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Silicon Valley Says Trump Plan To Reduce Immigration Will Hurt Economy (cbslocal.com)

An anonymous reader quotes a report from CBS Local: President Donald Trump's push to cut legal immigration to the United States in half is being met by opposition from Silicon Valley leaders, economists, and even some Republicans senators, who all say legal immigration is key to economic prosperity. The Trump administration Wednesday endorsed the Reforming American Immigration for a Strong Economy Act or RAISE Act, a Senate bill introduced by two Republican senators earlier this year, that aims to cut all U.S. immigration in half. Business leaders, especially those in California's tech industry, say the bill will stymie their ability to fill jobs and grow the U.S. economy. California's economy is the sixth largest in the world and many attribute that success, in part, to immigration. The Information Technology Industry Council, which represents companies including Amazon, Apple, Adobe, Dell, Facebook, Hewlett-Packard, Google, Visa, Nokia, and Microsoft railed against the bill.

Dean Garfield, President and CEO of the council said, "This is not the right proposal to fix our immigration system because it does not address the challenges tech companies face, injects more bureaucratic dysfunction, and removes employers as the best judge of the employee merits they need to succeed and grow the U.S. economy." Garfield argues that the tech industry cannot find enough STEM-skilled Americans to fill open positions and that U.S. immigration policy "stops us from keeping the best and brightest innovators here in the U.S. and instead we lose out to our overseas competitors."

13 of 273 comments (clear)

  1. H1B.... by Zurkeyon3733 · · Score: 5, Insightful

    Hurts it MORE.

  2. What Would We Have To Pay Programmers? by Bruce+Perens · · Score: 5, Insightful

    If we couldn't outsource their jobs (and actually get them done, which is a problem with outsourcing) and we couldn't import cheap labor from overseas, we'd have to pay programmers over $200K/year. And that would be terrible, because

    Oh. Never mind.

    1. Re:What Would We Have To Pay Programmers? by computational+super · · Score: 5, Insightful

      It would be terrible because it would hurt the economy. Well, Zuck's own personal economy, anyway. He'd have to go from making 100 times what the average American makes to only 99 times as much.

      --
      Proud neuron in the Slashdot hivemind since 2002.
    2. Re:What Would We Have To Pay Programmers? by dAzED1 · · Score: 5, Insightful

      https://www.cnbc.com/2016/05/1... - the average American doesn't make 1/100th of over $4m per day from birth to present. I don't know what you think Americans make, but...btw, that article is less than 15months old, and he's made $19billion since then. Facebook has 17k employees. That means he could have given each of them a $million in the last 15 months, and still had more left over from that 15months of income to give a thousand average Americans an entire lifetime of income earnings. I know you were just being silly, but people don't really appreciate the...scale...of the income inequality.

  3. Conflict of interest by x0ra · · Score: 5, Insightful

    Of course SV will be against, they have a huge conflict of interest in the matter. They keep importing under-paid code monkey who accept to work 70h a week in constant stressful environment with no job security, while firing and discriminating against older, more pragmatic, american staffers.

    1. Re:Conflict of interest by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Insightful

      Exactly, they lie through their teeth.

      Under Trump's plan, there would actually be more high-skilled immigrants , but they would no longer be indentured to the sponsoring companies:
      if the wages are too low, they take their green card and walk away (not something an H1-b non-immigrant can do, or else he loses sponsorship).

      Obviously the tech companies hate it, because they can no longer rely on skilled immigrants to undercut skilled Americans. No visa tie-in, no h1-b sweatshops, no people living in fear of pissing off an employer.
      Don't be surprised if Tim Cook starts to speak about "Russian treason" now. (Bezos already does through Washington Post)

    2. Re:Conflict of interest by slew · · Score: 4, Informative

      I would have thought Silicon Valley would have supported this proposal. More (legal) high-skilled domestic labor means downward pressure on wages.

      What exactly are tech leaders railing against?? Higher wages in the future for their gardeners and nannies?

      Maybe. If the "merit" system for proposed green cards makes it harder for low skilled gardeners and nannies to get green cards...

      The proposal sharply reduces the green cards available for so-called "chain" immigration by limiting them to spouses and minor children, eliminating the green-cards currently reserved for parents, siblings, and adult-children that have no quota. It also cuts the number of refugee green cards in half and eliminates the diversity green card (aka lottery green card) and puts everyone else including those that don't get employment based green cards because of quota limits into a new points based system.

