This would immediately deprive these kinds of staffing companies of the economic incentive as they would have to pay for the legal costs of an H1-B every 12 months. This would remove the depressive impact that H1-Bs have on salaries as they would be free to compete in the market at large after 12 months.
And the H1-B pipeline would be free to bring in people that we actually want.
This could be done tomorrow. But it won't be.
However, I was under the impression that almost all of this is directly under the purview of the Executive Branch (with the possible exception of the criminality).
Apparently one of the bottlenecks is the total number of visas per country. Demonstrating that you're unblocking the H1-B to Green Card pipeline by fast-tracking those from countries that don't have a big backlog should send the body shops running for the hills and unblock the ones with a big backlog as well. Or shutting down any new H1-Bs from countries until their backlog is gone would also accomplish the same thing.
The problem is that US companies like the multi-year indentured servitude of the H1-B program as it depresses salaries.
And go with the naked truth of what it is, patronage. Let each Senator/Representative be responsible for giving out a certain number of visas each year and let them auction it off to the highest bidder.
One of the reasons HN gets mocked is how dismissive many commenters are about the real-world complexities of various domains. Someone thinking that some wacky proposal he just made up 5 minutes ago is the ultimate solution to longstanding labor constraints and that everyone would automatically agree to it within 24 hours, makes it a joke rather than a basic idea that might have some merit if explored further.
What's wrong with these ideas? 1. Criminal liability - this sounds a bit harsh, but some people are concerned about making sure "bad people" don't get in, so making the completion of proper background checks a hard requirement seems reasonable to allay their concerns. But then they might be concerned the background checks are bogus, so adding criminal liability helps with these concerns too. But granted, this is probably the most extreme part of that post.
2. Increasing labor costs - why is this bad for anyone except employers trying to use H1B as a way of keeping costs down? It's claimed to be a system for letting employers get skilled help where there's a labor shortage, so it's supposed to cost them more.
3. Easier to obtain PR: what the heck is wrong with this? If these immigrants are highly skilled, aren't causing any problems, and want to stay, why would you want to make it difficult for them to stay in your country and help your economy?
1. and 2. are anti-business. Just like raising the minimum wage, passing anti-business legislation is very, very difficult. 3. well, if there aren't any negatives, why is there currently a limit on the number of visas?
Sure, I'll agree to that.
>3. well, if there aren't any negatives, why is there currently a limit on the number of visas?
That's a good question, and I have no idea what the answer is. If anti-business legislation (like #1 and #2 here) is so hard to pass, then it seemingly shouldn't be that hard to pass pro-business legislation. Increasing the number of visas (or eliminating the limit) should, logically, be a pro-business position (lots more workers), while also being of interest to the left-leaning people who generally claim to be pro-immigration. So WTF is the problem? I don't know. The only people who should be opposed to such a move are 1) the outright anti-any-kind-of-immigration racists on the right (who aren't even a sizeable number, a large portion (most?) of the anti-immigration people are usually against illegal and/or low-skilled immigration), and 2) any firms that are profiting off the shortage of visas.
>directly contradicting the OP's implication that they are simple and easy.
I don't think the OP was under any illusion that passing such legislation would be simple and easy, due to the hyper-partisan nature of the current government. If the government weren't this way, passing reforms would be easy.
That seems weird. Why would they be extremely profitable? Are there big barriers to entry?
Without barriers to entry, you would expect the profits of staffing companies to be competed away. (Just to be clear: you wouldn't expect workers to be less exploited. That's a feature of the visa system and their relative lack of other opportunities, not a function of the staffing companies.)
If there are so profitable, why isn't everyone and their mom starting staffing companies?
Physics can tell you how frictionless, spherical cows behave in a vacuum. When you see real cows behave differently, you can investigate which of your violations are violated (and by how much, and which assumptions are still ok to make; eg air resistance is seldom a factor in the movement of real cows). The spherical cows are still a good starting point.
Economics can be similar. First, I doubt that staffing companies are actually all that profitable across the board. Yes, the difference between what they charge and what they pay out might be big, but they have plenty of overheads. Do we have any sources for their supposed extreme profitability?
Second, I suspect that any remaining excess profitability can probably be explained by barriers to entry.
Though some quick googling really makes me lean very much towards the first: staffing companies are by and large not more profitable than companies in other sectors.
With the fall of Chevron, I don't think there is a way out of this without legislative changes.