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Judge Rejects H-1B Visa Injunction
theodp writes "Judge Faith Hochberg has denied a preliminary injunction sought by the Programmers Guild to put a hold on a controversial 'emergency' rule change by the Department of Homeland Security to permit foreign students to work continuously in the US for two-and-a-half years after graduation without an H-1B visa. Hochberg indicated she failed to see how an increased labor supply could result in wage depression for engineers and computer workers. That seems disingenuous, since in Andaya v. Citizens Mortgage Corporation, Judge Hochberg recently saw first-hand how a US employer got away with paying an H-1B computer engineer as little as $15,000 to do a job with a 'prevailing wage rate' of $41,000. In that case, Hochberg ruled against Filipino H-1B visa holder Almira Andaya, arguing that 'nonpayment of wages as listed on the H-1B visa petition ... does not raise a substantial question of federal law.'"
Welcome to the country of unlimited possibilities ... ... to get ripped off!
Really, both the H1-B Visa holders and US employees are at a loss here.
molmod.com - computing tips from a molecular modeling
I find it interesting that Slashdotters and the posted articles tend to be quite libertarian on many issues, with one of the exceptions being protection of the tech jobs market. Isn't it a bit hypocritical or am I missing something?
Seriously, 15k for skilled labor is crazy. If the US wants to offer wages like that, all the best workers will be going off to a first world country like India.
a controversial 'emergency' rule change by the Department of Homeland Security to permit foreign students to work continuously in the US for two-and-a-half years after graduation without an H-1B visa.
A good percentage of you here on /. voted for those chuckleheads. So big surprise when they turn around and dick you by making it easier for your employer to replace you with someone making cardboard slum wages. And even if the next president cuts it off the day they take office, the people already here will be able to stay to middle of their term.
Nice.
Funny how the rules on the war on terror manage to line up with corporate interests, isn't it? Just hilarious.
That's our life, the big wheel of shit. - The Fat Man, Blue Tango Salvage
Do you hate me too, or only people from India and Bangladesh?
(I'm in the process of getting an H1-B visa, but I'm white and British - so does that make it okay? Or are you opposed to all foreigners? I thought the USA was founded on immigration, you know...)
Last month I asked the aging Bob Johnsonâ"former CTO of Burroughs Corporation when it was a leading mainframe company in Minneapolis where he developed the magnetic ink you see on the bottom of your checksâ"what he thought caused the loss of the Midwestern high tech leadership to the coasts, and he said it was the financial dominance of the coasts.
That squares with what I observed while at Control Data Corporation/Cray Research, Inc.
The reason Bill Norris and Seymour Cray were able to start CDC thence Cray Research was because they violated SEC regs and went around selling stock at PTA meetings, making a lot of middle class people retire very comfortably. My late father bought some Cray stock early on which helped greatly with his retirement.
When I was at CDC in Arden Hills, MN attempting to deploy the mass market version of the PLATO network with Internet-like capabilities (the system that Ray Ozzie (Bill Gates' replacement at Microsoft) cut his teeth on) in 1980 the primary resistance was from a middle management that, due to the financial press' hostility toward Norris's vision of a society disintermediated by computer networking, small high-tech farms and locally produced and consumed essentialsâ"had itself grown hostile to Norris.
My proposed solution is simple to state but will perhaps require a war to institute:
Replace all taxes on economic activity with a tax on net-assets, assessed at their in-place liquidation value, at the risk free interest rate (which according to modern portfolio theory is the short-term US Treasury rate) so as to extract all economic rents from the private sector, and then, to prevent public sector rent-seeking in pork-barrel politics, disperse those funds evenly in a dividend to all citizens, as the beneficiaries of the land-trust called the United States.
That will not only stop the vicious centralization of power in the private and public sectors, but it will clarify the role of immigrationâ"it is a dilution of the benefits intended for the Posterity of the Founders of the land trust called The United States of America.
Seastead this.
This says it all: http://img367.imageshack.us/img367/7628/helppack8hw1oh.jpg
she failed to see how an increased labor supply could result in wage depression for engineers and computer workers.
She says:
in no sense could "wage depression through the economic forces of supply and demand" rise to the level of justiciable injury, rather than the "conjecture or hypothetical."
Instead of assuming the judge is an idiot, why not favor the much more likely scenario that the suit failed to show how the plaintiffs would be harmed and to what degree. They are claiming they are would be harmed by having their salaries reduced, when in fact they are "employed" or "underemployed". You can't claim you'll be harmed by having you salary reduce if your salary is already zero. It is not the judges job to "see" how harm could be done. It is the plaintiff's job to demonstrate how harm will be done. If they cannot do that, the judge's hands are tied.
Instead of H-1B indentured servitude, gilded as it may be, we should fast track such people for citizenship. Any country that can make America's marginal tax rates look good or otherwise sufficiently pisses off their people DESERVES to lose their best and brightest. America has traditionally been the common meeting place of the world's best and brightest and I'd hate to see that change.
