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Report Indicates Widespread H-1B Visa Fraud
Vrst1013 notes a Business Week account of a government report examining fraud in the H-1B program. The US Citizenship and Immigration Services just released a report to members of the Senate Judiciary Committee examining issues with fraud and technical violations within this program. Based on a sample size of 246 H-1B petitions, 13.4 percent showed fraud and 7.3 percent showed technical violations, for an overall violation rate of 20.7 percent. There was slso evidence of payment below the prevailing wage, offers of non-existent jobs, and fraudulent documentation. "'The report makes it clear that the H-1B program is rife with abuse and misuse,' says Ron Hira, [a professor] at the Rochester Institute of Technology ... However, both Presidential candidates, Senator Barack Obama and Senator John McCain, have said they support expanding the program."
deja vu
Who the fuck wrote this report? Rick Romero?
Steve's Computer Service, Hobbs, NM
Oh no.. Not AGAIN...
Did we not discuss this just 2 days ago.
The real "Libtards" are the Libertarians!
I'm continually amazed at the H1B visa issue.
Took me 5 min's to come up with a reasonable solution to the issues.
Original Problem: Some companies need skilled employee's that are not available in the US.
Created problems: Many companies like hiring folks from elsewhere because even with associated costs of the visa and transportation it's still a huge cost savings over paying US wages for the same work.
Solution: Have a relatively unlimited pool of available H1B visa's. With the provision that anyone hired must be paid 110% of the prevailing US wage for the work.
That way if they really need skills not available they can get them but there is a real financial incentive to use local talent.
Ward
Ward
. Silence! Be thankful thy species is unpalatable! .
I'm shocked, just shocked. In fact, I'm so shocked that a team of immigrants will be needed to pick my lower jaw up from the floor(no americans are available, I checked, really.).
Seriously though. I'm not opposed to immigration in itself, after all, one of the things that America has consistently gained from is being able to attract skilled and/or motivated people from all over(and, I can't ethically get behind the "America is the land of opportunity for anybody who immigrated before date X, after date X, all immigrants are damn dirty foreigners" type arguments). What I am opposed to is horrid compromise structures that don't work all that well, and provide huge incentives for fraud. If we want immigration, let's reform the process by which people can apply for and obtain legal residency and, ideally, eventually citizenship. If we don't, then let's be straightforward about forbidding it. A bullshit half measure where corporations get to import quasi-indentured labor who are on a sorta-kinda-not-really track to naturalization is the worst of both worlds. All the stuff about immigration that makes nativist labor types nervous, without the benefits of attracting and naturalizing the best, brightest, and most motivated.
Frankly I'm surprised ONLY 7.3% have technical violations. It is an extremely long, complex, and needless process that makes it easy to make mistakes at every step.
There have been books dedicated JUST to the process of US visa application forms, it really is that bad and can take up to or over six months.
I'm sure a lot of fraud goes on... But technical violations is more than likely just people struggling with the system.
So many articles are coming out about the newly discovered h1b abuses, that you might think that, because everybody finally knows about the abuses, the problems will be fixed.
Sorry folks, but the abuses have been well know for nearly a decade.
September 2000
Silicon Valley Uses Immigrant Engineers to Keep Salaries
http://www.projectcensored.org/top-stories/articles/10-silicon-valley-uses-immigrant-engineers-to-keep-salaries/
2002
Enron and the H-1B American Worker Replacement Program
http://www.americanreformation.org/Articles/GlennJackson/EnronandH1BVisas.htm
February 2003
Is Anybody Out There? Is Anyone Listening?
http://www.rense.com/general35/wakeupNHwakeup.htm
Comment removed based on user account deletion
It's not just the corporations who abuse H-1B visas. Virtually all, save a few, of the people brought over on them are useless.
I was at one company who employed fifteen of these people at one point. All of them were very misleading when describing their abilities and experience, and thus were virtually useless to us. If anything, they actually caused us more problems that they ever solved by the mere fact that the code they wrote was pure shit.
They were all from different universities and other academic institutions in India, so it's not like they were from a particularly bad school. Likewise, they were of different ages.
Our main problem was that many of them claimed to be familiar with Java development on Solaris, but the closest experience they actually had was VB.NET on Windows. Some of those fellows even had a cheat sheet translating common VB.NET constructs to Java (albeit incorrectly, in many cases). The others just pestered our North American and European developers with questions and problems that even an intern would be able to quickly solve on their own.
It's a great idea to bring the best and the brightest to America. It'll be great for our economy. The problem is, the existing programs bring over complete shit, who in turn harm our productivity terribly.
These are supposed to be exceptional people to fill a role that an American CAN NOT do. The applicants are a constant stream of Bachelors degree holders from Indian two and three year programs. What is exceptional about cramming for a three year degree and completing it in two years? At least an American program requires some "general knowledge" credits to throw in there.
Require a minimum of a Masters degree, equivalent to a US Masters program, not a cram school.
I think the main problem is that H1B is a group that covers real scientists (with phd etc) and tech support in one bucket.
The only need for H1B right now is to award it to the foreign students who have their masters/Phd from US institutions as it would be a waste to let 50% of the people who graduate with higher degrees (Yes 50% of masters/phd students in universities are foreigners). Ideally we should offer greencards to those people and stop H1B all together.
The main problem is the consulting/shell companies as well as the smaller companies that abuse the system. There should also be minimum capital required by the company to prove they can hire and pay foreign expert workers.
13.4 percent showed fraud and 7.3 percent showed technical violations, for an overall violation rate of 20.7 percent.
That's only accurate if there's NO overlap between fraud and technical violations. I'd expect the overall rate to be significantly lower.
That said, however, ... that's still a large percentage.
Any sufficiently simple magic can be passed off as mere advanced technology.
You mean to tell me that a government program meant to keep wages artificially inflated is being abused? I'm shocked! Corruption in government? Impossible!
