Federal Judge Calls BS On Homeland Security's 2008 STEM 'Emergency'

theodp writes: In 2008, the U.S. Dept. of Homeland Security enacted 'emergency' changes to Optional Practical Training (OPT) to extend the amount of time foreign STEM graduates of US colleges could stay in the country and work ("to alleviate the crisis employers are facing due to the current H-1B visa shortage", as Bill Gates explained it in 2007). More than seven years later, U.S. District Court Judge Ellen Huvelle has found that the government erred by not seeking public comment when it extended the program, and issued a ruling that could force tens of thousands of foreign workers on OPT STEM extensions to return to their home countries early next year. Huvelle has given the government six months to submit the OPT extension rule for proper notice and comment lest it be revoked. From the ruling (pdf): "By failing to engage in notice-and-comment rulemaking, the record is largely one-sided, with input only from technology companies that stand to benefit from additional F-1 student employees, who are exempted from various wage taxes. Indeed, the 17-month duration of the STEM extension appears to have been adopted directly from the unanimous suggestions by Microsoft and similar industry groups." Microsoft declared a new crisis in 2012, this time designed to link tech's need for H-1B visas to U.S. children's lack of CS savvy.

Comments

STEM OPT extension was really bad

[140Mandak262Jamuna]

Great recession, almost a depression, crashing economy, loss of million jobs a month.. unemployment spiking over 10%... underemployment way past 16%... and they persisted this farce of 17 month additional OPT for STEM? It is corporatocracy, pure and simple.

Re:STEM OPT extension was really bad

[Lumpy]

"unemployment spiking over 10%."

You mean the government reported heavily adjusted to avoid panic numbers.

Real unemployment was near 25% government reporting of unemployment only counted people that were actively collecting unemployment checks. If you were not being paid, you were not counted as unemployed. Some places Unemployment real numbers were closer to 35% to 40% Detroit for example.

Re:STEM OPT extension was really bad

[tompaulco]

But that doesn't accurately depict the situation that existed in *TECH*. Yes, unemployment and underemployment among construction workers was high. But at the time, tech workers had an unemployment rate under 5% (and in 2008 unemployment overall was only 8%). Considering that it takes years to put a tech worker through a college degree and introductory employment, even if construction workers were qualified to switch from construction to tech, it wouldn't have helped the short term problem.

Unemployment figures don't take into account the people who used up all of their unemployment and were never able to find a job. They may still be unemployed, but the numbers aren't tracked. Also, this number doesn't take into account the number of tech workers that took jobs in other fields because they couldn't find jobs in tech. I know many, many people (including myself) who have 25+ years of experience in tech, but are doing something else because there are no jobs.
Underemployment is rampant as well. Tech jobs don't pay enough to live on, but when they demand 60-80 hours a week of your time, and availability on a whim, you also can't go get a second job to make ends meet.
Microsoft is starting to slip, though. They released press releases demanding more H1B workers a little too soon after laying off 6,000 tech workers. Someone is bound to notice.

Family reunification vs STEM

[jonsmirl]

Prioritizing family reunification visas is worse. I know of two people that have used family reunification visas to bring in their parents. All four of which went onto Social Security and Medicare shortly after arriving. The US would have been much better off if those four slots had been given to STEM workers.

Re:Family reunification vs STEM

[Anonymous Coward]

The problem isn't too many programs, it is too many mishandled expenses. I'd wager, that is run as well as a company with accountability, all the programs you seem to hate could run twice as well for the same cost.

There is nothing wrong with assisting those with needs. The very idea is fundamental to a government, which should have the very explicit goal of "protecting its citizens." These protections go from international threats (wars, treaties, etc.) to protecting citizens from other citizens and themselves. Social programs are a mix of the later. As a society, we produce so much and throw away so much, that having an entirely working populace isn't needed, so people are out of jobs. Social programs are suppose to work to fill in that gap so that their lives don't get to the point where they must commit crimes to be able to live. This is a failing of the current system, as it isn't good enough. Right money spent in the wrong way, usually decided by the trends (War on Drugs, No Child Left Behind, etc) instead of reasoned analysis.

In an ideal nation, every individual would be guaranteed enough support to at least be at the minimum standard of living, so just above or at the poverty line. As an alternative to just handing out money, the government made the EBT cards, which is pretty awesome. I do agree they shouldn't pay for nicotine products and the like, but there is no reason it shouldn't care for medical goods like asprin, bandaids, or cough syrup. The price of food fluctuates by region just as much within a region over time, so having a percentage over the bare minimum cost of calories per person in the family makes sense, and a person good at budgeting would be able to afford more or better products. Honestly, it would be nice if they gave an extra credit exclusively for fruits and vegetables to enforce better eating habits.

