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Feds Consider H-1B Changes After Uncovering Fraud

Posted by Soulskill on from the evidently-some-people-lie dept.

CWmike writes "A Citizenship and Immigration Services spokesman said today that the agency is weighing a series of reforms to the H-1B application process, including the use of 'independent open-source data' to obtain information about visa seekers or the companies that file the petitions on their behalf. The move follows a report by the agency that found widespread problems and evidence of fraud in the nation's H-1B program, including forged documents, fake degrees and shell companies being used in H-1B applications. It also comes after the controversy caused by changes to the H-1B rules earlier this year."

60 of 254 comments (clear)

  1. H1-B fraud? Tell me it ain't do! by kimvette · · Score: 4, Funny

    H1-B fraud? Shell companies? Fake degrees? You mean it really does come down to cheap labor?

    I'm shocked. SHOCKED!

    Well, not that shocked.

    --
    The Christian Right is Neither (Christian nor right). See: Matthew 23, Matthew 25, Ezekiel 16:48-50
    1. Re:H1-B fraud? Tell me it ain't do! by hairyfeet · · Score: 2, Insightful

      Yes because corporate lawyers who put out videos like this one were all just telling lies. LIES! Seriously though,who DIDN'T know that the H1-B was being used to turn a college education into a McJob?

      I personally loved how they told everyone "Get a tech education! All the manufacturing jobs will be shipped overseas so you need a degree!" and then once folks graduating high school did just that they bring in the H1-Bs who can work the same job for peanuts. I'd love to see one of those congress critters look the camera in the face and try to explain how someone who has to pay 60-100K for a degree is supposed to compete with someone who pays 25K or less.

      --
      ACs don't waste your time replying, your posts are never seen by me.
    2. Re:H1-B fraud? Tell me it ain't do! by konohitowa · · Score: 2, Funny

      I assumed he was talking yen or pesos.

    3. Re:H1-B fraud? Tell me it ain't do! by ximenes · · Score: 2, Insightful

      I don't know what you think universities cost today, but $40,000 per year is not uncommon. Whether or not it is worth it is another matter, but you can find somewhere willing to charge in that range easily.

      The university that I went to is now up to $46,000 per year, although only $34,000 of that is for tuition and another $1,000 in required fees.

    4. Re:H1-B fraud? Tell me it ain't do! by Beetle+B. · · Score: 2, Interesting

      I'd love to see one of those congress critters look the camera in the face and try to explain how someone who has to pay 60-100K for a degree is supposed to compete with someone who pays 25K or less.

      The solution isn't limiting H-1, but reducing tuition fees.

      Tuition rates in public universities are too high. And most university funding doesn't even come from it.

      --
      Beetle B.
    5. Re:H1-B fraud? Tell me it ain't do! by TheRaven64 · · Score: 2, Interesting

      Well, I work (intermittently) in a university, and tuition fees recently went up to £3000 per year ($5,150). On top of that, students have to pay around £25 ($43) for course notes (they aren't expected to buy textbooks, and all of the recommended course texts are in the library). When I was a student, tuition cost £1025, and a few years before that it was free - putting it up to £3000 caused a lot of complaints and it's unlikely to go up any more because of concerns that it's excluding poorer people from university (and it's relatively easy to get grants to cover a lot of this if your parents aren't able to afford it. I only paid around £200 per year in tuition fees). My living costs as a student, including rent, were around £300-400 per month, say £3000 per year academic year - low enough that working over the summer months can fund the rest of the time. Even with the tuition fees on top of this, I'd expect the total cost of a degree to be around £18,000 ($30,000), including living expenses and tuition.

      Do you get a better degree from a US university? I guess that's what you'd argue, but is it four times better? I started my PhD immediately after doing my first degree, and I was rarely impressed by papers delivered by US PhD students (although I often was by papers from professors at US universities).

      --
      I am TheRaven on Soylent News
  2. There's a surprise by cs668 · · Score: 5, Insightful

    Even if the H-1B program had no fraud it would push wages down in the US by artificially changing the demographic in the workplace.

    Older experienced high tech workers are more likely to stay at home with their families. Younger recent graduates are more likely to travel for work/opportunity. They also earn less because they have less experience.

    But, it doesn't surprise me that greed leads to fraud in a situation that already drove wages down.

    Look at how greed is affecting the economy now. Greedy people want houses they cant afford, greedy bankers want to make money by giving risky loans and turning them over. Greedy companies want to reduce wage costs by defrauding the H-1B program.

    It's just par for the course!!

    1. Re:There's a surprise by nbert · · Score: 3, Interesting

      On the other hand lower wages make the US' economy more competitive, which could lead to a higher employment rate. So it's really a two-sided problem.

      However, when it comes to real specialists I don't see how low entry barriers will affect wages, because those people will move to wherever they earn the most. If you look at wages for IT-specialists* in Europe for example they are not much lower in Poland than in the UK, even though the general population earns much less in Poland. The reason for this is that if the employers would offer less those IT workers would just move on to Germany, France, UK etc..


      *Not talking about the guy who runs the Exchange server or fixes your printer problems.

      --
      I don't read replies by ACs.
    2. Re:There's a surprise by cs668 · · Score: 4, Insightful

      You're right there is nothing wrong with someone wanting it. But, they shouldn't take a mortgage they can not afford to do it!!

      The loans should also have never been offered to them.

      Greed at the top greed at the bottom, everyone trying to get a little more.

      Same with the H-1B.

      Until people get some integrity this just goes on and on.

    3. Re:There's a surprise by William+Robinson · · Score: 2, Interesting

      Some karma burning time for me.

      In US it is easy to fire underperformers, but not in Canada.

      With personal experience I can say that the kind of money we wasted^H^H^H^H^H^H^Hspent in hope to bring some morons in Canada to a level of a programmer, we could have easily built another Cisco, with the help of Indian programmers. I do that now, having learnt my lessons, and I am happy I did that. It is much easier to pick good skilled among those 1 billion people and bring them to our standards than risking my projects.

      My 2 cents.

      --
      hilarious
    4. Re:There's a surprise by TheLink · · Score: 4, Insightful

      Thing is, "everyone" was giving out those loans.