Next you'll try to tell me that big companies influence government officials to get favorable copyright legislation.
Maybe not
People say there aren't enough skilled workers, but from what I can, there are too many people in the IT field. We posted for an opening and we had 40+ candidates in under a couple of hours. Many had little to no skills, but who's to say that I would get a better candidate from another country? Besides, if u keep hiring candidates from outside, then how will the non-experienced people that are in the US get the experience they need? We can't support the whole world by saying, come on down. I will get you a job because I don't want to pay the American worker so much money. Well, guess what, you can pay me 15K/yr, or 100K/yr. I still have to pay the same price for everday items that I NEED, forget what I WANT. So, how do I live on the poverty scale, when I went to school in hopes of making more money in the first place?
This video illustrates the problem perfectly: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TCbFEgFajGU
It's 0.29%.
Your comment is a decent guess based only on the summary, but if you actually read the article, you'll find a PDF link to the government report. The report specifically says that all cases of overlap are included in the fraud count, and not the technical violation count, and also gives the exact numbers. So yes, the total is correct. (The summary set off my "I don't think so"-dar the same way, but I went to check the article before I commented.)
both Presidential candidates
You mean Barr and Baldwin? To me, the rest don't matter anyway.
If people could live where ever they wanted, Mexico would long since have been emptied of people. There has to be a cap on it somewhere. I don't know what it should be, but American's have to make money to live. I don't think it has to do with protectionism or xenophobia.
21st Century Renaissance Man
What reasonable justification does the US government have for denying foreigners the same opportunities that American citizens have?
Other countries also deny or restrict foreigners working within their borders. Why should the U.S. be any different? Even to work in Mexico, a U.S. worker has to obtain a work visa, even if only to work in the Mexican office of a U.S. owned company that happens to be a few hundred yards over the border for one day.
If you are not allowed to question your government then the government has answered your question.
So less than a quarter of a .01 of a percent is not meaningful. It just goes to show that Mark Twain was a pretty intelligent person.
"There are three kinds of lies, lies, damnable lies, and statistics." Mark Twain.
21st Century Renaissance Man
Comment removed based on user account deletion
Perhaps they should manage this like the auto CAFE standard. They could call it Corporate Average Salary of H1B or C.A.S.H for short. I figure they can set an average salary of say $120,000 as these are supposed to be high demand positions. Put say a 5% or so increase a year for inflation as well. Any company not meeting the average will be fined.
With this I could foresee companies trying to sabotage their competitors by wooing their top salaried H1B's and ruining their average. Win for H1B's. Not sure if a limit on how many H1B's would be required with this in place.
I was going to mod you up, but I'll comment instead so people understand.
A big part of the problem with the H1B program is that the visas are tied to one employer. A foreigner comes over to work, finds out the job is crappy, and is stuck in the job. She can't find a better job with better pay or better hours. She either works to the end of the visa, or goes back to her country early.
A big improvement to the program would be to cut this tie. Employers would have to compete for H1B workers, just like they have to compete for American workers. This will raise the wages of H1B workers, which will make H1B workers *less* desirable over American workers.
There would be less H1Bs, and the ones that remained would be skilled workers whose skills are genuinely needed.
In summary, better treatment for H1B workers will lead to better wages and more jobs for American workers.
If you had super powers, would you use them for good, or for awesome?
Does this stuff really belong on slashdot? How does it always seem to make it past moderation?
The fact of the matter is that in a global economy, the engineering job belongs to the engineer, be it in a US company with an H-1B visa or in an Indian company without a visa at all.
However, it's just so easy to cave in to the xenophobic argument, as it offers perfect subconscious cover for our basal racism to win out over our better judgement, at least every once in a while.
The senile idiot and outright liar (pick one).
A sample of appx 1200 voters is enough to predict a nationwide election. It is statistically valid, assuming they did things properly, tru;y random sample, blah blah. If you want to decry the statistics go ahead, but the number 246 is not in itself a criticism. You're going to have to go deeper than that to make a valid criticism.
How about a moderation of -1 pedantic.
As an American IT worker, I've never worried about the H-1B worker. Why? Because I'm a well rounded IT worker who has done most if not all of it. I'm not a 10 out 10 on every technology but I have a lot of 7's and 8's and I know more then most about networking, the internet and enterprise computing. I read, I study and I work hard, plus I can communicate effectively and I can lead a team. I'm no better then any other geek or nerd, I just try harder and recognize that what I do for a living is looked at as a cost center in most organizations.
There's no magic here. If you do a good job, communicate well, and are well rounded you should never have to worry about a job. H-1B visa workers are not a threat, they just raise the bar a little bit on native American workers. Ultimately if you are the most valuable choice for a company they will pick you. It's not always about the cheapest laborer.
It's a real pain to work if you don't have a degree.
It so happens that many skilled people out there just learned on their own, because of various circumstances (including poor technical education in their own counties).
The US system leaves no room for those that are good but not "piece of paper good".
I haven't been so shocked since someone told me the sky was blue!
Karma to burn...
Seriously?!? (Without Seth and Amy)
The U.S. President can get the U.S. Supreme Court he wants but you're worrying about some aliens with some fraudulent visa?
I mean, come on, don't you know that, with enough money, you can get everything, even a U.S. citizenship. Or, with less money, a visa. I mean, that's a frekking optimistic good report, only 20% of fraud.
For the price of a U.S. citizenship I can get an XBox-360 with all the game published, and an IPod.
Or, a great American car, like a Mustang (not like the new Ford model featured in the new 'Knight Rider', please). But without gas, too expensive those days...
Oups, and by the way, the US$ don't have a high value those days... In the 80's you could say, what is the difference between one ruble and one dollar? The answer? One dollar. Those days are quite over (for now?).
And to finish a long presidency, after a non necessary war costing $1 trillion, some shame like Katrina, Abu Ghraib, Gantanamo, the Supreme Court buyout.... well, some aliens. Things are not that bad, aren't they?
