Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

U.S. Changes Visa Process for High-Skilled Workers

wsj.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

71–80 of 637 posts

Re: U.S. Changes Visa Process for High-Skilled Workers

#71

Post by stale2002 »

wyldfire wrote: post #55
mc32 wrote: post #39

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Punish employers with heavy fines for e-verify violations. If no one hires you, no reason to stick around. This is what Japan does, Korea, Taiwan, etc. The US is way lenient on illegal entry and accommodating to irregular workers. In many countries the only way you get around that is if you work with the local mobsters --so only highly risk taking indivs take that opportunity.

IIRC employers avoid this liability by executing the fraud themselves. There's no e-verify violation because they use legitimate SSNs from a living person, fraudulently. The workers aren't the problem, the employers are. Legislators and govt executives look the other way in order to preserve competitive agriculture.

Sure, so what we can do is punish employers who are found later to have employed people illegally.

IE, if you get "tricked" via a stolen SSN, then the business gets punished regardless.

Re: U.S. Changes Visa Process for High-Skilled Workers

#72

Post by BeetleB »

jdlyga wrote: post #66

My now wife went through so much trouble with her H1-B, even though she graduated with a Master's from a United States university and was working in the United States. Yet she got stuck in the lottery system. Don't we want high skilled workers contributing to the economy? Even when we got married, we had to wait over a year for her green card for her and went through an interview. The immigration system is tough and…

With the new system, she will have a better chance at getting the visa. Why the concern?

Edit: I'm being down voted, but I don't understand. The change actually prioritizes MS students.

Re: U.S. Changes Visa Process for High-Skilled Workers

#73

Post by mc32 »

pertymcpert wrote: post #62
reedhen32 wrote: post #40

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What a weird world we live in though, where PhDs and Masters with a steady job still have to wait 7-10+ years for citizenship, while people can just flip over the fence in the southern border and get citizenship via asylum or birthing kids

You can't get citizenship by giving birth in the US. And asylum is a special case, it's not really a normal immigration route.

Not the person giving birth but the progeny. Most countries ~164 out of 194) are jus sanguinis (you inherit nationality of parent(s)) we are one of the exceptions with jus soli. We even have “birth tourism” taking advantage of our liberal policy.

Re: U.S. Changes Visa Process for High-Skilled Workers

#74

Post by gedy »

raz32dust wrote: post #58

It would have been a positive change if they did not have the restriction that the Masters must be from a US university. What's wrong with non-US universities? I don't see why degree even matters. Like someone suggested in a previous similar thread, just sorting by pay and giving higher wages more priority (perhaps with some sort of normalization to compensate for cost of living and the field of work) is much better.

A handout to university tuitions and desperate researchers.

Re: U.S. Changes Visa Process for High-Skilled Workers

#75

Post by youeseh »

femiagbabiaka wrote: post #70
luckydata wrote: post #13

Honestly this is a good thing. Right now the H1B is a bullshit immigration program for cheap engineers from India and China designed to depress wages in silicon valley. A change is sorely needed, this is not big enough but it's definitely a step.

The idea that those on H1B visas are bringing wages down for software engineers is a popular one. Is it supported by data? If it isn’t, this is just thinly veiled xenophobia. Personally, I think the more diverse groups have an opportunity to come to America legally, the better.

Yes. There's value in being able to change jobs as you see please. That value is about 1.3 to 1.5x of not having the freedom to do so.

Re: U.S. Changes Visa Process for High-Skilled Workers

#76

Post by justinhj »

mc32 wrote: post #25
luckydata wrote: post #13

Honestly this is a good thing. Right now the H1B is a bullshit immigration program for cheap engineers from India and China designed to depress wages in silicon valley. A change is sorely needed, this is not big enough but it's definitely a step.

They should also work on a visa system for seasonal (low-skill) workers and enforce e-verify so that people don't skirt the system willy-nilly. We need foreign low skilled workers and they want to work, but we need to regulate that workforce so they don't undercut our native low-skills workforce by being unregulated and overwhelming the workforce with cheap unregulated labor.

I think you’re putting the cart before the horse. Why is there a shortage of low skilled workers in a country of 400m? Because you have illegal workers who’ve driven the price of that work below what the market legally supports. If the law was effectively enforced those low skilled jobs would pay enough for Americans

Re: U.S. Changes Visa Process for High-Skilled Workers

#77

Post by BeetleB »

travisoneill1 wrote: post #56

They should assign limits based on salary, lets say 150% of industry standard, not education level. There is no measure of skill less meaningful than a degree.

>There is no measure of skill less meaningful than a degree.

I really don't see how salary is better. A higher salary is simply more correlated with the profitability of a company, not with the skills one has. People doing the same jobs at different companies can have vastly differing salaries.

I should know - every time I've bumped up my salary, it's by moving to a position that required lower skills. The market does not pay high for skills. You'll get paid more if you switch from a job that requires advanced mathematics or physics skills to coding web/mobile apps.

Re: U.S. Changes Visa Process for High-Skilled Workers

#78

Post by mavelikara »

sodosopa wrote: post #69
reedhen32 wrote: post #40

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What a weird world we live in though, where PhDs and Masters with a steady job still have to wait 7-10+ years for citizenship, while people can just flip over the fence in the southern border and get citizenship via asylum or birthing kids

The PhD on my team got through in less than 7. The immigrants crossing the southern border are still going through the same process, don't know why someone wanting a better life should cause high-skilled workers much worry.

Due to the per-country-quota limits, people immigrating from populous countries are stuck in multi-decade green card backlogs. Immigrants crossing the southern border from smaller countries might be going through the same process, but the per-country-quotas ensure that most of them will get their green cards much sooner than legal immigrants from populous countries.

Re: U.S. Changes Visa Process for High-Skilled Workers

#79

Post by miles »

luckydata wrote: post #13

Honestly this is a good thing. Right now the H1B is a bullshit immigration program for cheap engineers from India and China designed to depress wages in silicon valley. A change is sorely needed, this is not big enough but it's definitely a step.

Indeed:

Pink Slips at Disney. But First, Training Foreign Replacements. https://www.nytimes.com/2015/06/04/us/last-task-after-layoff...

Re: U.S. Changes Visa Process for High-Skilled Workers

#80

Post by BeetleB »

ufo wrote: post #14
prickledpear wrote: post #3

I'm trying to understand exactly what is changing. From the article are they just switching the order of the two lotteries? They aren't actually raising the number of visas offered, right? This just has the effect of allocating more of the 85,000 visas granted to those with a Master's degree or PhD, right? I'm sure the universities that heavily recruit international students to their graduate programs will love this.

Graduate students are either on F or J visas. The article is talking about H-1B visas.

A large number (most?) of the H-1B visas go to students on F visas who have a job offer and want to change their status. Almost all the foreigners that I know on H-1B visas in my company came from a F visa. Some definitely were recruited from abroad, but it's simple economics. With so many people graduating from US universities, it's a lot easier to interview and subsequently apply for an H-1B for someone already here.
Post reply on HN