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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
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.
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?
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.
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 !!! ---
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.
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?
Two reasons:
1. There are tens of thousands of U.S Citizens who have the same education and experience as you who would also love to make that $80,000.
and more importantly...
2. There are tens of thousands of Indians who have the same education and experience as you who would love to do that job for $40,000.
If you are not allowed to question your government then the government has answered your question.
'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.
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!
I don't want any H-1B Visa issued period.
Train American workers instead.
Nope, just bunch of H1B peoples....
4wdloop
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.
"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.
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.
So basically, you're a short-sighted greedy asshole and a bad capitalist with no grasp of economics and no appreciation for the benefits of a liquid labor market and a lower cost of labor.
What, are you scared of competition? Are you too uneducated to realize that a lower cost of labor would lead to lower product costs, and in turn to a higher real income for you and everyone else?
Why don't you go to China with the rest of the protectionist, nationalist, mercantile assholes.
These are supposed to be exceptional people to fill a role that an American CAN NOT do.
And why is that? What is so god damn important about hiring "Americans" when if we just relaxed immigration and labor restrictions, these people could easily be Americans?
You're just nationalistic, protectionist, greedy, and implicitly racist. What is so damn important about you that we have to hire you over everyone else in the world? Because you live here? Because working at an artificially inflated wage is some god-given right you have? What about everyone else?
I thought this was supposed to be the land of modern capitalism, of free and liquid markets (and yes, the labor market is a market). But whenever immigration comes up everyone stops valuing fair competition. Why is that?
And why don't you realize that a lower cost of labor has benefits for the consumer?
Why are Americans such fucking hypocrites? You should go to China, and live there with the rest of the mercantile racists, you fucking dickwad.
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.
The senile idiot and outright liar (pick one).
How do you know he's not talking about Obama?
paintball
Hire the smarted guy you can find.
Trying to keep smart people out of the country is stupid.
paintball
Are you too uneducated to realize that a lower cost of labor would lead to lower quality, and in turn to a lower real income for you and everyone else?
Corrected.
Twitter supports and protects racists - by smearing their critics with the "Hate Speech" label.
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.
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.
--
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
Lower quality goods only exist because people buy them. There will always be normal goods and inferior goods. But if you lower the costs of any input of production, prices across the board can all be lowered relatively. It won't happen immediately because of sticky prices, but in general when prices are lowered the economy will benefit. It's important to think about the prices of the basket of goods that you buy compared to the amount of money you make, not just the amount of money you make. That's your real income.
Were you really competing for jobs mopping floors, flipping hamburgers, and washing dishes recently? Is it really worth a ~$7 minimum wage to work those jobs? Or are wages (and in turn prices) being artificially inflated by a price floor on labor?
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.
--
"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...
He's right. I don't know why people think they can earn higher wages and that won't some how affect the cost of products and services.
There will always be a poor, middle and rich class unless you want to live the communist dream then you may be able to cut that down to two classes. the "normal" and rich class.
Rich people aren't just going to let people below them have higher wages and devalue their wealth. They will let you have a higher wage but bump up the price of everything else to keep their gap between your wealth and theirs.
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.
I'll agree with you, right after China and India open up their immigration rules so that I can take my high wage, American job earnings and spend them in the low-wage countries.
And besides, what's wrong with being nationalistic, protectionist, greedy or implicitly racist. I'm explicitly racist, you insensitive clod!!
Aah, change is good. -- Rafiki
Yeah, but it ain't easy. -- Simba
There are way more Indians and Asians, than US students, studying STEM at the graduate level.
What, are you scared of competition?
I am not scared of competition, just unfair competition. I have to pay a certain amount of money to survive in America. If we open the floodgates to anyone who wants to come and work for awhile, then I have to compete with people who many times live with four people in a two bedroom apartment and send most of the money back home. These people are willing to work for less money. I would have NO PROBLEM competing with anyone from other countries, if the companies really had to pay the prevailing wage, but they do not, they skirt it by skewing the average wage by various means which I won't go into now but am happy to go into in another post if you want to hear about it.
Are you too uneducated to realize that a lower cost of labor would lead to lower product costs, and in turn to a higher real income for you and everyone else?
Don't lecture me on economics. The line you're preaching is the same one we have been hearing since the 40's, when they said by now we would all be working 3 day weeks and the automation would be doing all the hard jobs for us.
Why don't you go to China with the rest of the protectionist, nationalist, mercantile assholes.
If they are protectionist, nationalist, mercantile assholes than they won't hire Americans. Kind of like India.
If you are not allowed to question your government then the government has answered your question.
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?
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 am not scared of competition, just unfair competition. I have to pay a certain amount of money to survive in America. If we open the floodgates to anyone who wants to come and work for awhile, then I have to compete with people who many times live with four people in a two bedroom apartment and send most of the money back home. These people are willing to work for less money.
You mean, they use their time and resources more efficiently than you do? Imagine that. Heh, renting like that over the past few years would have been smart too, considering the housing bubble ...
Face it, you use the government to inflate your wages far beyond what you're really worth in today's day and age through artificial controls like immigration restrictions and the minimum wage. It's greed.
And if you really think price floors on labor are necessary, then support that instead of supporting nationalist, xenophobic restrictions on immigration. That's throwing the baby out with the bath water. It fails to address the core issue.
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.
It's easy enough for four people who are sending money back to their families in their home country to live in a two bedroom apartment. It is not that easy for four families with kids to live in that same apartment. The reality of the situation is that people whose families live in the United States have to have a certain amount of money to survive, and people whose families live elsewhere require less. These people are able to outcompete Americans by accepting below market rates from companies which choose not to obey the law.
If you are not allowed to question your government then the government has answered your question.
