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Re:H-1B: Oracle favored hiring foreign graduates of US colle... by m0zg on Saturday January 26, 2019 @01:11AM (#19005075)
Posted this elsewhere, but as a former H1B here's what should be done to end abuse:

1. Award a fixed pool of H1Bs to qualified applicants with the highest wage in the offer (and monitor that this wage is in fact being paid). This should be easy to pass if your representatives in congress are in fact _your_ representatives. The president will sign this immediately, since he was the one who proposed it in the first place.

2. Establish at least 6 month grace period if the H1B person leaves the sponsoring company to go work elsewhere. Currently if you leave (or are laid off/fired) you have to GTFO within 2 weeks, so people endure abuse and low wages for years until they get a green card.

There. There's your solution. No need to do anything else, guaranteed to work. It should not be possible to hire foreign workers into entry level positions at all.

Re:H-1B: Oracle favored hiring foreign graduates of US colle... by vowelless on Saturday January 26, 2019 @08:42AM (#19006235)
> It should not be possible to hire foreign workers into entry level positions at all.

And with that, you perhaps got rid of a (imo) very useful subset of potential future Americans: ones who went to college and graduate school in the US.

This group went through it’s formative years in the United States. They are deeply imbibed in the culture and eventually start identifying with it. However, if they can’t get an entry level job, they now have to leave the country to go back to where they came from (or some other alternative like Canada / Australia). Instead, you would rather be bringing in 30 year olds from foreign nations who are unlikely to change and adopt America as much as someone who moved here at 18 would; and who have formed habits more suited to their nation than to the US.

But as I mentioned above, perhaps this is desireable.

Re:H-1B: Oracle favored hiring foreign graduates of US colle... by rbanffy on Saturday January 26, 2019 @08:46AM (#19006258)
> go back to where they came from

That's not really a nice thing to say.

Re:H-1B: Oracle favored hiring foreign graduates of US colle... by vowelless on Saturday January 26, 2019 @08:50AM (#19006266)
It’s been said to me plenty. I don’t mind it :)
Re:H-1B: Oracle favored hiring foreign graduates of US colle... by rbanffy on Saturday January 26, 2019 @11:43AM (#19007008)
I would mind having the place I came from called a "shit hole".
Re:H-1B: Oracle favored hiring foreign graduates of US colle... by airstrike on Saturday January 26, 2019 @09:09AM (#19006334)
> 1. Award a fixed pool of H1Bs to qualified applicants with the highest wage in the offer

There is no reason for a fixed pool to exist, and it's not easy to rank applicants by wage given significant disparities in cost of living depending on geography

Re:H-1B: Oracle favored hiring foreign graduates of US colle... by m0zg on Saturday January 26, 2019 @06:20PM (#19009214)
It blows my mind how, at the same time, the same people can argue in favor of "equality", and in favor of importing unlimited amounts of cheap labor to depress the wages of people who need money the most. It just doesn't compute, at all. And I'm perfectly fine with high cost of living areas getting all the H1Bs. Those areas also happen to have some of the highest tax rates in the country, so the US benefits.
Re:H-1B: Oracle favored hiring foreign graduates of US colle... by airstrike on Saturday January 26, 2019 @10:06PM (#19010134)
First of all, there's a difference between imposing a quota on the number of H-1Bs and raising the bar for applications to be approved. I'm in favor of the latter, and the former makes no sense. If the U.S. needs more skilled labor than it can provide, then it should allow as many immigrants as needed to come over to fill the gap. I hope that strikes you as a pretty obvious argument

Second, inequality in the U.S. has nothing to do with an abundance of cheap labor. It has to do with macro trends in globalization and cheap jobs being outsourced to (mostly) Asia.

[dead]
Re:H-1B: Oracle favored hiring foreign graduates of US colle... by diogenescynic on Saturday January 26, 2019 @01:19AM (#19005104)
This is a very dumb straw man attack. Stop it.
Re:H-1B: Oracle favored hiring foreign graduates of US colle... by an_cap on Saturday January 26, 2019 @01:29AM (#19005134)
How so? I claim that severe discrimination (like banning a group of people from entry level positions) based on circumstances of birth is ethically dubious. I think that's why we don't entertain the idea of banning people from entry level work because they were born to black parents. Why doesn't it generalize to being born to Indian parents?
Re:H-1B: Oracle favored hiring foreign graduates of US colle... by diogenescynic on Saturday January 26, 2019 @01:38AM (#19005159)
Because it’s intellecually dishonest and an argument based on the fallacy of appeal to extremes.

There is obviously a difference between citizenship and race... the entire purpose of a government is to service its citizens. Unfortunately, we don’t live in a Star Trek utopia where there is free movement of all people. If one country were to allow this first, they’d just be harming themselves, which would be against the interests of its citizens. You look out for your own citizens first. That’s just a government fundamental.

