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How middlemen are gaming the H-1B program

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Re: How middlemen are gaming the H-1B program

#41

Post by listenallyall »

bubblethink wrote: post #37
listenallyall wrote: post #33

Earlier quoted context omitted.

But this is an example of the most ridiculous ideas floated on HN. Even if every politician agreed there was a problem with the H1-B system, the proposed solution is far from agreeable to everyone. Adding criminal liability? Increasing labor costs ("remove the depressive impacts on salaries")? Making it easier to obtain permanent residency? One of the reasons HN gets mocked is how dismissive many commenters are about…

I think the parent's point is to move to a free market/merits based system rather than whatever insane lottery system they have. Almost every other country has some type of points/skill/wages type system.

And my point is, whatever he was trying to say doesn't matter. When you assume the problem is so simple that it could all be fixed tomorrow, you expose yourself as someone who actually doesn't understand the problem.

Re: How middlemen are gaming the H-1B program

#42

Post by cool_dude85 »

eru wrote: post #39
vsskanth wrote: post #14

Staffing companies are extremely profitable and mostly operate on the edge of the law, exploiting visa workers for maximum profit. Any attempt by USCIS to regulate staffing agencies use of H1B has been fought tooth and nail by armies of lawyers. With the fall of Chevron, I don't think there is a way out of this without legislative changes. The other side of the coin is the extremely arbitrary and capricious nature of…

> Staffing companies are extremely profitable and mostly operate on the edge of the law, exploiting visa workers for maximum profit. Any attempt by USCIS to regulate staffing agencies use of H1B has been fought tooth and nail by armies of lawyers. That seems weird. Why would they be extremely profitable? Are there big barriers to entry? Without barriers to entry, you would expect the profits of staffing companies to…

It seems like a strange position to take. Real life is not like the econ 101 course I took in college years ago? Must be that real life is not true.

Re: How middlemen are gaming the H-1B program

#43

Post by elashri »

eru wrote: post #35

They should just auction off those visas (and green cards etc) to the highest bidder. (And require the winners to pay cash up front.) An auction would cut out all the surplus any middle men could earn, and put it in the pockets of the taxpayer. It would also cut out political meddling, and replace it with an incentive to increase revenue. It would also give an incentive to hand out more visas, to 'make those foreigne…

> make those foreigners pay for our public services

Do you realize that after a person gets H1B visa and start working they are still paying taxes. It is usually higher. My last experience was F1 visa and I was paying more taxes than my US colleagues earning same money.

Also this suggestion wouls only benefit the big tech companies.

Re: How middlemen are gaming the H-1B program

#44

Post by deepsun »

> less-remarkable resumes, paying them lower wages and heightening the risk of undercutting American labor.

If the main problem is less skilled workers that take American jobs, then I would start with agricultural visas -- there a ton of low-skilled foreign workers coming to US totally legally and taking jobs from Americans.

(Of course in my opinion, this is not a problem at all. If low-skilled immigrant without connections and safety nets can take someone's job at a lower pay, then that someone was too entitled on the first place).

Re: How middlemen are gaming the H-1B program

#45

Post by shiroiushi »

listenallyall wrote: post #33
shiroiushi wrote: post #25

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What he meant is that it could be done quickly if there were political will for it. Obviously, there's no political will for this, so it won't be done.

But this is an example of the most ridiculous ideas floated on HN. Even if every politician agreed there was a problem with the H1-B system, the proposed solution is far from agreeable to everyone. Adding criminal liability? Increasing labor costs ("remove the depressive impacts on salaries")? Making it easier to obtain permanent residency? One of the reasons HN gets mocked is how dismissive many commenters are about…

>Even if every politician agreed there was a problem with the H1-B system, the proposed solution is far from agreeable to everyone. Adding criminal liability? Increasing labor costs ("remove the depressive impacts on salaries")? Making it easier to obtain permanent residency?

What's wrong with these ideas? 1. Criminal liability - this sounds a bit harsh, but some people are concerned about making sure "bad people" don't get in, so making the completion of proper background checks a hard requirement seems reasonable to allay their concerns. But then they might be concerned the background checks are bogus, so adding criminal liability helps with these concerns too. But granted, this is probably the most extreme part of that post.

2. Increasing labor costs - why is this bad for anyone except employers trying to use H1B as a way of keeping costs down? It's claimed to be a system for letting employers get skilled help where there's a labor shortage, so it's supposed to cost them more.

3. Easier to obtain PR: what the heck is wrong with this? If these immigrants are highly skilled, aren't causing any problems, and want to stay, why would you want to make it difficult for them to stay in your country and help your economy?

Re: How middlemen are gaming the H-1B program

#46

Post by listenallyall »

BobbyJo wrote: post #21
xwolfi wrote: post #13

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Middlemen are people who spent time specialising in a market and you pay them as guides. You never have to go through them, but you'll get your ass raped. There s nothing wrong about them, they work hard and are not rent seekers (a commission on successful deal is the exact opposite of a rent). Every countries has them (Im French, live in Hong Kong) and what you bemoaned is mundane in my experience.

Car salesmen are guides and we'd get raped without them? Wild take.

I agree with your objection to "ass raped" - but you have to agree that buying a car without any dealers would logistically be far more difficult, right?

