8 ms·

House votes to end country limits for skilled workers seeking green cards

101 points by incosta 15y ago

gwern 15y ago
> Still, because there will be no increase in visas issued, there will be losers. Hosin “David” Lee, president of the Korean-American Scientists and Engineers Association, said the bill would force engineers from South Korea to wait an additional two years in their immigration process to get green cards. Didn't expect that.
- gms 15y ago
  Yeah, basically Indians and Chinese gain but everyone else loses.
  - Jayasimhan 15y ago
    ..their unfair advantage.
    - po 15y ago
      Calling something fair or not is applying your morals to the situation. This change means that each person gets treated fairly (in the mathematical sense) but each group does not. It is sort of like how in the US House is representation by population but in the Senate is equal senators per state. Wether that is good or bad is up to us as a society. It will certainly reduce the diversity of the types of people getting visas as more populous countries crowd out less populous ones.
      - recoiledsnake 15y ago
        >This change means that each person gets treated fairly (in the mathematical sense) but each group does not. So, without this change, each group was getting treated fairly? Care to explain how multidecade wait times for the two biggest groups while the rest get visas in a matter of years is fairness? How is first-in first-out not more fair compared to discriminating on national origin? > It will certainly reduce the diversity of the types of people getting visas as more populous countries crowd out less populous ones. Not really. Employment based visas are a small fraction of the number of visas awarded each year. Diversity doesn't make much sense for employment based visas because companies hire based on need and employee talent, not race or language. Not to mention that India is so diverse with race, languages and culture that it's called a sub-continent. Lumping them into one 'group' like you did doesn't make much sense. Countries don't directly map one to one to diversity.
        mwerty 15y ago
        It's 'fair' for the groups in the sense that each group gets to send in an equal number of people per year.
        cooldeal 15y ago
        It's not really fair when the size of the groups varies wildly.
        mwerty 15y ago
        I completely agree but that does not contradict my earlier definition.
        pelemele 15y ago
        >Care to explain how multidecade wait times for the two >biggest groups while the rest get visas in a matter of years >is fairness? To be fair, each country gets quota for working visa based on a size of population. Unfortunately requests for working visa from those two countries outnumber that quota. This is the fact and everybody knows that. So if you are from country with more than one billion people where maybe 100.000+ ask for working visa per year you have to understand that the process can be complicated. And you have to understand as well that getting working visa here is a privilege, not a right.
        cooldeal 15y ago
        >To be fair, each country gets quota for working visa based on a size of population. Right now, that's not the case, each country is capped to 7% regardless of the population. Making it proportional to population would be much fairer than the current system. >And you have to understand as well that getting working visa here is a privilege, not a right. What a strawman. Maybe you should tell that to Mr. Lee who said the following: > Hosin “David” Lee, president of the Korean-American Scientists and Engineers Association, said the bill would force engineers from South Korea to wait an additional two years in their immigration process to get green cards.
        15y ago
    - klipt 15y ago
      Of course immigration is unfair. If you're born in Korea you may wait less than if you're born in China, but if you're born in the US, you don't have to wait at all! How is being born in the USA any less of an arbitrary distinction than being born in Korea?
      - redbrick 15y ago
        This a ridiculous argument. Nationality/Diversity based immigration is fundamentally different than qualification/skill based immigration. The US does both. Hence nationality should not be taken into account for skill based immigration.
  - thewisedude 15y ago
    Is it not going to reduce the wait time for a majority of people at the expense of minority of people?
    - lmkg 15y ago
      There's the same number of people wanting visas, and the same number of visas being granted. The number of people who get an advantage should be equal to the number of people who get a disadvantage, in any particular year. Over multiple years, the total man-years of wait time should remain constant, although they could be distributed among a different number of people.
droithomme 15y ago
