Thing is, nobody wants that effect. We want the PhDs. What we do not want it companies that bring in cheap barely-qualified labour for cost-cutting. This hurts the people brought in (they are stuck in bad jobs with bad pay and no way out). This hurts the local workers who cost too much compared to this effectively-slave-labour.

The hard part changing the rules such that PhDs and other productive uses of H1B do not suffer, but the companies exploiting the rules for slave labour do.

I assure you nobody wants to make you feel unwelcome. In fact we are happy to have you here.

"This hurts the people brought in (they are stuck in bad jobs with bad pay and no way out)."

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

i agree with everything you said except for this part. many of the indian workers are still better off economically than they might otherwise be, even if they are not as well off as their american counterparts.

in any case, we should let every person seeking higher education in the US work indefinitely in this country, not just PhDs. in fact, anyone who wants to work hard should be allowed in. all such workers will accrue a net economic benefit, as the new workers will generate more value than they consume.

the problem with this (playing my own devil's advocate) is that it neglects to account for the status disruption it generates for the incumbent workers. the current H1B visa program happens to account for this by it effectively being indentured servitude, which limits the status of these foreign workers. i don't like this fact, but i believe it's why the H1B visa program is actually palatable in the US.

> many of the indian workers are still better off economically than they might otherwise be

Isn't this obvious? You can be stuck in a job with bad pay and still be better off than if you were in your home country. This is the fundamental condition that was ripe for exploitation.

The solution is to remove any and all incentive and mechanisms for companies to entrap employees and push wages down. I want people who come here to work to enjoy the same salaries we enjoy, and I want them to be able to quickly/easily change jobs when their current employer isn't paying them enough.

I don't know about you, but I'm getting tired of these schemes to exploit bad policy to hire cheap foreign workers. I don't want to live in a country where people associate Mexicans with cheap farm labor and contracting work and Indians with cheap IT workers. This sort of shit seeds to the worst types of prejudices, seeds racist resentment and can leads to drastic/fascist solutions.

Call me an egalitarian sap, but I think we'd all be better off if we didn't have policies that allow companies to profit off of people's prejudices.

> many of the indian workers are still better off economically than they might otherwise be, even if they are not as well off as their american counterparts.

Isn't that exactly the main criticism of current H1B system: driving down salaries and standard of living away from U.S. standards down towards India's?

However better off they are economically they would be even better if companies couldn't exploit their status to pay less. And American counterparts would be better off if they didn't have to compete with lower paid competition. Everyone would be better. Well, except the companies.

> Isn't that exactly the main criticism of current H1B system: driving down salaries and standard of living away from U.S. standards down towards India's?

The issue, of course, is that you can have only one of these 2 things :

1) a global market, easy international travel/living

2) Americans making significantly more than the global average (which I might add is $200/month in actual dollars, $1480 in PPP dollars) (this essentially means you can buy $1480 worth of (cheap) food with it, but only $200 worth of iPads)

Which is going to win here ? There can only be one answer, sadly.

I completely agree that H1B visas drive drives down salaries for US workers. But I cannot see how Indian workers are worse off.

Indian workers are worse off, because they pay the same amount of taxes as an American worker with no salary hikes or promotions. Stuck with the same job for years. No freedom of job portability. Spouses cannot work, always at the edge of relocating based on where the bodyshops deploy them.

The H1B visa is for 6 years temporary stay, but the H1B worker pays for SSN which he have no use of.

well, they are "worse off" compared to their non-H1B counterparts here but are way better off being here as opposed to staying in India, which is why they are here in the first place.

Money isn't everything. Being put through the bodyshops, the stress of making ends meet on those low wages, and not really being able to do things outside work takes it's toll.

All of above is true! H1Bs have to go thru some agony for 5 years or till they get Green Cards. But all of my friends who landed on H1B in 2000 are doing great in 10-15 years now owning multiple homes and many running own businesses. You should also take into account that H1Bs do not carry heavy Student debt like American students do. They get inexpensive education abroad and start working the day they land in USA. They also share accommodation and save money in case they have to go back to home country. I've also worked for a decade with Indian outsourcing companies and understand their business model. As businesses responsible for creating shareholder wealth, they run for profits under current legal framework and even IBM, Accenture, Deloitte, Cap Gemini and other large Multinational consulting firms employ hundreds of thousands of employees in India and bring them to USA on H1B visas in similar business models. H1B reform is important but even more important is to train US students in new technologies. I'm a naturalized US citizen living in San Jose for 17 years. My son is in high school in San Jose and by the time he is ready for college, the 4 year college cost will be $200K. I think that needs to be addressed along with H1B reform. We need to lower entry barrier for US students to get into Science and technology by making college more affordable.

