I once got a position in a very interesting startup in Palo Alto (with a salary significantly above average in the region), and the company was thrilled to have me join them (because there really is a shortage of candidates in my field)... until we learned that I didn't get my H-1B.

It's a lottery, the most stupid way to pick who gets to enter you country. American tech companies are so frustrated with this system that they often build offices in Europe just to be able to recruit local talent. Many companies moved to Canada because the immigration law is more flexible there.

It baffles me that some people believe most non-American employees are just "cheap labor". There are smart people on the other side of the pond as well!

While I recognize that a lot of ambitious and driven engineers from abroad have a similar experience to mine in the Bay Area, I'm also not blind to the fact that our situation is simply not representative of the typical H-1B worker.

The incentive structures surrounding the immigration process are not set up to effectively prevent abuse and exploitation of cheap labor. "Importing" desperate and often undereducated workers is cost-effective enough to happen at a fairly uncomfortable scale, to the detriment of the workers themselves and the industry as a whole.

Immigration is obviously complex for a whole host of reasons, and there's a lot of countries that struggle with (or outright abuse) that process. Of course, H-1B engineers in the U.S. are nowhere near as mistreated as migrant workers in many other nations — including wealthy ones — but it's still a commonly exploited system here. Those of us who have a relatively dignified experience in this mess are not near the middle of the curve.

I'm not familiar enough to know which nations get it "right", if any, but there certainly are lessons to be learned by looking elsewhere.

It is not a "belief" because they are cheaper. Everytime this topic comes up, a bunch of Ph.D's are shocked, SHOCKED! to learn that there are companies abusing the system and to learn that Infosys, Wipro and Tata are the leading H1-B Sponsors with an average salary of ~$73,000

http://www.myvisajobs.com/Reports/2015-H1B-Visa-Sponsor.aspx

One of my friend was recruited by Tata in India, and then sent to work for Citibank in US. His visa was sponsored by Tata, he gets his paycheck from Tata ($72,000), but he works for Citibank in their office. Citibank pays Tata more than the market salary, and Tata's business model is arbitrage. Citibank could directly hire him at market salary and cut off the middle men.

They are not just abusing H-1B, but L1 visa too.

Also, they probably have several other considerations in this matter: - Get the work experience of working in a different country at a client location that means more responsibility, more learning, etc. - Get the option to travel and explore another country, and the job salary covers for the expenses.

Now, usually, the role and responsibilities are that of a technical or functional consultant. But they are not an individual employed directly by the US company. Their employer, one of the above mentioned companies or one of the several ones out there, is contracted.

Note that I haven't worked here in US at any company while being an employee of a consultancy.

I believe that the US based company where the individual works might be charged at a higher hourly rate but only a certain percentage of it makes to the employee and thus they may have lesser salaries. I would love to have this belief clarified, if anyone has any input.

All that being said, I agree that the abuse of H1-B sucks. Though it is all too common outside the bay area. Haven't come across any instances here yet.

How much a company is willing to pay is probably the best indication of the supply and demand for the talent.

We could agree that the behavior of consulting companies like Tata or Infosys seems like cheating (basically, send thousands of application hoping that a good percentage succeed). But they are hiring for positions that require a degree people qualified; it is difficult to hire for that kind of position (primarily because you could make more money with the same qualification in different companies); and they are paying market rate salaries (or at least, that's what it is certified!).

I could agree that the current H-1B Visa system is broken, but I'm not sure that fixing it just for the perspective of highly paid Silicon Valley Bro is the best solution for the US as a whole. What I'm saying is: are we sure that this kind of cheap specialty labor is not useful for the US society as a whole? E.g.: are we sure that, if System Integration companies have to pay engineers a much higher salary, they will be able to provide prices low enough for other company to pay it? And if few companies could pay for their services, this wouldn't impact their efficiency on one side and the B2B software market on the other side?

I'm not defending the violators nor supporting the "cheap H1B" practices. Just saying that the world is a little bit more complex than that.