The article ends with "U.S. employers are prohibited under law from hiring foreign workers unless they show there are not sufficient U.S. workers willing and able to take the jobs." I am fairly sure that is not what the law says though, although I am aware it is often claimed (I suspect falsely) there is such a law. Actual requirements are here. They don't have to show anything, they just have to attest that in their belief the hiring won't "adversely affect" the "working conditions" of american workers "similarly employed", that there is not currently a strike going on when they bring in the new people, and that they have posted conspicuously a notice of intent at their place of business. http://www.foreignlaborcert.doleta.gov/faqsanswers.cfm#lcarequirements1 http://www.foreignlaborcert.doleta.gov/faqsanswers.cfm#lcare...
- BadassFractal 15y ago
  I've definitely seen that specific wording when I had to work with my company's legal to process a H1B (or for GC perhaps). It's strange that they'd use that very language everywhere if the law says something completely different. What's in it for them?
- mdda 15y ago
  Actually, it's more farcical than you're thinking. Suppose I have a foreign employee that graduated in the US, and has worked for my company (on a valid OPT, followed by an H1B) for several years. In order to progress to the Green Card stage, I must prove that there are no other Americans that are suitably qualified, and willing to do the job. Thus, I have to put up an advert for the job, and interview applicants. That's why you'll see very narrowly defined job criteria advertised in newspapers : They're designed to prevent anyone but the current employee (who, after all, is the one that currently has the job) from getting the job. But then there's a matter of 'prevailing wage' : Whereby one has to define the job to be as menial as possible (so that the employee doesn't suddenly expect a much higher wage bracket), while still making it demanding enough that all their qualifications are 'essential'. And once the initial paperwork is filed, they're then bound to you for years while waiting in line, since if they lose their job (or have a change in job title), they have to restart the whole process. Large numbers of people are trapped in bizarre employment situations, waiting on unbelievable bureaucracy - never able to complain on the offchance that the person they're talking to might be having a bad day and send all the documents back (and restart the process)...
jbarham 15y ago
I'm Canadian and a year ago I left the U.S. for Australia (my wife is Australian) primarily because I did not consider it worth it to stay in a lousy job for at least another two years for the possibility of getting a green card. This vote changes nothing about the logic of my decision (in fact it would likely have made my wait longer because I'm not Indian or Chinese). The primary problem with the U.S. green card system for skilled workers is that you are at the mercy of your employer, and the whole application process restarts if for whatever reason you change employers. This vote does nothing to change that. Even more ironic, now that I am no longer in the U.S. on a work visa, I have more freedom to start a business targeting U.S. customers.
- jacques_chester 15y ago
  If I read it correctly, only 140,000 "green cards" are handed out each year. That's less than Australia takes and we have ~15x less population.
  - ovi256 15y ago
    That's also less than what France takes in. But I'm willing to bet there's illegal immigration to the US as well, and it's a sizeable quantity.
    - cafard 15y ago
      There's plenty of illegal immigration here, but the skilled workers among that population are far outnumbered by the laborers.
  - mebesilly 15y ago
    You are NOT reading it correctly. The number of legal immigrants in 2010 to the USA was 1,042,625 The 140,000 refers to "worker-based immigration visas" This is a small subset of the total number.
thewisedude 15y ago
I am trying to understand the implication here. Does this bill mean Indians and Chinese ppl will have to wait 3-4 years only now? Also, I am not sure how its detrimental to Koreans (Some OP here seemed to imply that) ?
- recoiledsnake 15y ago
  It makes it into a first-come first-served system. Indians and Chinese applying now might still have to wait a couple of decades. This primarily helps the people who applied in 2002 and the following few years and are still waiting.
  - mdda 15y ago
    And it's fair, in the sense that applicants from the UK might now also have to wait a couple of decades. In my case (as a UK citizen working in NYC), it's a good job that the E-2 Investor Visa (which only exists for countries that the INS deems 'worthy') can be renewed indefinitely. The flip side of this (and where it starts to get comical) is that as part of the E-2 approval process one has to "intend to leave" once the business is finished - which means that one cannot intend to embark on the Green Card path prior to getting the E-2 visa. It also means that all my (mandatory) payments for unemployment insurance are strictly throw-away money - since I could never claim unemployment in the US anyway. Ho Hum.
scottshea 15y ago
Sadly the H1 process is better now than during the dot com era. At the time it was as close as we have come to institutionalized servitude since the 13th Amendment was ratified. I am not saying it is great now, far from it. Rather I get a little nervous any time our Congress starts talking about this.