      And "everyone" was betting via the CDS that the loans wouldn't all go poof at once (like they'd believe that was impossible, I mean just think about it).

      And "everyone" was saying it was ok to do all that.

      Because "everyone" doing all that got quite a bit of money for doing so - bonuses, commissions etc.

      But when it all went "poof", _everyone_ has to pay for it.

      Except the trouble is _everyone_ != "everyone".

      --
    5. Re:There's a surprise by hedwards · · Score: 2, Insightful

      We don't need lower wages, we already beat the hell out of the rest of the world on efficiency. Wages are supposed to rise and efficiency rises. That held up pretty well until a few decades ago. I'm not sure when exactly, but it was sometime in the late 70s or early 80s that that started to go south.

      Having an income gap isn't in and of itself a problem, but when you look at what the people at the bottom are having to put up with because they're not being paid enough, that's a problem. The numbers frequently stated for inflation are bogus, and only include portions of the cost of living.

      I've seen people suggest that a 150k mortgage isn't appropriate for a family of four making 40k, but the reality is that in some parts of the country a family will be spending more than that just to rent. And yes that does include most of the additional costs of owning.

    6. Re:There's a surprise by Original+Replica · · Score: 4, Insightful

      There's nothing wrong with somebody wanting an extra room or two to start a family, a home business or private study.

      The other question is: Was there an option to buying a McMansion? Are there enough smaller affordable homes in non-shitty school districts to house the working class? No, but no builders wanted to build the affordable homes because they weren't as profitable as McMansions and the banks were willing to make the loans, so they were able to have potential customers for the oversized houses. The median price of any housing with under an hour commute time to NYC is $450K. The median income in NYC is about $48K, so that's ten years wages before tax for just somewhere to raise your family. Yet every new construction project I see is luxury apartments. Back in 2000 the median price was just $148K and the median income was about $40k. So housing was about 3.7 time annual income just eight years ago, and now it is 10 times annual income. The banks offered people the possibility to be in unimaginable debt, and people need somewhere to live, so they got in over their heads, because the only other option was to up root their young family and hope that life was affordable somewhere else. That's not always an option personally speaking, NYC is far and away the best paying play for the career my collage degree is in. I'm 33 and I make over twice the median annual income, yet the only housing I can afford to buy would be a 600 sq ft studio apt. A $300k studio costs $1750 a month mortgage plus a $650 maintaince fee, and would only be getting one room. Two bedroom apts start at about $500K, so now that's $2917 a month mortgage and an $800 maintaince fee, for 1100 sq ft that's a 45 min subway commute to midtown. So when people purchase homes that are more than they can afford, the question of why they did that isn't as simple as "greed" there is a large mount of "need" int there as well.

      --
      We are all just people.
    7. Re:There's a surprise by Original+Replica · · Score: 2, Insightful

      On the other hand lower wages make the US' economy more competitive, which could lead to a higher employment rate. So it's really a two-sided problem.

      On the other hand lower wages make the US' economy more lopsided, which could lead to a higher amount of wealth concentration.
      Sure the employment rate might be higher, but the employment rate on a slave plantation was 100%, that didn't make it a great place to work. High wages and lower wealth concentration make for a strong middle class; which leads to lower crime, better education, and better economic diversification. Take a look at life in countries or even US cities without a middle class, that's where "lower wages for economic competitiveness" leads. Sure maybe the GDP would go up, but if 90% of the population is getting less take home pay to make that happen, why is that touted as a good thing? Even the elites who profit more would have to live with higher crime and more social tension. If you want that move to Sao Paulo or Mexico City.

      --
      We are all just people.
    8. Re:There's a surprise by cs668 · · Score: 4, Insightful

      Exactly so they should buy a house they can afford or rent. I am sick and tired of people making excuses for "ordinary" people. The people who gave the loans suck, the ones who took ones they could not pay suck too.

      If you can't afford to buy a home then rent an apartment. I rented for 6 years after college. Didn't want to, thought it was a waste of money. But, it's what I could afford. Then when I could afford to buy a home. I bought one that I could afford to make the payments on.

      Everyone is looking for a get rich quick scheme. Or wants to look richer than they are by taking a negative interest mortgage and maxing out their credit cards rather than living within their means.

      American financial habits have to change or the $ will eventually be worth nothing. The consumer culture has to change or we will all be broke.

    9. Re:There's a surprise by tempestdata · · Score: 3, Insightful

      Its called inflation and is a godsend for a debtor nation like the US. With household debt at 100% of GDP and over $10 trillion on national debt, the policies of this government will inevitably be geared towards inflation. The need to keep inflation numbers low for now is simply to sucker people into lending us money at a low interest rate. At some point in the future, the US will inflate its way out of its debt. (Do you really think we'll ever actually pay back what we've borrowed?) When that happens, those who own debts will benefit, those who hold cash will cry.

      --
      - Tempestdata
    10. Re:There's a surprise by j0nb0y · · Score: 2, Insightful

      Of course all the new apartments in NYC are luxury apartments. Anything built to be affordable will end up being rent controlled, at a huge loss to the landlord. Why take the risk? Either build luxury apartments or don't build at all.

      --
      If you had super powers, would you use them for good, or for awesome?
    11. Re:There's a surprise by Nkwe · · Score: 2, Insightful

      So when people purchase homes that are more than they can afford, the question of why they did that isn't as simple as "greed" there is a large mount of "need" int there as well.

      Perhaps you don't "need" to live in NYC.

      NYC is far and away the best paying play for the career my collage degree is in.

      Best paying is only the best paying if you include salary AND the cost of living.

      A positive outcome for this credit crisis will eventually be that credit will not be given to those who cannot afford it. When this happens, the cost of housing and cost of living will eventually come into balance. One of three things will happen: Economic conditions will lower the cost of living; companies will pay their people more; or companies will move operations to places that are more affordable for their employees to live.

    12. Re:There's a surprise by cayenne8 · · Score: 2, Interesting
      "There's nothing wrong with somebody wanting an extra room or two to start a family, a home business or private study.

