They know how many have h1bs, but not how many of them are actually in the US. Which is just amazing. We need to bend over and let them take our privacy away so they can fight the terrorists apparently, but the same government doesnt even keep track of how many h1b holders are in the country? If the data of who every citizen is calling on their phones is so important for national security- how is it not worth the government's time to collect and analyze data to figure out who is actually in the country?

Especially since the government gets from all non-immigrants:

- Common carrier arrival manifests.

- Visa stamp process arrival record and I-94 issuance. [4]

- US-VISIT biometrics collection on arrival. [2]

- Form I-9 when starting a new job. [3]

- Form AR-11 every time they move. [1]

- Common carrier departure manifests.

- Tax returns.

As far as I can tell the only people who "sneak out" do so by crossing the border into Canada and the US should have access to that data from Canadian authorities after the fact also.

[1] https://www.uscis.gov/ar-11

[2] https://www.dhs.gov/xlibrary/assets/usvisit/usvisit_edu_trav...

[3] https://www.uscis.gov/i-9

[4] https://i94.cbp.dhs.gov/I94/

They definitely have all the data they need, verifiable many times over. No one wants to do the work to talk to all the different agencies involved to compile it.

It's unbelievable how much inefficiencies are created from this. I presume it's on purpose to make oversight more difficult.

If there were a pressing need for the exact figure, it would be more accessible. The fact that it isn't means there hasn't been a need for it yet.

When was the last time you traveled outside the USA? Did you notice how Customs and Border Patrol did not check and stamp your passport, like they do for incoming travelers?

Therefore, since there is no way to detect when an H1B worker leaves the country, there is no easy way to estimate the number of H1Bs currently in the country.

Common carriers used to collect paper I-94 forms when visitors were checking in for their return flights. Now they transmit this information to CBP electronically.

This site will let you search your own travel history with both arrival and departure dates - https://i94.cbp.dhs.gov/I94/#/history-search

I find it difficult to believe that official forms of transport passenger manifest data isn't made available to the government, be it plane, ship, etc. especially with "no-fly" lists and the type of information you have to provide (at least for flights). For boats, I have no clue, but I would imagine it wouldn't be too far off.

FTA: Citizenship and Immigration said in its report that coming up with a number for H-1Bs living in the U.S. “is complex, as no electronic data system tracks or houses this information.”

A scream emoji seems appropriate...

Of course it exists. It's called an I-94. DHS has that info.

Every single foreigner is assigned a unique alien number and tracks your entry and exit into the country.

They just don't want to deal with connecting information from two different departments.

Strictly speaking that's insufficient as crossing from the US into Canada by land doesn't invalidate your I-94. They do need to join it against a bunch of other data -- which they do have.

Exactly. They have the data, but they’d need to link it to a few other sources for it to be complete.

The US, unlike Europe (at least in my experience) doesn’t check passports on the way out. They rely on flight manifests or information from Canadian authorities on who has exited.

> unlike Europe

Unlike the Schengen zone, certainly, but some European countries also do not check passports on exit (the UK is a good example).

Bosnia just waived me on when I was crossing through from Croatia. Checking a whole buss must have seemed like too much effort

Yup. It was Schengen in my case.

With so many types of data collected, one shudders to imagine what will happen if they discover the join sql statement.

When did they add the join statement to COBOL?

So when a H1b holder enters the US with their H1b, there is no way for the border official to know if it's real? That seems impossible to me.

When you enter the country on an H1B or otherwise do anything related to any visa status, the onus is on you to carry around all relevant and supporting documentation, in physical, original paper form. Visas, passports etc. existed before computers, probably in much the same way as they do today.

Lots of authentic documents are illegitimate.

You want the government to be more effective and efficient at tracking people?

They already:

* have access to your internet usage, search history, and phone records

* track our location through cellphones

* have surveillance cameras everywhere, in case you didn't bring your phone

* track where your cars is through a vast network of ANPRs

* fly drones/planes over cities doing aerial surveillance

And you think that tracking the number of H1B visa holders is too much?

The roadblock as always is bringing all that info together. Few places have access to all that information and a way to synthesize it together.

well if they claim the H1b program is abused, you bet I'd want them to have real data to report that

Clearly you did not read the article.

In there it clearly states that it is because there is no electronic tracking system of any kind. They're trying to figure out the estimates based on paper records.

I would suggest that you take a look at the guidelines[1] for hacker news, which I believe set a good standard for productive discourse. Particularly:

> Please don't comment on whether someone read an article. "Did you even read the article? It mentions that" can be shortened to "The article mentions that."

[1]: https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html