Immigration Bill Could Change How Silicon Valley Sources Foreign Talent

https://insights.dice.com/2019/07/15/immigration-visa-fairness-act-2019/

by SunTzu9087 • 7 years ago

50 71 7 years ago

insights.dice.com

fickleycurious• 7 years ago

Would it sail through Senate though ?

paulgb• 7 years ago

Text of the bill:

https://congress.gov/bill/116th-congress/house-bill/1044

kkarakk• 7 years ago

It also removes an offset that reduced the number of visas for individuals from China.

i foresee a chinese tesla within a decade that costs a fraction of the price

conanbatt6• 7 years ago

That would be fantastic!

tomschlick• 7 years ago

Especially so when they steal Tesla's IP https://electrek.co/2019/03/21/tesla-chinese-startup-xpeng-s...

rtkwe• 7 years ago

Pretty sure that would happen regardless of any immigration changes on the US side. All Tesla really is is an all electric luxury-ish (-ish in the case of the model 3) car.

filereaper• 7 years ago

These types of Visas typically require that you do graduate studies in a US academic institution to be considered "high-skilled". Nothing against this but I've seen many folks add another post-graduate degree just to tick a box.

LordFast• 7 years ago

Which should lead to more demand for professors I assume, but since academia is tenure tracked and therefore isn't very elastic, then it leads to I guess bigger class sizes and more administrative bloat driving up program costs, which in turn drives up loan borrowing?

Just guesses. I'm very curious as to the feedback loops created on the overall system.

gervase• 7 years ago

Yep, that's pretty accurate. It also drives degree inflation in the job market: "Why would I hire a BS student when I can get an MS or even PhD for the same price?"

BeetleB3• 7 years ago

These types of Visas typically require that you do graduate studies in a US academic institution to be considered "high-skilled".

I don't know that the word "high-skilled" is used anywhere in the actual law(s).

There is "skilled" (EB-3) and "advanced degrees" (EB-2). The latter will usually require an MS degree.

conanbatt6• 7 years ago

The scariest word a law could ever have is "Fair".

I truly believe that if Americans understood how the visa process worked, they would be appalled, even if they are hard nationalists. It's simply not rule of law, its crazy expensive and its just plain dumb. It would be easier to propose a special tax to foreigners that goes directly into the pockets of americans and remove all the restrictions altogether.

Foreigners would gladly accept a 10% surtax for alleviating the ridiculousness of immigration law.

Add: foreigners already pay surtaxes, but get no credit for them.

AlexTWithBeard• 7 years ago

Your prayers have been heard by the UK government!

https://www.gov.uk/healthcare-immigration-application/how-mu...

jdsully• 7 years ago

To any American immigrating to the UK £400 for healthcare is a steal.

blunte3• 7 years ago

The titles of bills are largely irrelevant, especially in the last decade or so.

As for taxing incoming foreigners to give to Americans, that's not what most Americans want. What most Americans want (and i don't mean the white nationalists) is to not lose their job to a same or less skilled person for less pay.

Having fully experienced the dotcom implosion and subsequent H1B and outsourcing fest, I can attest that the only two groups that gained were the tech companies who lowered their expenses and the handlers/harvesters who brought people from their countries to the US, kept half of their hourly wage, and packed them 6+ to an apartment.

conanbatt6• 7 years ago

As for taxing incoming foreigners to give to Americans, that's not what most Americans want. What most Americans want (and i don't mean the white nationalists) is to not lose their job to a same or less skilled person for less pay.

I'm willing to wager against this: normally people have a negative reaction to the idea that foreigners should be second-rate citizens with higher taxation systems, less rights and less benefits, but thats exactly the system you have now + uncertainty. I think a deal where explicitly foreigners can't get any state benefit and have a special foreign tax in exchange of freer immigration would be welcome by all citizens, regardless of rhetoric.

I can attest that the only two groups that gained were the tech companies who lowered their expenses and the handlers/harvesters who brought people from their countries to the US, kept half of their hourly wage, and packed them 6+ to an apartment.

If programming became a job as menial as washing dishes in a kitchen, why would you want americans to do it.

merpnderp• 7 years ago

Yeah, I've never met a person, who when the immigration system is described to them, isn't utterly dumbfounded. Even people who want immigration of any type curtailed, believe our system is cruel and senseless.

digianarchist• 7 years ago

"The bill also establishes transition rules for employment-based visas from FY2020-FY2022, by reserving a percentage of EB-2 (workers with advanced degrees or exceptional ability), EB-3 (skilled and other workers), and EB-5 (investors) visas for individuals not from the two countries with the largest number of recipients of such visas. Of the unreserved visas, not more than 85% shall be allotted to immigrants from any single country."