      The fault is entirely with the expectation that house prices will continuously rise, or that they should be traded like company shares. "

      Nothing wrong with wanting extra room, etc. BUT...it has to be tempered with realistic expectations of income, and a realistic view of what ones means truly are, and to live within them!!

      People over the past few years have gotten to assume they are entitled to a certain lifestyle, with all the latest gadgets and cars. They try to get a house way too large...hell, I've seen instances where people had a large house, and 2-3 nice cars...and bascially only had enough money to furnish the place with plastic lawn furniture. And, if someone is going to chose to raise a family? You'd better be prepared to cut down on what you expect your lifestyle to be....unless you are wealthy, raising children...even one is $$$, and will require sacrifice on your part. Sacrifice of time, money and personal growth if need be.

      I hate to see all this crashing around us...but, perhaps people will learn the hard way not to live on credit, running up debts they'll never get out of, and living beyond their means.

      And with housing...well, I'm guessing we'll go back to how it was before. Loans will only be given to people with proper credit history, who have worked and saved to be able to put down 20% on a home and be prepared for the extra costs of maintaining one. This will force people to live in a home they can afford.

      Once upon a time...people used to save money for cars too....

      Hey, I know everyone wants nice things, but, people need to learn like how in the old days, that you aren't entitled to all the shiny cool things out there...

      Housing costs will come down to a more reasonable price, fiscally responsible people will save and purchase what's out on the market, and they will be a good credit risk.

      Maybe lenders and customers will become more fiscally sensible.

      --
      Light travels faster than sound. This is why some people appear bright until you hear them speak.........
    13. Re:There's a surprise by Original+Replica · · Score: 3, Interesting

      Anything built to be affordable will end up being rent controlled, at a huge loss to the landlord. Why take the risk? Either build luxury apartments or don't build at all.

      While that argument might hold water for someone building rental units, it is meaningless for building condos with the intent to sell, not rent. The financial crisis wasn't trigger by people failing to pay their rent, it's about an artificially high barrier to property ownership.

      A word on the "evils" of rent control:
      I'm renting a non-luxury non-rent controlled or stabilized apt right now. My last apt wasn't luxury or rent stabilized either, and my rent went up 48% in three years because my neighborhood gentrified. So I had to move (and pay a broker for the privilege). Rent control isn't the huge loss that landlord try to hack it up to be, if the building is turning a profit when they build it, it will be turning a profit ten years down the line even if the apts are rent controlled, because the landlord's mortgage didn't go up and the rent control with keep property taxes down, what the landlords are whining about is that they can't maximize their profits (and boot out long time tenets) with every neighborhood gentrification wave, there is a big difference between making a modest profit and taking a loss, and no landlords are actually taking a loss on buildings with rent controlled apts. Added to that,rent stabilization doesn't apply to anything built since '84.

      --
      We are all just people.
    14. Re:There's a surprise by mabhatter654 · · Score: 2, Informative

      there's an adage if you owe the bank $100,000 You are in trouble...if you owe the bank $10 million then the bank is in trouble.

      That's exactly what happened here. The banks made MILLIONS of high risk home loans and LIED about the risk and invented "swapping" instruments to skirt securities and insurance laws. Only about 6% of even the high risk loans are failing... and that's an all time high (that's less than the unemployment rate!). Why did the bankers so mismanage their money that losing 6% crashes the whole system? Who is responsible for those BILLIONS and why are they not in jail for mismanagement?

    15. Re:There's a surprise by Foobar+of+Borg · · Score: 3, Interesting

      Its called inflation and is a godsend for a debtor nation like the US. With household debt at 100% of GDP and over $10 trillion on national debt, the policies of this government will inevitably be geared towards inflation. The need to keep inflation numbers low for now is simply to sucker people into lending us money at a low interest rate. At some point in the future, the US will inflate its way out of its debt. (Do you really think we'll ever actually pay back what we've borrowed?)

      While it may make debts easier to pay, it ultimately makes the money worthless. Inflation by printing more money to pay off obligations is what the Weimar Republic did, and we all know how well *that* worked out. With Obama looking like he can win the Presidency, the fringe lunatic end of the Republican Party is showing its vile, racist hatred (*). I only hope we in the U.S. don't wind up having to go to the grocery store with our money in wheelbarrows and simply having it weighed to determine if it is enough to pay, along with outlawing the possession of Euros and other stable currencies.

      (*) Yes, I realize plenty of Republicans are not racists, but there is a lunatic fringe of Republicans who are both racist and violent. If they think they have nothing to lose, who knows what could happen.

      --
      Similar to the upcoming US election results
    16. Re:There's a surprise by TheLink · · Score: 2, Informative

      There's a big difference in the situation.

      Saudi Arabia does not sell oil in marks (go figure how much USD the world needs to buy that oil every day). Wheat, edible oil, microchips, etc is not traded in marks.

      China and huge numbers of countries around the world do not hold reserves and bonds in marks.

      So when the USA prints money, the US Gov gets richer, the US citizens get poorer AND the rest of the world get slightly poorer (or a lot poorer - depending on how much the USA owes them ;) ).

      Whereas if a country like Zimbabwe printed money, the Zimbabwe gov gets richer than the Zimbabwe citizens, and the rest of the world just watch Zimbabwe fall apart.

      Now the thing is naughty Iran is selling oil in Euros, and Iraq also switched to the euro until they got invaded by the USA ;).

      In the past the USA could print money easily without suffering the usual consequences, nowadays as more and more people are trading in Euro, it gets harder.

      --
  3. Fraud involving cheap labor? by teknopurge · · Score: 3, Insightful

    No! It can't be! paying a resource 10k USD/yr to replace a 70k/yr resource offers a lot of incentive to skirt the rules. You would have thought that the sub-standard work would have been outrageous enough, but companies keep offshoring.....

    --
    Website Hosting
    1. Re:Fraud involving cheap labor? by jacobsm · · Score: 4, Insightful

      Some companies find it cheaper to outsource the programming offshore with the expectation that the local staff will have to "fix" the program when it gets back to the USA.

      It is still cheaper for companies to pay 10% of the prevailing wage oversees for 90% of the desired result and have a few highly paid talented programmers clean up the mess that they receive.

