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If Immigration Reform Is Dead, So Is Raising the H-1B Cap
dcblogs writes: In a speech Wednesday on the floor of the U.S. House of Representatives, Rep. Luis Gutierrez (D-Ill.) declared immigration reform dead. He chastised and baited Republicans in Congress for blocking reform, and declared that winning the White House without the support of a growing Hispanic population will become mathematically impossible. "The Republican Presidential nominee, whoever he or she may be, will enter the race with an electoral college deficit they cannot make up," said Gutierrez. If he's right, and comprehensive immigration reform is indeed dead, then so too is the tech industry's effort to raise the cap on H-1B visas. Immigration reform advocates have successfully blocked any effort to take up the immigration issue in piecemeal fashion, lest business support for comprehensive reform peel away. Next year may create an entirely new set of problems for tech. If the Republicans take control of the Senate, the tech industry will face this obstacle: Sen. Chuck Grassley (R-Iowa). Grassley, the ranking Republican on the Judiciary Committee could become its next chairman. He has been a consistent critic of the H-1B program through the years. "The H-1B program is so popular that it's now replacing the U.S. labor force," said Grassley, at one point.
H1B is merging with the us labor force, not replacing. The overwhelming H1B workers I know have either become citizens or are eager to do so.
It's surprising to be that the R's support lower H1B caps. I've never really heard a position from the Dem's on this. I'm not exactly educated on this issue, but it seems that H1B directly compete with my ability to be a programmer; and large companies are the ones mostly vying for the talent H1B brings in. With barriers to competition being as low as a cost of a computer, why would we want increased H1B? I know they say there's not enough US workers for the tech industry.. but do they really mean, there's not enough CHEAP tech workers? What's the Dem's position on this?
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Next year may create an entirely new set of problems for tech.
Problems like how to treat their employees like human beings rather than disposable trash?
The best thing about UDP jokes is I don't care if you get them or not
Now maybe the IT jobs will pay a little better and people over 40 can get a IT job.
Just say no to a cheaper, but less productive H-B1 visa holder
So a Democrat is so concerned about the possibility that the Republicans won't take over the Senate, or won't get into the White House; that he, out of the goodness of his heart, tells the Republicans what they need to do to win.
Reminds me of the phrase, "Beware of Greeks bearing gifts".
To have someone in the Senate that sees the H1B program as replacing the American workers, would be a refreshing change from the current leadership that looks for every opportunity to raise the H1B cap, for their K street buddies.
H1B is merging with the us labor force, not replacing. The overwhelming H1B workers I know have either become citizens or are eager to do so.
No, immigrants are replacing native workers. The Center For Immigration Studies just released a report showing that all employment growth since 2000 has gone to immigrants, legal and illegal. There is no general labor shortage.
"Once we've identified and embraced our sickness, we'll have strength...and that's when we get dangerous." - John Waters
google cognizant. Lots of forum posts by their employees complaining that the company won't sponsor for a greencard. When you don't sponsor they have to leave. Company I work for refused to spend money on an h1b to continue sponsoring him , but brought in contractors who were L-2 visa holders at an india company instead. they don't want greencard holders. sponsorship costs a little money and once they get a greencard they can get market wages and will quit.
look if companies have been h1b dependent for this long its because the ones they sponsor are not getting converted to greencard and/or quitting when they do because the job sucked. they just want lower wages with worse terms. its so obvious.
rather odd that a guy from Iowa is the one guy seeing it. But go Grassley. If you just give them all greencards to start with.. then you will see the real demand for immigrant workers. cause they can quit.
My personal problem with all this talk of immigration reform has been the consistent desire by both parties to making the expansion of E-Verify a requirement of any bill. To sum it up, E-Verify is a way for the executive branch to block the employment of anyone that the database flags. Or more colloquially, you have to get permission from the president in order to feed and house your family.
One of the biggest problems with e-verify is the false negative rate. Even if you assume absolutely no malice, you can easily end up on the "no work list" by accident. Note, that's not a false positive - giving people permission to work when they aren't permitted, it is stopping people who have done nothing wrong in the slightest.
Requiring government permission to work is absolutely unacceptable policy in a free society. E-verify is a case where the cure is worse than the disease.