--- Bouh !!! ---
(Posted as AC because I don't want this to be a debate about me personally, rather the situation.)
I'm polite, friendly and articulate. I'm smart. I come pre-educated (at great expense to myself, my parents, and the taxpayers of my Commonwealth country). I have a university degree in computing and over 5 years of subsequent professional computing/IT work experience, not to mention all the tech work I did while studying. And I've decided for various reasons that I would like to take my earning opportunity and work in the United States.
I would be looking at jobs paying a minimum of $80,000, almost all of which I would put back into the US economy. Because I'm educated and highly employable, I would not be a burden on the social security system. I'll rent an apartment and thus will not be needing a sub-prime mortgage. I will be boosting your economy and creating jobs to help you employ more US citizens, so you can't even argue "I'm taking the job of an American".
All the stereotypes seem sadly true - if I was Mexican, I'd be welcome to come and clean your hotels; if I was from some war-torn country, I might be welcome as a refugee.
I want to pay taxes in your country. Why shouldn't the US be falling over itself to grant me a work permit? Why can't I have a H-1B visa, please?
I sincerely hope they catch my fucking company in this fraud case. It really treats us like slaves.
The next president will be taking any "excess" money you earn to redistribute it to those who struggle harder, in the form of "tax credits", because those folks are too proud to ask for welfare.
Doh, I fail at decimal places! You are right, 0.29%... still a meaningless sample group =P
Nothing stopping USA IT workers from working for the same wage, or finding another profession.
Bullshit, dumb fuck.
You try supporting a family on the piddly bullshit you pay your H1Bs. You only want to pay people at the lowest wage so YOU can take home a bigger paycheck.
My blog
It's "visas", "mins" and "employees". It really is a shame that you don't know your native language. People would probably take you seriously if you did.
'The report makes it clear that the H-1B program is rife with abuse and misuse,' says Ron Hira, [a professor] at the Rochester Institute of Technology... However, both Presidential candidates, Senator Barack Obama and Senator John McCain, have said they support expanding the program.
The only problem with that is that John McCain has Carly Fiorina of HP infamy on his staff. She failed at HP and now wants influence at the national level. No such equivalent is on the Obama's staff or any other candidate.
Both major candidates might "support" it, but Satyam, Infosys, and others have their money largely on McCain.
Twitter supports and protects racists - by smearing their critics with the "Hate Speech" label.
You try supporting a family on the piddly bullshit you pay your H1Bs.
First of all read the subject, I was (semi) joking.
Secondly, when is this BS propaganda about H1Bs being paid less than US workers going to go away? Read the actual report, the subject of this entire conversation and then we can talk.
Here is the link for you: http://grassley.senate.gov/private/upload/100820081-3.pdf
Go to the page 9, section 2. Beneficiary not receiving the prevailing wage...
Total of 14 out of 246 cases surveyed received less than the prevailing wage. Out of those, 5 were procedural errors so only 9 were deemed as fraud. It doesn't mention how many were receiving a wage above the prevailing wage so it is perfectly possible (I would say probable) that the average wage received by H1Bs is actually higher than the prevailing wage paid to US workers.
How is that for piddly bullshit?
Negative moral value of force outweighs the positive value of good intentions.
The solution: Bring down the Federal government so we can defend out land from invasion.
Seastead this.
Statistics can be abused in so many ways to portray "seriousness" and "authorithy" that it's not even funny. General public will gloss over it and believe that the analysis is correct only because it's done with numbers.
Statistics... next to useless in political contexts.
Let people live wherever they want. What reasonable justification does the US government have for denying foreigners the same opportunities that American citizens have? Protectionism and xenophobia don't count as reasonable justifications.
Uh, because this is our country, not yours. Is that sufficient? India, China, every other country on earth makes that distinction. It's why were all sovereign nations. This is our sandbox ... if you want to play in it, you play by our rules.
When in Rome, you shoot Roman candles. Deal with it: you're not entitled to pig a share of our goodies "just because."
The higher the technology, the sharper that two-edged sword.
Truly I am, that foreigners would come to America to 'take our jobs'. How long has this been an issue with everyone in technical fields? It's not that employers can't find qualified citizen candidates, it's just that they don't want to pay a fair and honest wage for Americans to work for them when they can exploit desperate immigrants. You know what that's called? Indentured servitude. It's been happening in this country since the Pilgrims landed at Plymouth Rock. However, in this case, it's government sanctioned indentured servitude.
Sig this!
let people live wherever they want
I was going to mod you up.
Odd, I was going to mod him down with a -1 Ignorant.
The higher the technology, the sharper that two-edged sword.
I don't want any H-1B Visa issued period.
Train American workers instead.
Nobody gives a fuck about what you want [except maybe your mom].
If you don't like it, you can suck my fucking cock.
Thank you for your cooperation.
Companies are merely exploiting this. Take away the inequality, and they will have no situation to exploit. I am not afraid to compete for jobs on a level playing field. I've asked a few H1Bs whether they were being exploited, and they all said no. But I suppose that's about the same as asking a prostitute whether she willingly chose her line of work. On the other hand, that's a kind of can't win question of the "does this dress make me look fat?" sort.
The first inequality is the terms of H1B employment. If we let people into the US in such a way that companies have no leverage over them, that would stop the abuse. End this requirement that they have to leave almost immediately if they lose their job, and don't make them jump through a bunch of hoops to change jobs.
The second inequality is the miserable conditions in their home countries that gives teeth to the threat to fire them and send them home. No quick fix for that one. Will be years before wages and conditions have equalized sufficiently throughout the world.
Oh, and you all missed another way to cheat the system. Classify a job as something cheaper than what it really is. Hire the H1Bs for development work, but classify them as testers or some such.
