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Workers - Including Linus - Left in Limbo by INS
Anonymous Coward writes, "Read how the young and highly skilled engineers are being left angry, frustrated and perplexed. The delay in INS processing messes with lives of these people." One specifically mentioned in this
Mercury Center story (published Sunday, Jan. 30) is a gentleman from Finland named Linus Torvalds.
eh?
Linus is a smart-ass! What a man! :)
A true geek at heart.
I found this article to be very interesting...Raul...
That's why I say hey man nice shot.
What a good shot, man.
From the article:
:U.S. immigration officials recently boasted that in a year they had cut the average time it takes to become a citizen from 28 to 12 months. What they failed to say is that the wait for green cards grew interminably long as the citizenship lines got shorter.:
What, they decided to start averaging in the 9 months it takes for people who were born here to become citizens?
---
"Music is music, but anarchy is stupid." -- Eli Armen-Van Horn
MODERATE THIS UP!!!
0wn this thread
"Fist" post? That sounds painful!
there's got to be a way to stop them.
Everyone had better setup marches on congress and turn this into a real election issue.
Al Gore: "Seeing as I fathered Linus Torvalds..."
I FART IN YOUR GENERAL DIRECTION
Isn't that what they all say?
quit bring linux into this ya damn ZEALOT
Seems to me that everything in a bureaucracy requires extensive amounts of waiting time, kind of an extension of the "hurry up and wait" motto of the US Army. Mounds of paperwork seem to be neccessary, even though it serves no functional purpose in the end. I thought the computer was supposed to do away with all of the paper involved in paperwork, save trees, speed up work time, and other unfulfilled promises. Now multiple copies are needed, both paper and digital files must be kept, and in multiple copies. How come computers haven't speeded up processes like this?
i have poured a bowl of hot grits down my pants.
Maybe Linus should go back where he came from. And keep his European open source socialist ideas away from capitalist closed source America. Or maybe thats why he is being targetted by the Clinton administration who as we know is in bed with Microsoft.
i am a big black man named butch, from san francisco, and i want your skinny cracker ass.
if it aint about linux then it aint newz. i wish i could just shut my brane off to stuff that isnt about linux!!! linux rules everything!!! its king of the world!!!
flaming homos.
Government official:Linus=Linux, Linux=something I keep hearing about so it must be important even though I have no idea what it is, give him green card, feel good.
Join 'em.
TRoLL
as the article suggested, security clearance backlog contributes greatly to the green card delay. It takes several months to get the security clearance (almost 6 months for mine, but that's partly due to my place of birth and clearance level). I've heard from several security officers at work that now there's a 6 month backlog now to get your clearance, so I got lucky. If this is true, that's 6 months added to the green card application process. This isn't something that can be put aside.
The people the article is talking about aren't a bunch of unskilled slovenly idiots who know little about English or personal hygiene. These are intelligent, educated people who have come to America to work in silicon valley and are being hired because they are the most qualified for the job at hand. The only people who suffer are people less qualified who would be filling the same jobs if it weren't for those darned immigrants. Don't blame all your problems on foreigners.
Having many friends who are foreign nationals I have seen first hand to total screwiness which is INS. Many have had to leave the country because their current visas expired before the paperwork could get through to get either new visas or greencards.
Another guy at work has had to go redo his finger prints as they have "expired". How exactly ones finger prints expire I will never know.
There is no silver bullet. Plus, werewolves make better neighbors than zombies or vampires anyway.
There's just one contradiction I'd like resolved:
US bashing seems to be all the rage on Slashdot these days, with everyone saying the US has an oppressive government, that they're glad to be living in Europe / Canada / wherever again, that they wouldn't live in the US if somebody paid them to, etc. Yet here are tens, hundreds of thousands of people waiting to get in! What gives? Why are all these people waiting to get in if the US sucks so much?
This is an honest question, not a flame at anybody, and I'd really appreciate a real answer.
is that youre a damn commie/zealot.
At the start of 1994, two of my friends left australia to work in the US. One got married and had his green card by 1997. The other one stayed three years there, didn't get his application through and went back a year later. He still does not have his green card.
Whenever I get tempted to go and work there, I remember the pain that my friends associated with the INS. I don't think that I'll be emmigrating any time soon.
~snort~snuffle~root~
While H-1B visa holders and other technology workers certainly aren't the only ones waiting for approval, perhaps the situation could be improved by instituting a requirement for H-1B applicants to contribute their skills to improve the process
Now, I understand that some of the issues have nothing to do with pushing paper and everything to do with government workers nearing a pension and 'passing time', as it were. Consider, though, the impact having someone like a Linus Torvalds working on streamlining the process could have.
Having worked with a fair number of government agencies, I can say that there is a marked lack of technological ability within your average Federal department. Most notable are the archaic systems of redemption and approval of things like applications and requests, in large part because no worthwhile systems of automation and reduction of redundancy are in place. A decent team of hackers could cut out a lot of fat (and time) in a pretty short period. Harnessing the talents of those requesting naturalization in this context makes perfect sense to me
Of course, this assumes the INS would be smart enough to tap those resources to fix the problem, instead of doing things because they've 'always been done this way'.
So E is relatively prime to (P-1)(Q-1)... Odd, that.
slashdot
ARE FLAMING HOMOSEXUALS.
I had a divorced friend who did not have a green card, but could not leave the country because the court ordered her to stay in Santa Clara county with her daughter. INS could/would not do anything
The system is a mess. The quotas should not be increased, but should be fixed right!
Fight Spammers!
I understand that in the quest for efficiency and financial security they want to squeeze out every penny in 'fat', but why are they so inept at detecting life affecting and even life threatening shifts in the requirements and responding? (Let alone anything less dramagic.)
Here in Ontario Canada the death of a young man hasn't even really gotten much of a response from the Provincial government in terms of upping emergency room resources (at any given time a huge fraction of the emergency rooms are 'closed' due to overfilling).
These aren't situations that 'pop up'. This has been building for a half a year!
The important question is, what needs to be done, institutionally and bureaucratically, to allow our governments to respond to things like these?
Do they need to create special 'response' departments whose sole responsibility is to analyze reported shortages of any type of 'services' and 'resources' and independently and publicly report what needs to be done and how quickly to avoid such idioticly drawn out situations that screw up entire human lives?
I also am dealing with the INS - applying for
US citizenship. I am experiencing the kinds of
delays, and mistakes, that are the sure signs of
a workforce that is either overworked, underpaid,
or both. A 'Dilbertian' situation like this
leads to loss of moral, and ultimately leads
to trained staff leaving their jobs (particularly
the better ones).
Ultimately, I see this as a government, in turn
following the mandate of the people, who wish
to cut taxes. Cutting taxes is fine if you
don't expect the government to do anything, but
to scream to have taxes removed, and then complain
when government does not do its job is just
crazy.
(Someone might say - the INS doesn't need more
money - just better management. That maybe so,
but you also have to pay for good management.)
(I posted anonomously, because I saw so many
crazy posts on this subject that I thought -
well - I just did not want these crazy people
to know who I was.)
I worked for a while for an online Health Care recruiter. We got tonnes of applications from people who didn't follow the instructions that were clearly posted on the site. That took time to clean up.
It also takes a human to judge the merits of a case. Someone might have "too perfect" credentials, therefore arousing suspicion. We had people from overseas (ie not USA or Canada) applying for any job they thought they could do, but that's simply not the case: almost every hospital will simply NOT hire staff without North American experience. *bam* we have to go and un-apply them from the jobs they applied for so they stop coming up on our database searches.
Simply putting records into a database doesn't make the process faster.
Remember the great Conservative promise of "smaller government?"
Basically you fire all the people who do this sort of work, and guess what? It takes longer.
Pope
It doesn't mean much now, it's built for the future.
Two things come to mind:
.
This is an attempt by Microsoft to have Linus deported to a third-world country with no electricity!
Seriously though, I remember hearing classmates conspiring to have on-campus-political opponents deported, so it might not be unreasonable to suspect that there's more to it than INS bungling.
The other thing is that the decline of U.S. culture is not surprising since we've placed such ridiculous restrictions on immigration. The U.S. has always 'imported its brains', of which it had been proud because it meant that smart people wanted to live here; of course, it has said very little for education here.
Ever notice . .
Microsoft and its allies assume everyone is stupid.
If you are in the position where you can pretty much set the terms for your contract the US doesnt seem a very bad place to live to me... if you are able to ignore all the people who cant.
:(
US is a land for the anti-social, I would fit right in too. Unfortunately Im too stupid for the good jobs
Don't worry, the INS, a government establishment will just "work harder" to bring the green card waiting list down to acceptable levels again. I can't help but wonder what will suffer instead. The INS is planning on simply putting a higher priority on clearing green cards. By means of logic we can deduce that something else within the INS will recieve lower priority. So, what will it be? Perhaps money can be saved by turning away those pesky refugees. Oh, wait! This is the same government agency responsible for breaching the constitutional rights of a certain Cuban boy, while at the same time spending hundreds of thousands, if not millions of dollars trying to keep him in the US. Surely this agency, with an excellent track record for prioritizing, can sort this whole green card thing out without extra funding. It's employees can simply work a bit harder. Yeah, right.
--
--
"Insert witty quote here."
In the context of this article (and I do apologize if what I'm askingw was provided for in the article, and I just didn't see it),
it would be nice to have someone who's [more] informed to list the requirements for getting a green card/becoming a citizen (one as opposed to the other).
I personally don't know them, and since INS seems to be having such troubles processing the requests, it'd be nice to know exactly what's bogging them down so darned much. And if they're having work force issues.. why can they not hire more workers to help? Or find a more efficient way to process applications?
Hmph. Beauracracy
Insert mind here.
Take a look at your unemployment figures. The "labor shortage" is real, it's not something that the tech companies are just making up. Your claim that there are large amounts of "older, more experienced American workers" who have become "too expensive" doesn't stand up to scrutiny -- unemployment is down. People who want jobs can find them. BTW, your "cheap labor" comment is also bogus -- H1B workers need to be paid a certain minimum. And even the going rate for H1B workers in the tech industry is more than enough to support an American family, and exceeds the amount of money that American professionals in other industries are paid.
that I got from my lawyer was this:
Clinton wanted INS to reprioritize their green card process work and concentrate more on issuing citizenship. Why? This is the election year and only citizens can vote. Guess who these grateful new citizens will vote for? As a reward for their good behavior, INS get little or no grief from current administration for their incompetence.
Their most vocal critics are people whose lives depend upon these paperworks to be completed. Is it a coincidence that these people have no political power whatsoever and the fact that things haven't improved year after year?
I prefer my immigrants as nude statues!
A recent change in law denies social security numbers to spouses of people here on H1 visas. In California, at least, an SSN is required to get a driver's license. And of course, in California a driver's license is pretty much required to live.
Oh, and I've discovered passports are no longer accepted as "valid ID" for buying alcohol here, too.
Also, without an SSN, you can't open bank accounts, or get credit cards. This means no buying online, no renting an apartment, car, or even a video.
Supposedly this hassle is because we don't want "furriners" taking "American jobs" and "American dollars" away from "real Americans." Of course, most of the "real Americans" I went to high school with probably can't even spell well enough to fill out their unemployment benefits application.
IMHO this country's just fucked.
I don't necessarily agree with you. Although it could just be a backlog of background checks, for some reason I believe that it is more than that. I'm not a paranoid fool who thinks that the US government doesn't want the threat of competition to US companies. No. I think that it has more to do with the US's general approach towards application to citizenship/visa rights. I'm not really an expert on this issue, but if there is a general backlog for all applicants, obviously some people are hurt by it. However, those in the public eye, such as our Linux friend, may take offense that his application is booted to the top of the pile due to his celebrity status. He may claim that the US is doing this personally against him, or he may be just fed up with the whole system at all. Not to sound too holier-than-thou, but stand in line! You're not the only one having these issues, Linus! =======all i have to say=======
It is interesting how a nation formed from emmigrants is so dead set on booting out modern day emmigrants. What a country.
On another note, this reminds me of a story I heard recently about a Palistinian emmigrant who was convicted of possessing drugs. After he had served his time, the government was required by law to ship him home to his own country. PROBLEM: There is no Palistinian homeland, and Israel wouldn't take him.
This poor guy is still in prison in the U.S., even though he has served his full sentence. And you think Mitnick had it rough?
Brought to you by Frobozz Magic Penguin Fodder.
Our application went in September 1997. They said it would take up to 12 months to process. 22 months later we had our preliminary interview. 7 months after that and we still haven't heard anything.
I also like to share the experiences we've had at the office, but I'm already off topic, here. Needless to say, I can think of a lot more appropriate last names for the INS than "service".
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Stupid sexy Flanders.
Point A: "Those government folks are lazy fools! They take our money and we don't see a single thing for it! Say they're spending it on "welfare" or "roads" or something! Paying for lazy bums who're too good to work for a living or use the toll roads! I'm not paying for any more of this, cut taxes!"
Point B: "Look at this! Buildings falling apart, projects falling behind, waits for services piling up -- what kind of fools would allow this? I'm tired of hearing excuses about not having the funds, you're just trying to take my money and squander it with mismanagement! If you can't spend my money wisely, don't spend it at all! I'm voting to cut taxes. CNN told me to."