That is a welcome change.

oblio• 7 years ago

I'm not from the US, nor planning to move to or live in the US: isn't this a blatant move to block Chinese and Indians? ("two countries")

fhrow4484• 7 years ago

Currently the limit is 7% per country, as described in the second paragraph of tfa. If 85% is a "blatant move to block" people from those countries, how would you describe 7%?

belltaco9• 7 years ago

The current system is unfair to Indians and Chinese, so they are trying to fix that with the bill. At the same time, they put in that text to make it so that people from other countries who are already in the queue are not adversely affected, so it eases in the transition over two years so that people from other countries applying in the next few months don't have to wait for decades.

wil421• 7 years ago

The motive is to level the playing field so to say. China and India have the largest populations. India (and US) staffing companies have been abusing the Visa system and the eager Visa applicants for some time. I’ve personally seen it with IT Contractors getting pointless mail order Masters just to meet the Visa requirement.

I do not see this as part of the ongoing China/US trade “issues”.

simonebrunozzi• 7 years ago

Why do you say so? Is this related to India specifically?

hourislate• 7 years ago

Here is another take on the bill...

https://thehill.com/blogs/congress-blog/technology/452194-fa...

belltaco9• 7 years ago

That's such a bad take with so many inaccuracies that I don't know where to start.

repo001• 7 years ago

Thanks for this. The original article seemed too much like a PR puff piece.

“a significant portion of the lobbying done in favor of” the bill “was bankrolled by tech companies.”

Why any IT professional would trust in the big lobbying tech companies to act in their interests is beyond me.

yahelc• 7 years ago

The author, Virgil Goode, is best remembered for this incident. It may help in understanding his motivations in opposing high-skilled immigration. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Quran_oath_controversy_of_the_...

manas6666• 7 years ago

I would like everyone answer few questions to define what is fair and what is not:

1. Is it fair for high-skilled Indian-nationals to wait 10+ years for a GC?

2. Is it fair that indian consultancy bodyshops overwhelmed the IT market and H1B quota and then brought down the wages of IT professionals via C2C, 1099, OPT/CPT, fake resumes and other tricks?

3. Is it fair that indian GC backlog will delay GC for other nationals, in case the 7% limit is lifted?

I would say since Indians enjoyed getting the majority of H1-Bs, they should also bear the consequences of hitting the country limit. Otherwise, it would only benefit Indian nationals only at a cost of other nationals.

I am not even talking about nurses and other professions that will be harmed by this bill.

letitgo12345• 7 years ago

You know Indians aren't just coming from consulting companies right? They are individuals. Is it fair that the children of Indians who have grown up in the US have to self deport because other nationalities think it's better to subject indians to decades long uncertainty rather than not considering race or national origin (which would equalize wait times to 5-6 years)?

Btw pretty much NO other country in the world has national origin quotas. Are you saying that racially discriminatory provisions put in place to satisfy southern segregationists that no other country follows are fair??

manas6666• 7 years ago

I was talking about big picture. Majority of H1-B are taken by nationals of one country. It cannot be one way street to benefit one country nationals only in H1-B and GC. I agree that the system is completely broken, but the harm to the system is contained within H1-B system only. Thanks to the country limit, the GC immigration system is not broken yet for all other nationals.

If America wants diversity in immigration, then the country limit is doing its work perfectly as was designed.

I dont agree with you that "US system is subjecting indians" - this is manipulation. You failed to mention that fact that there is entire industry of bringing Indian engineers into US from Hyderabad (and cities like that) via student visas, H1-B, and then GC. It is this system that is flooding the immigration with H1-B and then GCs that put family immigration and other category GCs in a very long backlog

blunte3• 7 years ago

It's not easy for American citizens to get permanent work/live visas in most other countries either.

And it is often in the interest of each country to prevent an influx of additional (lower wage) workers in trades that already have enough workers.

A parallel can be seen of how Walmart entered rural and small town America years ago and killed many local businesses. It also lowered local wages, because the primary job became Walmart Checker.

If you are a country of 330 million people, and you do not put limits on countries 5X larger, then you will find your citizens less employed and lower income.

This is not racist, nationalist, or any other label. I suppose you could label it "localist", whereby you favor local resources over remote ones.