Intellectual Property is a monopolistic, selfish, and defective concept. It is "tyranny over the mind of man"
The concept of skills, pay and visas will be largely irrelevant in the distant future. The United States was a good gig for many, but its time is up. The trend of reverse migration is slowly staring to happen and I will give it another 5-10 years before things will settle down where U.S. imports of qualified IT workers equal the exports of the same.
There is nothing to do in the U.S. nowadays. If you are qualified, you have a great chance of getting a job in India or somewhere in Asia that pays you way more in terms of purchasing power. Why would you move to Silicon Valley or elsewhere in the U.S. to enjoy high real estate prices and things such as paid medical services and extremely expensive child care? This does not make sense to foreigners. In fact, there is a growing market for IT workers who have experience in the U.S. Many Asian companies realize that crunching Java code does not get you ahead. Leadership and knowing how to do business do that. And the U.S. is the country you go to start a business or learn the ropes of capitalism. It is pretty simple to start a business here and general rules of conduct are lax as well. Why not learn things here and bring them abroad? Things are getting worse here and better in India and China. It only makes sense to go back!
The second aspect that will drive foreign workers back is the fact that many of them, just like many Americans, are not really matched well with jobs. If I had to pay a sum of money to get a certain job done, as an employer I would prefer the lower sum. However, if the job does not get done for what I am paying an employee, then I must select a new employee and possibly offer more money to broaden the pool of interested candidates. The selection process is really what counts. If there is a qualified candidate from India, China or Russia, then be it. If there is a qualified American there is no harm in hiring that person as well. Competition only makes things better and if we can hire good candidates from across the globe, then why the hell not? I see no point in hiring a *cheap* visa-based employee over expensive native if the visa-based worker cannot get his shit done. And this is where Americans tend to win. Based on my non-scientific observations a large fraction of H-1 employees are in IT because they had a choice between screwing with computer software or becoming doctors (their own words). Anything else would equal to them not succeeding in the eyes of their parents (usually Indian). I know quite a few former IT professions -- all Americans -- who left the field to pursue other interests. They did not care about their careers because in U.S. there is no stigma associated with not being an engineer. It appears that things are different in countries that supply most of the H-1 visa employees as many of them simply did not have a choice about their profession due to some cultural or family norms. As a result we have crowds of mindless candidates who went to C-level schools and who have no interest in the field. I say fuck them. Nothing really against those people, but I do not mean to treat them any differently from U.S. born citizens or legal immigrants who just do not match with the jobs in IT.
Things will eventually settle down. If you are competent in your field you'll find a job either here or somewhere abroad.
I also hold an H-1B, although I'm a Canadian citizen.
Here are two other problems:
1. No medical checks until the very end of the (optional) green card process. Presumably, an employee running around with TB could be spreading it for years without knowing who it was. Bad for US citizens and lawful aliens. A medical exam should be completed prior to entry into the country.
2. Lack of grace period upon job loss. I'm expected to leave in 10 days flat. If you have an apartment full of stuff, it's kinda tough to pull it all together in that timeframe, lest the BCIS agents come to take you away.
3. Lack of typical state benefits upon job loss. If I lose my job, I pay into unemployment but I'm not allowed to collect even to get back what I paid in. Furthermore, I can't collect unemployment from my home country. That means I need to stash money away for that contingency that I could've used elsewhere.
The solution is an indexed and independently audited visa system whereby visa holders get a provisional permanent green card pending medical, educational and experience qualifications at a rate that doesn't exceed the displacement of professionals already in the country above NAIRU, applicant-funded with additional funds set aside automatically for otherwise standard benefits of a citizen. This is the problem that Canada has in dumping a bunch of people from other countries into the workforce where there are already too few tech jobs (although Canada's bigger problem is where professionals can't be credentialed and end up having a worse standard of living than back in their home country driving a taxi).
It would be nice to live in the world that respects your statement. Unfortunately, it is not the case because many countries require the same boring stuff -- visas, etc. -- from Americans seeking jobs overseas.
If one could move anywhere around the world, I would be typing this message from my home office in Patagonia or from a ranch in South Africa. Unfortunately, I can't hop on a plane, move there and say "respect me, betches." Many countries protect their citizens and legal permanent immigrants with laws that govern not only what a potential immigrant may do, but also what industry he or she needs to work in. I have thought of dedicating my life to working in less fortunate places and it was quite a shock to find out how many restrictions some third world countries place on skilled employees who want to move in. We do exactly the same and until the wold opens up, it is going to be quite hard to live in only country with open borders.
I hear you on your thought, but seriously good luck on that.
It's obvious that very few people have a good understanding of the H-1 visas as they stand today. Once you have an H-1, you are FREE to move to any job of your liking. The only condition is that you have 3 months worth of pay stubs from your current employer. H-1 transfers are relatively easy and do not count towards the yearly caps. So, technically, you are "bonded" to the company for a maximum of three months and then you are free to do as you please.
Also, prevailing regulations mandate that any employee on an H-1 be paid 100% of the going rate. I am currently on a H-1 and I can tell you that I am certainly not contributing to any wage deflation. I get paid well more than industry average for new graduates in the field. It is in fact more expensive for the company to here me since they have to pay for my visa processing etc. There is obviously is a shortfall somewhere. Abuse is rife, I will agree, but what needs to be ensured is that real companies with real requirements are not disadvantaged by this unscrupulous percentage of applicants.
"Why should the U.S. be any different?"
Because the US is better?
'However, both Presidential candidates, Senator Barack Obama and Senator John McCain, have said they support expanding the program.'
Along with every other significant abuse.
I'm from the US.
