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H-1B Foes Challenge Bush Administration In Court
theodp writes "Computerworld reports that the Bush administration's recent decision to extend the amount of time foreign nationals can work in the U.S. on student visas is being challenged in a federal lawsuit by H-1B visa opponents. The suit, filed in US District Court by the Immigration Reform Law Institute and joined by The Programmers Guild and other groups, charges that the administration — acting through the Department of Homeland Security — exceeded its legal authority with a no-notice-no-comments 'emergency' rule change that extended the Optional Practical Training work period from one year to 29 months. Critics say this is little more than an effort to skirt around the H-1B cap limit. Because extended stays are limited to those whose degrees are in STEM (Science, Technology, Engineering, Mathematics) fields, educators are speculating that the rule change will drive international students away from non-STEM majors."
Note that there are no mention of non-poor, well-educated people
I left the US, and now work for a company in a country which gives me 5 weeks vacation each year, with pay comparable to what I would have gotten in the Bay Area. And I don't have to worry about the visa crap or whether I will get a green card.
Je ne parle pas francais.
We need to start looking at reducing administration costs of the school systems and using the money on teachers and student needs. Look at most major cities, their cost per student can be double what outlying areas have and the majority of it can be traced to anything but teachers and students. What good is throwing money at public schools if the money isn't going to improve our children? Too many city schools are jobs programs for friends of the political powers. Dumping grounds for cronies. If that county school can graduate more students at a higher GPA and their students do better in higher education all the while costing the local taxpayers less how is the city's problem money related?
I would prefer more options for parents to send their children to schools of their choice. This means the dreaded "voucher". Make it so the money follows the child and not the school. This might be the only kick in the pants some school systems will understand. We have great teachers. We spend more than enough to educate the children we have, we just spend it wrong.
The easy solution is to "throw money at the problem" but that is used as an excuse to rid ourselves of the responsibility for making the hard choices. All we get with this thrown money is more cronies. I read my local "paper" to see schools with trailers and look at the changes that go on the system. What do I notice most after capital improvements? How many more people in non teaching positions crop up. Suddenly there are committees paid out of school funds to do work already done elsewhere or not needed. More money means more government employees, not necessarily teachers.
Sorry, no more money. Account for what they have. They owe to the children. We owe it the children.
Education here is not the reason we have H1 visas. We have those because politicians put more value on the money of corporations than the people who elect them. Do any of the three current candidates support scrapping this?
* Winners compare their achievements to their goals, losers compare theirs to that of others.
It's always amazing to me how a demonstrably bad idea gets mimicked over and over again.
The
There is a shortage of H1Bs in the first place because a lot of Indian consulting companies (bodyshoppers) get a majority of the H1B quota and the students with OPTs are left in the lurch (aka an OPT is pretty much worthless now).
How do these companies get away with it? This is how it works. You are:
1. Married to an H1B holder and can legally work. The bodyshopper gets you an H1B visa and tells the INS that *you* are employed by this consultant but you do not get any pay till the consultant gets a contract from some company and you start earning money. Yes, this is illegal but 99% of the consulting companies in the US do this. The employee bears it since this is the only way to get valid status.
2. Are outside the US and want to come in to work but do not have a job. However there is this Indian consulting firm and read the rest of point 1 above
3. In the US but have been laid off and you cannot have a job without a visa and vice-versa. Read rest of point 1 above
4. Are a student about to graduate with an OPT which is worthless (1 year duration) since the consulting companies with their "fake jobs" have gobbled up all the visas.
OPT with it's 1 year duration used to mean something but with these blood-sucking consulting companies in the US, the students either hope to get a job in a good company out of school and pray the company processes H1 after the OPT duration is up. Prolonging the OPT is a fix for the students who come to the US and rough it out unlike the body-shopper import employees.
Although I said Indian consulting companies, the evil trend isn't restricted to Indian companies. Volt Computer Services (largest supplier of contractors to Microsoft, most companies in Bellevue/Seattle, etc etc) does this. I myself was a victim of Volt hiring me during my OPT period, using me for the duration of my OPT (MS paid Volt 60$ per hour and Volt paid me 20$ per hour) and then when my OPT was up, they said "Adios amigo". They contacted INS and said I was no longer their employee, gave me a ticket voucher for 1000$ and said buhbye. I had to find an Indian consultant willing to take me in so he could suck more blood from me.
It's all a fucking dirty business. I have to post this anonymously since uhhh one of employers still gets contractors from Volt. I however got into my current company through another consulting company which will remain unnamed; however Volt made sure they became the near exclusive supplier of contractors.
H1B has turned into a huge scam for corporate slavery. Employers know they can get cheap labor and throw them away when done.
That's a big stinking lie because H-1b visas have been portable for several years now; H-1b employees can simply change jobs.
take them in and give them Green Cards or
That's a nice theory, except that immigration foes have already made that impossible; the green card process has become so lengthy and involved that the way to get an employment based green card is to come in on an H-1b, immediately apply for a green card, and hope everything works out in time.
How is this insightful? I know plenty of fellow graduates (Canadians) who are making $100K+ fresh out of college. That's not "crappy pay" by any measure I think (these are undergrad degrees, not masters or PhD). Their benefits are also among the best - I know plenty of H1B people at MS who are probably getting *better* medical insurance than they had in Canada! Their vacation and stock plans aren't too shabby either.
I have observed first-hand the shortage of tech workers. We're talking top-tier tech workers, not VB script monkeys. There are PLENTY of great grads coming out of American schools - but it is *not enough* to fuel what I see is a surging demand for skilled coders.
So stop twisting IBM's words. It's absolutely true - there are plenty of talented students coming out of American schools - but not enough. Just because there aren't enough MIT grads to go around doesn't mean IBM needs to start hiring community college code monkeys.
- Reading
- Riting
- Rithmetic
- Relationships
- Reviewing
- Responsibility
- Reflecting
- Researching
- Reporting
- Reasoning
- Retention
- Resolve
If I want to employ somebody at any level I need every single one of these.By the way: Now you know the objectives you can ask how they are/should be achieved. For example you can't develop Responsibility without trust...And you have to reward it. So Do you ever see that on TV? Do parents or teachers know how to do it? - - - Discuss.
"The real problem is that people think that all people are equal."
It goes deeper then that though it's north american insitutional and business culture that is the problem. See here:
See: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gG3HPX0D2mU
Listen to the comments of "calficication" of kids in the school system and adults in the workplace. It makes a lot of good points about self management and responsibility.
The idea that the average person thinks everyone is equal is a farce, equal BEFORE THE LAW maybe but no one in their right mind thinks they're equal in ability, looks, etc.
"Some people are just dumb and/or lazy. They can't learn anything. Keeping them in school is the worst possible thing you can do"
I agree that some people are dumb, but I don't agree that some people are just "lazy", they are disengaged because most of the time we don't allow their curiousity to blossom by killing it early through 'school'.
The other problem is that we don't have a place for certain kinds of people in the job market that will pay decent wages. That is the REAL problem, technological displacement.
Modern schools are often harmful and disengaging enviornments, for many it's positively toxic to someones development. No amount of accountability will deal with forced schedules and irrelevant curriculum, the lack of alignment of student curiousity and interest with what they want to learn vs the boring pablum clueless teachers, businesses and government elites, pushing their pablum as 'education'. Many slashdotters can no doubt attest to the low quality of the curriculum and their teachers and school simply not being relevant to what they are interested in, so they 'carve their own path'.
I think something is to be said by not killing childrens motivation and curiousity, which we do very young.