> in any case, we should let every person seeking higher education in the US work indefinitely in this country

This is the discussion that's always missing whenever H1B is discussed anywhere. It always gets hijacked by Indian IT companies abusing the system. Does the administration have a plan on how to deal with students who get their degrees from US universities, who also seek H1Bs to work? If they don't make this distinction and club every applicant together, I can assure you US universities will become extremely unattractive to foreign students. Guess who benefits then? Not the US.

But then Infosys sets up Infosys University and calls all their applicants students

and pay them "Scholarships" if they pass their previous term assignment successfully maintaining the codebase of whoever they're interning for.

There is a F1 and J1 visas for studying (which allows on the job training and some work, at least one year following end of formal study etc). These could easily be extended to answer this - and I believe it should be independent of the H1B itself.

I should've put out a disclaimer in my previous comment, I was an F1 student now working in SV as an H1B. So I've to state my bias. Why do you think it should be independent? F1 students pay a lot of money to study here and I think there should be a fairly easy path to work for a considerable amount of time here. I believe it's mutually beneficial. But I'd love to know alternative views.

I believe his implication was that the F-1 should allow for a post-study work-residence period without the individual having to acquire an H1B or other residency visa. This would constitute an overall relaxation of immigration restrictions, particularly in your case.

If that was the implication, then I agree with it. But this exact discussion is what's missing in the whole H1B debate.

Indeed, I was thinking of extending the 1-year post study work allowance of the f-1 to three, or something along those lines.

One alternative view is that it's good for America to educate the world, give them a positive experience/perspective on the US, then go back to their homelands to improve and run it having said positive American outlook.

Another is that just because you studied here doesn't mean you're actually unique talent -- there are Americans who also need work at the low-to-mid levels whose industries have been displaced and are now jobless.

Obviously there alternative paths to citizenship, and being educated accelerates your prospects. It's not like the H1B or J1 are the only way -- I've known many get the O visa because they actually are unique talent.

Minor detail, but I should note that I haven't talked about path to citizenship at all. I have no opinions on that. Probably because I'm not interested in a citizenship.

As an American, I am much more disposed to policy flexibility for people who want to become American citizens, and much less disposed to policy flexibility for immigrants who just want to get a high US salary for a few years, then take the net proceeds and go home.

The majority wants "immigrants" to go back. The president won an election based on that agenda. I'm not sure who to believe :)

More people didn't vote for Trump than did.

> Guess who benefits then? Not the US.

If demand at US universities goes down, they might just have to reduce prices.

Yeah that would certainly suck for the millions of recent college grads working gig jobs, indebted with tens of thousands of dollars.

Actually the opposite at many public universities. "Out of state" and international students subsidize in state students because they pay far greater tuition.

I have trouble believing students are paying less tuition because there is a greater demand from international students. If anything, the tuition would be higher. That international students are more profitable doesn't change the value of the degree or what everyone else is willing to pay for it.

Foreign students pay full tuition, domestic students rarely do. Simple as that. This applies to public and private schools. Universities deliberately recruit international students for this reason.

I think parent is right, no international students likely means higher tuition for everyone else. If you're in doubt, ask someone who works in admissions, I expect they'll tell you the same thing.

My point is that international students may "subsidize" the university, but in practice this should have very little to do with what the university would charge its students (they are not "subsidizing" the domestic students). Implicit in your assumption is that tuition uses cost-based pricing which I find hard to believe. Admittedly this is all conjecture on my part but I don't find that line of reasoning persuasive.

Students that pay full freight absolutely subsidize those who don't, and a lot of the people who can afford full tuition are foreign.

http://blogs.wgbh.org/on-campus/2014/6/17/international-enro...

The recruitment programs for foreign students are way better here (in the Netherlands) with some universities because they get about double from them vs regulars. Though the difference looks even bigger when you take into account that what students pay is not the same as what the University gets.

I think this is even worsened by the fact that foreign students pay directly towards the university and become a primary source of revenue and the 'regular' students money is tertiary (state) or secondary (scholarship) which has conditions and delays attached.

I guess it is probably the same all over the world.

> If anything, the tuition would be higher.

It is higher, but for out-of-state and international students. That's how public universities have been able to offset low in-state tuition and raise more financial aid.

They still need someone to keep the reputation up. The revenue stream has to pass regardless of capability.

At least in the topic of H-1B CS / programmers, a good chunk of them are not paying tuition, but rather working as GTAs and GRAs for stipends and tuition waivers. By and large, tuition does not fund CS departments, research does.

That is only for PhDs. Masters, who comprise a large part of foreign programmers, pay a lot and receive little to no stipends or waivers.