The excuse used by tech companies starting around 2000 was that there were not enough talented local workers, so importing cheaper (and often lower skilled) workers was the answer. That's not to imply that all foreign labor is lower skilled. However, displacing local workers with foreign workers without some quality control, especially where the pay is lower, will result in an accumulation of lower skilled workers.

deogeo5• 7 years ago

racially discriminatory provisions put in place to satisfy southern segregationists

The vast majority of green cards go to majority-non-white countries - the chart at the bottom of https://www.pewresearch.org/fact-tank/2017/07/06/more-than-h... shows the country of origin breakdown.

belltaco9• 7 years ago

Nations don't get visas. Individuals do. Punishing or rewarding people on the basis of where they were born instead of their own skills is wrong.

Regarding #2, the body shops are able to get away with it because of the long GC backlog for Indians. Hence companies like to hire Indians precisely because they will work for them for a long time without pay hikes because of the GC backlog, compared to hiring Americans or workers from other non-backlogged countries. This bill will take that away and equalize everyone's footing. You know the body shops and staffing companies hate this bill right?

Is it fair that indian GC backlog will delay GC for other nationals, in case the 7% limit is lifted?

Yes, it is. It's called first come first served. That's like asking if it is fair that people who got into the queue at the DMV before you get to go to the counter before you. Yes, it definitely is.

C1sc0cat3• 7 years ago

But its fairer - its certainly not fair that one country take the lions share?

What about some bright young kid from Saharan Africa doesn't get a fair chance at a H1b Visa.

And you could argue from a realpolitik view that allowing more sub Sharan h1b's would act as a counter to the Chinese Belt and Road would be a good policy

bazooka_penguin• 7 years ago

The reason why diversity is good is because it helps break down enclaves and bubbles and let's the dominant culture play a bigger role. When people from one nation migrate en masse are they forced to integrate into their new environment and culture or they do they form ethnic and cultural enclaves that resist the dominant culture and form a concrete in group that resists outsiders, including the native population?

Country quotas have existed across the globe and history for a reason. People inherently have in group preferences, they are nationalist, that includes migrants.

sremani• 7 years ago

1. Waiting a decade for GC is not such a uncommon thing, actually I would argue every person has to wait for a decade before they become permanent resident, even the marriage people

2. The current lottery system should be replaced with highest salary first system. Show me the money, this would take away the incentive of using H1-B as cheap labor sourcing.

3. It is fair, for too long people outside of 4 countries pretty much walked in the park and got GC, refer to point #1. I prefer people stay in US for 10 years for the privilege of GC.

BeetleB3• 7 years ago

actually I would argue every person has to wait for a decade before they become permanent resident, even the marriage people

For people of equivalent degrees and skills as those Indians, the wait is often about 2 years for EB-2. So no, almost no equivalently skilled person needs to wait a decade.

BeetleB3• 7 years ago

I've often heard "fair" being referred to as "The F word" in communications circles. The reason is that the word will have many meanings to many people, with all of them being "correct" to some degree. And many of those meanings will be contradictory to one another.

The only meaningful response I can give to your questions is that "No. A fair solution to the problem is not possible". You have to pick what you are optimizing for. Whatever solution you come up with will have elements of unfairness.

The major concerns here are:

1. Whether it's OK for people to jump the queue (current system)

2. Whether diversity is important (currently, yes).

3. Whether it's OK for someone who has contributed with advanced degrees to the country for over a decade to find him/herself without a job and being booted out of the country. (currently, yes - putting the US in the same category as a bunch of Middle Eastern countries).

You're not going to devise a (simple) system that solves all 3.

conanbatt6• 7 years ago

Why make a country-case at all. Would you advocate for import quotas from china because china takes too much of US's imports?

Forget entirely about the well being of foreign nationals, take the most cynical and cold approach to them as if they did not matter at all. Look at americans: they would like to purchase goods and services at the best available price/quality ratio they can get, and they are forbidden from doing so explicitly by immigration law.

It is literally taking away liberties from the american people.

jimbob452• 7 years ago

The government would toss me out a job if someone else wants to come in the country that can make them more money. It feels pointless to stay pledged to one country when someone from another country can just get an H-1B visa and take your job in a matter of months.

conanbatt6• 7 years ago

You are confusing the government with your employer.

Also, you would also be out of a job if all the tools you use as a programmer would have to be made by americans and not imported from cheap overseas labor.

jimbob452• 7 years ago

H-1B is a government program. They are the ones that decide if it stays or goes. The employer has no choice but to use the program if they wish to not fall behind their competitors.

Immigration Bill Could Change How Silicon Valley Sources Foreign Talent

Related Stories