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USCIS announces strengthened integrity measures for H-1B program

uscis.gov

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Re: USCIS announces strengthened integrity measures for H-1B program

#41

Post by vsskanth »

lolinder wrote: post #26
vsskanth wrote: post #6

> the registration fee during the registration period starting in March 2024, will remain $10. Yeah, every single outsourcing provider is going to enter all their employees and market whoever is selected for on-site assignments to their customers. The cost of entry is way too low and this attracts frivolous registrations. Previously, it used to cost thousands of dollars before to prepare a full petition and only thos…

That fee has been $10 all along—see this from last year [0]. I don't know much about this process, but the thousands of dollars must be coming from something else—probably some combination of other government fees and attorney bills. [0] https://www.uscis.gov/working-in-the-united-states/temporary...

No. You previously had to fill the entire H1B petition and pay full fees (including lawyer fees to prepare the petition) just to enter the H1B lottery. Your fees get refunded if you do not get selected in the lottery. You're still out lawyer fees though.

The $10 fee to enter your name and later fill the entire petition is a fairly recent change

https://www.federalregister.gov/documents/2019/11/08/2019-24...

Re: USCIS announces strengthened integrity measures for H-1B program

#42

Post by lmm »

jedberg wrote: post #4

It seems like it would be so easy to fix the H1-B program but no one wants to and I feel like I must be missing something. The purpose of the H1-B is to allow companies to hire foreigners with special skills that can't be found amongst US citizens. So why not just grant H1-Bs to the companies that are willing to pay their talent the most? Let any company apply and list a salary which they have to agree to pay for at…

> So why not just grant H1-Bs to the companies that are willing to pay their talent the most?

Because then the acceptance rate would be x% for people from India, y% from China, and 0.001% for everywhere else, which would be politically untenable.

Re: USCIS announces strengthened integrity measures for H-1B program

#43

Post by vsskanth »

bubblethink wrote: post #31
vsskanth wrote: post #6

> the registration fee during the registration period starting in March 2024, will remain $10. Yeah, every single outsourcing provider is going to enter all their employees and market whoever is selected for on-site assignments to their customers. The cost of entry is way too low and this attracts frivolous registrations. Previously, it used to cost thousands of dollars before to prepare a full petition and only thos…

The lottery ticket price has always been low; you pay the full price once you win the lottery. They're de-duping applications this year (stopping people from buying multiple tickets), and the ticket price will go up next year (to somewhere in the ~$200 range). Raising the ticket price for a lottery is an ass backwards way to solve anything.

No. It was changed for FY 2020. Before that you had to pay in full beforehand with a complete petition and get refunded if you don't get selected.

It was quite effective at weeding out non-serious job offers.

https://www.federalregister.gov/documents/2019/11/08/2019-24...

Re: USCIS announces strengthened integrity measures for H-1B program

#44

Post by bubblethink »

CPLX wrote: post #5
dheera wrote: post #2

I find the entire H-1B program somewhat ridiculously designed. 0. There should be no cap for people who have received higher education degrees in the US. What's the point of educating people and equipping them with everything they need to be successful in the US, advance the US (including creating lots of jobs) and then deporting them right after? 1. There should be no cap for people who are going into STEM, AI, or o…

> There should be no cap for people who have received higher education degrees in the US. This has the effect of delegating decisions about who enters the country to an unelected and unaccountable group of admissions officers working at private institutions.

That's something that the state and federal govt. can easily regulate through the Dept. of Education. The converse is more absurd. If I want to study X, and university Y wants me, why does a third party dictate anything here ?

Re: USCIS announces strengthened integrity measures for H-1B program

#45

Post by duskwuff »

FTA:

> Also under the new rule, USCIS may deny or revoke the approval of an H-1B petition if it determines that the fee associated with the registration is declined, not reconciled, disputed, or otherwise invalid after submission.

The fact that they mention this suggests that they couldn't do so previously... which is pretty mind-boggling.

Re: USCIS announces strengthened integrity measures for H-1B program

#46

Post by quatrefoil »

sverhagen wrote: post #34
karmasimida wrote: post #28

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> So why not just grant H1-Bs to the companies that are willing to pay their talent the most? Because industries pay differently. Unless you argue H1Bs all go to big techs. The problem with H1B program is, no matter how it is structured, it WILL be gamed.

