[cs_throwaway]

I think a lot of people arguing about the H1B visa are talking past each other.

- There is no doubt a large volume of abuse by tech consulting companies. It's likely even worse than it looks, because the H1Bs in the U.S. are to support even larger teams offshore. I don't understand why we can't just blacklist these companies.

- Some of medium-skill hires, e.g., did a 2 year MS degree from random university in the U.S., are also a bit sus, in my opinion.

- I'll bet several of Zuck's recent $10M Superintelligence Team hires were at least briefly on an H1B before getting their EB-1A Green Cards.

- Same for a lot of faculty in computer science -- you can get an EB-1B Green Card quickly, but you have to spend some time on an H1B. You cannot convert directly from a student visa. The O-1 exists, but is not on most people's radars in academia. I think likely because the legal fees are prohibitively expensive. (I have heard $40K+)

[thisisit]

To add lot of people don't seem to have read the full announcement. It says Secretary of Homeland Security can grant exception. That means companies like Tesla are more likely to get a pass - because manufacturing jobs and what not.

Also, HN is hyper focused on tech consulting. H1Bs are used by doctors too especially in rural America. Doctors apply for J1 waiver and then get H1B for work. From what I have heard some places the only available doctor is an immigrant on H1B. This is going to devastate medical teams.

[jacquesm]

I'm pretty happy that my continued existence isn't subject to selective enforcement by some US bureaucrat. After all, given the last six months that sounds like a pretty stress inducing thing to have to be subjected to. They seem to err on the side of maximum harm, rather than caution.

[TheOtherHobbes]

Yes, it's a shakedown. If you're a good little poodle and grease the right palms you get a carve out. If you rock the boat or are too small to matter - well, I'm sorry, that's the law now, and no one is going to change it for you, etc.

[cs_throwaway]

Yes. As far as I understand it, the EO is not a rule, but will impact upcoming rules. H1B already has exceptions, so there is nothing new being said. It already has a cap exception for doctors and professors, so why not for critical private sector industries.

[surfingdino]

> - There is no doubt a large volume of abuse by tech consulting companies. It's likely even worse than it looks, because the H1Bs in the U.S. are to support even larger teams offshore. I don't understand why we can't just blacklist these companies.

I wish we could ban offshore IT consultancies dumping "talent". Unfortunately politicians will not support such ban, because those consultancies help corporate donors keep the wages down. If the government banned suppliers who use offshore consultancies from bidding for government contracts those outfits would disappear overnight.

[EasyMark]

This fee doesn't make any sense to be honest. It's another "simple solution" by the current regime. Just like tariffs and "illegal immigration bad" . It's insane what Americans will put up with. Everything's a nail when you have a sledgehammer I guess.

[insane_dreamer]

You can do J1 -> O-1 -> EB-1/2 the legal fees are not $40k, more like $5-10k (5 years ago)

[cs_throwaway]

I was not accurate in my previous post. The O-1 isn’t on an academic’s radar because they are not subject to H1B caps. So might as well do an H1B with minimal effort.