Breaking the Visa Backlog

bart_scriv writes "As anyone who has dealt with H1-B visas can attest, the process can be a nightmare of long lines, waits and inexplicable delays. In this interview, the State Department's Tony Edson discusses what's being done to speed up and expedite the process, ranging from procedural changes to the use of new technology."

Comments

It's supposed to be complicated

[orthogonal]

It's complicated for a reason.

You know what's faster? Hiring an American.

Give me a call.

Re:It's supposed to be complicated

[ivan256]

100% employment means that, rather than the plebes fighting one another over who will accept the lowest pay for a given demeaning job, the employers actually need to make honest, fair offers to get good employees, then treat them like humans to keep them.

Less than 100% employment doesn't mean that companies don't have to make honest, fair offers to get good employees. Damned close to 100% of good employees are either already employed, or will be unemployed for only a very short period of time.

100% employment, however, means no incentive to better yourself as a worker. That leads to low domestic innovation, low productivity, low job satisfaction, and eventually economic decline, increased poverty, etc.. Look at the long term unemployment statistics (people in good health, but out of work for more than six months) and you'll have a pretty good ideal of how many people we've got that don't posess the attitude required to remain employed. If we stoped teaching our children that work was that crappyt thing you do between weekends of beer and football, that number would go down. If we stopped handing out H1-Bs, it wouldn't.

My solution to the problem

[Brian Stretch]

1) Automate the heck out of the system. Duh.

2) Put skilled workers on the fast track for citizenship and skip this H1B visa nonsense. Any country that makes our marginal tax rates look good deserves to lose their best and brightest, and keeping those workers tied to a given employer is just plain wrong.

3) Annex Mexico. Seriously. Allegedly 30% of the Mexican work force is already here and there are an awful lot of American retirees down there. Auction off Pemex and distribute the money to the Mexican states on a per-capita basis to finance the transition to greater state and local control. Make English the official language of the unified federal government. We'd pick up some nice beachfront property. Pass the Flat Tax and return Socialist Security to its original mission of being old age insurance (kicking in at 3 years past average life expectancy, which was 65 when FDR got us into this mess) first to simplify things. Anyhow, this would reduce the workload on the INS quite a bit.

The Future of IT Is Clear

[Baldrson]

The Future of IT is clear:

US contractors are paid by the State Department to streamline the H-1b visa workflow.

Then they go on unemployment until they realize why they can't even get a minimum wage job.

Then they volunteer for The Minuteman Project.

Then Congress passes "immigration reform" to put all illegal aliens on "a path to citizenship".

Then....

Re:How about this?

[hibiki_r]

So, if you need a Swing expert with at least 4 years of experience to be a lead on an important project, and your market has plenty of Americans with a CS degree and no experience, should you hire an inexperienced american that will not be able to perform his duties?

In the St Louis area, my company has had problems hiring skilled programmers. Only 1 in 10 resumes come from Americans, and those tend to be quite weak. In one occasion, after looking for 8 months we got a single qualified applicant, who just happened to be an H1-B holder. Why not hire him?

Besides, some unemployment is healthy. If you've ever had an actual job, you'd probably know that there's plenty of programmers out there that are so incompetent that they create more work than they do. Those guys SHOULD be unemployed, regardless of their country of origin. Who in their right mind would want to hire a dog like that over someone with talent?

Re:Check-list for job applicants

[drewzhrodague]

I realize what you posted was meant as a joke, but that is not a good solution to either unemployment of American workers, and the current influx of unauthorized immigration.

1. Does the applicant show initiative, is he/she proactive?

No. (Give me a call)

Actually, GP is showing initiative by suggesting you contact an American worker, rather than an unauthorized immigrant. Seems to me that he's looking for work, and inviting you to call him.


2. When presented with a problem, does the applicant find a general solution, or is he/she looking for a temporary shortcut?

Temporary shortcut. (You know what's faster? Hiring an American)

Doesn't that seem like a permanent solution -- hiring a local employee?


3. Recommendation for hire?
Not recommended.

And the local worker doesn't get the job, and company pays extra to do a visa. I'm quite iritated at the whole hiring process these days, and I had to pipe up.

And while I'm at it, I say let Future Americans come. Let 'em come by boat, by plane, bus, and by foot. If they can get themselves here, they should be allowed to be here, and work, and pay taxes.

Re:Here comes the chorus

[hey!]

I'd argue that the H1-B program, if properly administered, would increase jobs in the US.

When you are starting a company, or a development team, and you have a choice of places to do it, you do it where developers are (a) cheap, (b) convenient to access and (c) plentiful. Generally speaking, if you are a US company, you can have two out of three. You can go domestic and get b & c, or you can offshore for a & c.

So, a program that moves talent from offshoring centers to the US increases the probability that teams are formed in the US.

The key though is to bring in the best. The top tier US talent is not going to have difficulty in finding jobs, provided there are teams to join. But flood the market with cheap, middle-grade talent and the domestic middle-grade talent is going to feel the hurt.

If I were King of the US, I'd put a billion dollars a year into a McArthur style "genius" program, which would be like a commercial version of the "merit scholarship" programs. Every year, I'd pick the thousand top technologists I can find, and invite them to spend ten years working in the US. Every year they'd get a check for $100,000, in addition to what their employer pays, provided they work for most of the year. At the end of ten years, if they establish permanent residency, they'd get the accumulated interest on the principle as a lump some payment.

What I'm suggesting is a crass and selfishly orchestrated "brain drain".

For less than the cost of a week of the Iraq war, we'd be seeding hundreds of new technology teams annually. It's virtually certain that we'd be bringing in several people who will create new technologies, possibly even new industries. There would be a stupendous multiplier effect in US technology jobs.