Daniel
Hurry up and jump on the individualist bandwagon!
The FBI's been using aliens for years, ever since that incident in Roswell in 1947, I think.
They can't send them back, their ship is broken.
dave "anyone seen my medication?"
This is just so typical. Here's a lifecycle of this phenomena
1. Particular result of bureaucracy is criticized.
2. Bureaucracy diverts resources from other just as important areas
3. The particular result improves - everyone is happy
4. Other results go down hill
5. Some one notices one of the bad results - go back to step 1
The problem is that bureaucracies are afraid to ask for more resources if they need it - because everyone "knows" government is bad, and so even legitimate and important functions get neglected.
postmoderncore - art and creation are a higher purpose
Perhaps one of these days certain people in this country will realize that what makes the US of A a great country is that people from all over the world come here to lead better lives; and in that process, make this country the strongest in the world.
I shudder to think what might have happened if my great-grandparents were turned away 90 years ago.
The funny thing is, in 50 years it will probably be those of asian, indian, etc. descent trying to pass immigration limits against whatever group wants to emigrate to our country.
Compare this to the Chinese students and post-docs in my department. They have to have an interview every time they apply for a visa and the visas are only single entry. A case in point, one of our postdocs was sent to a conference in Italy. His first port of call was obviously the Italian consulate in Boston to get a visa to enter Italy. Now of course he only had a single-entry US visa and had used that entry up on arriving in the US so he had to renew the visa. You can only renew US visas in a US consulate, the nearest to Boston of which is in Montreal. So his second port of call was the Canadian consulate in Boston to get a visa to enter Canada. At the US consulate in Canada he pleaded for a double-entry visa as of course one entry would be used up returning to the US.
Luckily, we have a large contingent of Chinese students and researchers who are well versed in this circus.
So there you have it, a trip to Milan requiring several months of planning and a considerable amount of cash. But at least he learnt that not all Western cuisine sucks...
Nick
-- "It's a sad day for American capitalism when a man can't fly a midget on a kite over Central Park" - Jim Moran
- ``Outstanding researcher'' means you get to skip Labor Dept. certification. This saves about two years. Also not subject to the per-country quotes. In practice, a Ph.D. and lots of references are required for this.
- ``Alien of extraordinary ability'' means roughly the same thing as far as processing goes. (In both cases, the INS people salute you, not the other way around.) A Ph.D. is not required -- think Linus -- but very, very few people will fit this category.
Green card applicants must get a permit to travel outside the US (or they will be deemed to have given up their application) -- unless they ask for processing through consular channels. If you are prepared to travel back to your home country you don't have to wait in all the INS lines and you need no permission to travel.Moreover, by applying through the consular channels, things are much faster. (That is a relative term; I didn't say "fast", :-) Linus must have gotten bad advice since he did not use this method. Transmeta should have hired better lawyers.
I applied in September 1998 for status as "outstanding researcher". It was granted in January 1999. I had the green-card-equivalent stamp in my passport in early December and my actual green card just arrived. That's the fast way, but it is expensive: two trips back, luckily paid by my company. In a ridiculous twist, the INS managed to spell my name wrong. It's won't affect me much, but it will likely take years to fix.
I am not a lawyer.
Ha! See, what'd I tell you! Ha! Even the SJ Mercury news admits it now...
:)
Linus is an ALIEN!!!!!
Okay, so I'm burning a few karma points, oh well... What else are they good for now and then, eh?
; -- the corruption of government starts with its secrets. a truly free people keep no secrets. --
Get an International Driver's Permit. There are valid in over 200 countries. You don't need a State Slave Number either.
> Also, without an SSN, you can't open bank accounts, or get credit cards. This means no renting an apartment.
FALSE.
You don't need a SSN to rent an apartment.
I don't have one, yet have a credit card, and rent an apartment.
Show me the law that REQUIRES one to have a SSN?
Cheers
I think excuses like this were used against the:
Italians
Irish
Germans
Chinese
Japanese
::insert your ethnic group here::
It bothers me when I see history repeating itself like this.
Low wages is a convenient myth for those looking for excuses. The real reason is they're afraid of competition.
You guys (born American) have nothing to lose. I've lost everything when I moved to US and had to start from ground zero when I was more than 30 years old (you were saying something about "older, experienced" people?). Imagine being treated like a 16 years old, with no credit history, no rental history, $2K relocation advance (which I of course! had to pay back) and a family of four.
Hey, I didn't move here because the life is better, but because here it makes sense and has a future. And my kids have a future, too. My 11 year old kid was second is his class, leaving far behind the native English speakers. And this is less than 3 years of speaking English AT ALL.
Bottomline: stop looking for excuses and badmouthing those whose English is as good as yours. Everyone in this country is from someplace else, and this is what makes this country great.
Simple. And again, not a flame. The US is a First World country. Most immigrants to it are from Mexico, India, Pakistan, etc - second or third world countries. Other first world countries have much lower immigration rates - from the article - "from a European country where there is little demand to immigrate to the United States".
Open Source. Closed Minds. We are Slashdot.
I'm Brazilian by "jus solis" (right of birth) and Finnish by "jus sanguinis" (right of blood). According to both countries' legislation, I have the right to dual citizenship. I have birth certificates and voter registrations in both. I'm a Brazilian citizen and a Finnish (i.e., by extension, European Union) citizen. I choose to live and work in Brazil, theoretically the poorest country. Why? Because I have lived in Europe, and South America, and in the USA, and I feel that Brazil, despite all its problems, all things accounted for, offers the best qualtity of life. I'm an aerospace engineer, and, if you think Brazil is a backwards country in this respect, you don't know anything about the aerospace industry.
I always knew it.
The solution, of course, is simple. Hire more immigrants as INS staff.
--
--
Marc A. Lepage
Software Developer
The name: Linus. Linus Torvalds. Designation?
"Alien of extraordinary ability"
Call out Mulder and Scully. We've got one.
Yours Truly,
Dan Kaminsky
DoxPara Research
http://www.doxpara.com
We put in for a H1B visa for our spectacular Yugoslavian candidate. The lawyers sat on it for a bit, and apparently it wasn't in the Fed hands until December, not October like we thought. The Feds lost track of the number of issued visas and stopped issuing them until they could figure out how many were left. Apparently they have just started handling those from last November... So where is the 'warning, you haven't posted in ages and we are going to slaughter your login' mails?
Gun control is hitting what you aim at
To everyone that cares: STOP BITCH' and do something.
Get status in Canada and then go to the US.
That's what my plan was, except I don't need to go to the US anymore. I found everything in Canada.
There is a lack of tech jobs and the government is much more slack:)
If you want a job try corel.ca and yes its in Canada, but why should the country matter as long as there are good jobs.
maybe they should try citizenship?!?! Jeez! If they want to live here and work here then be a frickin citizen for crying out loud. Now don't get me wrong, Linus is a brilliant man and I'm sure the others involved are also highly skilled and great minds (but obviously overshadowed by the name dropping of Linus), but all this whining about something that gets them permanent residence, but they don't have to be a US citizen? For crying out loud if you want to stay here so bad become a citizen. Maybe there is something I'm missing here, and maybe the US has strange and/or callous laws about dual citizenship, but I still fail to see the sense in having permanent residence in the US and not being a citizen? Oh well, if it weren't for Linus' name in the pot I bet certain media orginazations would have glossed over the whole story. I can see it now...[supervisor to reporter].."hey isn't this Linus fellow the guy that started that Linux or something another thing that we hear about all the time?" ahahha What can you expect after all, he's just a US citizien and not a green card holder? *grin* ;)
-Xen
fuck YEAH!
have you ever seen a foreigner that wasn't a QUEER? Linux is, btw, a queer.
Linus that is
What is wrong with all of you guys?
Really.
Linus Torvalds and his fellow tech workers in Silly Valley are very well set. They are very well paid and certaintly in the affluent classes of society.... I have people reworking my roof right now. Bunch of hispanics who I doubt sincerely are citizens and quite possibly are illegal immigrants just because the INS is so fucked up right now... I bet a lot of them have families who barely eat. They need green cards. Linus'll be alright.... minority immigrants doing manual labor to stay from starving may not... they need some help. They need the INS to hurry up and untangle their mess. We shouldn't fight for Linus's rights here, there are more deserving.
Kspett
Kevin "Cash Money" Spett
Ignore your rights and they go away.
But there are people here saying "I wouldn't live in the US if you paid me" - and you're saying that's exactly what's going on, in essence. What gives?
Look. I am 100% American white male who competes with these aliens. So if I may have a say: PLEASE - IN THE NAME OF GOD, LET ALIENS WORK HERE AND COME AND GO FREELY. I'm sick and tired of government trying to 'protect' me inspite of myself. Jesus Christ, this is supposed to be a free-market economey. Did it ever occur to anyone that these 'competing aliens' are coming here and writing software that makes people over 100 more productive at their work in some cases. Not to mention their contribution in building the most economicly beneficial information infrastructure ever to dawn upon the history of human kind. OH, BTW - even with the lower paid workers. Are you going to go out and work the fields to harvest our crops??? The real question isn't what to do about aliens (illegal or otherwise) but rather how to deal with such stipid statments as "there putting american workers out of jobs". Oh spare me....
As an alien working in the USA (although I have not applied for a green card, and expect to return to my home country in the not too distant future) I can tell you that the issue is not as simple as you suggest in your message. The USA is experiencing a reverse 'Brain Drain'. Where quite a few developing countries are losing their best minds to the US and other high paying countries, the US is recruiting many of the brightest and most ambitious people, drawn in by the glory of Hollywood and the almighty dollar.
This is usually a good thing (for the US) but not without its disadvantages. Besides the resentment of some of the populus - as expressed in your comment - there is also the very real danger of the resident citizens becoming less involved in some of the less desired aspects of technology and science, in effect 'outsourcing' parts of the technological infrastruture to aliens.
For example, at the department where I work more than half of the graduate students are not from the US. I feel this is true for many of the science departments in American Universities. That means a huge amount of resources are spend on non-US citizens. If these people were to return to their home country on completion of their research, the US would, in effect, have paid for the education of someone with very return for the American economy. Therefore, it makes sense to keep these people involved in the economy for at least a few years.
I see I've begun rambling, so I'll just shut op now. But I would warn against underestimating the contribution of non-US citizens to the American economy...
-=* no sig *=-
well I for one think you should pay a bit more for your roof so American workers can work on it instead of taking advantage of people from another country so you can get your roof cheap, and the company hiring the illegals can keep more of the profits.
In a country where people make no difference between good and well, and where being a gentleman (or trying to behave as one) is considered as a handicap, it should be no surprise - but I'm still shocked - by this disturbing and widespread confusion that is, after all, nothing more than a fact of life, between the concepts of an "alien" and a "foreigner."
To me, an alien is that creature from outer space which made Ridley Scott famous whereas he deserved that fame for an earlier movie of his: "The Duellists."
A foreigner is simply a person who comes from a different country. That implies a different culture, of course, but not necessarily the fact that your blood should be based on nitric acid and that your goal in life should be to exterminate every human being on the ship. After all, like they said in Gilliam's masterpiece "Brazil": "We're all in it together."
Maybe my problem is I learned English English at school and not American English.
So long, as Steeve Watson would have said.
Going on means going far, going far means returning. Tao te Ching
These jobs that you speak of are concentrated in a few metropolitan areas. If you live in Silicon Valley or the New York/North Jersey area, then there are lots of jobs. Otherwise, be prepared to relocate.
Employment statistics are easily manipulated by companies that create deceptive, unrealistic job descriptions, then hire candidates who meet other job requirments and will work for cheap. In this way, it appears that there are jobs going unfilled.
Official US Visa Site
If you are from a low-immigration country (i.e. from Western and Cenral Europe, Oceania, etc) you might be better off trying for the DV visas, i.e. lottery visas. That was my ticket to a Green Card. The odds for a European are actually good (one in 12 I think) and the maximum processing time (i.e. mail-in of the lottery entry to actual Green Card) is at most 24 months.
If you have the option to go for GC (Adjustment of Status) processing to your home country, go for it. Embassies usually have to deal with fewer applications and are easier to get a handle of than the INS. If you have a good chance to get the GC (most people do), you don't even have to worry about your current visa.
Check out misc.immigration.usa on Usenet. A great medium-traffic forum (hopefully it will still be after being mentioned here) with a lot of old-timer immigrants that already have been through most of the INS bureacracy.
;-)...
As for the whiners: INS is by far the worst US government service. It's quite easy to suck this bad when the people you deal with have no political power whatsoever. Maybe we should get a PAC going
engineers never lie; we just approximate the truth.
What a smart guy! Too bad, he didn't know that to get citizenship this way one has to get a green card first.
Contrary to the popular belief, there indeed is no God.
no problems there. Anybody can come, it's only a problem if they don't want to be a citizen.
wow 18 posts without a single real responce. I think thats a new record. assholes. Of course, things got thrown off by that CHS spam faggot. ah well
Natile portman naked and terrifed.
Wrong. Here's the EXTENT of his special abilities: "Let's take a copy of an existing OS and make it run on a PC".
You must know him more intimately than the rest of us. ;-)
To get a citizenship, you first have to become a permanent resident (i.e., get a green card). Then, after five years or so, you can apply for citizenship.
