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Education United States Businesses

H-1B Visa Lottery Will Now Favor Masters, Doctorate Degree Holders (sfchronicle.com) 269

Posted by BeauHD from the tougher-restrictions dept.
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.
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H-1B Visa Lottery Will Now Favor Masters, Doctorate Degree Holders More

H-1B Visa Lottery Will Now Favor Masters, Doctorate Degree Holders

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  • masters, even doctorate, means nothing (Score:4, Insightful)

    by TheGratefulNet ( 143330 ) on Thursday January 31, 2019 @07:33PM (#58052980)

    if its from various overseas countries.

    its well-known that many cultures encourage rote memorization and that passes for 'learning'.

    is THAT what we really want? have you not seen enough of that from people you work with?

    this is bullshit and we all know it.

    • Re:masters, even doctorate, means nothing (Score:5, Insightful)

      by Anonymous Coward on Thursday January 31, 2019 @07:41PM (#58053010)

      Why is America even taking these in instead of training their own?

      • Why the hell wouldn't you take highly skilled people with advanced degrees? The average American isn't going to earn a Ph.D. and less than half of the population aged 25-29 has a bachelor's degree. The notion that if we just trained everyone that we'd be able to solve all of our problems is nonsense. There are limits to what a person is capable of and not everyone can become an engineer, doctor, lawyer, etc. So if we want more of those job positions, we're going to have to import them.

        • Re:masters, even doctorate, means nothing (Score:4)

          by Shaitan ( 22585 ) on Thursday January 31, 2019 @10:45PM (#58053658)

          "Why the hell wouldn't you take highly skilled people with advanced degrees?"

          For the most part these workers aren't being brought in for jobs that actually require a Masters or Ph.D. We don't want the most highly educated, we want the brightest and that is not the same thing.

          "The average American isn't going to earn a Ph.D. and less than half of the population aged 25-29 has a bachelor's degree. "

          Sounds like a great reason to make that possible without taking on tens to hundreds of thousands of dollars in debt just to get a job any bright person could have done.

          "The notion that if we just trained everyone that we'd be able to solve all of our problems is nonsense."

          Sure. We could just stop laying off the existing workers. We lay off 80-100 thousand tech workers a year and now import 85,000 a year. This isn't rocket science.

      • Re:masters, even doctorate, means nothing (Score:5, Informative)

        by Shaitan ( 22585 ) on Thursday January 31, 2019 @10:39PM (#58053640)

        Because they are importing 85,000 people a year to dillute and reduce salaries in the US. It's all about avoiding paying fair wages.

      • Re:masters, even doctorate, means nothing (Score:5, Informative)

        by Anonymous Coward on Friday February 01, 2019 @09:22AM (#58054934)

        America, by itself doesn't want them, as we have more than enough people, and we have colleges and skills churning out CS majors by the legions.

        H-1Bs are wanted by business because of pure money and power. A developer will wind up with a $40k salary, who normally gets 80-100k, and there is also the control aspect. If a H-1B gets fired, they get deported, so they wind up working 100+ hour weeks and putting up with malfeasance that no US citizen/resident would tolerate.

        The H-1B program is basically a violation of national sovereignty for business profits.

    • Re:masters, even doctorate, means nothing (Score:5, Insightful)

      by MightyYar ( 622222 ) on Thursday January 31, 2019 @07:46PM (#58053026)

      It's absolutely nuts to train the smartest people in the world at the best schools in the world... and then ask them to kindly leave.

      • Re: (Score:2)

        by zlives ( 2009072 )

        but we like the money they bring. because in the end its mostly about cost of education and cost of well educated employees that could afford that education.

        • Re:masters, even doctorate, means nothing (Score:5, Insightful)

          by MightyYar ( 622222 ) on Thursday January 31, 2019 @08:04PM (#58053116)

          It's absolutely not worth the societal cost of driving our education costs up to the moon if we aren't going to retain these people. Either let them in or don't, but don't make our local education market for all into a global market for the elite without realizing some benefit.

          • It's absolutely not worth the societal cost of driving our education costs up to the moon if we aren't going to retain these people.