I think I probably speak for many on Slashdot when I say, Fuck You
When Fascism comes to America, it will call itself Anti-Fascism, and tell you to give up your guns.
Employers: There is a shortage of good tech qorkers. Give us more H1 visas so we can get the work done.
Employees: These darn foreigners are taking our jobs! They work for much less than us people born in Amerika! (studys show about $13,000 less http://www.workpermit.com/news... )
The simplest solution is of course to offer unlimited H1 Visas - at the cost of $15,000, paid by the corporation, before the employee is hired.. (with inflation adjustments so this doesn't become abused).
This solves all real claims of not enough tech workers, it reduces the US budget, and gets rid of the financial incentive to refuse to hire perfectly good American tech workers.
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Nonsense. I support eliminating the H1-B program entirely. Poof, gone. I also support streamlining the legal immigration program. Supporters of H1-B don't mind letting "them" do the dirty work, but god forbid "that kind" should move in!
So who is the racist, the guy that welcomes actual immigrants or the guy who wants to churn 'em and burn 'em?
You are a fucking idiot. You want to come here, like my grandparents and everyone before them:
1. Go to your home country
2. Go to your embassy
3. Fill out a form
4. If you are smart or rich, you can come
5. When you get here, we will make sure you have no communicative diseases (i.e. Ellis Island)
6. If you are clean, welcome, you are free to compete
7. If you are sick, GOTO #1
That is basic immigration.
Here is H1 logic:
1. Company needs to hire somebody
2. Oops, there is no one with that skill
3. Unfortunately, here is where a government program may help... They contact them with the appropriate skill needed. If there is a an American with that skill, anywhere in the FUCKING country. You don't get an H1. For example, asteroid mining experience. I am fine with an H1. Therefore, go look at the list of people who have applied at their local embassy, but haven't gotten here yet.
All in all, for everyone who disagrees with this FUCK YOU!
>It's a federal civil infraction, legally less serious than minor copyright infringement.
No, it's a crime. Just like copyright infringement.
If the MAFIAA can continue to say that copyright infringement is a crime, then we need to do the same for all civil infractions.
> In order to be H-1B eligible a position has to pay at least the prevailing wage for the job title in the region that the job is located. .
That's not really enforced.
The big problem with H1Bs is that they're basically indentured servants (as you note), and it's very difficult for them to change jobs. So the companies can pressure them for more work, via unpaid overtime.
They need to change the system so that H1Bs can switch jobs at any time, with no penalty. If companies are really THAT desperate for workers, they'll pay the filing costs and legal fees anyway, even if there's a chance the employee will leave. If they don't want to, then they're really not that desperate for workers are they?
Dianne Feinstein should be charged with criminal negligence for writing the law that has been encouraging unaccompanied minors to travel to the US to cut in front of people who are in line for H1B's.
Those of you who believe that an H-1B worker is paid less than a domestic worker don't know anything about the requirements of the program. In order to be H-1B eligible a position has to pay at least the prevailing wage for the job title in the region that the job is located.
Not if the "prevailing wage" has already been artificially lowered by the presence of so many H1-B workers. An a regular American work can also do things like quit if the job sucks and ask for raises.
SJW's don't eliminate discrimination. They just expropriate it for themselves.
being an illegal immigrant is not a crime. It's a federal civil infraction, legally less serious than minor copyright infringement.
Whoa slow down there, I don't think it's fair to compare immigration to something as heinous as minor copyright infringement. At worst it's a lesser crime like first degree murder or human trafficking.
Why does the US need a population infusion? All the new manufacturing in the US is heavily automated; in fact, the big fear now is that increasing automation is going to render many lower and middle-class jobs obsolete. We aren't going to need taxi drivers pretty soon, for instance, because of driver-less cars. The economy's in the shitter (except for the 1%), and good-paying jobs are drying up. So why again do we need a population infusion?
Are you advocating that we start treating workers the way they do in China, where they live in company barracks as virtual slaves and there's no minimum wage? This seems to be what the open-borders advocates are advocating these days: bringing in a giant number of easily-exploited laborers so that corporate profits can be increased.
I thought the Republicans were supposed to be the ones in the pockets of Big Business, but these days it seems that the Democrats are the ones more guilty of that.
There may be legal requirements but that does not mean it is being followed in practice or that the spirit of the law is being blatantly broken.
