Slashdot Mirror


H1-B Administrators Are Challenging An Unusually Large Number of Applications (bloomberg.com)

Long-time Slashdot reader decaffeinated quotes Bloomberg: Starting this summer, employers began noticing that U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services was challenging an unusually large number of H-1B applications. Cases that would have sailed through the approval process in earlier years ground to a halt under requests for new paperwork. The number of challenges -- officially known as "requests for evidence" or RFEs -- are up 44 percent compared to last year, according to statistics from USCIS...

"We're entering a new era," said Emily Neumann, an immigration lawyer in Houston who has been practicing for 12 years. "There's a lot more questioning, it's very burdensome." She said in past years she's counted on 90 percent of her petitions being approved by Oct. 1 in years past. This year, only 20 percent of the applications have been processed. Neumann predicts she'll still have many unresolved cases by the time next year's lottery happens in April 2018.

304 comments

  1. The H1B visa program is used as cheap labor. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Insightful

    The H1B visa program is used intentionally as cheap labor to replace the American worker under the guise of 'we just can't find anyone skilled local'.

    It's more about finding a worker who will work for 1/3rd the salary.

    1. Re: The H1B visa program is used as cheap labor. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1

      Good, then let these companies sell abroad and tarrif the hell out of them when they try to import.

    2. Re:The H1B visa program is used as cheap labor. by sjames · · Score: 5, Insightful

      Sadly, that is true. TFA is just people crying that they are actually being held to the stated intent and requirements of the H1-B program for the first time in well over a decade. Enforcement has been so lax that the people quoted in the story seem to have actually forgotten that being unable to find someone with the needed skills in the U.S. is a hard requirement for hiring an H1-B.

      If the full quota isn't being handed out, perhaps it's because there is no actual shortage and so there aren't that many qualifying applications out there. Perhaps they should take a second look at the applicants who were over 40 years old or otherwise seemed like they might insist on only working the hours they were paid for that they threw in the round file. They could try actually offering pay on par with the industry. Perhaps they could offer a better work environment, easier hours, or telecommute if they can't afford higher pay. They could offer training or scholorship programs, co-op, etc. They could even consider (God forbid) not insisting on having their offices in the most expensive places in the country.

    3. Re:The H1B visa program is used as cheap labor. by mysidia · · Score: 0

      For now..... but we SHOULD tax outsourcing at a high rate -- when companies bring assets into the united states created by someone outside the US, the product, services, or software, should be labelled as an Import, and then a tarriff applied to the import based on the $$ value of any product licensing and the $$ value of any contract sold which outsourced services were used to fulfill.

    4. Re:The H1B visa program is used as cheap labor. by CaptainDork · · Score: 4, Informative

      Your idea leads to tariff wars where other countries implement your ideas.

      It didn't end well.

      Five years after the passage of the tariff, American trading partners had raised their own tariffs by a significant degree. France raised its tariffs on automobiles from 45% to 100%, Spain raised tariffs on American goods by 40%, and Germany and Italy raised tariffs on wheat. This customs war is often cited as one of the main causes of the Great Depression.

      --
      It little behooves the best of us to comment on the rest of us.
    5. Re:The H1B visa program is used as cheap labor. by sjames · · Score: 1

      Oh please, you expect us to believe that the TRUMP administration is able to follow the stated intent and requirements of ANY law whatsoever?

      I made no comments on the president's motives, only that the program's requirements are finally being enforced and these people are crying about actually having to follow the law for a change.

    6. Re:The H1B visa program is used as cheap labor. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      What you don't get, other than weapons system, we don't export anything but oil. We own the patents. Tariff war. We win as we will start making our shit at home. Oh my goodness. American cars will not sell in France! Big deal. They don't sell now anyway.

    7. Re:The H1B visa program is used as cheap labor. by fyzikapan · · Score: 1

      This is entirely incorrect. Only H-1B dependent employers are required to recruit US workers. The recruitment requirements only kick in when/if the perm process is started.

    8. Re:The H1B visa program is used as cheap labor. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1

      The previous quoted a story about tariff wars.

      I'm of the opinion that we should let the free market work, for what the free market does well. That means protectionism should be resisted since it will create inefficiencies we are better off without. There are however two possible exceptions I'd recommend considering.

      1. The environment. If a country is allowing its environment to be destroyed to make goods cheap, then by all means try to tariff that such that the costs are more comparable to what a country that is not allowing such destruction to do.

        2. Human rights. If a country has poor labor laws/basic rights/etc and doesn't treat people fairly, then it is fair game to tariff there.

      It should be noted that with respect to human rights violators it may be better to just blanket ban imports from that country. Similarly, if their environmental records is bad enough it also might make sense to ban imports, but then if you tax them high enough it is nearly the same thing.

      Tariffs should not be used to simply compete against people willing to do the job for less. I'm a software engineer and I don't much care for H1B's either, but I just don't think it ends well if you start blocking the free market from optimizing on what it does well. The previous story of trade wars would seem to support this. Now the free market can also start to fail when companies get too big, but that is another topic.

    9. Re:The H1B visa program is used as cheap labor. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Your idea leads to tariff wars where other countries implement your ideas.

      It didn't end well.

      EU still does not allow free movement of goods without free movement of people. We in the Americas are getting screwed by deals with China and Latin America that increase inequality at home.

      H1B is trickier than trade agreements, though:

        - it's also reciprocal. I want it offered to countries I might like to move to (not India) so those countries will offer the same program to me.

        - it enables the "brain drain." If the smartest Indians could not come here to work, then it would be possible to do serious programming in India, like it is possible to do in Poland. Completed computer programs pass borders easily, so this could drive down my wages, and I don't want it. Therefore some skilled immigration from India might increase my earnings, not sure.

    10. Re:The H1B visa program is used as cheap labor. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      H1B is trickier than trade agreements, though:

        - it's also reciprocal. I want it offered to countries I might like to move to (not India) so those countries will offer the same program to me.

        - it enables the "brain drain." If the smartest Indians could not come here to work, then it would be possible to do serious programming in India, like it is possible to do in Poland. Completed computer programs pass borders easily, so this could drive down my wages, and I don't want it. Therefore some skilled immigration from India might increase my earnings, not sure.

      Poland - good example, we still need visa for travel to US.
      When I started work at current company we were small subsidiary to US based company, with another very small base in UK (to be present in older smaller EU).
      After 16 years, UK site is down to 2 person sales unit, US is HQ & 2 person sales unit,
      Polish site is 50+ developers and consultants, India site is .. I do not know perhaps 65 developers and support at present ...
      Customers? US, CA, UK, FR, South Africa , Australia and Brazil...
      Some expats from US are already anchored in Poland with families ... do not plan to go back unless SHTF event.

      Looking at the growing HP, IBM campuses in Central Europe ... business decision is already made - if you can bring workers to the work place (Central Europe is too european, too white ... not suitable for H1-B), move work place where workers are ...

    11. Re: The H1B visa program is used as cheap labor. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      The word used was "able" which is a statement of capacity, not simply intent.

      People are complaining because the TRUMP administration like any number of obstructive bureaucrats is excusing their incompetence by falsely claiming something else about their actions.

      You can't deny this, and by making no effort to disprove it, or even address it, you actually validate the grievance in the same way his "Muslim ban" failed. He contaminated the process by his own actions, and insisting that he be ignored only showed the weakness.

    12. Re:The H1B visa program is used as cheap labor. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      absolutely correct! i have worked with tons of h1b's from india. the international IT contacting firm - will remain unnamed - uses them as indentured servants. and the US corps take advantage of it.
      And the females that get here then get pregnant at earliest opportunity so as to create the anchor babies (the agencies would not bring any females in, but they have to or the US hiring firms would whine and accuse sexism). 30 to 40% of the females on the contracting teams are always pregnant.

          I see this with my own eyes in some of the largest IT firms in the world where i have worked in silicon valley- they are household names. They hire many thousands of h1bs at 1/2 the cost of local US citizens.

      The h1bs are decent workers, no better or worse than american. Except of course for the misogyny and racism (think caste system of India) that they bring over.

      This is NOT heresay. I have worked for the large U.S. firms, in silicon valley. I see this with my own eyes.

    13. Re:The H1B visa program is used as cheap labor. by fyzikapan · · Score: 2

      Except that the requirements you claim are completely imaginary. They're often claimed by US workers who dislike the system but don't actually know anything about the rules.

      DOL Fact Sheet #62O

      Unless the employer is H-1B-dependent, they can hire all the H1-B workers they can get and not make even the slightest effort to recruit an American worker.

      Now, if you want an employee-sponsored green card, then the employer will have to do recruitment, but that's an entirely separate process from the H-1B and occurs years later.

    14. Re:The H1B visa program is used as cheap labor. by sjames · · Score: 1

      Most H1-B employers DO employ enough that they meet the criteria for being H1-B dependent. Certainly those who are most complained about here, and those who were interviewed for TFA.

      That's why finding excuses for H1-B hires is big enough to be it's own sub-specialty of immigration and employment law.

    15. Re:The H1B visa program is used as cheap labor. by fyzikapan · · Score: 1

      Actually they don't. There's a fairly small amount of dependent employers. They just recruit US workers too. Of course, for many, they're hiring MS or greater and paying high salaries so they're exempt.

    16. Re:The H1B visa program is used as cheap labor. by rhyous · · Score: 1

      2. Human rights. If a country has poor labor laws/basic rights/etc and doesn't treat people fairly, then it is fair game to tariff there.

      Who decides what is a human rights violation? Remember, the US went through a sweat shop phase. What if another country needs a sweat shop phase to take the next step in their industrial evolution?

      In the Dominican Republic, I met a man who just got a job making clothes for a popular name brand. He was so excited. He said: I *only* have to work 12 hours a day six days a week and I get 700 pesos a month. Some celebrity came out in the news crying about how unfairly this man was being treated. However, the celebrity forgot to mention that before taking these jobs that were supposed human rights violations this man was working 14 hours a day, 7 days a week and getting about twelve pesos a day. He was paid twice a day, about 6 pesos for working in the morning and about 6 pesos for working afternoon and evening. About 360 pesos if he worked all 30 days in a month. But they didn't talk monthly, because he would immediately spend the money on food as he lived paycheck to paycheck, every half-day. SO if there was no work a day or a half day, he and his family didn't eat lunch or dinner. They already never ate breakfast as they never had food.

      So this so-called human rights violations, that allowed this man to double his income, have Sundays off and work two hours less a day, is something you would like to tariff or block?

      First world solutions don't always solve third world problems. The world is not so simple as our first world problems make it appear to be.

    17. Re:The H1B visa program is used as cheap labor. by mysidia · · Score: 1

      Your idea leads to tariff wars where other countries implement your ideas.

      An intellectual property/licensing tarriff-war would be a very interesting thing, but fortunately the countries involved
      would be ones that could not damage the US by tarriffing in the opposite directions, and the US could very easily exempt
      highly-developed countries that the US DOES export to ---- the US is IMPORTING
      the results of all this work, not EXPORTING.

      Also, this is not just for Outsourcing..... this is a corporate Tax Avoidance method used by large companies such as Apple;
      who "License" their IP from a foreign company incorporated in some ridiculous place like Ireland or some small island nations;
      anyways by Tarriffing IP licensing, the lost tax $$$ could be recovered.

    18. Re:The H1B visa program is used as cheap labor. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Well, why not? If your skills are so mediocre and laughable we can find a third-worlder that can do your job for less, tough luck. You should have cultivated another set of more competitive skills. Instead you relied on computah shit and now it's endgame for you. Sucks to be you, nerd.

    19. Re:The H1B visa program is used as cheap labor. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      But you don't get skilled immigration. You get somebody who lied on their resume and was represented by a contracting ghost during the phone technical interview, who ultimately has to go through eight to twelve months of hands-on training before becoming useful, at which point they're shipped back home and the process starts all over again.

    20. Re:The H1B visa program is used as cheap labor. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      No, it is more like "Hello America, We are glad to have you back".

      We also know now who is butt hurt when Criminal Hillary was not elected. Too bad he/she is an anonymous coward.

  2. Boo farking hoo by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 4, Insightful

    Oh no, they'll have to pay higher wages instead of using foreign labor! Won't somebody think of the corporate profits?

    There are valid situations where there's nobody with that skill available in the US. That is not the case for 90% of H1-B visas.

    1. Re:Boo farking hoo by ShanghaiBill · · Score: 2, Insightful

      Oh no, they'll have to pay higher wages instead of using foreign labor!

      That is one solution. Another is to hire the whole team overseas. If you can't move the workers to the jobs, then you move the jobs to the workers.

      Restrictions on immigration have a poor track record for creating jobs and economic growth.

    2. Re:Boo farking hoo by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0, Insightful

      At what cost? The way immigration is working today it's resembling an intentional ethnic cleansing of the west. If you look at London, it's 60% Arab Muslims. Europe has a terrorist attack every 9 days.

      A nation should be more concerned about supporting it's own people and culture than selling it out to billionaire psychopaths like George Soros who put out a bunch of propaganda about how important mass immigration is and try to brain wash the west about how evil and racist the white man is.

      So I'm sorry, but I don't buy it any more. Your statistics are crap and it doesn't matter if they're true. This is ethnic cleansing.

      Mixing all the races together just results in a race war. The Tower of Babble. That is the whole point of it all. Divide and conquer.

    3. Re:Boo farking hoo by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      For every person wanting to immigrate for a job, they should be required to do an even exchange and provide a job in their country for someone from the US.

    4. Re:Boo farking hoo by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Another is to hire the whole team overseas.

      You're supposed to put sufficient tariffs on those companies to prevent that. And you can reduce tariffs on imports that use domestic labor. Not that complicated, is it?

    5. Re:Boo farking hoo by fustakrakich · · Score: 1

      Yeah, I really wanna live in Delhi right now...

      --
      “He’s not deformed, he’s just drunk!”
    6. Re:Boo farking hoo by ShanghaiBill · · Score: 2

      Mixing all the races together just results in a race war.

      I live in San Jose, which at less than 1/3 white, it is the "brownest" big city in America. It is also the big city with the lowest crime rate.

      The Tower of Babble. That is the whole point of it all.

      Children of Asian immigrants outperform native born whites on the English verbal section of the SAT.

    7. Re:Boo farking hoo by jedidiah · · Score: 1

      > I live in San Jose, which at less than 1/3 white, it is the "brownest" big city in America. It is also the big city with the lowest crime rate.

      Clearly you never got the memo. Indians are white people when it comes to "social justice". They aren't "brown".

      --
      A Pirate and a Puritan look the same on a balance sheet.
    8. Re:Boo farking hoo by Rockoon · · Score: 3, Insightful

      Clearly you never got the memo. Indians are white people when it comes to "social justice". They aren't "brown".

      They are whichever is most convenient at the moment.

      --
      "His name was James Damore."
    9. Re:Boo farking hoo by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1

      If people wouldn't want to live in Delhi, why would we want to import that to our country? These so called workers are incompetent and incompatible and you can't understand what they're saying. Why would I want a doctor I can't understand and who's racist against white people?

      English is my mother tongue, I grew up in several North American cities and there are whole swaths of Real Americans whom I can't understand.

    10. Re: Boo farking hoo by cyber-vandal · · Score: 1

      London is not anywhere near 60% Arab Muslim. The whole country is only 5% Muslims of all ethnicities including *gasp* white Europeans. Stop watching Alex Jones, he's a fucking moron.

    11. Re:Boo farking hoo by ShanghaiBill · · Score: 1

      You're supposed to put sufficient tariffs on those companies to prevent that.

      If you do this to only American companies, then jobs and investment will flow to non-American companies. This is already happening because of our extraterritorial tax laws. Punitive tariffs will turn a flow into a flood.

      If you do it across the board, that will require America to withdraw from the WTO. Other countries will quickly retaliate with their own tariffs, and American workers will shift from designing iPhones to sewing blue jeans. Airbus will be delighted to see Boeing go bankrupt.

      Protectionism is not a new idea (it has been around for millennia), and it has never worked out well. You can't create prosperity by shutting out the rest of the world. The most protectionist country in the world today is North Korea (per capita GDP: $580). The least protectionist is Singapore (per capita GDP: $53,000).

    12. Re: Boo farking hoo by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      It's actually 1.3% Arab, not all of whom are Muslim. London is considered one of the most ethnically diverse cities in the world. Whoever thinks its 60% is obviously completely insane.