Re: How middlemen are gaming the H-1B program

#47

Post by bsder »

vsskanth wrote: post #22
bsder wrote: post #15

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The simplest solution is to automatically give an H1-B a green card in 12 months--24 at the longest . Force the sponsoring company to pay for and complete all of the required background and security checks. Make failure to complete or shitty completion of those checks criminal liability directly on the CEO. This would immediately deprive these kinds of staffing companies of the economic incentive as they would have t…

This requires Congress to pass legislation, so cannot be done tomorrow . Legal immigration isn't a high priority in general and Congress hasn't moved on immigration in decades.

I might stand corrected shortly.

However, I was under the impression that almost all of this is directly under the purview of the Executive Branch (with the possible exception of the criminality).

Apparently one of the bottlenecks is the total number of visas per country. Demonstrating that you're unblocking the H1-B to Green Card pipeline by fast-tracking those from countries that don't have a big backlog should send the body shops running for the hills and unblock the ones with a big backlog as well. Or shutting down any new H1-Bs from countries until their backlog is gone would also accomplish the same thing.

The problem is that US companies like the multi-year indentured servitude of the H1-B program as it depresses salaries.

Re: How middlemen are gaming the H-1B program

#48

Post by vsskanth »

bsder wrote: post #47
vsskanth wrote: post #22

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This requires Congress to pass legislation, so cannot be done tomorrow . Legal immigration isn't a high priority in general and Congress hasn't moved on immigration in decades.

I might stand corrected shortly. However, I was under the impression that almost all of this is directly under the purview of the Executive Branch (with the possible exception of the criminality). Apparently one of the bottlenecks is the total number of visas per country. Demonstrating that you're unblocking the H1-B to Green Card pipeline by fast-tracking those from countries that don't have a big backlog should sen…

The executive branch cannot make laws. The H1B program and green card numerical limits came to be from Congress passing laws and can only be changed by them passing new laws.

Re: How middlemen are gaming the H-1B program

#49

Post by eru »

cool_dude85 wrote: post #42
eru wrote: post #39

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Staffing companies are extremely profitable and mostly operate on the edge of the law, exploiting visa workers for maximum profit. Any attempt by USCIS to regulate staffing agencies use of H1B has been fought tooth and nail by armies of lawyers. That seems weird. Why would they be extremely profitable? Are there big barriers to entry? Without barriers to entry, you would expect the profits of staffing companies to…

It seems like a strange position to take. Real life is not like the econ 101 course I took in college years ago? Must be that real life is not true.

We would still have to explain, why all those greedy private equity companies and billionaires and VCs etc aren't starting staffing companies left and right, if they are so profitable?

Physics can tell you how frictionless, spherical cows behave in a vacuum. When you see real cows behave differently, you can investigate which of your violations are violated (and by how much, and which assumptions are still ok to make; eg air resistance is seldom a factor in the movement of real cows). The spherical cows are still a good starting point.

Economics can be similar. First, I doubt that staffing companies are actually all that profitable across the board. Yes, the difference between what they charge and what they pay out might be big, but they have plenty of overheads. Do we have any sources for their supposed extreme profitability?

Second, I suspect that any remaining excess profitability can probably be explained by barriers to entry.

Though some quick googling really makes me lean very much towards the first: staffing companies are by and large not more profitable than companies in other sectors.

Re: How middlemen are gaming the H-1B program

#50

Post by eru »

elashri wrote: post #43
eru wrote: post #35

They should just auction off those visas (and green cards etc) to the highest bidder. (And require the winners to pay cash up front.) An auction would cut out all the surplus any middle men could earn, and put it in the pockets of the taxpayer. It would also cut out political meddling, and replace it with an incentive to increase revenue. It would also give an incentive to hand out more visas, to 'make those foreigne…

> make those foreigners pay for our public services Do you realize that after a person gets H1B visa and start working they are still paying taxes. It is usually higher. My last experience was F1 visa and I was paying more taxes than my US colleagues earning same money. Also this suggestion wouls only benefit the big tech companies.

> Do you realize that after a person gets H1B visa and start working they are still paying taxes. It is usually higher. My last experience was F1 visa and I was paying more taxes than my US colleagues earning same money.

I was talking about how to sell the visa auction to the voters. Yes, to bolster the argument further, you can mention that visa holders obviously also pay all the other regular taxes, too. Income taxes, sales taxes, etc.

Despite a higher effective tax on those foreigners (normal taxation plus visa bidding), it's still a good deal for those that come: otherwise they wouldn't bid.

> Also this suggestion would only benefit the big tech companies.

No worries, banks and hedge funds and oil refineries and private hospitals etc can also bid a lot.

Yes, the whole point is to hand the visas primarily to those people and industries that create a lot of economic value. The auction simultaneously makes participants reveal the economic value they expect the visa to confer and allows the fisc to efficiently tax that value for general revenue. Specifically, the auction removes any surplus from the middle man (see linked article), and puts it into government covers.

You seem to think that this is a downside?

(Just to be clear, I'm all for helping poor people. You can use some of the revenue raised from the auction and the extra income tax from getting highly paid migrants to finance any do-goodery the voters feel like.)

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