So just hire a senior H-1B worker for an entry level job title. Job titles are meaningless and not standardized.
The real fiction is when companies lie and say that they can not find local qualified workers in order to justify hiring H-1B workers.
Very good point. The H1-B program is great for employers, because they can bring in skilled workers and then pressure them to work themselves to the bone because they can't easily change jobs, making them indentured servants.
Somehow, you never hear the Democrats talk about this or work to change it.
Minimal is not free ... and please provide a cite supporting your statement that "H-1B workers routinely get paid less than their American counterparts"
In my (personal) experience I can truthfully say that I started at a salary comparable to my American peers, got regular raises and talked back a fair bit.
(full disclosure ... I came down from the frozen north, not India or Mexico, so my cultural baggage was not typical and it may have influenced the way I was treated, but I never saw my Indian counterparts treated any differently.
I have first hand experience with it - and it's clear, as the message came from the top to drive down wages... look for foreign workers. Laws be dammed, particularly in right to work states. It's a sad but real truth to this situation of immigration. Is it everywhere - of course not - but I'd wager mostly everywhere.
Why does the US need a population infusion?
There's actual a valid answer to this, I'm assuming, rhetorical question: the "locals" are not breeding at a high enough rate to propogate the pyramid schemes that are hyperconsumerism and social security. Well, valid, for some corporatist/politcal definition of valid.
Those of you who believe that an H-1B worker is paid less than a domestic worker don't know anything about the requirements of the program.
And you, apparently, know nothing about the ways employers game the system wrt advertised job titles vs actual duties. If you had friends who are program managers in large tech companies (I do), you'd know that the reason they are forced by upper management to hire H-1B's is most often explicitly to pay a lower wage. As in being told by the big boss "use H-1B's on this contract because we can't afford Americans."
and the prevailing wage has nothing to do with economic collapse ... or is that the fault of H!B workers too ?
And have you reported these abuses to ICE/BCIS ? Because that's illegal ... and if you don't report abuses of the system then you're part of the problem.
I am for increasing immigration and immigration reform but this remark is off base.
Most illegal immigrants are drawn to America for its economic opportunities and are not seeking asylum due to prosecution from back home (political, religious, etc.).
Why does the US need a population infusion?
America has lots of room compared to the rest of the world (no issue of overcrowding) and we have a slight demographic issue with too many retirees and the associated social security payments.
In a more general sense, it is because we want America to remain a strong vibrant country. That small dip in your paycheck today ensures that your child will live in a great economy.
Routinely the best and the brightest of foreign nations come to the United States. We get the cream of the crop. They come here, build, reinvigorate, and rejuvenate. They form dynamic networks allowing the US to sit in a privileged seat in the center.
Does America produce enough smart, dynamic people? Sure – why not. Can you ever have too many smart, dynamic people? No. Study and study has shown that immigrants contribute more than they take.
Maybe we can quibble over the amount but Trepidity's solution seems solid. How about the rate being something on the order of 30% above the prevailing market wage? See with 30% above prevailing market rate, the price keeps going up... Probably should add something to the effect of max hours allowed to work and salary must always remain 30% above prevailing market rate.
Only I can judge you.
What it's done is placed a carrot out there to bring on H1-B programmers instead of college hires.
With an H1-B the employer has a lot of power over the employee. They can't move jobs with out sponsorship. It's very easy to knock them out of the country. You can easily classify them in a lower pay band because they have very little recourse. These employees usually get little to know employee development (i.e. money).
With a college hire the employee can change jobs at will. You as the employer are expected to put money into employee development. And in the end they are likely to leave after a couple years to seek greener pastures.
So yes, the H1-B program has done tremendous harm to our country. I consult with many large companies and I haven't seen a intern in a programming department in half a decade. College hires are few and far between. It's a radical change from how things were when I started in the 90s. Simply put business have put their money into short term H1-B and Offshore workers. They stopped putting money into college hires. Now they whine they can't find qualifies workers because they stopped investing in Junior programmers a decade ago.
Well my point is that the justification for the program is that there are areas of the U.S. economy where domestic workers just don't exist: you put out a call, it's alleged, and you get no qualified resumes. One response to that claim is to ask, "well, what are you offering?" If you're offering $60k, my first reaction is to be, well have you tried offering more? If no, then try that first, then if you still can't find anyone, come back and we can talk. A threshold is just a way of codifying that.