I have no stake in the discussion, but "pay their talent the most" could be among comparable job titles, or something like that?

Then it's a race to the bottom with titles. You're no longer a software engineer, you're a "computer technician".

H-1B is probably one of the most gamed and abused visa categories, perhaps next to marriage-related stuff.

Re: USCIS announces strengthened integrity measures for H-1B program

#47

Post by ok123456 »

tonmoy wrote: post #11
jedberg wrote: post #4

It seems like it would be so easy to fix the H1-B program but no one wants to and I feel like I must be missing something. The purpose of the H1-B is to allow companies to hire foreigners with special skills that can't be found amongst US citizens. So why not just grant H1-Bs to the companies that are willing to pay their talent the most? Let any company apply and list a salary which they have to agree to pay for at…

Because then the agricultural company in Alabama wanting to hire the brightest chemist will be at a disadvantage compared to the IT firm in California. Forgetting about the cost of living adjustments for each area the industry wide disruption alone may not be worth it

Have a different auction for different worker skill classifications.

Re: USCIS announces strengthened integrity measures for H-1B program

#48

Post by lolinder »

vsskanth wrote: post #41
lolinder wrote: post #26

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That fee has been $10 all along—see this from last year [0]. I don't know much about this process, but the thousands of dollars must be coming from something else—probably some combination of other government fees and attorney bills. [0] https://www.uscis.gov/working-in-the-united-states/temporary...

No. You previously had to fill the entire H1B petition and pay full fees (including lawyer fees to prepare the petition) just to enter the H1B lottery. Your fees get refunded if you do not get selected in the lottery. You're still out lawyer fees though. The $10 fee to enter your name and later fill the entire petition is a fairly recent change https://www.federalregister.gov/documents/2019/11/08/2019-24...

Fair, but this isn't a new change this year. If the catastrophe that you say will happen was going to happen, we should already be seeing it since at least 2020.

Re: USCIS announces strengthened integrity measures for H-1B program

#49

Post by saltcured »

jedberg wrote: post #4

It seems like it would be so easy to fix the H1-B program but no one wants to and I feel like I must be missing something. The purpose of the H1-B is to allow companies to hire foreigners with special skills that can't be found amongst US citizens. So why not just grant H1-Bs to the companies that are willing to pay their talent the most? Let any company apply and list a salary which they have to agree to pay for at…

The problem with replacing a lottery with a salary ranked cutoff is that all skills do not exist on a single linear axis proportional to economic value. It is not as if all academics are currently highest paid across the economy, so why would that be true of imported academics?

To me, an ideal skilled worker system would define quota categories by skill/job at a much finer granularity, i.e. hundreds or thousands of different H1-B sub-categories somehow weighted by policies rooted in national strategic interest.

Maybe some kind of blinded auction process that could minimize abuse. Both potential employer and employee go through some vetting process and post their needs/skills using a standard ontology. Then, a matchmaker assigns job offers that are binding. You might allow either party to reject the offer and go back into the matchmaking pool for a limited period or number of offers before they are evicted with a cooling-off period before they are allowed to reapply.

You would also need some kind of anti-abuse audit. Otherwise, malignant players could establish esoteric job requirements via covert channel and then mislabel both the worker and the position to try to force the matchmaker's hand. How do you distinguish a truly rare skill from covert ear-marking?

Re: USCIS announces strengthened integrity measures for H-1B program

#50

Post by jedberg »

BobaFloutist wrote: post #23
jedberg wrote: post #7

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> There should be no cap for people who have received higher education degrees in the US. Agree 100%. Student visas should convert to work visas automatically on graduation from an accredited institution and be good for at least five years.

And work visas should have built-in naturalization paths. There's no reason a highly educated, highly contributing member of society for the past 5-10 years should risk deportation if they get laid off, or, god forbid, quit due to working conditions.

My honest opinion is that you should get citizenship upon graduation or shortly thereafter, but I haven't really thought it through enough to figure out unintended consequences of that.
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