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Senators Seek H-1B Cap That Can Reach 300,000
dcblogs writes "A bipartisan group of Senators is planning to introduce a bill that allows the H-1B visa cap to rise automatically with demand to a maximum of 300,000 visas annually. This 20-page bill, called the Immigration Innovation Act of 2013 or the 'I-Squared Act of 2013,' is being developed by Sens. Orrin Hatch (R-Utah), Amy Klobuchar (D-Minn.), Marco Rubio (R-Fla.), and Chris Coons (D-Del.). It may be introduced next week. Presently, the U.S. has an H-1B visa cap of 65,000. There are another 20,000 H-1B visas set aside for advanced degree gradates of U.S. universities, for 85,000 in total. Under the new bill, the base H-1B cap would increase from 65,000 to 115,000. But the cap would be allowed to rise automatically with demand, according to a draft of the legislation."
So what the hell use is a cap that rises with demand?
if you want to educate the next generation of IT workers in the US and have them stay here for their lives, adding to the economy, start cutting back on H1Bs now. it's just an excuse to in-shore cheaper help and shoo them away before they start complaining.
if this is supposed to be a new economy, how come they still want my old fashioned money?
Reduce the percentage of H1-B's by the unemployment rate every year.
is further destruction of the middle class. By replacing American tech workers with H1B slaves, they drive down the wages of the Americans who still have jobs.
Once the rich have taken everything away from the middle, they'll have to turn on each other. That will be fun to watch.
Trying to weigh all the parts of the bill, I think I would oppose it.
I think foreign workers in all jobs are good, but increasing the number of visas granted is bad in an economy like ours. We need our jobs to rebuild our individual financial infrastructure. Younger workers need to be able to pay off those credit cards.
Google, Yahoo, IBM, etc *should* be forced to hire more US workers. First it would force companies to start giving people with a criminal record a chance. Felons at age 26 with marketable skills in IT, web design, or coding/software engineering are still Felons...they never make it past HR...
Just look at any thread on /. about getting hired...Human Resources is a difficult barrier even with a spotless record.
A second reason to oppose more H1-B visas is that it would force Americans to go back to college or get marketable skills another way. State university systems are economical and could be adapted to be essentially profit-neutral and give 100% financial aid to all who are accepted.
So yes, Americans do need to get off their asses, get some skillz and get to work...adding more *non-US* workers than we already allow is dumb right now
Thank you Dave Raggett
But the cap would be allowed to rise automatically with demand...
Um, that is the exact opposite of a 'cap'.
Is that you, Ballmer? How's the Surface tablet selling?
Importing people who will be automatically put into a process of exporting if they lose their job always seemed more than a bit cruel to me.
The effect of H1b has been to flood the market with fake job offers (intended to find no one available), increase the desperation of the average job seeker (where it doesn't lower wages directly, it has other effects), and to shift the job market gradually overseas as intimate knowledge of US business is shifted to people who aren't allowed to remain in the US market.
It's a mixed result - but mostly negative for the US at large.
Why not just allow more immigrants for technical fields? That way, they can start companies here, they don't have to live in such fear while working, and can pay socially beneficial taxes when they do (statistically) reach the higher incomes they are bound to reach.
Passing laws just to increase profit margins of companies at the expense of workers seems highly corrupt/inefficient. We're a nation of immigrants - we shouldn't shy away from making the nation stronger with citizens - and we've had huge problems with, um, drawing distinctions about labor variants of citizens in the past.
Ryan Fenton
It is pretty clear these guys are treasonous bastards.
This is unthinkable. It's this kind of corporate pandering that has gotten us into the unemployment problem we're currently in. I have no problem with hiring people from other countries -- when there is a surplus of work to go around.
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Here's hoping Senator Bernie Sanders pushes back again on this one. Anyone familiar with the Senator knows that he has been a thorn in the side of H1-B advocates, introducing and pushing amendments to limit the program and fund US STEM for years.
http://www.dailykos.com/story/2007/05/24/338394/-H-1B-Labor-Sen-Bernie-Sanders-Introduces-Amendment-to-Strengthen-America
How about. But, it won't happen. The real incentive here is profit in the Tech Sector. American developers are paid a living wage (most of the time). This bill allows American tech companies to bring in workers who cannot compete in the open market for the best pay. This allows the tech companies to pay them much less than an American. The powers that be may want low unemployment, but they also want low wages.
No sigs in BETA. Beta SUCKS.
Which means they write a requirements sheet no one can meet and lie about the person they are hiring.
The simple answer is to say all H1Bs must be paid $200,000/year or more and the visa is not tied to the company.