But the big corporations that give $megabucks to the Democratic and Republican parties, slightly more to whichever is dominant at the time, really like the H-1B system so I don't expect much to change. The fast-track citizenship idea is from National Review.
--The FNP
As a H1B visa holder, let me just squash this myth right here: H1B visa holders can quit and change jobs at will. If you quit, you have 60 days to find a new job before you are asked to leave the country. Most people I know find a job first and then leave. And there are no binding contracts or such associated with the visa. And there's only minor paperwork involved when changing jobs. So yeah, your above-mentioned scenario is total hogwash.
But hey, don't let me and my facts get into your way of perpetuating anti-immigration propaganda.
In New Zealand they have a pretty reasonable solution solution; the minimum salary for a foreign worker on their equivalent of an H-1B visa is $55,000. Since your salary is usually a pretty direct measure of how scarce people with your abilities/training are and how much demand there is, anyone who is coming into the county to fill a shortage in a particular field should almost by definition be getting a relatively high salary.
I thought the USA was founded on immigration, you know
It was built by immigrants, but strictly speaking, it was founded on tax revolt. We didn't like sending payment to England just because you were trying to pay for the French and Indian war.
-jcr
The only title of honor that a tyrant can grant is "Enemy of the State."
No, it's not hogwash.
I've worked for employers who do this routinely.
But let's talk about the process. If a visa holder wants to leave, he must first find another employer willing to accept (a) H1B's (which eliminates all but large businesses (b) H1B transfers (which eliminates even more companies).
If you are an H1B, and you make noise about leaving, your employer simply calls the IMS and you have a few days to leave the country.
Let's be real here... if H1B visa holders had freedom of movement, then their wages would be no different than prevailing wages. The fact that you have skilled professionals from overseas working for $25-50K (I made more than that out of college 30 years ago) either says that (a) the wage supply is too large (which undercuts the arguments for H1B's) (b) there is an economic barrier people with H1B's that prevents them from exercising their rights.
I don't have an ax to grind here, and I think that there really should *not* be a barrier for skilled people to come into the United States, but I think it benefits everyone to eliminate the H1B and simply allow any highly skilled person to enter the United States. I don't see the downside, provided they have the same ability to negotiate wages as people who live here.
Your post is almost 100% bullshit political conjecture about 'illegals,' corporate american, and employment. BTW, RN salaries here:
http://swz.salary.com/salarywizard/layouthtmls/swzl_compresult_national_HC07000001.html
Yeah, they make 60k, not 10-20k.
I seriously disaqgree with my conservative collegues and liberal union folks who argue against immigration to the United States. I am the descendant of immigrants, as is nearly everyone else in the USA, and our ancestors came when there were no rules to immigration.
I would argue that people who are motivated enough to leave their homelands to come to the USA are motivated enough to work hard and succeed and I have 200 years of outstanding economic growth and opportunity to back me up. Every time this country has opened its borders, we have gotten increased opportunity, increased social dynamism, all pumping the engine of capitalism and driving the USA to ever greater success.
Clamping down on Phds and graduate students from American universities is about the stupidest immigration policy that one could ever devise. If someone has come to this country to study and obtain a university degree, I would think that proves that they are the stuff we want our citizens to be.
The issue of immigration has split the Republican Party right down the middle, but I for one think that Bush and McCain were on the right side of the issue and it is a shame that the odd coalition of labor activists and xenophobes combined to bring what would have been an outstanding immigration bill dead in its tracks. Regardless of who is elected, I hope that saner heads will prevail in both parties, this time around, and America will once again live up to the promise of the statue of liberty, "Give me your poor, tired huddled masses yearning to breath free."... or, in the very least, "give me all of your phds in mechanical, electrical, and computer engineering, in fact, just give me all of them and your undergrads too."
This is my sig.
Try looking around anywhere in the South. It's a different story here.
Of course, we have hospitals in the red left and right due to abuse by illegals, too. Parkland Memorial in Dallas is being abused, over 70% of their maternity-ward births to illegals now - and that doesn't even count the unpaid bills of all the OTHER abuse of the system.
H1B visa holders can quit and change jobs at will.
Sounds like you are not applying for a green card. Most H1B visa holders are looking for green cards. The process takes at least 3 years - probably more now with all the DHS bullshit. In order to get a green card, your employer has to sponsor you. If you change jobs, that means you change employers which means starting the green card application process all over again. Since H1B visas (last I checked) can only be used for up to 6 years max, changing employers after the first year or two puts the green card at risk. Once the H1B visa expires, all green card application paperwork is terminated.
I'd mod parent down, but I'd rather explain why I disagree.
Good. Moderating a post down simply because you disagree with it is an abuse of the moderation system - you may notice that there are no "-1, Wrong" or "-1, I Disagree" options.
