How the 'Tech Worker Visa' Is Remaking IT In America 436
theodp writes "Back in 2008, the Department of Homeland Security enacted a controversial 'emergency' rule to allow foreign students earning tech-related degrees in the US to work for American employers for 29 months after graduation without a work visa. The program would allow US companies to recruit and retain the 'best' science and tech students educated at the top US universities, explained Microsoft. But two-and-a-half years later, it turns out the top US universities are getting schooled by less-renowned institutions. Computerworld reports the DHS program is dominated by little-known, for-profit Stratford University, whose 727 approved requests for post-graduate Optional Practical Training (OPT) STEM extensions tops all schools and is more than twice the combined total of the entire Ivy League — Brown (26), Columbia (105), Cornell (90), Dartmouth (18), Harvard (27), Princeton (16), Penn (50), and Yale (9). In second place, with 533 approved requests, is the University of Bridgeport. In another twist, the program's employers include IT outsourcing and offshoring 'body shops' like Kelly Services, whose entities snagged about 50 approvals, more than twice the combined total of tech stalwarts Google (15), Amazon.com (2), Yahoo (2), and Facebook (3)."
Re:Win for the free market. (Score:2, Informative)
Clearly the private schools are really good at funneling foreign workers into our job positions. Win for private sector, a loss for the rest of us.
727 whole jobs? The sky is falling! (Score:1, Informative)
I'm willing to bet that 1/3 of the program that IS in Ivy League schools is more than worth the other 2/3s leeching off the program; people of that caliber don't grow on trees. Not one of the IT monkeys whining in this thread would qualify for the jobs that need these people.
Re:hmmm (Score:2, Informative)
This reminds me of the Stephen Colbert + Mexican farm workers demonstrating how even when offered US workers didnt take the farming jobs.
A "program" offered by a character on a Comedy Central program isn't exactly a valid cite. How many people actually thought it was real? And for most people who live on the coasts, how many farms are there around them that would actually hire that kind of worker. I think the closest one to me is about a 3 hour drive - one way.
University of Bridgeport is run by Sun Myung Moon (Score:5, Informative)
The University of Bridgeport [wikipedia.org] is pretty much run by the Unification Church and its leader, Sun Myung Moon. For years now they have heavily recruited international members of the church to come to the United States and attend the University.
The Unification Church uses the University as a means of extending their empire further into the United States and the extended visa program works exceptionally well for this. I'm not one to say if this is a good or bad thing.
Re:An odd comparison (Score:4, Informative)
Cornell, Princeton, Columbia, Harvard, University of Pennsylvania, and Brown are all top 20 for Comp Sci.
Re:Data viewer + entry must have been outsourced (Score:3, Informative)
Adds up to 20,000 requests, though.
Re:extinct - made in usa (Score:4, Informative)
how about starting by moving the manufacturing sector back to the USA, it will definitely create millions of more jobs
US manufacturing output reached an all-time high in 2008 [blogspot.com], despite having a very small number of employees. US manufacturing is highly automated and productive, it will never employ very many people any more.
This happened to agriculture in the early 1900's as well when it became mechanized - US agricultural employment went from 80% of all workers to 3% of all workers in around 75 years, despite increasing total amount of food grown.
(Unless you lower the US minimum wage to the point where you can afford to have people and not robots doing the work, but it would have to be extremely low pay).
US immigration and tech companies (Score:1, Informative)
The US immigration system is absolutely ridiculous. I'm doing a Ph.D. at one of the "big name" schools and getting financial aid totaling around $200000 over the course of my degree. After I graduate there are essentially two options:
1. Go to academia in either the US or Europe
2. Go work for a tech company in Europe.
The problem is that most companies want you to have a permanent work permit before they will hire you. This is especially true for smaller companies that don't have the lawyers that going through the process of getting a work permit requires. As I'm looking for an industry research job, I've simply decided to pack an leave. Thanks to all the suckers who ended up paying for my degree though!
Changing the face of America (Score:2, Informative)
We don't need a large population with high intelligence and skills to have explosive productivity. You need just a few Wright Brothers' bike shops updated to the modern era. We've replaced those Yeomen during the last half of the twentieth century and it would be relatively easy to get them back were it not for the maldistribution of capital.
With an NPV of US citizenship of approximately $225k, 40 years of immigration liberalization against the will of the majority diluting that value with 48M immigrants to date and Reagan tax cuts approximately $300G/year for the last 30 years and a risk free interest rate of about 3%, there has been a total value of $35T transferred from the middle and upper middle class to the wealthy, their managerial elites and immigrant bioweaponry during the years of boomer fertility.
Clearly these immigrants are from cultures that are a lot more adapted to centralization of wealth and power in corrupt elites, so they not only fit right in with the manifest direction of the US in the last half of the 20th century:
More insideously, these immigrants are better adapted to such a pathological environment so they actively encourage the trend.
Now, let me ask you one question:
If that much wealth has been stolen by the upper class, why should we expect the economy to have a consumer base at all?
The principle victims of this were the mid to late boomers, as early boomers (Bush, Gore, Clinton, etc.) got to ride the demographic wave providing them real estate appreciation and managerial upward mobility. There are also the children of the boomers who were victims. Assuming a 1.6 total fertility rate among the boomer females, we have approximately 125M citizen creditors due that $35T for the breach of the social contract commencing with the Immigration and Nationality Act of 1965. If paid down over a period about as long as it took to run up that social debt, each citizen creditor is due an annuity of $13,000 or about $1100/month.
That wouldn't restore the entire consumer base immediately but it would allow for trickle up to start creating wealth in the quantity required to finance the government.
Its pretty obvious to me that the energy, environment and productivity problems could be solved except for the maldistribution of capital -- and that the de facto goal of continuing this situation is a die off that preserves the managerial elite that benefitted most from the breach of the social contract against those born subsequent to 1950.
The primary question before us is: How can the death burden be shifted to be more equitable?
You really do bring this on yourselves (Score:4, Informative)
We went to Disney in Florida a couple of years ago, and as an experiment, I tried to buy an American made product/toy for my daughter inside the parks. I just couldn't do it. Cheap seems to be the focus of corporate America.
Re:Remaking IT to be an anti-citizen? (Score:3, Informative)
That's what the PR flacks want you to believe. At the end of the day, whoever is cheaper gets the job.
Re:You're obviously "not too smart" then (Score:3, Informative)
OK executive, do your foreign nationals get paid as much as your US nationals?
Yes or no? Don't equivocate.
I'm not the original poster, but I've been involved in many hiring decisions. In every case we have picked out the candidate we wanted, and then figured out the details of the offer. That's not to say that someone can't price themselves out of the position, but the distinction between one candidate that wants 85K and one that wants 90K won't affect our hiring decision.
And foreign nationals do get paid as much as US nationals.