Slashdot Mirror
Bill Gates's Wish Is Homeland Security's Command
theodp writes "PC World reports that DHS has extended the time foreign graduates of US colleges can stay in the country and work to almost two-and-a-half years, an 'emergency' change that drew kudos from Microsoft and other H-1B visa stakeholders. Looks like when Bill Gates says 'Jump,' the government asks 'How high?' Bill Gates's Congressional Testimony, March 12, 2008: 'Extending OPT from 12 to 29 months would help to alleviate the crisis employers are facing due to the current H-1B visa shortage. This only requires action by the Executive Branch, and Congress and this Committee should strongly urge the Department of Homeland Security to take such action immediately.' DHS Press Release, April 4, 2008: 'The US Department of Homeland Security released today an interim final rule extending the period of Optional Practical Training (OPT) from 12 to 29 months for qualified F-1 non-immigrant students.'"
Bill Gates has been testifying for years, yet little has been done to increase H1-B limits. It's hardly as if anyone is acting under his control...
Or maybe, instead of "Looks like when Bill Gates says 'Jump,' the government asks 'How high?'", it's actually "When Bill Gates identifies a real problem, the government actually considers it."
Yes, they have access to government. No, there is no magic.
Yeah, singling out Microsoft seems a bit out of line. How about a list of other companies who supported/opposed this?
"The use-mention distinction" is not "enforced here."
Wow, if you read all the articles linked, you'd know that it was not just Bill Gates, but others as well who testified on this subject. Secondly, a lot of companies support this, Google included. Finally, people from both parties support this.
The majority of the people who are on OPT are folks who're in the US to go to graduate school. Rather than send them back, they are trying to extend the amount of time that they can stay in the country. How is this a bad thing?
If anything, the number of native US candidates going to graduate school is much lesser than the number of foreign nationals coming to the US for graduate school. How is trying to retain folks who get advanced degrees a bad thing in any way?
Finally, a lot of people with graduate degrees (i.e. majority of folks on OPT) are by no means cheap - so, the old excuse that they are being exploited etc. does not quite work here.
Enough of the bullshit, already. A lot of folks petitioned about extending the OPT status for international students who go to graduate school in the US, and have to return because of visa policies (the H1B cap was met within a few hours last year). So, the government considered what the companies wanted and agreed to do this.
They're going to do the same programming and science work, whether they are here or in India/Romania/Singapore/etc. We can get them to pay US taxes and buy other goods and services in the US, or we can just ship our money overseas and let other countries take a lead in high-tech. Smart students exist overseas; the question is whether we can get them to come here and benefit us, or let them work elsewhere and allow the US to decline.
That's completely unreasonable. I've worked with many excellent Indian programmers. The ones who've been H1B and working here in the US have shown the same range of skill as US-native employees.
This implies it's a factor of the company's hiring processes, not anything to do with their national or educational origin.
Outsource teams have their own common issues, but they have a lot more to do with the distance and management issues than with ethnicity or culture.
As an Indian, I have never, never, found caste being a problem, except when you want to marry a girl - and when a guy wants to bail out of some situation and invokes this card. Your hyperbole about "authority" and "cultural difference" is nothing but rotting xenophobia. That, or you are just pain trolling.
GP was dead on point when it stated that most Indians are taught programming in the companies - they completely lack any interest in over the top performance - they know they are cheap workers, and they know their job is laborious. So much for the motivation.O RLY? So you don't know anything about "over there" and want to make sweeping uninformed statements... I wonder why you are not preferred.I doubt GP had taken India culture as a course, or spent years in India. What you understand from what you see is a product of your mind. Until the Indians have personally told you how they are not taught to innovate(?), it is xenophobia - a complete lack of interest in people who are taking your jobs.
The students would rather have an easier path to green cards, and eventually citizenship, but it's not the most popular idea among most Americans.
We all know that most people's problem with illegal immigration and H1-Bs has nothing to do with the illegals being illegal or the H1-Bs lowering wages: It's plain old racism. Increasing the green card quotas would just bring more people with strange accents into the country, and that's not something that middle america wants.
I for one find it ridiculous, but I see the racism every day.
So somewhere on the BLS webpage you see evidence that "real" wages are rising? 'Cause I don't see it in the real world. Did you adjust those figures for inflation?
In the 50's and 60's American dads put in 40 hours a week in a factory with just a high school diploma and families lived pretty well. Moms stayed home with the kids. Now with college degrees, Moms and Dads put in 80-Plus, and can't even achieve the same living standards they had as children. (Or worse, they are another generation removed, and have no recollection of better times.) The median American wage earner has been losing ground for decades. More immigrant labor (legal and illegal) and "free trade" agreements are the threats used by the have-mores to get the have-nots to produce more and expect less.
Question: The 40-hour work week became a standard in the early 20th century. With all of the improvements in productivity that have come about since then, why are we not now on a standard 32-hour workweek? We should have been there 20 years ago. The answer is in the failure of economics professors to teach students to think critically about supply-side economic theories.
I'm not whining (or "whinging"). I'm pointing out that we are being skillfully played against one another and our lives could be better if we get smart enough to recognize it.
Oh, and by the way here's the proof you asked for:
http://www.usw.org/usw/program/content/3060.php
Don't believe these types of posts represent the attitudes of most slashdot readers. I suspect most of us have Indian friends and co-workers we respect professionally. I read posts like "they write inferior code" or "they aren't innovative", think the poster is a jerk, and move on. Unfortunately the few people who agree with the poster feel compelled to reply with "that's true, it's because of their [culture|genetic makeup|political system]". Anyone that's worked in the software industry long enough knows from personal experience it's BS.
None of this is going to push down US wages below the bizzare situations like cafe workers surviving from the charity of strangers (the "tip" system) and the construction of an illegal underclass that has to accept very low wages or get exposed and deported.