            Yes but, it's entirely possible to retain these people without driving the societal cost up. The loans which people can't escape through bankruptcy essentially serve as a massive source of free money into the system. That's what's driving up the prces incessantly.

            • It's not one or the other - both massive foreign competition for spots (demand competition) and government subsidy add to the problem.

            • Yes but, it's entirely possible to retain these people without driving the societal cost up. The loans which people can't escape through bankruptcy essentially serve as a massive source of free money into the system.

              Could you please elaborate the boldface part ("these people")? Who are they? Foreign students or Americans? Also, when you are talking about student loan in America, there are a few way to avoid paying it (some people do). One easiest way is to have multiple SSNs (and I know some people who have them).

      • How are their home countries ever going to get better? If all their good people flee, they're going to stay stuck where they are and never progress. They badly need their educated people and it's a crime for America to rob them like this. America is already bloated and fat with wealth, it can afford it.

        • You think a PhD in whatever Indian who was considering living in the US will just throw up his hands and say, "Oh, well!"? He's not going home, even if America kicks him to the curb.

          • That's selfish and he should think of the needs of his people. They'll never get any better if their highly educated leave. But you like other countries poor, don't you?

            • Now I've heard everything - letting individuals travel wherever they please to seek out a better life is "selfish".

              Extra points for thinking that highly-educated elites returning to their poor countries will help rather than exploit the poor. They have a gigantic wealth disparity because that's how their wealthy have the system rigged, not because the sons of the rich people are taking tech jobs in America.

          • Any citation for that?

            That seems to be a part of the same misconception I see with the CBP-guys at the airport every time I visit. They just seem unable to grasp the idea that people want to go home again after their vacation... Like "going on holiday" was a completely novel concept to them. By now, I usually explain it to them extra slowly.....

            • Many indeed do have designs on eventually going home, but few actually do. According to this article [thefiscaltimes.com], only around 1800 people gave up their US green card or citizenship in 2011... and that doesn't even mean they necessarily "went home", just that for some reason they left the US - presumably for good.

              • Well that's at least a number, but probably not comparable. If you're getting a green card or citizenship you usually already have made up your mind that you want to stay in the US permanently.

                Yes, for a good job I may be inclined to even move to the US, but it's not the other way round as I think people often think: That I would endure any H1B wage slavery and abuse just to get a chance to live in the US. (But then, I'm from an overall politically and economically stable and prospering country, so it's ea

                • I work in tech in the US. I'm American by birth. I work with a lot of foreign colleagues. Most have either already gotten their citizenship or are on that path. Some grumble that they would like to eventually go home, but they are "stuck" once they have kids who grow up as Americans and their wives get a taste of working professionally in a country where they aren't expected to keep the home. A handful have gone back... mostly for job opportunities, but sometimes it's for compulsory military service or an e

      • Re: (Score:2)

        by quenda ( 644621 )

        It's absolutely nuts to train the smartest people in the world at the best schools in the world... and then ask them to kindly leave.

        The British have done well by educating many of the next generation of world leaders, for centuries.
        It helps develop the economy of their home countries, creates an elite that are sympathetic to western values and interests, and facilitates trade.

      • With the best degree that money can buy.

      • Re: (Score:2)

        by Keick ( 252453 )

        It's absolutely nuts to train the smartest people in the world at the best schools in the world... and then ask them to kindly leave.

        I used to hold that same opinion, but I no longer do. Probably the best way to improve the impoverished of foreign countries, is the overall improvement of their own economies. We can send foreign aid all we want, but it's just a band-aid. But by training and re-injecting their own countryman back into their economy, we are actually helping them more than money could ever. And the better off their economies are, the less likely wars are going to be, and will afford more opportunities to improve trade.

        Who.wh

        • By and large, these guys are elites being trained to do elite stuff. If they go back home, they are likely to remain in the elite class and are not likely to address the systemic issues which plague these developing countries with such high income inequality.

    • Re:masters, even doctorate, means nothing (Score:5, Informative)

      by Anonymous Coward on Thursday January 31, 2019 @07:53PM (#58053064)

      The description above clearly states "those holding advanced degrees granted by U.S. institutions", so not advanced degrees from overseas countries.

