It's also not ok to use HN primarily for political or ideological battle, since that isn't the purpose of the site. Obviously some topics are more political and commenting in such threads is fine, but it's not to use an account primarily for it.
Is "bonded labor" better?
The same goes for swipes like "you are kidding right?" (https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=14745448). Using escalating rhetoric on divisive topics causes internet discussion to erupt in flames. Mostly it's negligence rather than arson but the result is the same. If you're going to comment here, please don't do these things.
The guiding value of HN is intellectual curiosity (please see https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html and https://news.ycombinator.com/newswelcome.html). We're hoping for thoughtful conversation, and using the site primarily for political or ideological battle is destructive of that, so we ban such accounts. In particular, it's not ok to create an account here just to do that.
Regarding "indentured servant" - that is the factually correct term to describe the situation. Even H-1B visa holders themselves use this term.
Here is a video of an H-1B visa holder using the exact term "indentured servant" with Congressman Darrell Issa at some policy event about the H-1B visa in Washington DC: https://youtu.be/2Tgc9m1IwNc?t=35m47s
The term "indentured servant" is exactly the right term to describe the employer-employee relationship between Guest Worker visa holders and their employer's. As demonstrated in the video, even the H-1B workers themselves are saying that they feel like indentured servants.
I personally feel that politically correctness is somehow having the effect of normalizing this very abnormal employee-employer relationship (at-least here in America).
As the guest worker in the video says, if he loses his job - he has to take his kids out of school, sell his car, sell his house and leave. This is not in any way a normal employee-employer relationship.
I would like to think the points I am raising are thoughtful. well researched and articulate. Apart the "swipes" - which I will tone down on - I don't think I am guilty of any other transgressions.
> You could even, if you wanted to, make an argument that this has some things in common with what was historically called indentured labor. But to use a charged phrase as a rhetorical weapon in an ideological battle, which you clearly are doing, is the wrong kind of comment for HN.
You are right, I could have absolutely talked about the history of indentured labor in America - but I don't think that was germane to the implications of the Regulation or the implications for the current (sorry) state of Guest Labor in America which what this discussion was about.
Regarding: > The bigger problem is the one you didn't respond to. You're showing up in an HN thread with a single-purpose account armed with seasoned ideological talking points. That's very much not what this site is for, regardless of which battle it is and which side you're on.
I am a geek, who has frequented HN for a long time, and before that digg and before that slashdot (I still go there BTW).
I usually don't post very much.
And "seasoned talking points" - cmon. Doing my research before shooting my mouth off - is a GOOD THING and I would like to think that I am elevating the level of discourse.
Infact everyone else (except projectramo - who I did mishandle and doesn't disagree with my characterization of H-1B/L-1 workers) who has weighed in seems to think my comments are very apropos:
https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=14746165 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=14746303 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=14746400 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=14746592
Infact, in my view - you are the one who is flaming me and disrupting the discourse here.
However, this current repeal, related to "The International Entrepreneur Rule"[1] is only tangentially related to H1-B.
H1-B could have gotten minimized but this is a bit worse, IMO.
I have a major criticism of this article and it's not clarifying.
[0] https://www.nytimes.com/2015/06/04/us/last-task-after-layoff...
The answer is to make it so H1-B people are not so tied to one employer, so their wages are bid up to local levels in short order.
The rationale behind this legislation is that employers have been driving wages down via a self-sustaining lower class of tech workers, where low-cost temporary foreign workers constantly trickle in. This will close that spigot in favor of either the local talent pool or a foreign talent pool where immigrants find an employer to sponsor their application for permanent citizenship.
You mean the industry that includes tons of companies founded by immigrants or their children?
I'm not saying SV can be replicated elsewhere. But the code you're writing can be, if the price differential is big enough. Outsourcing is a PITA, so if the price differential is not big, why bother. But... if it's big enough, innovative people will find a way to make it work.
> This will close that spigot in favor of either the local talent pool or a foreign talent pool where immigrants find an employer to sponsor their application for permanent citizenship.
Or a foreign office without all the bureaucratic, nativist BS.
The entrepreneur has a lot more leeway in making decisions than an employee, and has more freedom in how to spend the company's money.
Do you think that a VC would choose a foreign entrepreneur just because they are foreign? Don't you think other factors (product, team, strategy etc) would play a larger role?
However, when you get to the US, you realize that American citizens make $80k - $100k / year for the same job. What do you do? You can't switch jobs, because the H1B program makes it very difficult to do so. You can't threaten to quit, because then your visa only gives you a few months before you have to go back to India -- and back to the $10k / year job. You have no choice -- if you want the $60k / year job, you have to to stick with the company who hired you. So you stay.
The result? The salary for software engineers is driven down. The employer gets extra profits while getting the same work. The software engineers are now making less than they would be if either 1) the H1B program didn't exist, or 2) the H1B program were reformed so that switching jobs is easier.
(Trump did #1. However, #2, reforming H1B, is far better for all employees in the long run. Not surprisingly, #2 is not hugely supported by all companies).
There are definitely large contracting companies which abuse the H1B process in this way, but at Google/Amazon/Microsoft/Yahoo/etc I have never seen an H1B holder make any less than their counterpart born in the US.