It's not only PhDs. I was a Masters student who worked as a GTA and GRA. The dept head of the CS program I work under now has repeatedly told faculty to focus on hiring more PhDs and fewer masters students.

More than students it would suck for universities, less funding, less infrastructure growth, it would cause a domino effect. If not US then somewhere else, students will figure it out, they are young but it will have a long lasting effect on US. If talented students don't have options out side their home country they will improve the conditions of their home country and cause less brain drain. Especially China and India considering their population.

I think students want to study in US (or are willing to pay to study in US) is because after completing education there, they are eligible to find work there. I dont think students want to spend great sums of money studying overseas, because they dont have options in their own country.

Presumptuous. A lot of students study in the US because their country really doesn't have that level or quality of education accessible. I was perfectly happy salary-wise in my own country, but the institutions of higher education here mainly believed a Bachelors in Mechanical Engineering can't be a good candidate for Masters in Computer Science. I thus had to apply to some good US Universities as they didn't have that problem. After studying there (and yes, I worked there for few years to expose myself to international work culture) I came back to my home country. I know many such people who went to US to study only because they didn't have such quality of education at their respective places. Also, when I worked in the US I don't think I was the 'cheap H-1B labor', I believe I contributed to the company and the US economy as well with my work.

There are a ton of Americans studying medicine in India. Simply because its cheaper. So it goes both ways.

I'm pretty sure these Americans plan on working in America after residency.

Really? I've never heard of people doing that, how many is "a ton" and how realistic is their hope to practice in the US?

A literal metric ton of Americans is about 12 individuals. A short ton is about 11.

I presume that a figurative "ton of Americans" would be many more than that, because it seems like American enrollment in India's medical schools should be more than just 12.

The bars in Bangalore are filled with medical students. There are always a handful of Americans studying with them. I have a few friends who graduated recently and are now back in America doing their residency.

Go check the numbers on how many over seas medical students come back state side and actually end up as medical doctors. Passing the board exam and getting into residency programs is a lot harder these days, since most programs are aware that this is happening.

The context was PhD students.

None of those, at good universities at least, pay for tuition (be it from research grants or TAships). So I would expect the effect on prices to be minimal.

There is a huge pool of international students who join these Universities to take a Masters course, and pay heavy tuition fees. And I have no reason to think they are technically any less than their American counterparts.

I believe US students would benefit, because I think state-sponsored universities are preferring foreign students over in-state students because foreign students pay more tuition than in-state students.

> in any case, we should let every person seeking higher education in the US work indefinitely in this country, not just PhDs. in fact, anyone who wants to work hard should be allowed in. all such workers will accrue a net economic benefit, as the new workers will generate more value than they consume.

A country is more than just an economy of value-producing workers.

yes, absolutely. the kinds of folks that uproot themselves to move to a new country and culture to make a better life also tend to be interesting and add cultural richness as well. =)

I'm an immigrant from Bangladesh. My parents moved here when I was about 5 years old (my dad on an H1-B). I think folks like me, my parents, and other immigrants I know contribute a lot to America. At the same time, America has given us far more than we have given it. It has Americanized us, acculturated us into views and values that are better than what we would have been acculturated into had we stayed in Bangladesh.

Working hard and being smart isn't what makes America great. Bangladeshis are smart and they work incredibly hard, but Bangladesh isn't great. It is the virtue of ordinary American people that makes our society function so well. It's the supermarket employee who goes to work the day after her preferred candidate loses an election instead of participating in a violent strike, or the telephone company worker who doesn't demand a bribe to install your phone line. You threaten to lose that if you allow "anyone who wants to work hard" to move here with no other considerations.

It sounds like you're advocating vetting of immigrants. Was your father vetted before he came?

I too followed a similar path with parents migrating from South Asia.

What seems clear to me is that behaviour is a function of environment.

The same Bangladeshi that needs a bribe to put in the phone line isn't going to be demanding one when he sets it up for you in New Jersey.

(I don't think you even disagree with that)

> It sounds like you're advocating vetting of immigrants.

I'm advocating rate-limiting immigration to a level that allows us to comfortably absorb and Americanize the people coming in.

> What seems clear to me is that behavior is a function of environment.

The "environment" is created by people. If you plop 10 Bangladeshis into New Jersey, they will conform to the environment. If you plop 10,000 Bangladeshis into New Jersey, you will have imported the environment from Bangladesh to New Jersey.

I don't think that's the ax rayiner is grinding here.

> in fact, anyone who wants to work hard should be allowed in.

Do you think other countries should do the same? Do you think it would work out well for all of them?

