The article doesn't mention, but I can tell companies definitely use the visa as a way to keep your salary low and work you to the bone. It is extremely hard to change jobs if you are on a visa and the employers know it

I am a tech immigrant to Sweden and even though the work-visa here is not as bad as the US (if we lose our jobs we got 3 months before we have to leave the country!) it is still quite atrocious

> companies definitely use the visa as a way to keep your salary low and work you to the bone.

Isn't this illegal? Aren't H1B required to be paid at least the same as domestic counterparts?

The DOL has salary brackets based on job title, experience, and location but I'm sure there's a way for employers to stick H1B workers into experience brackets below where they should be, locate their H1B workers in offices in cheaper locations, or just simply pay them less than their domestic coworkers while still meeting the salary requirements.

I don't know if discriminating against visa holders is illegal, but most visa holders are minorities so this would be a violation of the civil rights act

What I’ve seen is they get hired at a junior level. Then the promotion opportunities are few and far between.

What do you think importing goods does to salaries?

Contrary to the popular myth, immigration hasn't led to salaries in the tech sector (which has the most immigrants) to go down. In fact, in the last decade they have increased due to an increased competition and high demand.

Immigrants also lead to increased demand and job growth:

"Contrary to popular belief, immigrants do not take away jobs from American workers. Instead, they create new jobs by forming new businesses, spending their incomes on American goods and services, paying taxes and raising the productivity of U.S. businesses. Immigrants are good for the economy, not the other way around." [1]

"However, although immigrants increase the supply of labor, they also spend their wages on homes, food, TVs and other goods and services and expand domestic economic demand. This increased demand, in turn, generates more jobs to build those homes, make and sell food, and transport TVs." [2]

"Most empirical studies indicate long-term benefits for natives’ employment and wages from immigration, although some studies suggest that these gains come at the cost of short-term losses from lower wages and higher unemployment. Standard economic theory implies that while higher labor supply from immigration may initially depress wages, over time firms increase investment to restore the amount of capital per worker, which then restores wages." [2]

[1] https://www.aclu.org/other/immigrants-and-economy [2] https://budgetmodel.wharton.upenn.edu/issues/2016/1/27/the-e...

Yeah, because a 180 year wait for someone who already has an approved green card makes complete sense.

And god forbid they have kids that they brought along with them completely legally because once those kids turn 18 they have absolutely no standing in the US and have to leave the country.

That sounds absolutely reasonable. What makes this even more fascinating is that those kids would have been ok if their parents had come to the US as undocumented immigrants, as opposed to being documented immigrants with approved green cards.

It’s not about visas at all. The people discussed here are on employment visas which have a road to permanent residency.

What we’re talking about here are people who have completed their permanent residency applications and have it approved.

So it’s a discussion about permanent residency, not visas.

From the article:

> "We all have applied for a green card and it has been approved. Only thing is, we need to wait 150 years to get a green card," said Akhilesh Malavalli. "A hundred fifty years! I'll be dead. I'll be dead by the time we see a green card."

> There is a cap on the number of skills-based green cards that can be issued to any one country of origin and there are so many workers from India, getting one has become practically impossible.

So the problem seems to be that Indians are more affected by the quotas, because there are many Indians, but of course this puts them at a disadvantage against other nationalities. There is probably also a good reason to have country of origin quotas, but to me it seems a terrible idea to apply that quota after residency applications have already been approved.

It sucks, but every country has the right to set their own immigration laws. If Indians don't like US laws, maybe they should emigrate to countries that don't put so many onerous restrictions on them. Lots of countries would be happy to have them.

The fact is usa gives one more opportunity and after permanent residency they can start something of their own. That is why people from india emigrate to usa so much.

It gives opportunity to make money in the tech field, but as the article points out, they cannot get permanent residency in the US unless they wait 180 years. Maybe it was different in the past or something, I'm not sure, but obviously the situation right now doesn't look good unless you just want to go to the US for a little while to save up a bunch of money and then go home or to a different country.

Countries are bound by international agreements. There is no such thing as full unrestricted Westphalian-style sovereignty anymore for more than a century already.

Those are nothing more than "agreements". They are not even legally binding unless said countries make them legally binding, and they can make them not binding any time. And there is no enforcement either. International law is a joke.

I think countries should then be at least straight-forward about it.

If they don't want immigrants to settle, they shouldn't allow migrant workers to stay for more than a year or so and make that clear, instead of leaving them in legal limbo for cheap labor, which is close to what Qatar was criticized for.

It would be nice if everyone were totally honest, but that's not realistic I think. It's pretty well-known these days how lousy Qatar is with immigrant labor, and among the well-educated Indian populace that would be interested in high-paid tech jobs in the US, it should be well-known by now how bad the system there is for them and how there's no real path to PR for them. They should, therefore, act accordingly. If they keep coming to the US with the current bad policies, the US won't have much incentive to change those policies.

Of course. And in a Democracy you have the right to petition to change it.

The fact that the only argument commenters here have against what these people are asking for is that “well, it was a law set 30 years ago…” in itself shows that there’s little defense for the current law and very clearly should be changed.

You don't need a democracy to petition for change. Non-democratic countries usually have some kind of mechanism to petition for change too. In a democracy, the difference is that you get to vote for the political leaders if you're a citizen. If you're not, then you don't have a say in governance, aside from just protesting or petitioning.

Sure, the current law sucks, but the same can be said for many laws in America. The law is the law, and if you don't like it, maybe you shouldn't go there, and should pick a more welcoming country.

Sure, and immigrants have the right to ask for better laws. Do you think its wrong for immigrants to provide constructive feedback for better laws, to a country that allowed them to immigrate?

Of course, anyone can complain and provide feedback all they want. But given the US's utterly broken political system, I wouldn't expect much to come of it, and I should think this is obvious to anyone who's paying attention to the world around them.

As far as I can tell, the current situation is not a surprise: someone immigrating from India today should know the situation, and know that there's probably not a good likelihood of it being fixed anytime soon. Given that, why bother going to the US? As I said, there's other countries that are much more welcoming. It seems to me the only reason to go to the US is $$$. Tech workers are overpaid there relative to other countries, so this is attractive to people who want to take advantage of this.

Basically, I see this like going to a casino and then complaining about the odds being stacked against you there. America is a very high-risk place: sure, you can make a lot of money there, if you're skilled and lucky, but all it takes is one big medical problem and you're bankrupt.

Is the word visa in my comment?

>So it’s a discussion about permanent residency, not visas.

This is false, by definition. Permanent residency IS a visa. It's just a more permanent one than a normal work visa. It's still a visa affixed in your passport. And like any other visa, it expires as soon as you leave the country, unless you get a re-entry permit before you leave.

The only thing that's not a visa is citizenship.

Permanent residency is not a visa affixed to your passport, nor does it expire when you leave the country. That’s what makes it permanent residency.

Source: am a US permanent resident.

Try living outside the US for a couple of years and see what happens to your permanent residency.

Relinquishing your residency isn’t the same as a visa expiring. Visas are always time limited, PR is literally permanent unless you commit a crime or live overseas long enough to let it expire.

You get into the US without a visa by having a green card instead.

Well, 150 years waiting list time for a green card (with a deportation looming if any of the long list of administrative conditions is violated) definitely looks like discrimination to me.