Re:Don't Blame H-1B Workers for Woes
by geebee on Tuesday February 17, 2009 @12:59PM
(#484762)
I disagree that people who oppose the H1B visa are committed to the claim that "smart people are bad for America." Most of the arguments against the H1B are based on the notion that many of the workers are rank and file, that they are overly concentrated in a few fields, and that they are preferred to Americans due to their indentured status.
I think that your first claim "smart people" is an ambiguous argument. H1Bs do not enter all fields equally, largely because of the visa requirements and uneven licensing and regulation of these fields. My biggest concern is that if the US protects legal jobs, but issues hundred of thousands of visas to foreign nationals in engineering, then we will create circumstances where US citizens are deterred from entering engineering - not because of markets, but because of misguided regulation. A lot of people opposed to the H1B would drop this opposition if they believed that it wasn't specifically targeting engineering and technical professions. As it stands, I think that the US is (perhaps unintentionally) pursuing a policy that greatly discourages its own citizens from pursuing graduate engineering degrees and strongly encourages them to go into law or more protected fields.
Another thing I disagree with is the notion that H1Bs are a highly talented group of people across the board. This isn't a knock on H1B's - I just don't believe that there are 200K talented engineers out there for the taking. I'd say that no more than 20K are really tops, and yeah, we definitely want those folks here. But otherwise, many are rank and file run of the mill technical workers. I do know an American woman who, at age 50, was "downsized" and offered a severance and an additional 6 months of a paycheck in the condition that she assist with "knowledge transfer" to the new team of H1B's. She sat down to show one of the workers the DB schema, and another new H1B worker attended the meeting as well to learn. Wanting to learn is an admirable quality, but he didn't know anything about databases, and in fact, his degree was in soil science. To me, this was a clear case of displacement - and the loss of an opportunity to train a US citizen in a new technology. A big part of how you feel about the H1B depends on whether you think that the US is getting two hundred thousand entrepreneurial geniuses or ordinary people who are motivated and looking for a job. If it's the former, I'd love to see a visa that not only brings them into the country, but allows total freedom and autonomy once they are here (ie., the visa is awarded directly to the individual with no conditions about how and where he/she will work). If it's the latter, I don't have any real problem with that person coming here, but I see no reason why we should have special visa instead of just using the standard immigration system (which brings in well over a million immigrants a year to the US anyway).
I also take a dimmer view of population growth in California than many people do. Traffic, sprawl, housing prices, and the loss of open space has become a serious problem in California. While a small number of highly talented people would add far more than we'd lose, I don't feel the same way about massive numbers of merely above average workers. And is it such a big deal if Indians innovate in India? A lot of Indians live in poverty, and from what I read, there is a lot of entrepreneurial activity going on. I've never agreed with the notion that I should feel threatened by Indian prosperity. Why do we need to cram all the software developers in the world into San Francisco/Silicon Valley area? Nothing wrong with trade.
I think that your first claim "smart people" is an ambiguous argument. H1Bs do not enter all fields equally, largely because of the visa requirements and uneven licensing and regulation of these fields. My biggest concern is that if the US protects legal jobs, but issues hundred of thousands of visas to foreign nationals in engineering, then we will create circumstances where US citizens are deterred from entering engineering - not because of markets, but because of misguided regulation. A lot of people opposed to the H1B would drop this opposition if they believed that it wasn't specifically targeting engineering and technical professions. As it stands, I think that the US is (perhaps unintentionally) pursuing a policy that greatly discourages its own citizens from pursuing graduate engineering degrees and strongly encourages them to go into law or more protected fields.
Another thing I disagree with is the notion that H1Bs are a highly talented group of people across the board. This isn't a knock on H1B's - I just don't believe that there are 200K talented engineers out there for the taking. I'd say that no more than 20K are really tops, and yeah, we definitely want those folks here. But otherwise, many are rank and file run of the mill technical workers. I do know an American woman who, at age 50, was "downsized" and offered a severance and an additional 6 months of a paycheck in the condition that she assist with "knowledge transfer" to the new team of H1B's. She sat down to show one of the workers the DB schema, and another new H1B worker attended the meeting as well to learn. Wanting to learn is an admirable quality, but he didn't know anything about databases, and in fact, his degree was in soil science. To me, this was a clear case of displacement - and the loss of an opportunity to train a US citizen in a new technology. A big part of how you feel about the H1B depends on whether you think that the US is getting two hundred thousand entrepreneurial geniuses or ordinary people who are motivated and looking for a job. If it's the former, I'd love to see a visa that not only brings them into the country, but allows total freedom and autonomy once they are here (ie., the visa is awarded directly to the individual with no conditions about how and where he/she will work). If it's the latter, I don't have any real problem with that person coming here, but I see no reason why we should have special visa instead of just using the standard immigration system (which brings in well over a million immigrants a year to the US anyway).
I also take a dimmer view of population growth in California than many people do. Traffic, sprawl, housing prices, and the loss of open space has become a serious problem in California. While a small number of highly talented people would add far more than we'd lose, I don't feel the same way about massive numbers of merely above average workers. And is it such a big deal if Indians innovate in India? A lot of Indians live in poverty, and from what I read, there is a lot of entrepreneurial activity going on. I've never agreed with the notion that I should feel threatened by Indian prosperity. Why do we need to cram all the software developers in the world into San Francisco/Silicon Valley area? Nothing wrong with trade.