[d_sem]

One of America's greatest assets is its brand as a place worth immigrating too. Much of the social capital is gained by high performing international hires who leverage the H-1B visa. We want methods for highly educated people to make the US their home. limiting this is short sighted and negatively impact the health of the country.

[dentemple]

I was once brought in to a Fortune500 company to teach basic ENTRY LEVEL web development to a room full of supposedly "highly educated" H-1B Software Engineers.

Much of my presentation included things that most of my unemployed American colleagues, all of whom were actively looking for work, already knew how to do implicitly. Because it literally was just basic, "This is how flexbox works"-type of stuff.

Maybe the H-1B program is a great program for hospitals. For tech, it is 100% being used to import cheap, disposable labor in a way that harms U.S. citizens economically.

[roarcher]

H1B workers are supposed to be people with qualifications that are in short supply in the United States. The unspoken part is that the "qualification" employers are so desperately searching for is usually the willingness to work for peanuts.

[_DeadFred_]

This. The problem for H1B advocates is most of us here reached our conclusions AFTER exposure to outsourcing/consulting and what H1-Bs got us/the new people we had to manage. Lots of us were also privy to managements' reasoning (cutting costs/your team is the most expensive and we don't want to pay that) which don't align with 'H1Bs are paid the same'.

[trhway]

> For tech, it is 100% being used to import cheap, disposable labor in a way that harms U.S. citizens economically.

I'd argue with the 100% - we all know the companies that do it. They get about half of H1B visas. So 50% :)

The blanket $100K (instead of say tiering it like raising fee $50K for each next 20K tier of visas with the $250K fee visas no subject to the cap - if only Tramp knew anything about business and specifically price differentiation :) would definitely revive interest for outsourcing to offshore.

Managing AI agents have some similarity to managing offshore teams. This time the offshore teams will be using AI agents. May probably lead to much higher performance/output.

Being rate limited, i'll answer to the commenter below here: The offshore teams are naturally assigned a well defined chunks of work, at least in a well managed situations. AI agents are also very suitable for that.

[d_sem]

My equally anecdotal professional experience has been the exact opposite and certainly influences my view on this topic.

[thatfrenchguy]

> Maybe the H-1B program is a great program for hospitals. For tech, it is 100% being used to import cheap, disposable labor in a way that harms U.S. citizens economically

And yet, Apple, Google, Nvidia, Meta and Amazon would never be where they are without folks who are or who started on H-1B. A ton of their senior staff were once 20-something hired on H1B

Crackdown on the abuse of outsourcing companies, let actual tech workers who are (or will be) good at their jobs come here, it’s obvious policy. The US has benefited immensely from that brain drain.

[827a]

We issue 85,000 H1-B visas every year. Last year, there were 442,000 applications.

Its supply and demand. If you think any of these changes will cause fewer than 85,000 H1-B applications, then that is a good reason to believe that these changes might negatively impact the United States as a migration destination. However, with that added context and framing, I hope you'll agree that it won't; there's still going to be a smaller, but growing, number of people applying for the H1-B every year.

Increasing the number of H1-B visas has very little support from both sides of the isle. The 65,000+20,000 number was set, if you can believe it, 35 years ago. There were one or two temporary increases, but since 2005 its stayed at that 85,000 number.

[ido]

Why not set a salary floor for H1-B candidates? That's how the equivalent works in Germany (the floor is quite low imo but if it's too low it can be set higher). If you set the floor (maybe per profession) for software engineers at say $250k p.a. there'll be little benefit to bringing in unskilled labor, but the occasional great candidate could still get in.

[bsder]

> Increasing the number of H1-B visas has very little support from both sides of the isle.

A lot of us simply want the H1-B to green card conversion time to be 12 months to 24 months MAX and all the expense should be borne by the company.

That unblocks the pipeline and prevents the whole indentured servant depressing salaries problem. Any company that genuinely needs an H1-B will obviously hold onto the H1-B when it converts to a green card. Companies that are abusing the pipeline will be obvious as the green card holders will leave and the company will have to reapply for more H1-Bs.