      I have visions in my head of hundreds of programmers chained to their desks with taskmasters standing above them with whips shouting "Faster, code faster".

  4. Why reform? by plopez · · Score: 5, Informative

    Just get rid of it.

    There is no labor shortage to begin with in the first place:

    http://www.cs.ucdavis.edu/~matloff/itaa.real.html

    http://www.fastcompany.com/magazine/85/essay.html

    http://www.upenn.edu/researchatpenn/article.php?708&bus

    http://techtoil.org/wiki/doku.php?id=articles:shortage_myth

    --
    putting the 'B' in LGBTQ+
  5. h1b and L1 by slmdmd · · Score: 5, Interesting
    People often mistake L1 to be H1. L1 is a visa for inter company transfer. It means any one can be employed at India/China office and then will be transferred to work in usa office. The Embassy interview for L1 is just a formality. There is virtually no educational qualification criteria/check for L1. So even a 12th pass guy comes in on L1 visa then he is posted at various clients. There is no limit on number of L1 visas. H1b's have a 65000 yearly limit. H1B embassy visa process is tough, education qualification is 16 years education plus experience. While we all are crying about h1b, the companies recruit any one with ok english in india, after working for 1 year in india they are sent here on L1. I have not heard of any rejections in L1 applications.

    L1 is the loop hole. It is the top secret one. I agree that there are about 30% h1bs who fake their experience(h1b criteria is 16yr edu + 3 years minimum work exp or 15 yr edu + 6 years work, 1 year education = 3 year work). 90% people on L1 have 15 year education or less and just 1 year exp. In any economy downturn h1bs are the first to be fired because 90% of them work on corp to corp contracts which are very expensive. Example for a unix admin - 100+ per hour is paid by company A to vendor V, V keeps 35% and gives 65 to H1B holding company H, H pays about 30 to the employee who is new in USA or 40 if he is more than 2 years old in usa. H1b end up getting exploited till GC(6 to 8 years). L1s too get exploited but they are happy because they are rotated every year. So they have less expenses(no need to buy car or family home) in usa and carry all money as savings to india/china.
    Since h1b corp to corp is expensive, candidate has to be really skilled, but some do manage by changing clients(A) every 3 to 6 months by slipping through a phone interview(some one else giving the phone int in their name). On being found out they are fired in 3 to 6 months. Yet they manage to settle in low tech areas like managing remedy tickets etc in about 2 years of hire-fire cycle. So in downturn, h1bs are fired first, then the citizen employee and are replaced by L1. L1's don't get overtime pay. They get about 3 to 4 k per month and yet that is a very good money because in india they get max 1k per month for 1+ year experience.

    1. Re:h1b and L1 by infinite9 · · Score: 4, Informative


      Example for a unix admin - 100+ per hour is paid by company A to vendor V, V keeps 35% and gives 65 to H1B holding company H, H pays about 30 to the employee who is new in USA or 40 if he is more than 2 years old in usa. H1b end up getting exploited till GC(6 to 8 years). L1s too get exploited but they are happy because they are rotated every year. So they have less expenses(no need to buy car or family home) in usa and carry all money as savings to india/china.
      Since h1b corp to corp is expensive, candidate has to be really skilled, but some do manage by changing clients(A) every 3 to 6 months by slipping through a phone interview(some one else giving the phone int in their name). On being found out they are fired in 3 to 6 months. Yet they manage to settle in low tech areas like managing remedy tickets etc in about 2 years of hire-fire cycle. So in downturn, h1bs are fired first, then the citizen employee and are replaced by L1. L1's don't get overtime pay. They get about 3 to 4 k per month and yet that is a very good money because in india they get max 1k per month for 1+ year experience.

      None of this sounds right to me. I'm a 17 year IT consultant in chicago. What I've seen is that the majority of H1s can't find their ass. Typically two or three are needed to replace the american being fired. Obviously there are exceptions. But the vast majority are really quite useless. They're hired because upper management thinks IT workers are lego bricks. You can just unplug one and plug in another with no intangible cost to the company. Gardner told them so.

      Also, the bill rate numbers you quote are way off. I've never seen an H1 anywhere hired for $100 an hour. I'd say $60 is pretty much max. Otherwise, why wouldn't the end client just hire an american? There's a financial incentive for the client to hire an H1.

      Usually, there's no extra middleman for H1s. The consulting firm billing them out is host for the visa.

      I agree that L1s are a huge loophole. But usually, they come in when an indian corporation like TCS (tata) comes in an takes over an entire IT department. Then they can place an army of indians at the client because the project manager probably works for TCS also. I seriously doubt consultants on L1 visas get sent alone to a client.

      --
      Disconnect your television. Do your own research. Draw your own conclusions. They're probably lying. Don't be a sheep.
  6. Lower wages by wfstanle · · Score: 4, Insightful

    "On the other hand lower wages make the US' economy more competitive"

    If this is true, why don't the CEO's set the trend by taking less? I'm not asking for a lot, just limit you total compensation (salary & bonuses) to something reasonable like a million dollars per year. A million dollars is an amount that many people can't achieve in a lifetime but some CEOs get more than 100 million each year.

    1. Re:Lower wages by Z34107 · · Score: 2, Interesting

      If this is true, why don't the CEO's set the trend by taking less?

      Because CEOs are important. No board of directors wants to skimp on the CEO offerings, let they get a "cheap" one that runs their company in the ground.

      But, there have to be some limits. While paying $dirt means you won't get a good CEO (even for large values of $dirt), paying $bucks doesn't guarantee you a good one, either. The idea is to pay CEOs for their performance, just like any other employee.

      Problem is, how do you measure a CEOs performance? If a company has a great year, was it just because of a good economy? Would that year have been just as great if the CEO did nothing? How about if the company has a bad year? Is it the CEO's fault if oil prices quadruple and the financial markets tank? Do you just measure "attendance" and say "thanks for showing up - here's a check?"

      Boards are getting better at this. CEO turnover is high, and the anti-"golden parachute" clause in the bailout bill has encouraged a lot of boards to axe those clauses. Even if they aren't subject to conditions of that bailout, they want to be seen as proactive so as to avoid more government intervention.

