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Federal judge blocks H1B visa $100K fee

alaskasnewssource.com

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Re: Federal judge blocks H1B visa $100K fee

#71

Post by brudgers »

cryptoegorophy wrote: post #51
jorgen123 wrote: post #41

For those not reading the linked article, it was not about tech (although valid discussions here). I had not expected this (this is about rural Alaska): > “In some rural districts, visa teachers make up 50% to nearly 80% of the teaching staff. School districts already invest $6,000 to $12,000 per teacher to recruit and sponsor educators through the H-1B visa process. Adding a $100,000 federal visa fee has made it fin…

Not from USA, is there shortage of teachers in USA? Or government pays too little to have local teachers consider such jobs? Seems like a broken system

Rural Alaska is by and large very very remote. Often small plane is the only practical access and then only in favorable weather.

Recruiting teachers to remote villages with extreme weather is hard and if you are at US university training to be a teacher you will probably have other options that are more attractive as a young person.

Re: Federal judge blocks H1B visa $100K fee

#72

Post by bijowo1676 »

Izikiel43 wrote: post #45
jorgen123 wrote: post #41

For those not reading the linked article, it was not about tech (although valid discussions here). I had not expected this (this is about rural Alaska): > “In some rural districts, visa teachers make up 50% to nearly 80% of the teaching staff. School districts already invest $6,000 to $12,000 per teacher to recruit and sponsor educators through the H-1B visa process. Adding a $100,000 federal visa fee has made it fin…

Yeah, most of us think of tech, but the program affects doctors, nurses and teachers for rural America.

This was the most infuriating part.

Big Tech has multiple carveouts to bring tech labor using F1/J1/L1/O1/EB-1 and various other visas, and they wouldn't even feel the 100k fee given their budgets.

While non-tech sectors were the ones most affected

Re: Federal judge blocks H1B visa $100K fee

#73

Post by gmueckl »

cguess wrote: post #25
JCTheDenthog wrote: post #17

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Rigorous examinations for English fluency and for competency in their alleged field of expertise would be a good start. I have several H1B coworkers in the US who barely speak intelligible English, and who barely understand normal conversation let alone anything technical. A blatant example of this that I experienced recently being that several of them could not understand that just because a method in C# is asynchro…

This is a hiring issue, not a legal one. The US has no official language, and no language tests, so requiring English in law would be dicey to put it mildly. What if I'm hiring someone specifically to work at a Spanish language news outlet?

But Visa applications need to prove English proficiency already. So it's somehow neither here nor there.

Re: Federal judge blocks H1B visa $100K fee

#74

Post by pastel8739 »

JCTheDenthog wrote: post #17
variety8675 wrote: post #11

There must be a better way to prevent the consulting firms from abusing this program

Rigorous examinations for English fluency and for competency in their alleged field of expertise would be a good start. I have several H1B coworkers in the US who barely speak intelligible English, and who barely understand normal conversation let alone anything technical. A blatant example of this that I experienced recently being that several of them could not understand that just because a method in C# is asynchro…

> I have several H1B coworkers in the US who barely speak intelligible English, and who barely understand normal conversation let alone anything technical.

English fluency is certainly not a requirement for fluency in any technical field. Perhaps you mean that they cannot understand _your_ descriptions of technical topics, though

Re: Federal judge blocks H1B visa $100K fee

#75

Post by usefulcat »

lmm wrote: post #27
ericmay wrote: post #21

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Well they can compete with that. Being fired means you lose healthcare and much needed benefits and of course a paycheck and all of that stuff, right? If you're going to take this wildly cynical approach you should at least do a more proper comparison....

> Being fired means you lose healthcare and much needed benefits and of course a paycheck and all of that stuff, right? I think there's some law that lets you stay on health insurance for a few months at least, and you can save up as a countermeasure to the loss of the paycheck. Bad as it is it's not comparable to getting deported after a couple of months.

> I think there's some law that lets you stay on health insurance for a few months at least

Yes, but often you will have to pay the full cost in order to do so, which will be difficult for many people after having lost their source of income..