    13. Re:Boo farking hoo by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      > If you can't move the workers to the jobs,
      > then you move the jobs to the workers.

      Have YOU even spent any time overseas? I have, both in India and Malaysia when I worked for a US multinational. When you ship work overseas you deal with THEIR customs and business environment.

      Power outages? not unusual. Hope you save your files frequently.

      Engineers leaving work at 5pm sharp? (how dare they!) not unusual.

      More than 20 days paid holidays per year (I'm looking at you India). not unusual.

      Teams paralyzed because problems appear and projects slip while the team waits for the US leadership to make decisions? not unusual.

      Labor costs creeping up overseas because everyone is trying to ship their work overseas because "low wages". the new norm.

      Late night or early morning calls in the US to get live status update from the team? Get used to it.

      The cost of moving development infrastructure overseas? Not cheap.

      Bribery? Industrial Espionage? Just the tip.

      So yeah, you COULD ship the project overseas. I DARE YOU. But don't come crying to me when your "cheap labor" comes with some additional costs that wipe out your paper savings AND end up costing you more in the long run AND your quality tanks!

    14. Re:Boo farking hoo by ShanghaiBill · · Score: 3

      Have YOU even spent any time overseas?

      See my userID. I am in Shanghai right now, although I hope to return to California before Christmas.

      Power outages?

      My company has had an office in Shanghai since 2002. During those 15 years, we have had this many power outages: 0.

      Engineers leaving work at 5pm sharp? (how dare they!) not unusual.

      Well, Chinese people value family time, but how many tasks really really can't wait till the next day?

      More than 20 days paid holidays per year (I'm looking at you India).

      In China nearly everyone takes vacation during the same 20 days: The lunar new year, in Jan/Feb, and "National Week" in October. That makes it easy to manage.

      Teams paralyzed because problems appear and projects slip while the team waits for the US leadership to make decisions?

      You are missing the point. If you move the entire team overseas, that includes the decision makers. There is no need to "phone home".

      Labor costs creeping up overseas

      True, but still way below Silicon Valley levels. I can hire solid engineers and devs in Shanghai for $35k.

      The cost of moving development infrastructure overseas?

      My laptop fits in my backpack.

    15. Re:Boo farking hoo by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      > ... Have YOU even spent any time overseas? I have, both in India and Malaysia when I worked for a US multinational. When you ship work overseas you deal with THEIR customs and business environment ...

      Notice the bolded part above, dude?

      That is what getting you the trouble

      In India you have Indians

      In Malaysia you have Malays

      Both are notoriously lazy and, dare I say ... racist!?

      If you were to go to Vietnam or Taiwan or China you will find teams of eager and resourceful colleagues, instead of the lazy and arrogant zombies like you find in India and Malaysia

    16. Re:Boo farking hoo by djinn6 · · Score: 1

      Protectionism is not a new idea (it has been around for millennia), and it has never worked out well. You can't create prosperity by shutting out the rest of the world.

      It's not a binary choice. You can be somewhere in between, limiting the amount of disruption to your industries to a rate at which they can adapt to while allowing the inflow of new ideas and cheaper products. Without any protectionist measures, you may be increasing the total wealth, but not necessarily prosperity, especially if the new wealth is all concentrated in the hands of the very few.

      Since you currently live in China, you should know that China is a great example of limited protectionism, including limited currency exchange, limited foreign ownership in domestic enterprise and a non-free internet. All of which has enabled domestic industries to survive against more capable foreign competition. Because of this, they were able to gain much more from globalization than the US, which practiced unfettered free trade.

    17. Re: Boo farking hoo by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      They should have gf that law when your ancestors immigrated here.

    18. Re: Boo farking hoo by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      That's only because there are no rich white people up rob anymore.

    19. Re: Boo farking hoo by fubarrr · · Score: 1

      I stayed in Chocolate town in Guangzhou for few weeks, locals were much better people than your average Chinese. Despite the popular notion, the chocolate town is the least criminal part of the city, not the most.

    20. Re: Boo farking hoo by fubarrr · · Score: 1

      >I can hire solid engineers and devs in Shanghai for $35k.

      I don't believe you. It is at least 60k CNY below market rate for an any much senior developer

    21. Re: Boo farking hoo by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Correct! However, the actual statistic is that muslims own 60% of London.

    22. Re:Boo farking hoo by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Your statistics are crap and it doesn't matter if they're true.

      That says it all; truth is no longer a criteria. We live in the post-truth era. Ideology über alles!

    23. Re: Boo farking hoo by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Mod parent up more! As an employer of h1-b's , I'd like to think we fall into the 10%, but I'd agree with the 90% assessment ...

    24. Re: Boo farking hoo by ShanghaiBill · · Score: 1

      It is at least 60k CNY below market rate for an any much senior developer

      35k USD, not 35k CNY. You can't hire a janitor for 35k CNY.

    25. Re: Boo farking hoo by fubarrr · · Score: 1

      I mean 240000 CNY a year (in which 35000 usd translate) is kinda low for a senior. CNY 300k a year is what Tencent and Alubaba give out without much trouble

    26. Re:Boo farking hoo by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      You misunderstand. The point is that a statistic can be true and at the same time irrelevant to the issue at hand because something else overrides it in importance.

      For example. The new automobile, the Mazda Safe-T, is the safest car in the world. Occupants survive the crash tests 98% of the time, which is 50% higher than the nearest competition.

      Nice stat, right? But it's irrelevant, because another stat is the car is $200,000 and well outside of my price range, so I won't consider buying it anyway, no matter how safe it is.

    27. Re:Boo farking hoo by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Oh no, they'll have to pay higher wages instead of using foreign labor! Won't somebody think of the corporate profits?

      There are valid situations where there's nobody with that skill available in the US. That is not the case for 90% of H1-B visas.

      I think you meant 99%

      I have never known a H-1B visa holder whose job could not be filled by someone that I knew that was at the time out of work and unable to find a job, or someone that would happily take the job over their current job if it paid the same or better than their current job, and therein lies the problem. Employers just don't want to pay what the job is actually worth.

      Offshoring, Outsourcing and the H-1B program have held wages artificially low for almost 2 decades now they have also prevented the industry from having a pool of entry level positions from which people can "get their feet wet".

      Id love to see what would happen if corporate "business" people and executives started getting replaced by H-1B holders, how fast would the law change?

    28. Re:Boo farking hoo by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      They do this already whenever possible, however this works works rather poorly on the whole save for entry level support and customer service positions.

    29. Re: Boo farking hoo by ShanghaiBill · · Score: 1

      Tencent and Alibaba are prestigious companies that can hire the best of the best. The salaries they pay are not typical. It is similar to America, where the salaries paid by Google and Facebook are far above average.

    30. Re: Boo farking hoo by cyber-vandal · · Score: 1

      Yeah that doesn't surprise me given how valuable property is in London and how much money oil sheikhs have. It doesn't mean a fat lot though to the average citizen who owns Canary Wharf or the Savoy Hotel.

    31. Re:Boo farking hoo by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      then jobs and investment will flow to non-American companies.

      No, wrong, that money will also be taxed. It's not protectionism to make investors pay the same taxes you and I would pay to to move money across the border. And American companies should pay taxes on overseas income, just like a regular citizen does.

      And there's nothing wrong with withdrawing from the WTO. They're just a hammer to destroy worker safety and environmental laws anyway.

      The least protectionist is Singapore

      Heh, that's funny, like they have a choice, and really, what is "Singapore", aside from being the leading odds maker on the currency/derivatives markets, and a giant billionaires' clubhouse? It is more like the space station than anything, totally dependent on the outside. What is produced there? Aside from reams of paper? When you think about it, there are few places on the planet that are more parasitic, a land of bureaucrats and speculators... and office cleaners.

    32. Re: Boo farking hoo by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Only if you "native Californians" will actually stay confined to California! You're ruining the rest of the country with your endless diaspora.

    33. Re:Boo farking hoo by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Well, you can TRY to retaliate against the US... And then find out it can be a suicidal proposition. Remember the diesel emission fiasco that almost killed Germany's car industry? It can happen again. And besides, there's a shit-ton of US firepower around that can turn any country's economy into nothing in very short order. Don't get too uppity, it's just a friendly warning.

  3. Good. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    As it should be.

    1. Re:Good. by ShanghaiBill · · Score: 4, Informative

      Just to be clear: This action is NOT reducing the number of H1-B visas issued. It is reducing the INPUTS to the lottery, not the OUTPUTS. So the same number of visas will be issued, just to different people.

    2. Re:Good. by PopeRatzo · · Score: 1

      Just to be clear: This action is NOT reducing the number of H1-B visas issued. It is reducing the INPUTS to the lottery, not the OUTPUTS. So the same number of visas will be issued, just to different people.

      Stop it. You're harshing their nativist buzz.

      --
      You are welcome on my lawn.
    3. Re: Good. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Still good. It's supposed to be for hiring people with skills you can't find locally. Evidence of the lack of skills of the people you've already interviewed and the skills the candidate has should always be required.

    4. Re: Good. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      You mean... they will actually be good at what they are hired for? That is great!

    5. Re:Good. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Just to be clear: This action is NOT reducing the number of H1-B visas issued. It is reducing the INPUTS to the lottery, not the OUTPUTS.

      Are you sure? Several of the anecdata said the candidate immigrant got RFE's after winning the H1B lottery. Is the article confusing it with the diversity lottery? or other applications will be pulled from the lottery late, if some of the winners are disqualified by RFE?

    6. Re:Good. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      It's still letting indians in though

    7. Re:Good. by Cinnamon+Beige · · Score: 2

      Just to be clear: This action is NOT reducing the number of H1-B visas issued. It is reducing the INPUTS to the lottery, not the OUTPUTS. So the same number of visas will be issued, just to different people.

      As it should be. Remember, the complaint is about the abuse of the H1-B visa.

      Imagine you're running a lottery for seats in a certification program--all entries are supposed to be for people who meet the qualifications, because there's several times as many people applying for the program as there's seats. You've got a total of 50 seats in the program, 500 qualified applicants, and anybody who wins automatically gets a seat reserved for them. The odds of any applicant getting in is 1 in 100.

      What happens to the odds of the qualified applicants for getting a seat in the program, if the 4,500 applicants who didn't meet the qualifications are included in the lottery anyway?

      Is it fair to the people who actually meet the official qualifications for an H1-B visa to not ensure their chances of getting one are as good as possible, by failing to properly check the applications?

    8. Re:Good. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Just to be clear: This action is NOT reducing the number of H1-B visas issued. It is reducing the INPUTS to the lottery, not the OUTPUTS.

      Are you sure? Several of the anecdata said the candidate immigrant got RFE's after winning the H1B lottery. Is the article confusing it with the diversity lottery? or other applications will be pulled from the lottery late, if some of the winners are disqualified by RFE?

      My guess..., TFA just uses RFE for the filing, not after winning H1B lottery. This word usage may confuse those who are familiar with RFE for diversity lottery process.

  4. Maybe just toss the H-1B program completely? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Insightful

    H-1B visa abuse is pretty commonplace. Even B-1 visa abuse is commonplace where people from offshore wind up working here in the US for 90-180 days, then get rotated out, and another batch of people from Kerala or Bangalore moved in. The fines for that are so cheap that it is written off as a cost of doing business.

    The problem is that there are many tax incentives to abuse the visa system. For example, I can pay the payroll tax for 20 FTEs, or I can pay some contracting firm that hauls in people fresh off the boat, and don't have to pay a dime. As an added bonus, I can tell them to punt someone I don't like because I feel like it, and the contracting place removes them. No separation, no work on my side other than locking some accounts. Plus, I don't have to worry about HR and interviews.

    So, until the system is fixed that encourages outsourcing to H-1B abusing contract firms, we will see this shit continuing. The H-1B program needs to be tossed, or modified where for every dollar paid for an H-1B, another dollar gets paid to the US government earmarked for education, with a minimum salary of five times the median income.

    1. Re:Maybe just toss the H-1B program completely? by swb · · Score: 5, Interesting

      As an added bonus, I can tell them to punt someone I don't like because I feel like it, and the contracting place removes them. No separation, no work on my side other than locking some accounts. Plus, I don't have to worry about HR and interviews.

      In this Weinsteinian era, it starts to make me wonder how much sexual harassment gets swept under the rug in this system.

      Pressure some woman for sex and when she doesn't deliver, tell the body shop she's not working out and you want her replaced. Given the generally low ethics associated with body shops, I can totally see them playing into serial offenders and sending them easy prey.

    2. Re: Maybe just toss the H-1B program completely? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Oh please. We all know H1Bs are guys named Rapetinder.

    3. Re:Maybe just toss the H-1B program completely? by Jane+Q.+Public · · Score: 4, Informative

      The problem is that there are many tax incentives to abuse the visa system.

      There is another problem you failed to mention: continuing H-1B status is often used by employers to coerce the visa holders to work for lower-than-normal wages.

      That is a big part of the reason the tech industry has for years been lobbying to expand the program.

      A number of recent studies have shown that there simply is no shortage of tech-field college and university graduates in the U.S.

    4. Re:Maybe just toss the H-1B program completely? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      H-1B should be for a limited time and should be limited to those interested in American citizenship. Suppose someone worked for a few years as an H-1B and wants to finalize their citizenship instead of getting deported.

      Why would we turn them down? If they have 3 years of solid employment in a tech area, well at least they are contributing. That way they would have the full rights as citizens and be able to change jobs/vote/etc.

      I'll take droves of people like that over more idiots who think Trump is a good president. The guy just blatantly and for the Nth time gave aid and comfort to an enemy (by again lying about Putin's innocence) that committed an act of war, and make no mistake. Attempting and likely succeeding to change the outcome of our national election is an act of war the same way attempting to assassinate a candidate would be. A democracy revolves around its elections. When their credibility takes a hit, the democracy itself takes a hit.

    5. Re:Maybe just toss the H-1B program completely? by Jane+Q.+Public · · Score: 1

      I don't necessarily disagree with this viewpoint, but I would ask: why does the program even exist in the first place?

      It's only purpose for being is to fill a "shortage" in the U.S. workforce that does not, in fact, exist.

    6. Re:Maybe just toss the H-1B program completely? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Personally I suspect counterintuitively the way to fix H1B visas is to make them full citizens when granted so they lack any exploitable leverage and can leave for another job at will. It would encourage proper use of the program.

    7. Re:Maybe just toss the H-1B program completely? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 2, Interesting

      I have seen this play out in a small manufacturing firm in the midwest US. Nearly all of the 80 line workers were "permanent temps". Everyone is hired through temp agencies, and technically work for the temp agency on site. This practice is so the company can get away with not following many worker protections. If a manager does not like an employee, a phone call to the temp agency and the worker is "unplaced", not fired, at no cost or risk to the manufacturer.

      There were allegations of sexual misconduct by some female employees about the building manager after private meetings. Sometimes nothing happened but criticisms. Sometimes the woman just would no longer have a timecard after the meeting.

      This never happened to the comparatively few men working the line.

      No one had money for legal action. More than half of the line employees only spoke spanish and were of questionable legal status (given name and paperwork name were different, claimed to be relatives but did not act like they knew each other well, shared cellphones and vehicles with only one licensed driver).

      Such goes the life of the invisible tier 3 blue collar workforce making parts for BMW, Toyota, Tesla, and so on.

    8. Re:Maybe just toss the H-1B program completely? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      but I would ask: why does the program even exist in the first place?

      Corporations and the 1% who own them wanted an easier way to screw the American worker, so they bought the politicians and the laws needed to make that happen. The biggest cost in just about any business is labor. Cutting that cost increases profits. Importing desperate foreigners as indentured slaves is a very effective method for putting downward pressure on the wages and not just on the wages paid to the desperate foreigner but the wages of the American workers too.

    9. Re:Maybe just toss the H-1B program completely? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Lemme get this straight. You want to import someone from a foreign country, to do a job that an American can already do, Then, the moment that person get's here, you give them full US citizenship? Just because someone gave them a job.

      OK. Yeah. That makes all the sense in the world.

    10. Re:Maybe just toss the H-1B program completely? by painandgreed · · Score: 1

      In this Weinsteinian era, it starts to make me wonder how much sexual harassment gets swept under the rug in this system.

      Pressure some woman for sex and when she doesn't deliver, tell the body shop she's not working out and you want her replaced. Given the generally low ethics associated with body shops, I can totally see them playing into serial offenders and sending them easy prey.

