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Study Questions H-1B Policies

Posted by samzenpus on from the cutting-costs dept.

An anonymous reader writes "One of the arguments for continuing and even expanding the H1-B visa program (pdf) is that it enables highly-skilled immigrants to work in the U.S. and grow the U.S. economy. Counterarguments state that the H1-B visa program does not bring in the 'best and brightest' and is used to drive down wages, particularly in the STEM fields. This Bloomberg article, discussing pending H1-B legislation, quotes some of the salaries of current workers in the U.S. on H1-B visas: $4,800/month and $5,500/month which work out to $57,600/year and $66,000/year; only slightly higher than the average entry-level salaries of newly-graduated engineering or computer science majors."

4 of 361 comments (clear)

  1. Re:Of course... by ebno-10db · · Score: 5, Interesting

    Lawyers and the like need years of study for a certain field which the laws will almost certainly not translate to another country or even state.

    How convenient.

    Dean Baker (http://www.cepr.net/) had a good suggestion though. Have foreign schools train for US laws and practice, and let people elsewhere take the exams for the federal or various state bars. Only after passing would they get their visa.

  2. Re:Of course... by cold+fjord · · Score: 5, Interesting

    We should have H1B Visas for lawyers and politicians. It would be amazing how quickly the program would be shut down then.

    I doubt you could do anything about politicians. The legal profession is heading for trouble. It is getting harder and harder for lawyers for find a good job coming out of law school (with that massive debt), law school enrollments are dropping, law schools are laying off faculty. There are a lot of things feeding into that, including over selling of law degrees, computer and web based legal services, and off-shore legal work. Off shore accounting work is also increasing with the usual implications for accountants.

    Law firms send case work overseas to boost efficiency - September 25, 2005

    Guess which jobs are going abroad - February 25, 2004

    If a tax preparer gets you an unexpected refund this year, you may have an accountant in India to thank. That's because accounting firms are joining the outsourcing trend established years ago by cost-conscious American manufacturers. In fact, companies in a number of unexpected industries are now sending work overseas. From scientific lab analysis to medical billing, the service-sector workforce has gone global. CPA firms are just one example. In the 2002 tax year, accounting firms sent some 25,000 tax returns to be completed by accountants in India. This year, that number is expected to quadruple. -- more

    Australia is seeing a similar trend.

    Get used to it: sending jobs overseas is the way of the future

    --
    much of left-wing thought is a kind of playing with fire by people who don't even know that fire is hot - George Orwell
  3. So that's how H1B visa fraud is done by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Interesting

    I, Cringley Cringley had a very interesting post on how H1B fraud is accomplished, except in this case, the he got caught.

    The gist of the crime has two parts. First Mr. Cvjeticanin’s law firm reportedly represented technology companies seeking IT job candidates and he is accused of having run on the side an advertising agency that placed employment ads for those companies. That could appear to be a conflict of interest, or at least did to the DoJ.

    But then there’s the other part, in which most of the ads — mainly in Computerworld — seem never to have been placed at all!

    Client companies paid hundreds of thousands of dollars for employment ads in Computerworld that never even ran!

    The contention of the DoJ in this indictment appears to be that Mr. Cvjeticanin was defrauding companies seeking to hire IT personnel, yet for all those hundreds of ads — ads that for the most part never ran and therefore could never yield job applications — nobody complained!

    The deeper question here is whether they paid for the ads or just for documentation that they had paid for the ads?

    This is alleged H-1B visa fraud, remember. In order to hire an H-1B worker in place of a U.S. citizen or green card holder, the hiring company must show that there is no “minimally qualified” citizen or green card holder to take the job. Recruiting such minimally qualified candidates is generally done through advertising: if nobody responds to the ad then there must not be any minimally qualified candidates.

    How many other scams like this, are being run to prevent American engineers from being hired?

  4. Why do we want more scientists and engineers? by xtal · · Score: 5, Interesting

    This question is becoming increasingly interesting to ask. I see no clear answer. Society is not willing to pay for them, so they are not needed .. or there is sufficient supply. This is not a value judgement; Poets have much to offer, but society does not extract much direct benefit - so the wages are low.

    I'd recommend the best and brightest do engineering as last resort, not a primary one. Engineering is a better hobby than a career these days.. in some ways, that is how it's always been.

    You're far better off learning how to build a sucessful business, entering law (technical law is very lucurative), or going into medicine - medicine isn't all that difficult if you can get accepted, and protects itself very agressively.

    Do what society values for money. Do what you love to be happy. Sometimes those things are the same, frequently they are not. I've been lucky as a EE but I started almost two decades ago, and much of my success has come not from engineering skill, but entreprenurial endeavours.

    A profitable, but well managed career can set you up to be financially independent in 8-12 years - then you can go do whatever you like.

    Want to increase STEM? Why?

    --
    ..don't panic