I think anyone working with the global talent can tell you there are absolutely no controls around measuring their quality. The skilled talent simply isn't skilled at all. They are willing to engage in kickback schemes.
Even the O1 "genius" visa is being given to onlyfans models. Immigration is completely broken and it's by design.
This is what I am getting at; the system is bringing skilled immigrants with some unskilled and some abuse, the baby and the bathwater. We should be focused on keeping that skilled immigration flowing, instead all these attempts are presupposing that all immigration is inherently harmful.
Your take only applies to recent developments. For the entirety of the H visa program, it has brought in very valuable talent, which stayed here to generate incredible wealth for the country. "onlyfans" is a recent thing. The kickbacks are a relatively new thing. Sure immigration is broken, but that's what happens when the government is intent on breaking the country.
The fact that these visas are abused by people in power is completely different and in the end minor issue. I would bet vast majority of EB-1 are pretty out of the ordinary.
This is just derailing the discussion. Visas for privileged individuals bad = immigration bad.
Well you are right about one thing. Government is intent on breaking the country. But rampant immigration immigration fraud and abuse has been around for decades.
Who are you to claim the talent isn’t skilled at all? Maybe you’re the unskilled, unemployed one who is now asking the rest of us for a protectionist tariff to save your employability. The business owners who are hiring these people are making the choices that are the best for their business, and they’re judging the quality. It’s their money, and they’re betting with it - and confidently too.
But let’s assume you’re right. Even if 90% of them were unskilled, the other 10% is still incredibly valuable for the American economy and taxpayers. And it’s not even a difficult decision. That “loss” is tiny compared to the extreme benefit we receive, that literally NO other country on the planet can replicate. Unless we give it away, like you’re proposing to do.
I think the US should prioritize training permanent residence over temporary residents that may take their skills (and wealth) back to their home country.
If the h1b program was a perm residence visa, then your argument holds water. When they return home, they will take their 15 years of experience and offshore their capital.
Whereas if a perm resident had that same job, they would keep their money invested in American businesses (and real estate).
If our goal is to brain drain the world, lets replace the h1b visa program with a program with a clear attainable path to perm residency.
The H1B is dual intent. I was on one and now I’m here on a green card. Totally normal. The H1B has a clear path to application for permanent residency but permanent residency doesn’t have a clear path from application to completion because of the birth country caps.
You have to ask yourself what other implicit objectives you have because as it stands, raising the green card employment-based cap and raising the per-country cap would get you want immediately.
I think it would help, but we could still be better.
As an America living in southeast with ~40 years of life to plan for, I face the similar issue of: which country can I feel can be a 'safe' home for me to live in?
If Vietnam had a f1 -> h1b system (and no country caps), I would still not feel safe to call Vietnam my home.
- The h1b is a lottery. I could work my butt off and still just be unlucky.
- H1b is tied to employment. If I lost my job due to economic situations, poor politics, or personal health issues, I have 60d to find a new job or buy airplane tickets to leave.
Go ahead then. Explain how the US government measures the skills of work visa applicants. Because they just exposed millions are buying fake diplomas in India and getting visas.
On the contrary, you sound like an H1B worker defending your position to parasitically drain US resources.
Yeah, it should also be combined with the elimination of OPT, H4 EAD, and H1 visas that are harming the STEM industries in the same way to the tune of 6 million jobs. New grads can't compete with the tax benefits provided by hiring OPT workers.
Stupid me, I thought the US was about competition and boldness, a place where a man can work, be good at what he does and be appreciated for it. But it turns out that for many of you it's about the place you happened to be born.
The purpose of the United States government is to benefit the people already here. It is not reasonable to assume that Americans should have to compete with the labor pool of the entire planet.
>But it turns out that for many of you it's about the place you happened to be born.
This meme needs to die. It was not some sort of accident that I was born in this country, it was the consequence of generations of conscious decisions and actions. I had a 0% probability of being born literally anywhere else. And as such, it is perfectly reasonable to want my government to prioritize the needs of me and my compatriots over those of others who are not from here.
> Americans should have to compete with the labor pool of the entire planet.
You almost always do, with houw our world is set up. No matter what you believe.
> it was the consequence of generations of conscious decisions and actions.
Oh, yeah, you are worthy, the others aren't. Got it.