They're not really stuck by Visa rules though, once they have an H1 they can transfer it without worrying about the cap any time they like to any company in a position to sponsor an H1B. It's definitely not ideal. If there are terms binding them to their employers that should really be addressed. What sucks is they can't go off and found on their own.

> playing my own devil's advocate

That shows a great sense of self awareness, and objective reasoning. I wish more people did that. :)

When looking forward to what could be a good change, it's easy to miss out the importance of the intent of this reform. H-1B system is inefficient, but the intent of the current administration is not to make it efficient but to score the cheap points on nativist sentiment. H-1B reform will not make SV go republican, but anti-immigrant and non-skilled voter base of the president will be pretty happy (especially when there is nothing else to be happy about).

That and given the log of the current administration's initiatives, we can be rest assured that this reform will be as reckless and uninterested in details as possible and will do more harm than good to the US. Or there will be no reform at all.

All these effects are the product of workers being stuck in their jobs through the H1B program. Give H1B workers the same rights as American workers and they will compete on the same terms, getting a competitive salary and not bringing wages down.

If someone's got an H1B, it's because there's demand for the job, unsatisfied by US workers, wether at the original company requesting the visa or in the industry in general. Companies will pay them correctly when foreign workers are free to leave for the competition. And when they do, they're not unfair competition for locals anymore. With equal pay, companies will prioritize US workers over visa hassle.

Also, ban H1B outsourcing.

> All these effects are the product of workers being stuck in their jobs through the H1B program. Give H1B workers the same rights as American workers and they will compete on the same terms, getting a competitive salary and not bringing wages down.

I strongly agree on the general sentiment. But I think you'd continue to need some restrictions, otherwise it'll end up as a means to pay companies to get a US visa. Get visa, switch to a different company with way lower salary, etc. Similarly you could have arrangements where companies move people to cheaper subsidiaries after getting the initial visa.

I presume you'd have to have continuing salary requirements, possibly requiring that the next job's salary is higher than previous ones. That'd have the issue that you could trap somebody by giving a way above market salary, but that seems a fairly remote problem.

> Also, ban H1B outsourcing.

Not sure about that in general. There's plenty of work where it just doesn't make sense to have a full-time employee in a company, but you want somebody available on a regular basis. But it's also quite commonly misused.

> Also, ban H1B outsourcing.

No need to ban it. Just adjust the salary to REAL IT salaries.

From the article:

> The Economist found that between 2012 and 2015 the three biggest Indian outsourcing firms—TCS, Wipro and Infosys—submitted over 150,000 visa applications for positions that paid a median salary of $69,500

Essentially, these Indian firms are wage dumping by paying lower than US market.

If they had to pay 90K+ USD for these H1Bs, the number of applications would drastically reduce.

> What we do not want it companies that bring in cheap barely-qualified labour for cost-cutting.

The alternative at many tech companies (including mine) is to outsource to the cheap overseas labour while they continue to work remotely from their home countries. Still competing against US workers, but no US income tax paid. H1-B's seem like the lesser of two evils for the country. Not having a US visa does not stop said person from working for a US company, in this day and age.

I hear this argument all the time.

If the companies could offshore everything, they would have already done it. If they can't, they can afford to hire Americans for the few onsite employees they've got left.

Otherwise, they should move their whole operation - the executive board and their families, included - to S. India.

No one gets to have their cake and eat it too.

H1Bs are still way more expensive vs offshoring. There's a host of reasons it hasn't been done yet but if it was clearly going to happen it would have long ago. Engineering would have gone the way of manufacturing in this country but instead the opposite is true. I personally think it's because engineering is complex (even CRUD apps) and requires a lot of communication, back and forth etc. There's a lot of nuance that's not easily defined into step by step factory instructions. It's a field where you need to be taught to think first and countries with very weak educational systems cannot compete easily.

India outsourcing doesn't work well from the USA.

Too much time difference (9-12 hours). You never work at the same time, you can't communicate, you can't have any meeting.

>I assure you nobody wants to make you feel unwelcome. In fact we are happy to have you here.

Steve Bannon has explicitly said otherwise, and it's safe to assume he and the President share many of the same opinions, so I would not be too sure about this.

I don't understand why that's hard. One could literally just make a rule giving first priority to PhDs from research 1 universities and setting up a reasonable quota for other smart ppl who may not have a PhD. End of story.

"we"

> Now, what happens if you kill the H1B?

Companies all start paying the premium for these most-sought-after and most-specialized technologists, as they should, which then causes more native-born people to pursue these jobs, knowing they won't be arbitrarily undercut by the lottery, and reaping the benefits of a top-dollar US-based education. To me, it's a national investment argument. Does a nation NOT want perfectly capable native citizens to get these lucrative types of jobs, and US-based academic institutions to get the tuition to educate them? No, it wouldn't happen overnight, but we don't have to cut it off all at once, either. The market can, and would, adjust.