hetman 15y ago
Not to be pedantic, but I would have appreciated the title giving an indication of the House of which country made this vote.
- incosta 15y ago
  I think it's pretty obvious from keywords such as "green cards" and washingtonpost.com.
tomjen3 15y ago
Thumbs down. When will the US realize that it is already far from its peak and that today there are (possibly) better alternatives elsewhere? Get a point based system - now - or watch Chile, China and the rest of the world ROLFStomp you to death.
beedogs 15y ago
Translation: Skilled worker wages to continue their freefall in the US.
VladRussian 15y ago
congratulations to everybody on abolishing of one more instance of legal discrimination on ethnic grounds. While it may seem like a zero sum game (as number of visas is still the same) and thus i have no idea how, yet still lets hope that like in other cases of abolished discrimination everybody ultimately wins.
bfrs 15y ago
A GC grants economic freedom to indentured servants (H1B visa holders is the politically correct term). The longer freedom is denied the more profitable it is for the corporate masters. One of the tricks of this modern day slave trade is to lobby Congress to set a quota (about 30% of the demand) on the number of people who are set free each year. For the groups with the largest numbers of indentured servants, additional quotas are lobbied for. As long as the dollar was strong and life was shit in the third world hells these people came from, this system worked. The corporate masters recognize that the game is now up. The usual argument given for the lack of freedom for H1B visa holders is that the bureaucrats need to ensure that a H1B doesn't cause a job loss for a citizen. A pencil pusher doesn't even know what it takes to make the pencil [1] he is pushing, and yet somehow he can ensure that a citizen doesn't lose a job! The H1B visa is indentured servitude by the back door, plain and simple. Anyone who has given some thought to the idea of protecting jobs knows it is an exercise in futility (For a start, Congress must pass an Amish decree [2]: ban all technology invented since 1830, and declare Thomas Edison as the worst job destroyer [3] the world has ever seen. Also it will have to order the arrest and lock up of all entrepreneurs aka wannabe job killers, which is most HN readers). Therefore, I suggest to do away with all the current H1B bullshit, and adopt a point based immigration system where every qualified applicant is given full economic freedom from day one! [1] I, pencil. http://www.econlib.org/library/Essays/rdPncl1.html http://www.econlib.org/library/Essays/rdPncl1.html Milton Friedman on "I, pencil" http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=R5Gppi-O3a8 http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=R5Gppi-O3a8 I recall Milton Friedman calling the H1B program as just another subsidy for big corporations, but can't locate a reliable source with the full context. [2] Family Guy 10/7 "Amish Guy" (one of those increasingly rare insightful jokes): http://www.hulu.com/watch/303946/family-guy-amish-guy#s-p1-so-i0 http://www.hulu.com/watch/303946/family-guy-amish-guy#s-p1-s... [3] Bastiat's famous "Candlestick makers' petition": http://bastiat.org/en/petition.html http://bastiat.org/en/petition.html Also worth reading in this context is Bastiat "What Is Seen and What Is Not Seen": http://www.econlib.org/library/Bastiat/basEss1.html http://www.econlib.org/library/Bastiat/basEss1.html or (for another translation): http://bastiat.org/en/twisatwins.html http://bastiat.org/en/twisatwins.html
- gsk 15y ago
  This is very well said. I was on H1B and was suffocating due to lack of freedom (oh, the irony). Moved to UK 5 years ago on a points based system, a british citizen now, working on my first startup.
keeptrying 15y ago
To realize how conflicted Indians and Rest Of The World(ROW) are with this bill, have a look at this thread in an immigration forum I used to frequent before I got my g.c. http://www.trackitt.com/usa-discussion-forums/i485-eb/862139499/eb-3-rowers-please-take-heart/page/last_page http://www.trackitt.com/usa-discussion-forums/i485-eb/862139...
kreek 15y ago
While I think this is a plus, it's still very depressing for the US. Are American schools really so bad that a country of 300 million can't churn out enough tech/science employees? I'm a freshly minted American (from Canada) and in my 20 person office there is one other American developer (who is also a co-founder). I've lived in Canada and Europe and the US is by far my preferred place to live, I'm not sure how long it will last though there are generations of Americans that lack the proper skills to compete in the modern economy.
- Someone 15y ago
  From the viewpoint of a country, this makes perfect sense, short term. Why would one invest educating one's population if other countries are willing to do that for free? Long-term, a problem is that, if local education drops too far, you need a huge import of 'human capital' to keep average levels of education constant.

