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Trump To Overhaul H-1B Visa Program To Encourage Hiring Americans (theguardian.com)
An anonymous reader quotes a report from The Guardian: In a bid to court working class voters, Donald Trump will sign an executive order on Tuesday to revamp a temporary visa program used to bring foreign workers to fill jobs in the U.S. The president will use a visit to a manufacturing company in Kenosha, Wisconsin, a crucial state he snatched from Hillary Clinton in the election, to promote his latest "Buy America Hire America" offensive. Trump's executive order will call on government departments to introduce reforms to ensure that H-1B visas are awarded to the "most skilled or highest paid applicants," a senior administration official said. The executive order will also call for the "strict enforcement" of laws governing entry to the U.S. of labor from overseas, with a view to creating higher wages and employment rates for U.S. workers. The order will also call on government departments to "take prompt action to crack down on fraud and abuse" in the immigration system, a senior administration official said. The administration official sad: "Right now H-1B visas are awarded by random lottery and many of you will be surprised to know that about 80% of H-1B workers are paid less than the median wage in their fields. Only 5% to 6%, depending on the year, of H-1B workers command the highest wage tier recognized by the Department of Labor. [...] If you change that current system that awards visas randomly, without regard for skill or wage, to a skills-based awarding, it makes it extremely difficult to use the visa to replace or undercut American workers [...] It's a very elegant way of solving very systemic problems in the H-1B guest worker visa."
If I'm not mistaken, the law as written requires that H-1Bs be paid more than Americans. So what he's saying then is that there's nothing wrong with the law, it's just not being enforced? How about we actually enforce the law rather than change it, if that's the case, because the law can say whatever it wants and it won't matter a damn if you don't bother to enforce it.
I have seen so much lip service from politicians on this, and with Trump being the least reliable of them all, I will rejoice when I actually see something done that makes a difference.
Laws are rules for the court, but merely a bottom bar to hit for life. Think beyond laws in your actions always.
To understand how this scam works... H1-B Indian will have BS/MS degrees (from India) and they are willing to work for $35,000. So the body shop takes out tiny ads in local newspapers offering to hire programmers/testers with a BS/MS for $35,000. Of course no qualified US computer person is going to take work at $35,000/yr. These ads generate the "proof" needed that these jobs can't be filled by Americans.
The body shop then brings in 500 H1-B people and pays them $35,000/yr. According to the law this is allowed, there are no US citizen willing to take these jobs at $35,000/yr. But then the owner of this body shop turns right around and places these people as temp workers for $80,000/yr. He undercuts the US temp workers who would get $90,000/yr.
This is a great business $80,000 - $35,000 = $45,000 profit per H1-B visa per year. This is how you make $100M from owning a body shop over the course of a few years.
"He fired missiles for personal gain..." Are you kidding?! That has to be the dumbest possible point you could make.
The bottom line is Trump has attacked intellectual honesty and diplomacy, which fails to create an environment where issues can be discussed openly and honestly and actions taken based on said discourse.
He has charted an ideological course on many issues (such as healthcare) that get us further from addressing the real issues. We are setting ourselves back a decade or more in controlling healthcare costs.
He has also done a few things that might not align with my beliefs, but that I recognize as likely necessary or reasonable (in context). I don't take issues with the moab or tomahawks, although I am quite curious as to what will ultimately happen in/with NK.
I switched jobs when I was 40. I went from a retail job that I had been working at for over a decade, to a programmer at a small company.
Now, I had a degree in Computer Science, so it's not like I was making that jump with nothing to back it up. But I still spent the first couple months on the job just learning. (Hell, technically, I'm still learning.)
Not everyone is going to be able to make that jump. Sometimes it's going to be because of their age. Or rather, because some people believe that at their age, they can't make that jump. Some people can't make that jump because they lack the skills and can't get hired at an entry-level position when there are better applicants available.
Mr. Hu is not a ninja.
There is nothing magical about computer code written in the US versus in China or Russia.