My problem is that I see a lot of H1B's doing clerical jobs that don't require anything more than a 12th-grade education. Some even have MS degrees, but they're doing things that, at their most-technical, would take a trade school programming intern to do. I also know several under-employed people, who don't have college degrees, but who would be GREAT at those jobs, but can't get them because of the H1B system. None of this makes sense to me. You think only Ph.D.'s can deal with LIDAR systems? Fine. But dozens of H1B's working around me are doing their jobs without the need for even an Asscociates degree's worth of education. It seems like blatant abuse to get overqualified people on the cheap who can't leave.

Or, they offshore more of it

(which for TCS "Java developer" type of work is just fine and dandy)

> (how easy is it to replace a CS PhD working on LIDARs for self driving cars?)

I have no problem with specializations but how many are in the US doing full stack web or general application development. It seems to me the problem is not surrounding engineers who specialize in a minority field like LIDAR. The problem is when you have a team of 15 engineers building a web application platform and 13 are H1Bs.

Also, don't take this the wrong way because I welcome you and any other H1B with open arms. I do however, personally feel there are a more companies taking advantage of the situation than not.

Curious what you or any other H1B employee feels about this point of view?

> Curious what you or any other H1B employee feels about this point of view?

I'm quite biased, because I failed the H1B lottery. Took me a good while to get a different work visa (and LPR now). So take this with a grain of salt.

From the perspective of somebody working in a niche where I (via companies I work with), would immediately hire anyone qualified in that niche, be it a USian or not, I agree. Trying to hire specialists (abroad, because there none available in the US) and then being unable to get H1Bs for them, is quite frustrating; especially when you see companies/people getting H1Bs in roles with plenty local candidates/low specialization.

PhD in CS at a top university in the US and from India originally. To be honest, from my perspective, the H1B basically doesn't exist (unless I'm working at a university which doesn't have a quota). No way am I gonna gamble on getting lucky with the lottery vs just seeking more stable circumstances outside the US.

H1B success rate isn't that bad. If you got hired at Facebook or some other big tech company, they would figure something out, even if that meant holding in Vancouver or London to qualify for an easier to get transfer visa.

> doing full stack web

Is there really an abundance of really qualified full stack web developers? I met a lot of incompetent US citizens claiming to be full stack devs.

What's your definition of full stack? Anyone that knows a back end language, sql, html and a bit of css and javascript is a full stack web developer.

The going expectation for professional résumés is about honesty and modesty. What you say on that piece of paper should reflect what you would be able to come in the next day and be productive doing.

I interviewed over 15 applicants for just front end development last week and not a single one of all the 6-page résumés from candidates who all apparently have their masters was honest: only 5 even knew what JSON is.

I hear these stories all the time, and yet the value of these degrees seem to hold steady, while experience is often discounted.

Are these graduates? Are they real developers or people that know html, css and photoshop thinking their front end devs? Have they spent their lives in big companies that are still in xml land?

That's all the excuses I can think of. Some of them may be honest, just ignorant.

They generally don't have a clue, or sometimes have had job titles like "Software Engineer" but all they did was basic GUI testing, which is also the case at my company.

Is it possible you aren't offering a wage that attracts talent? You seem to be implying that Indian labor is smarter/more qualified than US labor. In my experience, (hiring in Phoenix) that is simply not the case if you're willing to pay the prevailing wage.

Yeah, this was my first though too. Even outside of the US you see companies wondering why they can't find good local talent, except they're offering wages too low for any qualified applicant to live on. Pay peanuts, you get monkeys (or the extremely desperate/exploited).

I believe that might be part of the problem, but when I joined under this same role I was being fairly compensated, so it might be mixed.

I would have thought JSON was more a back end

That's "JavaScript Object Notation," as in, how to use objects in JS.

one of those things .... most people in the pipeline should know.... since it's a data container format.

I think you need to be able to debug a crash of the web server or kernel. This means C and at least a bit of a clue about assembly.

I suppose it's OK to not be able to debug a hypervisor.

On the other side of things, probably you also ought to be a competent artist and writer.

"a crash of the web server or kernel"

That rules out 99% of people who are successfully doing the work right now.

It rules out 99% of the people successfully doing something which they claim to be "full stack". They might be great at their jobs, but I don't consider them "full stack". Low-level stuff is always part of the stack.