      • The description above clearly states "those holding advanced degrees granted by U.S. institutions", so not advanced degrees from overseas countries.

        Holy shit! If they earned their degrees in America, why the fuck do they have to go through a lottery at all?! We should be offering those folks residency, not temp visas. WTF is going on here?

        We don't need H1-B abuse, but sending away grads just seems... insane? No, it is the chair warmers that should be in the lottery (they shouldn't even be here), not graduates from American univerisites.

    • Re:masters, even doctorate, means nothing (Score:5, Insightful)

      by hey! ( 33014 ) on Thursday January 31, 2019 @07:56PM (#58053080) Homepage Journal

      Well, you shouldn't be able to get a doctorate from an accredited research university just on rote learning.

      You shouldn't be able to get a master's degree or even a bachelor's either, but programs vary in quality. Now I worked on place where management was keen on Indian H-1Bs, often with master's and occasionally PhDs. The impression I got is that a masters' is much more common in India; I believe it is a prerequisite at some Indian universities for PhD candidates. Anyhow, the quality of those people were all over the place, from everything you could wish for, to one guy who was exactly what you're talking about: he had the UML of the entire Gang of Four book memorized and could give a convincing-sounding chalk talk about any of them, but in fact he just had a prodigious memory. There's no way he should have qualified to *enter* an master's program, much less get out with a degree.

      I don't blame Indian culture; I've worked with Indians I'd hire again in a heartbeat. I blame certain US universities that have converted the popularity of masters's degrees with Indians into low quality cash-cow programs -- usually not in CS, but in the fuzzier and less mathematically rigorous "IT" field. If someone came to me with an MS/IT I'd automatically treat it the same as a bachelor's, just from my experience with graduates of such programs. The good people coming out of those programs were good going into them.

      • Comment removed based on user account deletion

        • That's probably because at least in Germany, before the Bologna reform, the "Diplom" was the default when going to university.

          At about High-School level school system branched into three and you had to finish the most difficult branch (or get 1-3 additional years at school if you finished the lower branches) to get access to university. And at university, you did your 8 or 10 semester to get a university degree. ("Diplom")

          Enter the Bologna reforms. To become internationally (both within and outside the EU)

    • Re: (Score:3)

      by jrumney ( 197329 )
      It does say "granted by US institutions", but as far as protecting against the mail-order degree mill industry goes, I don't think that helps as some of the worst offenders are US based.

    • Re:masters, even doctorate, means nothing (Score:5, Informative)

      by sg_oneill ( 159032 ) on Thursday January 31, 2019 @10:17PM (#58053582)

      its well-known that many cultures encourage rote memorization and that passes for 'learning'.

      1) A PhD or Masters is not a course. Its a research program. There are "Masters by Courseworks", which is slightly different, but generally when someone is doing a Masters or PhD its because they are researchers. And unless someones got a sneaky phoneline to God, theres nothing to "rote" memorize.

      2) I hate to break it to you, but US Universities are not generally the highest categories. There are some, but the stats aren't great. 1.7% of US universities fit in the "Top 100", versus UK with 2.5% and Australia with 3.1% I should observe US figures are highly tainted by the proliferation of bogus universities (Liberty University, and other dodgy thinktank feeders). Sure you have things like Caltech or Stanford , but for every Caltech, you've got a hundred busted ass rural universities or "Praeger mail order university where you get a doctorate for declaring the world is flat" type places.

      Don't be so arogant, and consider traveling.

      • A PhD or Masters is not a course. Its a research program.

        For master's programs, it depends. It's possible to obtain an MS degree without a thesis by just passing courses. No research is required for those degrees.

        I hate to break it to you, but US Universities are not generally the highest categories. There are some, but the stats aren't great. 1.7% of US universities fit in the "Top 100", versus UK with 2.5% and Australia with 3.1% I should observe US figures are highly tainted by the proliferation of bogus universities (Liberty University, and other dodgy thinktank feeders). Sure you have things like Caltech or Stanford , but for every Caltech, you've got a hundred busted ass rural universities or "Praeger mail order university where you get a doctorate for declaring the world is flat" type places.

        Don't be so arogant, and consider traveling.