> it is perfectly reasonable to want my government to prioritize the needs of me and my compatriots over those of others who are not from here.
They are not, in fact, prioritizing the needs of your compatriots. They would if they cared about making your country more competitive.
But in fact, they are hard at work to alienate your allies, erase your competitive advantages and turn you into a dictatorship.
Good luck, you're going to need it. Don't worry, I know us across the pond are fucked too, but at least we are not throwing away our status as a superpower for the dumbest of reasons.
I think the hyperbole in your comment is clouding your point, which appears to be that you are skeptical that immigration restrictionism is on balance good for the United States, to which I’d say that immigration restrictionism is actually the default setting and the current era of high immigration is unprecedented and new. This is the same pattern in Europe as well. The US achieved its super power status during one of the more restrictionist periods for immigration in its history, so I don’t follow how moderating immigration just a little bit equates to “throwing it away”.
>at least we are not throwing away our status as a superpower for the dumbest of reasons.
If you would choose to believe, all of this is a strategic play to get off the resource curse (aka the Dutch disease), with resources in question being trust and US dollar being the world currency.
Throwing that away may be a good thing for US long term.
Are they harming the STEM industry, or are they a key reason why these industries are successful? Maybe those workers are just better than you and deserving of those jobs? If you don’t want competition, what you’re asking for is a tariff basically. In other words, you are pro inflation and pro passing on YOUR costs to the rest of us. No thanks.
65% of H1B jobs are in one industry, “computer-related” jobs as of 2023.
There are over 700,000 H1Bs in the USA, so almost half a million tech industry specific H1B jobs. Considering there are roughly 6-10 million tech jobs in total in the USA, that's 5-9% of tech jobs.
As Upton Sinclair said, "It is difficult to get a man to understand something, when his salary depends on his not understanding it."
There is nothing you can post that will change this. The people openly abusing the intent of the program are growing too wealthy for them to even pretend to understand the negative effects. Don't expect them to accept there ever being any consequences for themselves for what they have done. Cutting them off cold turkey and enforcing the laws they've been breaking is the type of ice water shock they need to come back down to reality.
There is no rampant abuse or fraud or nepotistic hiring. These are just the latest talking points from supremacists on Twitter / X, that they repeat without any evidence, to rage bait the gullible. I’ve not seen nepotistic hiring from my immigrant coworkers, just merit based hiring. Do you really think all these well run and successful companies are leaning into allegedly low skill workers and nepotism because it is good for their business? No - they’re leaning into merit because that’s what is making them great.
If you disagree, share your evidence. Oh and also, high tech unemployment is not a reason to stop the H1B or other programs. If you’re unemployed in one industry, go find another one - don’t steal from me for your protectionism.
"Oh and also, high tech unemployment is not a reason to stop the H1B or other programs. If you’re unemployed in one industry, go find another one - don’t steal from me for your protectionism."
directly contradicts the written purpose of the H-1B program.
H-1B is explicitly conditioned on labor-market protection: prevailing wage requirements, attestations that U.S. workers are not being displaced, and the idea that the visa exists only when qualified domestic labor is unavailable. “If you’re unemployed, go find another industry” does not fit with H1B and shows you are OK with and personally normalize it's abuse.
The fact that you’re such a strong defender of H-1B while rejecting its core statutory premise shows you’re arguing for something other than H-1B as it exists in law. That mismatch is itself evidence that the concerns you dismiss aren’t coming from nowhere.
These companies include the most valuable companies making record profits. They aren't struggling to survive. They are bowing to institutional investor demands to eek out another penny because the alternative is they get replaced by the board.
Fitness is a relative thing, especially when competing for limited resources, like institutional investor money. Everyone has to be prepared before it’s too late.
By the way, standing as workers, I wish they wouldn't resort to layoffs as the usual route when facing challenges, but sadly, excel competence is required to make it happen, and not many have it.
Whatever education system you went through and came out saying shit like that is the real grift.
Think about it for a second. The USIP is a think tank. Think tanks don't accomplish things, that's not their purpose. Their stated mission is "education and training" ffs.
Next time at least read the opening paragraph of the wikipedia article of an org you call a "grift" on the public internet, you'll look a lot smarter that way.
I'm willing to bet Americans are the most propagandized people on Earth. And it's done by our government with the "public/private partnership" aka "unconstitutional workarounds" of all legacy media and social media outlets. Facebook has admitted as much, and the Twitter files proves it.