I guess there has been a sort of grade inflation on "full stack". When I go looking in the "Who wants to be hired?" threads for people, my reaction to seeing "full stack" is that the person is almost certainly exaggerating to an extreme. Real "full stack" is super uncommon, but it sounds impressive I guess. It's just not very believable.

I think you're missing the "web developer" part of the full stack. It means you know all tmthe stack required for web development.

Either way, aren't debugging crashes with c/ASM still taught at uni? Or is the idea of using gdb too much these days?

Crash of the web server => read the log and find where you made a typo in the config file

crash of the kernel => google the last error lines (hope you have one)

> I met a lot of incompetent US citizens claiming to be full stack devs.

Does this imply that H1B employee's are guaranteed to be more competent? I don't think it does and also extrapolating your experience to conclude on an entire population of people is hardly justified.

Not at all, I know a number of folks on H-1Bs, L-1s and other visas that are barely able to do their jobs correctly.

I was just sharing an anecdote.

I'm on an H1B too and I don't share your reading of the thread or even the executive order for that matter. I think there is a major hole with the current system. That Infosys and TCS can get away with stuffing applications and snatching so many visas clearly indicates it is an inefficient system. Hopefully, a better system balances academia, startups, entrepreneurs and corporations well. In addition, almost all of H1B is going to IT today. It should be possible for other industries to absorb talent too.

I'll throw my potatoes into the pot:

I don't know of any serious active effort to kill the H1B. I think that would be a disaster for the tech industry as large companies like the ones you mentioned rely on foreign talent.

The only effort I'm aware of is to raise the minimum salary to qualify for an H1B. Right now, the minimum is $60k, which, in the US, is very low for a legitimate programming job. I'm certain that H1B workers at Boeing or Amazon are getting paid more than the minimum right now. However, there do exist shops out there who exploit H1B visas for cheap labor; I've experienced them firsthand. They aren't as uncommon as you might think.

There is talk of raising the minimum to something like $120k. Surely, a PhD trained researcher at Boeing or Amazon is worth at least that. They are probably already getting paid the prevailing wage for their labor, which is a legal requirement of an H1B. In these cases, raising the minimum will not affect them at all.

Recall that the original purpose of the H1B was to fill a demand for high tech, specialist roles. Is there any high tech, specialist role that is only worth $60k these days? I don't think so.

H1B will not be killed. It will be changed. The loophole will be fixed so that Indian outsourcing body shops will not be able to abuse the system. Currently, the vast majority of the H1B visas are hoarded by Indian outsourcing companies such as Tata Consultancy Services, Infosys, Wipro etc. The real highly skilled workers such as US-educated PhD graduates cannot even get one at all. The new system hopefully will keep US-educated graduates and prevent those Indian consulting body shops.

Sorry but it's big business writing the rules. It's not American programmers that have seats in congress. So let me just correct you:

"H1B will not be killed. It will be changed. The loophole will be fixed so that Indian outsourcing body shops will be able to completely flood the market without any restrictions at all. Currently, not all of the H1B visas are hoarded by Indian outsourcing companies such as Tata Consultancy Services, Infosys, Wipro etc, for the purposes of depressing wages in the US.

The real threats to low wages, such as US-educated PhD graduates must never be allowed a visa, unless they sign in blood a contract to work for bread, water and a single bed for at least a decade, after which they'll be required to leave the US. Companies will be allowed to provide bonuses such as a weekly slice of cheese or a bed sheet for software developers, or those who put in more than the customary 252 hours of work per week. The new system hopefully will keep wage depressing suckers and prevent those "educated" upstarts from claiming more of congress' profits".

Even Melania Trump came on H1B to the US.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-us-canada-39632182

But H1B abuse needs to stop. It would even help you if there was a proper alternative​.

H-1B3 are specific for fashion models, so it makes sense that she got one, no? https://www.uscis.gov/working-united-states/temporary-worker...

The essential problem, as I see it, is that the H-1B is being explicitly used to depress wages for US citizens in the vast majority of cases.

The solution (which we'll never see) is just to de-couple the H1-B from a particular employer. Go on the open market, get a job at market rates, but don't play the indentured servitude game they're forcing you into now. That's all.

There has always been an O-1 visa for super-specialized and talented PHDs.

I came to the US on an H1-B. I work in embedded security (think silicon, PCB level attacks, bootloaders, kernels) which is a field that has, by my best guess, less than a 1000 individuals in it. For whatever reason they are largely European and while there are some that hold PhDs (mostly on the silicon side, some of the attacks there require lots of math) most while barely have finished a bachelors degree (Yours truly included). The US desperately needs these people to secure all the devices you use on a day-to-day basis. They likely do not qualify for O-1's, as their research isn't done in the context of academia and largely done under assumed names for fear of prosecution.

