If I donate money to a company, I don't see why I get an equity stake in the company - just like any other big venture capitalist should.
For example, if I donated some money to Exos Aereospace above and they developed a revolutionary rocket that makes the founders billions, why can't the people that donated have a slice of the pie?
Don't get me wrong, I don't mind donating money to good causes. I would love to see mankind have better access to space, and I wouldn't mind donating money to a non-profit to further the cause --- but this isn't a non-profit!
Let us not loose sight of the forest for the trees.
Congress never intended for the the H1 visa to be a long term thing. Rather it was intended to be a feeder into the Green Card system so that skilled immigrants could contribute into society.
For people to be waiting for anything more than (say) two years for their Green Cards is a travesty and a total waste of potential.
I think the root of the issue is that said company is not willing to invest in their workers - Either by hiring them and training them or giving a more senior person a decent salary. Both types of workers would want raises as well.
The situation is so screwed up that even if legitimate well meaning companies wanted to invest in their workers and promote them - they cannot since it will entail a change in job description which will cause them to have to restart the Green Card process (and an even longer wait).
The only people that are benefiting are the the unscrupulous ones who are engaged in pure labor arbitrage.
Europeans can get out of H1Bs into green cards much much faster. The US diversity law only allows at most 10% of the immigrants every year to be from one country and so, Indians and Chinese nationals have to wait in line for their turn to come up. There is no line for Europeans.
It's a little misleading to say "Europeans"... *Every* country except for India and China has a shorter waiting list, including all other Asian and South American countries, as well as Canada and Mexico.
And even China is only about 3 years behind the rest of the world. Only India has a real problem where the current wait is 8-11 years (*not* decades).
It is decades if you are in EB3. Check the visa bulletin for April 2014 for EB3 India and compare it to the visa bulletin in April 2015.
You will see that it is ~11 years in 2014 [15SEP03] and has moved only 4 months by April 2015 [08JAN04]. If you extrapolate, it is moving at the rate of ~4 months a year.
I was under the impression that H1B visas were for slaves, not entrepreneurs. My understanding of H1B visas is that they are sponsored and that if you leave the sponsored job, you have to go back to wherever you came from. That's what makes it so attractive for employers. The H1Bers can't complain about low wages and long hours under threat of being sent back to where they were trying to get away from.
Is it different for white people coming from European countries?
> Is it different for white people coming from European countries?
That is a very insightful question.
The answer is effectively "yes". The reason is there is per-country cap in the number of employment based Green Cards given out. So, they earmark the same number of employment based Green Cards for Icelandic citizens (population 300K) as they do for Indian citizens.
The Net effect of this is White Europeans get their Green Cards almost immediately, Indians and Chinese have to wait a long time (often times decades). This puts US workers at a tremendous disadvantage compared to H1-B labor (from India especially) since US workers have to compete with people who are bonded to their employer until they get their Green Cards - which can often times take decades.
I am on an H1-b visa right now and can attest to the fact that that most of it is a scam by corporations to push labor cost down.
The reason for this is if you are born in certain countries (India and China), you face an extraordinarily long delay in getting your Green Card during which time:
1. You cannot quit your job and work somewhere else for higher wages without loosing your spot in the Green Card queue.
2. The company can take advantage of your inability to switch jobs by not giving you raises and other benefits you might otherwise have received. This is bad for the US labor market in general since it pushes down wages for every one. US workers are forced to compete with underpaid "bonded" foreign labor and the foreign labor (like me) doesn't like being underpaid. The only winners are the corporations.
3. If I get fired, I have 10 calendar days to leave the US. I have a house, car, family and friends here. Leaving isn't so easy. I have been in the US since 2000 - always following the law. I have been working the same dead end job since 2007. At the current pace, it will take me another 10 years to get a Green Card. Don't I and people like me deserve better?
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If I donate money to a company, I don't see why I get an equity stake in the company - just like any other big venture capitalist should.
For example, if I donated some money to Exos Aereospace above and they developed a revolutionary rocket that makes the founders billions, why can't the people that donated have a slice of the pie?
Don't get me wrong, I don't mind donating money to good causes. I would love to see mankind have better access to space, and I wouldn't mind donating money to a non-profit to further the cause --- but this isn't a non-profit!
Let us not loose sight of the forest for the trees.
Congress never intended for the the H1 visa to be a long term thing. Rather it was intended to be a feeder into the Green Card system so that skilled immigrants could contribute into society.
For people to be waiting for anything more than (say) two years for their Green Cards is a travesty and a total waste of potential.
I think the root of the issue is that said company is not willing to invest in their workers - Either by hiring them and training them or giving a more senior person a decent salary. Both types of workers would want raises as well.
The situation is so screwed up that even if legitimate well meaning companies wanted to invest in their workers and promote them - they cannot since it will entail a change in job description which will cause them to have to restart the Green Card process (and an even longer wait). The only people that are benefiting are the the unscrupulous ones who are engaged in pure labor arbitrage.
It's a little misleading to say "Europeans"... *Every* country except for India and China has a shorter waiting list, including all other Asian and South American countries, as well as Canada and Mexico.
And even China is only about 3 years behind the rest of the world. Only India has a real problem where the current wait is 8-11 years (*not* decades).
It is decades if you are in EB3. Check the visa bulletin for April 2014 for EB3 India and compare it to the visa bulletin in April 2015. You will see that it is ~11 years in 2014 [15SEP03] and has moved only 4 months by April 2015 [08JAN04]. If you extrapolate, it is moving at the rate of ~4 months a year.
You can check it yourself:
http://travel.state.gov/conten...
http://travel.state.gov/conten...
This means that people are effectively chained to their employers for decades to the detriment of the US labor market.
I was under the impression that H1B visas were for slaves, not entrepreneurs. My understanding of H1B visas is that they are sponsored and that if you leave the sponsored job, you have to go back to wherever you came from. That's what makes it so attractive for employers. The H1Bers can't complain about low wages and long hours under threat of being sent back to where they were trying to get away from.
Is it different for white people coming from European countries?
> Is it different for white people coming from European countries?
That is a very insightful question.
The answer is effectively "yes". The reason is there is per-country cap in the number of employment based Green Cards given out. So, they earmark the same number of employment based Green Cards for Icelandic citizens (population 300K) as they do for Indian citizens. The Net effect of this is White Europeans get their Green Cards almost immediately, Indians and Chinese have to wait a long time (often times decades). This puts US workers at a tremendous disadvantage compared to H1-B labor (from India especially) since US workers have to compete with people who are bonded to their employer until they get their Green Cards - which can often times take decades.
I am on an H1-b visa right now and can attest to the fact that that most of it is a scam by corporations to push labor cost down.
The reason for this is if you are born in certain countries (India and China), you face an extraordinarily long delay in getting your Green Card during which time:
1. You cannot quit your job and work somewhere else for higher wages without loosing your spot in the Green Card queue.
2. The company can take advantage of your inability to switch jobs by not giving you raises and other benefits you might otherwise have received. This is bad for the US labor market in general since it pushes down wages for every one. US workers are forced to compete with underpaid "bonded" foreign labor and the foreign labor (like me) doesn't like being underpaid. The only winners are the corporations.
3. If I get fired, I have 10 calendar days to leave the US. I have a house, car, family and friends here. Leaving isn't so easy. I have been in the US since 2000 - always following the law. I have been working the same dead end job since 2007. At the current pace, it will take me another 10 years to get a Green Card. Don't I and people like me deserve better?