> The h1b program is supposed to be for people at the top of their field so they can skip the normal visa line, but it is commonly used to save money through exploitation.

Incorrect - such people already qualify for green cards under the "alien of extraordinary ability" criterion. At least in theory, anyway.

There is no "normal visa line" btw, unless you mean the green card diversity lottery, which people from eg. India and China don't even qualify for.

> A long time ago I read an hn comment that suggested h1b visas should go to the highest paying jobs, with the logic being that if they are such a rare talent they should probably be getting paid more.

This is in principle a good idea although I suspect that if actually implemented employers would figure out how to game the system just as they do now.

You’re right, I was a bit hyperbolic there. Though it is supposed to be for skilled jobs that a capable american is not available to do.

> Though it is supposed to be for skilled jobs that a capable american is not available to do.

No it's not. The H-1B program has no requirement for a labor market test (i.e. showing that there is no citizen that can do the job). The Immigration and Nationality Act, which is the source of the H-1B program, does not have such a requirement. The only big requirements are that the job require a degree (except for fashion models) and that it pays the prevailing wage.

The labor market test is usually required to upgrade to an employment-based green card from a H-1B, though, hence the frequent confusion.

It is 100% required for employment-based green card from a H1B. Anyone that has gone through this process knows this as their own job had to be posted to several job posting sites and each and ever candidate had to be reviewed and discounted in some ways (my company added crap to the posting such that it was simply impossible for someone to be as qualified for the job as me unless they sat next to me and did what I did for 5+ years…)

Nope, it's not 100% required, there are exceptions for certain job categories like nursing and there's also the extraordinary ability exception.

(Not trying to be pedantic but US immigration law is full of random loopholes and people who qualify for them, or might be able to qualify with a bit of work, often aren't aware.)

I should have been more clear - I am talking about IT/Dev/… jobs, not other professions.

Not sure if it’s still the case but extraordinary ability green cards used to be surprisingly easy to get for software engineers! Get your name on a patent (not as hard as you think, companies love adding to their IP portfolio), get accepted to do a couple of conference talks, and you’re most of the way there. Or so I was told a few years ago by someone trying this route.

huh I thought the “good faith steps to recruit U.S. workers” part was for every company, but apparently it’s only for certain companies receiving money or who have already got in trouble.

I would have been more against it if I realized that.

Yeah. To be clear I think it's fair to be critical of the current shape of the H-1B program (personally, I think the way it's used by outsourcing companies is pretty bad).

But there's a logical fallacy in these discussions in which people criticize the current H-1B program for not being compliant with some made-up version of what the H-1B program is. If you don't like the current program, the solution is not "we need to do what the law says" because in fact the current program is 100% compliant with the law. The solution is to change the law.

America is a big country. There will always be someone capable of doing the job if you take price out of the equation.

I get that people like semantically and logically simple ideas, but the world doesn't reflect that.

Cost is an inherent part of the H1B program

> The h1b program is supposed to be for people at the top of their field so they can skip the normal visa line, but it is commonly used to save money through exploitation.

This is false. O-1 is the visa for the "people at the top of their field". H-1B is for regular employees.

Well, it's been shady for at least 2.5 decades.

the grandparent comment states that they were interviewing for a position that was held by a green card applicant, not h1b visa holder.

> The h1b program is supposed to be for people at the top of their field so they can skip the normal visa line

H1B is the normal visa line.

I've been programming since the early 90's, and back then pretty much all my coworkers were other US citizens. I started to notice a shift toward the mid 90's and then, by the late 90's, they were practically all Indians on H1B visas. Nobody from Russia, China, El Salvador, Brazil, Japan, Botswana, Ethiopia or even Bangladesh or Pakistan - virtually every programmer I met was an Indian citizen in the US on an H1B visa. I saw this across ten employers in two different states. Every tech conference I went to, regardless of city, was full of Indian citizens with heavy accents, and me.

There's a prevailing belief that US employers prefer H1B visa holders because they'll work cheaper and not complain about poor working conditions but if that's true... why computer programmers, specifically? Why are there _any_ Americans in the organization? Surely the product owners, project managers, scrum masters, HR staff, janitors, facilities maintenance, receptionists, directors, VPs and CEOs could be filled cheaper and less complainier by an H1B visa holder too?

I have yet to find a plausible explanation why specifically computer programming (and no other career) is dominated specifically by Indian citizens (and no other nationality).

1. India has ~130 million English speakers, second only to United States.

2. IIT.

3. Culture matters, both on the recruitment side and demand side. Indian outsourcing built a pipeline decades ago so it's now a well understood career path in India.

4. Non-technical positions tend to require greater social competencies in the hiring/customer culture. US programmers already complain about the cultural tendencies of their Indian colleagues. The social and political aspects of other careers are less amenable to dropping in a rando with limited understanding of the culture.

Computer programming is easily verifiable, the code works or it doesnt. so you dont need good english, and your education doesnt really matter since either you write working code or you dont. its also a massive cost on businesses. theres like a thousand reasons