Re:H-1B: Oracle favored hiring foreign graduates of US colle... by m0zg on Saturday January 26, 2019 @02:14AM (#19005263)
Don't feed the troll.
Re:H-1B: Oracle favored hiring foreign graduates of US colle... by rbanffy on Saturday January 26, 2019 @08:51AM (#19006273)
> Unfortunately, we don’t live in a Star Trek utopia where there is free movement of all people.

Maybe it's worth examining why would that be from time to time.

Re:H-1B: Oracle favored hiring foreign graduates of US colle... by m0zg on Saturday January 26, 2019 @02:13AM (#19005261)
Now would be a good time for dang to get involved.
Re:H-1B: Oracle favored hiring foreign graduates of US colle... by umanwizard on Saturday January 26, 2019 @02:20AM (#19005280)
...why? Whether you agree with it or not, “people should have the right to relocate to other countries for work” doesn’t seem like an outrageously offensive or trolling opinion.

Why does it cause such an emotional reaction for you?

Re:H-1B: Oracle favored hiring foreign graduates of US colle... by m0zg on Saturday January 26, 2019 @02:32AM (#19005310)
Because immigration is not a "right". It's a privilege. And if this privilege is afforded at all, it should be afforded in such a way as to not screw the citizens whom the government represents, through social contract and otherwise. Otherwise the citizens should elect the government that will represent their interests. I mean it's not rocket science, it's civics 101.
Re:H-1B: Oracle favored hiring foreign graduates of US colle... by maksimum on Saturday January 26, 2019 @02:47AM (#19005358)
Based on the US's history, relatively free immigration has made the country as a whole very successful. It's not obvious that citizens should want protectionist immigration policy.
Re:H-1B: Oracle favored hiring foreign graduates of US colle... by raverbashing on Saturday January 26, 2019 @06:00AM (#19005786)
"Free"

Yeah not really. This is a bit of a myth (a little bit like the "90% income tax rate" magic that people seem to believe)

1 - Immigration was severely limited by the technology (and let's say societal limitations) of the time. Getting a ticket on a ship was expensive, even for 3rd class. 2 Million Irish went to the US around the Famine time (time frame of 40yrs +/-). Compare that with the number of people from Latin America in the US (though % the number of Irish is higher)

2 - About 'societal limitations' going was nothing but a gamble. There was no expectations of government aid, of non-prejudice. No credit cards, no easy way to take money unless you actually took your money with you. Getting a ticket back was not an option.

3 - Even on Ellis Island people did get rejected and sent back on the basis of health https://www.history.com/news/immigrants-ellis-island-short-p...

The real tightening of immigration seems to have happened around the 60s (though some other acts are from the 19th century like the one that limited Chinese immigration)

So it was certainly "freer", in the same way that immigration for the ultra-rich today is almost free as well.

Note that I'm not arguing against immigration (within some limits), but once a country's population increases I guess there are more people against it, and less of a practical interest in it.

Re:H-1B: Oracle favored hiring foreign graduates of US colle... by hrktb on Saturday January 26, 2019 @06:19AM (#19005840)
To push the idea furter, a lot of things we call “rights” are privileges in that sense.

The basis of most of them is citizenship, which is basically people born in the right place or from the right parents. If you are born in Germany you have the ‘right’ to move anywhere in the EU. If you have Japanese parents you have the ‘right’ to work in Japan.

The same way wealthy foreigner will have the means to buy these ‘rights’ and become citizen.

Re:H-1B: Oracle favored hiring foreign graduates of US colle... by mehrdadn on Saturday January 26, 2019 @08:53AM (#19006282)
I'm on my phone and can't check right now but I'm fairly confident there is global consensus (Geneva convention? or UN or similar) on when/how citizenship is a human right and that there is no such consensus on immigration being a right (modulo refugees), so no, these are not comparable.
Re:H-1B: Oracle favored hiring foreign graduates of US colle... by hrktb on Saturday January 26, 2019 @02:14PM (#19007848)
Looking around I only found this, which seems to go more in the “open citizenship to everyone” direction:

https://worldinterfaithharmonyweek.com/equal-citizenship-rig...

Or this kind of thinkpiece going basically in the same direction.

https://forestshakespeare.wordpress.com/2011/08/04/citizensh...

I’d be really interested if you could point me to what you were refering to.

Re:H-1B: Oracle favored hiring foreign graduates of US colle... by mehrdadn on Saturday January 26, 2019 @11:23PM (#19010335)
I'm not sure what you searched for but you shouldn't need obscure sources like that for this... a bit of quick searching re: citizenship rights found [1] for me from the UN. Whereas for migration there's [2] which makes it clear there is no universal agreement on migration rights. [3] seems to make it even more clear that it's up to countries to decide migration policy. I'm sure more can be found via some more searching.