      --
      DATABASE WOW WOW
    2. Re:Lower wages by publiclurker · · Score: 3, Insightful

      You forgot to add the part where the board is usually composed of other CEO's and friends of the CEO, who happens, strangely enough, to be on the boards of these other CEO's companies. I personally wouldn't mind it so much that these guys were allowed to have their friends choose their salaries if the people who actually do the work had the same luxury.

    3. Re:Lower wages by wfstanle · · Score: 3, Interesting

      "But, if you pay dirt, you will get a bad CEO. "

      Who says so? I'm not saying pay them dirt (which is what the janitor gets) just pay them reasonably. 100 million does not guarantee that you will get a good CEO. Conversely, paying 1 million may get you a good one because you might get one that looks at things differently. Often the amount paid for someone (or something) is not related to the price you pay.

    4. Re:Lower wages by Mieckowski · · Score: 3, Insightful

      But, if you pay dirt, you will get a bad CEO.

      I don't think anyone is talking about paying CEOs dirt here. Just, you know, moving it back closer to where it has been for years and years (and what it is still like in many other countries).

      Is the best guy always going to say: "I'll do this job for $3 million a year, but if you pay me $2 million a year I'll walk away." Do you really want a guy that is so greedy that he would forget all his co-workers and probably move his family just so they could live in a $20 million dollar house (as opposed to a $10 million dollar house)? Someone to whom making as many $ for themselves in their overriding concern?

      Or is he just asking his friends on the board of directors for a raise because another CEO is paid X and hey, it's free money?

      I just can't believe that there wouldn't any competent people willing to do the job for reasonable pay.

    5. Re:Lower wages by TheRaven64 · · Score: 2, Insightful

      Hell, I'd take a CEO job for under $1m[1], and there's no way I could do a worse job than, say, Carly Fiorina, and she got a $21m golden parachute (with HP's share price jumping 7% when it was announced that she was leaving).

      [1] Actually, I'm not sure what I'd do with $1m - I don't seem to spend most of the money I earn even at the moment, but I'd take the job if it looked interesting.

      --
      I am TheRaven on Soylent News
    6. Re:Lower wages by rtb61 · · Score: 2, Insightful

      That statement is clearly untrue. As is always the nature with greed, it is insatiable. No matter how much they get paid they will always, I repeat, always want more and more and more. The biggest lie of all is that somehow paying a greedy person enough means they wont steal and that flies in the face of reality. If a persons sole motivation is greed, then logically not only will the work 24/7/365 to increase their salary by what ever means possible but they will also spend every free moment coming up with additional ways of lining their own pockets at the expense of the company, it's shareholders, it's employees and, it's customers.

      So what you are really after is a person who takes pride in the quality of their work, who demonstrates a clear record of honour and integrity and who has the requisite skills, knowledge and experience. Here is a hint for hiring executives, any CEO etc. who is willing to rip off the customers to inflate the profits of their company is even more willing to rip off their company in their own favour and, if for a second you don't believe that to be true then you are allowing greed to blind good judgement.

      In fact logically speaking keeping the salary of executives as low as possible whilst maintaining a strict review of qualifications and experience means you are more likely to attract executives who want to pursue the position for reason other than greed ie. job satisfaction, job challenge, they choose to in part define themselves by the qualities of the company they are a part of and in part pride of placement.

      In fact greed is about the very worst motivation that you could use to attract a corporate executive, unless of course you are an existing company director specifically seeking executive officers who will assist you in stealing as much as possible from the shareholders and customers and how many times has that and is that happening, we all know the answer to that, all far to often.

      --
      Chaos - everything, everywhere, everywhen
  7. Re:Republicriminals? No Way! by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 2, Insightful

    And this is why the government is out of control. People would rather blame "the other side" than call a spade a spade.

  8. So when that recruiter looking for by www.sorehands.com · · Score: 2, Funny

    So when that recruiter called me in 1988 looking for someone with 10 years of DOS programming was really a company trying to justify an H1B? Say it ain't so.

    --
    Fight Spammers!
  9. Re:I met a waiter on an H1-B by johndmartiniii · · Score: 2, Informative

    And this is honestly the point, isn't it? The folks that you have hired on H-1B's were willing to relocate (for whatever reason) and here they are, well-qualified, doing the jobs that they were hired to do.

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    If you don't know what you're doing, you can't make mistakes.
  10. Make them buy stocks! by hemp · · Score: 2, Insightful

    The least they could do is require H1-Bs to buy a portfolio of stocks and keep it all until they leave the country. I'm sure Wall Street would approve of this plan!

    --
    Skip ------ See the latest from http://www.anArchyFortWorth.com
    1. Re:Make them buy stocks! by Arkem+Beta · · Score: 2, Informative

      Actually there's a different US visa for people who own American stocks. The E-2 Investment Visa is for people who have significant US investments(usually more than US$100,000) http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/E-2_visa The visa is a non-immigrant visa valid for 1 year, renewable until the holder divests himself of the investments.

  11. ALL YOUR GENIUSES ARE BELONG TO US! by linhares · · Score: 4, Insightful
    America has forgotten that it built its success on the back of the geniuses that migrated there. The Manhattan project, for one, is an example of America's prodigious talent-attraction while Germany was burning people down. Here's a quote from a Lexington piece:

    when it comes to immigration they [congress] are doing exactly the opposite--trying their best to keep the world's best and brightest from darkening America's doors.

    Consider the annual April Fool's joke played on applicants for H1B visas, which allow companies to sponsor highly-educated foreigners to work in America for three years or so. The powers-that-be have set the number of visas so low--at 85,000--that the annual allotment is taken up as soon as applications open on April 1st. America then deals with the mismatch between supply and demand in the worst possible way, allocating the visas by lottery. The result is that hundreds of thousands of highly qualified people--entrepreneurs who want to start companies, doctors who want to save lives, scientists who want to explore the frontiers of knowledge--are kept waiting on the spin of a roulette wheel and then, more often than not, denied the chance to work in the United States.

