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US Suspends 'Expedited' H-1B Visas (sfgate.com)
"Starting April 3, 2017, U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services will temporarily suspend premium processing for all H-1B petitions," read Friday's announcement, which says the suspension "may last up to 6 months." Slashdot reader elrous0 sees it as part of the "ongoing efforts to curb abuses in the controversial H-1B program." The San Francisco Chronicle reports:
While it could be difficult to divorce the move Friday from the Trump administration's broader immigration crackdown, some experts believed the agency's decision to be apolitical. "It has everything to do with an understaffed, overworked, U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services," said Jason Finkelman, an Austin, Texas, immigration attorney, adding that the wait time for an H-1B visa in California is currently about eight months. However, Vivek Wadhwa, an adjunct professor at Carnegie Mellon University's Silicon Valley campus in NASA Ames Research Center at Moffett Field, said the suspension seems like a message from the government that you "can't buy your way into America."
Whatever the motivation, Engadget believes this will impact large tech companies. "Financial Times quotes a lawyer saying that 'close to 100 percent' of applications from companies like Microsoft utilize the option."
Whatever the motivation, Engadget believes this will impact large tech companies. "Financial Times quotes a lawyer saying that 'close to 100 percent' of applications from companies like Microsoft utilize the option."
Mr. Wadhaw apparently doesn't understand that premium processing does not buy you a visa, or increase your chances of getting one.
http://www.nolo.com/legal-ency...
Just another day in Paradise
They also delayed processing in 2015, with the same reason given: so they could catch up on their backlog.
My dream is that Slashdot become a place where people do a little research before commenting irrationally.
"First they came for the slanderers and i said nothing."
That's a temporary effect. The whole point of the H1-B program, at least from the employee's and government's point of view, is to grant citizenship to a skilled and productive foreigner. Once the worker gets U.S. citizenship, their next step will immediately to be apply for citizenship for their immediate family and have them immigrate to the U.S. At which point they stop sending money back to their home country, and start spending it here in the U.S.
If you're upset about money leaving the country, you should be directing your ire at illegal immigrants. A portion of their money really does get sent back to their home country in perpetuity. That's what's been sad/amusing about the media's attempt to conflate the plight of legal immigrants with that of illegal immigrants by using confusing terms such as "undocumented" immigrants. Deporting illegal immigrants means more opportunity for legal immigrants. If our social system doesn't have to support millions of illegal immigrants, that would allow us to absorb more legal immigrants, and we can increase the quota of visas we give for legal immigration into the country. Illegal immigrants are basically people who illegally cut in line ahead of the other immigrants waiting so they can get a visa legally.
The EU yesterday issued a statement that US visitors may lose rights to travel without Visas to the EU. A statement which should be seen by all Americans as a blackmail attempt...
Let's not twist the truth of the matter, shall we. Which is:
The passing of the non-binding resolution comes after the US failed to agree visa-free travel for citizens of five EU countries
...
It comes after the US failed to agree visa-free travel for citizens of five EU countries – Bulgaria, Croatia, Cyprus, Poland and Romania – as part of a reciprocity agreement. US citizens can normally travel to all countries in the bloc without a visa.
...
The Commission discovered three years ago that the US was not meeting its obligations under the reciprocity agreement but has not yet taken any legal action. The latest vote, prepared by the civil liberties committee and approved by a plenary session of parliament, gives the Commission two months to act before MEPs can consider action in the European Court of Justice.
So, the real story here is that, if the US wants visa-free travel to the (entire) EU for its citizens, it must extend the same privilege to (all) EU nationals, but the US has been failing to do so. The EU calling out the US on this point hardly constitutes "blackmail".
Il n'y a pas de Planet B.
3. No limits on the maximum duration of the workweek. The EU's working time directive is a good start.
Luckily we do not live in the EUSSR. If I want to work 80 hours a week, that's my problem. If I don't, I can work somewhere else (H1-Bs can do that too).