As Jon Wiener described in his book Gimmee Some Truth about John Lennon's harassment by the FBI and the INS, it's mighty inconvenient to be even a famous foreign national in the US. I have no real reason to suspect Linus is getting singled out for special nettling, but just as the INS tried to deport Lennon for his overthrow-the-establishment political rhetoric, perhaps it wouldn't be too farfetched to suspect certain segments of the software industry of trying to suppress Linus and his certain open-source ideologies.
Hopefully this will serve as an example of why the current bureaucracies and laws need massive reforms. I can hope, can't I?
"If one is really a superior person, the fact is likely to leak out without too much assistance" -- John Andrew Holmes
I find the state of affairs in the US regarding immigration to be appalling. The hippocracy and thinly veiled racism boggles the mind. I hear these people spout this protectionist crap and I think, "just where the hell do you think you came from?" It's the same story. First Irish, Asian, or Hispanic. And it's all bullshit.
I know people affected by layoffs by a well known company last year. These are people who write compilers, a rather specialized skill. Their H1B didn't have enough time left on it, so no company would touch them. If you get laid off on H1B you have 10 days to find a new job or get out of the country.
Consider the following:
You have 6 years with H1-B. During those 6 years you are stuck with the same company for all intents and purposes, since it is difficult to get picked up by a different company. It becomes more difficult as time goes on.
After 5 years of working for the company, basically on their terms, they hit some trouble and lay you off. They were sponsoring you for a green card, but that hadn't gone through (remember, it takes around 3 years to process the things). Now, that all gets dropped because the company working on it has just laid you off. You've only got 1 year left in the country, so no other company is going to touch you. So what happens? That's right, 10 days to leave the country.
It makes me sick.
--GnrcMan--
Of course you think racial profiling is okay because there are statistics to back it up. Get out of your conservative cave my friend. The truth is that the average person who is on welfare is a WHITE person. I assume that you are being sarcastic when you wrote that response. Nobody can be the ignorant /insecure.
Also, who do you think is going to be harder working? An immigrant off the boat who has nothing going for himself except for his dream or lazy citizen who is content with his status in life. Who do you think will create more jobs? Hmmmm
Thanks BTW: I am an immigrant and so is the rest of my family. We all have green cards and we created hundereds of jobs.
The evil duo quickly subdued the little lab rabbit. They strapped the now helpless animal's head to the sex table with hot leather. Roblimo had they urge, and removed his pants, which were now buldging. After slipping off his briefs, Roblimo tightly fastened the leather straps and was ready to begin.......
Roblimo began to "grease up". Shoving endless amounts of vaseline and baby oil all around the rabbit's ass, he slid his purple head firmly into the rabbit's tight asshole. Even though the rabbit was slightly unconscious, screams of pain were constanly being emmited. Hemos reached for the chain whip and smacked the rabbit's soft nose until its face was soaked with blood. Now, with the rabbits head drooped over the edge of the table, Roblimo continued his sex hunt. His now tingling cock was pushed deeper and deeper through the thick layers of skin which covered the bowel tract. Five, six, seven, then finally all eight and 3/4 inches were plunged deep within the animal's love canal.
David's manhood tingled with every slight movement of the now half alive rabbit. He began rhythmically sliding in and out, moaning with pleasure on every thrust. Roblimo worked himself into a hot orgasm. The blood, now coming steadily out of the rabbit's ass with every thrust of David's pelvis, could be heard dripping on the floor. David's rate increased and with a final push, he spurted creamy white love gel far up into the rabbit's bleeding ass.
The blood and cum mixed together on the floor, which had now accumulated a large puddle. Unknown to Roblimo, the semen had acted as a powerful enemma for the rabbit and out ushered the contents of its intestine. The stool was loose and soft. It fell to the ground with a soft thud and broke into small pieces. The obnoxious smell caught David's attention, and no sooner had he fallen to the ground and began licking the large puddle of blood, sperm, and stool. Exited at David's enthusiasm, Hemos dropped to his knees and also began to slurp the foul mixture.
After cleaning the floor with their tongues, Roblimo and Hemos checked on the battered lab rabbit. It was barely able to hold its head up, as it had lost control of most of its motor fuctions. Feeling no pity for this sexually mistreated animal, they unstrapped it and tossed it across the room, only to make a loud and deep thud against the wall. Its blood soaked fur left spatters of red stains everywhere it touched. Hemos reached for his chain whip, while Roblimo grabbed a pair of rusty hedge clippers (one of the many torture devices carried around for "convenience"). They made their way over to the rabbit. The rabbit was struggling for every last bit of air it could, just gasping and wheezing.
"Awwwww. Poor little thing," Hemos maniacally laughed. He raised his arm and thrust the cold metal whip down, exposing the rabbit's bloody flesh. He kept whacking and whacking at the furry bag of blood. Then, when Hemos stopped to catch his breath, Roblimo stepped over with his rusty hedge clippers. He knelt over the rabbit who was knocking loudly on death's door. Roblimo took a quick glance at the clippers, grinned, and then thrust them deep into the body of the rabbit, obviously hitting many arteries. As the blood squirted into David's face he moved the clippers around in hopes to find a thick bone to crunch. "Aha! The femur!" he yelled out with excitement. Roblimo wedged the clippers against the bone. He opened them wide......then closed down on them with all his might. The bone could be heard deep inside the rabbit, being mutilated. Death had glazed the bunny's eyes.
The rabbit lay dead, a bloody mess on the floor. Its bodily fluids freely surged across the tiled floor. Then with a look of extreme satisfaction, both Roblimo and Hemos lit up some smokes, gathered their belongings and quietly left the hospital grounds, knowing with confidence that they would strike again, somewhere, soon.
And you cannot stay in US more than 6 years unless you're a GC holder. So go figure.
Why do you forget about the "Brain Drain" inflicted by the US on the other part of world? I have a Masters degree in Computer Science that I got FOR FREE back in Russia. But I enrich an American company now and pay taxes to the American government.
Be realistic, most of the people who come here don't go back even when they have a choice.
Tigers respect lions, elephants and hippos. Maggots respect no one. (C) S. Dovlatov
As far as I'm concerned (and I was born in the US), you're welcome here. You do need to lose some of the attitude, though :}. Bottom line is, the US is a better place to live than many other places. You may denigrate the work ethic (I think that's what you're implying...but if I'm wrong, I'm sorry) and the culture (although, I don't see people in other countries staying away from American film in droves... ;> ) but you can't deny that there is no other country in the world that provides as many people as great an opportunity as the US does.
Is it always easy for immigrants? No, it isn't, but you need to remember that this nation has a border thousands of miles long shared with a much less prosperous nation. To many Americans, immigrants are immigrants and that usually means Latin Americans. I don't have a problem with controlled immigration from the south, but there are huge infrastructure and social issues that need to be considered. No other industrialized nation that I know of is in a similar situation. I don't think it's as simple an issue as many of the comments imply.
Hello, I must be going. I'm here to say I cannot stay, I must be going.
Thanks for clarifying.
Overrated? Could be. That's an opinion. Offtopic? No.
--GnrcMan--
As one who is experiencing the hell that is Adjustment of Status on a first hand basis, let me tell you that it truly sucks. I am a natural born US citizen, and my wife is Chilean. We were married 2 1/2 years ago and hope to finish her Adjustment of Status in about 5 months (of course 2 years ago they said 1 year). As far as Green Cards go, marriage to a citizen is the simplest option. There is no security check or per country quotas, but it takes forever (although less than H1 apparently). She can work without restriction in the meantime, thankfully, but needs to reapply yearly. She can't leave the country without special permission, even to visit a grandfather who had a heart attack recently (not sick enough). We have spent all told about 48 hours on line at the INS, travelled 400 miles on LA freeways, and spent $600 on paperwork. We would gladly have spent more if it meant the process would go any faster.
On the INS website, you can see the lie inherent in their claim of having too large a workload. Their workload has remained roughly constant for the last 3 years, but the backlog has increased substantially.
Why does it take so long? The answer is partly that those who are against legal or illegal immigration don't support steps that would make the INS more efficient and (god forbid) friendly. That being said, the fault is mostly borne by the INS itself.
It is a beauracracy which was left behind by reengineering and the computer revolution. I have not seen a single computer at the main INS office in LA. Proof of payment is a cash register receipt, correspondence is often hand written and hand stamped. The receipt letter for the Adjustment of Status (hand written) refers to a "Crate #" and I have no doubt that there is indeed an actual crate involved.
The INS website has some half-assed proposals for restructuring it's operation, but none go nearly far enough. I think the document processing of the INS should be privatized. A company like EDS would be happy to streamline and automate the data collection and verification part of the application process, leaving only the decisions to the INS. In fact I believe that the immigration part of the INS should go to the State Department, which already handles visas and does a decent job, leaving the border patrol and adjudication in the hands of the Justice Department.
--
"L'IT c'est moi!"
Without the U.S. Linus would be packing herring or something and wouldn't have ever seen a computer, so he should quit whining and code. And as a non-citizen he has no right to congressional assistance for anything. Transmeta is obviously bribing that bitch.
why on earth would you want to live in US?
I happen to work for an american company, and this american company holds all its engineering department in Israel, like oh, so many companies I know. The result: Israel is now a second Silicon Valley without all the mess and blown up price of living. The number of tech startups is second in the world after US (compare the geographic sizes).
So I guess its nobody's loss but US's.
Ok, people, we all know this sucks and all, and we'd hate to see Linus deported and blah, blah, blah.
r -ass day. Tell them about the problem. Yes, you red-blooded Americans who can or will soon be able to vote. Even you skilled immigrants who can not yet vote have some influence, since most politicians like to have friends with the tech crowd (people with money) and besides, you could be voting before too long if all this paperwork gets cleared, should you desire to become full citizens.
How about we do something about it? The legislature has the power to reform the system, but they won't do it if they think it's more important to be declaring a national standing-on-your-head-and-blowing-bubbles-out-you
Before you go running off spamming your local representatives, please remember a few things:
1) Be polite.
2) Write a real letter, don't expect hyperlinks to explain themselves, as a recent story on slashdot revealed that our Senators and Representatives may not be very adroit with e-mail, and they may be seeing it on paper. Or, if you can bring yourself to it, snd it snail-mail. They read those things.
3) Don't dis the U.S. It won't be received kindly.
Now, here are your links:
To find and contact your Congressional district representative, go to http://www.house.gov/writerep/
For a full list of Senators and their websites/e-mail addresses, go to http://www.senate.gov/contacting/index.c fm
So let's stop standing on our heads, blowing bubbles out our asses, and help these people out.
WARNING: there is a trojan on your
Oh please . . . . Mexicans have been dealing with the INS for the longest time . . . Who knows . . maybe Linus will see this INS thing and start a revolution/reform like he did with the OS market
Just cause he's a famous amos . . he needs to wait in line too . . . I said IN LINE not ON LINE . . wake up pplz
"My Ex-Girlfriend liked doing that, that's why I left my Ex-Girlfriend"
I know this sounds bad, but for all us U.S. natives - this long delay is good news. 'The Boss' has to do more to keep us happy.
.
All this is by way of saying that your idea, whilst an excellent one, will not be implemented because it ignores the real agenda - keeping wages down and profits up.
Unfair, since INS has many obligations, but STILL.
Why would anyone want an H1B visa boggles the mind. Is this the life you seek in America?
Well, after reading roughly 200 (mostly off-topic, pasty-troll, and a few sickening) comments, the time has come to set my threshold higher. Sadly, I will miss the occassional classy troll. But I will regain the portion of my brain that is lost each time I have to see something as gross as "dead/naked/petrified columbine students" The rabbit thing really pushed me over the edge *ralph*. But that is neither here nor there.
Most of the (on topic) attitudes displayed here fall into one of two categories.
1) Let foreigners in.
2) Keep foreigners out.
I'm fine with both. But the people espousing to keep them out respond with the old "taking jobs from americans" theme, which is not only old and tired, but patently fraudulent. I've worked in IT all of my adult life - I've even worked in a company that processes H1-B (and related) paperwork (please pardon the somewhat ugly nature of that site - the owner "redesigned it herself" after I left them). My experiences there and in the field have shown how difficult it is to get in the country in the first place (let alone have a shot a green card), and how false claims of lower pay for immigrants (generally) are. As a group, they are held to a higher standard with regard to ability, yet are treated (by the population in general) as scabs on the landscape. Yes, there are exceptions. But there are exceptions in every pay scale and market. Eventually, the market will turn, and many of "those people" will go back home. And then the market corrections will begin to affect americans much more dramatically than now - and who will we blame then? The Jews? Another old and tired theme.
I have no sig. Bite me.
I'm a British Citizen - and I was invited to come to the US - I didn't ask to come. The large defense company I work for couldn't find anyone in the US to do the job I do. Not at any money. I have an unusual skill set - and I'm very good at what I do.
So, I negotiated a good salary - and flew over with my family, having been told that my Green Card would take between a year and eighteen months to arrive. That seemed pretty reasonable.
To start with, my job was stimulating - but jobs change. Now, I find my work is stifling to my creativity and I need a change.
I've been waiting for SIX YEARS for my Green Card - and as far as I can tell, it's still about a year away. I strongly suspect that my employer has deliberately dragged it's heels to string out the process.