      Probably a lot, but while I'm sure it happens, most sexual harassement I've seen isn't calls for sex or even rude speech, but more like hiring the female system expert for your project, officially having her get coffee and make copies, while the manager's pet dude bro gets assigned to do the work, but told to have her do all the work for him, and then the manager gives all the credit and praise to the dude bro and refuses to even admit to anybody the female system expert ever did anything.

    11. Re:Maybe just toss the H-1B program completely? by swb · · Score: 1

      This isn't harassment, really, it's just ordinary favoritism. I've experienced myself, where I had the expertise and the title, but the favorite/buddy got the work.

  5. Contrapositive Colonialism by PolygamousRanchKid+ · · Score: 4, Insightful

    In British Colonial times, the British traveled to India to set up companies there and exploit the most talented natives.

    In US Colonial times, the most talented come voluntarily to the US to be exploited.

    Strange times, eh?

    H1-B is total crap and needs to be eliminated ASAP. Oh, but that lobbyist money from Microsoft, Oracle, Google, Facebook, Amazon, etc.

    Your Congress Critter cannot argue with that money!

    --
    Schroedinger's Brexit: The UK is both in and out of the EU at the same time!
    1. Re: Contrapositive Colonialism by LionMage · · Score: 4, Informative

      "In US Colonial times, the most talented come voluntarily to the US to be exploited."

      Actually, a lot of cheap labor during the colonial era was obtained in the form of indentured servitude. Commit a crime, get sentenced and shipped off to America. The people who arrived in this way weren't exactly volunteering to be exploited; it was just better than alternatives like prison or execution. Also, these people were not necessarily the most talented.

    2. Re:Contrapositive Colonialism by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1

      And it's not just tech companies in SV and Seattle. I worked for an EPC company that wanted chemical engineers. They had several from other countries and just one American on their team. Guess who got replaced by an H1-B. And this was a while ago not recently. It's been abused for some time. It needs to stop.

    3. Re:Contrapositive Colonialism by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Your Congress Critter cannot argue with that money!

      Ironically neither can the left. Those companies just have to virtue signal by opposing immigration restrictions and post "Dreamers welcome!" ads.

    4. Re:Contrapositive Colonialism by Afty0r · · Score: 1

      H1-B is total crap and needs to be eliminated ASAP. Oh, but that lobbyist money from Microsoft, Oracle, Google, Facebook, Amazon, etc.

      Only ONE of those companies makes the top 10 H1B sponsors... and that is in TENTH place... the other 9 only have one "tech" company in them. The rest are "consultancies".

      https://www.myvisajobs.com/Rep...

      The companies you mentioned don't really care, and probably want Visa reform too.

    5. Re: Contrapositive Colonialism by bsDaemon · · Score: 2

      I believe the point being made is that the current-day US is an empire engaging in colonialism by brain-drain and nothing to do with indentured servitude during pre-revolutionary times

    6. Re: Contrapositive Colonialism by jedidiah · · Score: 1

      That's a funny way to define "empire": a place less hellish than most of the world that attracts immigration from the most ambitious people from the rest of the planet.

      --
      A Pirate and a Puritan look the same on a balance sheet.
    7. Re: Contrapositive Colonialism by Type44Q · · Score: 1

      Actually, a lot of cheap labor during the colonial era was obtained in the form of indentured servitude.

      Next you're going to suggest that some were even... white!

    8. Re: Contrapositive Colonialism by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      indentured servitude. Commit a crime, get sentenced and shipped off to America.

      That's not indentured servitude. Indentured servitude was an agreement, in exchange for a paid ticket to the US, to work as a servant for a set number of years to pay off the debt. Indentured servants were free men and women who voluntarily took this deal in order to get to the US - they weren't criminals.

      Further reading. Note that a majority of European immigrants to the US, prior to the Revolution, were indentured servants.

    9. Re:Contrapositive Colonialism by AmiMoJo · · Score: 1

      If they get rid of H1B companies will just move their operations to India. That's not the solution you are looking for.

      You should concentrate on making high quality labor valued. Look at Germany, massive manufacturing base and competing with China on export value, because people value German quality and locality.

      Basically you need to offer something that India can't.

      --
      const int one = 65536; (Silvermoon, Texture.cs)
      SJW, n: "Someone I don't like, and by the way I'm a fuckwit" - AC
    10. Re: Contrapositive Colonialism by itsenrique · · Score: 2

      But it was. Not all indentured servants (or even most), were criminals, but many were. They didn't all go to Australia. And they weren't cut loose when the ship docked. The idea was your trip would be financed by your future labor. And they were running out of places to put the masses of poor criminals in places like London, that had staggering economic disparity. Keep in mind some of these crimes were for things like "being in debt". You might have been given a chance between a workhouse and a ticket to the new world + indentured servitude. A lot of people died in workhouses, they were not nice places. Hence why many were willing to risk being lost at sea, or having a shitty job for 10 years, because the alternative was even more bleak.

    11. Re: Contrapositive Colonialism by itsenrique · · Score: 1

      Old poem: Hush-a-bye baby, on the tree top, When you grow old, your wages will stop, When you have spent the little you made First to the Poorhouse and then to the grave

    12. Re: Contrapositive Colonialism by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1

      Check your dates.

      The British didn't arrive in Australia until 1788. They started shipping convicts to OZ because they couldn't send them to the Americas any more.

    13. Re: Contrapositive Colonialism by itsenrique · · Score: 1
    14. Re: Contrapositive Colonialism by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Define less hellish, don't forget the US is now a fascist, authoritarian country.

      It is basically a third-world country with nukes.

    15. Re: Contrapositive Colonialism by Type44Q · · Score: 1

      ...companies will just move their operations to India.

      Sure they will; superior infrastructure and all that. (I'm actually fairly amused that you're dumb enough to try and play that card...)

    16. Re:Contrapositive Colonialism by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      I think you are confusing colonialism labor (slavery) with voluntary employment.

    17. Re: Contrapositive Colonialism by drsquare · · Score: 1

      Do you think India doesn't have electricity or communications or industry? If the workers can't work in America, they'll have to work in India instead.

    18. Re: Contrapositive Colonialism by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Yes. It also has half of its people shitting in the street.

    19. Re:Contrapositive Colonialism by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      There are many good reasons for the H-1B program, unfortunately it is treated like a cheap labour program by the software development industry.

      Just because a dozen or so companies are abusing the system, doesn't mean the system itself is crap, just that the rules of the system should be applied to them correctly, as opposed to looking the other way in return for a cash back hander.

    20. Re: Contrapositive Colonialism by fubarrr · · Score: 1

      USA is a nation of convicts, misfits, slaves, fringe sect members, and other undesirables

    21. Re: Contrapositive Colonialism by vasanth · · Score: 1

      As it is companies like IBM, Accenture etc have more employees in India than in the US.. so yes entire dept will just move to India as it is happening now.. and they are not just servicing US market but the global market, so I dont think the US worker has the only 'right' to do those jobs

    22. Re:Contrapositive Colonialism by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Is SAP still a German company? When I look at the email list being sent to/from our SAP support crew, I'm not seeing many German names in there.. Just sayin'.

    23. Re:Contrapositive Colonialism by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Hi. I've worked with and hired overseas and H1B labor. Both are good and bad, much like Americans are good and bad. Much like I have good and bad work days. Are you the best worker in the world? Have you considered improving your skills over ranting on the internet?

    24. Re:Contrapositive Colonialism by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      ooh, scary. it took the top 40 to pick up the remaining ones, oracle and facebook. Google was number 12.
      His point stands.

  6. This is great news by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    There's plenty of talent here already. Why hire foreigners?

    1. Re:This is great news by Tablizer · · Score: 1

      There's plenty of talent here already. Why hire foreigners?

      Because they want young people who are too naive to question stupid fads so that PHB's can get and brag about eye-candy apps.

      USA ran out of naive young people.

    2. Re:This is great news by mikael · · Score: 1

      Because the talent here doesn't want to live in those bits of Silicon Valley that an entry level salary could afford. The first requirement is that they can live and work somewhere where they can walk to shops at lunchtime and the evenings. Just being three miles from a downtown street is either a one hours walk or a 30 minute car drive. The only places that really match that profile are San Francisco, Menlo Park and Palo Alto.

      --
      Vintage computer adverts: http://www.vintageadbrowser.com/computers-and-software-ads
    3. Re:This is great news by Rockoon · · Score: 1

      Just being three miles from a downtown street is either a one hours walk or a 30 minute car drive.

      Time to upgrade your 6 mile per hour car. I hear the Ford Model A can get up to a whole 65 miles per hour.

      --
      "His name was James Damore."
    4. Re:This is great news by CaptainDork · · Score: 1

      There's plenty of goddam search engines, why the fuck speculate?

      --
      It little behooves the best of us to comment on the rest of us.
    5. Re: This is great news by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      You have no idea about silicon valley traffic!!

    6. Re: This is great news by Type44Q · · Score: 1

      In traffic at that!

  7. Re: Even a stopped clock... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Why do you feel that inviting people from a nation where 600 million people prefer to shit in the streets is a good thing?

  8. Re:Not the only problem with H-1B visas by ClickOnThis · · Score: 3, Insightful

    The H-1B visa program is yet another means for potential terrorists to enter the United States. Anything that reduces the number of H-1B Syrian refugees entering the United States reduces the number of potential terrorists. The H-1B program is a threat both to American jobs and to national security.

    ORLY. What percentage of people who committed terrorist acts since, say 1990, have held H1-B visas at one time?

    --
    If it weren't for deadlines, nothing would be late.
  9. Merit Based Immigration by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    The trend to merit based immigration is actually a good one in my opinion, and one of the few good things to come out of the Trump administration. Lots of very talented people are trying hard for years to get in, only to be rejected while H1-B slave labor and illegals get priority.

  10. Good! by DaMattster · · Score: 4, Insightful

    There is plenty of available skilled labor here in America. We should not be importing labor.

    1. Re:Good! by Tablizer · · Score: 2

      One of the few things that orange dude has done right. I've seen H1-B bullshit in many orgs.

    2. Re:Good! by fermion · · Score: 4, Insightful
      It is probably not that we are importing less labor, it is that we are importing less skilled labor. The number of H2B visas that the US is allowing has increased 45%, or 15,000 more visas. This has allowed Mar-a-Lago, for instance, to hire 70 foreign workers to do job that any local resident could do. Local resources to help people get jobs have reportedly stated that they were not asked to help locals get the jobs that pay over $10 an hour, and the ads placed in local newspapers were the smallest possible.

      Of course this is a small number compared to the 60 to 90,000 H1B visas, about a quarter for higher degrees, but one can imagine that for a federal government that wants to cut down on immigration, prioritizing the help at the country club over the technical needs for innovative companies might seem like a reasonable choice.

      --
      "She's a scientist and a lesbian. She's not going to let it slide." Orphan Black
    3. Re:Good! by drsquare · · Score: 1

      What's the unemployment rate of CS grads in the US for you to make such a statement?

  11. Re:Even a stopped clock... by DNS-and-BIND · · Score: 5, Insightful
    Oh the good old DATS WACIST defense! Haven't seen that one in a while. Maybe, just maybe, we've been getting ripped off by the H1B program for a long time and now it's coming to a screeching halt.

    You know the likely result of this? "Oh crap, we need to hire more Americans!" followed shortly by "damn we need to invest in and train our people, hiring is too expensive these days!"

    --
    Shutting down free speech with violence isn't fighting fascism. It IS fascism!
  12. Looks like it is true by 140Mandak262Jamuna · · Score: 5, Interesting
    I am nursing two H1B applications through the process. Both were easy cases that would have sailed through in the past. (MS Comp Sci, U Washington, massively parallel computing, MS Mech E, Cal Tech, finite element methods and mesh generation). With published papers in reputed journals.

    Both were hit with RFE. Guidance from the lawyers were:

    • Show that the job duties require the qualifications demanded in the job listing
    • Show that the candidate had the qualifications when hired.
    • Show that the job will continue to need all those qualifications for the entire duaration of the application for H1B (three years).

    They seem to be cracking down on the practice of finding unusual combinations of qualifications in the candidates (like BS in accounting, fluency in Kannada language and truck driving license), putting them all as necessary qualifications making it impossible for anyone else to apply.

    We only hire people with Masters or PhDs from top American schools. We were at a very heave disadvantage in the earlier loose era. TCS, Wipro and the assorted Indian body shoppers would grab the H1Bs and our candidates had to live through lottery. But now, we can easily meet the law, in spirit as well as the letter. Personally I welcome such strict scrutiny. It should have been like this from day 1.

    US high school grads with 1 or 2 year training is enough to do most jobs done by the Indian Body shop imports. They should not even be considered for H1B. Simple coding is all they do, and they were gaming the system. They should restrict H1Bs for Graduate degrees from US universities. That will curb the rampant resume inflation and outright lies in the resumes.

    --
    sed -e 's/Chuck Norris/Rajnikant/g' joke > fact
    1. Re:Looks like it is true by avandesande · · Score: 2

      It's sad really we have tons of laws on the books that are ignored and if they had been actually administering the H1B program the way it was written it wouldn't be rife with abuse. Another is the anticompetitive medical industry pricing practices that are indistinguishable from racketeering... laws are there just nobody had balls to enforce them.

      --
      love is just extroverted narcissism
    2. Re:Looks like it is true by RightwingNutjob · · Score: 5, Insightful

      H1B shouldn't be a lottery. It should be an auction. Then you'd just bid a salary without the the red tape you may not mind but that still costs taxpayer money. If someone wants to outbid you on a half-literate code monkey, that's their prerogative and their loss. Abuse goes away. Artificial wage depression goes away. A fixed number of slots that you can bid on makes the thing merit-based on its own and keeps the loonies quiet about letting in too many people who don't come from our culture.

    3. Re:Looks like it is true by 140Mandak262Jamuna · · Score: 2

      I think auction is not a bad idea. Also the bid should be for the salary, not a price to buy a slot in H1B. The salary being offered to any H1B should be part of public record. That will help a little in wage transparency for all.

      --
      sed -e 's/Chuck Norris/Rajnikant/g' joke > fact
    4. Re:Looks like it is true by AmiMoJo · · Score: 1

      All that week so is make it extremely hard for new/smaller companies to get the talent they genuinely need.

      --
      const int one = 65536; (Silvermoon, Texture.cs)
      SJW, n: "Someone I don't like, and by the way I'm a fuckwit" - AC
    5. Re:Looks like it is true by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      I could *easily* do what either of those two dudes have. Yet last year I was out of work for a year. I know a dozen other dudes in the same boat. Why? I can tell you. I finally got several of the rejections to tell me. My resume is not a 'fit' because I do not have experience in those exact fields. Yet I should stand aside for the dude fresh out of college and H1B. Ah, now we get to it. I am too expensive.

      I have seen H1B used for what it is. Those dudes are usually here for 3-6 months and then gone. The cost cutting ones drag on for 10+ years.

    6. Re:Looks like it is true by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      How about hiring White graduates instead of favoring your own race, you worthless Pajeet?

    7. Re:Looks like it is true by RightwingNutjob · · Score: 1

      Exactly. I'd even go so far as to say that it should be placed in trust by a third party to be disbursed to the employee to prevent shenannigans with people who may not be familiar with our legal system and notion of employee rights.

    8. Re:Looks like it is true by SlaveToTheGrind · · Score: 1

      They seem to be cracking down on the practice of finding unusual combinations of qualifications in the candidates (like BS in accounting, fluency in Kannada language and truck driving license), putting them all as necessary qualifications making it impossible for anyone else to apply.

      So the employers sculpt job requirements around specific qualifications of foreigners, then whine that no "qualified" Americans exist? Disgraceful.

    9. Re:Looks like it is true by Pentium100 · · Score: 1

      I think that the big should be salary. If the employee you need has to have skills that are really rare (everybody with those skills in the USA are already employed), then you will be ready to pay him a lot.

      Or maybe you will find a US citizen willing to work for less than what is needed to get the foreigner in.

    10. Re:Looks like it is true by RightwingNutjob · · Score: 1

      I've seen guys with your swagger across the interview desk before. Half of them could barely tell up from down on the skills test questionaire I gave them. Maybe you're right. Maybe you aren't. Maybe you ought to swallow your pride when you go into those interviews and brag about what you've done, not what you could do.

    11. Re:Looks like it is true by RightwingNutjob · · Score: 1

      Of course. Every regulation and requirement for proof of suitability can be and is gamed. It's the great lie of accountability that you can fix it with words on a page.