    This is a policy of national self-sabotage. America has always thrived by attracting talent from the world. Some 70 or so of the 300 Americans who have won Nobel prizes since 1901 were immigrants. Great American companies such as Sun Microsystems, Intel and Google had immigrants among their founders. Immigrants continue to make an outsized contribution to the American economy. About a quarter of information technology (IT) firms in Silicon Valley were founded by Chinese and Indians. Some 40% of American PhDs in science and engineering go to immigrants. A similar proportion of all the patents filed in America are filed by foreigners.

    These bright foreigners bring benefits to the whole of society. The foreigner-friendly IT sector has accounted for more than half of America's overall productivity growth since 1995. Foreigner-friendly universities and hospitals have been responsible for saving countless American cities from collapse. Bill Gates calculates, and respectable economists agree, that every foreigner who is given an H1B visa creates jobs for five regular Americans.

    There was a time when ambitious foreigners had little choice but to put up with America's restrictive ways. Europe was sclerotic and India and China were poor and highly restrictive. But these days the rest of the world is opening up at precisely the time when America seems to be closing down. The booming economies of the developing world are sucking back talent that was once America's for the asking. About a third of immigrants who hold high-tech jobs in America are considering returning home. America's rivals are also rejigging their immigration systems to attract global talent.

    Canada and Australia operate a widely emulated system that gives immigrants "points" for their educational qualifications. New Zealand allows some companies to hand out work visas along with job offers. Britain gives graduates of the world's top 50 business schools an automatic right to work in the country for a year. The European Union is contemplating introducing a system of "blue cards" that will give talented people a fast track to EU citizenship.

    The United States is already paying a price for its failure to adjust to the new world. Talent-challenged technology companies are already being forced to export jobs abroad. Microsoft opened a software development centre in Canada in part because Canada's more liberal laws make it easier to recruit qualified people from around the world. This problem is only going to get worse if America's immigration restrictions are not lifted. The Labour Department projects that by 2014 there will be more than 2m job openings in science, technology and engineering, while the number of Americans g

    1. Re:ALL YOUR GENIUSES ARE BELONG TO US! by flyingsquid · · Score: 5, Insightful
      I agree completely. Yes, immigration does have its downsides. Letting in an additional 10,000 foreigners to work in or immigrate to the U.S. should, in the short term, increase competition. But the long-term payoff is potentially huge. If just one of those immigrants turns around and helps found a major company like Google (co-founded by Sergei Brin, whose parents immigrated from Russia when he was six) the job creation by that company, and indirect job creation caused by economic benefit to other companies, will vastly outweigh the short-term losses.

      Unfortunately, we're losing sight of that because of post 9-11 hysteria. Yes, some of those foreigners might want to blow up your house. But I'll bet that the vast majority just want to work hard and to see their kids do better than they did. Ivy League schools are just packed with the children of immigrants for that reason. And I'd be willing to bet that the people who legally arrive in this country are vastly less likely to cause problems than the average American. We have no shortage of home-grown murderers, drug dealers, serial killers, sexual predators, white collar criminals and domestic terrorists... it's arguable that a group of carefully screened legal immigrants is vastly less of a threat to the American way of life than a group of average Americans.

    2. Re:ALL YOUR GENIUSES ARE BELONG TO US! by TheRaven64 · · Score: 2, Insightful

      How many people are there in the USA? How many people are there in the world? If you assume random distribution of geniuses then each one has a 4.5% probability of being in the USA. Even if you restrict your search to people likely to have received the kind of education needed to foster creativity, you're only looking at, maybe, a 20% chance of being in the USA.

      If you want America to be home to the big corporations that benefit the economy then you want to get a significant number of the remaining 80% of these people in to the USA so that they form the start-ups that go on to become companies like Google there. Otherwise you're going to find it increasingly hard to keep consuming over 25% of the worlds resources...

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      I am TheRaven on Soylent News
    3. Re:ALL YOUR GENIUSES ARE BELONG TO US! by Foobar+of+Borg · · Score: 2, Funny

      Or stay in Pakistan, selling nuclear technologies to North Korea, Iran, and anyone else with the cash. This isn't a racist jibe, it recent technological history.

      KKKHHHAAAAANNNNNN!!!!!

      --
      Similar to the upcoming US election results
  12. Re:Republicriminals? No Way! by budgenator · · Score: 2, Insightful

    Not conservatives but Neocons, personally i don't see much difference between being anally probed by big government, big religion or big business; at the end of the day I feel violated and am expected to kowtow to the fuedal lord du jour.

    --
    Apocalypse Cancelled, Sorry, No Ticket Refunds
  13. There's nothing wrong with *legal* immigration by SL+Baur · · Score: 2, Insightful

    America has forgotten that it built its success on the back of the geniuses that migrated there.

    Not really. The real problem is that certain people are blurring the distinction between legal and illegal immigration.

    What really pisses me off in the current public "debates" regarding immigration and housing loans is that the people who are getting screwed the hardest are the ones who have obeyed the law and applied common sense.

    That's just wrong.

  14. look at history by linhares · · Score: 4, Interesting

    So if Einstein, von Newmann, Szilard, and a HUGE HOST OF Others had decided to build the A-Bomb for the fuhrer, America would have been just as successful during the past decades? PLEASE.... A nazi Germany with A-Bombs would have taken over Russia and Britain easily. America would be farther geographically, but after some mushrooms in the sky morale would be so low that surrender would be inevitable. Of course, gladly, we will never know. But to imagine that it's good policy to keep out the most talented people in the globe is to repeat but one of Hitler's mistakes. Ok, I get the Goodwin prize today, I guess.

    1. Re:look at history by ScrewMaster · · Score: 4, Insightful

      That entire HUGE HOST of others that are speaking about would be dwarfed in terms of numbers by a single year's worth of H1B's. Your argument is specious: all the guest workers are not Einsteins. The whole point of this article is that many of them are not only not Einsteins, but nowhere near as educated and useful as they say they are.

      Get a grip. This is about corporations wanting cheaper labor, and about corrupt politicians aiding and abetting them. It's not about immigration, not about improving our society by bringing in worthy people from other cultures and assimilating them into our own. Not by a long shot.

