Vote Today on Senate H-1B Bill

https://twitter.com/CIS_org/status/1174448083444350977

by griff1986 • 7 years ago

28 43 7 years ago

umvi• 7 years ago

It eliminates the per-country cap, which meters issuance of green cards so that they are distributed to applicants from all countries

I'm not an especially pro-diversity person, but won't this just mean Indians will get 99% of green cards with immigrants from all other countries fighting over the remaining 1%? I don't know if that's a good thing necessarily, change my view.

This perception is just based on my own company, in which I (an American) seem to be in a tiny minority compared to Indian H1-Bs.

sremani3• 7 years ago

The GC wait times for Indians are insane and it needs to be remedied, but the backers of the bill got a bit too overzealous.

I personally prefer a temporary lift on Quota 2-3 year time frame and capping per country to 49%.

seanmcdirmid• 7 years ago

The Philippines, Mexico, and China hit their cap as well, so they would benefit as well.

longstation7• 7 years ago

They will eventually, but two things: 1. Before they benefit from it, they will need to wait like 10+ years because of the initial impact from India. 2. Immigration laws change constantly (on the magnitude of 10 years), TBH, who knows how it's gonna change in the next ten years. So, to hope something that will eventually benefit people (in like 10 years) and hurt them now, I don't see much hope in it.

marcinzm2• 7 years ago

This perception is just based on my own company, in which I (an American) seem to be in a tiny minority compared to Indian H1-Bs.

The question is, which of these two seems better to you?

* Someone comes to the US, works 10 years on an H1-B, and then goes back to India afterwards.

* Someones comes to the US, works 10 years on an H1-B, get's a green card and stays in the US.

sieabahlpark8• 7 years ago

Very politically charged statement. It doesn't matter what the end result of what they do.

It's about who gets the cards in the first place. If India can undercut it'll just be more indians instead of having diverse backgrounds from around the world. As diverse as India could be there are other reasons to pull people from other countries fairly.

This seems exclusively to increase Indian immigration rates and not actually improving diversity of green cards given out. (If you want to play identity politics)

i0exception• 7 years ago

1. The US issues approximately 1M greencards every year - employment based petitions are around 10% of that number 2. The bill does a gradual rollout of eliminating the cap - so most people who have already applied for a green card and are in the US should not be affected 3. Employment based green cards are allocated based on skills - there's a specific allocation of 50K green cards just for diversity every year. That's around 35% of the employment based allocation.

longstation7• 7 years ago

I believe the problem of the "gradual roll out" is it doesn't consider people from the countries that already exceed the per country limit, those people will wait a long time before they can get the green card.

sinatra• 7 years ago

The problem is how we define diversity. People from Luxembourg, Switzerland, and Monaco are considered different from each other. But people from Punjab, Kerala, and Assam are not. I’ll argue that people from the latter group of states from India are as diverse as people from the former group of countries from Europe. And because those Indian states have bigger populations than many countries, obviously those states will produce more talented people whom we’d want to keep in USA. For reference, one state in India, Uttar Pradesh, has a population of 200m.

hummerbliss• 7 years ago

Very well put.

longstation7• 7 years ago

Yes, to answer your question, the GC will be given to people from one country for a decade or more.

In the same time, people from Philippines, China etc will EVENTUALLY benefit from it, but before that "benefit", they will suffer more than 10 year wait because of the initial impact of this bill.

marcinzm2• 7 years ago

Anyone have a TLDR summary of the bill?

From the twitter posts, seems like it removes the per-nation cap on Green cards. Is there an overall cap on green cards across nations? In other words does the pain just get spread onto everyone or does it actually improve things?

throwaway123x23• 7 years ago

I don't understand how this would go through with unanimous consent. Diversity is the lifeblood of America. We don't want immigrants that are proportional to the rest of the world's population - we want the different ideas and ways of thinking from all over the world.

The other day, I was at a table with a white American, a Tunisian, an Omani, a Turk and an Indonesian, and it was some of the best conversation I've had in a while. All besides me (an immigrant) and the American were the children of immigrants.

longstation7• 7 years ago

For both H.R.1044 and S.386, if they pass, people not born in India will wait for years before getting the green card. For example, currently, people born in China (note, it matters only where you born, not what citizenship you currently hold), would wait about 4 years to get green card (after they start the process), but once one of these bills passes, they would have to wait for 10 years to get it.