        The percentage of US universities in the "Top 100", whatever that means, is somewhat low due to the large number of universities. It's an advantage of the US system that there are so many universities. In contrast to many other countries, getting into a US university is not that hard but matriculation into a school, whatever reputation it may have, g

        • In contrast to many other countries, getting into a US university is not that hard

          Basically, it's a matter of money. Which may be part of the whole problem.

      • Re: (Score:3)

        by Hodr ( 219920 )

        iI hate to break it to you, but US Universities are not generally the highest categories. There are some, but the stats aren't great. 1.7% of US universities fit in the "Top 100", versus UK with 2.5% and Australia with 3.1%.

        This stat is absolutely meaningless by itself. The only thing it tells you is that all three have universities in the top 100.

        A quick google search shows 130 universities in the UK, and 43 in Australia.

        The US has 2,618 accredited (non-diploma mill) Universities (per google).

        Coincidentally, 1.7% us 2,618 is 44.5, or more than the total number of universities in Australia.

        So if you point was that if you go to a random university in one of these places, your chances of getting a "top 100" university are higher...okay sure. The implication here might be that the average university student in one of these locations gets a better education than the average university student in the US, and that's may be true (would have to track much more than just the top 100 schools to determine this answer)

        But if the question is which country has the "best schools" (and by implication, which country would have the "best educated" people), that would be the US. At least for now.

    • if its from various overseas countries.

      its well-known that many cultures encourage rote memorization and that passes for 'learning'.

      Seems like you "rote memorized" the letters of the alphabet without really learning what they mean...or have not read the article or the summary.

      Previously, the first lottery awarded 20,000 visas to people with graduate degrees earned in the US. Then came the general lottery awarding 65,000 visas for which people with just bachelor's degrees, and with any higher degree regardless of where it was earned, could apply.

      Now this has been switched around. That means that those 20,000 applicants with American grad

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by AHuxley ( 892839 )
      Its stops the people who do to even have the rote memorization skills to get past their own nations exams from getting a US visa.

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by pnutjam ( 523990 )
      TFA says it's favoring applicants with degrees from U.S. Universities, so you concerns are unfounded.

    • Rote memorization is the foundation of memory. It's memorization by repeat exposure.

      People who study don't simply learn the ins and outs of a system because they didn't memorize it. You learn the ins and outs because you're learning how it works. That exposure repeatedly brings certain facts to mind, which takes way too much memory, and so those facts become readily-accessible by deep association.

      In other words: after you've derived the formula for measuring a pyramid 500 times because you know the c

  • Fuck those guys (Score:4, Informative)

    by Anonymous Coward on Thursday January 31, 2019 @07:36PM (#58052992)

    I'm all for immigration, but technology staffing companies can go fuck themselves.

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by AmiMoJo ( 196126 )

      Seems like a simple fix would be to target tech staffing companies directly, e.g. placing a limit on the number of H1B workers per company as a percentage of the total, or having a H1B tax that is on an exponential curve.

      • Re: (Score:2)

        by AHuxley ( 892839 )
        A company would just set up a front company to do that.
        Set up 5 front companies to always get the "work" and fill with a quota of needed visa workers.
        With each "new" job been totally not filled by anyone in the USA.

  • favor (Score:5, Insightful)

    by fluffernutter ( 1411889 ) on Thursday January 31, 2019 @07:37PM (#58053000)
    Weren't H-1B's supposed to be to get people who had skills not available locally... which would be people with higher education? Now we have fallen back to simply 'favoring' those people.

    • Re:favor (Score:5, Interesting)

      by Solandri ( 704621 ) on Thursday January 31, 2019 @10:18PM (#58053586)
      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 [internationalstudent.com]. 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.

      • 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.

        If that was the idea, then the H-1B was (and is) a bad solution to that problem. Look north of the border for a more sensible approach.

        The reason that the H-1B screws local workers over is that it's tied to a particular employer. So if you want to stay in (or come to) the US, you have to accept whatever conditions are offerred...and while on an H-1B, you basically have no leverage. This allows employers to depress wages.

        Canada has a more sensible approach: there is something called a post-graduate work perm

        • If that was the idea, then the H-1B was (and is) a bad solution to that problem. Look north of the border for a more sensible approach.

