I agree, there is a non-quota limited O visa for temporary workers for the best and brightest [1].
>> The O-1 nonimmigrant visa is for the individual who possesses extraordinary ability in the sciences, arts, education, business, or athletics, or who has a demonstrated record of extraordinary achievement in the motion picture or television industry and has been recognized nationally or internationally for those achievements.
H-1B is also required for jobs that can't be filled but is definitely being abused.
The best and brightest from around the world can ALWAYS get in with no limit with the O visa [2].
>> There is a misconception about the H-1B program that it was designed to allow companies to import workers with unique talents. There has long been a visa program for exactly that purpose. The O (for outstanding) visa program is for importing geniuses and nothing else. Interestingly enough, the O visa program has no quotas.
The H-1B abuse is more a situation where large companies are abusing it to lower labor costs and wages while owning employees. It will never affect the best and brightest from working in the US by getting an O visa though.
[1] https://www.uscis.gov/working-united-states/temporary-worker...
[2] https://www.cringely.com/2012/10/23/what-americans-dont-know...
Just saying, the requirements of the O visa are usually very unreasonable.
An application must satisfy 3 of the below requirements:
1. Receipt of nationally or internationally recognized prizes or awards for excellence in the field of endeavor
2. Membership in associations in the field for which classification is sought which require outstanding achievements, as judged by recognized national or international experts in the field
3. Published material in professional or major trade publications, newspapers or other major media about the beneficiary and the beneficiary’s work in the field for which classification is sought
4. Original scientific, scholarly, or business-related contributions of major significance in the field
5. Authorship of scholarly articles in professional journals or other major media in the field for which classification is sought
6. A high salary or other remuneration for services as evidenced by contracts or other reliable evidence Participation on a panel, or individually, as a judge of the work of others in the same or in a field of specialization allied to that field for which classification is sought Employment in a critical or essential capacity for organizations and establishments that have a distinguished reputation
Afaik, this would usually put a person in the domain of top PhD student or professor. I doubt any masters/undergrad would be able to qualify for such a requirement. A PhD isn't for everyone, and IMO isn't always positively correlated with intelligence. (in that many of the smartest people have no intention of going into research /academia).
The kind of people from India who would qualify for the O-1 would usually be in the 99.99th percentile. At that point we aren't just talking about the smartest people. These people go beyond that. (at least in CS, where PhDs are very competitive)
H-1B is for the pretty good developer or when there are labor shortages of certain skills. There is a market need for it but it is also being abused to lower wages and own people undoubtedly.
I never said H-1B wasn't needed nor am I against immigration. But the argument that with less H-1Bs the best and brightest wouldn't get in is not correct. The O visa are always there for that and a separate line. The H-1B line is a line that is the pretty good and needed extra labor to fill shortages, but again, ripe for abuse. That is why it has quota to begin with, without quotas I have no doubt companies like Oracle would have large percentages of their workers if not all as H-1Bs.
Ultimately H-1B could be expanded and made easier even if companies didn't abuse it. One way to change this is allow H-1Bs to change companies, though I am sure this would be abused by middle man contracting companies as well. So ultimately a quota is the only failsafe for abuse. The problem isn't immigration/temporary workers, it is companies using it to lower wages and that harms all workers domestic and foreign and at a macro level our entire economy.
Side note your items some of them are merged full list (8 where 2-8 are pretty doable with 5-8 even more doable for the truly best and brightest):
> 1. Receipt of nationally or internationally recognized prizes or awards for excellence in the field of endeavor
> 2. Membership in associations in the field for which classification is sought which require outstanding achievements, as judged by recognized national or international experts in the field
> 3. Published material in professional or major trade publications, newspapers or other major media about the beneficiary and the beneficiary’s work in the field for which classification is sought
> 4. Original scientific, scholarly, or business-related contributions of major significance in the field
> 5. Authorship of scholarly articles in professional journals or other major media in the field for which classification is sought
> 6. A high salary or other remuneration for services as evidenced by contracts or other reliable evidence
> 7. Participation on a panel, or individually, as a judge of the work of others in the same or in a field of specialization allied to that field for which classification is sought
> 8. Employment in a critical or essential capacity for organizations and establishments that have a distinguished reputation
I think you are being uncharitable to your own cause here.
If you want to pad $1 trillion to your economy, you are going to have to drain a few millions down the lane. And its absolutely worth it. For some paltry cents and nickels you get to be the most powerful, most wealth super power on earth. Starting a few Google like companies absolutely requires getting a good double digit percentage of people, who are likely to try and fail. There is no guaranteed recipe to these things.