You would probably say they have a grace period, but unfortunately it only "protects" people born in the country that currently doesn't not exceed the per country limit. People from Philippines, China, etc will get the impact almost immediately. To make this really fair, we need to create extra quota for people born in India, not grabbing quota from other countries. (But I guess this will diminish the chance of this bill getting passed so they choose to hurt others, which from the perspective of people born in India, I totally understand, but I feel sad that I and other people not from India will get hurt inevitably once this bill passes).

[edited for typos]

dilippkumar• 7 years ago

For both H.R.1044 and S.386, if they pass, people not born in India will wait for years before getting the green card.

Not true. Anyone who doesn’t have an i140 with a priority date of 2012 or so will have to wait years for a green card. Including people born in India.

If you were born anywhere in the world, and applied for a green card in the next month, your wait time would not be different- Indian or not.

chown• 7 years ago

As an immigrant myself I don't support this bill as this means we will have more green card holders from just two countries, India and China, and hence less diversity.

sremani3• 7 years ago

If diversity is so dear to you, you must be up in arms about family based immigration, which is much bigger piece of the 1 million GCs and its not that diverse there!

dazilcher• 7 years ago

That's a multiplying factor on top of H-1Bs, so it makes sense to address the "problem" upstream.

longstation7• 7 years ago

Also add to your comment, every time this bill comes up in the news, it says people from India and China will benefit from it. But the reality is, only people from India will so because currently the wait time for people born in China is about 4 years, after the bill, for the next 10 years, no GC will be given to people born in China because the long waitlist from India.

In fact, no one from China I know supports this bill.

longstation7• 7 years ago

Why downvote? I am stating the fact. We are discussing the issue, and you should not downvote just because that person is potentially against your interest.

camgunz2• 7 years ago

This is a super weird way to think about it.

Scenario 1: 10 Indians, 10 Chinese, 10 French, 10 Mexicans

Scenario 2: 100 Indians, 100 Chinese, 10 French, 10 Mexicans

Both seem pretty diverse to me.

Konnstann2• 7 years ago

What do you define as diverse? You wouldn't call a diet that consisted of 90% rice and beans, and 10% whatever else diverse. As opposed to a diet that consisted of 25% rice, 25% beans, 25% leafy greens, 25% meat.

tsycho• 7 years ago

All of you who are commenting on how it's unfair that this bill will mean most green cards over the next few years will go to Indians, how is it fair that Indians currently have an 50+ year queue for a green card? As a personal anecdote, one of my reports (at a FAANG company) has a double Masters (CS and Math) from a top 5 US school, and is a star performer, and without this bill, he has no hope of getting a green card during his working lifetime. He says that he will leave the US if the situation doesn't change in the next few years.

throwaway123x23• 7 years ago

I wasn't aware that we had a national obligation to be fair to Indians. Especially since Indian tech bodyshops have made a mockery of the entire H1B system.

sv_h1b6• 7 years ago

I wasn't aware that US doesn't need a civil society since a part of the population has made mockery of the system have committed crimes and many are in jail.

sieabahlpark8• 7 years ago

If you want an anecdote I've met multiple indians who have masters in the US who can't conceive of solutions themselves. They can't figure out "if" statements or solve logic problems that are trivial that I'd expect a freshman in college to solve.

Don't be fooled by that the people around you are the majority who get the green cards or visas. It's actually quite a weak argument all together. Same as this one.

sv_h1b6• 7 years ago

And so the system will filter and reject them. Unless you believe everything is Office Space?

winkeyless• 7 years ago

This Bill could get unanimous consent this week again. S386 will boost fraud Indian IT outsourcing companies and give green cards to Indian workers. Green card applicants from other countries will be blocked for 10 years including British, Chinese, Iranian, Korean, Russian and etc. American workers will suffer too from lower wages and lack of workspace diversity. See #S386 on Twitter. Such a consequential bill should not be passed without public hearing.

Vote Today on Senate H-1B Bill

Related Stories