China controlling the flow of information is the same. The only difference is China is upfront about what information they are feeding everyone.
>I'm willing to bet Americans are the most propagandized people on Earth.
Perhaps. It might feel that way because we have multiple sources of propaganda and interests trying to sway us while places like China only have one. We have political party propaganda, government propaganda, corporate propaganda, special interest group propaganda, religious propaganda, grass roots propaganda, etc. China has government propaganda that encompasses all of that.
I also think the US apparatus' are just better at hiding which information is propaganda and which isn't; this makes it harder to spot. China has full control so it doesn't really matter if its propaganda is believable. Once you bring up a generation on it, the propaganda turns into reality.
>So what is the tiktok ban really about? If it's about the lack of narrative control
Probably part protectionism of our social media sites, part retribution for China banning our social media sites, part an attempt to control the narrative from at least a foreign competitor perspective.
An interesting thing that might happen is the influx of US users switching to RedNote will be difficult for the Chinese government to sensor. This could introduce some western culture and values into everyday people in China.
>we should see the same ban being applied to RedNote.
Good point. I'm not sure the government is equipped to handle this sort of thing without creating an agency with pretty broad powers. I would prefer that didn't happen.
As a Chinese, you know what you can't talk about.
As an American we are "surprised" when our "free speech" results in overt government-sponsored censorship.
You can still say whatever the hell you want, unless you're actively inciting violence against protected minorities. You just have to do it on one of the many social media platforms that aren't owned by China.
It's almost like you've never been to a school or post office in the US.
I mean, I get that the "pledge of allegiance", "the Texas History curriculum", and the "POW/MIA" flags aren't "propaganda", they are just "completely normal things that any country does to maintain a cohesive citizenry".
I think very many people are confusing H1B and straight outsourcing of talent. While there is some overlap, they are not nearly the same.
Ive worked with both, and very few of the H1bs were below average. Otherwise they aren't worth sponsoring.
There was a time in the mid 2000s when the Infosys/TCS/wiPros of the world were gaming the H1B to bring offshore bodies onshore.. but most of that died off as far as I see.
The size of company you work in doesn't matter beyond a certain fairly small size. The only way anybody could work with hundreds of people at all (and have a justified informed opinion about them) is to have a long career in a place or places with very high turnover.
Professors might hit those numbers because having informed opinions about their students is a large part of their job and they see large turnover by definition. Directors could have a chance, but even there I'd say hundreds is actually unusual, unless your standards for quality of opinion are low.
And then that's all people, not just H1-B holders.
Because large tech companies with a large cohort of H1B + tendency to frequently reorg + career level with impact with large reach means I have indeed worked with hundreds.
Sorry bro, you don't get to deny my actual experience.
no one is buying what you are selling so you should not be selling it :)
even if you were the largest outliers on the planet you could not possibly collaborate with hundreds in a way where you get to know much about them. even if you said “tens of h1b’s” it would be a hard sell :)
You didn't name your employer for someone who might be interested. Perhaps visibility is one reason you can't find anyone?
I applied to a similar position locally this year. I far exceed their requirements and experience and I got rejected at the application stage.
And the same goes for nearly all of other places I applied to. Hiring has most definitely changed over the years. They are not just looking for "qualified applicants". There is something else going on.
>I applied to a similar position locally this year. I far exceed their requirements and experience and I got rejected at the application stage.
Could be "This one is overqualified, we can't pay that much" or "He doesn't have experience in the exact thing we need." Or just that they want a qualified applicant but they've got lots of options.
I thought that the original comment was about a company that could not fill with H1-Bs yet they didn't contact him either. There are many reasons that he might not be contacted. I think there are plenty of US programmers for jobs that require only US persons. At least, my experience with those jobs has been that being basically qualified is insufficient to get much interest. They're looking for other things, like very particular experience, salary range, security clearance, demographic characteristics, etc.
His point was to keep the chemicals out of our food supply.
Argue about the details all you want, but nobody wants to consume this toxin and feed it to their children.
So yet again, Alex Jones was right.
This is an excellent point and a real litmus test.
If there really were a labor shortage companies would be providing training programs to build that labor force.
Instead they post job descriptions so niche only a liar could technically qualify.
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