101 points by incosta 15y ago

gwern 15y ago

> Still, because there will be no increase in visas issued, there will be losers. Hosin “David” Lee, president of the Korean-American Scientists and Engineers Association, said the bill would force engineers from South Korea to wait an additional two years in their immigration process to get green cards. Didn't expect that.

gms 15y ago
Yeah, basically Indians and Chinese gain but everyone else loses.
- Jayasimhan 15y ago
  ..their unfair advantage.
  - po 15y ago
    Calling something fair or not is applying your morals to the situation. This change means that each person gets treated fairly (in the mathematical sense) but each group does not. It is sort of like how in the US House is representation by population but in the Senate is equal senators per state. Wether that is good or bad is up to us as a society. It will certainly reduce the diversity of the types of people getting visas as more populous countries crowd out less populous ones.
    - recoiledsnake 15y ago
      >This change means that each person gets treated fairly (in the mathematical sense) but each group does not. So, without this change, each group was getting treated fairly? Care to explain how multidecade wait times for the two biggest groups while the rest get visas in a matter of years is fairness? How is first-in first-out not more fair compared to discriminating on national origin? > It will certainly reduce the diversity of the types of people getting visas as more populous countries crowd out less populous ones. Not really. Employment based visas are a small fraction of the number of visas awarded each year. Diversity doesn't make much sense for employment based visas because companies hire based on need and employee talent, not race or language. Not to mention that India is so diverse with race, languages and culture that it's called a sub-continent. Lumping them into one 'group' like you did doesn't make much sense. Countries don't directly map one to one to diversity.
      - mwerty 15y ago
        It's 'fair' for the groups in the sense that each group gets to send in an equal number of people per year.
        cooldeal 15y ago
        It's not really fair when the size of the groups varies wildly.
        mwerty 15y ago
        I completely agree but that does not contradict my earlier definition.
      - pelemele 15y ago
        >Care to explain how multidecade wait times for the two >biggest groups while the rest get visas in a matter of years >is fairness? To be fair, each country gets quota for working visa based on a size of population. Unfortunately requests for working visa from those two countries outnumber that quota. This is the fact and everybody knows that. So if you are from country with more than one billion people where maybe 100.000+ ask for working visa per year you have to understand that the process can be complicated. And you have to understand as well that getting working visa here is a privilege, not a right.
        cooldeal 15y ago
        >To be fair, each country gets quota for working visa based on a size of population. Right now, that's not the case, each country is capped to 7% regardless of the population. Making it proportional to population would be much fairer than the current system. >And you have to understand as well that getting working visa here is a privilege, not a right. What a strawman. Maybe you should tell that to Mr. Lee who said the following: > Hosin “David” Lee, president of the Korean-American Scientists and Engineers Association, said the bill would force engineers from South Korea to wait an additional two years in their immigration process to get green cards.
      - 15y ago
  - klipt 15y ago
    Of course immigration is unfair. If you're born in Korea you may wait less than if you're born in China, but if you're born in the US, you don't have to wait at all! How is being born in the USA any less of an arbitrary distinction than being born in Korea?
    - redbrick 15y ago
      This a ridiculous argument. Nationality/Diversity based immigration is fundamentally different than qualification/skill based immigration. The US does both. Hence nationality should not be taken into account for skill based immigration.
- thewisedude 15y ago
  Is it not going to reduce the wait time for a majority of people at the expense of minority of people?
  - lmkg 15y ago
    There's the same number of people wanting visas, and the same number of visas being granted. The number of people who get an advantage should be equal to the number of people who get a disadvantage, in any particular year. Over multiple years, the total man-years of wait time should remain constant, although they could be distributed among a different number of people.

droithomme 15y ago

The article ends with "U.S. employers are prohibited under law from hiring foreign workers unless they show there are not sufficient U.S. workers willing and able to take the jobs." I am fairly sure that is not what the law says though, although I am aware it is often claimed (I suspect falsely) there is such a law. Actual requirements are here. They don't have to show anything, they just have to attest that in their belief the hiring won't "adversely affect" the "working conditions" of american workers "similarly employed", that there is not currently a strike going on when they bring in the new people, and that they have posted conspicuously a notice of intent at their place of business. http://www.foreignlaborcert.doleta.gov/faqsanswers.cfm#lcarequirements1 http://www.foreignlaborcert.doleta.gov/faqsanswers.cfm#lcare...