          Actually, no. In the past (around 1990s), the visas were issued in order to entice foreign medical doctors/nurses to come into the U.S. and work. Then during the dot com, things changed (from medical to tech). Then recruiting companies/corporations found a way to abuse/exploit the visa. Now it is at the point where the visa is being used to hire cheap labor.

          The intent of the program in Canada is not the same as in the U.S. It works in general, and I also prefer the Canadian version. Though, I doubt that the

    • All western nations are losing population. America needs immigrants to keep the population count up, and to pay taxes etc. We have two choices, we can follow the 19th century pattern, any poor wretched souls who yearn to breath free wash up on our shores we will take. Or you can take high quality well educated law abiding people from India and China with a job who will immediately contribute to the economy. People like me.

      H1B is a good way to make sure we take the best, not the rejects from the old world.

      • We have two choices, we can follow the 19th century pattern, any poor wretched souls who yearn to breath free wash up on our shores we will take

        Wasn't that the approach that like "made America great to begin with"? What happend to the famous melting pot and the American dream?

  • Get rid of the H1B altogether. Instead,add 30K green cards which require that these be for ppl that are working at that business and can not be contracted/sub-contracted out to any other company for 5 years. By switching to green cards, these ppl can move around the companies, which means competition for salary. In addition, because they come here permanently, it does not require large numbers like 50 or 65K (and hillary promised a number of businesses to raise it to 500K for H1B; what a joke). A small numb

    • Re:Still being done wrong (Score:5, Insightful)

      by imidan ( 559239 ) on Thursday January 31, 2019 @08:00PM (#58053098)

      H1Bs were never meant for bringing in most of the people companies are using them for today. The purpose was to be able to bring in high-skilled workers, temporarily, for the purpose of doing one job at one business and then going back home to their country. I support H1Bs used for such purposes, and I think the program should continue with a drastically reduced number of available visas and strict requirements for unique expertise and well-above average pay.

      It seems like most businesses using the H1B program today want to bring in groups of foreign low-to-mid-level coders so they can treat them as indentured servants for a few years and then send them back when they're used up. I'm not sure we should even have a visa program to support that goal.

      • Re:Still being done wrong (Score:5, Interesting)

        by PhrostyMcByte ( 589271 ) <phrosty@gmail.com> on Thursday January 31, 2019 @08:13PM (#58053160) Homepage
        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.

      • Re: (Score:3)

        by guruevi ( 827432 )

        The H1B'ers themselves don't mind, they go from H1B at one company to H1B at another, if they're here for 10 years, they claim residency.

        It's another path to immigration, but it's indeed become a way for companies to hire a 'programmer' at minimum wage even though it's illegal to claim you can't find local talent for those jobs.

        • Re: (Score:2)

          by AHuxley ( 892839 )
          A pathway to chain migration.

      • I think after X time (1 year?), the H1B should belong to the employee rather than the employer. And the only requirement should be to maintain salary A from a US Company and pay B level of taxes every year. After 4 years, you have a choice for GC or get out. GC to Citizenship is the standard 10 years.

        I think that simple ownership and mobility will be enough to fix the system. And we can also limit issuing new visas based on the number currently active. Example: if we have a high unemployment rate.

        • The visa belongs to the employee and never to the employer. It is a myth that the visa belongs to the employer. The only thing that the employee needs is a sponsor (employer) of the visa. The sponsor can be the current employer or any other employer, but only one employer can sponsor at a time. The employee has legal right to move to work for another employer as long as the new employer sponsors and does due diligence of the paper work for the employee (including guarantee the prevailing wage). However, the

      • H1B WAS supposed to help with skilles needed here, but that is not the case.
        Nearly all H1B is used to train offshore coders and then move operations out.
        By moving to greencards combined with requiring that they not be farmed out, means that it WILL be only about a need of skills. In addition, by allowing them to move around to another company if they want,means salary competition remains.

      • Re:Still being done wrong (Score:4, Informative)

        by rahvin112 ( 446269 ) on Friday February 01, 2019 @01:12AM (#58053924)

        The H1-B was never created to fill a temp job. You are making up what you think it should be not what it was intended for or why congress created it.