[claw-el]

I believe the main ‘change’ of this $100,000 fee is the composition of labor. A doctor applies for H1B too and various other non-tech job applies for H1B too. Startups and hospitals have a much higher chance to not willing to pay for the fee and we will just end up with less ‘doctors’ in the 85,000 H1B visa approvals.

[trhway]

> The 65,000+20,000 number was set, if you can believe it, 35 years ago.

With many companies having set up foreign R&D offices L1 is in many cases preferable alternative. There are about 75K of those visas issued per year. Increase of H1B fee without similar increase of L1 fee would probably create a pressure on L1.

[colechristensen]

We shouldn't be arguing yes or no, but instead "how much".

Charging a yearly fee to offset how H1-B is abused for cheap labor instead of high performers makes sense. Making that fee $100,000 with arbitrary waivers for friends of the administration is absurd.

[groceryheist]

The huge fee won't solve the cheap labor problem, only shift the equilibrium. The USA Tech job market faces increasing competition from Canada and Eastern and Southern European countries with lower wages but competitive talent better than available from generalist outsourcing. The new policy accelerates this trend as companies will seek to transplant workers from the USA into other countries. This is bad for American workers whose status as the geographic center of the organization declines.

In my view, the real problem with the H1-B program stems from the sponsorship system which ties each employee to a particular company and role. Unable to leave their position without threatening their residency, they are more willing to demand abuse (e.g., long working hours, poor leadership, subpar compensation) than the labor market requires.

An improvement to the program would make it easier for people to change job. Perhaps the government could permit highly skilled individuals to qualify personally for the visa so long as they sustain employment in their field.

[amluto]

Or maybe… make H-1B labor not be cheap. Give H-1B visa holders the same ability to change jobs and negotiate wages effectively that citizens and permanent residents have and give some teeth to the rules that sponsors may not underlay them.

[hshdhdhj4444]

I don’t understand the logic behind why companies will be willing to pay an Indian $160k to work for them in the U.S. but will not be willing to pay the exact same Indian $50k to work from India.

This may have an effect at the margins where the company is contractually or due to some rare product specific reason required to have the person be within the U.S. But the vast majority of H1Bs are working for major tech companies that have massive campuses all over the world.

[jalapenos]

The solution proposed elsewhere of doing it Dutch auction style, award the quota from highest salary bid to lowest, fixes the whole thing very straightforward.

But people loathe common sense, so that wouldn't do. And it's not dramatic and aggressive enough for Trump.

[gadders]

There is a website called jobs.now which has collated all of the H1B jobs that get (quietly) advertised to so that companies can demonstrate that no suitable US person can do the job.

Some are legitimately highly skilled, but you also see jobs like:

https://www.jobs.now/jobs/164577823-lead-software-engineer

>>Develop and implement next generation Human Capital Management (HCM) software.

>>Requirements:

>>Bachelor's degree or foreign equivalent in Computer Science, Informatics, Computer Engineering or related field

>>2 years experience in software development

>>Develop and implement HCM software solutions for global enterprise

>>Create applications on cloud platforms

>>Work with Golang and NodeJS

>>Participate in full product cycle from wireframes and database models to UI/UX development

>>Home telecommute available

>>Application Instructions: Send CV to: LS, EPI-USE America, Inc. 303 Perimeter Ctr N., Ste 300 Atlanta, GA 30346

When was the last time you had to post a CV to apply for a job? This blatantly designed to ensure no US person applies (and if anyone in the US is qualified and wants to apply to stop the visa abuse, please do).

[jalapenos]

And I'm sure any CVs that do arrive at that address will get "accidentally" fed into a shredder.

[AngryData]

I guess the question then is, does H1-B actually make people want to live in the US? Or is it just a good way to earn some money and experience while they are young and then move back home and start their own business with their capital that goes much farther there? Because that is what it seems like it is best setup for since you can be given the boot and deported on short notice by the whim of a corporate manager.