    12. Re:Looks like it is true by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      I think auction is not a bad idea.

      I think it's a great idea. Auctions are the best way to price goods and services that are rare, specialized and difficult to appraise otherwise. However, it should be a dutch auction. They should begin by offering the slot at $1 million dollars per year and reduce the price in $50,000 increments until somebody buys. First bid is the one accepted and the slot is absolutely non-transferable for the term. This can be repeated over a set period of time, early slots probably selling for somewhat more than later ones, until all of the slots have been sold over the course of several months.

      Also the bid should be for the salary, not a price to buy a slot in H1B.

      The employer doesn't care how much of the employee cost was buying the slot and how much was the employee salary. To the employer it's a sum total cost. The economic value of the auction remains even if the salary of the employee is $1 and the slot cost $250,000. In reality the salary will probably be roughly comparable to the cost of the slot. After all, who would bid $250,000 for the right to import a worker who's skills command a salary of only $1? Nobody and that's the point.

      The salary being offered to any H1B should be part of public record.

      Yes, it should be with loss of slot if the amount reported is not accurate.

      That will help a little in wage transparency for all.

      I don't need that information to negotiate my pay. I don't worry about how much others get paid. I demand what I want plus as much as I think that I can get away with and I walk away when I don't get it. Those who complain most about their pay are the ones who can't negotiate worth a shit.

    13. Re:Looks like it is true by 140Mandak262Jamuna · · Score: 1

      It was disgraceful. I am glad they are finally cracking down on this practice.

      --
      sed -e 's/Chuck Norris/Rajnikant/g' joke > fact
    14. Re:Looks like it is true by Orgasmatron · · Score: 1

      An auction actually solves all of the problems.

      Each hopeful employer selects an amount, puts it in escrow. Escrow company notifies the immigration office, immigration office puts the bid in their list. Each month, the top 10 or 25 bids are selected. Office notifies the escrow company. Escrow company notifies the employer and the employee. Escrow company then pays one thirty-sixth of the escrow amount to employee as salary and benefits each month, starting on the day they enter the country and ending when the money is gone or the person leaves. (Escrow notifies the government when the money is gone and/or government notifies the escrow company when the person leaves.)

      That's pretty much bulletproof.

      Why 10 or 25 per month and not some large number? Because this scheme has always been sold to the American public as a way to catch the next Einstein, and how many of those are there really out there?

      --
      See that "Preview" button?
    15. Re:Looks like it is true by drsquare · · Score: 1

      Or maybe these jobs just require unique skillsets?

    16. Re:Looks like it is true by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      The problem is the recruiting firm will demand some of the salary back as an "administration fee"

    17. Re:Looks like it is true by 140Mandak262Jamuna · · Score: 1

      Then prove it and get the h1b. Expert in Hindu rituals, south indian vegetarian cooking, expert in Sanskrit scriptures, south indian classical dance teaching... Our temple has brought them under special visas.

      --
      sed -e 's/Chuck Norris/Rajnikant/g' joke > fact
    18. Re:Looks like it is true by RightwingNutjob · · Score: 1

      Yes, but with a more realistic number of slots. No, there aren't thousands of Einsteins floating around out there, but there are, for example, thousands of foreign graduates from top US schools every year. Many are garbage, but many aren't and what good is it to piss them away with artificially low caps? Millions a year is too many. Hundreds a year is too few.

    19. Re: Looks like it is true by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Brilliant idea. I'd be amazed if the government adopts it, but otherwise brilliant...

    20. Re:Looks like it is true by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      That wouldn't benefit large companies who want cheap labor, so it won't happen.

      Face it, their money is more important than your vote to the politicians who make the laws. If you don't fix this, you can't fix anything else.

      Captca: looted

    21. Re:Looks like it is true by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      You realize that other countries outside the United States have good (if not better than some US) graduate schools as well right? Surprised you aren't interested in candidates from Oxford or Cambridge - but then again MAGA right?

    22. Re:Looks like it is true by Thelasko · · Score: 1

      Qualifications for an H1-B should be a salary greater than 90% of the US population with the same number of years of work experience. e.g. Entry level positions should pay more than 90% of entry level positions in the US, same for 5 years experience, etc.

      Why limit it to the technology sector? The laws of economics say that high salaries indicate scarcity of qualified people.

      --
      One of our competitors trademarked the term "hypothesis". From now on, we will call them "boneheaded ideas".
  13. Re:Even a stopped clock... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Great! It's fucking 2017 and people have regressed to the point of utter stupidity and believe everything is racist. Here's a big fuck off to race-baiters like this guy, and all the other fucks that see everything through the lens of racism and gender( which according to to some of these hypocrites does not exist. ).

  14. Your insight by Okian+Warrior · · Score: 4, Insightful

    You know the real agenda isn't to "encourage" companies to hire domestic talent, it just happens to coincide with their mission to Keep the Brown People Out.

    There are very good economic models that suggest that importing labor is bad. There's some statistical evidence that immigrants that don't take up the new culture are a safety risk due to increased crime, and that immigrants use more social services than citizens.

    Other countries have extreme immigration policies, and several countries don't allow immigration at all (such as China, where you can't immigrate even if you own a Chinese business and are married to a Chinese citizen), and many have strictly controlled borders. Would the US be exceptional if we did the same?

    Furthermore, very few people in the US are actually racist. Ignoring the "all whites are racist" bullshit and looking at the actual statistics, it's estimated that there are only about 2000 actual white supremacists in the US. The hair-triggered left reports of a banana peel signifying racism notwithstanding, it's not a real issue. Whites simply don't care what someone's color is. (Behaviour, on the other hand, is an issue.)

    Black lives matter is, statistically speaking, completely off the mark. This does not imply that there is no problem and that things couldn't be made better, but it's false and ineffective to address that problem first, before the elephant in the room.

    And yet, despite all the statistical evidence to the contrary and lack of contrary evidence, you have insight into the *real* reason we want to limit immigration: it's because secretly, down deep, we want to "Keep The Brown People Out".

    (And your insight does not stem from the very good evidence that immigrants vote en-masse for a certain party.)

    Despite not consciously being racist, not really caring about the race of whoever we interact with you're here to tell us the real reason we act the way we do?

    Because you're somehow smarter or better informed than us?

    1. Re:Your insight by CaptainDork · · Score: 0

      Where do you get your goddam numbers?

      ...there are only about 2000 actual white supremacists in the US.

      --
      It little behooves the best of us to comment on the rest of us.
    2. Re:Your insight by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Would the US be exceptional if we did the same?

      Let's ask Emma Lazarus:

      Not like the brazen giant of Greek fame,
      With conquering limbs astride from land to land;
      Here at our sea-washed, sunset gates shall stand
      A mighty woman with a torch, whose flame
      Is the imprisoned lightning, and her name
      MOTHER OF EXILES. From her beacon-hand
      Glows world-wide welcome; her mild eyes command
      The air-bridged harbor that twin cities frame.

      "Keep, ancient lands, your storied pomp!" cries she
      With silent lips. "Give me your tired, your poor,
      Your huddled masses yearning to breathe free,
      The wretched refuse of your teeming shore.
      Send these, the homeless, tempest-tost to me,
      I lift my lamp beside the golden door!"

      Question answered. Over 100 years ago. Apparently you failed your American Civics Lesson, eh, tovarisch?

      , it's estimated that there are only about 2000 actual white supremacists in the US.

      nope.

      Sorry mate, you got nothing.

      And yet, despite all the statistical evidence to the contrary and lack of contrary evidence, you have insight into the *real* reason we want to limit immigration: it's because secretly, down deep, we want to "Keep The Brown People Out".

      Nope. Nothing SECRET about it. You're confusing denying something with keeping it secret.

      (And your insight does not stem from the very good evidence that immigrants vote en-masse for a certain party.)

      Yeah, that line was played up in the 1800s.

      I'm glad you're so historical ignorant, it makes knowing how wrong you are so much easier.

      Because you're somehow smarter or better informed than us?

      Well, you do admit you know nothing.

      Seriously, the best you could do was a pompous whining ass who has been a joke since the 1980s, a grand-standing blowhard, a bunch of corrupt sell-outs to Russia, a gun-running drug pusher, and the King of Siam?

      You suck.

    3. Re:Your insight by Okian+Warrior · · Score: 1

      , it's estimated that there are only about 2000 actual white supremacists in the US.

      nope.

      Sorry mate, you got nothing.

      Exaggeration.

      Furthermore, you're citing a poem as evidence of... what?

    4. Re:Your insight by aevan · · Score: 1

      There were a series of /pol/ strawpolls: if at any point you had voted in favour of banging the crypto-jew, you lost your White Nationalist cred and went into the "Nice try, Shlomo" pile.

    5. Re:Your insight by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      "Furthermore, very few people in the US are actually racist. Ignoring the "all whites are racist" bullshit and looking at the actual statistics, it's estimated that there are only about 2000 actual white supremacists in the US. "

      While I'll agree with the statement "All whites are racist" is taking shit too far (Seriously, just saying that is a racist comment since you're generalizing an entire race), I know your "2000 actual white supremacists in the US" to be a flat out lie. Either a lie you're generating or just a lie you're willingly repeating. A lot of white supremacists would answer "no" if asked if they were one, and they likely believe themselves when they say it.

    6. Re:Your insight by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      You racists are so fucking stupid and pathetic.

      Own up to the fact that you fail as a human.

    7. Re: Your insight by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Furthermore, you're citing a poem as evidence of... what?

      The failure of your Moscow reform school to educate you on either Literary Analysis or American Civics?

      Oh well, no worse than usual.

      I heard the GOP is still trying to convince folks that Sutherland, Sandy Hook, Aurora, Pulse, and the Boston Massacre were all personally orchestrated by Hillary Clinton's secret underground pizza ring.

      Meanwhile, nobody can deny that Roy Moore dated teenagers in the 1930s at the height of the Depression. Wait, wait, I mean, Roy Moore's inability to deny dating teenagers while in his thirties sends the GOP senators into a depression.

      It's OK though, you are secretly planning to take your cyanide pill a week early.

    8. Re:Your insight by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      The FBI tracking extremist groups. Militant Antifa outnumber white supremacists 100 to 1.

    9. Re:Your insight by drsquare · · Score: 1

      America has been importing labour for hundreds of years. In fact almost its entire population came from importing workers. Last I looked, America has been pretty successful under that strategy. Much more successful than protectionist, isolationist, racist China which has an average income more comparable to sub-Saharan Africa than the developed world, despite having huge technological and economical leads several centuries ago.

      I don't know what American tech workers hope to achieve by limiting H1B visas. Tech is a global industry, it's not like if these Indian programmers have to go home they'll have to get shops shovelling elephant shit. They'll do in India what they're currently doing in America. So the next great piece of software will come out of Delhi, or the next big startup will come from Calcutta.

  15. The article actually spells out the H1-B problem by 93+Escort+Wagon · · Score: 5, Interesting

    Even if it wasn’t the author’s intent. From TFA:

    ”For Centro, a company in Chicago that makes technology for ad agencies, the problems started this summer. Centro had applied for visas for three young employees who already had the legal right to work for a limited time after graduating from college. One of the applications had been chosen in the H-1B lottery. Emilie Clark, the company’s director of human resources, happily called the employee to tell him his immigration status was settled for the next three years. ”

    H1-B is supposed to be used for special cases where there simply aren’t enough Americans available with a particular hard-to-find skill set. There’s just about zero chance that some young recent graduate has such a background. But just for the sake of argument, what were the skills in this case? Again, from TFA:

    ”... which consisted of writing algorithms and required knowledge of multiple programming languages as well as a solid understanding of relational data storage systems ...”

    Seriously? The company needed an H1-B for that?

    --
    #DeleteChrome
  16. Train citizens. Hire citizens. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Bringing in foreigners because your education system is failing your citizens only benefits large corporations, wake the fuck up and demand a temporary moratorium on immigration so the foreigners can assimilate and companies are forced to hire American. Stop the decline.

  17. Re:Even a stopped clock... by Aighearach · · Score: 5, Informative

    As somebody who has been through the USICS process with a relative I don't think you really capture the situation at all.

    An RFE isn't a "challenge." I received an RFE myself. It is what it says it is: a request for additional documentation. The person who decides to send an RFE or not isn't a person who has "reasons," or an "agenda." They are basically a police officer. Their title is Immigration Officer, and their job involves not only investigating the paperwork to see if it is naughty, but also chasing down and arresting people who don't have the right paperwork. This is not some sort of political appointee, these are the same career professionals who were doing the job last year, the year before, the year before. Whatever personal agenda they might have, it isn't changing from year to year.

    What changed is a policy, relating to how much paperwork they have to find in the application before approving it. In the past they had instructions not to really investigate the H1B applications in the same way that they process other types of application; now they're applying the same type of evidence standards that other applications require, and are in fact called for in the laws authorizing the H1B program. That's what they're going to do. Naturally, these companies were submitting the least evidence they needed to get approved, because in a "rubber stamp" regulatory environment you don't want to submit extra stuff that might get examined. But as here, when they suddenly switch to the actual system that the law set up, now those applications don't have all the required evidence, and so of course they're going to get RFEs.

    If their situation is like mine, and everything is in order the Officer just wanted additional evidence, then they'll have no problem. If in fact their application doesn't meet the standards in the law, and they only even submitted it because they anticipated getting rubber-stamped, then they'll get rejected. Rightfully.

    Your idea is silly because it would require there to be a bunch of new appointees running things, but actually that isn't the case. They're not involved in considerations like trying to encourage companies to hire domestic talent; they're concerned with the paperwork involved in documenting the required steps in the law.

    These aren't the immigration cops who arrest brown people for being near the border; these are the immigration cops who wake you up at 6am to make sure you're really married and sleeping in the same bed! They don't give a rats ass what color her skin is; most people whose applications they approve are going to have brown skin, because we're on planet Earth.

  18. Re:Praise the Lord, Jesus Christ. by HiThere · · Score: 1

    But I don't trust the authority that you reference in your "argument from authority". Can you point to some actual evidence?

    --

    I think we've pushed this "anyone can grow up to be president" thing too far.
  19. Re:Even a stopped clock... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1

    You'd think the comments on Slashdot would focus on the story of our government propping up Drug Warlords in Mexico, Fixing Mexican Elections, Distributing Pamphlets in Mexico telling Mexicans to come here illegaly and in general messing with Mexicans all in an effort to ensure a steady supply of cheap labor for the H1B and NAFTA Programs. H1B in particular is done mostly to import 4-6 million poverty-stricken human beings every year who mostly pick crops at under minimum wage or change the sheets in hotels. You'd think the public would get wise to the never-ending propaganda on how this is "charity work" nobody else wants to do, how the 1 cent protesters are just ungrateful foreigners, and wise up to the fact Kroger Execs will stop at nothing to ensure their never-ending parade of hookers and blow continues un-abated. Fact is, this program should've ended decades ago; plently of poor rural folks and people in cities who'd do fine in a small town making a decent wage picking and sorting crops and frankly, that should be a decent paying job.

    Instead, we get comments containing self-victimizing BS that serve to do nothing but stroke a flamewar with thinly veiled racism that doesn't meet any logical criteria for an arguement. Stop victimizing yourself; you want something, earn it. Otherwise, GTFO.

  20. You need us by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    The process requires labor certification by the federal government, which includes prevailing wages btw. The so-called cheap labor is only when the job is misclassified, and that's something RFEs may help to solve by identifying the true slavers.

    I don't know the details why you need us so badly. Maybe your education system is shit or maybe its your entitled culture.

  21. Plenty of abuse by lfp98 · · Score: 5, Insightful

    Probably the paperwork requirements are just BS, but simply putting obstacles in the path and making it more of a hassle to get these visas actually makes sense. In principle, you have to try to recruit US citizens first, but there are ways around that requirement. For example, you advertise an entry-level job with a low salary, reject applicants for not having some very specific job experience or skills, then hire a highly experienced overqualified foreigner at the same low salary. I'd be very surprised if it weren't true the in a majority of cases, H1-B holders were sought because they're younger and cheaper, not because they have special skills. What the government really ought to do is have an auction for these visas instead of a lottery, If Google, Microsoft et al. really need these people, they shouldn't mind paying $100,000 or more bounty to get them. Use the money to fund scholarships for US students in fields where there are supposedly such dire shortages, instead of saddling them with $100,000 of student debt.

