H-1B Visa Program Changes Aimed at Stopping Applicants from Gaming Lottery

https://www.wsj.com/politics/policy/h-1b-visa-program-changes-aimed-at-stopping-applicants-from-gaming-lottery-3b962fb3

by impish9208 • 3 years ago

27 92 3 years ago

wsj.com

Racing04612• 3 years ago

foreign entrepreneurs to sponsor themselves for visas

can this be done via executive action or rule making process? sounds like something that needs a new law.

solomatov• 3 years ago

I am not a lawyer, but in US the federal law consists of 2 parts: US Code (USC), and Code of Federal Regulation (CFR).

The USC is created and maintained by the Congress. USC delegates to federal agencies implementation of USC through CFR, i.e. by writing it. Any changes to CFR, should be published and given a comment period, my understanding that it's 6 months. During this time, the Congress has option to review, and disapprove changes to CFR if they see that it makes sense. (Others could also write comments and send them to the federal agency).

My non-lawyerish understanding is that this describes proposed changes to CFR within the authority delegated by the congress.

Racing04612• 3 years ago

> Apart from the lottery changes, the Biden administration is also proposing, for the first time, to allow entrepreneurs to sponsor themselves for an H-1B visa. Until now, with narrow exceptions, professionals on these visas were required to be employees rather than owners of a company. That change, if successful, would have a seismic impact on Silicon valley, where many of the people launching new tech startups are foreign-born and have few or no long-term options to remain in the country, typically after coming here for college.

Yeah this seems like a pretty big change i think will be taken to court for. This effectively makes the h1b visa an eb5 visa.

sokoloff4• 3 years ago

https://archive.ph/ynBfc

ecshafer• 3 years ago

The change i would like to see is an auction system for work visas. If this is for extraordinary talent, the auctioning it by salary should make it more fair. If someone is offered a $500k/year job and another $50k/year the $500k year job is the more in demand.

huevosabio• 3 years ago

Yes, and increase the number of visas by 10x

nemonemo• 3 years ago

In that case, I would think the company should also show that an equivalent job is offered to non-visa worker with a similar pay. Without that, such rule would not be sustainable.

slaymaker19072• 3 years ago

That's already supposed to be the case, but the problem is that it is ridiculously easy to abuse as companies will just do stuff like low-balling salaries and putting really specific requirements on the job posting. Instead, we really need to be giving visas to *people* and not *corporations* since this whole program is predicated on the idea that certain industries have shortages of skilled workers.

vkdelta• 3 years ago

This won’t work. 1/ this will incentive IT and software jobs and marginalize other fields with lower pay (physics, mechanical, chemical, etc).

2/ this would mean only bigger software companies would get a chance and people would willing to work in startups will stand lower chance.

What we need is a way to avoid abuse by body shops.

light_hue_1• 3 years ago

Of course this will work. We want the people who do the jobs that have the most impact on the economy.

1/ this will incentive IT and software jobs and marginalize other fields with lower pay (physics, mechanical, chemical, etc).

Why!? If those people are important they can be paid well too. There are plenty of chemical engineers that make good money.

2/ this would mean only bigger software companies would get a chance and people would willing to work in startups will stand lower chance.

Startups can pay too. In any case, most startups don't sponsor H1Bs because of the uncertainty associated with the process.

fallingknife3• 3 years ago

Why are either of those things a problem? Why do we need to spread H1Bs between industries? Why do small companies who pay less deserve cheap foreign labor over large companies who pay more?

adrr• 3 years ago

Other fields can get an O-1 Visa to get extraordinary talent. H1B is the bottom rung and should have a floor set by marketing conditions. Body(Tata, etc) shops aren't the only ones abusing it.

Reubend• 3 years ago

Your first point is great. But I don't think the second one is relevant.