I want to agree with this statement (assuming "China or Russia" can be replaced with a generic "overseas"), but my experience tells me otherwise. While anecdotal, I have spent time on many teams where I am one of a few, or possibly the only, non-Indian immigrant on the team (team size varies from 10-50 people). I'm a consultant, and I'm pulled in to help on different projects for my firm's clients.
The immigrants I've worked with, while nice (very much so), and knowledgeable in very specific technology, have no broad critical thinking skills, software design/architecture skills, or outside-the-box thinking. Basically, if what they need to code doesn't match an example from whatever 6-week class they took before getting the visa, they won't have a clue. This means the solutions end up being a glut of cobbled together code until things work. There's entire segments of code that are usually obsolete or do nothing... worse yet, silently fail; users just get tired of reporting bugs and find their own workarounds, so management falsely believes things are being fixed when the bug reports die down.
This isn't their fault mind you. They are being exploited... first by the inadequate training farms in their native country (or possibly online), and then by the "body shops" that bring them to the US and hire them out at outrageous rates while paying as little as possible. While their client is getting subpar coding infused into their software, ultimately increasing costs over time.
I want the H-1B visas overhauled not only to ensure America jobs stay American, but also so these immigrants aren't exploited. They are more than welcome to move to this country, but it should be on better terms, even if that prevents a multitude of them from coming here without more effort than is being expended now.
Switching languages is a minor change; switching paradigms is major... and switching from physical to mental work (or the other direction) for the first time at 40+ is nearly impossible.
Any job development programs at your company to help train 50-year old immigrant taxi drivers to program?
This is the only Trump policy that I actually agree with. So I'm on the horns of a dilemma. Is this actually the only policy of his that is not actively harmful? Or am I on the wrong side of the issue?
The use of H1B visas can only serve to short-circuit one of the foundational principal of capitalism, which is supply and demand. When demand exceeds existing supply, prices must rise in order to stimulate the generation of more supply. When supply exceeds demand, prices must go down to discourage excess production. If this mechanism is undercut, then supply and demand get out of whack and the relevant market becomes distorted. This happens any time that price controls are imposed on a market, or when there is a sudden unanticipated spike in demand for a product, or when supply is artificially inflated. This is true of any market, including the labor market.
The use of H1B visas is actively depressing demand for more American STEM graduates, which is the exact opposite of what President Obama said he wanted. Who wants to go into a field where their jobs can be easily outsourced to cheap imported labor? Into a job market where the government is actively working against its own citizens? Nobody who has any sense, that's who.
So I do feel that Trump is actually correct on this issue. Let's see how long it is before he flip-flops on this one, too.
"The only good windmill is a tilted windmill."
If it's one thing Trump has shown in his pattern of behaviour in his first 3.5 months in office, is his policies will always have exception clauses for his corporate buddies. in other words, he'll try to make things look like they support principle, but allow loopholes for his corporate colleagues as well as his own private businesses. (which is a conflict of interest). For example, the so-called, Anti-Muslim Immigration act (it does discriminate against Muslim countries but that isn't the bill's name). Apparently Muslim countries that did business with Trump businesses were exempt. Trump talks the talk, but doesn't walk the walk. While I agree that corporate abuse of foreign visa to get in cheap labor and lowering the quality of living overall in the USA needs to stop, I don't think Trump is the one to do it. He just talks big. I'm going to have to much fun see how his "wall" plays out.
"Imagination is more important than knowledge" - Einstein
If there really is a shortage, paying a premium to fill those gaps at the top will not be a problem.
I am very small, utmostly microscopic.
The existing H1-B visa system is a cross between a bad joke, an outright scam and a tragedy. Truly exceptional foreign applicants get tossed into the mix with diploma-mill exhaust and are less likely to make it to the US under the existing system. Likewise, US workers are likely to get replaced with *much* less qualified H-1B visa holders under the current system and enforcement attitude. Glaringly overdue for a reset, the current system only exists because of a few US and Indian tech companies throw lobbying $$ at D.C. Enough already.
After first warning Russia what he was about to do so they could warn Syria, which looks like the attack was mainly for domestic consumption.