    1. Re:Plenty of abuse by Pentium100 · · Score: 1

      Or, the company should specify what salary it is going to pay the employee. Then the limited number of visas issued to those who are willing to pay the highest salaries.

      At some point it will become cheaper to hire a local or even pay a local to learn the skill and then hire him. If the skills required are truly rare, then it is only fair that the employee should get a huge salary.

  22. The clairty's good for aspiring immigrants as well by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1

    As an aspiring immigrant, I feel this is great. Instead of a situation where immigration to US sort of works, sort of doesnt, is a hassle, but not really a bad one, a lot of companies were still keeping major offices in US.

    Now that Americans have made up their mind that they dont want immigrants, companies will spend more money on opening engineering centers in immigration friendly countries (Canada\west Europe\Australia(maybe),etc) which from a personal perspective are great countries for me to immigrate to. And this time I might would be able to catch the first wave of immigrants (who get to convert to citizens) if there is a genuine boom in jobs in such countries (unlike US where its near impossible for an EB2 immigrant to get citizenship if moving today)

  23. Awesome by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    This is overdue and should have been the course over the last several years.

  24. Re:Even a stopped clock... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    It seems this may be one of those cases where spiteful people end up doing something helpful for all the wrong reasons. You know the real agenda isn't to "encourage" companies to hire domestic talent, it just happens to coincide with their mission to Keep the Brown People Out.

    Maybe the corporations should hire the indigenous browns. There are plenty of them...

  25. Re:Even a stopped clock... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    The biggest problem to face us is the cruel wait for the greencard, which is longer than 10 years in total. This wait is caused by the 7% limit of greencards allocation for country of birth per year, which was imposed for diversity reasons (ie. not too many whites from UK, etc). But the democrats racism is now hurting the others instead...

    My recommendation to Trump if he wants to kill the lottery GC is to compromise by increasing the country-of-birth limit to 20% and add the gc lottery count to the total employment-based GC numbers per year.

    Also, I'm tired of the term brown people. Do they think we have the same history or issues as the blacks? Ignorance. It's just the skin color to them. Again, very racist..

  26. Trump/Bannon economic nationalism is anti-capitali by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    The Trump economic agenda is not capitalistic / free market; it is a form of neo-mercantilism derived from the Alexander Hamilton crowd.

    A free market allows people to contract for labor with who ever they want, whenever they want, provided they are not violating the rights of others. Forcing American companies to hire Americans is not capitalism; it is crony protectionism. Nobody had the right to a job; that would imply people have a right to force other people to pay them. If Americans have to compete with cheap foreign labor, it may hurt some workers, but also immensely benefit the American consumer.

    https://www.cato.org/publications/cato-online-forum/boost-highly-skilled-immigration

    We have to stop thinking in terms of only immediate, visible effect. Mercantilism always fails. It hurts consumers and benefits government-favored cartels. This is very evident in the current H-1B debate:

    https://fee.org/articles/5-charts-that-show-trumps-immigration-paper-is-nonsense/

    To the extent anyone agrees with the Trump agenda on legs immigrations caps, that person should stop calling themselves a capitalist, because they are not a capitalist.

    Signed,
    An actual capitalist

  27. Re: Trump/Bannon economic nationalism is anti-capi by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    We shoot capitalists.
    Love,
        Trump

  28. Re:The article actually spells out the H1-B proble by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 2, Insightful

    they had an amazing, unreplicable skill set of the above and the ability to work on 15k per year.

  29. Re:The clairty's good for aspiring immigrants as w by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Yeah except that a large proportion of H1Bs aren't working at "engineering centers" doing anything remotely innovative. They're working for body shops in low-skilled entry-level programming positions in areas like corporate IT and maintenance of govt systems... stuff that ought to be going to locals.

  30. Re:Trump/Bannon economic nationalism is anti-capit by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Look, I HATE trump, and I HATE the hordes of brainless trumpflakes, but can you please tell me: In which fucked up universe are the "American worker" and the "American consumer" NOT one and the same person?

    Oh, I see --- you said ***SOME*** American workers. So, only the ones that you feel it is perfectly okay to hurt. Can you at least help me understand which American workers those are?

  31. Duh by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    That's because over the past decade, EVERYONE sailed through, we haven't been enforcing protocol almost at all. This isn't the new administration, it's what our already existing laws look like when they are actually followed.

  32. Good by zifn4b · · Score: 4, Insightful

    I've worked with a number of these so-called "highly skilled" H-1B's and they should have been more heavily scrutinized to begin with. Many of them are misrepresenting their abilities. I've worked with enough of them to have real, factual evidence from direct experience to back up this claim. In all the instances that I've observed, they were all H-1B's from India. That's not to say that all H-1B's from India that I've worked misrepresented themselves but it's definitely the overwhelming majority. There is a Technical Scrum Master at my work that is exceptional. It is valid to question why we see many H-1B's that are quite frankly worse than college interns to get to the bottom of it. I think it's great that the US Government is doing that. If we're going to hire H-1B's we need to make sure that the ones we're hiring are truly the best of the best. That's what the program was designed to do.

    --
    We'll make great pets
    1. Re:Good by sutekidane · · Score: 1

      At my old company, which was dominantly Chinese, they would hire anyone with a MS in EE/CS/ME for the baseline $60k/yr even though their masters had nothing to do with their job description or with zero experience related to the subject. When the massive RFEs striked this year, the company immediately changed all their RFE candidate's job title to something that had an actual list of "job description" in Bureau of Labor Statistics instead of an generic ambiguous title like "Application Engineer." Then they would fudge up hoax placeholder job postings on their career website claiming they were looking for these candidates who are PR/US Citizens. Of course, the company immigration lawyer would hand out a pre-written layout on how to draft the RFE responses to indicate how much relevance their education is to their "job description."

  33. Re: Trump/Bannon economic nationalism is anti-capi by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Just let the free market sort it out. It fixes everything. Rape, murder, slavery, domestic dispute, every thing can be solved by the free market. In fact, the free market is not just an economic issue, its a moral cornerstone of society.

  34. Re:Trump/Bannon economic nationalism is anti-capit by jedidiah · · Score: 1

    I was wondering how quickly some MORON would bring Trump into this as if this program has been anything other than a shameless abuse of power and exploitation by people just like Trump.

    --
    A Pirate and a Puritan look the same on a balance sheet.
  35. Re:The article actually spells out the H1-B proble by craXORjack · · Score: 2

    You made a very good point, using only evidence in the article to highlight the hypocrisy in the visa system. Obviously we don't need to import job seekers who cannot have qualifications beyond what every American computer science graduate has.

    For positions which are not entry-level, one way that companies are getting their cheap H1B labor is by exaggerating the 'particular hard-to-find skill set', creating a combination that no one in the industry would actually have. But miraculously, the "consulting" company finds just such applicant overseas.

    --
    Liberals call everyone Nazis yet they are the closest thing to it.
  36. Re:Trump/Bannon economic nationalism is anti-capit by Hylandr · · Score: 1

    God forbid we actually look at these applications and require they prove they are qualified for the job and are going to obey our laws.

      The Law-abiding! *Gasp*

    --
    ~ People that think they are better than anyone else for any reason are the cause of all the strife in the world.
  37. Re:Even a stopped clock... by Mal-2 · · Score: 1

    H1B visa holders aren't the creators of culture here because they don't get to stay permanently. It's a visa, not asylum. Therefore regardless of what color they are, I am not as worried about their presence as I am about the effect their willingness to work cheap has on the rest oft he labor market.

    --
    How is the Riemann zeta function like Trump rallies? Both have an endless number of trivial zeros.
  38. Removing any job from someone in the USA by AHuxley · · Score: 1

    should have always been burdensome...

    --
    Domestic spying is now "Benign Information Gathering"
  39. This is just theatre by rsilvergun · · Score: 1

    or favoritism unless they're actually reducing the number of H1-B visas granted. There's so much demand for these visas among employers that they could challenge 90% of them and still hit their caps.

    --
    Hi! I make Firefox Plug-ins. Check 'em out @ https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/youtube-mp3-podcaster/
    1. Re:This is just theatre by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1

      If they challenge 90% of the visa applications and reject the bullshit then it's not just theatre. What you're left with is the legit H1-B cases, the ones who legitimately can't be found locally. Not just a bunch of people willing to work for less than market-value.

  40. Re:Trump/Bannon economic nationalism is anti-capit by Lordpidey · · Score: 4, Insightful

    The problem with H1Bs, is they allow the company to have a leverage over their employees beyond just mere payment. Your employer can essentially deport you at will. Not just fire and cut off income, but literally cut off residency. This leads to a terrible power imbalance, that of course the employers would seek.

    --
    Some people encrypt by using rot-13 twice. I prefer the more secure method of using rot-1 a total of twenty six times.
  41. Re:The clairty's good for aspiring immigrants as w by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Americans and the American govt dont differentiate between the 2. They consider someone earning 60k in Infosys and 160k at Google the same

  42. Re:The clairty's good for aspiring immigrants as w by boudie2 · · Score: 1

    Don't think you'd like Canada, it's one of the coldest countries in the world. Australia is nice though, lots of kangaroos. Who doesn't like kangaroos?

  43. Re:Oh well. Read your BIble. by CaptainDork · · Score: 1

    Global worming.

    --
    It little behooves the best of us to comment on the rest of us.
  44. This will help Americans seeking a vacation day... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1

    off. Typically we aren't given anything longer than a long weekend, but they often ask two to three weeks off contiguous. I understand that tickets home for them and their families are expensive and take a lot of time there and back, but it just sucks that we aren't allowed time off since they need so much time off. Haven't had a real vacation off since 1986.

  45. Re:Not the only problem with H-1B visas by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Looks like you got lost on the way to Stormfront, gaggot. It's over there --->.

  46. Re:Not the only problem with H-1B visas by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Ah, the drooling nazi grandpa again!

  47. Re: Trump/Bannon economic nationalism is anti-capi by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Husband works, wife shops

  48. Re:Trump/Bannon economic nationalism is anti-capit by ChrisMaple · · Score: 1, Interesting

    There is nothing to stop a foreigner from working for an American company, and that's as is should be. It is the government's responsibility to protect America, both by protecting it from attack and by protecting the American culture (by which I mean people with philosophies such as "All non-Muslims must die" should be rejected, and that large numbers of people unfamiliar with what freedom requires cannot be rapidly assimilated.)

    Non-Americans no not have the right to be in America, and they certainly don't have the right to work here. It's not America's responsibility to provide a living for anyone who chooses to come here, and a successful attempt to remove all restrictions from entry into the country will destroy the country.

    --
    Contribute to civilization: ari.aynrand.org/donate
  49. Re:This will help Americans seeking a vacation day by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1

    Which is just sad. I've worked for Microsoft since June 1993, but I haven't gotten a real vacation off, but many of my H1-B coworkers have gotten two+ weeks off.

  50. Re:Even a stopped clock... by CaptainDork · · Score: 1

    No mod points to give, but thank you for your experience.

    The rest of the comments are garbage.

    --
    It little behooves the best of us to comment on the rest of us.
  51. Re:Trump/Bannon economic nationalism is anti-capit by AutodidactLabrat · · Score: 1

    A Free Market permits the monopolists, either singly like Micro$ or jointly like the Google, Amazon, Micro$ conspiracy, to dictate economic outcomes in favor of no one but the monopolists (ex. wage fixing by a conspiracy to suppress wages by prohibiting employee mooching)
    That is what Trump is selling so yes, he is a Capitalist

  52. Re: Trump/Bannon economic nationalism is anti-capi by AutodidactLabrat · · Score: 1

    Just let the free market sort it out. It fixes everything. Rape, murder, slavery, domestic dispute, every thing can be solved by the free market. In fact, the free market is not just an economic issue, its a moral cornerstone of society.

    Ahh, what?
    Please tell me the Sarcasm flag is set
    Else....what?
    Free Market = slavery, with every ill you named included and sanctioned

  53. Re: Trump/Bannon economic nationalism is anti-capi by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    No one owes you a job. If people abided by your thinking, we would have never had computers since they bankrupted the typewriter industry. We would never have cars because they bankrupted the horse carriage industry.

    Industries go bankrupt. People lose jobs. New industries are created. New jobs are created. New stuff is created. The whole gamut of economic history and progress depends on these facts.

    Yeah, sometimes it hurts. Welcome to life. But without it, there can be no innovation. Nevertheless, innovation is what paved the way for a higher potential standard of living for all. Global poverty is lower than it has ever been in all of recorded history, and life spans are at their highest. Thanks to innovation.

  54. Re: Trump/Bannon economic nationalism is anti-capi by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Do you realize that the framers of the constitution envisioned essentially NO role for the federal government in making immigration law? The constitution only pertains to creating a uniform standard of naturalization; it says nothing about immigration.

    It is peculiar that those who fashion themselves constitutional conservatives do not honor the constitution on this point, because in the 18th century immigration law was left to the states, and freedom of labor contract was largely respected.

    To say that the federal government has the responsibility to provide for a certain standard of living for American workers is a progressive argument, not a conservative one.

  55. Re: Trump/Bannon economic nationalism is anti-capi by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Are you aware that H1B workers statistically are convicted of crimes less than Americans? Even Trump is not arguing that H1B immigrants are a physical danger. That argument largely focuses on undocumented immigrants (although the statistics there also indicate that Americans commit more crimes than even illegal immigrants). In any case, you are confusing H1B with undocumented immigration.

  56. Re: Trump/Bannon economic nationalism is anti-cap by cyber-vandal · · Score: 1

    The industries are not going bankrupt.

  57. Re: Trump/Bannon economic nationalism is anti-cap by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    There are more legal citizens than illegal, there crime numbers would trend higher

  58. It's Working! by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    On behalf of American tech workers everywhere...
        https://youtu.be/AXwGVXD7qEQ

    This change could also single handedly save the deodorant and tolet paper businesses!

  59. Re: Trump/Bannon economic nationalism is anti-capi by fluffernutter · · Score: 1

    Governments should maintain a certain quality of living and upward mobility potential for citizens. In this regard people are owed jobs. If wealth trends towards being concentrated towards fewer and fewer people, the government isn't doing its job.

    --
    Laws are rules for the court, but merely a bottom bar to hit for life. Think beyond laws in your actions always.
  60. Re: Trump/Bannon economic nationalism is anti-capi by sycodon · · Score: 5, Insightful

    That's not what he said. They need to follow the process and meet the requirements.

    What we have are companies claiming they can't find qualified people, then bring in people that are equally as unqualified, but measurably cheaper.

    if you are going to have rules, fucking enforce them.

    --
    When Fascism comes to America, it will call itself Anti-Fascism, and tell you to give up your guns.
  61. Good. by edgedmurasame · · Score: 1

    One guest worker is one too many.

    --
    "Forget the engineers." -Carly Fiorina, briber of MIT Technology Review.
  62. Oh, get a grip on reality! by bwanagary · · Score: 1

    For those who just can't pass up the opportunity to make everything political, grow up and spare this respectable forum your empty vessel clatter.  For the immigration lawyers who are complaining that it isn't as easy as it was - so you actually have to do some *work* for a living?  Breaks my heart.  Get a grip people and earn your achievements.

    1. Re:Oh, get a grip on reality! by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      For those who just can't pass up the opportunity to make everything political, grow up and spare this respectable forum your empty vessel clatter. For the immigration lawyers who are complaining that it isn't as easy as it was - so you actually have to do some *work* for a living? Breaks my heart. Get a grip people and earn your achievements.

      +10, ACCURATE

  63. It's about time they started enforcing the law by magzteel · · Score: 2

    Many if not most H1-B's I've worked with are not "highly specialized experts". I'm not putting them down, they are nice people who want to make a living. But it's nonsense to suggest a local could not be found to do what they are doing.

  64. Re:Trump/Bannon economic nationalism is anti-capit by LeftCoastThinker · · Score: 0

    Fact: Trump is a businessman and in business, you try to make the most profit you legally can. If you can hire an H1B for 60% of what you would pay an American for the same job, you put in the H1B application, because you can be sure your competition is doing the same thing. (To be clear, construction is not a huge H1B job sector to begin with).

    Fact: Just because you play by the rules doesn't mean you like them. Trump ran his campaign on putting Americans first, and the Dims can't manage to wrap their tiny brains around the fact that Trump is keeping his campaign promises, and putting Americans first, as demonstrated by a 70% reduction in approved H1B Visas according to the article.