BadassFractal 15y ago
I've definitely seen that specific wording when I had to work with my company's legal to process a H1B (or for GC perhaps). It's strange that they'd use that very language everywhere if the law says something completely different. What's in it for them?
mdda 15y ago
Actually, it's more farcical than you're thinking. Suppose I have a foreign employee that graduated in the US, and has worked for my company (on a valid OPT, followed by an H1B) for several years. In order to progress to the Green Card stage, I must prove that there are no other Americans that are suitably qualified, and willing to do the job. Thus, I have to put up an advert for the job, and interview applicants. That's why you'll see very narrowly defined job criteria advertised in newspapers : They're designed to prevent anyone but the current employee (who, after all, is the one that currently has the job) from getting the job. But then there's a matter of 'prevailing wage' : Whereby one has to define the job to be as menial as possible (so that the employee doesn't suddenly expect a much higher wage bracket), while still making it demanding enough that all their qualifications are 'essential'. And once the initial paperwork is filed, they're then bound to you for years while waiting in line, since if they lose their job (or have a change in job title), they have to restart the whole process. Large numbers of people are trapped in bizarre employment situations, waiting on unbelievable bureaucracy - never able to complain on the offchance that the person they're talking to might be having a bad day and send all the documents back (and restart the process)...

jbarham 15y ago

I'm Canadian and a year ago I left the U.S. for Australia (my wife is Australian) primarily because I did not consider it worth it to stay in a lousy job for at least another two years for the possibility of getting a green card. This vote changes nothing about the logic of my decision (in fact it would likely have made my wait longer because I'm not Indian or Chinese). The primary problem with the U.S. green card system for skilled workers is that you are at the mercy of your employer, and the whole application process restarts if for whatever reason you change employers. This vote does nothing to change that. Even more ironic, now that I am no longer in the U.S. on a work visa, I have more freedom to start a business targeting U.S. customers.

jacques_chester 15y ago
If I read it correctly, only 140,000 "green cards" are handed out each year. That's less than Australia takes and we have ~15x less population.
- ovi256 15y ago
  That's also less than what France takes in. But I'm willing to bet there's illegal immigration to the US as well, and it's a sizeable quantity.
  - cafard 15y ago
    There's plenty of illegal immigration here, but the skilled workers among that population are far outnumbered by the laborers.
- mebesilly 15y ago
  You are NOT reading it correctly. The number of legal immigrants in 2010 to the USA was 1,042,625 The 140,000 refers to "worker-based immigration visas" This is a small subset of the total number.

thewisedude 15y ago

I am trying to understand the implication here. Does this bill mean Indians and Chinese ppl will have to wait 3-4 years only now? Also, I am not sure how its detrimental to Koreans (Some OP here seemed to imply that) ?

recoiledsnake 15y ago
It makes it into a first-come first-served system. Indians and Chinese applying now might still have to wait a couple of decades. This primarily helps the people who applied in 2002 and the following few years and are still waiting.
- mdda 15y ago
  And it's fair, in the sense that applicants from the UK might now also have to wait a couple of decades. In my case (as a UK citizen working in NYC), it's a good job that the E-2 Investor Visa (which only exists for countries that the INS deems 'worthy') can be renewed indefinitely. The flip side of this (and where it starts to get comical) is that as part of the E-2 approval process one has to "intend to leave" once the business is finished - which means that one cannot intend to embark on the Green Card path prior to getting the E-2 visa. It also means that all my (mandatory) payments for unemployment insurance are strictly throw-away money - since I could never claim unemployment in the US anyway. Ho Hum.

scottshea 15y ago

Sadly the H1 process is better now than during the dot com era. At the time it was as close as we have come to institutionalized servitude since the 13th Amendment was ratified. I am not saying it is great now, far from it. Rather I get a little nervous any time our Congress starts talking about this.

hetman 15y ago

Not to be pedantic, but I would have appreciated the title giving an indication of the House of which country made this vote.

incosta 15y ago
I think it's pretty obvious from keywords such as "green cards" and washingtonpost.com.

tomjen3 15y ago

Thumbs down. When will the US realize that it is already far from its peak and that today there are (possibly) better alternatives elsewhere? Get a point based system - now - or watch Chile, China and the rest of the world ROLFStomp you to death.

beedogs 15y ago

Translation: Skilled worker wages to continue their freefall in the US.