Do we simply not bring these talented people to the US?

I am an American citizen and work in the exact same field. I would describe the field as much larger than you believe it to be (but certainly still rather small) and have lost jobs in this area to H1Bs.

While I'm sure you are exceptionally talented, there's more to the story than "Americans just can't do the job!" The h1b narrative is exactly what you just described. I would say that your company has recruiting issues if you truly can't find qualified Americans to work on embedded security. (Is this a Big 4 company with a crazy hiring bar? That might make sense)

There's always more to the story.

O-1's are not exclusively for academia. You can have extraordinary ability or achievement in many ways. You just need to be able to prove that.

I don't think that anyone is wanting people working on self driving cars to not get a visa. I think the bigger question is if H1Bs are being abused to get cheaper labor for not well skilled positions. Raising the minimum wage for H1B positions is a pretty good way to filter that out.

That's hardly the discussion here... The current administration isn't trying to remove the H1B, but to prevent low-skilled workers from getting the H1B so that these higher degree graduates looking for work can secure a job in the US.

Indian outsourcing firms are notoriously spamming the H1B with low-salary petitions completely offsetting the chances of these post-grads looking for work. What you end up getting is doctors and engineers not being able to work in the US and you have some low level programmer that can't even do their work well without you babysitting through the work they are supposed to be qualified to do.

... on the flipside though you shouldn't be competing for H1Bs with bodyshops which hopefully will be the case once the dust settles, so in the long run (hopefully) the changes that are being proposed will be beneficial to you.

I am glad that you are here, both doing your work, and commenting on HN! Thank you for your contributions, and you are appreciated.

Couldn't they come in on an O1?

Thats what I did.

So the arguments for H1B break down to brain-drain and bringing in talent. Here are some opinions bound to be unpopular on HN.

Brain-drain is a myth. I'm taking an x64 assembler course at an accredited institution right now; the 2 Indian foreign transfer students were worse than the 1 kid in class that literally plays WOW during lecture. They didn't pay attention, they didn't work, they tried to cheat their way through, and eventually dropped. Literally, I have teachers who randomize and change their assignments to catch people like them, and while I'm not going to hang the entire institutions cheating problems on those 2 kids, I will be willing to bet dollars to donuts most of the kids we are getting are rich kids with similar problems.

When I, as an American who's family goes back to before the war for independence, hear of "Rich Foreigners Kids" I think either Russian Mob or some corrupt Russian businessmen, or an Afghani Opium farmer, or some Indian Kshatriya. Call me jerk all you want, but facts are facts. Poor Geniuses from India don't have the resources to come here are foreign transfer students. Recently I had an assignment from my boss to go stalk a Chinese railroad construction company who was putting down roots in the US. Turns out all the people they are hiring state-side are, surprise surprise, Chinese foreign transfer students or people disgruntled with US institutions they want to steal technology from. If poor kids make it into US educational institutions, that is how they get in. Some foreign Government's interest in something in the US. Either way, their background is diametrically opposed to what it is to be American. Being American is not about drawing a nice paycheck; it's fundamentally about fighting for your right to life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness. Take a 2nd Generation Mexican down to the gun range sometime, all of a sudden they realize they aren't 2nd class citizens anymore once you explain to them if the cops take your guns and arrest you for your skin color that's a great pay day for you., They understand, intrinsically, because their home country, Mexico, is unbelievably messed up, why firearm ownership is meaningful. If everyone has an AK47, the drug gangs are incentivized to be extraordinarily polite, mass graves do not happen.

You will never, ever get the poor kids who work their way up through their education system or business magnates who persevered without a college degree coming here as transfer students; that is what H1B is for. No Business magnate from Russia is ever going to come to the US to participate in our Ideology; whatever area they are in, they own it lock stock and barrel. The poor kids have to be financed by someone; business magnate or government, pick one. Both of those expect loyalty.

That is what H1B is for. Business managers will argue that they need "IT Geniuses" and honestly, they have zero capability to tell the difference between an entry level "Genius" and a bonafide professional. H1B is not for bringing in entry level people. What it is there for, fundamentally, is when you get the 3rd Reich starting up and they begin burning the Jews, typically, educated people see that coming a-ways off. Economic calamity often leads to political instability; If you're going to get into a war, best to grab as many educated people as possible from that foreign country as you can get. Maybe they get the ideology while they are here, maybe they like it and stay. Who knows. Moving away from your family and friend requires some serious motivation.