Doesn't mean I don't agree the H1B system needs serious reform, but it's unfair to tar all employers with that brush.
(Best reform idea I've heard: the limited H1B slots go to whoever is paying the most for the job. Inherently prioritized the most economically impactful immigrants and also creates upward pressure on wages. Win/win!)
I have. And based on the patterns I saw in hiring, I expect that it's the same across the industry, even when companies aren't trying to underpay immigrants. It's a fascinating perspective when you get involved with hiring at the offer stage and see the negotiations. You can send the exact same offer to an H1-B and a citizen and the counter-offers will be completely different. A citizen will ask for more comp and an H1-B will ask for an EB2 sponsorship. Both are entirely rational decisions the since employment flexibility of a green card is probably worth more to an immigrant than an immediate increase in comp.
> Best reform idea I've heard...
I still think the best idea is to impose ratios like other countries do. Let companies hire as many immigrants as the like so long as they're also employing, in similar positions, the requisite number of Americans as well. If the theory is that highly-skilled immigrants are bringing skills and knowledge that's in short supply here, we should be trying to have them work with Americans as much as possible so that Americans can learn from them. Companies that abuse the current system end up having nearly all-immigrant work forces. Meanwhile, smaller companies without large legal teams can have difficulty getting even a single H1-B hired. Ratios fix both problems and they also help immigrants assimilate faster because there's less chance they end up working with mostly other immigrants.
Your idea of using salary as the deciding factor is great in theory, but in practice we don't allocate capital wisely. We'd end up with a lot of H1-Bs in finance and almost none in science or any of the many lower-paying areas that require education and intelligence.
By pure economic logic, they must. Because the cost of the immigration attorneys and process has to be paid by the employee. If the employer absorbed that cost, it would be cheaper to hire local at the same price(salary).
Not only that, but the lower level of mobility an immigrant has means he cant switch jobs as easily, thus sacrifices potential earnings that a local wouldnt.
There is no way around it: any restriction you make will harm the person being restricted. It is thus that it think any kind of immigration policy aims at harming individuals at the request of others.
The best reform would be remove the requirement altogether and let companies hire who they want, and individuals work where they want to. While the US pertains itself to questions like how restrictive their visas should be, other countries panic at the constant brain drain.
They are not the majority, most visas go to the Indian Outsourcing companies.
You're making an argument based on an infrequent exception to the rule
The example he gave seems to indicate that the power dynamic you just mentioned carries over to entrepreneurs who have equity in the firm, who are empowered to make decisions and so on.
When the "entrepreneurs" very status in the US is dependent on being in the good-graces of anyone else - especially vultures like VC firms - these "entrepreneurs" are no better than indentured servants.
Think of it this way - any dispute with the "sponsoring" VC firm could snowball into a complaint to DHS which could result in the "entrepreneur" having to leave the country (and leave behind the carcass of a company the VC's will then proceed to digest).
Entrepreneurs might not understand or appreciate this yet, but they are better off going to Canada or somewhere else as landed immigrants with rights - instead of living in the US as indentured servants of some entity.
The junking of this rule has potentially saved so many startups from being absorbed by entrenched players (Hello Google Ventures). The resultant dispersion of wealth/ideas and the increase in competition will benefit all of us.
I don't know if you believe this to be true. How would this work?
VC: We have a complaint!
DHS: Yes?
VC: The entrepreneur wants to grant more options to their main people.
DHS: okay... so?
VC: Please dissolve the company, make my equity worth zero, and return this person to their country?
DHS: What?
VC: Good point, just make them turn their equity into MY equity and then kick them out
I just don't know what you imagine this rule to be. How do you think this works? On an H1b you can just fire the employee and they have to leave. I understand the mechanics of the power. For a VC and an entrepreneur, the VC has shares in a company that is run by the entrepreneur. The entrepreneur ALSO has shares in the company and always will even if they leave the country.
VC: Hey DHS, Entrepreneur lied about something 2 years ago just before/after he came here.
Entrepreneur: That was not a lie - that was marketing. Every business does it.
DHS: "Get out"
> For a VC and an entrepreneur, the VC has shares in a company that is run by the entrepreneur. The entrepreneur ALSO has shares in the company and always will even if they leave the country.
This is nice in theory, but in practice (especially in knowledge economy companies), the employees are the company - everything else is furniture, coffee machines, ping pong tables...
The VC can just start a new company with ideas stolen from the person they just kicked out. They can offer the (now unemployed) employees of the previous company slightly more equity and money then they would have received at the previous company.
I don't understand why you are defending a system like this.
Let's just understand what "the system" is in the first place.
Whether it is morally good or bad we can decide after we make sure we are talking about the same system.
It sounds like you are suggesting that DHS would kick out the entrepreneur if there was a falsehood on marketing materials?
I don't know what that example was supposed to illustrate so please clarify, because I don't think that is how it would work.
Secondly, I don't know under what conditions DHS is allowed to cancel visas.
But let's more on to the other matter, which is the relationship between the VC and the entrepreneur. You acknowledge that the "knowledge" is key, but you still think that they can replace the person who is running the company?
