US To Ease Visas for Skilled Indian Workers as Modi Visits (reuters.com) 118
The Biden administration will make it easier for Indians to live and work in the United States, using this week's state visit by Prime Minister Narendra Modi to help some skilled workers enter or remain in the country, Reuters reported Thursday, citing people familiar with the matter. From the report: The State Department could announce as soon as Thursday that a small number of Indians and other foreign workers on H-1B visas will be able to renew those visas in the U.S., without having to travel abroad, one of the sources said, part of a pilot program that could be expanded in coming years. Indian citizens are by far the most active users of the U.S. H-1B program and made up 73% of the nearly 442,000 H-1B workers in fiscal year 2022.
[...] Each year, the U.S. government makes 65,000 H-1B visas available to companies seeking skilled foreign workers, along with an additional 20,000 visas for workers with advanced degrees. The visas last for three years and can be renewed for another three years. The companies using the most H-1B workers in recent years include the Indian-based Infosys and Tata Consultancy Services as well as Amazon, Alphabet and Meta in the U.S., according to U.S. government data. The ability for some of the temporary foreign workers to renew visas in the U.S. would free up resources for visa interviews in consulates abroad, the spokesperson said. The pilot program would also include some workers with L-1 visas, which are available to people transferring within a company to a position in the U.S., one of the sources said.
[...] Each year, the U.S. government makes 65,000 H-1B visas available to companies seeking skilled foreign workers, along with an additional 20,000 visas for workers with advanced degrees. The visas last for three years and can be renewed for another three years. The companies using the most H-1B workers in recent years include the Indian-based Infosys and Tata Consultancy Services as well as Amazon, Alphabet and Meta in the U.S., according to U.S. government data. The ability for some of the temporary foreign workers to renew visas in the U.S. would free up resources for visa interviews in consulates abroad, the spokesperson said. The pilot program would also include some workers with L-1 visas, which are available to people transferring within a company to a position in the U.S., one of the sources said.
Import the third world, become the third world (Score:5, Insightful)
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Are they driving down wages or just taking the high paying jobs?
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I thought that was the point of H1B's? To be able to attract talent from around the world you have to pay them well.
https://h1bgrader.com/salaries [h1bgrader.com]
Re: Import the third world, become the third world (Score:5, Insightful)
Re: Import the third world, become the third worl (Score:2)
I keep seeing this comment, itâ(TM)s a total disingenuous attempt to simultaneously pretend to not have any hand in slavery (it was Democrats, not white Americans), while gaslighting that the current Democratic Party is related to the Reconstruction era.
Re: Import the third world, become the third wor (Score:5, Informative)
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I have one of those history degrees too, also one in political science, so please, show me the empirical evidence like I showed in the wikipedia article.
The trouble is the Dems are better (Score:1)
So we get policy like this. And we get told by well meaning and over educated people to go back to school and get more degrees because it was easy for them to do it. Nevermind that we're all working full time and dealing with a ton of shit because
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...it's an easy problem to solve,
It's not though. If it was an easy problem to solve, it would have been solved.
The people who run America are not interested in what you want.
Just because the solution is easy (Score:4, Interesting)
COVID-19 would go away tomorrow if everyone understood the science of vaccines and got vaccinated, but, well, here we are.
And city planners have known for decades how to build nice, livable and walkable cities while also knowing what "induced demand" means, but we still build more roads every chance we get.
People need the education & information to make informed decisions. They need the critical thinking skills to see past propaganda and lies. And there's a lot of money invested to make sure they get none of that.
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You fucking responded without a hint of consuming the comment you are replying to.
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Switched when? The Dems fought a war to preserve slavery, then ran the Jim Crow South through the 1960s. The promoted eugenics for much of the 20th century, and had an ex-kkk member in congress until 2010.
Switched, you say.
I can see why you want the switched myth to be true, but it is not.
The depth of your ignorance is astounding. Look up "Southern Strategy" and stfu until you actually have anything of value to add.
Re: Import the third world, become the third worl (Score:2)
Awesome (Score:4, Insightful)
In a tough job market too.
Thank you, Joe.
hard to believe (Score:5, Insightful)
It is hard to believe that there are no qualified US Persons to fill 442,000 jobs. This is just wage suppression in the US. Plus India is corrupt as fuck, are those H1-Bs even qualified or did they cheat their way through?
80 hours main 100 hours crunch for $60K in CA! (Score:1)
80 hours main 100 hours crunch for $60K in CA!
