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Immigration Bill Passes the Senate, Includes More H-1B Visas
An anonymous reader writes "While the landmark immigration bill (full text PDF), which recently passed the U.S. Senate, is being hailed as bringing crucial reforms that will vastly improve the state of immigration in this country, there is a provision in it that is seeing relatively little discussion: section 4101, a 'market-based' increase in the amount of H-1B visas for skilled workers. 'The pitched arguments of both sides, which are likely to resurface in the House when it takes up its version of an immigration overhaul, cloud a complicated reality. There is little empirical evidence to suggest that foreign engineers displace American engineers as a whole. If anything, one recent study suggests, the growth of immigrant workers in American companies helps younger American technical workers — more of them are hired and at higher-paying jobs — but has no noticeable consequences, good or bad, on older workers.'"
Precisely, I'm curious as to how they explain all the people that give up on the IT sector because they can't get a job due to the ridiculously narrow job requirements that even entry level positions have.
I'd be fine with a lift on the H-1B visa limits if it required them to actually demonstrate that they had made real efforts to hire Americans first. And that the requirements they were posting were reasonable for the job they were hiring for.
As it is, the job requirements seem more there to show that they're "trying" to hire Americans while ensuring that as few Americans as possible are actually qualified for the job.
> If anything, one recent study suggests, the growth of immigrant workers in American companies helps younger American technical workers
Of course. Isn't that a basic law of economic theory? As the supply of labor increases so do salaries.
I have some doubts.
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There is little empirical evidence to suggest that foreign engineers displace American engineers as a whole.
Written by someone that obviously has never worked in the tech industry.
Fact: H1-Bs are abused to artificially suppress wages in sponsoring countries. There's nothing inherently wrong with having a program to help immigration, but the way it has been implemented, enforced, and maintained is causing serious harm to the U.S. economy.
If you need citations for this, you're at least as clueless as the bought and paid for government approving expansion of this legitimized abuse.
The ridiculously narrow job requirements are specifically designed so they *don't* find Americans to fill their jobs. They want an excuse to hire H1-B indentured servants, and to go to Congress claiming that there are no Americans to fill them.
The cow says "Moo." The dog says "Woof." The Timothy says "Thanks, valued customer. We appreciate your input."
There is little empirical evidence to suggest that foreign engineers displace American engineers as a whole.
Apparently the author is unfamiliar with Internet search engines and/or the name Norman Matloff. You'll find plenty of empirical evidence.
If anything, one recent study suggests, the growth of immigrant workers in American companies helps younger American technical workers — more of them are hired and at higher-paying jobs — but has no noticeable consequences, good or bad, on older workers.
Would the author care to mention the name of the study, who it was performed by, or even (*gasp*) provide a link? Otherwise a reference to "one recent study" has no credibility whatsoever.
If you're going to shove a line of bull at people, at least have the respect to make it seem a little credible. Propaganda like this is just plain insulting. I'd rather have somebody be honest enough to say "Screw you, the tech billionaires won, courtesy of the propaganda they pay for and the bribes they give their sycophants in congress. If you don't like it you can eat sh*t."
I don't think Mexico has only people of one race in it. I am pretty sure there are Mexican citizens of many races.
I oppose that program as well, but I am not sure it is racist. I think those who implemented it were trying to be racist, but were too racist to know that Mexico has other races.
You mean there's an opposition party? Wow. Normally I side more with the D's than the R's (not that I have much faith in either), but this time I'm damn glad there's an R majority in the House.
The reason it shouldn't pass is it rewards those who broke the rules instead of those who actually try to follow the process. I'm not saying we shouldn't have immigration, but I don't see how rewarding someone for bad behavior won't increase the amount of it. This isn't the first time the "amnesty" idea has come up and each time I was going to address the issue of illegal immigration. And each time, it just makes it worse.
people that companies REALLY want to hire talk to the group who needs the help, THEN they get sent to HR for a nice rubber stamp. HR is for the cattle.
My issues with the H-1B visa program is that it doesn't fix any of the problems that it tries to address and probably creates new issues.
The basic problem H-1B visa tries to address: "There are not enough mediocre engineers for our current business needs." The H-1B visa brings in some temporary employees to fix the short term shortage. But when the visa expires they go home and the company has to hire a new H-1B employee to replace him (remember there is a shortage of qualified applicants) and probably has increased their need of mediocre engineers during the past few years. There is no incentive for the company to fix the problem but instead to just apply the H-1B bandaid to it.
If the company hiring a H-1B visa holder was forced to train workers that would take over the position then the H-1B visa program would probably be rarely used and only when there was an actual need. Or if the company could only use H-1B visa employees/contractors every 2 years out of 5 so that they knew that they were ineligible for the H-1B bandaid when the current employees leave. Or even make the visa permanent, the visa holder isn't forced to leave the country and is free to find other employers whenever they wish; broader immigration issues this would fix the short term problem by just importing more people.
Actually, they are required to pay the H-1B visa holders the prevailing wages
Laws are meaningless if they're not enforced, and that one isn't.
Watch How not to hire an American to see how the whole H1-B system has become a scam, they rig the requirements of the job so its impossible for ANY American to meet the requirement (such as demanding 10 years exp on a tech that has only been around 5 years) so that they can hire more indentured servants through H1-B.
For those that beat the globalization drum all you are doing is killing our future, these guys will go back to their own countries and come up with the next new things while we will be left a husk. in my own area the local college is getting ready to pull the plug on their entire IT program, why? Because students have found they can't compete with a guy that paid less than we pay for a new car for a master's degree so are no longer even attempting to go into tech fields, they know it will just leave them buried in debt in a dead end job.
I wish i could take all those that constant scream "free trade" and "free markets" and drag their sorry asses through middle America to see the seeds they have sown, where there is more boarded up businesses than open ones and the business districts look like Escape From New York thanks to all the abandoned factories. there is NO SUCH THING as free trade, all you are doing is exporting misery and pollution, and all you are importing is more indentured servants.
They won't stop until the highest paid IT jobs are less than the manager at a Mickey D's, and when the day comes that countries stop taking our overprinted money they will all leave and we'll be left with another dead sector. Of course it won't phase them as they'll just move, as Thomas Jefferson wisely pointed out :"Merchants have no country. The mere spot they stand on does not constitute so strong an attachment as that from which they draw their gains."
ACs don't waste your time replying, your posts are never seen by me.
If they still don't make it easier for people who go there LEGALLY to work to eventually get a green card (no tons of money, no company sponsorship or getting married, no years of waiting) then fuck it, it still isn't worth going there to work. I worked there for six years and moved back to Canada because it would have taken forever to get a green card and being indentured to a company for the duration. Fuck that. If they can give green cards to illegal immigrants and not those there legally, fuck them.
Most countries will give you a landed immigrant status (same as a green card) if you work there LEGALLY more than a set time (usually four or five years), keep your nose clean, and don't mooch off the government for anything. If that isn't the case, even though I get recruiters calling me from there regularly because of my good reputation in the city I worked in, I won't go back there to work ever. The odd vacation maybe but that's it. Not worth the stress of worrying about having to relocate your family out of the country within a month if the contract ends suddenly. Nor the stress of companies feeling like the fuck you because they think you are captive for the same reason. A big three letter telecom convinced me of all this because of the last statement.
-- I ignore anonymous replies to my comments and postings.
HR is for the cattle.
Indeed. Most of our people were hired either through referrals, or through our internship program. Less than 10% were hired by submitting a resume to HR. Instead of shotgunning resumes, you should be using your network. If you don't have a network, you need to start building one: go to meetups, volunteer for a FOSS project, etc.