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.
"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.
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.
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.
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.
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!
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.
There is plenty of available skilled labor here in America. We should not be importing labor.
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!
Both were hit with RFE. Guidance from the lawyers were:
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
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?
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
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.
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.
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.
they had an amazing, unreplicable skill set of the above and the ability to work on 15k per year.
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
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.
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.
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.
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.
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?
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.
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.
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.
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
"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
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?