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Re:hard to believe (Score:5, Interesting)
This has been the goal of H1-B IT hires since the 90's. The rich and politically connected love it, which is why you won't see it reigned in anytime soon
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It is hard to believe that there are no qualified US Persons to fill 442,000 jobs. This is just wage suppression in the US. Plus India is corrupt as fuck, are those H1-Bs even qualified or did they cheat their way through?
No one who has to hire senior IT staff in the US have a hard time believing there are no qualified US citizens to fill those 442,000 jobs. The global IT market was $8.5 trillion in 2022, and the US represents about a quarter of that. It would be shocking if a country with 5% of the world's population owning 25% of the IT industry didn't need significant foreign workers to support the industry.
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It would be shocking if a country with 5% of the world's population owning 25% of the IT industry didn't need significant foreign workers to support the industry.
^^^ This.
I came here to post that. Anyone trying to hire skilled IT staff and software developers understands perfectly well that the US simply cannot supply all of the people we need. It's not a matter of pay... top tech companies can and do pay $500k, $700k and even more, and still can't hire enough. The recent layoffs seem to contradict this, but they really don't: the fact is that big tech was only able to sustain the pandemic hiring binge by lowering hiring standards. The layoffs were a partial fix (
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I'm qualified, can you afford my time? Can you handle the work-life balance I require?
Individual companies can make it easier to hire by making their pay or other benefits more enticing, but that is ultimately a zero-sum game if the total number of IT professionals in the marketplace doesn't increase. IT careers are already among the highest paying occupations, with only doctors and lawyers beating them out (and arguably all lawyers together, including the struggling ones, may not beat out IT). I'd agree we could be doing more to improve our education system, but that will only ever solve th
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Plenty of qualified individuals. But why hire them when you can import someone for 2/3 the cost?
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Increasing wages do contribute to inflation... But in this case, it's not the working and middle class wages that are rising in line with or faster than inflation. It's the rich.
Inflation is caused by supply issues, due to lack of labour to make stuff... But in this case, the supply issues are to do with global trade, the pandemic, and animosity to China.
remove the job lock to th H1-B (Score:2)
remove the job lock to th H1-B
With the amount of collusion in the modern economy (Score:2)
Will they stop buying Russian oil? (Score:5, Insightful)
Re: Will they stop buying Russian oil? (Score:2)
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The democratic peace—the idea that democracies rarely fight one another—has been called “the closest thing we have to an empirical law in the study of international relations.
Each of my professors believed in it across the political spectrum, and some of my classmates are now professors who teach it.
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We show that overturning the negative association between democracy and conflict would require a confounder that is forty-seven times more prevalent in democratic dyads than in other dyads. To put this number in context, the relationship between democracy and peace is at least five times as robust as that between smoking and lung cancer. To explain away the democratic peace, therefore, scholars would have to find far more powerful confounders than those already identified in the literature.
Care to explain how that's not as close to a 'law' as we get in the social sciences?
Re: Will they stop buying Russian oil? (Score:1)
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You understand the history th
How about just chuck the H-1B program? (Score:5, Insightful)
If someone is so valuable that they have to be brought in over US people, why do they have to be on a visa where they are deported if they get fired? Instead, if someone is that valuable, they should be granted a permanent resident, "green card" visa, and if they get abused by an employer, they can jump somewhere else. The H-1B system is just rife with tales about abuse, and does nothing to benefit the country as a whole.
How do you vote? (Score:3, Insightful)
There's a reason why America has a never-ending cavalcade of moral panics and why culture War issues are all you hear about. They're distractions from economic concerns.
Now it's important to distinguis
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I vote for whomever the Republican candidate is. Not because I like the Republican Party platform, but because I despise the Democrats.
I would literally vote for Satan himself before voting for another Democrat (I voted for Clinton against Bush Sr.).
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Uh...what religious ramblings?
I think religion is the biggest scam ever perpetuated upon humanity, but my previous posts didn't say anything about that, let alone ramble about it.
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This, and the corresponding fervor over "Team Blue," is exactly why the United States is heading toward Civil War 2.0.
The only thing keeping a lid on it is that the "Second Amendment Solution" brigade is too cheap to use their own gear and too scared to do anything but fly their flags upside-down.
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You're a huge part of the problem. Instead of voting for a candidate, you vote because they have an (R) after their name. That has to be the stupidest reason to vote for someone.
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If someone is so valuable that they have to be brought in over US people, why do they have to be on a visa where they are deported if they get fired?
While the system is currently broken, "straight to green card" is a recipe for fraud as well.
I'd make some changes (including extending the grace period from 2 to 6 month, and putting a cap on how long you can wait to get a green card). But nothing wrong with "know your immigrants".
