America’s Need for Skilled Immigrants Isn’t Going Away

Re:America’s Need for Skilled Immigrants Isn’t Going Away by dkhenry on Wednesday October 24, 2018 @01:09PM (#18294314)

you can get the same effect on salary by making it easier for a H1B recipient to leave the company that brought them over. Right now its very hard for a visa recipient to move companies so they can be given sub market rate salaries, if you make it so once they show up they can move to get a market rate salary then the companies who make a pratice of hiring foreign talent and paying them below market rates will end. The companies will incur all the cost of bringing in an H1B and some other company can just pay them more and receive the benefit.

This also addresses the concerns about salary differences between different industries and regions.

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Re:America’s Need for Skilled Immigrants Isn’t Going Away by dudul on Wednesday October 24, 2018 @01:11PM (#18294340)

In theory it is not very complicated for a H1B to change employer. It simply requires the employer to file a petition to sponsor the H1B. It doesn't count towards the "seats" available yearly, and it's almost guaranteed to be granted. There is a small cost, maybe a few grands. If you think about it, it's way cheaper than paying recruiter fee fo example.

In practice you're right though. Most companies have limited experience with this process and just don't want to get into it.

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Re:America’s Need for Skilled Immigrants Isn’t Going Away by dkhenry on Wednesday October 24, 2018 @01:29PM (#18294508)

If you intend on applying for a green card you need to stick with the same employer until your I-140 is approved. Just getting there with a single employer can take years, and if you don't have an approved I-140 when your H1B expires your out of luck. Also up until 2017 even if you had an I-140 you would still lose your spot in line if your employer revoked it.

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Re:America’s Need for Skilled Immigrants Isn’t Going Away by dominotw on Wednesday October 24, 2018 @01:44PM (#18294668)

oh man. This chain of responses must be literally on hackernews like a million times. Maybe someone can extract QA site from hackernews comments.

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Re:America’s Need for Skilled Immigrants Isn’t Going Away by denebo on Wednesday October 24, 2018 @03:20PM (#18295520)

Two problems:

- The green card process doesn't completely transfer over.

- Filing a petition to transfer an H1B puts the employee at risk of getting a denial. Every petition sent to USCIS is risking an audit, denial, and at the very least, many headaches.

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Re:America’s Need for Skilled Immigrants Isn’t Going Away by belltaco on Wednesday October 24, 2018 @01:26PM (#18294479)

Much of the green card process has to be redone though.

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Re:America’s Need for Skilled Immigrants Isn’t Going Away by dudul on Wednesday October 24, 2018 @01:27PM (#18294490)

Can you elaborate? I'm not very familiar with GC via employment.

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Re:America’s Need for Skilled Immigrants Isn’t Going Away by skksjsnaahs on Wednesday October 24, 2018 @03:39PM (#18295656)

Word on the street from hiring managers is that it now takes > 6 mo to process such a visa transfer and you can’t get premium processing to speed it up.

People are making offers to candidates with undefined start dates many months in the future. The candidate has to commit to switching jobs when the transfer is submitted. If current job gives them a promotion in the interim and they decide to stay, they can’t just cancel the transfer. Their current employer (who didn’t know a transfer was happening) has to file a reverse transfer with the same delay that puts them in some kind of limbo.

It’s a complete clusterfuck and is making it really hard to hire for some positions.

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Re:America’s Need for Skilled Immigrants Isn’t Going Away by dudul on Wednesday October 24, 2018 @07:27PM (#18297356)

I think most of this comment is wrong. A "transfer" is actually not a thing. When another employer files a petition for a worker who already has an H1B, it doesn't "cancel" the first H1B. It simply makes it possible for this second employer to hire the worker. It is completely possible for the applicant to change their mind and decide to stay with the first employer.

I went through 2 H1B "transfers" (so in total I have been employed by 3 different employers as a H1B) 7-ish years ago so I'm very familiar with this process. At least, the way it was working at that time.

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Re:America’s Need for Skilled Immigrants Isn’t Going Away by skksjsnaahs on Wednesday October 24, 2018 @05:48PM (#18296735)

Has anyone had success with an H1B visa transfer in the past few months? If so, I’d be very interested to hear and it would add more to the discussion than a downvote.

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