Its already a miracle that somebody like Germany, France, UK or even India(Though Bangalore shows a lot of early promise) hasn't set up a SV like economic zone. Then you have to compete with them. As of now all the tax they pay goes into the kitty to pay for social security cheques, space projects and range of other moon shot first world projects.
You are guys currently sitting on the world domination throne. And your biggest debate at this point is debating legalese and getting worked up about local politics. A little a short on vision is what I would say.
Not really, not the workers. The reason the US is ahead in this is mainly investing, financing, education and credit. I'd also argue America has independence, innovation and disruption embedded in the core, other places squash that via corruption or authoritarian controls.
Nowhere in my statement did I say anything against immigration or temporary workers, I solely blame companies for exploiting it. I like that America attracts people, people want to come and work here for the higher pay and higher quality of life. I'd rather people come here to work for market value not below.
From the OP article, Oracle purposefully abuses the H-1B system to lower wages for not only temporary workers but domestic and immigrant workers as well, to lock them into basically a prison of working just for Oracle at lower wages.
> “These students required work authorization to remain in the United States after graduation,” the Labor Department said in a court filing. “In other words, Oracle overwhelmingly hires workers dependent upon Oracle for sponsorship to remain in the United States. This preference for a workforce that is dependent on Oracle for authorization to work in the United States lends itself to suppression of that workforce’s wages.”
> Of about 500 recent college and university graduates hired into three job categories at Oracle from 2013 to 2016, some 90 percent were Asian, the filing said.
> At the same time, Asians, blacks and women were “systematically underpaid,” according to allegations in the lawsuit, which also claimed that unequal pay cost workers $400 million in lost wages.
> “Industry’s key argument for more cheap H-1B and OPT guest workers is that there’s a shortage of U.S. talent,” Hira said. “That argument completely falls apart in the face of these findings. In fact, the industry is using the visa programs for cheaper guest workers, undercutting U.S. workers, damaging the U.S. talent pipeline, and exacerbating its woeful record on workforce diversity.”
What Oracle is doing is lowering the quality of life for people here, immigrants, and guest workers.
The H-1B system also makes it very hard on small to medium businesses to bring in H-1B due to being locked to one company, allowing them to work for others may solve this and the pay issues.
Right now though the H-1B system is only beneficial to large companies, and most are looking to decrease quality of life or wages. I want even temporary workers to get paid market rate if they take the risks coming here.
What would be your solution to stop companies from abusing the system for the purpose of depressing wages for both domestic and foreign workers?
If you have no solution, understand the companies are the ones breaking this system, not the people seeking opportunity. The employers that abuse H-1B would be happy with a lower quality of life for all, making people more dependent. Noone wants that except the uber wealthy, those are the guys "sitting on the world domination throne". We want people to come here, but if we don't fight for quality of life, the reason people want to come here, people won't want to come here.
Indians abuses the system severely by setting up phony staffing companies and do fake multiple filings on h1b application, etc.
There is a saying, that if an Indian becomes a manager, soon all his department becomes Indians, which really stands out among all other races. I will not be surprised someday they will be sued for not following equal job rights.
Most Indians I know, hate this H1B abuse as much as Americans. (maybe even more. I have seen people spout some genuine hate towards it) It ruins the reputation of most Indians in Masters programs at well regarded R1 universities (most people at such programs, get proper full time roles to my knowledge)
> There is a saying, that if an Indian becomes a manager, soon all his department becomes Indians, which really stands out among all other races. I will not be surprised someday they will be sued for not following equal job rights.
haven't seen enough teams here to refute this claim. Hope it ain't so, but knowing Indians, I wouldn't be that surprised if some Indian managers did behave in such a manner.
It can get worse. "Woman was told she’d be fired if she didn’t marry boss’s Indian relative so he could immigrate here" - [0]
0 - https://www.surreynowleader.com/news/judge-annuls-hairdresse...
Secondly, this happened in Canada where Sikh/Punjabi immigration was not skill based, but rather fueled by mostly uneducated people looking for a better life. This is completely in contrast to the H1B which is a skill based employment visa.
Here are some educated managers in US tech companies - [0]
0 - https://www.teamblind.com/article/Do-all-Indian-managers-suc...
Being a manager usually takes English proficiency, so Chinese managers in western companies are not as common. Given the racial breakdown of people in software, that leaves most people with either an Indian or white manager.
