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U.S. Senate's Big Immigration Bill Seeks Centralized Database For H-1B Jobs
dcblogs writes "The U.S. Senate comprehensive immigration bill, due Tuesday, will allow the H-1B cap to rise from 65,000 to as high as 180,000. The bill, overall, contains some interesting provisions. It will require the U.S. Labor Dept. to create a website of H-1B job openings that employers must post to. The jobs must be posted least 30 calendar days before hiring an H-1B applicant to fill that position. The bill also raises wages for H-1B workers to make them more competitive, although the amount wasn't specified. One provision that will affect India, in particular, limits H-1B visa use to 50% of a firm's U.S. workforce. The provision may prompt India firms to buy U.S. companies to expand their U.S. presence."
Instead of giving people H1B visas, why don't we just give them green cards, so they have the same employment bargaining rights that US citizens have so it becomes impossible to undercut local wages. Also, for student visa holders who finish school here with MS or PhD degrees we should just grant citizenship for an upfront fee of $8000 so we keep talented people in the US.
H1Bs get paid good salaries in tech firms, actually, on par with what the native employees are paid - at least based on my anecdotal evidence (as an H1B with plenty of friends on the same). Microsoft, Google, Amazon and Facebook all do that, and they also start green card applications for their H1Bs as soon as they become eligible - which wouldn't really make much sense if the purpose was to exploit the dependent status. Most people which do this see it as an immigration track towards eventual citizenship, and start settling down almost right away - some don't even wait for a green card to get a home mortgage etc.
The places that are really abusing the program hard seem to be the "business consulting" sweatshops like Tata, for whom outsourcing is, essentially, the entire business model and their raison d'etre. Those tend to have predominantly Indian employees, who are not sponsored for green cards, and who are considerably underpaid. Also, since those employees know that they won't remain in the country in the end, they tend to spend money less and save it more, since it will have more purchasing power for them once they return to their home country (so they aren't as invested in US economy, further exacerbating the effects).
Consequently, the obvious solution to this problem would be to ditch H1B as a temp. worker visa, and remake it as a work-towards-citizenship program. This would imply that any person coming to the country on such a visa would has to apply for a green card; and make this process easier and reduce the current (5.5 years and growing!) backlog. It would also be nice to make it easier to switch jobs while still on H1B (I'd say get rid of it entirely, except that you want to ensure that new job has the necessary qualifications - i.e. above prevailing wage, local applicants prioritized etc); most importantly, make it so that changing jobs doesn't reset the green card process, so that employers can't use it as a stick.