Don't create more visa's, give the workers easy pathways to citizenship. Work on an H1-b for 5 years without run-ins with the law and you're a citizen. If you don't want citizenship then you lose your visa. Simple as that. Is there not enough skilled labor? Or is there not enough cheap labor? Making more visas brings in cheap labor. Making more citizens brings in talented labor. If you're a law abiding person and go through the proper channels citizenship should be easy in this country. I work in a shop with a lot of H1-B people, from India, Russia, Israel, etc... and I'd be happy to have any of them get citizenship here. They're great people and I like most of them better than my asshole neighbors.
Anything that has Orrin Hatch involved is an automatic vote against as far as I'm concerned
Slashdot - I remember when you used to have informative comments... every day you're getting closer and closer to the bile spewed out on youtube comments...
H1Bs require LCAs which require the income to meet the standard for that position. This $ figure is set by the government with the intention that companies cannot bring in foreigners and pay them less then citizens.
I know because I've been through the process. I'm an Australian working in the US on a H1B earning as much as I would back home. The minimum wage listed by the government on the LCA seemed fair to me so I have no idea what you all are complaining about.
H1B is not free (application is quite expensive actually), and the employer doesn't get to set the salary as pleases him. Usually, immigration will return a "ok, but a 20% more than proposed". I definitely don't think that applying to a position and saying the recruiter that you'll need a H visa (and all the associated cost) helps your case.
Sometime, local workforce is not available without retraining. Now since everybody bright in the US gets a law or MD degree, there is a shortage of bright IT/tech people that needs to be filled with foreigners. If you remove H1B, you'll have to ease on the green card, but I'm not sure it's the intended purpose ?
Until recently I've been one of those guys who was always defending free trade, immigration, multiculturalism and the like. Crap like this doesn't change my views incrementally, it makes me see the polar opposite. These immigrant workers are not "friends". They're here to take whatever they can from us. The government isn't working to improve conditions for the average citizen. They're just making shady deals with companies whose only philosophy is "greed is good".
I've been a fool, but I won't get fooled again. Who said that?
I think foreign workers in all jobs are good, but increasing the number of visas granted is bad in an economy like ours.
So you don't want to sound xenophobic but you really are. Foreign workers contribute to the economy, pay taxes, and bring specific talents that are badly needed by companies but you think we should hire Americans just because they are Americans?
Google, Yahoo, IBM, etc *should* be forced to hire more US workers.
You've never tried to run a business have you? Forcing a company to hire substandard talent is literally counterproductive. Companies need to and should hire the best talent they can get regardless of where the person is from. If that happens to be people from the US that is terrific. Companies need specific skills and those skills don't have anything to do with national boundaries. If the US workers are the best available option then I guarantee you that companies will hire them. If they aren't the best then they don't really deserve the jobs now do they?
A second reason to oppose more H1-B visas is that it would force Americans to go back to college or get marketable skills another way.
So less competition for jobs is somehow supposed to push Americans to get more training? Curious logic since generally less competition has exactly the opposite effect. If I don't have to compete for my job, I'm going to have zero motivation to spend money or time on additional education.
As people above have pointed out there should be a minimum salary for H1-Bs. This salary should be borderline absurd. Then on top of that there should be a special H1-B tax on that salary bringing it down to below what is typically earned in that field. Then 100% of the tax should fund education or training in that exact field. So if H1-B programmers are hired it goes to programming education. If H1-B snake charmers are being hired then it goes to a snake charming school. This way the government doesn't pick winners for educational grants, they pick themselves.
At no point should it be more attractive to hire a H1-B than it is to hire a local of the same qualification. If the system was properly tuned it would always be a last resort to hire a H1-B not the preferred case as with many exploitative companies. Then in theory there wouldn't need to be a cap.
Personally I have always thought that any work you hire in cheap countries should have their labors taxed until the domestic company had paid the same as if the work were done locally. So if you have a company in country X that is getting the work done for $0.50(shipping included) per unit because they pay their people pennies and pollute the crap out of some river and the domestic rate is $1.00 per unit then there should be a $0.50 per unit tax. So if you think the offshore company does it better then you get them to do it. This prevents the economic concept of us not only importing their products but prevents the import of their crappy standard of living.
Oddly enough the above idea encourages simply paying higher wages when you do find yourself having to hire outside help. Thus raising the standard of living in other places.
This to address the shortage of developers who will work 70 hours a week for $35K a year and are afraid to complain about working conditions for fear of being deported.