      Furthermore, if it were about immigration, we'd be perfectly justified (by your own logic) in being selective as hell and only allowing the best and brightest of those people to work and live in our country. But we don't: we just want them cheap. Period. If they happen to be good, fine. If not ... why, that's fine too, so long as they work cheap enough to justify firing the domestic workforce. What, you think quality is an issue here? Are you blind?

      You can't put a price on an Einstein, or a Tesla, or any of the other great men who came to this great nation and more than repaid our generosity. You can, however, put a price on yet another Unix server admin, database consultant or Web developer.

      And that is what this is about. Don't try to make it any grander or more poetic than it is. It's down and dirty politics and money-grubbing, and none of your references to intellectually accomplished immigrants will ever change that.

      --
      The higher the technology, the sharper that two-edged sword.
  15. From an actual H1B holder by MarkKnopfler · · Score: 5, Insightful

    I have been living in the US for less than a year now. I have been working for more than ten years. This is the first time that I have been living in the US. Here is what I think of the whole matter.

    1. The H1B program, in spirit is a wonderful, clever thing. I have lived and worked in Europe, Japan and India. I love to travel and take in new experiences. Thanks to the H1 program, it allows for me to actually live and work here. In all honesty, it has been a great experience.

    2. The H1B program allows for _american_ companies to actually fill in a labour gap as and when required.

    3. Does the H1B program get abused as the article states ? Absolutely. I have seen it happen myself. There are huge number of shell companies ( called consultants ) out there who are absolutely flooding the H1B channels with applications for requirements which do not exist. The article is spot-on with its observations. The biggest victim of this whole thing however is the H1B program. Due to this channel-stuffing, legitimate american companies cannot actually recruit an employee when it is _really_ required since the quota has already been filled by fraudulent/redundant applications. These redundant and fraudulent applications really really need to be stopped for the H1B program to actually deliver what it actually set out to deliver.

    4. There is a lot of talk about salaries and cost, and this is what I think. The H1B program is a cleverly crafted law in some ways. The H1 application belongs to the employee and and not the employer. The employee is free to change his employers as and when he or she wants to. If an employee thinks that he is being paid less than the market value, he or she is free to seek out an employer who will pay him as much as he or she deserves. The free market will, at the end of the day take care of it. Also if there is a company which pays its employees based on his legal status and not his skills and ability, please do not consider working for it, whatever might be your legal status.

    5. In my professional career, I have worked with some of the biggest bozos and some of the most exquisitely talented engineers. Race or geographical location had absolutely nothing to do with their abilities. There are smart people and idiots everywhere. Supposing that a H1B worker to be inferior in terms of ability, is not a very clever viewpoint.

    1. Re:From an actual H1B holder by Skapare · · Score: 3, Insightful

      1. The H1B program, in spirit is a wonderful, clever thing. I have lived and worked in Europe, Japan and India. I love to travel and take in new experiences. Thanks to the H1 program, it allows for me to actually live and work here. In all honesty, it has been a great experience.

      I think it's great you can travel around the world and work in different places.

      2. The H1B program allows for _american_ companies to actually fill in a labour gap as and when required.

      The problem here is that MOST of those hired via the H-1B program are not hired to fill a labour gap, per se. Instead, they are hired to fill in a gap of people who are willing to work for substandard pay levels, and work extreme workloads and longer hours.

      3. Does the H1B program get abused as the article states ? Absolutely. I have seen it happen myself. There are huge number of shell companies ( called consultants ) out there who are absolutely flooding the H1B channels with applications for requirements which do not exist. The article is spot-on with its observations. The biggest victim of this whole thing however is the H1B program. Due to this channel-stuffing, legitimate american companies cannot actually recruit an employee when it is _really_ required since the quota has already been filled by fraudulent/redundant applications. These redundant and fraudulent applications really really need to be stopped for the H1B program to actually deliver what it actually set out to deliver.

      Not all of the abuse is like this. In one case I know of in the past, a major american company primarily involved in high-technology engineering and manufacturing hired someone for a position as a Unix system administrator, despite a few dozen of them in that city being available for work (who were presumably US citizens). It turns out the person actually hired did have a graduate degree in a field unrelated to computers or engineering. She was then trained on Unix system administrator by that company, and she also sought out outside help to speed up her learning of Unix system administration. That's how I ended up meeting her.

      The problem here is that this major company knew what they were doing. If they really had a true need for people in very specialized fields for which the supply of skilled and experienced people here had been exhausted, they would not have been trying to hire someone for a Unix system administrator job (which has an abundant supply of people available in large and small cities, and has for at least a decade).

      4. There is a lot of talk about salaries and cost, and this is what I think. The H1B program is a cleverly crafted law in some ways. The H1 application belongs to the employee and and not the employer. The employee is free to change his employers as and when he or she wants to. If an employee thinks that he is being paid less than the market value, he or she is free to seek out an employer who will pay him as much as he or she deserves. The free market will, at the end of the day take care of it. Also if there is a company which pays its employees based on his legal status and not his skills and ability, please do not consider working for it, whatever might be your legal status.

      This is not true. If someone with an H-1B visa is let go from their current job, they have a finite period of time to find a new employer who can sponsor them before their visa expires. The visa lets them in the country. The sponsorship is required for the visa to remain valid. Maybe they can work at any job for the month or two they are allowed to stay when losing sponsorship. But they must find that sponsorship by a deadline to keep the visa.

      Apparently, part of the big picture of abuse is that the "recruiting companies" that they get their work through is carrying out some fraudulent practices to keep them here. The shell companies may be part of that. That fact is, the free mark

      --
      now we need to go OSS in diesel cars
  16. H-1B workers are NOT "immigrants" by Tablizer · · Score: 5, Insightful

    There is a big flaw in your reasoning. H-1B workers are NOT "immigrants". They are "guest workers". Thus, your founder examples are misleading. If they were made immigrants, maybe companies would not treat them like indentured servants.

    Further, even if visa workers benefit the average person in the US (perhaps disputable), it may still hurt those in *specific* careers. Foreign cars don't help factory workers in Detroit, for example, even if it benefited car consumers in general.
         