Yes other countries have similar systems, with similar problems - and even local bitching stupid stuff like "don't let them Americans take my job!"
if you will bother to read I-129 petition and instructions how to complete it and which papers should be submitted to USCSI along w/ I-120 then you will see that USCIS does _NOT_ require any paystubs... they might send an RFE asking for paystubs as a proof of status, but they don't do this in every single case... so even paystubs are not mandatory and the worse case scenario - they will approve I-129 w/o extending your status (your will get I-797 notice of approval w/o I-94 card attached) - so just buy a round-trip ticket and get your status (that is I-94 w/ H-1B1 and date of expiration written by USCIS officer) on your way back using H1 approval... simple... of course your H1 visa stamp in your passport must be still valid to reenter the country...
NOW for our uneducated american friends - there is a visa stamp (in passport), there is a visa approval (I-797, notice of approval) and there is a visa status (H-1B1 non-immigrant)... your future employer (sponsor) files I-129 (and supporting paperwork) to USCIS, USCIS approves I-129 and sends I-797 to your employer, your employer sends I-797 to you abroad, you visit US consulate and get H1 visa stamp in passport based on I-797 notice of approval, you fly here, you show your passport w/ visa stamp to USCIS officer along w/ I-797 notice of approval, he writes on your I-94 cars "H-1B1" and the date of expiration - well now you have the non-immigrant status... that I-94 card is your status... so called "H1 transfer" is just an extension of your stay in H-1B1 status w/ permission to work for another sponsor.
----
truly yours,
former H1 (1998), former GC holder (2001), now US citizen (2008).
With the recent financial crisis it is clear that you guys cannot take care of yourselves and in the process when you piss you wet the rest of the worlds pants too... so yeah we will come we will keep coming legally illegally h1b l1 on the back of a truck any fucking way we can till everybody has the same living standard. EVERYONE IS UNDER THE SAME SUN.
People who create archives as chunked RAR files should be shot. People who then zip them up into a single ZIP w/o extracting them first are as gay as HIV.
Oh well. Ten years was a good ride.
Honestly, with such a small sample, the likelihood that the sample has some sort of bias corrupting the analysis is quite high. One would be exceedingly naive to take the results at face value without some evidence that the sample was done properly.
Here's another reason why the US government might be justified in denying foreigners the same opportunities as US citizens: the US government exists to protect the interests of US citizens, and US citizens select those who form the legislative branch of our government. The US government has no intrinsic duty or obligation to non-citizens, though should the electorate desire to extend privileges to foreign workers (as we have) the US government can put that into effect under the principle of serving our interests.
This is the natural and idealized mandate of any government - to serve the interests of the citizens who delegate part of their intrinsic rights of self-determination to their government.
You are right, I hope somebody mods you up. I'm going to be in same situation in about 2-3 years. If I were an illegal immigrant I would most likely be in better situation as they are supposed to get their path to citizenship as long as they pay minimal fines. As skilled and respected worker my chances of getting green card are in this retarded process or green card lottery. In case those fail I will be packing, which I most likely do gladly after going through such a process.
If people could live where ever they wanted, Mexico would long since have been emptied of people.
No, it is protectionist, and the above statement is just fucking retarded for a number of reasons.
If people left Mexico wholesale, then eventually the price of real estate in Mexico would drop. Companies would begin to view that real estate as an attractive investment for developing things like factories, office buildings, nuclear power plants, and so forth. This development would increase the economic viability of the region, create more jobs, and eventually the distribution of people between Mexico and America would equalize.
What is so god-damn important about you and the rest of us "Americans" that we thing we have the god-given right to an artificially inflated wage? Why is it that everyone in America touts capitalist as the be-all, end-all theory of economics, but then when we try to facilitate free and fair competition in the labor market, everyone bitches? Wouldn't that raise the well-being of the average world citizen? And wouldn't a lower cost of labor result in lower prices on all goods, potentially increasing everyone's real income?
It is implicitly protectionist because what we are doing is raising the average well-being of the American citizen by paying them an inflated wage, when we know that we could raise the average well-being of the world citizen at the cost of some well-being to Americans.
The fact that we are not willing to do so means that yes, we are greedy, nationalistic, protectionist, and xenophobic. Believing anything else is rationalizing away the ugly truth about your own morality, or lack of it, and fighting against free competition makes you a hypocrite if you call yourself a capitalist.
Why don't you go join China? I bet you'd fit in great there.
You're a hypocrite, a mercantilist, a nationalist, and a racist. However, of all the things I do consider you to be, I don't consider you to be a capitalist. Why is that everyone here in "the land of the free" goes on and on about how free markets are the end-all, be-all of economic theory, and yet when it's suggested that we make the labor market a free market, everyone starts bitching?
It's because they're afraid of competition and they're greedy, short-sighted assholes. Why don't you go join China? We don't fucking want you here, hypocrite, and you'd fit in better with those protectionist, isolationist dickwads.
Fine, sounds good. So I presume that all protectionist crap will be removed. We will be getting food at Indian prices, electronics at Chinese prices, consumer goods, etc?
The reason we cant do that is because regulation, unionised labour etc. drive up costs. This is actually a good thing from the perspective of net societal welfare (actually it looks like it is a good thing from the perspective of pure growth too given that high GDP growth and well regulated markets occur in tandem).
Problem with globalisation is that companies only want to globalise labour. And they want to globalise it in the sense of de facto reducing all labour laws to the most lax possible. They want the regulation that acts as a form of protectionism for themselves, but they want labour to get none.
The H-1B program is symptomatic of just such a desire. Basically indentured servitude. So I will make you a deal. The day costs of goods and services in the the West are parallel with costs in a currently developing country I will agree to globalising labour, unrestricted immigration with immigrants having exactly the same rights as citizens.
Until that day don't think you are fooling anyone with your ridiculous greed.
Hire the smarted guy you can find.
Trying to keep smart people out of the country is stupid.
paintball
Ignoring the fact that the correct figure is 0.29%, how is 0.0029% less than 0.0025% ?
McCain wants cheap labour to undermine the local labour force, to aid his corporate pals.
Obama wants his relatives and their friends to have free passage to undermine the white power base.
