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H-1B Visa Lottery Will Now Favor Masters, Doctorate Degree Holders (sfchronicle.com)
McGruber shares a report from The San Francisco Chronicle: The Department of Homeland Security announced a rule change Wednesday that will transform the lottery that decides who gets the 85,000 H-1B visas granted to for-profit companies every year. Previously, an initial lottery granted 20,000 visas only to those holding advanced degrees granted by U.S. institutions -- master's degrees or doctorates -- and then a general lottery granted 65,000 visas to all qualified applicants. The Department of Homeland Security switched the order of these lotteries, it said in a notice of the final rule change, which will bolster the odds for highly educated foreign nationals. The change reduces the likelihood that people with just a bachelor's degree will win in the general lottery, said Lisa Spiegel, an attorney at Duane Morris in San Francisco and head of the firm's immigration group. The program shift could hurt technology staffing companies, also known as outsourcers, who have a reputation for flooding the lottery with applications. Three Indian firms -- Tata Consultancy Services, Infosys and Wipro -- often account for a majority of the H-1B applications, an analysis of government data shows.
So true. The way the program is currently working is an abuse of the people working for it as well as hurting local workers. We should be using it only to bring in experts when we truly can't find an American to do the job. There should be oversight to verify this.
if I got anything from them. But as it stands I get virtually no services from my government. We're not building roads. We slashed funding to Schools and the sciences (I'm paying for most of my kid's college out of pocket and living like shit to do it) and I spent $14k on medical insurance last year.
Americans are having less kids. That's normal for a developed country. So yeah, if we want our 401ks to have value in 20 years we'd need immigrants. But my 401k has been eaten up by fees and market crashes. And with my wages so low due to stiff competition with H1-Bs it's not like I have a lot of money to put into it anyway. Meanwhile I've got a Democrat, Joe fricken' Biden, attacking Social Security
What I'm saying is screw the social order. The rich and powerful broke the social contract so screw it all. End the H1-B program until we have systems in place so that there's some benefit to me, you and every American who isn't a fucking multi millionaire. Hell, stop all immigration until that time.
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H-1Bs were created in response to a trend that research turned up. More and more U.S. college and university graduates were accepting jobs overseas, resulting in a net drain of skilled graduates out of the country. The idea behind the H-1B was to make it so that a well-educated foreigner could get a job in the U.S. more easily, countering that trend. Many other countries run a similar visa program for skilled workers. It also gave another option for foreign students who recently graduated from college in the U.S. to get a job here after their student visa expired. So more of those foreign students could stay in the U.S. after graduation instead of returning home, again countering the trend. The long-term idea being that the H-1B would be a first step towards U.S. citizenship (meaning the skilled worker stays here permanently).
Unfortunately the program got exploited by companies trying to (ab)use it to hire cheap foreign workers to replace Americans. Those job listings you've seen with a ridiculously specific list of required qualifications are mostly H-1B visa jobs. The listing was carefully crafted to exclude anyone from qualifying for the job except the person they wanted to get the H-1B visa for. Companies are required to advertise those jobs for a certain length of time to prove that no American is capable of doing the job. Adding skills or certifications which aren't really necessary for the job but possessed by the foreigner they have in mind for the visa is one of the tricks to pass the advertisement requirement without "finding" any qualified Americans.
Favoring graduate degree holders to receive H-1Bs is a step in the right direction. There are a lot fewer of them than graduates with a bachelors degree. And their field of research tends to be a lot more specialized and thus legitimately harder to find a qualifying American.
Oh boy! We can be the next UK!
You already are. But it remains to be seen if the US stays as the foremost global power as long as the UK did, or handles the transition as well.
Though I'm sure the US will do better than Portugal or Russia, post empire.
Everyone submits their needs, sort by salary highest->lowest and take the first 85,000. At the end of the year, interview the employee and look at their tax and bank records to ensure they are receiving that salary (bank to make sure they aren't passing money on to a non-family third party). Companies that fail to deliver the proper salary will be fined 10x the proposed salary and jail someone(s) for lying on a government form.