The government shouldn't fight for lower paying jobs at the expense of higher paying ones. There are a limited number of visas granted each year, and higher pay is a signal from the market that a particular position is _actually_ more difficult to fill. If startups can't afford top talent, then surely they can hire American workers instead?

jltsiren2• 3 years ago

O-1 visas are for extraordinary talent. H-1B is for ordinary people with some education or work experience, and supposedly only in situations where such talent is in short supply in the US. What is missing is the middle category: a visa based on objective criteria that lets people work in the US, if their accomplishments are sufficient that it's reasonable to assume that their presence would be beneficial to the country.

screye3• 3 years ago

It's tricky. In reality, an O1 can be extremely hard to get in tech.

All tech O1s that I know of are PhDs and many PhDs have been denied O1 because they worked in an applied role, in industry or immigration officials woke up on the wrong side of bed. On the other hand, even the most mundane TV actor will get an O1 without much issue.

A PhD exists for a certain kind of person, and can feel like mind killer to many others...that sentiment is not new in tech. Mining papers and patents until you're O1 worthy is not impossible. It just feels like a useless detour to life, that you'd take only so you could get an O1. As someone with a couple of tier 1 papers and a decent amount of industry work, the best research is never allowed to be published.

lukeschlather• 3 years ago

It's not though, it's for "specialized" talent. O-1 visas are for people with extraordinary talent.

https://www.uscis.gov/working-in-the-united-states/h-1b-spec...

https://www.uscis.gov/working-in-the-united-states/temporary...

Originally H1Bs required $60k/year salary, which was in 1990 and indexed to inflation would be $140k. I don't think there's any need at all for a bidding process, the minimum salary just needs to be raised to $140k and indexed to inflation. (As it should have been to begin with.)

fishtoaster• 3 years ago

That idea is covered in the bottom of the article.

The problem is that it also biases towards much more senior roles.

One scenario we generally want to handle is: a person comes to the US, gets an advanced degree in a high-demand field at a US university... and then is immediately kicked back to their country of origin. H1Bs can help that person stay here and put down roots. But a fresh college grad is never going to be able to compete in a salary-based auction like you're describing, so pretty much all young, ambitious, well-educated people will get the boot.

janalsncm2• 3 years ago

Companies might be forced to hire Americans for junior software engineering positions instead of claiming they “can’t find any” qualified applicants.

Fine print: qualified applicant must be willing to work at lower salaries and than their experience would otherwise demand on the open market.

gumby2• 3 years ago

The gaming of H-1 visas affects other sectors than senior devs in tech!

I was on the board of a school that teaches in a foreign language. We used to recruit teachers from countries where that language is used, because we followed a foreign curriculum too.

Teachers look for new jobs in April/May to start in August. We used to get them H-1s. But once the H-1s were exhausted in October it became impossible to bring teachers over.

paxys4• 3 years ago

If you want to only import investment bankers, quants, HFTs, lawyers and business executives then sure. People who fill critical gaps and add the most value to an economy are rarely the ones who are paid the highest salaries for it.

What instead needs to happen is that visa officials need to be trained to understand the meaning of terms like "speciality occupation", "highly specialized knowledge", "extraordinary skill" and "lack of qualified applicants". This would automatically filter out the hundreds of thousands of H-1B applications put in by companies like Cognizant, Infosys, TCS and Wipro every year. I'm willing to bet we wouldn't even need a visa lottery if applications were just required to meet the minimum bar that the law already prescribes.

rmk• 3 years ago

Many doctors in rural areas are H1Bs. They do not make 500k per year. It would be a genuine loss to us if we couldn’t attract and keep them because of changes to the system. It must be noted that many hospital systems are nonprofit and likely not subject to H1 caps though. It would be nice to hear from a doctor on this topic.

belltaco4• 3 years ago

Many doctors are stuck in decades long green card wait and subject to the whims of USCIS.

https://money.cnn.com/2018/06/08/news/economy/immigrant-doct...