Meanwhile, I'm stuck in the same job - I can't get promoted - the company cannot change my job title because that would put the application process right back to square one.
I'm still working for the exact same salary that I had the day I came here. My company has no incentive to give me a pay rise (even though they rate me 'exemplary' in my annual reviews) - because they KNOW I can't change jobs.
I could go back home to England - but I have a house, two cars and my son (who was just three years old when we arrived) has now turned nine. He has (necessarily) been brought up as an American kid so he would fit in with US schools - and it would be grossly unfair to force him to change.
This is why they call it 'GreenCard Jail'.
The situation won't improve because Green Card
prisoners don't have a vote - so there is little incentive for government to put money into fixing the problem.
What is happening to me right now is (in effect) slavery. A slave who has enough to eat, a comfortable place to stay - and even a nice car - is still a slave. This is a matter of freedom - not pay.
www.sjbaker.org
It's simple. I am actually here on a slightly different visa - refugee (don't ask me why, it's a long story). I can work anywhere I want, have no problems getting mortgage/car loan/even governmental scholarships, and I'm pretty sure I'll stay in this country for a long time. And I was supposed to get a green card a year after arriving here (people on a similar visa who came 3-4 years earlier did). However, I still haven't (it's been 3 years), and I get the same reply to all my inquiries "it's being processed."
Why do I care? Because I f^**ing can not leave this country before I get the green card. More exactly, I can leave, but won't be able to re-enter; their idea is that if you're a refugee you are supposed to be poor, miserable, etc., and why would you ever want to leave this beautiful country? Well, I want to travel! I can't even go to Mexico or Canada or Bahamas. I couldn't go skiing to the Alps with my old friends, couldn't go to Germany to drink beer, or anywhere else. It sucks big time. Please, or please, give me my green card!!! I will hack code, stuff envelopes, bring you sandwiches, whatever you want - just let me be free!!.....
To bad that %25 increase in INS employees arent benifiting from an operating system that consumes %50 of thier time rebooting.
You might not like it but there is a kernel of truth in his comments. The U.S. has a long history of setting immigration policy based on the needs of large companies. Just look at Pennsylvania where large numbers of immigrants were brought in to work in the mines and steel mills. The steel companies wanted docile workers who would work hard and cheap, and not get any funny ideas about labor unions. Their experience with American workers was that the American worker wanted higher pay and better working conditions, and was willing to go on strike to get them. In recent history, a similar situation developed with registered nurses, who traditionally were underpaid and treated like crap by most hospitals. When a nurse shortage developed, rather than increase pay and improve working conditions for nurses, the health care industry lobbied Congress to grant more visas to foreign nurses.
Mea navis aericumbens anguillis abundat
I'm all for INS reform and efficiency, but I'm not for open borders.
Why's that? Because I'm a selfish bastard. In the US we enjoy a a high standard of living based on a morally repugnant history of extreme exploitation of human and natural resources and I'm not about to give it up by expanding the pie. During our expansion, we used cheap labor from wherever we could get it, especially immigrants to build infrastructure and manufacturing. As we enter an increasingly service economy, the need for such cheap labor to spur growth has diminished significantly. It is far more efficient in a global economy to exploit immigrants before they emigrate by building production facilities in their country of origin.
What we still need in the US are highly skilled workers. I don't care where they come from and I don't care if they "take my job." Frankly there is no such thing as "taking my job", except perhaps in extremely highly specialized fields which are in decline anyway. H-1B is bad not because it takes away jobs but because it creates an artificial market where the worker is not free to persue the best salary in presumably the most productive position.
Don't think of the US as a benefactor. We never have been an never will be. Think of the US as the Microsoft of the world. We have extreme monopoly powers which we exploit for phenomenal profits and control. Everybody hates us, even our "partners." We're living high on the hog now, but we'll be first against the wall when the revolution comes (except esr of course, since he has a gun).
--
"L'IT c'est moi!"
Just mix in the names of INS managers into the Green Card list. Make them have the risk of being deported if the applications are not handled in a timely manner.
Of course the delays are probably due to the INS using Windows or some proprietary system written by the lowest bidder.
"Trademarks are the heraldry of the new feudalism."
average person who is on welfare is a WHITE person.
How can you have an average on finite state system? its not like its a quantfiable number or somthing. I'll assume that as an ignorant mexican you ment most wellfare recipants are white. And I don't doubt that, as most americans are white. But there are More Mexicans on welfare per total mexicans then whites on wellfare as a persentage of whites.
You haven't looked for a job lately have you? If there is a labor shortage, then why do I have two degreed engineers sleeping on my couch in my house? Both of them spend 3 days a week traveling looking for jobs within a 4 hour drive from here, and the other 4 days per week working odd-jobs to get by. Well, there are a few technical jobs, but they're all dealing with Windows NT and/or AIX. My two friends (I'm proud of them) are holding-out for either Linux-related jobs at any pay or UNIX-related jobs where they can make good money (more than 20K/year). Hell, I've been looking for a Linux-related job on and off since December of 93, when the company I worked for decided they didn't need Linux drivers for their multiport serial boards (not a typo, I had a dream job ... 7(!) years ago I was working w/ Linux!). Other than a brief stint at NCR (closed their plant here), I haven't found anything since. There just aren't any Linux jobs where you can make 20K+/year. Well, I'm excluding ISP's. There's a large number of (very) small ISP's running Linux that always seem to need more manpower, but I haven't found one yet that can afford to pay much. I've done contract work for atleast 20 different ISP's, and I haven't collected from many of them. They can't afford much.
Now, to the point ... I volunteer two nights per week at "social center" and (apparently, not by choice) I'm going to be helping lower-income and Spanish-speaking residents with their tax returns. I helped two maids (as cleans-up houses, brings their own cleaning materials, and charges per hour) with Green Cards with their taxes. Both of them made over $60K last year (sixty thousand US dollars, ~40 hours per week @ $30 per hour). It makes my wonder why me and my friends spent 4 to 6 years of hell in school in engineering. If there is a "[technical-skilled worker] labor shortage," then why are maids who barely speak English making more than twice what any of my friends with EE degrees make?
H1B workers need to be paid a certain minimum.
That's sad, but certainly true. I just had to hire someone who spoke Chinese and Vietnamese. I ended-up having to pay my new hire almost twice(!) as much, because INS said I had to pay her "a significant amount above market average." So, rather than paying someone locally $16K, I'm having to pay a 22 year old girl with zero experience $30K per year. It's ridiculous the way INS protects an immigrant's salary. I'm the US citizen, and they're requiring me to pay an outragious amount of money out of my pocket for the "privilege" of having someone work for me. Who are they looking out for? I had to put off buying furniture and a TV for my apartment (I think my wife hates me now...), because INS is making me give so much to someone on an H1B. With the almost $3K I've spent so far on legal fees, I've gotten screwed royally.
In short, Jonathan Erickson disagrees with you and points to some fairly compelling evidence that the labor shortage is a hoax concocted by the industry so that it can favor cheaper college grads and foreign workers over retraining expensive midcareer professionals. The editorial also has some interesting insights into the probable long-term effects.
"I have a good idea why it's hard to verify programs. They're usually wrong." --Manuel Blum, FOCS 94
>gross perversion of our great country by foreigners
People from Latin American tend to be far more traditional and family-oriented than we Americans.
>Most young Mexicans, after being spoiled by our welfare system, resort to crime to feed their drug habits
Mexicans are too busy trying to survive to be able to spend money on drugs. Many send money orders back home. It's people with disposable funds (nationality is irrelevant here) who are more likely to buy drugs. Get a clue.
>schools in Mexico don't provide a proper education
What is a 'proper' education? I've been in American, Mexican and German schools. Americans have virtually no discipline. I went to a graduation in Mexico (about age 16 age group) and they marched in the rain in formation, saluted their flag while standing at attention, and they all gave a speech to the assembly. I saw much more demand for respect, common courtesy and hard studying in the foreign schools than in most American schools.
>most are freeloaders
Then why be afraid to compete with Mexicans? Put your money where your mouth is. I challenge you to walk the talk.
>All competing for the same jobs, some of whom have only been here to rape our Education system
This is a laugh. It's American school administrators who 'rape' the American school system... Let private schools have a chance to educate poor students with vouchers. How about some competition! Entrenched interests prove they don't give a damn about children of the U.S. when they want to deny this kind of opportunity to poor children.
>That we need to keep America for Americans.
What is an American? Don't we espouse freedom? Isn't this a country of opportunity? If you aren't native Indian, YOU are a 'furriner'.
There are problems, no argument there, but spouting a bunch of nonsense doesn't help the situation.
In 1988 I paid $500 for a Social Security card, which I used to get a California Driver's License. I've had four different jobs as an electronic engineer at the Silicon Valley since then. Last year, I moved to L.A. The ironic thing is, I wasn't an engineer when I left my native Hungary in 1988. I was just a technician. But, apparently, the average tech in Hungary got a better training than the engineer in the US, so I was never found out. Yeah, OK, Americans should worry about H1Bs. Americans are too lazy to win in a free market; they really need _some_ protectionism. Just like American blacks need "affirmative action".
I don't understand. My grandparents and parents and numerous other folks I know from Jamaica applied for their Green Cards when they were still in Jamaica, then had no prob when they came here. Isn't that an option?
OliverWillis.Com
An Operative with an Agenda
Congratulations. Of all the things I have visited on the Internet, your story is probably the sickest.
Because you are a sexual pervert?
We born and bred Americans are tired of seeing all those welfare lazy Swedish programmers stealing all of our prime American technology jobs, depressing our hard-earned poverty wages with floods of cheap to free labor. American companies should hire Americans, and serve America.
Why does a large American corporation like Transmeta, on American soil, hire a Swede, when there are so many overworked underpaid unemployed American computer workers not getting jobs? You know why? Because those Swedes would work cheap! Many American corporations like Transmeta no longer cares about quality, but scourge the world for cheaper and cheaper computer labor, until they stumble upon all these Communist Free Sofware Programmers.
A particular un-American Swede is one Linus Torvalds. How can a good old fashioned family man American programmer competes in wage warfare with a programmer who will program for free and give away his code for free? What has our great country come to? Have we turned communists? Have we turned socialists? What happens to the good-old-fashioned value of capitalism, the founding principle of our great nation? How are we supposed to support our family, the women who are only willing to marry us because we have computer jobs, when we have to compete against these communists free cheap Swede programmers?
Please join us and volunteer to the great American cause : Hard-working Oppressed American Computer Workers Against Swede Free Code
Thank you very much.
Right on man
My asshole doubles in size every two years. Eventually you will fall inside and be my Asshole Slave. You will have to lick the encrustulated feces from the inside of the asshole. Only when my asshole is clean enough to eat chili off of will I set you free. I just thought I should warn you so that you don't miss any doctors appointments or anything due to being trapped inside my ever-growing asshole. Thank you.
ALGERIA FOR THE ALGERIANS!!!!!
What the hell is wrong with governments? This kind of crap should take 10 min. It takes a year to get a test for a drivers licence here. It's just sad.
We need to take over the world and fix the governments. I think our Ministry of Transportation could be replaced with a 100 line Perl script.
You have it backwards. Aliens with H1B visas are required to be paid much more than "market average." The INS is looking-out for the immigrents by guaranteeing them a good salary. Even if the aliens are willing to work for low wages, INS won't let the company hire them unless they are paid well. (I thought the INS worked for the people rather than against...) Also, an alien on an H1B is much less likely to be laid-off. After a company invests so much in legal fees, they tend to not want to throw the investment away. The two largest engineering firms around here recently had massive lay-offs, but both kept all of the aliens, including my wife. So, we have almost 200 civil & mechanical engineers with years of experience looking for jobs in a small area. They are jobless, not because (as you said) they were "too expensive," but because they didn't cost much to hire so they were expendable.
I'd really like to see how easy it is for an American to get a visa to work in the countries that we're drawing tech workers from; I happen to know it's fairly difficult in the EC countries.
Let's put it this way -- those guys are a minority, and a small minority. Look at your unemployment stats. You hardly have high unemployment. I don't know how old they are, but I won't deny that ageism is rampant in the high tech industry. But that doesn't alter the fact that the US has low unemployment at the moment. BTW, I am surprised that they are having a hard time finding UNIX jobs paying more than 20K. I though most UNIX jobs paid more than that. Certainly, all the fortune 500 companies offer more than that.
As for protecting the migrant's salary -- I think the repercussions of not doing so would be more severe. You could pay immigrants about half the going rate and many of them would take it rather than stay in China, India or Mexico simply because you're still giving them more than they'll get at home. The problem with this is it creates a disincentive for employers to hire American workers. I'd say the implications for American workers are a greater cause for concern than protecting immigrants wages ( esp since they are getting paid considerably more than they would in their countries of origin )
Get a clue... H1B immigrants are temporary. We are not talking about people that are asking for permanant citizenship.
Immigrants are taking our jobs, so screw them. They should be happy that we even allowed them into our country. I mean this is seriously riduclous. We have millions of people living in the streets who can't afford jack crap, yet we import more mother f*ckers because they work for less. Bullsh*t. I can't wait until there is a revolution in this country for the hard working American to take back their country they so richly deserve.
