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This Year's H-1B Visa Applications Look A Lot Like Last Year's (newsweek.com)
"This year's round of H-1B visa program applications was scheduled to launch Monday, and it was largely absent of President Donald Trump's proposed policy changes," writes Newsweek. An anonymous reader quotes their report:
The U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services last updated its online page dedicated to the program, which granted visas to skilled foreign workers, Wednesday with the rules mostly similar to those of last year and quotas remaining the same. These requirements were set to launch despite Trump's vow to reform the program on the grounds that companies exploited it to fill jobs once held by U.S. citizens who earned higher wages.
An alleged draft of an executive order was leaked last month and widely circulated, raising fears that the administration was preparing to gut the program. These measures were never announced. "There was a window in which the White House could have made serious reforms," Russ Harrison, head of government relations for the Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers-USA, told The Wall Street Journal. "For whatever reason, they decided not to take it."
An alleged draft of an executive order was leaked last month and widely circulated, raising fears that the administration was preparing to gut the program. These measures were never announced. "There was a window in which the White House could have made serious reforms," Russ Harrison, head of government relations for the Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers-USA, told The Wall Street Journal. "For whatever reason, they decided not to take it."
The story is framed as bad but isn't it better that they take some time to craft a reasonable update to the policy? Trump has been president just a bit over two months now!
You speak as if he's actually been busy on this for the past few months. While an early draft EO in January mentioned H1-B reform, since then Trump's ADHD has brought all progress to a halt.
There is huge support in Congress for cracking down on H1-B abuse- this is one of those rare issues where which both parties agree. But actually getting something accomplished takes time away from tweeting, golfing, and monitoring Fox and Friends for intelligence updates. In desperation Sen. Chuck Grassley (R-IA) went on twitter himself two weeks ago and begged for Trump to call his office about H1-B reform. One tweet read "I've been waiting for six yrs for a president interested in fixing H1B and that person has finally arrived/DRAIN SWAMP". Six down, four to go!
In that case nobody should ever emigrate anywhere.
Why did your ancestors go to the country you are in now?
Problem is.... the H1B program is really only valuable to a company that plans on abusing it.
If you're a typical small or mid-sized business with a need for technical employees, it doesn't make sense to try to hire foreigners who have thick accents / language barriers, as well as a work history that's often a total "unknown" (since you can't just skim a resume and get an idea of their skills and knowledge based on who they worked for previously -- because you're likely not that familiar with any foreign firms they worked for).
I've worked my whole life in I.T. and know for a fact there are plenty of Americans with solid expertise in various parts of the field. I can barely imagine a scenario where nobody in America is competent in what's needed, while someone from over in India is just who they need? It's all about getting budget priced labor and nothing more.
At the end of the day, sure -- we're all human beings and have similar wants, needs, and hopes / desires. You can make an appeal to emotions about someone, anywhere in the world, who is in an unfortunate situation. But most of those are the result of the government their country is ruled by. America, for all of its faults, is still pretty good about ensuring its citizens enjoy a top-tier lifestyle. That doesn't mean we "owe" it to everyone else on the planet who'd like to come here and get in on the action.