That's not quite right. If you can't hire somebody at salary $X, then $X is not the market rate for someone in that position. The language I've heard is "prevailing wage", which can be less than the "market rate" if workers aren't making full use of their bargaining power.

You're left with the choice of offering other native employees a pay bump to do something they don't have the skills for or want to do, or bring in foreign talent that is trained and interested, this is not a hard call at all. The problem is that "STEM" is a ridiculously broad classification to try and capture this need, clearly not all science/tech jobs are spiking in demand. At the same time, it's probably a bad idea to have the government specify sub-quotas within, say, software engineering. Government intervention like this, letting bureaucrats make arbitrary decisions on things they don't have expertise about is how you get bad rules.

If you can't sustain your business without illegal (or in this case legal, but certainly exploiting loopholes which shouldn't exist) hiring/salary practices then why should your business be allowed to exist. This type of thing only hurts workers.

Again, I'm not saying what they are doing is right or ethical or desirable. Just challenging the different point of views.

It's not overly hard to design a compensation-based system that guarantees use for only extraordinary talent, because the current abuse is solely because low salaries are still possible.

So either the cost come down because they live and work here or the costs drop faster as the work simply goes off shore.

Far too many in the tech industry are first to jump at competition in their areas of expertise but mock those concerned about workers similar to those at Carrier whose jobs are moving to Mexico as either progress or being non competitive

http://johnhcochrane.blogspot.com/2014/06/the-optimal-number...

I don't think that is the standard.

Instead of a random lottery, rank the applications by salary (decreasing order) and take the top N. Everyone wins: company has to pay more, it ensures that the visas go to really hard-to-fill jobs, and workers get more.

This doesn't factor in cost of living.

The more "factors" you throw into the equation, the more people will find ways to game the system.

After they graduate, if they want to stay and work in US; their only option is H-1B. Even they are subjected to the stupid lottery system.

You're not thinking like a global citizen.

If we want to go global, then:

- All kinds of jobs should be open to imports, not just software (let's start with importing a few CEOs from India/China, judging by the outsized salaries, there apparently is a severe shortage of CEOs)

- Let's open up all countries to everyone. Most countries' labor markets are not easily accessible to foreigners.

No. Because I'm not a global citizen. I'm a citizen of the US. And it is much more in my interest that my countrymen have good jobs, than someone halfway around the world.

That American company succeeded in part because of the infrastructure, security, and society that has been set up and paid for by American tax dollars.

Why should anyone support a system that lets companies take all the tax payer funded benefits of being based in America, yet gives nothing back in return (much like the current tax code)? If the employee is living in America, these companies should not be allowed to abuse the visa system.

Meanwhile people who are just trying to legitimately immigrate to the US and join the workforce without really displacing anyone get to hear about how they are shitty underpaid foreigners who are hurting America with their H-1B visas.

:/

In general, Americans' view on immigration is extremely skewed. Most people I've spoken to are surprised I'm not a citizen and are even more baffled to learn how little sympathy I have for illegal immigrants, since to them, all immigrants are "illegal", there must be no other way to get into this country!

Few know what a Green Card is, or what an H1B is, or what other pathways there are for living here - they just assume that I must already be American, since all immigrants are poor abused people from south of the border, and I don't look the part.

Not if you are a citizen of:

Canada : TN

Singapore, Chile : H1-B1

Australia : E-3

Thanks to trade agreements

Forcing employers to pay a higher salary is a half-measure. I imagine they'd still prefer H1B's over locals for one simple reasons: you hire a H1B employee and they're gonna stick around for a few years. Even if the job sucks. It's worth to pay a bit more and significantly reduce turnover.

I'd love to see actual turnover stats of H1B employees versus American employees. I think it's a huge driving factor in hiring decisions, especially at giants like Facebook or Google.

Can you elaborate a bit more on this? H1b's are free to change jobs. There is nothing that prevents them from doing so.