However, people never generalize white people culturally, because it is well understood that their color doesn't say much about how they are culturally or ideologically wired.
Similarly 'south asians' as a racial group are pretty culturally and socio-economically diverse. So generalizing such a huge subgroup is not very helpful. People differ in key ideologies of how to go about things as you cross state, religious, developmental lines in south Asia.
That being said, I can hypothesize why certain Indians may display traits that are considered undesirable among managers. But that write up must wait for another day.
This exact phenomenon plays out in India as well at a more granular level and across all job families and public/private sector companies. The more you zoom in more granular it gets.
E.g., South Indian manager prefers South Indian reportees, a manager in Karnataka prefers someone from his caste, and so on.
I wonder if it's an Asian specific phenomenon. Where family, regional, clans etc., affiliation trumps meritocracy. I've heard similar stories in Indonesia too where relatives or those from same islands are given preferential treatment by the bosses.
My second was a ERP startup also in NYC much bigger than the first and fits your narrative -- the founder was Indian-American[?], a Princeton and HBS graduate, who had made a wad load of money in outsourcing business. Most of the principles reporting directly to him were also Indians who had worked at Cognizant and Infosys previously and whose technical or management skills were ..umm.. not very good or non-existence. The company still hired mostly H1Bs straight from India and Indians graduated from well-known US universities. They hired a lot of kids with advanced degrees, but who weren't clearly from top of the crop -- for lack of better words -- or passionate about their chosen field. Some were good, but many questionable. There were also new recruits with a master in CS (from US univ) could barely write a single line of code and had to be trained to perform monkey work from clean slate.
Source?
https://www.recode.net/2017/4/13/15281170/china-india-tech-h...
That's nonsense. Indians aren't one race. Indians are multiracial themselves. There are dark-skinned Indians that are mistaken for African American, and there are light skinned Indians that are mistaken for Italian Americans. The states of India are like countries of Europe in that each state has its own language: Gujarathi, Tamil, Kannada, Bengali etc.
Race doesn't exist, there is only skin color, ethnicity, haplogroups, nationality, language, subculture, etc.
But targeting specific industries is unfair - the software industry has been the main target, lowering the income levels respective to other, protected professions (physicians, etc.), or business executives.
Since people in the trades like plumbers or electricians do not fall under the umbrella of "importing the best & brightest", their hourly rates have been going up steadily (for self-employed people).
I don’t see software engineers suffering. Starting salary in FAANG conpanies is $120K to $250K. That’s better than doctors when you factor in years of education.
If reforms like this happened, the incentive for companies to abuse the system would go down. Setting up fake staffing companies would still be a problem, but catching immigration/employment fraud is a different problem and should be resourced appropriately.
Cheap credit helps one party and harms another within a country. It doesn't make a nation powerful. Technology, invention, scientific output, universities, capital for investment, scale, production / manufacturing, attractiveness to foreign talent and investment, modestly sane regulatory and tax policies, strong protections for property rights, ease of establishing and doing business, ease of trade, etc. Those are a few of the things that help to make a nation powerful. Those are things the US has either been the leader in or one of the leaders for the last century plus.
Much of Western Europe has had cheaper borrowing than the US for many years now, including in real-estate, corporate borrowing and at the government level. It didn't spur a great boom and increase their power. At best it has helped them tread water, which is all it did for Japan.
When someone appears to be unbelievably naieve, they are often trying to sell you something. Either you're a foreigner who wants to convince us you're worth it, or you're a a corporate plant.
The idea that we are the greatest nation because we have the best and brightest from around the world is simply not true. If it was true, our immigration policy would be based on IQ today.
China can't be a superpower because they are hemmed in by Russia to the north, India to the south, US/Japan/Korea alliance in the east and Iran/Central Asia/Middle East to the west.
If it is true that number of "geniuses" makes a nation the most powerful in the world, the most powerful nations would have been china and india. We know that's not the case. So your theory contradicts itself.
There are 4x as many geniuses in China as in the US. This is not because they are superior genetically. This is simply because the population of China is 4x that of USA. If one in 1,000,000 people are geniuses, then China must have 4x more geniuses than the US. That's a threat to the US. If our economy is to remain strong and if we are to remain a superpower we should invite the smartest of the Chinese to immigrate to the US.
Abuse of H1B must be stopped. It is not intended as a mechanism for undercutting American workers. But the baby should not be thrown out with the bathwater. We should expand the H1B system and make it easier for immigrants to become citizens, while at the same time preventing abuse.