Live data from Hacker News

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

timesofindia.indiatimes.com

631–640 of 679 posts

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

#631

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"Government is not the solution to our problem; government is the problem" has been sedition that has been let to spread and rot at our foundations for decades now, growing only stronger. There is absolute bedlam and insanity pushed to American voters, completely made up fictionalized reality, blasted out by Fox News and worse. People live in the most absurd hyperreal simulation, built entirely around hating governme…

Aren't the left the ones making the claim posed by your opening sentence these days? Could you clarify whether it's seditious only when one side is making that claim or is the seditiousness of the claim group-independent?

The left wants social services and funding science and health care and education. The left wants legitimacy in the law & a government deserving of respect. Look through Kamala's campaign website & it's clear there's respect & desire for government. https://web.archive.org/web/20250101001206/https://kamalahar...

The right is pretty uniquely anti government, is enraptured by conspiracy theories and madness. Reagan strongly dismantled belief in the government. More recently we've had mass movements like the Tea Party. It was overwhelmingly people from the right who threatened, dozed, and otherwise scared the living shit out of FEMA agents trying to provide help after Helene and Milton.

It's good to criticiE the government, to want and demand better. But that's not what we are seeing from both sides. We're seeing the wholesale hegemonic suicide, the destruction of the advanced economy that has so far distinguished and given America it's power and respect, by a party that has been cheering on anti government & decoupled unhinged conspiracies and which has stoked anger and destruction for decades.

It can go two ways! But the whataboutism doesn't impress me in the least. There is overwhelming lopsidedness, of those who care and are empathetic and want better, stacked against negative creeps draining this land.

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

#632

UK around Brexit time thought kind of similar: let's keep the "riffraff" immigrants out by applying higher criteria. The narrative also changed this way: we don't want immigrants in general, but you , with your highly paid PhD-requiring job, you can go in, on a 2 year rolling basis. Then everyone's a winner, except for unwanted, unskilled labour. But a lot of skilled labour left anyway. Partly because the general atm…

> But a lot of skilled labour left anyway The UK has had a "brain drain", but it's as much UK citizens as migrants. Economic migrants migrate. > But also highly paid people have spouses, children, parents and other relatives. Once you are told you barely cleared (very high) criteria, you can be pretty sure your retired parents won't, if ever you need them to move in with you. Skilled immigration is sold in almost all…

> The retired parents were never a part of the deal,

They are, certainly at least in Germany there are special provisions for that.

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

#634

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This sure didn't happen under Biden.

Depends on your perspective. How callous and poorly implemented was the withdrawal from Afghanistan? I know Trump signed the deal, but Biden was responsible for the execution at the time. It’s helpful to not be dogmatic about these things, and even more helpful if you abandon partisanship.

It is helpful to be informed.

This form of argument, ends up normalizing the Trump presidency with the Biden presidency, which on its own is abhorrent to any scale of comparison.

Leave alone the fact that deciding to exit and leaving execution up to someone else is the quintessential act of sabotage.

Consider that this is less than a year of the Trump presidency.

And this is a sub thread where the comparison to the USSR is sustained.

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

#635
post #525
post #477

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What does 'a correct' mean to you? Wikipedia says: > Authoritarianism is a political system characterized by the rejection of political plurality, the use of strong central power to preserve the political status quo, and reductions in democracy, separation of powers, civil liberties, and the rule of law. As an outsider from Europe, it seems that is pretty much spot on to me. In Europe this probably applies to Hungary…

First of all, Wikipedia is useless for definitions of words that are in the middle of active political debate. You completely ignored the definition I gave you (which is from an impartial source [1]) in favor of one you prefer , from a wiki. Setting that aside, you will see the that the citation for that definition [2] basically underscores the ambiguity of the term: > Political scientists have outlined elaborated ty…

I started with a question about what 'correct' means to you. So I was actually just questioning your rather absolute understanding of correctness. I just cited a random different source. I find it troublesome that criticism about a political situation which is troubling people, is often put on a semantic and personal level.

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

#636
post #561

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Info from customs agents at airport is aligned with this statement. Specifically that it does NOT apply to current visa holders. How consistent that is, no idea.

> it does NOT apply to current visa holders How about transfers? Transfers technically count as new visas and need to be petitioned. Will every new employer have to shell out 100K? If that's the case, H-1B holders are now actually indentured servants (they were not previously, no matter how many Redditors claim otherwise) because they are now stuck with the current employer with essentially no ability to transfer or…

Elon Musk would love this. Even harder for his workers to leave.

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

#637
post #61

Like I said when they put workers in chains two weeks ago, shitting on foreign workers and all the cheerleaders here and probably on less liberal outlets are presenting an image of the US individualist culture that I now have to acknowledge. Having to say to 'UPR' and other anti-atlantist militants 'you were absolutely right' was difficult I will admit.

> 'UPR' and other anti-atlantist militants. Never heard of either of these 2 terms. What are these?

UPR is a fringe far-right party in France - anti-EU, anti-NATO, pro-Russia conspiracy theorists: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Popular_Republican_Union_(2007...

Anti-atlantist might also be read as Anti-Atlanticist or Anti-Western. Probably some form of pro-Russia or pro-China sentiment in this context.

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

#638
post #623

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There are not "high criteria" to immigrate to the UK post-Brexit. The minimum salary threshold is £26k, barely higher than minimum wage. The list of eligible occupations is a joke and includes such desperately understaffed occupations as "homeopaths" and "reiki healers". The skilled worker visa only requires B1 English, at which level you'll struggle to communicate in many professional settings. Net immigration (lega…

> The minimum salary threshold is £26k You are wrong. For the Skilled Worker route, the minimum salary threshold is 41k per year, with some special jobs at 33.4k. > "homeopaths" and "reiki healers" You are wrong. There are SOC codes for things like "Therapy professionals". They give examples like acupuncturists, art/drama/music therapists, chiropractors/osteopaths, nutritionists, sports therapists/massage therapists.…

Reiki healers and homeopaths are listed under code 3214, "Complementary health associate professionals".

https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/skilled-worker-vi...

And I only picked those two because they were particularly egregious. The list is full of jobs for which it's absurd to suggest we need to fill from abroad: are we really suffering for a lack of recruitment consultants? Human resources officers? Can no-one can find a homegrown Brit who's able to work as a restaurant manager?

As for the salary threshold, you're right: the basic threshold is £41k, although it can be as low as £25k (not £33.4k) in some circumstances: https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/skilled-worker-vi...

I'd argue that £41k is still too low. It's barely above the median UK salary - we can't find anyone in the top ~50% of people who can do these jobs? And it doesn't even make you a net contributor (from what I can tell that threshold is around £50-55k, although for many of these "skilled" workers it's much higher as they bring dependents.) Nevertheless I'll accept a partial L.

Regarding English, maybe I'm wrong about the precise requirements, but I've worked with software professionals in London, here on a skilled worker visa, with whom I was barely able to communicate, so clearly we're doing something wrong.

In any case, my thesis still stands: there have not been "very high" criteria to migrate to the UK recently, in fact quite the opposite, and if you don't believe this then I suggest you go outside and look around.

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

#640

I think a lot of people arguing about the H1B visa are talking past each other. - There is no doubt a large volume of abuse by tech consulting companies. It's likely even worse than it looks, because the H1Bs in the U.S. are to support even larger teams offshore. I don't understand why we can't just blacklist these companies. - Some of medium-skill hires, e.g., did a 2 year MS degree from random university in the U.S…

You can do J1 -> O-1 -> EB-1/2 the legal fees are not $40k, more like $5-10k (5 years ago)
Post reply on HN