[foogazi]

> does H1-B actually make people want to live in the US?

Yes, H1-B is a dual intent visa that can be converted to a green card

The visa holder enters as a temporary worker but is not penalized for having an intent to immigrate permanently- (as opposed to a travel visa where you must prove permanent ties to another country)

[pjc50]

> does H1-B actually make people want to live in the US?

People want to live in the US, and earn US wages. H1B is just one vehicle for that.

[charcircuit]

>We want methods for highly educated people to make the US their home.

Who is we?

[vkou]

People who recognize that countries become wealthy when people do useful work in them.

An educated, young person doing useful work that comes to your country is a massive gift, and a debit to the country they have left.

[_DeadFred_]

During America's 1900s immigration boom as much as half of the people that came gave up and went back to their home countries, yet more people continued to come.

[franktankbank]

So you are basically selling chips off the old American block every time you do this "one-weird trick".

[jalapenos]

Very tautological - it's worth immigrating to due to immigration.

[insane_dreamer]

That’s not an accurate representation of H1B in practice. We have O1, EB1, EB2 for what you describe.

[sjzisjjsj]

> One of America's greatest assets is its brand as a place worth immigrating too

Not really, no. That’s mostly propaganda that got pushed hard in the 60s - right around the time the wealth gap really started growing and hasn’t stopped ever since.

The only reasonable argument for any immigration is if it equally enriches all us citizens. Given the ever increasing wealth gap this is obviously not the case.

The alternative is: no immigration, focus on increasing native births by ensuring it’s easy to have a large family. Ensure our elites have a sense of “noblesse oblige” and are self sacrificing instead of chasing profit. Some minor level of immigration is fine (for the Werner von Braun types), but staffing companies that build iPhones and gambling websites is not a good use of our resources.

All of my immigrant friends mention they’ll return to their home country if things get bad here. This is my home country, and I want my country filled with people who are here because they see it as their home, not a business transaction. I have nowhere else to go.

[dotnet00]

Why do you expect someone who hasn't yet become a citizen to say otherwise? My sister assimilated, got used to the idea that she would settle in the US and live like an American, then her green card application got rejected (something about repeated errors by either her employer or attorney). 2 years later, she's still gradually recovering from the mental health impact and rebuilding her life elsewhere.

You can't both have a system that can kick people out on a whim with zero recourse AND expect those people to be fully devoted to being American before they actually become citizens. They have to avoid committing fully before them, and especially nowadays with the unnecessary cruelties of the current administration (the entire "fly back within 24 hours or pay a fee that we don't yet have a process for" thing)

[sephamorr]

In their defense, if "things get bad", they probably lose their job and will be forced to leave. It's hard to put down permanent roots if you can be kicked out in 90 days.

[macintux]

> The only reasonable argument for any immigration is if it equally enriches all us citizens.

Name any economic policy that will equally enrich all citizens. That seems like a ridiculous bar to meet.

Immigration obviously dates back far, far before the 1960s. What in the world leads you to believe that it’s responsible for the current (admittedly massive) inequalities we face?

[dyauspitr]

>50% of our unicorns are first generation immigrant founded, the majority of those are Indian. The H1B might be one of the greatest job creation programs in the US.

[krapp]

Every immigrant wave that came to the US (voluntarily) came here to make money, with the sole possible exception of the Puritans.

[jalapenos]

Mind-blowing this take gets a heavy downvote. There's not a single even "spicy" take in there.

Maybe the "native births" bit is a trigger - but how was that actually ever wrong? Perhaps from consumer culture I guess - why go through the hassle of raising babies for 20 years until they become ripe consumer-taxpayers when you can just import them ready-made for free, or some such thinking.

Really illustrates how leftist the tech class is.

[mikert89]

"One of America's greatest assets is its brand as a place worth immigrating too"

Rich people started playing this on repeat while they crushed the standard of living via immigration and low interest rates

[pjc50]

Historical question: at what date do people think immigration started becoming a net negative to the US? The Mayflower?