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Microsoft has urged its employees on H-1B and H-4 visas to return immediately

timesofindia.indiatimes.com

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Re: Microsoft has urged its employees on H-1B and H-4 visas to return immediately

#531

Post by darth_avocado »

sarchertech wrote: post #374
darth_avocado wrote: post #298

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Nah. The “friction” is overstated. H1Bs face the same labor conditions as rest of the folks. When the market is great, you can shop around and make a lot of money. When the market is bad and you stay put, most of the other employees are doing the same. The caveat: I’m not talking about the consultancies that abuse the system, which we can all agree are bad and their employees usually will have a hard time finding oth…

If you get fired or laid off, you only have 60 days to find a new job or be deported. Also depending on where you are in the green card process, you can lose your place. This creates an incentive for H-1B workers to tolerate working conditions that American workers wouldn't.

Again, if you have terrible work conditions, you as an H1B have the same options as US citizens. You look for a different job and maybe suck it up for a couple of months, just like a US citizen would.

And while yes, if have an ongoing green card process which takes 12-18 months, you may have an incentive to stick around to see it to completion, anyone who has their I-140, does not actually “lose their place” in the green card process. They can file for a new I140 and retain their place in the queue by retaining the priority date from the previous application.

If you think US citizens don’t stick around for a bit in a shitty job for a variety of reasons, then you’d be lying. People (including US citizens) don’t just quit jobs whenever they want without a plan like you’re making it sound. At least not ones that carry a reasonable wage, health insurance and other benefits. Again, all with the caveat of me not talking about consulting firms, which obviously don’t exactly have the best workplace environments.

Re: Microsoft has urged its employees on H-1B and H-4 visas to return immediately

#532

Post by ztwye »

deadbabe wrote: post #295

A reminder that just because we may feel sorry for these H1B people caught up in this administration’s shenanigans, it does not mean we have to be overly supportive of the H1B program in general. If it ends, it ends. There’s plenty of American CS graduates desperate for jobs here at home too. Tired of hearing stories about people who have been unable to land any kind of CS job due to low hiring and AI making them irr…

Might as well kick every single foreigner out of this country to let Americans find jobs.

Of course us foreigners take it personally... Are you serious? How is this understandable?

Re: Microsoft has urged its employees on H-1B and H-4 visas to return immediately

#533

Post by gigatexal »

This effectively makes off shoring cheaper no? Just bypass the H1B thing altogether and hire folks in India, or Mexico, or Canada.

It gets harder and harder to have skin pigment, speak another language, or god forbid want to come to the USA under this insane administration.

Re: Microsoft has urged its employees on H-1B and H-4 visas to return immediately

#534

Post by mgraczyk »

arn7av wrote: post #518

Update from USCIS: https://www.uscis.gov/sites/default/files/document/memos/H1B... "Clarification" from Press Secretary: https://x.com/PressSec/status/1969495900478488745 1.) This is NOT an annual fee. It’s a one-time fee that applies only to the petition. 2.) Those who already hold H-1B visas and are currently outside of the country right now will NOT be charged $100,000 to re-enter. H-1B visa holders can leave and…

The problem here is that the proclamation says otherwise. It doesn't include any exception for current holders

Trump has the legal authority to block anyone from entering for essentially any reason (see Trump v Hawaii)

So it doesn't matter much what the white house says today. They are free to change their minds tomorrow. That's part of the strategy, if immigrants are afraid they will be arbitrarily extorted at the border, then only the ones whose employers have bribed Trump will even bother applying

Re: Microsoft has urged its employees on H-1B and H-4 visas to return immediately

#535

Post by nrmitchi »

arn7av wrote: post #518

Update from USCIS: https://www.uscis.gov/sites/default/files/document/memos/H1B... "Clarification" from Press Secretary: https://x.com/PressSec/status/1969495900478488745 1.) This is NOT an annual fee. It’s a one-time fee that applies only to the petition. 2.) Those who already hold H-1B visas and are currently outside of the country right now will NOT be charged $100,000 to re-enter. H-1B visa holders can leave and…

A "White House Official" may be saying this now, but it is not what was in the EO that was actually signed. There were no exclusions for current holders, and the start date was explicitly September 21, 2025 (a date that does apply to the "next lottery").

They are more than welcome to roll back this asinine decision, but pretending that everyone else is just mis-interpreting is gaslighting.