H1B holders have some limited job mobility. They typically must find a new corporate sponsor, and if they are also being sponsored for a green card, they will typically need to ensure that the new employer will also assume sponsorship. If they are hoping to get that green card, they would be wise to stick with stable employers. Although it used to be the case that an H1B holder would restart the waiting process with a new green card sponsor, that is no longer the case, so at least that is a mild improvement.

The types of jobs an H1B can move to are also restricted. They can pretty much be an engineer/developer here, there, or even over there, but that's about it. Changing fields, dropping out to be a consultant, starting your own business (whether it's a tech company or a sandwich shop) is pretty much out of the question.

The mobility that does exist helps, but overall, I think the restrictions are severe enough that H1Bs really can't be considered free and full participants in a labor market.

The more cynical side of me sees this as entirely deliberate. A RAND study found that the American aversion to STEM graduate degrees is rational and market-driven. I feel that while dev jobs are ok, there's a lot to dislike about them - open offices, back visibility, scrum meetings that limit autonomy and are misused to apply deadline pressure, often soulless and unfulfilling work. I do think that people who are capable of becoming developers are also capable of finding work they prefer outside the field - provided they are free to do so.

Part of the appeal of the H1B is that it creates a population of workers who are, well, not free to do so. Corporations talk about things like "at will employment", but they'll absolutely lobby government to undermine freedom if freedom doesn't suit them.

There are hurdles no doubt, but life is unfair. Deal with it.

However, "life isn't fair" isn't a good mantra for forming public policy, either. One way to deal with unfairness is to fight against it rather than just accepting it.

The general sentiment on immigration is negative and has been negative since the recession of 2008. The US Congress can't even pass a budget, good luck in passing immigration reform. Sometimes it's important to accept ground realities and making the best of what you have, rather than having an idealistic pipe dream.

We have a difference of opinion. I'd rather be told the truth than have someone showing sympathy which is of no use whatsoever.

Why not both? And the answer is: because the abusers lobby to keep any of several available fixes from being implemented.

I learned a lot more about immigration law after starting at a bigger tech company where a lot of my colleagues are immigrants.

I was considering doing the H1B route, but decided to not to bother. Probably, will just go back to Europe and work there.

Who enforces the requirement for offering jobs to qualified U.S. applicants? Questions or complaints concerning any non-selection should be referred to the U.S. Department of Justice, Civil Rights Division, Office of Special Counsel for Immigration-Related Unfair Employment Practices (OSC), which also administers several statutes concerning employment discrimination based on national origin, citizenship status, and immigration document abuse. OSC may be contacted at 950 Pennsylvania Avenue, NW, Wahington, DC 20530, 1-800-255-7688 and http://www.usdoj.gov/crt/osc/.

http://www.usdoj.gov/crt/osc/ == "PAGE NOT FOUND"

Fuck this.

"Such employers must take good faith steps to recruit U.S. workers for any job for which they seek H-1B workers."

> Either external or internal to the employer’s workforce; or

So no, no public posting is required. It could all be internal recruiting and still pass the bar for H1-B. "Good faith" is also a very broad definition so it wouldn't surprise me that a very minimum amount of work is considered within the scope of that.

I'm sure these companies would be more than happy to hire an American who responds to their job request if that American was willing to work for 50k.

Case in point: How to post fake job ads to shirk the visa rules, courtesy of Cohen & Grigsby. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TCbFEgFajGU

I guess if people are really bothered by a few unscrupulous employers abusing the system, there is nothing preventing someone from building an app to shame or report the employers to authorities who could fine these places. Maybe cut a deal to get a slice of the fine for every good lead. Gamify it so those who produce credible leads are weighted over those who want to cry wolf or are on a vendetta, etc.

If you deny this exists, you don't work in the tech sector. What is this then, if not companies trying to maximize profits by exploiting foreign born workers? It's just mind blowing we keep going over this again and again when the reality is clear as day. The only logical conclusion of importing large amounts of lower skilled workers with poor language skills is that they are cheaper.