Err, and those who oppose it oppose it for the opposite reasons.
It's not rocket science.
Yes, we saw the same thing happen about 4 years back. We had several phone interview candidates that turned into pumpkins before arriving at our office. We were each doing 5-10 phone interviews a week. It was pretty obvious when someone showed up with radically different language skills and technical knowledge. One only lasted a week.
One group posted a list of H1-B only job openings on wall at the entrance of their area. That lasted a week before someone pointed out that was killing morale.
That would have the exact same effect as doing away with H-1Bs altogether. So, I think you've discovered why it *really* exists in the first place, huh?
It is a lot harder to manage remote development than it is to bring cheap labor into local offices near the business users and analysts. Most places would be better off with smaller, better led and trained colocated staff than they are with mounds of cheap labor.
The problems with the interview process are often more fundamental. Managers often wanted to staff a project before the project was well defined so that "they would be ready to go". This caused us to hire at a rate high than we could absorb and sometimes with the wrong skill set.
The US immigration "policy" since Reagan (rot in hell, Ron) was only ever about cheap labor. Lower cost == bigger profit.
It's been interesting to see the arc of H1-B being an issue. 10 years ago a lot of the "we're superior beings, we don't need a union" developer types argued only the best and brightest would be allowed in.
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This struggle is about rich & poor and brother, we ain't rich.
True, but it's still 14 out of 51 violations, which is 27% of the overall violations. And these 246 cases may prove to be an inadequate sample. I suggest that actual number of violations may actually be *higher*. I have first-hand knowledge of several H1Bs making less than the prevailing wage. In one case, an Oracle DBA and developer here on an H1B was making less than $40k a year. That's just outright egregious considering the amount of knowlege and training are necessary to do the job.
My blog
And then the system would get more abused as these workers disappear.
This also means that when they have no work they are still in the US and not sent home.
A better solution is make them transferable to another company.
Mark Twain did not say that first, in fact, he attributed it (incorrectly) to Disraeli, who also did not say it. It was apparently said by another Brit politician, giving a speech in the US, I would look up his name, but I gotta go to work now.
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"Proximity to wonder has blunted our perception and appreciation of it" --Tim Hartnell in 'Exploring ARTIFICIAL INTELLIGENCE ON YOUR COMMODORE 64'
stupid slashdot sig length limit..bleh...
"Proximity to wonder has blunted our perception and appreciation of it" --Tim Hartnell in 'Exploring ARTIFICIAL INTELLI
This is only partly facetious, but look at the UK - they give better rights to foreigners than the natives!
It's only partly facetious because a UK citizen needs to pay £500 for a spousal visa if their spouse is from outside the EU. EU citizens living in the UK pay nothing at all.
bang goes my karma... again...
I concur but would go further. In my experience, it's the less developed nations that have the most stringent requirements for visas. This also seems to apply to setting up businesses, owning property, dealing with the local government in a business capacity etc. It's not strange that there's a correlation between onerous burocracy and an appalling lack of development.
bang goes my karma... again...
The H1B program is deeply flawed and unfair. Big companies can exploit loopholes and it works out very cheaply.
But for single or small numbers of workers the fees are marginally smaller and the requirements are odious.
They limit when you can apply, force you to pay a fee and then give no guarantee that your application will be processed in time. What do you do when you apply on the first day you're allowed but the VISA still isn't processed months after the job ended. I know people this happened to.
If the government is going to treat seasonal migrant workers like that (and greatly inconvenience small businesses) then they're going to end up with a situation where the only people using the system are people who aim to exploit it.
They're actually making it impossible or unreasonably difficult for companies to do business and to get the best people through their own incompetence and insistence on treating everyone like criminals. If you don't use lawyers to manipulate the system you're stopped dead in your tracks.
the more they over-think the plumbing the easier it is to stop up the pipe
I was in the Us for about 2 years on TN visas but would have liked to get the H1-B and would have been willing to stay longer (I am Canadian), I was working as a ldap expert doing contract work and worked with Apple and EDS on the GM contract yet when my contract company applied for my H1-B that year 3 times as many applications hit the office in the morning as there where H1-B visas for. Mine was one of them yet I never got one. Then turn around and find a guy working at a McDonnalds as I believe assistant manager who got one of the H1-B's that year. Kind of puts a sour taste in ones mouth that a skilled worker in demand can't get one but a bugger flipper can.
There are way more Indians and Asians, than US students, studying STEM at the graduate level.
Wanting to have sane economic policies, and to put an end to fraud and abuse is not "xenophobia."
Global market you say? Okay, that means that no other countries have any form of protectionism, right? For example, India does not protect their agricultural markets from other countries, right?
Two H1-B posts in as many weeks. Nice.
While many seem to know about the plight of H1-B holders, a large number are still ignorant. Not that it's bad to be ignorant, but pause judgment without knowing stuff. End rant.
Facts:
1. H1-B is tied to an employer and its is a DUAL INTENT visa (more in point 3)
2. Lose your job, lose your status to be legally in the country. No such thing as "grace period" as suggested by someone in last week's discussion. Of course, USCIS doesn't do anything until you go to them in the future.
3. H1-B is the less agonizing way to become a permanent resident(aka Green Card). Family based permanent resident option will take lifetime. Besides, not everyone has family in the US.
4. If you are born in India or China it takes roughly about half the generation time before you see "Green Card" these days.
5. Green card is technically for the future job defined by the legislation. Seriously, are companies supposed to advertise and sponsor for the person who will be joining them a decade down the road?
Reality: Sponsor for the job that the employee holds NOW. In that period, no "significant" change of duties or compensation is allowed.
Why H1-B wages are low? combine 1, 2 & 5 and add "employers"(read: consulting companies) and you get the situation we are in.
BTW, there are hundreds of thousands of green card applications pending with USCIS for lack of available green cards.
The solution?