That's our life, the big wheel of shit. - The Fat Man, Blue Tango Salvage
Realistically, I view an ability to bring in highly skilled workers as a huge boon for us. Tax revenues, technological innovation, business agility - etc. People who are really driving technology and innovation create way more value than they capture and they become the rising tide that lift all boats.
But how can you identify them? We all know companies that want to import workers for less skilled jobs carefully tailor the job descriptions to avoid any domestic competition, don't publicize the jobs widely, etc.
Salary is the answer. We should prioritize H1-B visa imports by salary. The more you are paying the worker you import, the higher on the list they get to be. Any increase in the cap requires a certain number of workers at the top of the salary curve; if your salary would put you in the top 1% of workers in any science or technology field, then come on in; I don't care how high the "cap" goes. As you move toward the middle of the bell curve, the total number of workers we'll import declines. We shouldn't import even one worker below the median salary. I don't think we should move an inch over the current cap unless everyone over the cap is at least in the top 20%.
When the whores in Washington hear the commands of their corporate master, they forget all about unemployed Americans!
I killed da wabbit -Elmer Fudd
I noted with interest a recent advert in one of the newspapers here in Belize. It was offering Belizeans jobs in New Jersey driving ice-cream trucks for $8.50 an hour. On a six-month H-2B visa.
I realize $8.50 is not a whole lot but can they really find no Americans to do it? Incidentally, a laborer in Belize makes about a quarter of that and a hot meal costs about $2.00.
It's the same as with outsourcing - it enriches companies and short-sells Americans. Expanded H1B program would make unappealing to invest in education in America. There would be no more need to invest in future generations if company could get workers you need w/o spending any money. In addition H1B workforce's living expenses are lower than of American workers which in turn depresses salaries of American workers.
For example, right now my friends company is paying 50% of her expenses to finish her MBA, it costs them $20k. If company could import someone they would be net ~$20k profit (maybe more if they can pay less for the same job) and my friend would be either unemployed or less educated.
My wife is a software product manager. Her product development is split between the "tough stuff" and closely synchronized systems interfacing work done by American citizens, and the "easy stuff" which is mainly HTML and JavaScript web GUI stuff done by a large Indian consulting company. The Indian company (an investor in the product) keeps a project manager for their Indian folks in the US to coordinate on the product better, and the actual coders are in India.
The Indian project manager has been in the US for years with his family (I suspect his kids feel as American as Indian). But his H1-B is around to run out. He and his family has to go back to India.
But not to worry! The Indian consulting company is sending a new H1-B guy over for project management.
My great-grandmother stepped off a ship with no skills, looked around for work, and then got citizenship after a few years. It is insane that we are bringing skilled folks (and their smart kids) into the US and kicking them out again.
I've been involved in several incidents where immigration rules have messed with my industry. There was a German engineer who had to do the "go back to Germany" thing for a few years because of a screw up. I've seen Canadian tech people turned around at the border by immigration when going to fix a system in Detroit. This is not helping us.
How about we agree to that cap increase, but only if H1-B visas have two conditions attached:
1. The visa is only valid as long as the applicant is employed. If he's unemployed for more than 30 days, the visa is no longer valid.
2. The visa is granted to the employee, not the company, and goes with the employee if he accepts another job.
Companies want to bring in foreign applicants because they can get them cheaper than hiring locally (otherwise, why go through the hassle?). Change the economic rules so they can't low-ball salaries without risking other companies poaching their employees with better offers and I'll bet H1-Bs become a lot less popular.
And thanks to all those lawyers that do get work doing medical malpractice suits, MD degrees aren't much fun either due to insurance costs. It's kinda turned into a less glamorous service sector job these days, with doctors getting overworked by stingy care providers to maximize their return on investment.
I suppose there's still glamour in the "medical tourism" industry, though... where people fly around the world to other, less litigious countries to visit affordable doctors / dentists for major work.
H1B drives foreign student enrollment in STEM in American Universities. In mid-tier schools like SUNY Buffalo most of the professors, graduate students in Computer science are foreign. You can spot an occasional American, but the graduate/research programs are more or less sustained by foreigners. Take away H1B and the students & some of the professors will be gone, the money (either from the foreigners or from the NSF) will dry up and the whole program will just collapse. I don't see how that can be good.
The Princetons & Harvards may not face the problem, but a lot of non-ivy league schools will. H1B sustains an entire academic ecosystem in the U.S. Any reform of the program should consider this aspect for there are entrenched interests in sustaining the status quo.
I preferred it when the Democrats and Republicans in congress were too busy fighting with each other to fuck with my income.
LK
"Hi. This is my friend, Jack Shit, and you don't know him." - Lord Kano