Believe me. I work in the tech sector and I find H-1Bs cost us a lot more, and always have (~25 years of reluctantly hiring H-1B folks from time to time).

There's a ton of paperwork that takes time and costs money and it delays hiring the person. You also have to pay more than the "prevailing wage" which is hardly a burden since I'm already going through all the hassle -- because it's someone we can't find any other way so we're already planning on paying them more. We resort to it when we can't find someone local, which mean we start this slow process after already spending time trying to find someone.

I don't see any problem with this burden BTW (I mean I would like it to be more convenient of course, but the idea that there is a bit of "trade barrier" to bringing in someone from outside rather than hiring a local doesn't seem like a terrible thing). And I'm an immigrant myself.

YES I understand there are H-1B sweatshops bringing in low-paid, not really qualified drudges. They are a problem and they game the system in numerous bad ways (including sucking up all the H-1s making it harder for startups to bring in exceptional people).

But they are two disjoint problems -- the basic idea of H-1 is a good one.

If a system has a good basic idea but is flawed in practice, we should abolish it, no? At the moment, no one is properly served by the H1B lottery except these outsourcing firms.

BTW I don't believe my experience is atypical.

There is lot of fraud going on there. I would say about 50% of H1B visas go to these scams. Ask any Indians working on big companies and they can explain you the bigger picture. Its pathetic that DHS/USCIS are unaware of these widespread scams.

Path 1 - worker outside US.

  1. Worker outside US gets in touch with body shops in US. 
  2. The body shops forces the worker to fake their work  experience, take money and apply H1B. 
  3. If it gets thru lottery,the worker lands in US. 
  4. The body shop provides cheap accommodation for the worker.
  5. The body shop runs fake payrolls. 
  6. The workers finds a contract job by faking skills and doing proxy interviews, lip syncs on video interview calls. 
  7. Gets the contract job. 
  8. Gets fired when the employer realises that the worker is fake.
  9. Goto step 5.
 10. In parallel , the body shop will start GC process and the fake worker becomes Green Card holder and finally a citizen.

  1. Many students comes to US to do master's degree after their bachelors. 
   (especially people from a particular state from India,I do not want to mention the state)
  2. Finishes masters ( 2 years ). Gets an OPT work permit for 2 years.
  3. The body shops recruit these students with nil experience.
  4. Fake up their work experience to say 5 - 6 years.
  5. Runs fake payroll when they are job hunting.
  6. Send these students to work as a contractor and applies H1B for them. Since they have an MS degree , the odds are high for them to get selected in the lottery.
  7. These fake workers outsource their office job to India at night and get it done from an experienced worker for a small amount.
  8. At some point , the employer understands the worker is fake,fires the contractor.
  9. Goto step 5.
  10. In parallel,the body shop will apply for GC in EB2 category and the fake workers becomes a Green card holder within 7 years and eventually a citizen.

They'll be happy to show you exactly how to run fake job ads locally in order to exclude American workers, then they'll show you how to use the various loopholes to get around what flimsy regulations exist, in order to get yourself a bunch of low wage immigrant employees who live in fear of losing their job and being sent back home.

See for yourself here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TCbFEgFajGU

Hopefully the outcome from this lawsuit will hurt more then a flick on the nose...

I was always thinking about how bodyshops benefits from Microsoft/Google/etc. lobbying in favor of H1b.

But you are right - bodyshops return the favor back to these tech giants by placing these contractors there.

[1] http://international.syr.edu/current-students/employment-ssn... [2] https://www.uscis.gov/i-9-central/complete-correct-form-i-9/... [3] http://www.nytimes.com/2016/04/06/nyregion/new-jersey-univer...

Interesting to find one public school system on the list, out of the entire country (not that I had any expectations on who should be on the list, just that 1 school system out of 13K school districts in the entire country)

http://www.today.com/id/44708445/ns/today-today_news/t/forei...

with the court ruling of:

http://h1blegalrights.com/2011/07/md-countys-public-schools-...