VladRussian 15y ago

congratulations to everybody on abolishing of one more instance of legal discrimination on ethnic grounds. While it may seem like a zero sum game (as number of visas is still the same) and thus i have no idea how, yet still lets hope that like in other cases of abolished discrimination everybody ultimately wins.

bfrs 15y ago

A GC grants economic freedom to indentured servants (H1B visa holders is the politically correct term). The longer freedom is denied the more profitable it is for the corporate masters. One of the tricks of this modern day slave trade is to lobby Congress to set a quota (about 30% of the demand) on the number of people who are set free each year. For the groups with the largest numbers of indentured servants, additional quotas are lobbied for. As long as the dollar was strong and life was shit in the third world hells these people came from, this system worked. The corporate masters recognize that the game is now up. The usual argument given for the lack of freedom for H1B visa holders is that the bureaucrats need to ensure that a H1B doesn't cause a job loss for a citizen. A pencil pusher doesn't even know what it takes to make the pencil [1] he is pushing, and yet somehow he can ensure that a citizen doesn't lose a job! The H1B visa is indentured servitude by the back door, plain and simple. Anyone who has given some thought to the idea of protecting jobs knows it is an exercise in futility (For a start, Congress must pass an Amish decree [2]: ban all technology invented since 1830, and declare Thomas Edison as the worst job destroyer [3] the world has ever seen. Also it will have to order the arrest and lock up of all entrepreneurs aka wannabe job killers, which is most HN readers). Therefore, I suggest to do away with all the current H1B bullshit, and adopt a point based immigration system where every qualified applicant is given full economic freedom from day one! [1] I, pencil. http://www.econlib.org/library/Essays/rdPncl1.html http://www.econlib.org/library/Essays/rdPncl1.html Milton Friedman on "I, pencil" http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=R5Gppi-O3a8 http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=R5Gppi-O3a8 I recall Milton Friedman calling the H1B program as just another subsidy for big corporations, but can't locate a reliable source with the full context. [2] Family Guy 10/7 "Amish Guy" (one of those increasingly rare insightful jokes): http://www.hulu.com/watch/303946/family-guy-amish-guy#s-p1-so-i0 http://www.hulu.com/watch/303946/family-guy-amish-guy#s-p1-s... [3] Bastiat's famous "Candlestick makers' petition": http://bastiat.org/en/petition.html http://bastiat.org/en/petition.html Also worth reading in this context is Bastiat "What Is Seen and What Is Not Seen": http://www.econlib.org/library/Bastiat/basEss1.html http://www.econlib.org/library/Bastiat/basEss1.html or (for another translation): http://bastiat.org/en/twisatwins.html http://bastiat.org/en/twisatwins.html

gsk 15y ago
This is very well said. I was on H1B and was suffocating due to lack of freedom (oh, the irony). Moved to UK 5 years ago on a points based system, a british citizen now, working on my first startup.

keeptrying 15y ago

To realize how conflicted Indians and Rest Of The World(ROW) are with this bill, have a look at this thread in an immigration forum I used to frequent before I got my g.c. http://www.trackitt.com/usa-discussion-forums/i485-eb/862139499/eb-3-rowers-please-take-heart/page/last_page http://www.trackitt.com/usa-discussion-forums/i485-eb/862139...

kreek 15y ago

While I think this is a plus, it's still very depressing for the US. Are American schools really so bad that a country of 300 million can't churn out enough tech/science employees? I'm a freshly minted American (from Canada) and in my 20 person office there is one other American developer (who is also a co-founder). I've lived in Canada and Europe and the US is by far my preferred place to live, I'm not sure how long it will last though there are generations of Americans that lack the proper skills to compete in the modern economy.

Someone 15y ago
From the viewpoint of a country, this makes perfect sense, short term. Why would one invest educating one's population if other countries are willing to do that for free? Long-term, a problem is that, if local education drops too far, you need a huge import of 'human capital' to keep average levels of education constant.