Really, someone that doesn't integrate well and that has residency rights is a problem in any country. Plenty of examples in Europe. The US, being so huge, can tolerate bigger numbers, but the same strategy would lead to the sa
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'But nothing wrong with "know your immigrants".'
Why do you think there's is no "know your immigrants" process for residency?
Re: How about just chuck the H-1B program? (Score:2)
Thank you Joe/LGB (Score:1)
More H-1Bs, especially with a country who will happily hand over secrets to Russia, and an economy in free-fall. When in doubt, and you have a fire, why not throw some gasoline on it. Perhaps some powdered titanium and metals, so it can't be extinguished via normal means?
Does Biden really want DeSantis or Trump to replace him? A shitty economy during an election season even killed George Bush I's Presidency when he was considered a war hero. People will be throwing the bums out when they are unemployed
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You do know that he earned a Purple Heart and a Silver Star early in the Leyte Campaign back in '44. He wasn't just considered a war hero, he was one.
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I voted for his first term.
I voted against his second term because he invaded Panama.
Mentality (Score:5, Interesting)
In my experience, there is a more general problem with Indian workers. Individual exceptions apply, but in general: they do what they are told. Exactly. Only. No initiative.
You cannot say: create X. Instead, you have to specify *exactly* what you want, and totally micromanage the process, to the point that you could have done it yourself.
This is apparently just how they are taught. It's a cultural thing, and some can break out if it. However, in general, I do not understand why any Western company wants employees like this...
Is that a trick question? (Score:5, Funny)
Wait, let me get this clear - so these are the employees that "do what they are told" and you are wondering "why any Western company wants employees like this"? Hmm.
That's not a bug, it's a feature (Score:4, Interesting)
Companies have been working hard to identify their "rock star" employees, document what they do, break it down into smaller processes, and make that person easily replaceable.
Corporations want predictability and interchangeability. You're not a person, you're a "human resource". MBAs have spend decades perfecting this process breakdown. If you think you're not in their sites it's either because you're old and they haven't gotten around to you, you're working for too small a company to afford MBAs or they already did it and you're just suffering from survivorship bias...
None of us is special to them. We're all replaceable. We're all just cogs in their machine. And on the off chance they notice a specialty cog they can't do without they get to work swapping it out. They don't care how much that costs either, because whatever the cost having an irreplaceable employee always costs more.
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I'm going to challenge this a little bit.
When outsourcing to India, I've very much always got what I paid for. If you go cheap, yeah -- it's exactly what you say: you better be exact because they'll probably do the wrong thing when reading between lines, and you better review the hell out of it and plan for iteration to ensure you got what you wanted. The cheap places usually have one senior-level person dictating requirements to a ton of juniors who do the work and it shows.
Spend more and you'll find quali
Re: Mentality (Score:2)
I don't think that's true. I've worked with many Indians who are very creative and capable of directing complex projects. They had wit, humor, and a great education. Hire brahmins. Just don't do it in a way that is discriminatory or illegal.
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Because they probably don't make demands about what the company should do about the environment, where they should sell products and other things, based on their personal political beliefs. They probably STFU and do their fucking jobs and let management do theirs.
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That is correct, for most of them, not all.. there are a handful of exceptions... however....
Travel abroad to renew is silly (Score:5, Insightful)
"a small number of Indians and other foreign workers on H-1B visas will be able to renew those visas in the U.S., without having to travel abroad,"
That part of the H1-B process is very silly. There are other problems with the whole system which would be resolved by having the annual quota going to the highest salary offers rather by lottery
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Well fuck (Score:5, Funny)
I know logically the GOP would do this and worse, but fuck man, just, just fuck.... We need Unions. If IT workers had a national Union with strong membership we could bring the votes to stop this. But we don't. So we gets nothing.
I'm so fucking tired...
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You are voting facism.
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"I know you are but what am I"
Sick burn bro!
Did I say I was a Trump voter? (Score:2)
Whatever else you think of Biden, good or bad, he believes in Democracy. Almost to a fault.
It's stupidly obvious the GOP is trying to seize power before the boomers die or hit nursing homes and their party becomes unelectable and irrelevant. DeSantis is literally creating a private army in Florida. You don't do that for shits and giggles, you do that when you're planning a coup.
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I've got family struggling to find work in IT while their companies
What do you mean by "their" companies?
H1B processing is expensive, by the way, and you have to pay prevailing wages.
I know logically the GOP would do this and worse, but fuck man, just, just fuck.... We need Unions.