I say we charge people admission to get into our country, and make their taxes insanely high for 10 years, which begins the day they are admitted into our country. If they want to become an American citizen so bad, make them work for it, make them get on their hands and knees and BEG for it. Then, we should also limit them to jobs such as lawnkeeping, servants, fast food workers. Make them start from the bottom all over again. With the proposed tax we should be able to illiminate the debt, and with the proposed job plan, it will increase job security for all true Americans and teach the immigrants how much effort is required to earn a buck and make them realize how great this country is and how thankful they need to be that we even let them in. F*ck it, you know what I say close the gates.
No more immigrants. We got enough people, screw them.
Come on people, let's fight for this country and take it back.
Now, to the point ... I volunteer two nights per week at "social center" and (apparently, not by choice) I'm going to be helping lower-income and Spanish-speaking residents with their tax returns. I helped two maids (as cleans-up houses, brings their own cleaning materials, and charges per hour) with Green Cards with their taxes. Both of them made over $60K last year (sixty thousand US dollars, ~40 hours per week @ $30 per hour). It makes my wonder why me and my friends spent 4 to 6 years of hell in school in engineering. If there is a "[technical-skilled worker] labor shortage," then why are maids who barely speak English making more than twice what any of my friends with EE degrees make? H1B workers need to be paid a certain minimum. That's sad, but certainly true. I just had to hire someone who spoke Chinese and Vietnamese. I ended-up having to pay my new hire almost twice(!) as much, because INS said I had to pay her "a significant amount above market average." So, rather than paying someone locally $16K, I'm having to pay a 22 year old girl with zero experience $30K per year. It's ridiculous the way INS protects an immigrant's salary. I'm the US citizen, and they're requiring me to pay an outragious amount of money out of my pocket for the "privilege" of
Read the rest of this comment...
I don't necessarily disagree with arguments that ageism is a problem in the high tech industry. But I think that even if they gave every midcareer professional a job, they'd still run into similar problems with labor shortages. The problem is that they won't hire anyone over 40 even if you put a gun to their head. Blaming the immigrants is nothing but a cheap copout, and ignores the real problems.
I'm glad Linus is here, but the whole techno visa thing is a sham. It's disruptive to the people who come to the US under a shadow, and takes smart people from the homeland.
I think the whole H1 visa thing should be illegal, and we should just let a certain number of people in as Americans each year, but no targeting.
You get Drs., lawyers, politicians, Janitors, etc. in the same percentage as the donor country.
That way, programmers wouldn't feel threatened, and the new arrivals can stay and be Americans right from the get go.
Treatment, not tyranny. End the drug war and free our American POWs.
See my user info for links.
Fine, call it indentured servitude.
--
"L'IT c'est moi!"
It's 2 1/2 years and counting here, but at least the immigrant can work (if not travel) during the application process.
--
"L'IT c'est moi!"
boy, i am going to feel the heat for this, but there are great fucking universities in china, too... great engineering jobs to be had the world over and plenty of american engineers (who may not be able to spell, but do understand how a toaster works) who need jobs *here*.
the whole visa processing situation is sad, and "professional" immigrants are taken advantage of, but where does it say we owe anybody *anything*? especially when these people are more technically capable than the majority of people who post here.
how many people on this forum are "professionals"? seems odd to me that there should be much empathy for immigrants who earn more than your garden variety hacker.
just keep this in perspective, "lives ruined", oh please, many of these fucking people should go home and make a real contribution to their nations and the world--let's reserve some sympathy for people who flee oppression or are needlessly separated from their families by idiotic ins red-tape. kuma
To all the slashdotters still in school, I'm sure you have a positive view of the way businesses handle their data. You imagine yourself in the future sitting at a desk controlling a database of items to be sold, incoming raw materials, etc. and massaging data to help a company make money. It's not like that. If you're smart enough to program, then you wouldn't be in that position. Some mid-level manager is doing it with his own inadequate tools or by hand. At this time, corporate data management is a dirty business that is being done "just well enough" rather than done well.
Sure, like you could do that.
--
"L'IT c'est moi!"
H1-B Visas are defined as "Non-Immigrant temporary work visas". They were created, and are openly documented as being for, temporary employee resources with no intention of permanent residence.
I am in the process of hiring an H1-B candidate right now. The intent of the H1-B is made very clear in the paperwork. Yet, we see all kinds of horror stories about "my H1-B running out, but noone has given me permanent residence".
The extreme delays for green cards is another issue completely. I have had several friends go through this process, and it is terribly long and cumbersome.
As for the Visa vs US workers, I used to work in the US Automotive industry (in systems) and now work for a relatively small silicon valley company. The difference is night & day between how the automotive companies train and develop employees vs the SV companies.
The autos operate with a long term commitment to their employees, and will educate current employees to fill needs.
It may or may not be realistic for a nimble SV startup to train people and still be competitive. But, the reality is that they don't. If you don't already have 90% of the skills needed for a job, you're not considered.
Anyone have input on how US immigration compares to other countries? Japan, Germany, England?
I always figured "third world" was after "Old World" and "New World." But then I guess they aren't disjoint sets after all.
Main Entry: Old World
Function: noun
Date: circa 1596
: the eastern hemisphere exclusive of Australia; specifically : Europe
Main Entry: New World
Function: noun
Date: 1555
: WESTERN HEMISPHERE; especially : the continental landmass of No. and So. America
Main Entry: third world
Function: noun
Usage: often capitalized T&W
Etymology: translation of French tiers monde
Date: 1963
1 : a group of nations especially in Africa and Asia not aligned with either the Communist or the non-Communist blocs
2 : an aggregate of minority groups within a larger predominant culture
3 : the aggregate of the underdeveloped nations of the world
Wait a second. There are jobs, but your friends don't want them, because they don't just want a job. They want a job in a particular subfield in a particular place.
That doesn't sound like a job shortage, but a brains shortage. If your friends are any good they can move from a place with bad prospects to a place with good prospects. Or they can take a real but unsatisfying job and look for a better one on the side, like the rest of humanity does.
then why are maids who barely speak English making more than twice what any of my friends with EE degrees make?
Because they work in a place that needs them doing a job that needs to be done. The lesson. Learn a skill set that is needed in a part of the country that needs it.
And by the way, what was your point. You complain about a job shortage, then complain that you "had" to hire an immigrant for too much to fill a position. Well, which is it. Are immigrants bad because they take your jobs or bad because they cost too much when you can't find an American to fill your job.
--
"L'IT c'est moi!"
It's not the fault of the INS. There are two perfectly good things we could do, but instead we have come up with a totally evil compromise which the INS must enforce. Sometimes the compromise between two good things is bad!
1) Allow anybody to work here, regardless of citizenship.
2) Only allow non-citizens to work here if they are applying for citizenship.
So they made an ugly compromise! And now even Linus is stuck in the INS's miserable system! He's not a free worker, he is not allowed to quit his job, and what do we call somebody who is not legally allowed to quit their job?
Starts with the letter "S". I'll give you a hint - it's the worst possible thing for a free people, both economically and morally, to have.
you can't become an american citizen till you have your permanent residency. so, no green card, no citizenship.
Perhaps Canada might be a good alternative to go to. They don't have strange laws against encryption products either (OpenBSD is developed in Canada).
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Well, the definition of "compelling evidence" is subjective, so what I find compelling you may not. The editorial itself was merely commentary, but there were a number of references to URLs which contained a wealth of data (which I found compelling).
I disagree with the argument that the labor shortage is a "hoax".
You are free to do so. What data do you provide to support your position? "Unemployment figures" is a bit too vague.
Low unemployment is equivalent to a labor shortage -- it is indicative of a low supply of job seekers.
But it's only one indicator. And it's too broad a category. Unemployment can be very low even though the number of "unemployed MS-degreed computer scientists, age 35-50" is very high. Consider that an individual who has taken a temporary job outside his intended field while looking for an appropriate position is not considered unemployed.
In general, unemployment is only one part of a very big statistical picture. And statistics frequently don't tell the whole truth.
If there is such a dramatic shortage of workers, companies wouldn't be disregarding all but the most stellar resumes. Perhaps this isn't the case for young college grads, but for those of us in our thirties who are trying to find a decent job that will support a family is a real challenge. This is one of the reasons that I'm presently starting my own business.
Blaming the immigrants is nothing but a cheap copout, and ignores the real problems.
I don't recall making the assertion that immigrants were to blame. The editorial doesn't say that either. It's just something that I read recently and thought was topical to the current thread.
"I have a good idea why it's hard to verify programs. They're usually wrong." --Manuel Blum, FOCS 94
The visa process isn't that bad I thought. Mine took 6 months from application to the part I got my passport stamped for moving to San Diego. Then, when it expired, the INS allowed us an extra 60 days at the end, just had to ask. I think the INS is right to take it carefully, my homeland is being invaded by illegal immigrants, and people working illegally. Reading about the US bashing some people are talking about, well, I'd tell those guilty to wise up, America is a bloody great place to live..take me back!!
The day I graduated from high school I was offered a job at an ISP at $25 an hour; they wanted me to postpone college and work for them at $75k. There is a severe labor shortage out here in the SF bay area.
Polls show that the vast majority of Americans want legal immigration reduced and illegal immigration stopped. I wonder why our government has taken no action to stem the flow of third-world minorities, a flow that is now so great that it literally transforming our nation in a way that ordinary Americans find frightening and disturbing.
In fact, why does the U.S. Congress actually promote immigration, legal and illegal, against all reason? Our nation, already mired in debt, cannot productively employ our existing population and must create non-productive taxpayer-supported "service" jobs to absorb the surplus labor we now have.
With rare exception, the immigrant, legal or illegal, from a third world area is fleeing, not political persecution, but economic deprivation as a direct result of indiscriminate breeding and its consequence, over-population, in quasi-feudalistic societies steeped in ignorance and authoritarian religious dogma. Decades of experience has shown that many of these immigrants and their numerous offspring end up as drains on one or more of the myriad Liberal-sponsored county, state, and federal give-away programs. Not satisfied with our bounty, they have leisure to turn to violence and jam our law enforcement, judicial, and prison systems. All of this is paid for by confiscatory taxing of a diminishing number of mostly White, legitimate U.S. citizens productively employed in the private sector.
Why do Congress and federal bureaucrats ignore, when considering the illegal immigrant, our statutes that require a legal immigrant to be conversant with our history and our institutions, guarantee that he will not require support from any federal or state program for a minimum of five years, be in good health, and have a working knowledge of English? Why this special status for the illegal - and now, even the legal immigrant as long as he is a member of a so-called minority? (This word "minority" is wildly inappropriate, you know, when you consider that persons of European descent constitute only about 12% of the world's population!)
And why, when a foreign woman gives birth in the U.S., is she not sent back to Mexico - or wherever she may belong - with her infant? Born in the U.S., the infant is by a quirk of the law a U.S. citizen. His mother is not. The courts have held that simply having received hospital delivery care in the United States at U.S. taxpayer expense, does not bestow upon the mother a right to U.S. citizenship. She must return to wherever she belongs and, since a minor child should not be separated from its mother, the court has held that the infant must go with her. When the child has reached his majority at the age of 21 years, only then may he return legally. But this deliberately hidden aspect of the law is not enforced.
By the way, the word "Hispanic" to designate these illegal immigrants from Mexico and Central America is really a misnomer. "Hispanic" literally means "from Spain," and only a very few of these illegal immigrants are of European Spanish descent. Most of them are mestizos, meaning part European and part Indian. Their special-interest organization is even called La Raza, which means "the race," expressing their racial solidarity as mestizos.
For decades, it has been no secret that a mestizo Mexican female will cross the border surreptitiously or on a tourist visa, ostensibly for a day of "shopping," when she knows delivery of her pregnancy is imminent. Within hours, she is in a U.S. hospital giving birth to her little U.S. citizen, courtesy of the U.S. taxpayer. Almost certainly, the mother, often a child herself, has had no prenatal care and her pregnancy is at high risk. If there should be problems, there is no shortage of hungry lawyers waiting to pounce on the delivering physician and hospital with law suits regardless of merit. Such an infant is more likely to require care in an Intensive Care Nursery where costs routinely are measured in the hundreds of thousands of dollars. In California, Los Angeles County alone spends millions of dollars for the care of illegal aliens.
Hospital Discharge Planning acquaints the new mother with all the taxpayer-supported programs ready to help her and her little one. More often than not, Immigration and Naturalization Service (INS) has not been notified of her illegal status. Even if INS were notified, political pressures from leftist church groups, the previously mentioned La Raza group, and various mestizo activist groups would force the INS to keep a strictly hands-off position. Our new mother fades into the populace, untraced and untracable - just one more of a vast and ever-growing brown multitude.
Almost immediately, she has obtained a Social Security card for herself and for her new baby. Shortly thereafter, she is on welfare, living in government-subsidized housing, and receiving the benefits of Food Stamps, the WIC (Women, Infants, and Children) Program, and Medicaid. She has sent for her four to six older children - or siblings - her "husband," and, having learned of the Supplemental Security Income Program (SSI), her "disabled" parents and grandparents. Smiling to themselves, they settle down to a life of ease and luxury such as they have never known. A little later, having come to realize the unbelievably stupid leniency of their new host nation, she and her extended family begin to complain loudly of the injustices of U.S. society. By now, they have learned that the open display of the contempt they have long felt for the "gringo" brings not anger and retribution, but obsequious groveling from their "caseworker."