        It was created to continue to draw in and keep the worlds best and brightest. The H1-B was meant to keep college graduates in the US where they would step up into green cards and then citizenship after a decade or so. America had been a brain drain on the world for decades and that trend began to decline in the 80's and 90's with a number of fields being unable to hire enough people and not enough US citizens graduating in those programs to even replace retirees in the field so Congress created the H1-B program to give an opportunity for graduating foreigners in professions with tight labor markets an opportunity to stay in the US in high paid jobs and an eventual path to citizenship.

        The work and wage requirements were specifically to prevent the system being abused for temp positions, exactly what you claim you think it is for. You don't get to just make up whatever rules you think it was created for, it's a matter of congressional record and it's intent and purpose is NOT what you claim. This temp job claim would make H1-B exactly not what they were intended to be, a system to be abused by foreign companies to replace US workers with slave labor. Your very premise is absurd.

        Back on topic.

        Personally I think it's a foolish example of degree inflation that serves no real purpose to require Masters or PhD's. H1-B's should be available to non-graduate level degrees just like any other field but it should be restricted to fields where there is a real market issue. There are a large number of STEM fields in the US where graduation rates are not sufficient to replace the people retiring in that field every year. These professions should be given preferential H1-B treatment and a direct path to citizenship afterwards, not requiring people to spend an extra $50k and 2 years on an advanced degree they don't need and might actually over qualify them which is just as likely to get the best and brightest to leave rather than put up with the hassle.

        Though this proposal might help stem the abuse of H1-B, I doubt it will be effective. You could stop much of the abuse simply by enforcing the laws already on the books. Most of the companies abusing the H1-B system are doing so in ways that are transparently illegal and would be easy to verify with any type of enforcement system. The problem with the H1-B system is that there is no enforcement system. There is literally no risk to the companies abusing this because without enforcement there is zero risk of being caught. Enforce the laws we've already got on the books and you could stop H1-B abuse in less than half a year. Audit the companies, find the ones abusing them and bar them from hiring H1-B's.

        • Re:Still being done wrong (Score:5, Informative)

          by imidan ( 559239 ) on Friday February 01, 2019 @04:33AM (#58054266)

          The H1 visa program was started to allow into the country aliens "having a residence in a foreign country which he has no intention of abandoning who is of distinguished merit and ability and who is coming temporarily to the United States to perform temporary services of an exceptional nature requiring such merit and ability." In the 90s, H1 was split into A and B, where A was for nurses and B was for others.

          Go look at the text of the law. Here's an excerpt: we'll issue visas to an alien "having a residence in a foreign country which he has no intention of abandoning who is coming temporarily to the United States to perform other temporary service or labor if unemployed persons capable of performing such service or labor cannot be found in this country."

          There's a subsection more directly related to academics: a visa for "an alien having a residence in a foreign country which he has no intention of abandoning who is a bona fide student, scholar, trainee, teacher, professor, research assistant, specialist, or leader in a field of specialized knowledge or skill, or other person of similar description, who is coming temporarily to the United States as a participant in a program designated by the Director of the United States Information Agency, for the purpose of teaching, instructing or lecturing, studying, observing, conducting research, consulting, demonstrating special skills, or receiving training..."

          In every clause of this law, the word "temporary" features prominently. Every part of it starts with the same phrase about the person not abandoning their home. It's true that it's one of the few non-immigration visas that allows its holder to attempt to immigrate here. But for a law that you describe as having nothing to do with temporary jobs, the Congress sure included a lot of text about them.

        • It was created to continue to draw in and keep the worlds best and brightest. The H1-B was meant to keep college graduates in the US where they would step up into green cards and then citizenship after a decade or so. America had been a brain drain on the world for decades and that trend began to decline in the 80's and 90's with a number of fields being unable to hire enough people and not enough US citizens graduating in those programs to even replace retirees in the field so Congress created the H1-B program to give an opportunity for graduating foreigners in professions with tight labor markets an opportunity to stay in the US in high paid jobs and an eventual path to citizenship.

          If that was the idea than the H-1B was implemented in a rather dumb way. Why not just give every foreign graduate of an American college a work permit for X years? This is what Canada does.

