Some HN comments are down right elitist bordering on xenofobic, assuming that only westerners must be responsible for writing the "good" consumer facing software everyone loves, and that the "boring" corporate software everyone hates or sees no use for must be written by unskilled immigrants from third world countries.

Uhm, sweety, the word is 'xenophobic'- if you're going to defend us female immigrants of color, please do so with the correct spelling of words. Otherwise you make us look even worse.

Sincerely,

Patella from India

Hmm, I didn't feel like they were insulting the H1Bs themselves, just insulting the fact that Microsoft hires a ridiculous amount of them so they can treat the workers like crap and force them to do unpleasant grunt work like this

Agree with other poster - I think he's criticizing the tech industry's abuse of workers who are immigrants, and their motivation to do so that's based on greed and profits and the power imbalance.

He's probably a Midwestern engineer, if you know what I mean.

Or someone not from a coastal state (or Texas).

The US's immigration system is not "broken". It's working exactly as designed. If you don't like the way that country is treating you, then why are you so eager to go there and endure that abuse?

Money :-)

And probably a large population of immigrants so that people don't feel so out of place.

And we can ignore that part and still call out stupidity and evil.

It's not stupidity, though it could be evil. If America's government wanted to "fix" the system, they would. But the system seems to work well for the companies that use it, so is it broken?

Just because you don't like it doesn't mean it's "broken". It's just like how you have to use 3rd-party software to file your taxes and the IRS doesn't just pre-fill forms for you like in other countries. This isn't "broken": it's like this by design, because Intuit lobbied Congress to pass a law forbidding the IRS to make things easier for taxpayers.

Anyway, if your only reason to move to America was money, then it seems silly to complain about being mistreated as an immigrant. You're getting what you signed up for: more money, and with it, more headaches. If you wanted a better lifestyle and better government, you would have picked a different country. And being solely motivated by money seems to me to be a form of evil in itself (evil as in pure selfishness, not evil as in laughing at others suffering).

> It's working exactly as designed.

I am fairly confident that you have no idea what you are talking about.

None other than Adolf Hitler himself admired how "The American Union categorically refuses the immigration of physically unhealthy elements, and simply excludes the immigration of certain races..” [0].

If you are aware of how to immigration system specifically puts some people in a short line that takes 3 months to clear, and others of a specific national origin in a different line that takes decades to clear, with all other factors being exactly equal, and still believe that the system is working exactly as designed, we have a problem.

[0]. https://www.timesofisrael.com/american-laws-against-coloreds...

>If you are aware of how to immigration system specifically puts some people in a short line that takes 3 months to clear, and others of a specific national origin in a different line that takes decades to clear, with all other factors being exactly equal, and still believe that the system is working exactly as designed, we have a problem.

Then I guess we have a problem. The system is working exactly as it's designed. Maybe you don't like it, maybe you think it's racist or unfair or whatever, but you need to take it up with the people who designed the system. It's working just the way they want it to.

The only big problem I see here is that you seem to think that everyone (including national leaders and wealthy interests who pay them) wants the same kind of immigration system as you do.

MS chooses H1B's specifically because they can abuse and exploit them, forcing long hours with the threat of deportation upon termination. Turning a blind eye to that kind of abuse of power only allows it to continue.