In a classic example of split thinking, they clamor that their native language and cultural mores should be officially designated as national "alternatives," while they complain that they are not accepted by the dominant White culture.
Meanwhile, their older children have found their place in society, joined a gang, and become deeply involved in lucrative criminal activities they would not have dared attempt in their homeland. Their arrogant contempt grows for a system of law enforcement that, compared to the feared, often lethal, justice of their native country, is laughably lenient and totally ineffective in dealing with them. We Americans have yet to learn the lesson that the penalty must fit the criminal, not the crime.
You might call this an extreme example - but it is not at all uncommon in modern America as Congress and the federal and state bureaucracies dance to the tune of multiculturalism and the New World Order that is being imposed on an uninformed and unconsulted American people.
By what right does a judge, solely on his own, decide that a boatload of Haitians - or whomever - rescued from a watery grave by the brave men of the U.S. Coast Guard, should be considered for U.S. citizenship rather than repatriated or left to the mercies of the sea? Is not the act of rescue itself sufficient demonstration of our humane good will? Must we allow a single man who calls himself a judge to second-guess the majority of our citizens? What loopholes allow him and the racially-motivated Jewish and Liberal groups and their money-hungry lawyers to circumvent reason, logic, and our laws and determine that these obviously economically-motivated emigres are really political refugees? Why does Congress allow a judge to transgress the interests of those taxpayers who support him and allow him to flaunt the laws of this nation which he is supposed to uphold? When our nation was vibrant and forthright in support of the interests of its own, such behavior by a public servant would not have been tolerated. But a few years ago our imperial Congress flew in the face of the well-being of its constituents and passed an immigration amnesty act that forgave most illegal immigrants their crime and guaranteed that even greater numbers would cross our border illegally.
Now that Congress has demonstrated its abject lack of integrity by having granted amnesty to countless illegals who have verified their fitness to become US citizens by having avoided our law enforcement institutions for a few years, millions more are now emboldened to break our laws. They now know that there exists a foolishly generous nation where a criminal must spend only a short time as a fugitive to have his crime forgiven with no greater penalty for being caught before he qualifies for amnesty, than the necessity to begin over again. When he achieves this goal not only is his crime forgiven - even if suspected - but he is rewarded beyond his greatest dreams. He is instantly eligible for the multitude of federal, state, and local give-away programs that are denied to those here legally. His cornucopia is overflowing, particularly when he learns that, for a few dollars, he need not even exist as a fugitive. He can purchase illegally the papers necessary to qualify immediately, with little likelihood that he will be discovered. For all this, there is a small risk. He risks neither life nor incarceration: If he fails this time, he but needs to try again - and again - and again.
The billions that constitute the surplus population of Africa, the Caribbean, Central America, and Asia have been given the signal that America is a rich land ripe for conquest, that its citizens are prevented from stopping the invasion by their own government. And they are coming, by land and by sea and by air, they are coming.
These invaders are breaking our laws. They are committing a crime against the United States - against you and me. Under our truly ineffective Liberal laws, they are committing only a misdemeanor. In many other countries of the world, they would be shot the instant they trespassed. Those who aid them, whether by giving them work or sanctuary, are also criminals. They have committed a felony. But the long-term harm such felons do to the future of our nation far outweighs the penalties our laws could exact, were they enforced. Why do we let them get away with it?
One reason is psychological intimidation and Liberal brainwashing. We are always hearing the cry "we are all immigrants - and the statue of Liberty proclaims our open door to the world's poor and oppressed." Such claims ignore the fact that the Statue of Liberty was never intended to symbolize such a thing - it was entitled "Liberty Enlightening the World" and was a gift from one European people (France) to another. More importantly, such claims misapply the past to a very different present. The immigrants of the last century were nearly all Europeans and were assimilated to our culture and institutions quickly and they proved their mettle by hard work by which they built our Western Civilization across a nearly empty wilderness. The character of the immigrants has changed - and so has America. No longer able to absorb millions on a frontier, we are unable even to provide jobs and homes for even those that are already here.
Another argument made by both Liberals and Conservatives to excuse these crimes is that without illegal immigrants, crops would rot on the ground and garments would go unsewn. A more ridiculous argument cannot be imagined. With unemployment statistics in the multiple millions - and with many more Americans not listed in the figures because they have given up looking for work - and with factories closing down every day as more and more companies, encouraged by our internationalist rulers, move their production to the third world, it is absurd to suggest that we do not have enough American hands to do the work that must be done. What is not laughable, however, is the fact that so many disloyal businessmen would rather pay a Mexican peon slave wages to do the work than pay a living wage to an American, the law notwithstanding. When justice comes to America such businessmen will be given a fair trial.
It is also said that these illegal immigrants bring their cultures and add "richness" and "diversity" to our society. We might, however, question whether or not we really need what they bring of their "culture." Have we not enough of whatever "richness" they might provide now? Have the Liberals who push this "diversity" line of argument ever told us just how much "diversity" is needed or when we will finally have enough diversity, and when third world immigration can therefore stop? Have we not enough of ignorance, crime, filth, disease, hatred, and irresponsible breeding right now? It is a fact of chilling import that these illegals are not only flowing by the multiple millions across our southern border, but are now reproducing at a rate well in excess of nine times the rate of ordinary White Americans. And they are bringing a true "diversity" of diseases - diseases that had been virtually eliminated from America - with them. These are diseases which we often no longer have the familiarity or the means to diagnose and treat: measles, syphilis, gonorrhea resistant to treatment, chlamydia, all manner of parasites, and now AIDS and a terrible drug-resistant strain of tuberculosis. We must protect our children! And we must jealously guard and be proud of the civilization which we of European descent have built in America at the cost of so much labor, and so much blood. It has given the world the most freedom and the greatest discoveries the world has ever known. It must not be adulterated.
Already our standard of living has declined. This is a warning sign. Our fall to the status of a Third World nation is assured unless we take immediate steps to clean up the corruption in our government and close our borders.
I wonder what might be the reasons that our elected representatives have for being so signally unrepresentative of Americans. Could it be that they have a fear of either alienating or no longer enlarging certain "minority" voting blocs? Is it possible that our politicians rely upon an uninformed, easily manipulated, illiterate electorate of legal and illegal "minorities" to tip the voting balance in their favor? Is it possible that politicians would betray the principles upon which this nation was founded just so they can spend a few more years at the bountiful Federal feeding trough? Or are they merely well-rewarded puppets of the scheming internationalists who want to erode our national identity so they can erect their one-world government on America's corpse? Or all of the above? Perish the thought.
Visit the National Alliance and start working to rebuild America.
In Paris. Let me tell you something -- the process can be as fun here as with INS. At least, there is a big difference, and it's not in the law, but an american isn't likely to be thrown away if his/her visa expires (I have a good friend who's been working / staying in France illegally for 8 years) even if caught by the police, whereas the opposite does not seem to be true.
France is a REALLY bureaucratic country (kafkaian in a way), OTOH maybe you just don't get as much screwed if everything is not 100% allright unlike in the US. There is no such lawyer frenzy here, that's why.
Realistically, the emphasis for the INS should be on citizenship, and not on Green Cards.
I have lots of friends here with Green Cards (and a few with H1-Bs), but look at the bigger picture here for everyone:
The thing here is this: in the long run, it is by far in the best interests of the US to have all immigrants get Citizenship, and none get Green Cards. Fundamentally, H1-Bs and Green Cards are exporting the knowledge/expertise that such people gain back to their original country. The US has maintained it's economic lead primarily by skimming the best of the intellectuals from other countries via immigration.
Face it, the US is primarily an idea factory nowdays - we think up stuff, and other people make it (not everything, but the major engine of the US economy is Intellectual Property). So, we need to keep "stealing" the bright people from other countries. H1-Bs and Green Cards are bad for this, since they don't keep the knowledge here. Citizenship, on the other hand, keeps the knowledge in the US, and thus our competative advantage.
Fundamentally, the H1-Bs should be "come here for 5 years, then either get your citizenship, or you have to leave (and can't get another H1-B ever)", while Green Cards should be few and far between. Instead, the path to Citizenship should be made as easy as possible, and open to virtually anyone on some kind of a temporary visa (except of course tourist ones). Realistically, it makes no sense to let large numbers of people into this country if you have no intention of making them productive citizens.
We need to be keeping all these people!
-Erik
(And, honestly, whomever thought of the "same number of people per country" quotas was a total moron.)
There are always four sides to every story: your side, their side, the truth, and what really happened.
Bull. Just went on my first few interviews. Three interviews - three $75K++ starting salary offers. Oh yeah, I AM a foreigner. As well as more than HALF the people in my current lab. And it does not look like they is a line of "skilled american workers" for my position. Guess 10 years in college/grad school was too boring for them...
The expression was coined by sociologist Alfred Sauvy, after the pre-revolutionary french division of the state in three parts: the aristocrats, the church, and the third state -- all the other people, you could'nt even call them citizen. When the revolution came, the third state, that is to say, 99% of the people, slaughtered (and rightly so) the 2 first states.
Otherwise some friendly Brazilian police officer might've murdered you and your young "urchin" friends on the streets some night. I love Brazilian women, culture, and soccer (Hey, just look at my name! ;) ), but you guys really do need to clean up some problems which those other countries you mentioned don't have to deal with. I still hope to make it down to Carnival sometime soon.
Cheers,
ZicoKnows@hotmail.com
I hold dual citizenships, in the country of my birth, and in a country where my parents held citizenship (they later nationalised to the country of my birth). One of these countries is in the European Community.
Having two passports can make travelling overseas much easier. Just as a Nth American passport gives you ability to walk to Canada and back, many countries have "open-border" style agreements with neighbours for citizens (eg: EU, Australia+NZ).
AFAIK the US law (along with some other countries) says: If you're a US citizen you are only a US citizen. I'm sure you'll all understand if I find this a little restrictive. I'm sure Mr Torvalds wants to continue to be Finnish.
... and today's pet project has
If these people were to return to their home country on completion of their research, the US would, in effect, have paid for the education of someone with very return for the American economy I would not say so. Having worked for 6 years for an RA/TA stipend of ~20K a year (well another 20 tuition but that's from one University pocket to another) I would say I was worth the money spent. Grad students are cheap and rather qualified labor. Half the students on my department where non-US, and would not say they had ANY advantage being admitted. Consequently, starting salary at $85K I just got did not look like a terrible undercutting of some "true citizen".. have not seen a lot of them competing...
<^>_<(ô ô)>_<^>
Because that as little pay as he can legally get away with is about 85,000 / 200 = 425 times what I would be making bak home ??
<^>_<(ô ô)>_<^>
There is a IT worker labor shortage all over Europe as well. Those who deny it in the US and attribute it to tech company's greed are silly -- after all, those company could easily delocalize.
So what if we hear US-bashing from residents of other countries? That hopefully makes you feel equally as ill as when Americans bash immigrants. It all comes down to people having a lack of tolerance for other people, cultures and countries who aren't like themselves. No country has a monopoly on that problem.
I'm a native of California and the Bay Area, which seems to put me in the tiniest of minorities here in Silicon Valley, where most people are at least from out of state. ;-) But my parents are naturalized US citizens (from Western Europe and South America) so having relatives overseas has helped provide exposure to and tolerance for different cultures than my own.
So, my suggestions... In cases of simple Slashdot comments, you can just ignore the bashing whichever direction it goes - it's going to happen and this forum allows them to state their opinions. But if you hear it in person, give 'em some peer pressure, "You ought to get out more often. Meet some people who aren't just like you." Hopefully they might learn something from the experience.
If they can't find people different from themselves in their home town, they surely can find them on the Internet. No excuses any more...
So I guess Mr Jonathan Erickson has a nice explanation for the fact that there is a IT labor shortage in Europe, as all the newspapers make headlines about it, as I'm called out of nowhere (and I'm not even looking for a job!) by startups ... so Mr. Erickson???
The upside is that such organizations always have as their main aim the consolidation of their own position. Whenever this aim clashes with others, the bureaucracy sacrifices the purpose rather than jeopardize its own privileges. Hence it will less and less serve the purpose to which it was founded, eventually becoming redundant.
threadeds blog
Aren't we supposed to live in a century where the physical stuff, the Real World and all that, are no longer of importance? Isn't information supposed to be the key to everything?
In other words, why do ``young and highly skilled engineers'' need to immigrate so as to be employed? Can't they work cozily from their homes in some distant part of the world, while their employers are in the States - or nowhere, as it may be, because why would a company need a physical place of residence?
--
Ooops, sorry. The twenty-first century is only about to begin; I thought it was nearly ending. Little mistake. Edwin! You sent us a hundred years back, please correct that immediately!
I have no problem with people coming to the U.S. from other countries either for education or to work, then going "back home."
Example: Abi, journalist I know from Nigeria, came to the U.S. and worked his way through a PhD in Mass Communications driving a cab. Now he's back home, infested with our American ideals - which may be flawed but still have a lot of good in them - and he is *not* going to put up with a corrupt military dictatorship.
Think of Abi and others like him as a human version of GNU-style "viral marketing." Think of the Chinese government telling its citizens that life under the Chinese system of government is better than life under the American system while thousands of Chinese who have studied or worked in the U.S. busily say otherwise based on first-hand knowledge.