A good example where mob rule will be a good thing. I have my pitchfork ready.

Thank you for this link.

1. Employers takes money from an individual to file H1B. Charges are typically $4k. 2. Employer runs a fake payroll pays peanuts to the employee while showing a bug salary on paper. 3. Consultancy creates fake resume of its employees and the real work is then done by someone sitting in India. For example Consultancy hires Ms. X on H1B with no work experience. Ms X then works as consultant for an large E-Commerce giant through this consultancy through a fake resume that shows that she has 7 years of experience. Ms X cant code so she calls up a India office of the consultancy who do all the work sometimes even by screen sharing. 4. Hiring managers of large companies are bribed to discriminate against normal Americans and hire these H1Bs through consultancies. 5. Ms x working for consultancy X gets a call from a large company in bay area for interview. Ms Y goes and answers and clears the interview but Ms X joins as employee. In fact answering interview for others is what Ms Y does full time. 6. For telephonic interview many of these consultancies have setup complex systems where Ms Y answers the interiview on Skype but she has a teleprompter in front of her.

Fake H1B:

A lot of these consultancies employ people on H4,F1 or any other visa by telling their customers that these people have H1B. I suspect the large giant companies in bay area already know all this but it works on either don't as or don't tell basis or the hiring managers are bribed.

What I find most upsetting is that the media, overall tech industry does not discuss this at all.

https://www.dol.gov/whd/regs/compliance/FactSheet62/whdfs62S...

I'm not sure if you're expecting to get a reply that encapsulates all of HN's users position on this, but probably the reason that you see more H1B talk here is because this site caters to people in the tech industry - affected by H1B's more than the industries that are more affected by illegal immigrants from Mexico.

No I don't advocate anarchy, I advocate we enforce our border as any state does, in fact its one of the few things I actually think the state is suppose to do. If we cut out just a small fraction of all the stuff the state does which I do not think it is suppose to do this job would be done, and done well and would allow only higher quality individuals into our cities and communities (e.g. not drug dealers and criminals).

>The population of illegal immigrants is many time higher than the population of H1Bs.

Why does this quantity matter in the context of H1Bs, you are confusing two different issues. In one case the law is not enforced, that clearly just needs to be dealt with. H1Bs on the other hand is a legal system which requires refinement at the legislative level, or litigation.

The other involves illegal border crossings by individuals from a neighboring country or visa-overstaying mostly from South America.

I've personally witnessed a kind of overlap of these problems that went way beyond H1-B fraud and went way into human trafficking and organized crime. In that case a high-tech company was being used as a front for illegal immigration from an Asian country, with no-show workers and other amazing stunts more typical of a corrupt government or union operation. But that was an exceptional case.

eg:

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=11188243

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=11224910

You'd have to require that the company keep that salary in place for some number of years to prevent abuse, but that seems reasonable enough.

Also the rarity of a skill does not necessarily correlate to its economic output. So you would reduce the supply of workers for an arbitrary number of industries where wages are not higher than that number you just pulled out of a hat.

H1B may have the benefit of being somewhat bonded labor for them, but its not cheap.

I don't think there's anything wrong with sponsoring an H1-B for a talented and qualified person who wants to live in the US. There's room, and there are jobs, and complaining about immigrants is just stupid.

That said, the H1-B gives companies way too much leverage over their workers. In a "restructuring" of my former employer (aka entering the drain-spiral) , the NYC office was closed and most people were offered the "opportunity" to relocate to Sacramento, or take severance. Not a single person relocated.... except the lone H1-B, who had a new baby and didn't feel like he had any choice because he could lose his visa otherwise. That kind of coercive force is a sign of a broken power dynamic, due to a broken law.