10 PRINT CHR$(205.5+RND(1)); : GOTO 10
Where I work now, we have two H-1Bs in our dev group of 12. Both are outstanding workers, and "legitimate" in that the company made a good-faith effort to fill the positions with Americans, but wasn't able to find people with the needed skills. Both are also paid at what I would consider to be an appropriate wage comparable to ours, and HR takes good care of them and makes a real effort to abide by both the letter and spirit of the law. This is how it's supposed to work.
Having said that, I've also worked at places that brought in H-1Bs in preference to American workers, even when the domestic workers were more qualified for the position. The reason? Money. At one place I worked (dev group of 14 with 4 domestic workers), the highest paid of that group was at about my experience and competence level, yet was paid less than 2/3 of my salary, and the company made it very clear to all of them that if they didn't toe the line, they were welcome to go right back to the five different nations they came from. Of course, personal experience doesn't mean it happens everywhere, but I've seen it enough to believe that there are a non-trivial number of employers that are in fact abusing the program.
Please stand clear of the doors, por favor mantenganse alejado de las puertas
Familiar with the Dreyfus model of skills acquisition?
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/D...
Sure you are. It goes like this: Want to be an expert? First you need to to be proficient. Want to be proficient? First you need to have been competent. Want to be competent? First you need to have been an advanced beginner? Want to be an advanced beginner? First you'll need to be a novice. Want to be a novice? Great! Just get started learning by following the rules and doing what people around you do. Experience will let you unwind the stack.
Every profession maps to this. It's a type of career ladder. And what do H1-B's do? They seriously knock out the chances of getting a position on the lower rungs of the ladder. H1-B aren't taking me and other Gen-Xers jobs, they're taking the millennial's jobs. And the Baby Boomers who pissed & shit in the punch bowl that used to hold the American dream don't care enough to do anything about it. They started setting the tone for all this bullshit over 10 years ago and just like everything else, now we're left holding the bag.
Fuck class warfare. I think there's some serious generational knuckle dusting that needs to be applied to those in power in BOTH political parties regarding what's happened on their watch to whole notion of careers they've been selling to the rest of us.
*** Sigs are a stupid waste of bandwidth.
if there wasn't so much Automation and off shoring going on. More importantly, those studies look at _total_ # of jobs, not Job quality. The reason there's a shortage of non-immigrant farm labor is that they pay them less than minimum wage and rely on their illegal status to keep them quiet. Also nearly all of the job growth in America is in low paying service sector jobs like fast food and customer service while the middle class manufacturing, tech and office jobs have been going off shore and to H1-Bs
But hey, one of the best things about armchair economics is you can declare anything you don't agree with a fallacy.
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At least if we mean Republican Politicians, which is implied by the context. There's several cases where Republican leadership got caught saying they want to crash the economy so that people will blame the democrats. There's several (mostly on the Tea Party fringes) who believe the democrats policies are so damaging to the country that it'd be better to wreak the economy than to risk those policies.
So yeah, Grandparent's kinda trolling, but compared to what the Repubs are doing it's small potatoes.
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That's one reason I do not consider the Dems to be left anymore. They're at best not as far right.
Overstaying a visa, a common way of being in the US illegally, is a civil issue.
However, that's not the case for border jumpers, as imprisonment is clearly part of the potential punishment.
8 U.S. Code 1325 - Improper entry by alien
Any alien who
(1) enters or attempts to enter the United States at any time or place other than as designated by immigration officers, or
(2) eludes examination or inspection by immigration officers, or
(3) attempts to enter or obtains entry to the United States by a willfully false or misleading representation or the willful concealment of a material fact, shall, for the first commission of any such offense, be fined under title 18 or imprisoned not more than 6 months, or both, and, for a subsequent commission of any such offense, be fined under title 18, or imprisoned not more than 2 years, or both.
Did you bring your child or any other aliens with you when you jumped to border? Criminal.