    Pull your head out of your bias and just look at the facts of what Trump is doing. If you like it, stop being and intransigent asshat partisan and give the guy credit for the good he is doing...

    --
    If you disagree, please post your argument. (-1, Overrated) isn't your personal censorship tool for views you don't like
  65. Trump expands H2B program by 15000 in 2017 by truckaxle · · Score: 3

    In typical hypocritical fashion, Trump expanded the H2B by 15000 this year and even hired 70 workers at Mar-a-lago

    Every job in that H2B category depresses wages for American workers. If these were immigrants, at least they would be engaging in the economy buying houses, cars, etc. The guest worker hunkers down, saves money and takes it out of our country.

    How does he get away with this?

    1. Re:Trump expands H2B program by 15000 in 2017 by SlaveToTheGrind · · Score: 2

      There's nothing to "get away with" -- Congress explicitly authorized the increase in the FY 2017 Consolidated Appropriations Act:

      SEC. 543. Notwithstanding the numerical limitation set forth
      in section 214(g)(1)(B) of the Immigration and Nationality Act (8
      U.S.C. 1184(g)(1)(B)), the Secretary of Homeland Security, after
      consultation with the Secretary of Labor, and upon the determina-
      tion that the needs of American businesses cannot be satisfied
      in fiscal year 2017 with United States workers who are willing,
      qualified, and able to perform temporary nonagricultural labor,
      may increase the total number of aliens who may receive a visa
      under section 101(a)(15)(H)(ii)(b) of such Act (8 U.S.C.
      1101(a)(15)(H)(ii)(b)) in such fiscal year above such limitation by
      not more than the highest number of H–2B nonimmigrants who
      participated in the H–2B returning worker program in any fiscal
      year in which returning workers were exempt from such numerical
      limitation.

    2. Re:Trump expands H2B program by 15000 in 2017 by drsquare · · Score: 1

      He gets away with it because his supporters will keep supporting him as long as he keeps sending out offensive tweets that they can post on facebook/reddit/4chan and say 'lol liberals BTFO'.

  66. Re:Not the only problem with H-1B visas by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    It certainly is used to fund terrorism. Most funds paid for H1Bs exit the country. Frequently to hostile countries.

    There exists little to no need for the vast majority of H1B Visas. Most people here on H1B Visas are here illegally, per the terms required to allow their entry in the first place. Additionally, many studies have concluded that there has never been a lack of tech labor but simply a lack of companies willing to pay fair market wages. Which in turn has turned people away from what would otherwise be a well paid field.

    Show me someone who supports H1Bs and I'll show you a scumbag.

  67. Re:Trump/Bannon economic nationalism is anti-capit by sabri · · Score: 4, Informative

    The problem with H1Bs, is they allow the company to have a leverage over their employees beyond just mere payment. Your employer can essentially deport you at will. Not just fire and cut off income, but literally cut off residency. This leads to a terrible power imbalance, that of course the employers would seek.

    You're right, but also wrong.

    Yes, H1-B gives a company more leverage over the employee as would be the case with regular U.S. Citizen/LPR employees. However, they are not entirely at the mercy of their employers since an H1-B petition can be ported to another company. Yes, they will have to file the petition and USCIS will need to approve it, but essentially an H1-B can move companies.

    In practice, most H1-Bs do not, because they are waiting for their greencards. Let's be honest here: most H1-B visa recipients are from Indian origin. Regardless of how you feel about that, since India is an oversubscribed country in terms of immigration visas available, it takes many, many years for most Indians to get their greencards. Switching employers while having an approved I-140 (and waiting for a greencard to be available) is not so easy. That's why most Indian (and thus the vast majority of) H1-Bs stick with their employers, not because their employer can deport them at will.

    In the case of the L1 visa, the story is true. An L1 cannot be ported to another company, and thus termination of employment means termination of residency.

    --
    I'm not a complete idiot... Some parts are missing.
  68. Best news I've heard all week by Nicolas+Cage · · Score: 1

    I feel bad that people from India or China or wherever are getting caught in the crossfire, but if this is a headache for the tech companies that are exploiting them and keeping actual Americans jobless... good. I figure Amazon/Google/Facebook are way too powerful to actually allow the H1-B program to end, but maybe we can at least make it as difficult as possible for them. I know I shouldn't be satisfied with half-measures like that, but that's sadly the world we live in.

  69. Re: Trump/Bannon economic nationalism is anti-capi by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Nearly every other country, including Canada and Mexico restrict immigration unless the potential immigrant can prove theyâ(TM)re not displacing a local worker. When the rest of the world allows unrestricted immigration, then we might want to reconsider.

  70. Re: Trump/Bannon economic nationalism is anti-capi by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    You are correct, but what the company does is look the other way when the H1B employees grind out 70-80+ hours/week. What should happen is that employers should have to pay OT to visa holders. This would serve several purposes: First, reduce the indentured servitude element, Second, provide a mechanism to make up and he gap between citizen pay and H1B pay, Third, treat visa holders as humanly as citizens. I routinely have seen visa holders struggling to maintain health due to over work since porting the visa to another company can be a challenge.

  71. Re:Trump/Bannon economic nationalism is anti-capit by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    ...give the guy credit for the good he is doing...

    Sure. Can you point to something good he's done? i can't find much of anything.

    He does seem to have finally figured out how to put his right hand over his heart during the National Anthem without Melania poking him in the ribs to do it. I'll give you that much.

  72. Re:Trump/Bannon economic nationalism is anti-capit by Rick+Zeman · · Score: 1

    "Trump ran his campaign on putting Americans first, and the Dims can't manage to wrap their tiny brains around the fact that Trump is keeping his campaign promises, and putting Americans first, as demonstrated by a 70% reduction in approved H1B Visas according to the article."

    Trump puts Trump first, as also noted by Mar-A-Lago bringing in all H2B labor instead of hiring locally. Not to mention building Trump tower out of Chinese steel by a substantial illegal immigrant workforce.
    But that's different, right?

  73. Re: Trump/Bannon economic nationalism is anti-capi by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    ... innovation is what paved the way for a higher potential standard of living for all. Global poverty is lower than it has ever been in all of recorded history, and life spans are at their highest.

    In the last 40 years stupid tax policies – can you say 'trickle down' boys and girls – has destroyed the American middle class and we now have the widest income gap in the history of this country[3]. And the Republicans want to give us more of the same with their new tax plan.

    The USA has a higher infant mortality rate than 26 other countries.[1]. Average life span? We rank 26th.[2]

    These aren't things to be proud of; these are embarrassing. Innovation isn't the answer you seem to think it is.

    [1]https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/wonk/wp/2014/09/29/our-infant-mortality-rate-is-a-national-embarrassment/?utm_term=.87b1bc70c7b2
    [2]https://www.huffingtonpost.com/2013/11/21/us-life-expectancy-oecd_n_4317367.html
    [3]https://www.theatlantic.com/business/archive/2017/01/wef-davos-inequality/513185/

  74. Re:The clairty's good for aspiring immigrants as w by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Who doesn't like kangaroos?

    Anyone that's ever had to deal with them.

  75. Re:The clairty's good for aspiring immigrants as w by boudie2 · · Score: 1

    The good news is there's only 44 million of them.

  76. Re:Trump/Bannon economic nationalism is anti-capit by Pentium100 · · Score: 1

    It is good for you that you are an actual capitalist (somebody who earns a living from accumulated capital), but a lot of people are not capitalists - they earn money by working for a company.

    Importing cheap labor lowers prices (hopefully) and helps the consumer in the short term, however, it hurts the economy in the long term. If the locals are unwilling to live in the low standard of living that the foreigners are accustomed to (10 people sharing a room etc), then it places a definite minimum on the salary they are willing to accept (it should at least pay for rent and food). If you want to lower the salary even further, then they just might stop working and live on welfare.

    Then you will still be paying them (from your taxes), but they won't do anything useful to you. And they won't have enough money to buy your luxury goods.

    So, I guess, true capitalists would like a country where vast majority of locals are on welfare, foreigners doing their jobs for small salaries and living in bad conditions, while the banks and corporations rake in profits by selling their stuff to other countries (since nobody in the USA can afford them).

  77. H1-B Given to Pizza cook at Papa John's by bongey · · Score: 1

    The H1-B visa system is completely broken, a pizza cook can be granted for working at a Papa John's location. A H1-B visa holder falso used the immigration to get his back pay, the entire time the US government did not even question whether a pizza cook should even have a H1-B visa at all. Took some digging around but SRV Pizza is just a holding company for Papa Johns franchise.. https://cis.org/North/Governme... http://www.all-pizza.com/phila...

  78. Re:Not the only problem with H-1B visas by ClickOnThis · · Score: 2, Insightful

    Modded down. Whatever.

    Either the moderators are poor at reading comprehension, or there really are people out there who think that the H-1B program is some kind of welcome-mat for terrorists.

    One may argue that H-1B visa-holders displace American workers, but are they terrorists? I think not. H-1B visas are very hard to get. It's much easier to get a student visa, like the 9/11 hijackers did. And let's not forget that most of the people who have committed terrorist acts since 9/11 have had strong ties to the USA already, some being born or raised here.

    --
    If it weren't for deadlines, nothing would be late.
  79. The Bullshit Is Strong With This One by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Wow, a pretty good thread about the H1-B program, and then I come across this.

    There's so much wrong here that I can only attempt to parse one, particularly revealing paragraph. Let's begin!

    "...it's estimated that there are only about 2000 actual white supremacists in the US." OK, so by your logic the only racists in the US are white supremacists? Aren't you special!

    "Whites simply don't care what someone's color is. (Behaviour, on the other hand, is an issue.)" OK, WTF?? You begin by speaking for all white people, which is pretty arrogant. You state that white people don't care about color, when earlier in the same paragraph you admitted there are white supremacists. And then your statement about behavior completely contradicts the sentence that came immediately before it.

    You know, you could have made a non-racist argument against the H1-B program. Instead you took a dump on that approach by letting loose with a deeply racist diatribe.

    Way to go!

  80. Re:Not the only problem with H-1B visas by ClickOnThis · · Score: 1

    It certainly is used to fund terrorism. Most funds paid for H1Bs exit the country. Frequently to hostile countries.

    Okay, that's just a load of crap.

    Funds paid "for" H-1B visas are paid to the US government. They don't exit the country.

    Funds paid "to" H-1B visa-holders are spent mostly within the USA, in the form of taxes and living expenses.

    Most people here on H1B Visas are here illegally, per the terms required to allow their entry in the first place.

    If that's true, then it's the fault of their sponsors, not the visa-holders.

    Additionally, many studies have concluded that there has never been a lack of tech labor but simply a lack of companies willing to pay fair market wages. Which in turn has turned people away from what would otherwise be a well paid field.

    I'd like to see some citations for those studies. In any case, there are a limited number of H-1B visas made available every year. It's not like all of the tech needs of the USA can be supplied with H-1B visa-holders.

    Show me someone who supports H1Bs and I'll show you a scumbag.

    Then you'll have to include practically every university in the USA.

    --
    If it weren't for deadlines, nothing would be late.
  81. Re: Trump/Bannon economic nationalism is anti-cap by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Dumbass, those numbers are per capita.

    Fuck, you Trumpazees are so fucking exceptionally retarded.

  82. Saying you are owed a job = a type of slavery by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    What is slavery? It is to claim right to the labor of another by force.

    What is it to be owed a job as a mater of law? It is to claim the right to make someone labor to employ you and give you their money.

    To say someone is OWED a job as a matter of entitlement is to endorse a form of slavery.

  83. On Slashdot? You are a member of the 1% by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Actually, the American middle class is disappearing because more people than ever before are moving to the upper classes, which is a positive trend.

    https://www.consciouscapitalism.org/

    You are talking about comparative data to other contemporary examples, which is a fallacy in this context. The key issue is how is the world doing NOW compared to THEN, and there are higher standards of living and less poverty than ever before.

    By virtue of you being a 21st century westerner with internet access, you are already in the top 1% economic class of all humans who have ever lived. Congratulations; you are a 1%er.

    https://fee.org/articles/you-are-richer-than-john-d-rockefeller/

    1. Re: On Slashdot? You are a member of the 1% by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Fuck you. Seriously that's it. Just fuck you and your moronic opinions.

    2. Re: On Slashdot? You are a member of the 1% by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Wow, what a thoughtful response.

  84. Capitalism is why you are able to comment here by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Free market = slavery, says man unironically while using internet which connects him with billions of other people in real time made possible by corporations.

    http://babylonbee.com/news/capitalism-cries-man-guy-fawkes-mask-ordered-amazon/

    1. Re: Capitalism is why you are able to comment here by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Actually, it was largely made possible by scientists, researchers and DARPA. It was implemented by companies when they found there was a way to profit from it and continue eeking out more and more. If it was up to those companies, they would happily take much more of your assets if they could regardless of actual expenses or needs, as long as you could maximize their profit stream. Companies only do things if it's profitable, the needs of society be damned.

  85. Crony capitalism = fascism, not capitalism by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    What you are describing is crony capitalism: the corrupt alliance of big business with big government.

    https://mises.org/library/crony-capitalism-america

    Crony capitalism is not free market capitalism at all. It is fascism (and I mean real fascism, not the bogus Antifa definition).

    1. Re: Crony capitalism = fascism, not capitalism by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      This type of collusion or crony capitalism is the underlying free market optimization response to constraints against monopolies. When monopolies are prevented, the next best solution is collusion with minimal competitors.

      Free markets themselves ultimately lead to monopolies. Like many optimization methods (gradient descent comes to mind), localized solutions (existing monopolies) can be upset by more optimal solutions that were unknown (emerging competition) but the longer the optimization runs, the less chance future competitors have of converging on a more optimal market solution (the reigning monopoly) and ultimately the new solution will replace the old as the new monopoly.

  86. Capitalism v Crony Capitalism by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Do not confuse genuine capitalism with the features of crony capitalism.

    Real capitalism simply means the right to contract with who you want, when you want, for what you want, and to be secure in your person and property, and have the right to use your own property for whatever you wish and to do business with whoever you wish, so long as you do not initiate aggression against the person or property of someone else.

    Filtered through this definition, it should become clear that large swaths of contemporary business are not capitalist; they are crony capitalist. And those who care about human flourishing, helping the poor, and protecting the good of the people should support true capitalism:

    https://fee.org/articles/5-reasons-progressives-should-support-economic-freedom/

    1. Re:Capitalism v Crony Capitalism by Pentium100 · · Score: 2

      Real capitalism simply means the right to contract with who you want, when you want, for what you want, and to be secure in your person and property, and have the right to use your own property for whatever you wish and to do business with whoever you wish, so long as you do not initiate aggression against the person or property of someone else.

      That fails on a large scale just like communism fails on a large scale

      Real free market needs there to be a lot of sellers who offer similar goods, and it also requires everyone to be well-informed and acting rationally. In practice, there are huge costs to enter some markets (say, the CPU industry) just because of the technologies involved. That results in those markets being dominated by one or two companies (how many spinning hard drive manufacturers are there?). This then results in the buyer having little to no choice, especially if the few companies make some sort of agreement to fix prices etc.

      Similar in the job market - the employer usually has more power than the employee, unless the employees form a union or something like that. Since there are fewer employers than employees, especially in some industries, the companies can make an agreement to, say, force the employees to work 16 hours per day without vacation days. Regulation is needed here too - I do not think that you would want to work in a factory the way people did 150 years ago, after all, the regulations came into effect after the businesses proved that they could not regulate themselves.

      Another interesting bit of history I read - early railroad companies did not care about safety, since they saw maintenance as an expense that could be reduced. So what if a rusty boiler explodes or there is a train collision because the signalman was not supplied with fuel for signal lamps? It may be cheaper than maintaining all locomotives etc. Another example is the US railroad companies continuing to use older style couplers that were very dangerous even when a safer design was available. Why? Well, it was cheaper to hire new employees to replace the ones who were killed or maimed by the train than to replace all couplers.

      We see similar things now with information security.

  87. China *DOES* allow immigration !! by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    > ... Other countries have extreme immigration policies, and several countries don't allow immigration at all (such as China, where you can't immigrate even if you own a Chinese business and are married to a Chinese citizen) ...