Either way, until there is an official, in-writting announcement that can be depended on, no one should be taking the advice of an unnamed White House source.

In any situation, your best bet is to follow the direction and guidance of your own attorney.

Re: Microsoft has urged its employees on H-1B and H-4 visas to return immediately

#536

Post by kccqzy »

arn7av wrote: post #518

Update from USCIS: https://www.uscis.gov/sites/default/files/document/memos/H1B... "Clarification" from Press Secretary: https://x.com/PressSec/status/1969495900478488745 1.) This is NOT an annual fee. It’s a one-time fee that applies only to the petition. 2.) Those who already hold H-1B visas and are currently outside of the country right now will NOT be charged $100,000 to re-enter. H-1B visa holders can leave and…

Nothing in the executive order says that those who already hold visas will not be charged, or that it will applies to new visas. And one can pretty much be sure that omitting that fact in the initial executive order announcement is intentional, because this administration wants chaos.

Re: Microsoft has urged its employees on H-1B and H-4 visas to return immediately

#537

Post by nrmitchi »

cm2187 wrote: post #515
hvb2 wrote: post #501

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's not how laws and executive orders work? The text of the order matters, not some opinion of some admin official That's why, typically, this would have been reviewed and planned.

I am not trying to defend it, but I understand the issue was that the order was unclear.

That's the thing; the order was not unclear. It very clear said what it said.

The general public's opinion that it was grossly unjustified and most likely going to be rolled back does not change how clear the initial order was.

The fact that virtually every immigration attorney and firm was on the same page about it goes to show how clear it actually was.

Re: Microsoft has urged its employees on H-1B and H-4 visas to return immediately

#538

Post by zem »

nomel wrote: post #520
zem wrote: post #494

Earlier quoted context omitted.

the whole US visa morass is complicated and volatile enough that a lot of large companies have dedicated teams who help advise their employees on visa issues and how to best navigate them. this "guidance" is basically saying "this is our lawyers' best guess as to how to stay safe over the next few weeks"

I was confused, because it does not apply to current Visa holders: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=45316226 I thought maybe the company was doing something shady, for it to apply to them.

that was not at all certain yesterday, and even now there's the constant fact that a border agent can decide to be nasty and use this as a pretext to deny you entry, with no real recourse on your part.

as a parallel example, trump recently decided that you could no longer get your visa stamped in a third country (which a lot of indians did as a matter of course, because wait times for an appointment can be very high back home). there was an explicit carve out for people who had already made appointments at some third country embassy, but a lot of those people went to their stamping appointment and not only did not get the renewal but had their existing visa cancelled (which is apparently within the powers of the embassy official), so they could not even return to the US while waiting for an appointment date in their country of residence, and are basically on unpaid leave right now (best case scenario, would not be too shocked if some of them lose their jobs if they are away for too long).

Re: Microsoft has urged its employees on H-1B and H-4 visas to return immediately

#539

Post by koolba »

supertrope wrote: post #473
gimmeThaBeet wrote: post #435

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is what sticks with me the deepest. With immigration are unquestionably tough decisions, tradeoffs, philosophies on the issue, and demographics in general. It gets heated, fast. I know I'm biased, but I wish trust had not degraded to such an extent you could believe people could deal with these topics in good faith. But how can anyone support this kind of craven policymaking where uncertainty and cruelty are fea…

The President’s very first speech as a candidate denigrated Mexicans. Xenophobia is his signature issue even more so than tax cuts. 62 million Americans approved this platform in 2016 outvoting 65 million Americans who chose the other candidate.

77M chose his platform in 2024, and that’s after seeing him govern for four years, and talk for four years more after that.

America knows what it wanted and it got it.

Re: Microsoft has urged its employees on H-1B and H-4 visas to return immediately

#540

Post by dang »

irthomasthomas wrote: post #214

Why is this hn post not visible?

It was never not visible, but it did set off the flamewar detector, which downweighted it off the front page. We eventually turned that penalty off.

Btw, I've changed the HN title to reflect the article's title now. Submitted title was "Visa holders on vacation have 15 hours to return to US or pay $100k fee". I don't know if the article said that when you submitted it (news outlets sometimes update article titles as more information emerges), or if you rewrote the title, but if it was the latter, please don't do that—it's against HN's guidelines. See https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html: "Please use the original title, unless it is misleading or linkbait; don't editorialize."

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