8 U.S. Code 1324 - Bringing in and harboring certain aliens
(a) Criminal penalties
(1)
(A) Any person who—
(i) knowing that a person is an alien, brings to or attempts to bring to the United States in any manner whatsoever such person at a place other than a designated port of entry or place other than as designated by the Commissioner, regardless of whether such alien has received prior official authorization to come to, enter, or reside in the United States and regardless of any future official action which may be taken with respect to such alien;
(ii) knowing or in reckless disregard of the fact that an alien has come to, entered, or remains in the United States in violation of law, transports, or moves or attempts to transport or move such alien within the United States by means of transportation or otherwise, in furtherance of such violation of law;
(iii) knowing or in reckless disregard of the fact that an alien has come to, entered, or remains in the United States in violation of law, conceals, harbors, or shields from detection, or attempts to conceal, harbor, or shield from detection, such alien in any place, including any building or any means of transportation;
(iv) encourages or induces an alien to come to, enter, or reside in the United States, knowing or in reckless disregard of the fact that such coming to, entry, or residence is or will be in violation of law; or
shall be punished as provided in subparagraph (B).
(B) A person who violates subparagraph (A) shall, for each alien in respect to whom such a violation occurs—
(i) in the case of a violation of subparagraph (A)(i) or (v)(I) or in the case of a violation of subparagraph (A)(ii), (iii), or (iv) in which the offense was done for the purpose of commercial advantage or private financial gain, be fined under title 18, imprisoned not more than 10 years, or both;
(ii) in the case of a violation of subparagraph (A)(ii), (iii), (iv), or (v)(II), be fined under title 18, imprisoned not more than 5 years, or both;
(iii) in the case of a violation of subparagraph (A)(i), (ii), (iii), (iv), or (v) during and in relation to which the person causes serious bodily injury (as defined in section 1365 of title 18) to, or places in jeopardy the life of, any person, be fined under title 18, imprisoned not more than 20 years, or both; and
(iv) in the case of a violation of subparagraph (A)(i), (ii), (iii), (iv), or (v) resulting in the death of any person, be punished by death or imprisoned for any term of years or for life, fined under title 18, or both.
And once an illegal gets here, assuming they've avoided the criminal penalties of these and many other statutes, their whole life here is one long string of criminal actions, starting with that first job:
US Code says [Title 18, Part I, Chapter 47, Section 1015] "Whoever knowingly makes any false statement or claim that he is, or at any time has been, a citizen or national of the United States, with the intent to obtain on behalf of himself, or any other person, any Federal or State benefit or service, or to engage unlawfully in employment in the United States...Shall be fined under this title or imprisoned not more than five years, or both."
I've thought that if companies are really that desperate for H1B workers--because they claim there are simply absolutely no, zero, zilch, local citizens capable of doing the job--then that job is certainly worth a hefty premium. Figure they ought to be willing to pay 1.5 or even 2x the "going rate" for that H1B worker, what with supply and demand being what it is. Not to mention an additional one-time tax paid to the government that runs about 1x the H1B's salary.
I know that charity and goodwill means seeing a man in need and inviting him into my home for food and shelter. If the same man crawls through an open window and helps himself to the contents of my pantry and trashes my home, then calling the police and hoping he goes to jail is not a crime against humanity.
It behooves us all to distinguish between Hispanic (or any other ethnicity) immigrants and illegal border-jumpers.
Anyone, no matter what race or original nationality, who comes to this country legally; who strives for citizenship; who embraces our language & culture while respecting their own traditions; who wants to help keep this country great--I welcome him with open arms and call him a fellow American. Those who sneak into this country illegally; who break immigration, employment, tax, zoning and even basic traffic laws on a daily basis; who reject our culture and retreat into barrios; who demand taxpayer-funded social services not even available to citizens in good standing--I have little sympathy for them and their "plight".
"We should insist that if the immigrant who comes here does in good faith become an American and assimilates himself to us he shall be treated on an exact equality with every one else, for it is an outrage to discriminate against any such man because of creed or birth-place or origin. But this is predicated upon the man's becoming in very fact an American and nothing but an American. If he tries to keep segregated with men of his own origin and separated from the rest of America, then he isn't doing his part as an American. There can be no divided allegiance here. . . We have room for but one language here, and that is the English language, for we intend to see that the crucible turns our people out as Americans, of American nationality, and not as dwellers in a polyglot boarding-house; and we have room for but one soul loyalty, and that is loyalty to the American people." [Teddy Roosevelt]