  • Chalk one up for the Orange Guy (Score:5, Insightful)

    by Tablizer ( 95088 ) on Thursday January 31, 2019 @08:06PM (#58053128) Journal

    I disagree with a vast majority of "his" policies, but this one he got mostly right. H1B's were being used for IT "bodyshops" of de-facto indentured servants instead of what they were intended for: hard-to-find specialists. Kudos to the obnoxious wall-less one.

    • Missing from the stories I've read is that the cap was 65,000 2 years ago. Trump's Admin raised the cap by 20,000, which is where those newly favored Master's and Doctoral candidates land.

      Meanwhile he still hasn't undone the Obama era executive rule that allows the spouses of H1-Bs to work in this country even though a) doing so would be consistent with the cries of abuse of power we heard for 8 years during the Obama admin and b) He promised to during the campaign.

      Donald Trump is a man who consiste
    • Comment removed based on user account deletion

  • I wouldn't mind H1-Bs so much (Score:5, Interesting)

    by rsilvergun ( 571051 ) on Thursday January 31, 2019 @09:36PM (#58053462)
    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.

    • "End the H1-B program"

      My friend, we don't agree on much. But we agree on this.

      Maybe it's time for people to start asking WWFDRD - What Would FDR Do?

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by AmiMoJo ( 196126 )

      Immigration isn't causing your low pay and high fees. If you stop immigration tomorrow you aren't suddenly going to get a job paying 50% more.

      The UK is running this experiment right now, if you wish to observe. Businesses are just moving the work overseas, not increasing local wages. It's 50/50 if that means a few more local jobs, or a few less as the higher skilled ones get exported as well.

      What you need to do is reform H1B to deal with the low skill outsourcing companies. The economic activity generated b

      • Re: (Score:3)

        by AHuxley ( 892839 )
        Immigration places more work on US health care, pensions, jobs and education.
        All the results of chain immigration is not covered by one person doing an average job in the USA for a few years.
        Economic activity is generated by having educated workers who are loyal to the USA.
        Not loyal to their bank accounts and life back in their own nations.
        Not loyal to the next nation to accept them.
        Few nations can create the needed really "highly skilled workers" outside the USA.
        Why bring in below and average worker

        • Re: (Score:2, Informative)

          by AmiMoJo ( 196126 )

          On the one hand, you don't want their families to come. On the other, you want them to stay long term and contribute.

          As an actual immigrant who moved for work I can tell you that the idea we just flit around taking any offer that looks good is nonsense. It's a huge upheaval, a huge pain in the arse to sort out visas for us and our families, and every time you need to figure out how the new country works, get your kids into the local education system, learn the local language and customs etc. I pay my way, I

      • Re: (Score:2)

        by Uberbah ( 647458 )

        Immigration isn't causing your low pay

        It certainly is if you work in STEM. The entire purpose of the H1-B program is to increase the size of the labor pool available to corporations, to lower their labor costs.

        What you need to do is reform H1B

        ...is to apply at least a $200,000 excise tax on each H1B worker on top of requiring companies to pay fair market rates. Then we'll know there really is a critical shortage of workers with X specialty, instead of IBM/Oracle/whomever just wanting to find cheaper wor

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by djinn6 ( 1868030 )

      If you think the government is broken, then the solution is not any of the practical changes, because they'll be corrupted along the way to serve the rich and powerful.

      What you want is a complete reform of the election system. Personally I'd go for instant-runoff voting, but any kind of ranked choice would be better than the current system.

    • Wow. I have kind of disliked you over the years. Not enough to "Foe" you or anything... but damn, you are a real person here. I can respect that. I have disliked many of the things you have said in the past. You seem to lean waaaaaaayyyyy too far left for me.

      This one comment. It is real. It is raw. I like it. I don't want you to become a radical or a rightie or anything other than just being real. Keep it up. :)

  • American with 150K+ loan can't take an 60K year job In CA.

    So they will hire an H1B to fill that role

  • Why is it even a lottery? (Score:4, Interesting)

    by dyslexicbunny ( 940925 ) on Friday February 01, 2019 @10:51AM (#58055354)

    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.

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