    China does allow immigration

    In fact, our resident China expert - https://slashdot.org/~Shanghai... - can tell you more, if you ask

    1. Re: China *DOES* allow immigration !! by fubarrr · · Score: 1

      There are a whoping 51 naturalized Chinese citizens who got Chinese passports through means other than marriage. ~40 of them are former Hongkongese, and I believe all of these did get Mainland citizenship in order to hoard real estate in Shenzhen

  88. You are rent seeking by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    > ... I am nursing two H1B applications through the process. Both were easy cases that would have sailed through in the past. (MS Comp Sci, U Washington, massively parallel computing, MS Mech E, Cal Tech, finite element methods and mesh generation). With published papers in reputed journals ...

    Nurturing foreign talents under H1-B is a cop-out

    My company tries to nurse as many fresh graduates who are American citizens as we can find

    And when we really can't locate enough American citizens who have the skills (and the will) for the job, we will then look for foreign talents, whether they be freshly graduated or those who already have years of experience under their belts

    We will try to get them the Green Card (not the slave labor H1-B visa) they deserve (that is, if that's what they want)

    That way, even if that foreign talent stops working for us, he or she will still have his/her Green Card to stay and work inside the United States, contributing their skills for the country

    1. Re:You are rent seeking by 140Mandak262Jamuna · · Score: 1

      We sponsor for green card all the H1Bs we hire. We hope to keep them in our company for the next 30 years.

      --
      sed -e 's/Chuck Norris/Rajnikant/g' joke > fact
  89. Re:The article actually spells out the H1-B proble by drsquare · · Score: 1

    There’s just about zero chance that some young recent graduate has such a background.

    That's a funny thing to say in an industry where drop-outs create world-changing companies. What exactly are you hoping to achieve by deporting skilled, educated workers?

  90. Re: Trump/Bannon economic nationalism is anti-capi by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1

    You presume the employee can quickly find a new sponsor when that just isn't the case. Such moves are also high risk because the foreign worker may have to leave while continuing to find a new sponsor which makes interviewing far more difficult.

    The employers really do have considerable leverage. While they have no authority to directly deport someone, they understand cases with high probability of deportation and they leverage those employees even more. I know a lot of H1Bs in the medical field (just had a night out with them). They earn a fraction of what their peers earn (around half salaries in many cases). They know they're leveraged and they only allow it seeking a greencard. Everyone I've spoke too cannot wait to get citizenship to leave their current exploitative employers on the spot for higher, competitive salaries with their peers.

  91. Re: Trump/Bannon economic nationalism is anti-capi by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    If non-H1B workers right next to them are making similar wages and the most enthusiastic of them are also working 70-80+ hours a week, what's wrong with that?

  92. eh by nomadic · · Score: 1

    Just about everybody gets the current state of H-1B workers wrong. There are two pools of H-1Bs, who are here under the same visa but in totally different situations.

    The first are people who are actually filling jobs they couldn't find Americans to fill. These are often STEM professions that not enough Americans want to go into in the areas that need them -- like civil or mechanical engineering in unsexy areas (like wastewater treatment), or physicians in underserved areas. Americans with talent and interest in STEM tend to go into more glamorous jobs in more glamorous areas. Think biomedical engineering, neuroscience, etc. etc..

    The second category are the ones who are here to displace American workers through mass hiring by shady outsourcing and consulting companies.

    It's not really hard to differentiate them. If an engineering firm is hiring one Indian engineer on H-1B to join a large workforce, it's probably legit. If a retailer is hiring 1,000 call center workers on H-1B, it's probably not.

  93. Glad trump did something about it by OppMan29 · · Score: 1

    Most of us posting here have computer related jobs... and like it or not ...Cutting these Visas bring jobs back to american workers,

  94. be careful what you wish for by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    you just might get it

  95. um by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    There are plenty of out of work Americans who are quite knowledgable in parallel computing, finite element methods and mesh generations. I could name 7 of them right now. By what right are you participating in driving down the wages and benefits of ALL American tech workers by aiding in the importation of foreign workers to do these jobs?

    Every imported worker increases the supply - and IF YOU BELIEVE IN ECONOMICS therefore suppresses or even depresses the cost of that supply (wages and benefits). When you shove down the wages and benefits of ANY American tech workers, you affect the computed "prevailing wage" that is used by many companies and the government to determine appropriate wages and benefits for vast portions of the American workforce.

    You are facilitating a one-way corporate escape hatch from the rules of the market for your company - they want all the benefits of the US market, but when the rules of supply-and-demand work against them they want a special exception. This is like Wall St bankers who love to cite the free market when trashing everybody else (your home's being foreclosed! Sorry, it's NOTHING PERSONAL... it's just the rules of the market...), but then want bailouts when the market goes against them.

    Oh, and your claim that you are in some way better because you only hire those with American PhDs and Masters, well, here's the problem: your action encourages the bad habits of those institutions who import foreign students instead of educating many of the American kids who would love to get those educations. Tell me... how many American kids in greater LA do you suspect might LOVE a masters or doctorate from CalTech? Shouldn't a taxpayer-funded outfit like CalTech favor the kids of American taxpayers? Might not LA be a much better and more socially-stable place if lots of American kids from South Central had futures with doctorate degrees as professors, engineers, researchers, rocket scientists, etc?

    Facilitating the destruction of the American middle class and the dreams of American kids is not something to be proud of, it's something to be ashamed of.

    After decades of economic destruction by the Bushes, the Clintons, and Obama - "establishment" Republicans and Democrats alike - I'm warming to "the orange one". We all know he has many flaws, but the man seems to be the only politician in DC in decades to actually try to keep some of his promises to the middle class. For those who, irrationally and emotionally or rationally and on principles, cannot stand him I have a simple two-part question: Name another person on the 2016 election stage who would have certainly done this, and can you think of any non-policy reasons why average American wages have, after decades of stagnation under both Republicans and Democrats, just begun to rise a slight amount?

    1. Re:um by 140Mandak262Jamuna · · Score: 1
      You have no clue about the level of people like me. I am not given to boasting a lot, and I feel a little embarrassed to toot my own horn. But, the fact is, I am creme-de-la-creme of India, got through JEE, and easily place in the top 0.5% in any aptitude test. I joined a startup that was creating simulation software, half mill a year in sales and took it to 100 million dollars a year in sales,. The coding team had four Americans, two Indians (IIT Kgp and IIT Madras), one Chinese, one Pole, mentored by sons an second world war Hungarian refugee to Canada.

      If America had not given me an F1 in 1990 and a H1B in 1995, I would have joined a similar team in England, Germany, Japan or Korea and helped create that 800 high paying upper middle class jobs and two dozen millionaires there instead of here. I estimate my skills created jobs that collectively pay 15 million dollars a year, not counting my pay check.

      But law of large numbers and the regression to the mean is relentless. My kids, our kids, are not as smart as we are. We are appalled by the abuse of H1B that puts our kids at a disadvantage. But we know what is good and what is bad about H1B and listen us, we are Americans, our wealth and our children are in America. We want America to prosper and succeed.

      --
      sed -e 's/Chuck Norris/Rajnikant/g' joke > fact
    2. Re:um by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Yes, this is why. He's a racist Indian-American who will only hire other Indians.

  96. Re:The clairty's good for aspiring immigrants as w by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Being from Delhi, and having spent 3 Decembers (just 2 weeks every December.. the company would not allow more than 15 days on a B visa) in Seattle.. I would love to immigrate to a cold country

  97. which should be cheaper and easier... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Microsoft or another tech giant re-training one of their current employees for a new job, or them importing a kid from a foreign country and training him for that job?

    Remember: ALL these tech giants have layed-off tens of thousands of workers over the past few years. And all of these companies claim to be the best and have the best corporate cultures and the best methods and processes. The current employees should already be familiar with the US culture and the corporate culture and the processes and tools of the companies where they work. The foreign college kid cannot possibly be better prepared to move into the company and starty working - unless of course all the corporate PR is complete bovine excrement and a kid from an Indian school who then passes through an American college is suddenly better prepeared than a career Microsoft employee who has spent a decade or more in the Microsoft environment.

    These tech giants are making a pretty compelling argument that they are actually rather incompetent and that working for them dumbs people down to be worse than a new-hire with no experience.

  98. Nice try by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1

    America has had a couple of very successful waves of immigration as you alluded to, but under very diffrernt conditions and with VERY different rules.

    First, during those earlier waves, America was mostly un-populated. People were imported to fill a largely un-filled nation and take advantage of vast untapped natural resources. Now, the nation is already populated and political forces have been building for decades to prohibit the tapping of those natural resources.

    Second, in the most-famous wave of European immigrants the immigrants, a whole series of things aligned:
    1. they were nearly all Christian or Jewsish and they were coming into a mostly protestant Christian culture. There were many cultural differences but the moral principles of the new-comers aligned with the culture they were entering this is often not true today.
    2. they were screened at Ellis Island. Those who had illnesses or disabilities were turned around and sent home, not as an act of eugenics but as a protection for the physical and economic health of the American people. Those who were unable to support themselves were not admitted; they were not allowed to become a burden on the taxpayers. With modern "chain migration", many immigrants bring in a bunch of relatives often including elderly relatives, who immediately become eligible for taxpayer-funded benefits. Other do the reverse: essentially throwing their under-age kids over the border like living grappling hooks and then counting on the gullible and empathetic public to look the other way as the parents and grandparents are pulled-in later by bureaucrats approving papers.
    3. At the time of those earlier waves of immigration, there was no taxpayer-funded safety net. No welfare, no foodtamps, no umeployment, no social security, no medicaid, no "obama phones", no "obamacare" - NONE of it.

    In the past, when cheap workers entered the country they took low-end work and worked their butts off to build a better life for their kids, and while they certainly affected citizens by suppressing wages, that was the limit to the damage. The new wave not only pushes down wages, but they and their dependents consume many taxpayer-provided social services thus becoming a double-whammy on the citizenry while the employer cheeerfully makes a killing. Ever wonder why the gap between the rich and poor grew so dramatically under Obama????? (and to be fair was getting pretty bad under establishment meat-puppet Bush)

  99. You do not understand at all, or you are a fool by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1

    You cite CATO, and anti-American globalist libertarian thinktank... so I'm gonna go with "fool" (or "useful idiot")

    Here's the problem:

    You talk about a "free market" but then ignore the meaning of the term "market". A market is a defined space with a uniform set of trading rules. That's why it works. Everybody can trade in a marketplace because there are rules and those rules are enforced. America is a marketplace. China is a market place (albeit with different rules, of course). France is another marketplace, as is Japan. Again, wiuth different rules but rules that work in those places and cultures.

    What rat bastards like CATO support is a quasi-anti-marketpklace. They want stable rules, currency, etc in the US but with an escape hatch to go use the rules of a totally different marketplace for only one portion of certain activities and only for those who are rich enough to use the hatch. If "bob the barber" in small-town USA wants a slave from Namibia to sweep his floors for 10cents a day, CATO is not for that but id bazillionaire Bezos wants to make another billion selling trinkets assembled by foreign slaves who work for 10cents a day good for him!. Oh, but id Bezos or Gates or Cook or Buffet want to life safely somewhere and have safe food and medicine and police and fire and juries for trials in public courts and government-run prisons to hold anybody who tries to rob them or kidnap their families etc.... then they want the US Taxpayer funded marketplace. hhhhhhmmmmmmmmmmm....

    The libertarian dream of doofuses like the CATO crew are irrational. A "global marketplace" with no national boundaries would not work without a one-world government (since a government MUST exist to establish and enforce the rules of the marketplace and deter and punish violators of the marketplace rules). A one-world government is problematic on MANY levels; first, many would reject it so it would have to be established by force. Anybody familiar with the works of Hayek would see the problem here immediately: to force it into being against the will of so many millions would require a tyrant willing to be evil, and that would mean giving power to a globalist government run by an evil tyrant. Who saves the world from a global Hitler or a global Stalin or a global Chairman Mao who controls all the power on Earth???

    The swine at CATO are actually anti-American; they have repeatedly argued against borders and border enforcement. Without borders and border enforcement, you have no nations and with no nations you have no America. Without America you have none of the American concepts that were spread around the globe like a guarantee of "free speech" and right to freedom of religion (including a right to have no religion). Even a great place like the UK does not, strictly speaking, have these things and thus would not have promulgated them across the planet.

  100. good by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    slow it to zero

  101. immigration lawyers by superwiz · · Score: 1

    The scrutiny of immigrants to the US is probably going to set in a the new normal. So immigration lawyers gravy train as the gatekeepers of all the non-traditional immigration to the US is probably coming to an end. Their best bet is probably to requalify as labor lawyers. The relationships between employers and employees is very rapidly changing. So there should be more work in negotiating new norms in that arena than there is in filling out the paperwork for new waves of highly-qualified indentured servants trafficked into the country.

    --
    Any guest worker system is indistinguishable from indentured servitude.
  102. Re:Even a stopped clock... by superwiz · · Score: 1

    Forget "cheap". They are willing to work in abusive working conditions... although, I guess, you can demand extra compensation for these working conditions if you are not afraid of deportation in case of firing.

    --
    Any guest worker system is indistinguishable from indentured servitude.
  103. Re:Trump/Bannon economic nationalism is anti-capit by r1348 · · Score: 1

    it may hurt some workers, but also immensely benefit the American consumer.

    Somehow, you fail to notice those are the same people.

  104. Internal transfers by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    I manage a development team for a global internal platform in a large org.We have US devs but they are sorely lacking _experience_ on _this_ platform. I can't hire that experience internally or externally but I do have a team in India with minimum 5 years of experience each. Logical answer, transfer some of that experience to where it's needed as there's no home candidate that fulfills the criteria.

  105. Awesome fodder for the slashdotters by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Oh wow, the slashdotters would come to post here like a bitch in heat with that kind of headline. Come on guys we need *more* Indian shitting jokes and how they suck at everything. Keep it going!

  106. Re: Trump/Bannon economic nationalism is anti-capi by makerfixer · · Score: 1

    Look at news services that rely on something other than his tweets or press releases for the accomplishments. As far as the hand over heart- we donâ(TM)t care. We all get busy and wrapped up in things and many have wanted the president who puts appearance and listening to pollsters at 20% of his job rather than 100%. Our current political class uses how close someone is to 100% uncontroversial and polished as itâ(TM)s currency, the American people arenâ(TM)t too dumb to realize this, they are often just too busy to care. You want to show yourself as not being a politician like Trump did, show yourself as having very little or none of that currency and make it clear no one in that crowd would back you.

  107. H-1B Replacement Workers by SCUBA+Instructor · · Score: 1

    A number of years ago, USAA Insurance replaced its IT staff with H-1B replacements from India. US employees were required to train their replacements as a condition of unemployment benefits. Local news caught up with the incident and the story made the newspaper and was broadcast on local TV. USAA senior vice president argued on TV that Hindu replacement workers bring skills that do not exist anywhere in the US. They got those skills from the US citizens who were fired in their favor. According to the news, a while back, Tata Corporation has the capacity to send an additional 10 million [indentured] H-1B replacement workers as fast as the airlift and sealift can transport them. If Hillary had been elected, this would be happening already. The solution is to terminate the H-1B program and repatriate replacement workers back to India. H-1B advocates argue that they would retaliate by increasing offshoring from India (never mind they already do this).

  108. Re:Trump/Bannon economic nationalism is anti-capit by AvitarX · · Score: 2

    Especially the company of the person quoted in the article.

    A 40% increase in challenges leads to a 70% reduction in success?

    Sounds like exactly the type of mill that's skirting the law is what's being shut down here.

    --
    Wow, sent an e-mail as suggested when clicking on "use classic" banner, and got a fast response that addressed my msg
  109. Re:Trump/Bannon economic nationalism is anti-capit by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1

    The problem with H1Bs, is they allow the company to have a leverage over their employees beyond just mere payment. Your employer can essentially deport you at will. Not just fire and cut off income, but literally cut off residency. This leads to a terrible power imbalance, that of course the employers would seek.

    You're right, but also wrong.

    Yes, H1-B gives a company more leverage over the employee as would be the case with regular U.S. Citizen/LPR employees. However, they are not entirely at the mercy of their employers since an H1-B petition can be ported to another company. Yes, they will have to file the petition and USCIS will need to approve it, but essentially an H1-B can move companies.

    In practice, most H1-Bs do not, because they are waiting for their greencards. Let's be honest here: most H1-B visa recipients are from Indian origin. Regardless of how you feel about that, since India is an oversubscribed country in terms of immigration visas available, it takes many, many years for most Indians to get their greencards. Switching employers while having an approved I-140 (and waiting for a greencard to be available) is not so easy. That's why most Indian (and thus the vast majority of) H1-Bs stick with their employers, not because their employer can deport them at will.