Create an easy path to permanent residency (Green Card) like most countries already have in place. Simple.
PS: I do have a slashdot account, but usually a lurker(When is OpenID coming to slashdot?).
The US is going though some tough times, but it's still a lot better than slave labor China, or impoverished third world nations like India.
Just thought I'd mention it.
Get real, who do you think you're kidding.
I see IT job ads, all the time, offering $15 an hour, or less, for college graduates with tech degrees. STEM is dying in the USA. After the election, the situation will get much worse. Get used to it.
Manufacturing died in the USA in the 1980s, IT is dying in the USA now.
I've had the exact opposite experience.
We interviewed every single person, chose the ones we wanted and hired them and they've all been fantastic.
Mandatory unpaid overtime? What, don't you work in IT? It doesn't matter where you are in the world, everyone has mandatory unpaid overtime when you are salaried.
I've probably worked the equiv of 2 jobs since graduating college some 20 years ago. I'm a USA citizen, born here. For about a year, I did work 2 jobs at the same company to "get ahead." 8 hours during the day, I wrote GN&C software. 8 hours at night, I worked on government proposals, unpaid. I did get recognition ... 3x "$100 dinner out" checks over 5 years. I feel good about that, not.
Then I moved to a government contract that required 10 hours of free overtime per person. Hummm. Yes, that is correct, the government contract required that we worked the same more more free that the rest of the company workers did without a contract. On that contract, the government agency recognized my teams' excellent work with $2k each for "significant value to the advancement of aerospace technology." That's 3 years gone. I have the certificate up in my office.
Then I moved to an internet start up in the mid-1990s - nuff said? 80+ hours per week there. Crazy travel - like 12 hours notice before getting on a plane to Tokyo, Israel, Korea. Stock options. Er in pay off the car amounts ($15k) when we were bought out. No bonuses. 1 team building trip to Cancun for fun - 17 of us. THAT was fun, until we all got sick from ice in our drinks the last day and for about a month after.
I like the idea of requiring overpayment for H1B workers. 110% isn't enough - too close to call with the real wage. Rather, set the wage to the highest wage in the USA (NYC?) + 10% more. That would force more work to be performed off shore, which helps my current "howto offshore" consulting business.
This is a very personal comment. I am going to India tomorrow because the United States Govt. does not want me to work in the US. A company though, wants me to, so I am going to be working from India for the same company (and in my case, making the same amount of money).
I also wanted to start a company, but given the US visa restricions, I am going to have to do so in India.
Background -- I just graduated with a masters from MIT. Serious.
IF H1B visa must be paid >= avg wage THEN only US workers can be paid avg wage
I am an American Engineer. American Engineers have not kept up with inflation or the real cost of living over the last 10 years. One of reasons is that I and many others are competing with H1B visa people, the vast amount of H1B visas is actually forcing down the "prevailing wage". Look: salaries of Engineers would be much higher if there were fewer of them in this country.
After the 2000 dot-com bust this administration let in 300,000 technical people that year and 280,000 the next year. Over 700,000 technical people are out of work and we flood the market with another 580,000...absolutely shameful.
I had 105 engineers work for me and I had to lay them off when we closed a location in Raleigh, NC. A year later only 30% had found technical jobs. Over 40% went into new carriers and said good-by to their 4 year engineering degrees.
I don't understand why this government thinks they have the right to ruin peoples careers, and set salaries, by allowing the market to be flooded with competitors to us.
This is one reason the middle class has not kept up with the cost of living over the last 8 years.
"A big part of the problem with the H1B program is that the visas are tied to one employer."
This is not quite accurate.
While the visa is tied to one employer, once you have one visa it's relatively easy to transfer it to another employer. Visa transfers are not subject to the annual quotas, and they don't need to go through the full H1-B visa application process so it takes much less time to complete than the initial H1-B visa application process.
You can also have multiple H1-B visas, although I have never heard of anyone who actually did that.
In Soviet Russia, I ruled you
I am amazed when it comes to saving one'e own butts people go to lenghts to blame others!!. Its an old American saying "Best person for the job" then why hue and cry when someone is hired who is non American national. Not all H1s are avg. guys, some are very bright specially one's who are graduating from good universities with Masters and PhD degrees. American corporations give Americans full oppurtunity to get them hired such as lowering GPA to 2.75 from what International student is asked which is GPA 3.5. Companies which are in any way related to Federal work they hire only American Citizens. One should be competent enough to face competition, it's not H1s that are creating the problem but it's the American Capatalistic mentality which can go to any length to lower down their expenses. Today they are hiring Indians and Chinese tomorrow they will hire East Europeans and Philipinos if they are more cheap to hire to increase big corporations profits. Competent people are always hired not matter what.
People talk about reforming the process and a sensible immigration system. But for that you need to have representatives who actually get to the root of the problem.
The anti-H1 visa groups and the pro-H1 visa groups both don't trivialize the situation by equating people to percentages and numbers. Here is what they don't realize:
1) There are real people on both sides of the argument, those who are waiting in lines for an eternity to contribute properly and those that lose their jobs to people who are nowhere near the skills needed to perform the job.
2) USCIS (The organization that handles all the paper-work for H1 visa or even other immigration) is seriously understaffed to handle any form of processing in a timely and orderly manner.
3) Rightwing radio hosts, Corporations and dubious charity funded public policy organizations confuse the matter to no end. They look at individual pieces of the puzzle and come up with numbers that mislead the already confused politicians.
4) From Zoe Lofgren to Ron Hira, all of them have political agendas instead of real solutions to solve any policy problems.
Case in point is yours truly. I happen to be from India. My parents are US citizens, I have waited in line since 1997 to immigrate on a family sponsorship (just like Ron Hira might have). I came to America, completed my graduate studies and my Ph.D. and got employed by a small non-profit organization to do research that was funded by the US government. I have never violated any laws (federal or state), I have always paid all my taxes and I am paid a prevailing wage that I am satisfied with(unlike some of the contractors that make political contributions to Ms. Lofgren). My organization has tried to file for a green card so that I can work for a longer time and try and become a part of the society after spending nearly 8 years here.