    --
    Table-ized A.I.
    1. Re:H-1B workers are NOT "immigrants" by fartrader · · Score: 5, Insightful

      You are correct, it's a non-immigrant visa, but it has the capability to lead to a green card with sponsorship which many other types do not have ... and just to correct you, it's a "specialist worker program" not "guest worker". Guest worker is a term typically applied to people who undertake non-specialist labor such as farm labor work at harvest time, these are not eligible to become immigrants. To have a H-1B you need a degree in the field relevant to the job you are applying for (or 12 years expertise).

    2. Re:H-1B workers are NOT "immigrants" by p0tat03 · · Score: 4, Insightful

      And this is where the USA is reaping what is sows. By making the first-step a non-resident visa the government is simply encouraging companies to abuse their position as H-1B employers. As a soon-to-be H1-B (if all goes to plan) I dread the thought that my employer will be able to lord this over my head for 4-5 years before I get a Green Card and am "free".

      The American government needs to offer a direct-to-PR track for skilled immigrants. While my employer seems to treat H-1Bs no differently than domestic employees, I know many companies that will work the employee like a dog while they can.

  17. Right, ain't NO SHORTAGE by Tablizer · · Score: 3, Insightful

    Amen! Mod parent up to the clouds. There is no objective evidence of a "shortage". It is a lobbyist gimmick for cheap labor pure and simple.

    Sure, some companies complain about finding an exact fit, but that's because they are unrealistically expecting an exact fit. Pay for somebody smart and flexible enough to adapt.

    --
    Table-ized A.I.
    1. Re:Right, ain't NO SHORTAGE by Dusty101 · · Score: 2, Interesting

      And widespread thinking like the parent post is why America's losing the high ground globally. You'd be throwing out the baby with the bathwater, unless you're prepared to start offering naturalization or a fast-tracked green card from the get-go as an alternative. Not that either of those options would ever be similarly abused, of course...

      I am currently on an H-1B, hired for a scientific research & facility operations position requiring a lot of particularly specialized skills (I have a Ph.D. & came into the job with more than 5 years' postdoctoral experience). I beat out a bunch of US nationals fair & square (I know, because I met several of the shortlisted ones during the interview process). My employers deemed me to be the best-suited applicant in a standard interview process, so I got the job, paid at the same going rate as any US citizen. In practice, hiring me probably actually cost the employer MORE than a US citizen, due to the need to pay the extra fast-tracking fees for the H-1B visa & so on.

      So, while I've no doubt that there are some companies & individuals abusing the system, I take issue with the ill-founded assumption that just because I'm on an H-1B, I was hired as "cheap labor".

  18. You can get a degree in collage? by janrinok · · Score: 4, Funny

    ....for the career my collage degree is in....

    Look, I can accept a degree in art, but one which covers only collage seems to be rather limited. Does it include the use of different adhesives to stick the pictures to your chosen background? Do you study the pros and cons of using dried leaves as opposed to, say, petals or seed pods?

    OK, I'm sorry, but it just made me chuckle to read what you had written.

    --
    Have a look at soylentnews.org for a different view
  19. Re:Grrr! Stop stereotyping! by cs668 · · Score: 2, Informative

    With your masters you should be smart enough to know that not everyone falls within the standard deviation....

    Your not typical and if you think you are your not being honest with yourself. There are some older, experienced, legitimate H-1B workers. I never said there were not. But, the vast majority of them are fresh from school and drive down the prevailing wage.

  20. Re:Dunno about your intentions on posting, but... by fartrader · · Score: 5, Funny

    When citizenship is no longer burdened by labor consultants that abuse this, then immigration can be considered. Otherwise:

    Stay Home.

    Naaah. I graduated out of the H-1B program, got a green card, applied for citizenship and married an American. I intend to take over your population with hybrid half UK/US citizens. My invincible army is already TWO strong. We'll own all your jobs, and fill your TV channels with cricket and endless re-runs of "Are You Being Served".

  21. Immigrants once came to the US for opportunity by stbill79 · · Score: 2, Insightful

    though now, I'm willing to bet that bright Americans may be looking to do the same and flee the US for better opportunites in Europe, Asia, and Latin America. Anyone with a feel for numbers need only look at the debt being hoisted onto young Americans via Social Security, Medicare, etc. The system is nothing more than a huge pyramid, and the sucker on the bottom (Gen x, y, millenials) will be the ones left to pay. Add on a few trillion more to bail out Wall Street, foreign wars and other adventures, defecits, etc. and the average young worker in the US starts their career out already in the hole for half a million dollars.

    One needs only look to other countries (e.g. Chile, Argentina, Russia) that have had this same problem recently, and the conclusion is that those that are bright will see the writing on the wall and look for greener pastures abroad.

    The ironic thing is that the typical American loves to spout the mantra about how immigrants left their facist and corrupt homelands in 'Old Europe' in exchange for the freedom and liberty of America. Work hard and you'll do better here was how the story was sold. Of course, when young Americans realize they've been sold out and decide to do the same thing, they'll be labeled terrorists and traitors by the Boomers who need them to support their retirements...

  22. The Feds FINALLY figured out what we already knew by gabrieltss · · Score: 2, Interesting

    I knew these problems existed as early as 1993 - 1995. The consulting company I worked for brought lots of H1-B's from India (becuse they could pay them 1/3 - 1/2 what they paid us) and 90% of them didn't know a darn thing. They all had forged resumes, had lied about degrees, etc... They would get to a cleint site and sit and stare at a screen they aks thousands of questions on how to do the job they wre hired for.

    What they also won't tell you is most - not all - but most people in india have TWO birthday's. Their REAL one and the one they put on all documents (the lie birthday). They use this so they can try to get into school earlier and use it for other ways to "sneak ahead". I know for a fact this goes on from having worked with many people from India. One gal slipped one day and mentioned about her "real" birthday and when I caught her on it I made her explain why she had TWO birthdays. That is how I found out about it.

    Granted I have worked with a few that really did know their head from their @$$. But precentage wise I would say only 1 in 1000 really know their head from their @$$.

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    The Truth is a Virus!!!