[1] https://www.ohchr.org/EN/Issues/Pages/Nationality.aspx

> The right to a nationality is a fundamental human right.

> States shall introduce safeguards to prevent statelessness by granting their nationality to persons who would otherwise be stateless and are either born in their territory or are born abroad to one of their nationals.

> States shall also prevent statelessness upon loss or deprivation of nationality.

[2] https://www.ohchr.org/en/issues/migration/pages/migrationand...

> It is increasingly clear that a lack of human rights-based migration governance at the global, regional and national levels is leading to the routine violation of migrants’ rights in transit, at international borders, and in the countries they migrate to.

[3] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Global_Compact_for_Migration

> The Global Compact reaffirms the sovereign right of States to determine their national migration policy and their prerogative to govern migration within their jurisdiction, in conformity with international law. [...]

Re:H-1B: Oracle favored hiring foreign graduates of US colle... by hrktb on Monday January 28, 2019 @04:03AM (#19016102)
Thanks, this was in a very good read. I didn’t look it ip from the right angle I think.

It is very interesting that it’s a right to have _a_ nationality, with nothing more really.

It makes sense for all the issues described in the doc , and it also anchors the notion that except some specific cases that can trigger violations of human rights, a state basically does what it wants regarding who get nationality and who doesn’t, or how it deals with migration.

It reminds me a lot about rules in EU countries forbiding from evicting people from their home during the winter, or more broadly rules requiring to provide help to someone in situation of danger.

Re:H-1B: Oracle favored hiring foreign graduates of US colle... by mehrdadn on Monday January 28, 2019 @04:18AM (#19016148)
It seems a pretty bad mischaracterization of what I posted above to say "except some specific cases that can trigger violations of human rights, a state basically does what it wants regarding who get nationality". It's the exact opposite. The whole point was that in general states cannot strip away your nationality except for the specific minority of people who have another one.
Re:H-1B: Oracle favored hiring foreign graduates of US colle... by an_cap on Saturday January 26, 2019 @02:52AM (#19005371)
At the risk of cementing your conviction of my troll status, I have some civics 101 questions for you. (I also have rocket science questions, but I'll leave that for another day.)

1. At a time when blacks were not citizens of the United States, many people argued that giving blacks basic freedoms would screw the whites that the government represented. I hope we all agree that according to basic human decency 101 that was not a compelling argument.

2. This is true even if it would indeed screw over whites by say pushing down their wages from, oh I don't know, absurdly high to only moderately high.

3. Which freedoms are privileges and which are rights? The freedom to not be a slave, a component of which was working for whomever you wanted, seems to be a right. The freedom to rent an apartment from a willing landlord irrespective of your skin color seems to be a right. But the freedom to work for Oracle for less money than you'd like if I was born in the wrong country seems not to be one. I'd appreciate a civics 101 lesson on why.

Re:H-1B: Oracle favored hiring foreign graduates of US colle... by rbanffy on Saturday January 26, 2019 @08:50AM (#19006267)
Well... This "immigration as a right" certainly didn't work well for native Americans, did it?

Now, seriously, don't you think America (as it is currently) gains a lot from its diversity? Since when did it abandon its "melting pot" culture?

Re:H-1B: Oracle favored hiring foreign graduates of US colle... by umanwizard on Sunday January 27, 2019 @05:32PM (#19014162)
I'm not taking a position either way -- I'm confused why you think the contrary opinion is so horrible that it merits the admins of the site getting involved and shutting down the discussion.
Re:H-1B: Oracle favored hiring foreign graduates of US colle... by dennisgorelik on Saturday January 26, 2019 @02:50AM (#19005364)
Do you imply that working immigrants "screw the citizens"?
Re:H-1B: Oracle favored hiring foreign graduates of US colle... by m0zg on Saturday January 26, 2019 @03:08AM (#19005407)
As an immigrant it'd be disingenuous for me to suggest that. But the real answer is, it depends. I pay six figures in taxes. I can tolerate a little bit of screwage if my wage gets depressed by increased supply of my skill. Now consider the working poor, who are aiming to get that sweet, sweet $15/hr minimum wage (with benefits!). They're currently objectively screwed because there are hundreds of thousands of people coming over the border willing to work for half that, with no benefits, and tolerate abuse. Or consider a student who has just got her degree and has $100k+ student loan to pay back. Their tolerance for wage depression is a lot lower than mine. So I argue it is not correct to consider "citizens" as a uniform, average mass. Some strata within this mass will do just fine if they are paid a little less, some most definitely will not.
Re:H-1B: Oracle favored hiring foreign graduates of US colle... by alkibiades on Saturday January 26, 2019 @02:42AM (#19005339)
the first statement "sort of like hiring black people". is calling him racist outright. civil discourse stops there.