Finally, you agree that the person would still retain ownership in the company?
Why due to the accident if geography is an American entitled to a salary that an Indian would be willing to do for less? How is that fair?
I am not going to argue about "Fair" because it is a value judgment which depends on your moral and political predilections. This isn't the right place for such discussions.
However there is definitely no such thing as an 'accident of geography'. I see this all the time expressed as a implicit argument, which I believe to be a form of pre-scientific thinking that has crept into our world view.
Sperm cells are not randomly selected in some kind of bingo ball system in the ether when a woman is impregnated.
It is one of the least random things possible - the entire catalogue of back choices of your ancestors is present as part of that inception. All of history, culture, geography, must have been necessary for you to be born where you are born. If you think otherwise, then you must not believe evolution theory is real or you have to be compartmentalizing it away from the present somehow, as if it were theoretical pure math instead of an always present reality.
I have a million dollars. I hire you to manage it for me. You decide that, you know, it's kind of lopsided that one person have all this money, so you distribute it to 99 others. Do you have the moral high ground in this situation?
Assuming that SOMEONES job has to receive that wage pressure, who better than highly paid workers?
The question is WHICH X people should we let in. Should we let in X low skilled workers or X high skilled workers?
You could perhaps make the argument that the US should lower the TOTAL amount of people let into the country.
But if that is your argument, then there is no point in talking about software engineers. You should be worried about the construction workers wages that are being reduced.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/International_entrepreneur_rul...
At the two year mark, you need to show further investment, to extend the visa three more years.
Failure to hit these numbers means your visa gets taken away.
Its 'something like' indentured servitude, except it isn't. It isn't slavery either. Nor torture or any number of other emotionally laden words we could come up with.
Its an employment deal. Its an immigration option. Others exist. Don't choose it if you don't like it.
I agree with the op, btw. To make things better for local workers, h1b workers should be offered greater mobility so as to create competition which properly values their skills. Earlier suggestion by the Trump administration that instead of a lottery only the highest paid h1b workers will be admitted sounds quite sane, too.
Disclosure: naturalized citizen, former H1B.
What if they have debts to pay off at home, and it's the only realistic option available? Going home means not being able to pay those debts off.
If immigration where free, or almost free, then these companies would hire even more people, and all others would also do it. The amount of immigration the tech sector would have if people could go to the us, stay 6 months to acclimate, learn and pick jobs, would skyrocket and would increase the talent pool for companies.
The great supporter of such restrictions are the people that think their own wage would be reduced if more competition were brought up. And they would be right to fear that in the short term. In the longer term, lower wages would also mean higher profits, thus higher capital which would eventually rise wages again.
Any immigration policy is more often than not a problem of bias and misunderstanding from the public, and a matter of voters for the politicians.
I didn't think about the aspect of people seeing VC funding; not self funded people.
Also, when I first read this article, I wondered what industry stood to gain from this move. Presidents are members of the 1% and their policies are dictated by the top income earners, not the opinions of most voters[0]. Although companies might publicly be against this, they must be secretly benefiting. Maybe big tech players don't want disruptive startups coming in and taking their markets?
[0]: http://fightthefuture.org/videos/does-voting-make-a-differen...
While the plight of illegal immigrants and the stories of the lonely technical geniuses sorrowing as they fail to gain entry to the U.S. may be heartwrenching, make no mistake that the true interest of the powerful is keeping a labor force that is cheap and easily exploited. If you take away dubious immigration status, their employers lose that much authority over them.
I see correcting such conditions as Trump's primary interest. He is the epitome of "Don't hate the player, hate the game", and as a businessman who has tried many different things, he knows that there is a lowest common denominator effect in business. If your competitor is going to China and getting stuff made for a few cents, you are putting yourself at a major disadvantage by not doing so. You can't effectively compete if your manufacturing costs are significantly higher. Consumers assume that legal structures prevent unfair competition and exploitation by default, but this been slowly degraded under false political doctrines pushed by MegaCorps and wrapped neatly in the bow of egalitarianism.
Trump ran and won so that he could level the playing field. Trump's position, IMO, is "Make the rules bar exploitation of consumers and workers without breaking competition and entrepreneurship". This is a credible counter to the "trickle-down economics" theory of "Give owners as much money as possible and you'll get a share somewhere along the line", and that's the primary reason that the Republican power players hate him. Trump is offering a more fair route not by proposing government seizure/control, regimentation, or handouts (which are easy arguments to discredit), but simply by restoring the baseline rules of the marketplace that consumers take for granted.
L-1 visa holders _cannot_ change jobs. H-1B visa holders have to go through an expensive and cumbersome process to change jobs which effectively restricts their job mobility.
Obviously, outside super-hot job markets like silicon valley, US workers have a hard time competing with indentured labor.
This visa would have created brand new class of "entrepreneur" indentured to deep-pocketed VC firms. They would actually be worse off than H-1B and L-1 workers because - not only would they be beholden to the VC firms for funding (thereby their jobs) in the United States - but they would have to part with their ideas.
No nativist here - just saying how things are working on the ground once you shave off the corporate propaganda.