Think of the Indians who have lived in the U.S. and go home with ideas of how things can be done differently in their country and work for change, not necessarily to make India into a clone of the U.S., but to incorporate the best of both cultures into something new and potentially better than either of the originals.
Mexico? Legal or illegal, a Mexican immigrant who sends money home is helping to raise the standard of living in his home village or barrio to the point where, someday, his sons or grandsons won't have any reason to go to the U.S. to earn a decent wage.
I am not saying I don't want people from Mexico or China or Egypt (or Finland) to be frozen out of U.S. citizenship, just that the ones who stay here for a while, then go "home," are also worthwhile. If nothing else, they are likely to be better friends of the U.S. than their neighbors who have never worked and lived here.
- Robin
I'm posting this anonymously, and without some details, so that my identity will be kept secret. I hope that this information will help people understand why the INS is so backlogged.
Background: The primary INS form to become an U.S. citizen is called the N400. In various processing centers throughout the U.S. (Vermont, California, Texas, Nebraska...), the INS will look over the form and decide which way the applicant will go. This is a time consuming process, and requires many background security checks.
Last year I worked on the project used to process the Citizenship forms. It was called CLAIMS4 and was run by EDS under subcontract to the INS.
While there were some very impressive people working on the project, both on INS' and EDS' sides, there were many problems as well.
EDS management did a decient job, though in a few cases a couple middle and project managers should have been replaced. The front-line DBAs and programmers were very good, overall. Other techs and managers were of varying quality, for example the IT team had about 1/3 top notch techs that basically tried to keep the other 2/3 from screwing anything up.
EDS Upper management did a good job at everything *EXCEPT* customer management; at that task, I'd give them an F for being kiss-asses. Many problems on the project came from this attitude, under the guise of pleasing the customer and keeping the project funded.
While the INS has many good and dedicated employees, thier management gets no praise.
Much of the time, INS management made poor decisions that caused critical problems later on. They didn't listen, wanted things in knee-jerk fashon on a regular basis, and basically didn't understand how large data processing projects work. The main failure they had was not getting thier front-line people in as early as possible. Because of that, the system didn't do what they needed and the backlog of N400s only grew larger.
A second major problem caused by INS management was that they didn't manage money well...causing about 1/2 of the sub contractors to be let go before the CLAIMS 4 project was in full production. Needless to say, this caused many problems and added delays.
Part of these problems were caused by Congress. Every couple months, some Congressmen or another would push the INS to change direction. Because the INS is a beurocracy, it doesn't react well to change. Also, any coding changes on the contractor side would have to be renegotiated.
In order to get a drivers license in PA, you need a proper SSN, not a (I)TIN - The state officials will give you a letter for you to supply to the dept of state to get them to give your spouse a SSN.
I am a H1B in the US and looking at the INS and the rest of the mess, I'm thinking that the great white north is more attractive that I initially thought.
Just a little something to show it's not all bad...
.sig?
I am a UK citizen, and spent 3 years in Canada as a landed immigrant (almost identical to Green Card status from what I understand). I came to the US towards the end of 1998 on an H1-B on a salary in the $70k's. During the next year we:
- bought a house with a mortgage
- got a 10% rise
- got a 5 year car loan
- changed jobs for a *substantial* pay rise, on a new (or transferred, I'm not quite sure what the actual process is) H1-B
- sold the first house
- bought another house (again with a mortgage)
- got a 3 year car lease
My current company is actively working on a Reduction In Recruitment filing for me, which should speed up the Green Card process a bit. I have the best part of five years left on my H1-B, and am reasonably confident I'll get a Green Card in time.
If you work for good companies, for people of good character with whom you build trust *before* signing, then you will get treated like any other employee. I have never knowingly come across any instance of "discrimination" against my status. In the industry I am in companies cannot afford to do anything to upset their good people, as the shortage of labour is particularly intense.
I can imagine most of the problems are in the "pure" programming arena, where people's skills age much more quickly, there is more local talent available, and it may seem cheaper to the company to write up a new H1-B and get rid of the current job holder by dragging it's corporate feet on the Green Card process. That way they get someone whose skills are up to date without investing in training and Green Card lawyer's fees. This is of course a false economy, but the bean-counters don't always get that...
As far as quick citizenship goes, for me it is no solution. A Green Card gives me all I need, i.e. right to reside, right to change jobs, etc. As things stand, I have no intention to retire in the US. If I took US citizenship I would have to give up my UK citizenship, as dual nationality is not allowed. This would make it more difficult for me to return to the UK at a future date. In Canada we would have been allowed dual nationality, but the cold and the taxes got to me before I applied!
---
Wot no
I think it's great that the US can offer so many good jobs to highly trained people - but I wonder if the importation of these folks has a harmful effect on the US educational system.
Clearly there is a shortfall of technically trained people in IT in the US. But rather than addressing the problem by increasing funding and wages in the US to attract its own citizens to these jobs, we have the importation of citizens of other countries to the US. The result is increasing demand for sound technical education abroad, and a decreased demand relative to the needs of the relevant indigenous economies..
Long term this must have deleterious affects on the US educational system, and ultimately the US economy. It may also do little good for the countries losing their best to emigration to the US..
My wife is a US citizen, and it took us a mere 2 hours at the foreigners office in Berlin, Germany, to get her a 3-year-permit-to-stay (and work). And after these 3 years, it can be extended to an unlimited permit-to-stay without problems.
And Germany is no 3rd world country, as you might know. And not so small either. We have about 30% of the US population on less than 4% the area, wich is a good example against the theory, the US is "full".
Did someone actually SAY this??? I looked for the original post, but could only find responses. Isn't America a country of aliens? Hell, a little over 200 years ago, there WASN'T an America. I think America is a great country (US Vet here), but I also think we're a bit snooty for the new kid on the block....
mas cerveza, por favor politically incorrect stu
You have the IQ of an ape. No, sorry. That's an exaggeration. You have the IQ of a turnip
no sig
A year and a half back, I, living in Canada, got a job offer from an American company which doubled my salaray (and, being not Canada, halved my taxes ;-) They said that all I needed was a TN1 visa; get it at the border, takes twenty minutes. The joys of free trade, neh? One catch: this visa REQUIRES a 4 year bachleorate or higher, or 10 years experiance. Now, I don't know about you, but I dropped out of my second year of college, in computer programmer/analyst, because there were too many job offers to pass up. So I had this mealy faced, huge forearmed guy tell me that because I had no university degree, that I didn't know how to do this job. It didn't matter to him that this company had gone outside of the fricking country to find a qualified applicant; his word was law. To argue with him was to risk permanant censure. So I languished for a month or two, and the company finally put me into a Candian company they'd very recently bought out, and I thought I'd just wait a year and get the L1 inter-company transfer visa. Amusing story part two: At this candian subsidiary, a co-worker was trying to get to California to do some Sales Engineering at a partner meeting, and got turned away at the border by the same INS official! He sat in the waiting area with Shaun Majumder, famed comic from Atlantic Canada. And any who doubt my skills, three weeks after I started (which means one week out of product training) I was on a plane to Korea to do a week long on-site, where we fixed each and every problem they had with Solaris, Oracle, web and application servers. Yay me. :-) Moral of story: I'm actually glad I didn't make it, but it was really really fucked up to require a university degree of somebody in a field that changes so fast that, quite honestly, static education doesn't matter. I was learning COBOL, for christ's sakes.
Vintage computer games and RPG books available. Email me if you're interested.
I'm writing to my congressman - hey, that's Hastert, the Speaker of the House. Heh heh heh.
The editorial is correct; many companies are looking for people with highly specific skills with particular products. I suspect that the rationale is that the pace of business doesn't favor a two or three year timeline for IT projects. Hardware and software systems these projects are based on are obsolete or abandoned by their vendors in that timeframe, and the business process these days is focused solely on "what can we do to our stock in the next six months" not "what can we do to provide long-term growth".
I've long thought that the whole H1B visa / IT talent "shortage" was total BS. If IT workers are so valuable to the business process these days, then it should make sense to hire, and train if necessary, candidates -- including the high salaries and benefits it takes to create a stable team.
I think the problem is that in many companies there is a corporate culture that says that IT workers belong in the basement and shouldn't make more than $X. As technology grows increasingly important and the demand for workers increases, the IT salaries start to become greater than the traditional center of corporate money/power, the marketing department and I think this is a major cultural problem for many companies.
The better companies will recognize this and cultivate the skills the IT people need to be broader leaders in the company. The lesser companies will continue to assume that marketing is evertying, will suppress IT salaries and careers, and will seek H1B visas to help dilute the salary pool.
IT people also need to realize that just as the marketing dept. is myopic about the role of marketing, it's important not to develop techno-myopia and assume that technology is the only thing that matters.
McCain is the jerk sponsoring unlimited H1-Bs. Bill Gates wants him to do it.
Where'd you get that from? It may be 21 years before you can drink but your a citizen from birth if your born here.
Opponents of massive immigration are not the ones making it hard. The proponents, i.e. the lawyers, want to make it complicated so that they are "needed" to assist in the overly complicated process. I am anti-big time immigration. I'd like to see only small numbers of qualified people come in. I do not beleive in targeting one industry; i.e. high tech, for special treatment as is the case with H1-B visas. The overwhelming majority of Americans oppose the H1-B visa program.
Ah! so that is why he went into the crusoe project!
All opinions are my own - until criticized
I have never seen a labor shortage in the United States; especially in high tech. Just some some clown wants his lawn mowed and only wants to pay two dollars doesn't mean there is a "labor shortage". There is no shortage of high tech labor, especially with the internet. There is a shortage of competent management to direct the labor that is available. Buck up, Mr. Gates, and stop relying on importing indentured servants. American college kids, retrainable American workers, and older high tech folk deserve those jobs.
if Linus' name wasn't mentioned...
As a 21-year-year-old American-born citizen who has lived in one place my entire life (except for living in a dorm at college) and never done anything illegal (except for driving over the speed limit!), I don't understand why my security clearance for work at one of the mega-aerospace firms has not yet come through after *over a year*. Backgrounds don't get much simpler than mine. In my experience, "6 months" would be an optimistic estimate of the backlog.
It's all well and good to make a bird's eye kind of economic analysis, but you also have to look down at ground level to really see what's going on. I wouldn't be to quick to dismiss the effect of the quality of leadership at the polticial level and political appointee level. And that's our responsibility, not something we should lay down and take because it is inevitable according to economic theory.
If you start from the premise that you must fail, you will. That is the secret of being an entrepreneur -- to believe that you can do something even if it is hard, and maybe the odds are against you. I don't mean that government spending is inherently good -- there's incredible waste in government. On the other hand it is coupled with incredible shortages in vital areas. I even met one government lab employee who risked his life handling dangerous infectious agents because the people at the political level decided it was too expensive to get him the necessary vaccines. He resented this, but he kept at it because he felt the work he did saved lives. It wasn't some abstract, impersonal economic force that did this; some human being whom we elected decided the life of a dedicated employee protecting the public health wasn't worth 10K$.
Government can do better, but not if we don't support the folks who actually do the job, not if we don't participate in elections, not if we elect people who pander to us, and certainly not if we don't hold our elected and high appointed officials to account. As the stockholders in a company, you wouldn't vote for a board that spends money wastefully, nor would you vote for a board that believed waste and failure is the inevitable result of trying to get anythig done. Why should your standards for government be different?
If you think this green card issue is important, call your congressman; if he doesn't respond, participate and contribute to political campaigns of people who will do better.
Post may contain irony: discontinue use if experiencing mood swings, nausea or elevated blood pressure.
And I am speaking to you as an American of half a dozen generations, working as an engineer at a semiconductor design and technology firm. H-1B VISAs do nothing to so-call "protect" American jobs ... in fact, they make it worse for us.
Why? Because H-1B VISAs allow companies to abuse foreigners for employment, make them work 20 years at the same job for half the pay under the threat of a VISA revoke. Thus, American workers suffer as they are either replaced, or have to accept less competitive salaries.
And even with the so-called "no loophole" new VISA laws, 50% of American companies still abuse them.
Now it is rarer at companies where it is hard to find talented people. I work at one of them, Theseus Logic, Linus does at another, Transmeta, Synopsys is probably in the same boat, etc... The people we are trying to find are hard to find, because of the level of education and narrow experience involved.
But there are plenty of companies that have more commodity talents and employment. In such cases, these companies abusing the whole system. There have been quite a number (in the tens of thousands) of Americans laid off at various companies. From Internet startups to IT consultant firms, these companies, who were never supposed to get their hands of H-1B VISA cannidates, are doing just that! Very said given that there are plenty of 35+ year olds with more experience, but are constantly age discriminated against (among other reasons and age groups).
If we would let skilled engineers freely into this country, "real" engineers (not IT professionals, that is different), they would demand the same pay as Americans. They would work the same time at a company (~3-4 years) before moving. They would, essentially, act just like Amercian engineers. But would improve our future outlook since they contribute to the overall greatness of the US (let alone they teach their kids to speak English, which seems to matter so some people ;-).
With H-1B VISAs, half of Amercian companies, usually those not directly engineering or R&D related, abuse the system. They hold these immigrants to half the pay, and 20 years of employment. Very sad. Very sad indeed. And now VISA laws will ever protect them from it either.