    You are mostly right. However, majority of indians stuck on green card will die before they can become eligible to get GC. Many don't know this truth. USCIS continues to grab new applications, while a simple calculation can tell them, these people will die and their kids retire by the time they process their applications. These waiting H1Bs (like me, working for FANG company) will continue to depress wages for everyone, because they change jobs less.

  110. Re:Trump/Bannon economic nationalism is anti-capit by AvitarX · · Score: 1

    The employer can essentially deport an employee.

    I there are many classes of jobs where it's practically impossible to get a new one in a short enough timeframe.

    I'd call that an extreme skew of power to the employer.

    --
    Wow, sent an e-mail as suggested when clicking on "use classic" banner, and got a fast response that addressed my msg
  111. Re:Trump/Bannon economic nationalism is anti-capit by LeftCoastThinker · · Score: 1

    Nice try at changing the topic, but I notice that you did not refute or even try to contest my facts. And all you have is confirming that in the past, Trump did what was best for his company within the current law JUST LIKE EVERYONE, EVER. How many times did you not take all the deductions you were allowed to on your tax forms (to help out the federal government?) No one ever does because it is not in your self interest, and you are legally within your rights to keep that money. If you don't like the rubber stamp worker visa programs, you should be thanking Trump, since he has killed the rubber stamp BS. Was it Trump's fault 8 years ago that the federal government was flooding the labor market with cheap foreign workers? No, so STFU already...

    Regarding the Chinese steel, as a business, you get quotes and, assuming the vendors can all deliver the same quality, you go with the cheapest quote. If Trump hand not gone with the Chinese steel vendor since they were the lowest bid, you asshat partisans would have been calling him a racist. I refuse to play your bullshit heads I win, tails you lose game.

    Also, pretty sure hiring illegals is it'self illegal, and since Trump hasn't been charged with that particular crime, your BS claim is in reality that Trump hired legit sub contractors who in turn hired illegals, which makes your clam 100% false and libelous. That is like you paying Home Depot $2000 to replace your carpet, and then the sub contractor that Home Depot hires out to uses illegals, who then show up at your house to actually do the work. You have no idea and no connection to the illegals, and only an idiot who is looking to conflate truth for political gain would say that you hired illegals.

    --
    If you disagree, please post your argument. (-1, Overrated) isn't your personal censorship tool for views you don't like
  112. Re: Trump/Bannon economic nationalism is anti-capi by SharpFang · · Score: 2

    "No one owes you a job."

    False.

    Politician, who promised you to keep your job, and whom you voted in, owes you a job. And if that means stopping your employer from replacing you with a cheaper foreign worker (through abusing a program that is meant only to allow import of talents that are lacking domestically, never intended to replace existing employees), stopping your employer from abusing that program is doing exactly what he owes you for your vote.

    --
    45 5F E1 04 22 CA 29 C4 93 3F 95 05 2B 79 2A B2
  113. Re: Trump/Bannon economic nationalism is anti-capi by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    although the statistics there also indicate that Americans commit more crimes than even illegal immigrants

    However, most crimes occur within the community and it's fairly well documented that illegal aliens are more hesitant to contact the police when they are a victim of a crime than, say, a middle class legal citizen is. Hence, there is almost certainly some "non-reporting" bias at work here.

  114. Re: Trump/Bannon economic nationalism is anti-capi by SharpFang · · Score: 1

    equally as, or less. It's frequent the employee that is to be let go must TRAIN the H1-B replacement.

    --
    45 5F E1 04 22 CA 29 C4 93 3F 95 05 2B 79 2A B2
  115. For those missing globalization by Contract+Gypsy · · Score: 0

    You must be pretty secure in your job to believe H-1B isn't going to take it from you. Trust me, if a business believes they can get 90% of your job done at half the price, you will be downsized, plain and simple. It is the simple math of supply and demand. Reduce the supply, demand goes up and incomes go up. Its that simple!

    --
    Life is in a state of dynamic equilibrium, it both blows and sucks
  116. Re: Trump/Bannon economic nationalism is anti-capi by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1

    The framers of the Constitution also gave Congress no power to enact national wealth redistribution programs so immigrants really created little or no burden on the Federal government as there was no Federal Medicaid, Social Security, Medicare, Welfare, TANF, Food Stamps, EITC, or Housing Assistance. The framers also gave Congress no power to enact rules requiring states and businesses to provide health care to individuals regardless of their ability to pay (see the unfunded mandate in the form of the Emergency Medical Treatment and Labor Act).

    So, we have a situation now which the framers no more envisioned than they envisioned nuclear weapons when crafting the Second Amendment (although, contrary to popular belief, automatic and semiautomatic arms existed at that time).

    When bridging paradigm shifts, it's pretty hard to speculate accurately on how the founders would have come down on related issues if faced with them.

  117. Re:Trump/Bannon economic nationalism is anti-capit by SharpFang · · Score: 1

    " but essentially an H1-B can move companies."

    Except who's going to hire a H1-B employee, who was fired from a previous job? What sort of references does this make?

    --
    45 5F E1 04 22 CA 29 C4 93 3F 95 05 2B 79 2A B2
  118. Re: Trump/Bannon economic nationalism is anti-capi by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1

    Easier solution...

    First, Impose a Federal payroll tax of 33% on the employer of every H1-B holder and use these funds, first, to clamp down on abuse of H1-Bs (esp. not paying prevailing wages). Funds left over after expenditures for rigorous enforcement of the program's rules should be spent on education and training programs to address the "native" shortfall in skills that the H1-B holders are filling (currently, mostly STEM).

    Second, set a very low tolerance for abuse of the H1-B program and if a company is found guilty of abusing it, they must dismiss all their H1-B workers within 30 days, pay stiff fines, and may not apply for another H1-B for five years.

    Third, ban "job shops" from using the H1-B program.

    Employers are most interested in their bottom line so once an H1-B employee, due to the H1-B tax, costs more than a "native" employee of similar skills would cost and the risk of losing all your H1-B employees nearly overnight if you screw up would disrupt your business, the problem (if there is one) will self-correct.

  119. Re: Trump/Bannon economic nationalism is anti-cap by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Job guarantee by the government is a most basic step towards inefficiency, poor performance and eventually poor nation. Look at any nation, which has restricted trade, guaranteed job by government or forced companies to hire a locally. Communism and socialism is a recipe for disaster.

  120. Re:The article actually spells out the H1-B proble by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    What exactly are you hoping to achieve by deporting skilled, educated workers?

    Many of the H1-Bs that pass through did not attend school in the United States and the quality of the skills and "education" they received at a for-profit diploma mill in Bangalore is questionable at best. The point is that these people are not the best of the best. They aren't even the best of the rest. To suggest that deporting these people is wasting a valuable worker is laughable.

  121. Re:Not the only problem with H-1B visas by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1, Interesting

    Having, over many years, been responsible for filling software development positions at various companies, I beg to differ. There simply are not enough skilled and motivated developers in the US.

    Of course there are plenty of programmers -- if you just need warm bodies for a government contract or something like that, but that's not what I need.

    Perhaps 1/3 to 1/2 of my employees started working in the US on an H1-B (some subsequently got their GC or became citizens). These were among my most valuable employees and, overall, were the highest paid. In one recent job, the top two highest paid people in my group were on H1-Bs -- they were that good and I paid for performance. I would much rather hire an "American" worker for every position -- it saves me the hassle of H1-Bs and related pain and I know that developers are staying around because they really like the work rather than just because it's too much of a problem for them to switch jobs. Yet, because I needed quality developers, I happily hire the most qualified person and that's often the H1-B candidate.

    (That said, I've also seen horrible abuses of the H1-B program at other companies and, at one company I worked at, mild abuses -- none of my H1-B's were subject to those abuses at that latter company though).

  122. Re:Not the only problem with H-1B visas by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    It certainly is used to fund terrorism. Most funds paid for H1Bs exit the country. Frequently to hostile countries.

    Okay, that's just a load of crap.

    Funds paid "for" H-1B visas are paid to the US government. They don't exit the country.

    Funds paid "to" H-1B visa-holders are spent mostly within the USA, in the form of taxes and living expenses.

    Agreed.

    Most people here on H1B Visas are here illegally, per the terms required to allow their entry in the first place.

    If that's true, then it's the fault of their sponsors, not the visa-holders.

    It is their fault as well, a prostitute is not the only guilty party the john is just as guilty.

    Additionally, many studies have concluded that there has never been a lack of tech labor but simply a lack of companies willing to pay fair market wages. Which in turn has turned people away from what would otherwise be a well paid field.

    I'd like to see some citations for those studies. In any case, there are a limited number of H-1B visas made available every year. It's not like all of the tech needs of the USA can be supplied with H-1B visa-holders.

    I cannot cite a study but I can cite the names of at least 100 people I have known that have left the field because there were no available jobs and yet there are/were companies that hiring H-1B visa holders constantly. Hell the company I work for laid off over 75 people last April and then immediately started hiring H-1B visa holders.

    Show me someone who supports H1Bs and I'll show you a scumbag.

    I would support H-1B iff (if and only if) the H-1B program was held to its intended standard and the difference is the wage paid to the person and the average of the top 10% of the earners in the field was paid to a fund that was used exclusively to train/retrain American citizens.

    The ideal of the H-1B is sound but it was (like most laws) implemented poorly and set up to be abused by business interests.

    Then you'll have to include practically every university in the USA.

    Well they are, but that is beside the point. Of course they support H-1B, cheap labor and full tuition for qualifying H-1B students why would they.

    The problem is that somewhere along the line business decided that they were not going to invest in their people anymore, they say that it is because people have no loyalty and if they train them then the people will move on to another job. That is a fallacy, people move on because the companies have no loyalty to their employees. How many of our grandfathers retired after working for a company for 40 years, that will not hold true for our fathers(mothers) or us not because we wont stay but because the companies decide that it is better to lay us off and hire new constantly, and because of this why should be be loyal to them.

  123. Re:The article actually spells out the H1-B proble by Cinnamon+Beige · · Score: 1

    There’s just about zero chance that some young recent graduate has such a background.

    That's a funny thing to say in an industry where drop-outs create world-changing companies. What exactly are you hoping to achieve by deporting skilled, educated workers?

    Offhand? Their home countries being able to join us in the information age on a larger, better scale, with local labor able to build, maintain, and expand their infrastructure. It's more likely to happen if locals can do it, than if it is necessary for foreigners to be imported.

  124. Good. Now, lets kill the H1B all together by WindBourne · · Score: 1

    Seriously, the 50K H1B should be replaced by adding some more VISAs, say 10K / year and geared ONLY for jobs in demand.

    --
    I prefer the "u" in honour as it seems to be missing these days.
  125. Re: Trump/Bannon economic nationalism is anti-cap by SharpFang · · Score: 1

    Why are there so many, that just can't accept the fact that Trump is the legally, democratically elected president? Why do you find it so suspicious that majority of people support whom majority of people voted in? Personally, I'm finding it bizarre, that for the first time in the USA history, supporters of the losing party are treating the winner as illegal usurper (including protests and riots), instead of just shutting up and accepting it's the Republicans' turn at the helm. And why don't you try to clean up your house (e.g. assuring that DNC is impartial when picking candidates, instead of using dirty tricks to cheat half of their own electorate out of voting their candidate just to push the one DNC is literally owned by).

    --
    45 5F E1 04 22 CA 29 C4 93 3F 95 05 2B 79 2A B2
  126. Re: Trump/Bannon economic nationalism is anti-cap by SharpFang · · Score: 1

    And yet denying job basing on race, gender or religious background is illegal. It's only legal to prioritize semi-illegally imported foreigners over legal citizens. Are you implying the government should also remove the anti-discrimination laws?

    The firms are still free to replace their employees with better employees that are legal citizens. They are also free to make the employees redundant, vacating the workplaces altogether. What they are not allowed is abusing law that is meant strictly for filling up shortages of highest tier professionals, to import under-qualified cheap labor replacing current employees.

    While communism and socialism were a disaster, so was untamed, bloody 19th Century capitalism, where the employee had no rights. Restricted immigration in general are one of methods of indirectly protecting rights of employees - in the standard capitalist supply-demand-price triangle of the job market, it prevents the employers from inflating the supply side artificially, reducing the price for own profit. H1-B is a concession that would help employers in case supply is so low they are unable to fill the demand, no matter what price. But it's being abused - inflating the supply unreasonably.

    How is it wrong to enforce it?

    --
    45 5F E1 04 22 CA 29 C4 93 3F 95 05 2B 79 2A B2
  127. We welcome all in New Hampshire by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    If "Americans" are really wroth 3x more than foreigners than it should really be an issue to let them all in. The idea that you somehow have a right because you were born here to higher pay is ridicules. The government should not be empowered to do anything other than criminalize that which is murder, theft, or similar violence. We as Americans are well equipped to compete and its the changing laws that are creating problems. We literally created our own problems. We should be open to immigration and look at jobs based on our sills and opportunities. If we had done that we wouldn't have this immigration issue in the first place "taking" "American" jobs.

    I've done well for myself because I stopped listening to my parents, my teachers, etc when I graduated from college. I should never have gone to college. I started a business at the worst possible time and did fantastically well. People need to learn to work hard and make smarter choices and stop demanding government fix problems its not capable of fixing. All it does is create dependence on an inefficient system and prevent people from getting out of that inefficient system. Cops are paid too much- but you can't create a security company and hire them for less. No. You have to pay the city because only the city can keep you safe! What non-sense. There are places where the police are incapable of securing the people and private security is what solves the problem. There is no reason the government should be stealing 70%+ of our wealth. Government wealth redistribution schemes are inherently immoral. They rely on theft and violence.

  128. Re: Trump/Bannon economic nationalism is anti-cap by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    First time? Did you miss the entire previous 8 years? The fake brother movement?

  129. Weak Argument by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Your argument about the H1-B holder's ability to switch employers is weak.

    First of all, let's admit that employers like a little tactical (or strategic) leverage against their workers, in general. Employing an H1-B holder gives them that leverage. It matters little that H1-B holders "can" port to another company if they rarely do so. Now, why would they rarely do so?

    Easy:

    1). You assume that H1-B holders know their rights and their portable H1-B position. Yet it's trivial and commonplace for the employer to withhold that information and even to actively misrepresent the employee's actual rights;

    2). Get a lawyer? Consult an immigration consultant? Well yes, except that those cost money. They also suggest a willingness to engage in a combative relationship with the employer. Also, many people from lesser-developed countries learn to distrust authority, based upon very real problems with authority figures in those countries. Sure some will escape from these problems but the point is that H1-B holders can be intimidated in general, and that's a problem;

    3). You admit that a lot of those H1-B holders are seeking green cards, which makes them unable to switch employers. OK, so here's another means by which H1-B holders are suddenly at a power disadvantage. Guess what, either they have to sacrifice their goal of getting a green card, or they tolerate an employer who might take advantage of them.

    4). And then you admit that an L1 visa cannot be portable at all.

    So which is it? Are H1-B holders and L1 visa holders vulnerable to intimidate and exploitation or not? I think they are totally vulnerable, and a handful of those willing and able to escape exploitation does not make that statement untrue.

  130. Finally! - Glad we are waking up and challenge H1B by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Glad our administration is finally hearing the america voices and trying to stop this horrible H1B program that is nothing more than taking american engineer jobs and salaries.

  131. EB-5 by NewYork · · Score: 1

    Is H1-B auction different from https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/...

  132. Re: Trump/Bannon economic nationalism is anti-cap by SharpFang · · Score: 1

    I don't recall Republicans rioting in the streets and setting cars on fire over the past 8 years.

    --
    45 5F E1 04 22 CA 29 C4 93 3F 95 05 2B 79 2A B2
  133. Translation by PortHaven · · Score: 1

    They began finally doing their jobs.

  134. It should be an incremental auction by PortHaven · · Score: 1

    By that, the quantity of H1B's requested increases the tier you are in.

    So if you request a single H1B Visa, you are in the Tier 1 Lottery Pool. But if you request 2-10 you move into Tier 2, 11-100 and you're in Tier 3, 101-1000 and you're in Tier 4, and 1000+ you are in Tier 5.

    Each pool has an additional tax profile. So basically, if you only need one specifically skilled individual, then it is minimal impact. But when you start hiring 100 or thousands of H1B Visas, then the there is a penalty tax of sorts up to 30% of salary.