As the spouse of an immigrant, I could write a very great deal about the green card process, how cumbersome and generally screwed up it is, and how I spent a year and a half living apart from my wife and children (the second of whom I saw when she was born and for 10 days thereafter, then not again until a year later when my wife got her spouse visa), but I'll narrow my field of comment a bit here.
The /plight/ of H-1B workers?
*cough*
Anytime H-1B workers think they have a plight, they're welcome to leave and go back to their home countries. What's that? The reason they're working here instead of in their home countries is because the wages and working conditions are better? What was that about a plight, again? Oh, I see. Nothing to see here, folks. Move along, move along.
WRT point 3, the H-1B is not supposed to be a path to a green card. It's supposed to be a temporary worker visa.
Easy path to permanent residency, like most countries already have in place? Wow. I lived and worked abroad for nine years. In one of those places, the only practical path to becoming a permanent resident was either to be a refugee who was granted residency (hardly ever happens), or marry a citizen of that country. Other than a few ethnically-based special exceptions, there really was no other way to get permanent residency. On the upside, if you qualified for permanent residency, it was pretty easy to become a citizen for those who wanted to. You could even apply for both at the same time. I know one naturalized person there who did exactly that.
In another of those places, there simply is no permanent residency. There wasn't even a spouse visa at the time, although I understand they recently enacted those. AFAIK they still have no permanent residency. Pretty much, you're either on a tourist visa, a business visa, you're the spouse of a citizen, or you are a citizen.
At least between countries with economic parity, I'm all in favor of drastically easing movement for work purposes. For example, I'd like to see an EU-style relationship for the free flow of skilled labor between the EU, the United States, Canada, Japan, and other countries that have socio-economic parity with those listed. That would give people in each of those places who'd like to go and work in another place complete freedom to do so. Good for everybody.
Why the economic parity clause? To avoid a situation of killing the goose that lays the golden eggs. A lot of industries in the United States have had their salaries halved or more by the huge influx of illegal aliens, especially in the southwest. I'm not arguing that /some/ of them aren't necessary to the functioning of our economy, but too many cause disfunction in the economy, particularly when large numbers of them move into lines of work where they are not essential to the function of those lines of work. Am I arguing that illegal aliens should pretty much be restricted to picking crops? Yes. That's one of the few areas where they truly don't take jobs from working poor Americans.
It's also important that any such agreement be largely restricted to skilled labor. Unskilled labor moving around like that can too easily cause an imbalance in one area, harming the poor who are already there.
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.
I think the reality of the situation is that those guys living in those sorts of cramped, unpleasant conditions are not skilled workers. Most of them don't even speak english.
So if they enter the country, yes, the average wage and the cost of labor will both be lowered. However, will wages in your sector be reduced? They'll only be reduced if the immigrants actually add to the pool of labor in your sector. Are they really skilled enough to compete with a college-educated American in the fields of investment banking, software architectural design, or structural engineering?
If the answer is "no," then all that increased immigration means is that the cost of manual labor will be reduced, reducing the cost of all goods made via manual labor, while your wages in whatever skilled field you work in will remain relatively constant. Since your wages remain constant but the influx of cheap labor reduces the cost of goods, your real income increases.
Seriously, do you like paying $5 for a cup of Starbucks coffee that probably has $1 of ingredients? Labor is the greatest expense for most firms and by extension most of the price you see on any product is due to the company's need to recoup the cost of that labor. If hiring some brain-dead barista to stand around mixing lattes was cheaper, lattes would be cheaper, and since you weren't competing for a job in that sector, that means that relatively, with the influx of cheaper labor, you get cheaper lattes.
They aren't outcompeting us yet. But even if they were ... so?
There is no such thing as a "below market rate" for labor. The "market rate" is whatever the market is willing to pay, and if people begin making bids on jobs for less, then the market rate falls. No, what you meant to say is, "by accepting below the artificial price-floor rates from companies."
The nanny state strikes again.
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
You're standing in the way of the New World Order, that's what. Having fifty bazillion different currencies all controlled by fifty bazillion different governments all with fifty bazillion different economic systems is terribly inefficient.
And here's even something more in line with your thinking. Encouraging a black market for foreign labor at the prevailing worldwide wage just means that more companies and more laborers are doing business in other countries, paying taxes into their systems, and thereby making their systems more powerful.
Why do you think all of those people are so desperate to get into America, anyway? It's our far-too-liberal minimum wage and welfare assistance laws ... people are scrambling to get in because we overpay for labor in America. If we didn't overpay, they wouldn't care where they worked!
And I have gripes about welfare assistance. Since it scales with the number of children you have, it's effectively a subsidy on childbirth which is not what we need right now. It'd be better to subsidize infertility by paying singles, under a certain level of income, without dependents, a welfare check, and then cutting that welfare if they have a child. But that's another rant and topic entirely. The topic here is immigration.
The summary is that if we weren't idiots, people would pay us more taxes and we would have more power. As it is, our over-zealous application of Keynesian economic principles has lead us into ruin, and now societies like China are gaining power.
Now, I'm not a fan of the system in the United States, but fuck China and fuck communism.
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.
...
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.
Well, maybe if we relaxed our immigration and minimum wage restrictions on the labor market, USCIS could hire lots of cheap foreign workers to process the H1-B visa applications!
Oh wait. I think I just realized something.
I fixed the problem too good. Now we don't need USCIS anymore ... what could we do with their budget elsewhere? Dump it into the school system? Or research grants on alternative energy civilian transportation solutions?
Gosh, and what could we do with all of these cheap laborers?
Nobody seems to get it though. You better drink the kool-aid.
Or, you could compromise, and just smoke some weed. I mean, there's no reason to freak out, right dude?
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