Re: Federal judge blocks H1B visa $100K fee

#76

Post by ttul »

There is actually a sensible way to do recruit foreign workers to fill jobs that locals for some reason can't fill, and it's just a few miles up north...

Canada's Temporary Foreign Worker Program (TFWP) is not limited by annual caps or lotteries. You just apply (as a company) by filling in a few simple forms and posting a job in the "Canada Job Bank" for a period of time to demonstrate that you genuinely searched for locals to fill the role and couldn't find anyone suitable. I've hired many people through this program to fill a variety of roles over the years, and all of them eventually became citizens too. Once you're on Canadian soil as a TFW, moving toward permanent residency is not very difficult if you're a skilled worker with enough "points" (based on education, etc.).

Some argue (perhaps correctly) that the TFWP suppresses Canadian wages and productivity growth by flooding the labour market with cheap staff from poor countries. And there is likely some truth to that. But when I hear how many hoops my US colleagues have to jump through with lawyers and such to bring skilled employees in, it boggles my mind. If the Americans were to implement a more modern temporary foreign worker program similar to what Canada has, you'd have to imagine the US economy would boom like it never has.

Re: Federal judge blocks H1B visa $100K fee

#77

Post by Dig1t »

BenFranklin100 wrote: post #22
amazingamazing wrote: post #3

Why can’t Americans do these jobs?

First, I think the H1B does need genuine reform to keep the big companies from gaming the lottery system. Having said that, I’m not sure banning H1Bs or immigrants in general is going to help American workers. Take tech for instance. Many tech leaders are immigrants. If they hasn’t taken in the Jensen Huang’s, Sergei Brin’s, Sundar Pichai, etc… the companies they lead and jobs they created would be elsewhere. It’s am…

[flagged]

Re: Federal judge blocks H1B visa $100K fee

#78

Post by jojobas »

fhfbfbtbt wrote: post #23
ApolloFortyNine wrote: post #12

I thought locking down H1Bs actually had bipartisan support? How can you argue there aren't enough jobs, and support H1Bs to fill jobs? I can see Alaska's case since encouraging people to move there very well may be a requirement, but surely there's somewhere between $0 and $100k that would convince someone to move there.

You’re putting words in people’s mouths. The fact that people oppose this solution doesn’t mean they disagree with the problem. We oppose it because it’s stupid; it’s the first solution that a dim-witted eight-year-old would’ve come up with. The program needs to be reformed so it only applies to people with skills that genuinely cannot be found domestically. Given the difference in expected engineering salaries for m…

If you genuine shortage is not worth some 33k a year, it's not a genuine shortage.

Re: Federal judge blocks H1B visa $100K fee

#79

Post by trelane »

cryptoegorophy wrote: post #51
jorgen123 wrote: post #41

For those not reading the linked article, it was not about tech (although valid discussions here). I had not expected this (this is about rural Alaska): > “In some rural districts, visa teachers make up 50% to nearly 80% of the teaching staff. School districts already invest $6,000 to $12,000 per teacher to recruit and sponsor educators through the H-1B visa process. Adding a $100,000 federal visa fee has made it fin…

Not from USA, is there shortage of teachers in USA? Or government pays too little to have local teachers consider such jobs? Seems like a broken system

> is there shortage of teachers in USA?

No, there is a steady stream of teachers being fed into the maw of public education. The pay is low and job security is terrible until you get tenure. My wife was a teacher; I have heard horror stories.

You get paid based on a combination of how much money you earn your employer and how easy you are to replace. Schools get paid by taxes, and there are a ton of them produced every year. So, the pay is abysmal.

Re: Federal judge blocks H1B visa $100K fee

#80

Post by bijowo1676 »

svachalek wrote: post #42
cguess wrote: post #25

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is a hiring issue, not a legal one. The US has no official language, and no language tests, so requiring English in law would be dicey to put it mildly. What if I'm hiring someone specifically to work at a Spanish language news outlet?

The H-1B visa is specifically for hiring "highly specialized" workers. Lack of the supposed skills that let them across the border is in fact a legal issue.

H1Bs are not hired for their knowledge of english, however you can define it. They are hired for specialized occupational skills
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