Indians by and large do not come here through H1B because India is a horrible hitler-esque dystopia. They do not come here because they urn to be free. They come here to scam, it's an empirical fact, Plain and simple. Let me prove it. Wipro, TaTa, WNS. Whenever Americans are being outsourced, it's one of those companies doing it, it is a scam, it is dishonest, it is asset stripping people's paychecks.

We, like idiots, encourage that scamming blinded by these fantasies about foreigners thinking so highly of of our technology, money, and world power that they want to come here from their whatever shazbot-hole country they come from; it's as if everyone has been infected by the thinking of King George of England. Nowhere anywhere in Mainstream Media, do you ever see anyone quoting an immigrant these days who wants to come here to share in our Ideology. That Ideology is the reason for the economy, capital, and technology and military, and we forget that.

In Summary.

If you're here for the economic incentive, Get the F@##$!@$k out. I don't have time for your kind.

If you're here to be American and contribute, Welcome. We've got a lot of idiots here. Buy them booze and get them hammered. Do that a few times, you'll find friends willing to bury a body with you.

I don't actually understand your comment enough to know how to respond, but I'll try to respond:

> come here to share in our Ideology. That Ideology is the reason for the economy ... If you're here for the economic incentive, Get the F@##$!@$k out ... If you're here to be American and contribute, Welcome

You mean the American Dream of working hard and earning lots of money for doing so? Isn't that the same thing as coming for the "economic incentive" under a capitalist ideology? I'm a Canadian who'd like to emigrate to the US eventually to earn more, following my economic incentive is the same thing as going to the US to work hard, participate, develop technology and engage in mutually beneficial trade to further the nation.

Also, counter-anecdote, I'm a university student and the Indian transfer students I know are just as smart and nice as everyone else and fit in excellently.

Would you support sorting H1-B applications by salary and taking from highest to lowest until the cap is met? That sounds like it would address your concerns about Tata and Wipro.

I also do not understand why Indian consultancies need to be demonized so much. Their practices might be a bit shady but then as the complexity of law grows the value of pushing the limits of law also goes up.

1. Indian consultancies have provided valuable labor in large quantity to US firms. 2. This has helped US firms remain competitive in the world. From ATT or Bank of America to Toyota and Sears everyone has super large outsourcing centers in India which help them keep costs low for American consumers. 3. Cheap labor with high skills coming to USA is a good thing. It makes the economy get more efficient and grows the size of pie where everyone gets employed. 4. US Tech sector has outperformed all sectors in terms of both growth and employment numbers. Most of the H1Bs goes to tech companies and guess what ? They have the lowest unemployment rate.

There are no job losses because of H1B. If H1B program is completely shut-down US economy would take a pretty bad hit and total number of jobs in USA will go down and more jobs will simply move to India.

I disagree with this post. I am originally from India and used to be on H1. I have worked at companies like LinkedIn and Dropbox - so also know this from the point of view of supposedly highly qualified H1 candidates. I also was in leadership role at a Fortune 15 where we had a big team of low quality contractor on H1 and L1. So kind of have an experience on both the extremes.

The consulting company used to send really low quality candidate. The kind who might not clear high school maths and have some worthless degree from a remote college in India. Then I asked them to get their best people. Their best people were pretty bad. I mean the kind who would get rejected on telephonic screen within 10 minutes. Eventually the model that worked is that I would find great candidates and then this company would bring them on contract (some people prefer working on contract vs full time).

The amount of money waste on such consultancy projects was unbelievable. Companies prefer this because of some tax savings of CapEx vs OpEx. There would be a huge team of people doing near clerical work. I am confident that there are other citizens available who can do that job, at probably an higher cost.

> Companies prefer this because of some tax savings of CapEx vs OpEx.

May be that is where the value of these candidates lies. But hey they are valuable in that sense else no one would have hired them in first place.

You are misleading people here. Top CS PHD or other PHDs won't go through H1B; they are most likely going through EB1 which is more efficient. You don't need to wait years to get a green card. Also, people from countries like Australia, Canada, Germany, don't need H1B. Only people from Iran, India, and China need H1B. The better solution, as I talked to variety people and many people suggests, is to raise the salary bar from 60k-ish to 100k-ish, and filter out the unequaled candidates.

Incorrect: people from most all countries do use H1-Bs to work in the US. (Australia is a rare exception, because there's a special visa just for them, thanks to some paid-in-blood Gulf War horse trading.). However, there's a per-country quota, which is why Chinese and Indians have a hard time getting them and most Europeans don't.

Canada is also an exception (TN visa).

How come people from Germany don't need a H1B visa?

FYI: People from Germany, Austria, France, italy, Spain need a H1B.

It's preventing lots of extremely qualified European to join the USA.

I think limiting heavily the use of h1b by body shops make it direct hire only no w2 contractors