Many emigrating doctors are choosing to go to Canada instead to avoid this nonsense.

mrtksn15• 3 years ago

Can someone explain why work visas are an acceptable thing?

How come the government can know better than the companies who should they employ?

Is there a risk of Apple employing an Afghan shepherd as a product manager if there wasn’t a visa requirement?

If it is about creating artificial scarcity to rig the job market, I’m not sure it works for the employees since the work visas are tied to a job so as a result you end up with employees who can’t stand against their employers of fear getting deported.

IMHO, the visa reform should be abolishing the visa regime. Just security checks.

Why not have a meritocratic job? And no, nationality is a skill.

Very unpopular opinion - I know but just can’t get an explanation on why everyone loves visas so much. Why do you love being limited with your options and controlled by the bureaucracy.

nwiswell2• 3 years ago

Can someone explain why work visas are an acceptable thing?

Because citizens vote and migrant workers don't?

mrtksn15• 3 years ago

I don’t understand what this means, but you can always change the laws to allow the migrants to vote I guess?

huytersd5• 3 years ago

What you’re proposing is unlimited immigration. The government checks are to make sure the limited immigrants we get are of high quality.

bmmayer1• 3 years ago

I think OP is just doubting the government's ability to know which immigrants are higher quality vs. the companies who seek to employ them.

fb03• 3 years ago

" the limited immigrants we get are of high quality."

and this is why I couldn't care less to emigrate to the US.

psychlops3• 3 years ago

Your domestic workforce would rapidly be replaced with cheaper alternatives.

mrtksn15• 3 years ago

Sounds like a free market to me. Maybe everyone should be paid fairly. If you can be replaced by a third world country immigrant, you should be. You should have acquired enough skills in your prosperous country.

sokoloff4• 3 years ago

A country's registered voters vote to support policies that aid their employment prospects.

That doesn't seem so difficult to understand the motivation.

fieldcny• 3 years ago

You say that like it’s a bad thing.

mrtksn15• 3 years ago

So they just choose to rig the market by limiting the supply?

I find this motivation, misguided. The more people work, the more prosperous the place is. You can’t just limit the number of workers and create prosperity because you’re paid in something that you can’t use directly.

Do you think that you can limit the number of workers to 10% of population and get incredibly high salaries, and just tax them so high and distribute the money to the unemployed? If you can do that, then you will have a bohemian society where everyone is having a great time or being paid amazingly. However, you can’t have that your society needs to produce as much as consumes.

paxys4• 3 years ago

Companies can employ whoever they want wherever they want. No one is stopping Apple from hiring that Afghani shepherd. The primary purpose of work visas (and visas in general) is to regulate who can visit and live within a country's borders. Why is that not acceptable?

mrtksn15• 3 years ago

Apple can’t employ whoever they want. They have to ask for permission from the government(the actual logistics can differ, it may be framed like that employee which Apple wants to employee has to ask the government, but it’s the same thing).

jcranmer3• 3 years ago

Can someone explain why work visas are an acceptable thing?

Without something that functions like work visas, you have no mechanism to control immigration. And while racism is perhaps the main argument against employed against immigration, there are a few non-racist arguments you can make.

One of the primary reasons that work visas specifically exist in the first place is to ensure that immigrants do not become indigent and net drains on the state.

mrtksn15• 3 years ago

Why do you reject working people then? Then the visa requirement should be something like “if you find a job you’re welcome to stay”.

pandaman2• 3 years ago

The Congress is given the power to regulate commerce with foreign nations by the Constitution.

mrtksn15• 3 years ago

I never said it’s illegal

29athrowaway• 3 years ago

I think if you submit more than one application you should be processed last.