The only way you could say an H1B is a path to immigration is for the case where a non-immigrant meets a spouse and get a green card through marriage. That's what happened to me, but this is really just by accident. Someone under a student visa could experience the same outcome for example.

You sait it yourself, the power of companies over H1Bs is overwhelming. Upon termination, an H1B has to leave the country in the following 24 hours, there is no "grace period" even though it's a widespread myth.

1. do masters in the US

2. work on OPT until I am fortunate enough to be picked in H1B lottery, or until my OPT runs out, whichever comes first

3. IF I get picked in H1B lottery, apply for PR

4. wait 4-8 years for my category to be current

5. eventually get PR

short of an investor visa, marrying someone who is a citizen, qualifying for EB1, or applying from abroad and waiting 10 years, how else do I get a green card?

An H1B may be "simpler", but considering the lottery stats it's far from being a given. I surely am glad I got mine a while ago before the H1B program became so crazy, with the CAP being reached in literally hours.

OTOH, in my (limited) experience, I have worked closely with a total of 4 H1B employees, and at least 3 of them are now permanent residents or citizens. I can't speak to the overall frequency of this happening, but that's my anecdata.

Do you happen to know if all your co-workers got their residency through employment ?

I only know one H1B who is attempting to get a GC through her company, she started the process 3 years ago and is not done yet.

The US is a nation full stop and we can write whatever laws we please without regard to when people arrived here in the first place.

Are Madagascar, Mauritius and Haiti also disallowed from having immigration restrictions because they were also populated in the Modern era?

Which is why they need to be done away with. If we still want the talent (and why shouldn't we, brain fill is good), we need a way for them to enter which does not tie them to an employer.

Technically, most Americans were born in America.

[1] The first is typically graduates from elite Indian engineering institutions (Indian Institutes of Technology, or a few other institutes) who have either gotten a job offer from a US firm for their US office straight out of college, or have come to the US for graduate school and are now entering the workforce. These are, in an overwhelming majority of cases, NOT cheap labour. They are hired at market rate (sometimes even higher, because they typically have strong profiles), they compete with the rest of the student and larger labour pool and get these jobs based purely on merit. For reference, I have plenty of friends who are in this category (I am too), and all of us get paid competitive market salaries. We are also not beholden to any firm and are pretty free to switch jobs if we desire. A lot of us have paid for graduate school in the US too, so it's not like we are just somehow freeriding. This is the kind of crowd you typically encouter in the Bay Area.

[2] The second category typically consists of people who don't have a stellar educational background, and are mostly hired in India by companies like Infosys, TCS, Wipro et al. for typically very low salaries (say 1/4th or 1/3rd of what a Googler would get in India). They mostly work on outsourced projects that come from other companies (both in India and outside). Often, these workers are then transfered to the US, where they work as vendors for companies such as Microsoft. They are technically employees of TCS or Wipro or whatever (which have branches in the US), and are on the payroll of these companies, but work for companies like Microsoft. This pool of workers is indeed cheap labor for the big cos because they can a) skimp on stuff such as insurance costs b) typically have to pay less anyway c) the low salary is still pretty high compared to what the worker would have otherwise been able to command in India, d) the worker has relatively lower job mobility because their resumes are probably not as 'employable' as Category [1]

Like it or not, [2] far outnumbers [1]. I don't remember the link right now, but these companies apply for in the order of 1000 H-1B visas every year. Most startups etc, for example, apply for a few or in the order of tens at best.

The illegal bit is of course what a few other commenters wrote—there are these 'consulting firms' which will apply for H-1B on your behalf (you pay them $5K or whatever). If you get through the lottery, you can now move to the US on H-1B. You don't have an actual job though you are on the consulting firm's payroll. You then transfer money to them under the table, which they pay back to you as 'salary' because you are on their payroll after all. In the meanwhile, they try to find a job for you. If they can find a job you will then work wherever they set you up and they take a cut of your salary. This is typically done by people who want to accompany their spouses to the US but don't want to be on H-4 visas which don't let you work.