With such systems, day to day life for an individual can be managed, but there are also medical emergencies. Relying on emergency rooms for treatment is more expensive than preventative measures in the long run, which is a point where our system fails. It would be great if dental cleaning is offered every few months and cheap plastic lens glasses as well. For the record, prescription lenses are so expensive since only a hand full (2 or 3) own all the different brands, so they act like the diamond companies and create an artificial price point to keep them expensive. In a similar manner, insurance companies (mal-practice and medical) and medical companies in general work to keep the prices higher than they need to be to create greater profits, so most of the money from social programs gets wasted feeding into the accounts of those that don't need it.

It would be great if the congress required an at-cost + 5% for services that everyone needs. If a companies fails, they can be taken to court over it by the state.

That aside, as a generally Christian nation, we should all "Love thy neighbor."

I'll believe it's an emergency when 2 thingshappen

[NotSoHeavyD3]

1. Wages increase

2. They bring in people on green cards for 5-10 years for any employer instead of this H1B nonsense where they bring people in with a leash around their figurative nuts and hand the nut leash to one company.

Total Horseshit, As Always

[Anonymous Coward]

There is no shortage of tech workers. There is only a shortage of people willing to work at rates management wants. And these are not burger flipper jobs that can only sustain paying employees out of the $5 value menu gross proceeds. These are wildly profitable tech giants with billions in revenue.

Re:Total Horseshit, As Always

[gweihir]

Indeed. Something went very wrong after the last crisis was over: Companies continued to decrease STEM staff quality and wages paid, despite revenues being back to good and sometimes excellent. This has two effects, both catastrophic in the long run: 1.) fewer and fewer bright and capable people will go into STEM 2.) when the next crisis hits, companies will be a lot less able to deal with it, as they have systematically dumbed down their employee-pools. The only "positive" effects for the companies I see is even higher bonuses for even less deserving CEOs and the like.

Somehow, they have completely forgotten that STEM is hard, it is what makes the modern world tick, and that good STEM workers are both critical for the long-term success of any tech company and hard to get.

Re:Total Horseshit, As Always

[currently_awake]

American industry is systematically exporting their entire STEM industry, along with their manufacturing and science. Once it's gone the USA will not be able to afford to buy it back. Looks like they want the American economy to be built around banking/finance/investment/copyright. This is a bad idea because these are all "Luxury" industries, that always do poorly in a recession. If you build your economy around them then your country goes broke during a recession (even the rich would suffer).

Re:Funny

[jedidiah]

...too early in the morning.

What Silicon Valley hipsters are likely to object to are "indentured servant" visas. This is one problem with the low skill illegals actually. The situation helps create an underclass that can be easily abused.

That's what H1Bs are for, they are a tool to abuse labor.

I've always said that if a guy's talents are worth importing, then it's worth importing that guy as an EQUAL.

None of this stupid indentured servant crap.

There is indeed a crisis

[paiute]

Large companies are having real problems finding skilled people they can pay minimum wage and treat like chattel.

Re:There is no way this looks good.

[jafiwam]

Meanwhile, Real IT Pro's know there's a tremendous shortage of real Talent out there, and it has gotten so bad companies can only stumble upon people who know what they are doing. Everyone else just kinda passes as somewhat knowing what they are doing.

I am not surprised at all this tired old lie would show up as an anonymous first post in a thread like this.

Pay more, more will come. Very simple. Why would anybody bother to learn / earn experience for your shit-pay job? Your problem is YOU.

That was NOT the target

[wonkavader]

There's nothing wrong with giving foreigners who just graduated from an American college the chance to stay and work. These are people who competed to get into school and won, had the money to pay for it, and then learned more at the school. These are precisely the folks we want to stay here.

This should be extended to graduates with good grades in all disciplines, not dialed back.

The real problem is H1Bs and the difficulty in getting a green card. It's the indentured servitude nature of the immigration-work-model which allows companies to pay less and force down American wages. We should provide enough protection to foreign workers that they can tell an employer to shove it.

People can apply for work visas if they have something to offer, and they can come and help pay for our college system and prove that they can work VERY hard and learn fast via the school-visa program. We should embrace everybody coming in on that path. H1Bs are simply destructive.

Re:comparing overall unemployment rate

[JustNiz]

>> People who are still in their early careers don't realize how vulnerable they become when they get older.

As a 52 year old software developer I get what you are saying. The trick is to be in the right industry. All the young guns are mostly doing only web and web-related stuff because they think its cool. Just avoid that whole thing.

What helps is that those guys seem to be pretty much clueless when it comes to bare metal stuff like embedded systems and device drivers etc because it seems even in CS degrees these days they don't teach anything as low-level as C, let alone assembler or how computers actually work any more. It seems most of those guys are completely out of their comfort zone around any language/environment that doesn't have a garbage collector, isn't in a VM or container, can't be scripted and doesn't come with a massive app framework that includes giant libraries of helper functions to do all the actual heavy lifting.