The spirit of the H-1B visa is being a last resort when filling vacant positions. "Prior deference" doesn't make much sense to me.

berserk1010• 3 years ago

it's crazy that US puts the best and brightest immigrants through lots of hell, when other immigrants can just walk through the southern border of America, or fly into US and just stay and setup a decent and quiet life and, don't have to deal with the hoops of proper immigration

And for that matter, that applies to immigrants to Italy, Canada, England, etc etc

etchalon• 3 years ago

It turns out doing things the "correct" way is harder than just not doing that.

yellow_postit• 3 years ago

We really need a points based and much simpler system in the US

howlingfantods• 3 years ago

I think you’re underestimating the agony of a overland trek through Central America…

sunshowers• 3 years ago

I was on an H-1B for 10 years. Please don't minimize the ordeals unauthorized immigrants have to go through.

https://www.cfr.org/article/crossing-darien-gap-migrants-ris...

bdcravens• 3 years ago

The H1B system isn't about getting bright minds into the US, it's about filling gaps in US worker skills. It's not meant to benefit immigrants, but US companies.

colechristensen• 3 years ago

What it is actually about is cheaper labor. Without H1-B companies would have to compete more for talent and invest in more education and promote their in demand careers to young Americans.

I would much rather see FAANG invest in opportunities for inner city and poor rural high schools… programs to support bringing up people already in this country. Rather than siphoning off the best and most ambitious people from poor countries who need those people’s talents.

I can’t blame anyone for chasing the best opportunities for themselves and their families though.

I do not like how H1-B alters the game and who loses as a result.

rdtsc• 3 years ago

You can walk through as well, or rather drive. Just have to plan ahead and have a plausible asylum story. After the war with Ukraine started there was a wave of Russians coming in through the South border. They fly to Mexico or other nearby country, buy a used car with California plates and pretend to be Americans while in line. As soon as they get a over the border to the checkpoint they say “we request political asylum”. Them they get detained for some time and released into the US. There is a whole network of “helpers” who get paid to organize all of it.

psychlops3• 3 years ago

The article is mostly about the lottery, which is really anybody who submits an application. Not necessarily the best and brightest.

cool_dude852• 3 years ago

Are H-1Bs the "best and brightest"? Or just for companies willing to game the system to get qualified candidates they can treat like garbage?

As far as I know, the system usually relies on essentially phony job postings made specifically not to get filled (despite, in general, plenty of perfectly qualified applicants who'd otherwise apply). Then, the employees are sort of tied to the employer and can be made to work long hours for substandard pay. Nowhere in the process seems to select for "the best and brightest" as far as I understand.

belltaco4• 3 years ago

As far as I know, the system usually relies on essentially phony job postings made specifically not to get filled (despite, in general, plenty of perfectly qualified applicants who'd otherwise apply)

You're confusing green card applications and H1B, as has been tradition on tech forums since decades.

screye3• 3 years ago

Other than premier pure researchers and university professors, every immigrant programmer I know came here on an H1b. This includes the brightest and best programmers I know.

fallingknife3• 3 years ago

Why on earth is there a lottery? Shouldn't we just rank them by the salary offered by their sponsor company and take the highest?

sokoloff4• 3 years ago

There are presumably shortages of domestic labor in fields other than high-frequency trading and AI (or whatever the top-paying job categories are).

fallingknife3• 3 years ago

Labor shortages in highly paid and sought after jobs are a myth. We have a massive labor force in the US, and any "shortage" could be addressed by training paid for by the employers. Of course they would rather import cheap foreign labor, but we are under no obligation to allow them to do so.

bhickey• 3 years ago

They can remedy a labor shortage by paying more.

gumby2• 3 years ago

All this gyration is too late for my son’s partner: they have decided to move away. I guess that was the intention, eh?

nova22033• 3 years ago

In recent years, though, the government found evidence that individual applicants were submitting as many as 10 entries into the lottery to increase their chances of winning. Many of those applicants, moreover, were being sponsored by the same handful of small, little-known tech companies.

Everyone knows Indian "consulting" companies abuse the process. Where are the prosecutions?

H-1B Visa Program Changes Aimed at Stopping Applicants from Gaming Lottery

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