It's clear you are not considering the long-term effects of labor policy. If we want a stronger domestic workforce, the answer is to incentivize Americans to develop the skills we need and to train them when they do not already have those skills. Mass importing foreign labor is not a substitute for building and investing in the domestic workforce.

Btw, this is analogous to the argument for positive discrimination:

Preferentially treat one group of people (non-white/women/Americans) even if in the short term the revealed preference of businesses is to hire a different group of people (white/men/immigrants), such that, in the long term, the first group of people can develop the necessary skills to compete with the second group.

Short term pain for long term gain.

Re: U.S. State Department pauses immigrant visa applications

#344

Post by gamblor956 »

JauntTrooper wrote: post #80
hvb2 wrote: post #15

So for those that don't know, it's quite common for a visa renewal to be required to leave the country. Depending on the visa, you might have to do this every year. So just imagine, having a normal job in the US and you're asked to leave to renew your visa and this stuff happens. That's no more appointment, not even a new date and you're now very likely unable to work and possibly can't even enter the country to get…

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This story can't be true. The green card freeze policy only went into effect in January 2026...earlier this year, and was struck down several months ago.

Also, UCIS has limited discretion to reject a spousal green card applicant; an undisclosed criminal record or immigration violations are basically the only two that would apply if he's been married for years.

Re: U.S. State Department pauses immigrant visa applications

#345

Post by vjvjvjvjghv »

My company has a H-1B guy that travelled home to India a few months ago and since then can't come back because the next date he can get with the US embassy is next year. Seems he may get stuck even longer...

I am to some degree on board with keeping a closer eye on immigration, but the way the current administration does it feels intentionally cruel. The guy at my company has a house, wife, and kids in the US; his visa is perfectly legal, so it seems it would make sense to process these people quickly. But instead, he is now in some limbo. Same for ICE. Clamping down on illegal immigration makes sense, but it doesn't make sense for ICE to behave like some unaccountable secret police that hires the biggest assholes they can find who can then do whatever they want.

Re: U.S. State Department pauses immigrant visa applications

#346

Post by unethical_ban »

xdennis wrote: post #335
unethical_ban wrote: post #324

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You're giving the current government the benefit of the doubt, which I never do. In 2024, I didn't think we'd be murdering protesters in the streets or kidnapping heads of state or inciting global tariff wars paid for by US citizens or watching the president take billions of dollars of bribes using cryptocurrency. Why do you think thos government is responding to something in a good faith attempt at improving a syste…

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Justifying the murder of Alex Pretti who was acting legally and defensively and was on his hands and knees disarmed when he was executed, and the (at least) fatal excessive force of the woman who wasn't trying to run over anyone is a bad thing.

Like, you know that about Pretti right? That he was shot on his hands and knees surrounded by agents who celebrated? I don't think someone on HN would knowingly lie about the government murdering citizens.

If only there was some kind of reasonable investigation by the government about those things.

You're right on one thing, defending human rights against government misbehavior and abuse of power seems to be exclusively left wing these days.

Oh, and that Venezuelan takeover we did, which likely led to massive amounts of fraud and wealth transfer to Trump and others? That illegal act and feckless obedience of the legislature is the same root cause for the illegal tariffs you seem to dislike.

Re: U.S. State Department pauses immigrant visa applications

#348

Post by Terr_ »

eluusive wrote: post #305

This is a response to the supreme court ruling on birthright citizenship. They're using the levers they do have, since that was removed. Anyone who agrees with the ruling should really read justice Thomas' dissent.

What is this "lever" you claim already existed and then got "removed", precisely?

Re: U.S. State Department pauses immigrant visa applications

#349

Post by rayiner »

driverdan wrote: post #238
unselect5917 wrote: post #133

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>And the U.S. has been doing even better since 1965. Better for whom? People are struggling to afford groceries largely because the dollar is worth 1/165th of its 1913 value and the minimum wage hasn't been raised in 17 years. I found a job that pays in BTC and I'm super hopeful about that one because my effective salary won't go down by 3-8% every year but instead will appreciate relative to what things are priced i…

> Better for whom? Minorities and women, for a start.

We were able to make progress on those fronts in the 1960s because we had a culturally homogenized population after decades of immigration restriction.

In the area of women’s rights, for example, the driving force was mainline protestants who wanted prohibition, in opposition to recent immigrants: https://www.wpbstv.org/prohibition-and-the-suffrage-movement.... If America had remained an Anglo-Protestant society, it likely would have developed on a similar trajectory as Canada, the UK, and Australia on issues like abortion. Remember, Roe v. Wade had five Nixon and Eisenhower Republicans in the majority. The party shifted positions on the issue with Reagan because it was a way to flip a large number of catholics, who had overwhelmingly voted democrat until then. Evangelical protestants plus religious Catholics was a big enough coalition to offset mainline protestants on the issue.

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