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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

#651

Post by lotsofpulp »

lotsoweiners wrote: post #629
lotsofpulp wrote: post #217

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don’t give voters that much benefit of the doubt. They saw a man (and party) make baseless accusations to overturn an election, openly support a terrorist attack on the government, and campaign on freeing those terrorists and punishing those who went after the terrorists. And they decided this man was better than a woman, especially a black woman. Because he was a man. I’ve been told this even by a few older women,…

All of that could potentially been avoided had Joe Biden decided to pick a popular and well qualified running mate rather than a diversity hire that checked certain boxes. Go read opinions on Reddit and they seem to think Biden was right and blame the American bigots. Like them or not, Republicans have done an excellent job of nominating and running an electable candidate even if he was not embraced by the establishm…

>running an electable candidate

The qualifying factor being that the candidate was a man.

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

#652

Post by Cheer2171 »

EVa5I7bHFq9mnYK wrote: post #528
Cheer2171 wrote: post #256

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Even assuming that is true, is that unfair? Yes. Unjust? Yes. Exploitative? Yes. Racist? Usually. But slavery? Absolutely not. Or give me your definition of slavery.

Slavery is a spectrum. H1B are more enslaved than natives, because they have less freedom to quit, change jobs, argue with their superiors etc.

Nope, sorry but words have actual meanings and definitions. Slavery is when a person is owned as property. Slavery still exists in the U.S. for prisoners, for example, where the U.S. Constitution explicitly carves out an exception. Now, I don't disagree with your assessment that people on H1Bs have less agency, autonomy, and rights than natives.

But you dilute the meaning of the term 'slavery' when you apply it to someone who has a 100% legally protected right to leave their place of employment and country at any time, without having to pay anything but the cost of a ticket. If an H1B employer holds a worker's passport and makes them work in slavery-like conditions, then that's illegal. If an employer treats an H1B like an indentured servant and makes them pay off the cost of their hiring and immigration, then that's illegal. It does happen in the US, which is bad. It happens far more often to immigrants in places like Dubai, whose conditions often are slavery.

Slavery is really fucking terrible. There is a reason we react so strongly against it. By saying H1B === slavery, you're being intellectually dishonest or using black-and-white thinking.

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

#653

Post by suzdude »

krapp wrote: post #383
frankharv wrote: post #318

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That argument went out the door when the last administration chose to open the borders. We have laws against that. But they were ignored.

The Biden administration didn't "open the borders." That isn't a thing that happened.

Yes, but that's the line some people repeat to themselves over and over to justify the political violence being used against the immigrant community in the United States these days.

> "It's not our guy's fault for going after these people, it's your guy's fault for letting so many in"

They are just rationalizing their hate.

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

#654

Post by lurk2 »

TheOtherHobbes wrote: post #424
rich_sasha wrote: post #169

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…

Immigration exploded after Brexit. While the official line was "Let's keep the riffraff out". the reality was that the Tories used Brexit to bring in plenty of cheap labour from specific countries, and the income requirements are applied very selectively. Foreign students were also encouraged to study here and remain after studying. Initially even family reunion immigration was encouraged, although that's changed now…

> The UK has been playing this game for centuries

The UK was 94% white as recently as 1991 and was 99% white in 1951. What cheap labor was being imported in the centuries prior?

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

#655

Post by [deleted] »

nrmitchi wrote: post #535
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…

[deleted]

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

#656

Post by deadbabe »

ztwye wrote: post #579
deadbabe wrote: post #573

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If H1Bs disappearing doesn’t result in more jobs then there was never any point in hiring H1Bs in the first place. Just trimming the fat.

You are assuming the companies will perform the same without the H1B workers, then sure there's no point at all. I disagree though

H1B aren’t some secret sauce with unique skills. They’re just cheaper, more exploitable, abusable, controllable workers.

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

#657

Post by criddell »

TimorousBestie wrote: post #504
criddell wrote: post #464

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> intend to mean as "leaders doing things I don't personally like." If enough people use the word "authoritarian" like that, then that's what it means.

If enough people pretend the meaning of “authoritarian” is sufficiently narrow that every use of the term is hyperbole, then it no longer matters what it means. The semantic nihilists win again.

True! That’s just the way language works though.

It’s semantic nihilism in the same sense sense as saying “perpetual motion machines are impossible” is physical nihilism.

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

#658

Post by [deleted] »

duped wrote: post #602
xyzelement wrote: post #600

Earlier quoted context omitted.

As I alluded to in my prior comment - the fact that you are so ready to call people insane fascists (or in prior post, dumb or evil) is the end of the conversation. Wherever you live in the US, at least 1 out of 3 of your neighbors voted for Trump. That's a lot of random people to call fascist.

[flagged]

[deleted]

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

#659

Post by Tika2234 »

RyanCavanaugh wrote: post #603
arn7av wrote: post #541

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I agree with the first part, but for the second, this is not an unnamed WH source, it is the Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt

The Press Secretary isn't the Supreme Court. Her say-so doesn't change the plain text of the order, and you're rolling the dice as to which any given border agent is going to choose to believe.

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

#660

Post by Tika2234 »

mgraczyk wrote: post #534
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 b…

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