However, there is the nebulous "Overrated" which is basically used the same way. Overrated is generally used by Slashdot mods as the "your opinion sucks and I'm modding you down for it" option.
Life is hard, and the world is cruel
The Department of Homeland Security makes a rule change to allow additional foreign workers in the engineering and software fields. No doubt they see areas such as telecommunications, security, aviation and DoD work as being low risk. But try to get some Mexicans in here to pick lettuce and we have to build a wall to stop it.
I understand US industries motivation in this area. But aside from the DHS reviewing proposed visa procedures, I can't understand why they should be the ones to sponsor such a regulation. This would seem to fall more within the charter of the Dept. of Commerce. If DHS has no security work to keep it busy, perhaps its time to pull the plug.
Have gnu, will travel.
This is partly true. There are 3 stages in the Green Card process - PERM, I-140 and I-485 (a.k.a. Adjustment of Status). The day the PERM application is filed is called the priority date and roughly decides your place in the queue. Roughly because the USCIS frequently processes out of order.
After the I-485 has been filed and pending for over 180 days and the I-140 has been approved, the employee can switch jobs as long as it's in a similar position. It's also possible to recapture the priority date by having another employer file for PERM and I-140 if the old I-140 has been approved and not been revoked by the previous employer.
As long as you have an approved PERM and/or I-140 it's fairly easy to keep extending the H-1B indefinitely beyond the 6 year period till your I-485 gets approved. You can also choose to work on EAD instead of H-1B if the I-485 application is pending.
The biggest hiccup in the Green Card process is the per country limit of 7% of the quota which keeps applicants from large countries like India and China waiting in line indefinitely while applicants from most other countries get approved a lot sooner because they are not affected by the per country quotas.
Myth: H1-Bs are the "best and brightest"
Reality: If that were true then the typical H1-B would a Nobel prize winning scientist. The truth is, the typical H1-B is an average student, hired right out of college with only a four year degree. The typical H1-B is no more qualified than the US graduates who are not getting jobs. The H1-Bs are just cheaper. And because of the lottery nature of the H1-B process, employers do not even know who they are getting. So how do employers know that they are getting the best and brightest?
Also, isn't it funny that almost all of the "best and brightest" come from countries where people earn as little as $1 a day? If it's really about the "best and brightest" then why aren't there more European H1-Bs?
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Myth: H1-Bs are needed because of the critical shortage of US technology workers
Reality: Serious academic studies clearly indicate that skills shortage is a myth.
> These studies done at Duke aren't alone in their assessment that there is in fact no skills shortage. They're backed up by other studies conducted by RAND Corporation, The Urban Institute and Stanford University, among others, all of which settle upon the same conclusion: There is no shortage of educated IT workers.
http://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=1081923#PaperDownload
This according to a well researched article at baselinemag.com:
http://tinyurl.com/yoy2rw
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Myth: H1-Bs do compete unfairly, because H1-Bs are paid the prevailing wage
Reality:
> According to data from the Bureau of Labor Statistics' Occupational Employment Statistics (OES) as the measurement of U.S. wages, and the H-1B LCA disclosure data to measure H-1B wages, 90% of H-1B employers' prevailing wage claims for programmers were below the median U.S. wage for that occupation and location, with 62% of them falling in the bottom 25th percentile of U.S. wages, said Miano [founder of the Programmer's Guild].
> Ron Hira, an assistant professor of public policy at the Rochester Institute of Technology (currently on leave) and a research associate at the Economic Policy Institute, pointed to USCIS's most recent report to Congress, which shows that the medium wage in 2005 for new H-1B computing professionals was just $50,000 -- even lower than the entry-level wages that a newly graduated tech worker with a bachelor's degree and no experience would command.
http://tinyurl.com/4bvwyh
According to the U.S. Citizenship & Immigration Service's (USCIS) annual report to Congress in 2005, the aggregate data for computing professionals lend support to the argument that the practice of paying H-1Bs below-market wages is quite common.
http://www.sharedprosperity.org/bp187.html
H1-Bs are hired at four different skill levels, "4" being the highest. But most H1-Bs are hired for the lowest "1" level jobs - regardless of what kind of work the H1-Bs actually do.
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Myth: In the USA enrollment in technical disciplines is declining. Proof the USA needs to hire more foreign workers
Reality: This myth is designed to confuse cause and effect. Employers are not forced to hire offshore because enrollment is down. Rather, enrollment is down because of aggressive offshoring by employers. But even with enrollments down, there are still more than enough US workers.
> Due to both outsourcing and insourcing, many young people are concluding that technology is a bad place to invest their time," said Mark Thoma, a professor of economics at the University of Oregon in Eugene.
http://tinyurl.com/4bvwyh
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Myth: Critics of the H1-B program are xenophobic
Reality: This "argument" is nothing but name calling. These allegations are offered without any s