I hear the GOP and their voters are quite pro unions.
Good point (Score:2)
Once you get your opponent to use your terms you've won. Like how we call the right wing extremists that run the GOP "conservative", or how we use "pro-choice" and "pro-life" to discuss abortion because life & choice are both good things, thus ensuring it remains a wedge issue to divide the working class for eternity.
It's hard to catch every case of that though, and I fall for it too. Thanks for pointing
Re: Good point (Score:2)
Do you even know what facism is? (Score:2)
Please educate yourself (Score:2)
H1-B should be a path to citizenship (Score:5, Insightful)
H1-B should be a path to citizenship, why?
It would eliminate the abuses of the system. Let me explain.
H1-B abuses exist because of the "Find a new job in 30 days if you get fired, or go back to India" While it's true, TaTa consulting charges $250k a year for an engineer, after they take their cut that engineer is lucky to be making $60k. I've seen it happen soooo many times.
So in reality, we need 3 things to happen.
1. Ban consulting companies like Tata and Infosys from playing the H1-B lottery.
2. Eliminate the "30 days" option.
3. Give H1-B's the same rights and recourse Americans have.
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They're workers but also people; they need to plan for the rest of their lives. The current rules, while bad, are reasonably clear. You can more or less expect to become an American, if you want to, in around 10 years from the very beginning until you get your passport. Much more if Indian, which is a different topic.
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H1-B should be a path to citizenship, why?
It would eliminate the abuses of the system.
End of discussion. The H1-B is created to be abused, any proposal to eliminate abuse has no hope of getting through the best congress money can buy.
Simple solution (Score:2)
H1-B temporary visas are a problem. We know this. The program suppresses US salaries by allowing the temporary import of semi-qualified workers to fill available jobs. It allows companies to treat the imported workers poorly (they can easily be replaced). The program is abused by specialty consulting service companies that exist to make a profit off of exploitation.
If workers are needed to fill industry needs, the government should open up an expedited citizenship path. Have needed qualifications? Mov
End H1-B (Score:2)
I'd acce
A lot of jaded people here (Score:1)
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Every time I've seen H-1Bs, they have been used for abuse, cheap slaves. $40,000 for a full stack developer, who replaces a $180k guy is one example. The work I see from them is shoddy at best, and they know how to slam the dagger right between the ribs when your back is turned, as their best skill point. Throw them anything that they have not "mugged" for, such as Linux stuff, and they will either turn it back at you, run to management and say they are being abused, or find some other way to shirk tasks
Hmmm, I need you to train your replacement (Score:2)
Now that would be great
Get out of IT if you can (Score:2)
Buying clout by domestic economic suppression (Score:2)
I hope the clout is worth it....
A reality check (Score:2)
pandering? (Score:2)
Pandering to Modi? Why would Modi like this? It increases the brain drain from India. What Modi would like is increasing outsourcing to India. This seems like a dumb move.
Wonderful (Score:1)
Great, now swarms of unqualified people will stream into the US and mess up all of our IT systems even more until nothing functions even more so than today. We will pay them tons of rupees to destroy more technology is the name of Ram and "revert" us back to the partitions between storage systems until nothing works.
petition2congress (Score:2)
https://www.petition2congress.... [petition2congress.com] #SB403
H1-B needs reform (Score:2)
The particular visa is past due a major reform. It has been abused to death by companies which had more than enough time for their lawyers to find all the loopholes.
(Just look at the list of where these visas go: https://www.myvisajobs.com/Rep... [myvisajobs.com])
But in this particular case, I actually agree with the decision.
Why?
Requiring people who are legally here to visit an overseas consulate to renew a visa?
Having them visit Mexico (or another place), and possibly be stuck there for extended amounts of time due to bur
hire a hacker (Score:1)
YAY!!! Let's fuck over US IT workers even more! (Score:2)
Fuck Joe Biden. That steaming pile of dementia doesn't give two shits what he does to the American people -- he has his money, so fuck everyone else. Wait, that is literally ALL politicians.
A solution to our corrupt pieces of shit would be to pay them minimum wage while in office, and have NO access to ANY other money. No investments, no donations, NOTHING. Then anyone looking to get into office to make money is shit out of luck. If you do make money while in office -- that is a hanging.
The government shou
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The companies using the most H-1B workers in recent years include the Indian-based Infosys and Tata Consultancy Services as well as Amazon, Alphabet and Meta in the U.S., according to U.S. government data.
The worst abuse of this comes from oversea companies, esp. Indian companies. It is LONG past time to disallow them from being able to do this.