      The reason that it is predicted that the number of green cards will go down is that "chain" green cards did not have a quota (diversity had a 50,000 quota), but now the new combination of "chain" + "diversity" will be capped at somewhere between 120,000 and 250,000

      Not that I'm in favor of limiting immigration, but I think most of these folks are simply objecting on political grounds. By making "chain" immigration harder they think it will be more difficult to attract the "skilled" people to the US. I'm not so sure about that actually being the case in reality (hard to say, there are conflicting studies), but it certainly fits their political narrative...

      FWIW, here's the green card proposal they are making. There are two tiers proposed, each would have a crack at 50% of the total green cards allocated on points. As far as I can determine here are how the points are allocated.

      For Tier 1 (aimed at college/professional level folks, 50% of green cards)

      15 points for PhD (10 for a masters, 5 for a bachelors)
      2 or 3 points per year up to 20 for employment in the US (e.g, legally under another work visa like H1 or H2)
      10 points for employment (or job offer) in a job requiring a PhD/masters (8 points for a Bachelors degree)
      10 points for entrepreneurs employing at least 2 people
      10 points for a high demand occupation
      2 points for civic involvement
      10 points for English skills
      10 points for being a sibling or adult child of a citizen
      8 points if you are under 25 (6 points for under 33, 4 points for under 38)
      5 points for a being from a diversity country (e.g., less than 50,000 immigrants/5years)

      For Tier 2 (every one else, 50% of green cards)

      2 points/year up to 20 points for employment in the US (e.g, legally under another work visa like H2 or H3)
      10 points for high-demand occupation employment (or job offer in those occupations)
      10 points for being a caregiver
      10 points for getting a promotion or having long-term employment
      2 points for civic involvement
      10 points for English skills (5 points for basic "knowledge" of English)
      10 points for being a sibling or adult child of a citizen
      8 points if you are under 25 (6 points for under 33, 4 points for under 38)
      5 points for a being from a diversity country (e.g., less than 50,000 immigrants/5years)

  4. Source by SmaryJerry · · Score: 4, Funny

    A San Francisco station is reporting Trump policy is making some people upset? I'm -shocked-.

  5. Depends on what kind of immigrant by Spy+Handler · · Score: 5, Insightful

    because not all immigrants are alike.

    People bringing with them cold hard cash, and spending them in USA = boon for the economy

    People bringing nothing, and actually sending whatever money they make back to their original country to feed their relatives back home = drain on the economy

    People with skills who produce wealth = boon for the economy

    People with no marketable skill who collect entitlements = drain on the economy

  6. BS detector just lit up like a Christmas tree by EndlessNameless · · Score: 5, Insightful

    It hurts their ability to grow the economy? Oh, boo hoo, they have to pay more for American workers.

    If a handful of American salaries turns your project from a profit to a loss, you are running on razor-thin margins to begin with. Maybe your company should be doing something else instead.

    On the other hand, if you're making a decent profit and just want more---get fucked. Public policy doesn't need to hand out special benefits to successful businesses. Right now, the middle class needs a little more help than the shareholders.

    Real immigration means coming over here, making a life, and investing long-term in the well-being of this country. The H1B program isn't immigration; it's indentured servitude V2.0

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    According to the latest ruleset, this post should be modded as Vorpal Flamebait +5.
  7. Heard before by nukenerd · · Score: 4, Informative

    Has't this sort of thing been heard before?
    Modern American politician : "The economy cannot survive without immigrants"
    Ancient Greek politician : "Civilisation cannot survive without slavery"

  8. Re:Come to Europe... by 93+Escort+Wagon · · Score: 5, Interesting

    Plenty of opportunities here. And no Trump.

    Funny thing is... this proposed plan would move US immigration policy closer to that of Canada and the EU, with more emphasis on prioritizing immigrants with particular skills and/or some level of wealth.

    --
    #DeleteChrome
  9. Allow me to translate by superdave80 · · Score: 4, Insightful

    This is not the right proposal to fix our immigration system because it does not address the challenges tech companies face, injects more bureaucratic dysfunction, and removes employers as the best judge of the employee merits they need to succeed and grow the U.S. economy." Garfield argues that the tech industry cannot find enough STEM-skilled Americans to fill open positions and that U.S. immigration policy "stops us from keeping the best and brightest innovators here in the U.S. and instead we lose out to our overseas competitors."

    Translated: "Where the fuck are we going to get our cheap programmers????"