My $0.02 ...
-- Bryan "TheBS" Smith
-- Bryan "TheBS" Smith
Independent Author, Consultant and Trainer
By mid afternoon, Gore's office will be in full swing:
"Check out this statement. Pull out the checklist."
"Attributed to Gore. Check."
"As dumb as anything Qualye said. Check."
"No reasonable person would take it seriously. Check."
"The boss is dumb enough to have said it. Check."
"OK, it adds up. Full scale PR blitz to defend it."
*sigh* I wish I *really* believed they didn't to this in the office of the Father of the Internet, banner of the internal combustion engine, believer of Bill, . . .
If you want to return to Europe, do so. If you want to stay in the US - deal with it but don't try and make yourself out as a victim. Houses and cars can be sold and children moved to different school systems - it's not that big of a deal.
Nick
-- "It's a sad day for American capitalism when a man can't fly a midget on a kite over Central Park" - Jim Moran
Not quite true...
been here for 7.5 years straight and counting...
1 year J1 --> 5 year F1 --> 3 year H1B (halfway through it)
The green card application has been filed and who know when it will get granted. I do have the option to renew the H1B for another three years, then go through other visas I guess.
Our immigration laws are a mess because of too many conflicting interests tugging on the system, each wanting this or that provision, ad infinitum. H1-Bs are nothing more than a way to ensure cheap labor. H1-Bs are indentured workers and therefore cheaper workers than they would be as green card holders or citizens. Industry lobbied for this in the name of competitiveness. They knew lots of foreign nationals would jump at the chance to come to the US if they dangled the prospect of a green card in front of them. Now, it seems there's too much stick and not enough carrot. The whole thing has become rotten to the core and there will be scandals a plenty. The Reddy case is only the tip of the iceberg.
As for spouses having to jump through so many hoops, that is the flip side of the coin. We let Castro dump his prisons and crazy houses on us. We let Haitians in because they claim to be refugees. But when someone comes over from Finland or Ireland, they are subjected to much more scutiny. Go figure.
Wansu, th' chinese sailor
First of all, I do not wish to imply that graduate students are not well worth their money. I know how little money they make. Let me rephrase my orginal statement by saying that students who return immediately upon finishing their studies have not realized their full potential for American Economy
By getting paid four times more now than you did as an RA/TA you show that the full potential can be considerably higher...
-=* no sig *=-
There is *no* labor shortage. I have jobs: cleaning my house. Pay: 5 cents an hour. No takers? Labor Shortage! Horsefeathers! American companies should pay market rates for work, not import indentured servants to supress labor rates.
I had the same problems, although I had it much differently that I was married to an American Citizen, not that it made any difference I still had to wait almost two years to get my Green Card.
One more related story - http://www.h1bvictims.com/, but I am afraid their site is not working right now, possible because they were forced to shut it down (?). To make long story short, about 30 software engineers from India who worked at an Air Force Base in Texas were arrested and spent a day behind the bars only because their employer (a consulting company) failed to do the INS paperwork properly (people were working 300 miles from the place that was listed in their visa approvals). All the Indians who were working on the site including pergnant women were handcuffed like criminals in fron of their collegues and driven in a detentention center. BTW, they arrested Green Card holders too, so even with the GC you are not safe. Later some of them were released and some of them were released for $5000 bail. Now the engineers are facing threat of deportation. This incident shows very clearly that human rights in this country exist only for citizens. I guess the best idea for skilled workers is to make the money here, get the experience and move to a good country like Canada, which really welkomes immigrants. I believe that if we move away the US will loose more than we will.
For crying out loud if you want to stay here so bad become a citizen. Maybe there is something I'm missing here, and maybe the US has strange and/or callous laws about dual citizenship, but I still fail to see the sense in having permanent residence in the US and not being a citizen? ---- The sense is that we get to work here without being a fellow citizen to an idiot like you.
There is no shortage of high tech labor, especially with the internet. --- Why is that U.S. citizens seems to be the minority in every masters degree and PhD Computer Science program in the country. There's shortage of competent U.S. citizens to do high tech labor.
Yep, you can work from your cozy home in Finland.
or you can move to the valley and rake in tons of $$$$. Most companies haven't warmed up to the idea of full-time wide-area telecommuniting yet.
So, despite that "information wants to be free", people also want to be free of financial burden.
-Stu
I disagree that they are being hired solely on that basis.
When I worked at Intel and other high tech firms (including the one I am currently at) it was (and is) common practice to import a worker from say, India, force them into a 3-5 year commitment, and then recieve 1/2 to 1/3 the monetary compensation that domestic workers typically enjoy.
They can't look for a new job. They must stay with the company that "imported" them.
Oh yeah, and they don't get raises.
This is not a new practice, and it does happen. When I had to hire a new team member for a project I was heading up, a headhunter actually went so far as to say to me, "An indian worker will be less expensive, have more training, and will work long hours for no extra compensation!"
This, to me, is a great tragedy. All of the foreign born people with whom I have worked were very talented, but were still getting shafted.
Now, I don't have any employment related problems (Still can't get laid... but...:) I have a great job. And I have great Indian, Asian, Russian, and American co workers. It still infuriates me that this happens.>p> --Alex
This is a signature virus...
Let's see you want to put money in the hands of corporations, but you are mirroring DeCSS. Isn't that a little contradictory. :-)
Dastardly
Amazing how people side-step responsibility! You don't seem to see your own role in trying to pull a fast one on the INS. You thought you could get away with putting any salary you wanted to impress the INS.
Try $305 (a little over 1 year ago) from a student visa to a permanent resident status. That does not include the hours spent waiting... Or the money spent on over half a dozen photos... Or the fee for the sets of fingerprints...
Firstly, I'm currently on a H1B :-( Been here three years, originally from the UK, and have had enough of the INS. I'm currently filing for Canada. I wonder how much the INS has cost America both in IQ and in $? http://www.isn.org/ tires to explain the situation and give advice. http://www.vancouver-bc.com/CoulterImmigrationLawy er/ the firm handling my Canadian legal work.
I'm not convinced a labor shortage created opportunity for you to make $25/hour. I think there are two other major factors. One is the cost of living. Where I live, I can rent a 2 bedroom apartment in a safe area for $400 per month, and I used to pay $2000 per month in Sunnyvale for something much smaller. Second, The ISP's in your area probably make much more money. Telco and bandwidth costs in the valley are much cheaper than they are in most other areas of the US. Also, the population density and deeper market pentration help greatly. The ISP's I've dealt with (all within about 200 miles) barely scrape by. With $2K/month for a T1, 2.5K/month for 46 phone lines (2 PRI's), $800/month dial-up equipment rental, plus office expenses, you're easily looking at 7K per month in costs. With those 46 lines, you can usually get 6 customers per line (lower ratio, because the statistics don't work in your favor, look into erlangs) at $19.95 per month, you have 5.5K per month of income. If you're lucky, you can make enough off of web hosting so that you're not losing money. There is no way in hell a small ISP around here could scrape together $75K/year for an employee.
I "had" to hire someone who could speak both flawless Chinese and good Vietnamese. There aren't many US citizens around here that can speak one, and an increasingly smaller number that can speak both. I tried. In my town's newspaper, I advertised for 5 weeks, and here there are almost 4 unemployeed people looking for a job for every job in the classifieds (I have no idea if that's high or low, but the NY Times wrote that so I believe it's true). Usually, I get swamped with responses. In this case, I only had one response. I didn't have much choice, and then INS "throws salt in the wound" by requiring me to pay her a large amount.
The really amusing part is that these same jobs with the same contact information keep coming around, and around every few days ... because they have no one to fill them.
"Error of opinion may be tolerated where reason is left free to combat it." -- Thomas Jefferson, 1801
First, I don't take kindly to being termed a "Troll". Thank you very much.
Second, check this web site out for information on the case in question: http://www.injusticeline.com/mohd.html.
Third, I am NOT part of the "Anti-Americanism" crowd on slashdot. I am a patriot, a disabled veteran, and a "conservative" voter.
Fourth, The United States, like any other nation, at times commits grevious acts, like the imprisonment faced by Mohd. It's a fact.
Fifth, I can't believe that your lame, insubstantiated comment was moderated up to a 2. Another case of poor slashdot moderation.
And sixth, you are a piece of shit.
Brought to you by Frobozz Magic Penguin Fodder.
C'mon...I don't know where you live in the US(which definitely is a factor in terms of "labor shortages") but I'm a manager in Manhattan and have to hire these people. I've interviewed 16 people over the last few weeks to fill various technical positions. Of those 16, three were not immigrants. Of those three, one was good enough to do the job, and I have three positions to fill. If I couldn't hire these foreigners I'd be screwed. I don't have time to hold out for native US people and I'm glad I don't have to.
I'm an immigrant too, and I get several unsolicited job offers a month from desperate companies who need to fill tech positions with competent employees. And I don't work cheap, regardless of what the folks on here seem to think about foreign tech employees. And...all the immigrants who were worth hiring here wanted higher salaries than the US folks I interviewed...this is all anecdotal, of course, but this definitely seems to be the situation in the NY/SF/Silicon Valley areas.
The thing is, I *WANT* to hire native US people, mostly because their communication skills are better - or, more accurately, they can speak english more clearly and have larger english vocabularies. I have a hard time understanding certain thick accents and would prefer to work with people who can speak english more clearly. However, a lot of the time I end up hiring people with lousy english skills because they have the exact technical skills and experience I need.
Here's another (kind of unrelated) observation of mine that may or may not be true overall: a lot of people from the poorer countries overseas have better than average technical skills because they had to make do with really shitty equipment, and as a result learned how to do more with less resources. I love these people. And a lot of these countries have better educational systems than the US does (which isn't saying much). It makes hiring foreign devil-dogs really attractive. To repeat - IT ISN'T BECAUSE THEY WORK FOR LESS MONEY THAN AMERICANS. If they are available to hire and have better skills than americans I'm going to hire them, if possible.
So, that's my take. I'm obviously biased because of my dirty foreign origins, and I am definitely not an expert on the relationship between employment and immigration. Take with grain of salt. What it all boils down to is that I don't believe in hiring someone because they are american if they have less skill than a competing foreigner who has legally entered the US of A. Most (if not all) of the american managers I work with would agree.
Kung Pao Chicken and Crab Rangoon can make up for a lot of shortcomings, in my book.
**>>BELCH
I suggest all decent Americans need to arm themselves, thank God for the Second Amendment, and prepare for the coming battles. This summer, Nazis shot at random people and children. It is also no coincidence that Columbine occured on Hitler's birthday. Yet where is the outrage at these people? Why are they and their friends in Congress not subjected to the same stigmatization in the media as "geek kids" and "goth kids?"
These people are not going to disappear simply because we wish them away, the government must be forced into action! I hereby propose an anti-hate crime enforcement agency with a budget similar to the ATF or the FBI, an agency with the sole purpose on bearing down on these organizations and exposing the squirmy, evil vermin that reside inside. Who will join me in this? Imagine if one day the Nazi's had to fear the same kind of persecution that many other Americans are forced to suffer.
Until then, remember, they would not hesitate to shoot you, burn your house down and murder you, whether you are a minority or not. No, even "Aryans" aren't safe from this menace, unless they tow the insane party line. Time Nazism was once and for all tossed on the ash-heap of history. The post-Columbine hysteria was cunningly manipulated by the Nazis, we need to turn it back on them. No Nazi should ever feel safe in his own home, or walking down a US street. They should feel the same fear they try to inflict on others! The war with Germany ended because the Nazis were defeated, but the war against Nazism itself should not end until the movement's back is broken and its adherents are imprisoned or dead.
Oh, and someone please moderate Captain Nazi here down. (wp14? I get the "wp" stands for white power, but what's the 14 for? Must be some Nazi thing I never studied.)
I've danced the H1B and now the green card dance for a few years. I'm happy with the money I'm making, but as someone here said it's about freedom, not money. I've had enough of being anyone's indentured servant, highly paid or not. So I filed for Canadian permanent residency a couple of months ago, and we'll see how it goes. At the very least, having the option makes it easier to live with the crap the INS and my employer (consular processing? don't do that, it's scaaary - yeah, for you you SOBs cause I'd be a free agent a few years earlier) are throwing at me.
:-)
So, two points for fellow H1B victims:
- Investigate Canada
- Check out consular processing as an alternative to the adjustment of status hell.
Besides, there are cool employers outside the Silicon Valley
I am not a lawyer. However if you have a second citizenship through birth (I assume you're a UK citizen by birth) then when you become a US citizen you don't have to give up UK citizenship. I don't know anything about the UK side though, but from what I've seen from friends who have dual UK/* citizenship it doesn't seem to be an issue.
but bill gates is a software architect too! DOOOOOOOOOOOOOONNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNN KNOOOOOOOOOOOTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTSSSSSSSSSSSs yah
I'm a Canadian, and God Bless America. I have two outstanding job offers, one in L.A., the other in N.Y.C., and I have absolutely no desire to live in the U.S.A. despite a marriage proposal, friends and relations (my branch of the family moved north in 1905). Xenophobia doesn't look good on you and degrades many great achievements in American history. Try travelling more, both inside and outside your country and learn a little about others, as you may want to get down on your knees and thank God for all the contributions to America made by first generation immigrants yesterday and today.