No one seems to offer any solutions to the problems that I have seen. I feel like that person trying to apply for food-stamps after working two jobs and still being denied that basic right because he/she makes just enough money to be above the poverty line.
So my friends, should I drink the kool-aid? Or should I hope that people will see the bigger picture and make a fair judgment?
Touche, I've always heard it that way, but didn't know Twain didn't say it. Thanks for the insight.
21st Century Renaissance Man
So you must enjoy working for $7.00 an hour. Try living in Chicago where the average unskilled job pays $7.00 an hour, you work 12 hour shifts, and you work 7 days a week. Oh yeah, and the cheapest place to live is over $800 a month for a rat infested 2 bedroom apartment. Don't bitch about how bad Americans are until you've tried to live where a majority of the people are illegal aliens, and the employers know this.
21st Century Renaissance Man
Hey, you're a fucking idiot. Do you think I want to compete for your "average unskilled job" that only pays $7/hour? No. Do you think I'm stupid enough to live in a place like Chicago, where living expenses are high due to high real estate values, when I don't have something better than an "average unskilled job" to support myself? No. So quit bitching, turn into a "rational agent," and either train for a better job or move to the fucking rural areas where the cost of living is cheaper and you can live out your life mopping floors, flipping hamburgers, mixing lattes, or whatever brain-dead task it is that you call a "career."
Nobody has ever been under the illusion that you could really live comfortably on a minimum-wage job. That's the motivator that we all have to do well in school, continue our educations, polish our resumes, and apply real jobs.
Don't expect to live a happy life if your "job" is wiping some rich asshole's, well, asshole for him.
"Average unskilled job." Ha. You think I give a fuck?
1. Stop all imports (for e.g. Chinese Products,Indian Services, Arab Oil)
2. Spend (or Invest) all your cash
3. Impose fine on people refusing to spend (or invest) their cash.
I'd like to buy homeland for our 10 million people. http://twitter.com/mahadiga
I've continually watched my employer cherry pick the cheapest Indian workers for about 5 years now. I can't tell that they are any more skilled than their US counterparts; in fact the opposite is true. Our best and brightest software developers are local to our city (here in the midwest where there seems to be a hive for Indians). They are my friends and I have listened to them lament the H1B system. The wait is forever. If you change your job, then you have to start over waiting. This is where the employer abuse sets in; because they know they can work them hard and put them up wet.
I am a BSEE and I am nearly 60. I have been working since I was about 20 and have paid the US Government over 1 Million dollars in taxes. I may be selfish but I think that entitles me to some protection by my government from the onslaught of H1-B visas. The criteria should not be "is some H1-B visa person better than I am for the same job" but "can I do the job". Look: many of us engineers are over 50 now and the sheer number of H1-B visas and wages they are willing to take are putting some of us on the sidelines. That is not right!
USians, this is the solution: make proper free trade agreements with other countries.
Look at the experience in Europe: as long as the job markets are let alone to do their own thing people come and go freely and compete in equal terms with the local populations. This certainly has an impact downwards in wages, but gives an incentive to people to be better prepared and more flexible.
Although there was an original influx from poorer countries to richer ones eventually this stabilized and in some cases the flow started in the other way (rich countries were not flooded by Spanish, Portuguese and Greeks who helped to keep strong other economies like Germany and the UK, at the same time wealthy people in Germany and the UK can move to invest in cheaper places elsewhere. Win win for everybody).
Where there are no agreements to this regard people continued to migrate but became part of the black or grey economy. And those people really came in big numbers: North Africans to Spain, Balkan people to Germany, West Africans and Indian subcontinent people to the UK.
Open your borders and the problem will be gone.
IANAL but write like a drunk one.
Remove the immigration laws, and every job turns into unskilled labor. Educated people from India, Russia, or any third world country would gladly move here and work for half of what you make. That was the parallel I was trying to make. That's why you can't get help from English speaking people when you call tech support. Stop whining about how bad America (specifically xenophobic) is until you've tried to make it where cheap labor is the norm. By the way, I am working on my education, and I live quite comfortably in rural America unloading trucks, an unskilled labor job. I bet I make pretty close to what you do.
21st Century Renaissance Man
You probably make more, considering I'm an undergraduate student of Economics funded partially by a tuition-refund merit-based scholarship, partially by government subsidy, and partially by technical work for the university that I go to school at (video recording, editing, and production).
Half of the current mean wage for most of the jobs I'm looking at would still be $40,000/year (think Human Resources Manager or Purchasing Manager), which is way more than enough to live comfortably and still have money to invest towards early retirement (yes, I'm aware that nobody starts at the mean wage, but it is a good barometer of potential achievement and likely only requires 5-10 years of relevant experience).
People here truly are xenophobic. Look to history ... observe how "yellow terror" hysteria caused our government to further reduce the rather arbitrary immigration quota restrictions on immigration from China in the early 1900's.
The ONLY justification for that is that Americans like to force companies to overpay for labor, and then keep foreigners out, because they enjoy being overpaid for their services. Nevermind that the price floor on labor is creating a black market for labor (which is less efficient and encourages abuse of workers), sinking our economy by encouraging businesses to do business elsewhere, and damaging our status as a world superpower by ensuring that businesses and laborers pay income taxes into systems and governments other than our own.
Democracy fails because the voters tend to elect the politician who promises them the biggest slice of the government's treasury. Except in this case, it's failing because we elect the politicians who promise us the biggest slice of corpoerate America's treasury.
Now that is an argument that I can agree with. I just don't agree with unlimited immigration. I do wish American companies would stay on American soil, with American workers.
21st Century Renaissance Man