OK. I'm in the EU (for the moment), so I'll respond to this. You as an individual can opt of the 48 hour week. That is your choice. However you can't be forced to opt out (expect in those occupations where it would be dangerous to do so).
https://www.gov.uk/maximum-weekly-working-hours/weekly-maximum-working-hours-and-opting-out
So what's with the "EUSSR" label?
You never know what is enough unless you know what is more than enough. - Blake
"The reactionaries were further applauding Mexico dumping 150 million tons of sewage claiming that the US deserved it for wanting control of it's own borders."
Haven't heard that one. Valid link?
This is an article on the sewage spill. The article is called "'Tsunami of sewage spills' in Tijuana fouls U.S. beaches, may have been intentional".
A massive sewage spill in Tijuana that polluted beaches in San Diego County last month may have been no accident, according to state and local officials.
In a preliminary estimate, officials said about 143 million gallons of raw sewage spewed into the Tijuana River during a period of more than two weeks that ended Thursday. While cross-border sewage spills of a few million gallons are routine for the region, this is one of the largest such events in the last two decades, according to water quality experts in San Diego.
I'm an expat American who's lived and worked in the "EUSSR" for 10+ years.
Where I live, my employer gets a choice between:
1. 5 weeks (25 days) paid vacation/annum + time-and-a-half (or in some cases double-time) for any & all hours over 37.5/week.
2. 6 weeks (30 days) paid vacation/annum + no overtime pay but no hours over 48/week, ever.
My employer let me choose, and I took Option #2.
I will never accept a job from an American firm again unless they give me one of the options listed above, in writing.
So far, every time I've been offered a position by an American company (and there have been many), what happens is something like this: (a) I tell them that this is what I expect; (b) They respond that I'm full of shit, that's not possible, etc; (c) I show them my current contract; (d) Offer is hastily withdrawn.
Enjoy your life in the Gulag, dumbass.
I'm an expat American who's lived and worked in the "EUSSR" for 10+ years.
That's funny, I'm the opposite. I worked in the EUSSR for 15 years, and moved to the U.S. in 2010. My perspective is very different than yours, and here is why:
First of all, taxes. All that free time and subsidized healthcare must be paid one way or the other. My income tax in my home-country was 52%, sales tax (VAT) is 21%. So out of the gate, the government took 73% of every euro I made. Wanna buy a car? Sure. MSRP is 10,000. Add 21% tax to get to 12,100. Now add 9,181 special car-tax and you get to pay 21,281 for your 10,000 car. Calculate it yourself: http://www.autoweek.nl/bpmcalc...
Second, like in the U.S., once you are regular full-time, most positions won't pay overtime anyway.
Third, and this is the most important, in my home country, it is extremely difficult to get a regular full-time position, because it is extremely difficult for employers to fire you. If you have a full-time position that's not temporarily, they will have to go to court to get you fired. So they will avoid doing that as long as they can by giving you a temporary contract. First 6 months, then a year. Then perhaps another year. Maybe after that you'll get a full time position if you're special enough. If you work in a call center and are easily replaceable, they'll hire someone else so they can restart the clock. California is an at-will state and I've never had a temp contract, ever. This is what happens when the government starts interfering with private contracts. My brother and sister are well in their thirties and only recently got a regular full time position. Did I mention that you won't get a mortgage on a temporary contract?
And I did not even mention all the abuse I've seen of the welfare state. People who are perfectly capable of working, but choose not to because the government will provide for them, on my dime. Remember, the government uses my taxpayer money, extracted from my paycheck under the threat of a gun to my head, to pay other people not to work. Fuck that shit, and fuck the EU, for that reason alone already.
And I did not even start about civil liberties. Civil liberties in Europe, right. No freedom of speech, every ISP must retain all logs of you for 6 months, even a park ranger can check your internet history. That's why: EUSSR.
I'm not a complete idiot... Some parts are missing.