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Like anything there is a positive and a negative. It’s certain many incredibly talented people immigrated to America with OPT and H1B. However I have observed a

by seibelj 1mo ago

Like anything there is a positive and a negative. It’s certain many incredibly talented people immigrated to America with OPT and H1B. However I have observed abuse with my own eyes of H1B labor outside of the FAANG and similar all stars who don’t have leverage to switch firms within the law and have the money or corporate backing to pay lawyers to dot all the Is and cross all the Ts. Middle market firms love H1B because you get docile labor who don’t ask for raises. It’s market-warping and needs serious reform

bamboozled 1mo ago
You might’ve seen abuse but it doesn’t mean it’s universal or those people aren’t better off even though they’re being “abused” , which is mostly your opinion else you should’ve reported there employers
- tripleee 1mo ago
  you'd have to be pretty naive to think it wasn't common
  - EA-3167 1mo ago
    Belief has nothing to do with this. If you think something is common then gather evidence of that and make a convincing case to support your claim. "Trust me, guy" doesn't cut it. "I've seen it" doesn't cut it. It's an interesting paper, and it certainly takes "gather evidence and present it" part of the program very seriously.
    - rozal 1mo ago
      [dead]
    - tripleee 1mo ago
      Every incentive is there. It benefits the company to take advantage of these people's visa restrictions. The capacity is there to do it without much risk. The only saving grace would be a business who puts aside its own self interest to be good to their employees. That's very rare and you'd be naive to count on it. That's not formal evidence of it being widespread but to me it's a strong enough argument to not put myself in that situation.
      - EA-3167 1mo ago
        We have strong evidence that the net effect on the economy isn't what you'd expect if widespread fraud was the problem many claim. The paper we're all discussing is one such form of that evidence. If all you have is a story to tell that sounds plausible when you tell it, then while I respect your right to do so, I don't personally give it any credence.
ryukoposting 1mo ago
I've also seen H1B abuse in startups. Maybe H1B abuse doesn't scale all the way down to 1-5 person companies, but 20-50? Absolutely. A single liason who knows the H1B process easily pays for themselves when you can turn around and hire 15 talented Big 10 grads 25% below market value. This isn't me bitching about how them foreigners are suppressing wages or whatever. They aren't. I'm a citizen so I had leverage, and it wasn't that difficult to find greener pastures. It just sucks to see good people getting screwed. I helped a few of them get out with some strongly-worded letters of recommendation.
kmeisthax 1mo ago
The problem with H-1B visas is that they are effectively golden handcuffs - tolerate whatever abuse we give you for X years and you get permanent residency. The fix would be to allow H-1Bs to jump to any employment, not just employers capable of sponsoring an H-1B. But that creates a new problem: H-1B sponsoring employers are now spending extra time and bureaucracy just to be the welcome mat immigrants step on before getting a real job. This isn't really feasible for them. It would be easier to more or less "just throw open the floodgates" - i.e. hand out work visas to anyone who can pass a background check and let them apply to any job a US worker can. This would immediately fix most immediately conceivable problems with restricted immigration creating a second class of worker that is cheaper to hire. On the other hand, nobody wants immigrants anymore. There are an increasing number of people for whom their birth citizenship is the only valuable asset they have, and this sentiment is geographically distributed. It's actually more prevalent in the kinds of countries that are sending people to rich countries - i.e. ask the average Indian how they'd feel about, say, liberalizing immigration with Pakistan or Bangladesh, and they'd probably say something so racist it'd make people at MAGA rallies blush. Of course, the reason why this happens is pretty straightforward: POSIWID. The people who benefit from immigration visas being handcuff-shaped are the same people who own the news media and are reminding people day in and day out how dangerous and awful the people they're bringing in are. "Wait, it's all slavery?" "Always has been."
- JuniperMesos 1mo ago
  > The problem with H-1B visas is that they are effectively golden handcuffs - tolerate whatever abuse we give you for X years and you get permanent residency. Right, people on H-1B visas are being paid less in money because they are being partially compensated in the legal right to live in the US instead of India. > On the other hand, nobody wants immigrants anymore. There are an increasing number of people for whom their birth citizenship is the only valuable asset they have, and this sentiment is geographically distributed. It's actually more prevalent in the kinds of countries that are sending people to rich countries - i.e. ask the average Indian how they'd feel about, say, liberalizing immigration with Pakistan or Bangladesh, and they'd probably say something so racist it'd make people at MAGA rallies blush. Every single Pakistani and Bangladeshi could've been a citizen of India if a good number of people hadn't decided in 1947 to go to great lengths to make that not be the case; I for one am unwilling to say that they were wrong. I think the framing that "their birth citizenship is the only valuable asset they have is mistaken; the actual valuable thing is not being a citizen of the other country demographically controlled by a rival ethno-religious group ("Unbiased at least he was when he arrived on his mission / Having never set eyes on the land he was called to partition / Between two peoples fanatically at odds, / With their different diets and incompatible gods"). > The people who benefit from immigration visas being handcuff-shaped are the same people who own the news media and are reminding people day in and day out how dangerous and awful the people they're bringing in are. No they're not; these are separate groups of people. The people who benefit from immigration visas being handcuff-shaped are the immigrants themselves (because it's still better than living in India or Bangladesh), and certain wealthy business interests (who like being able to hire cheap labor and can more easily insulate themselves from the costs of the people doing that labor also existing in American society). The people constantly reminding American citizens how dangerous and awful the immigrants are, are not the same people as the business interests, and are explicitly willing to accept economic costs in order to not have the immigrants be physically present.

by seibelj 1mo ago

bamboozled 1mo ago

You might’ve seen abuse but it doesn’t mean it’s universal or those people aren’t better off even though they’re being “abused” , which is mostly your opinion else you should’ve reported there employers

tripleee 1mo ago
you'd have to be pretty naive to think it wasn't common
- EA-3167 1mo ago
  Belief has nothing to do with this. If you think something is common then gather evidence of that and make a convincing case to support your claim. "Trust me, guy" doesn't cut it. "I've seen it" doesn't cut it. It's an interesting paper, and it certainly takes "gather evidence and present it" part of the program very seriously.
  - rozal 1mo ago
    [dead]
  - tripleee 1mo ago
    Every incentive is there. It benefits the company to take advantage of these people's visa restrictions. The capacity is there to do it without much risk. The only saving grace would be a business who puts aside its own self interest to be good to their employees. That's very rare and you'd be naive to count on it. That's not formal evidence of it being widespread but to me it's a strong enough argument to not put myself in that situation.
    - EA-3167 1mo ago
      We have strong evidence that the net effect on the economy isn't what you'd expect if widespread fraud was the problem many claim. The paper we're all discussing is one such form of that evidence. If all you have is a story to tell that sounds plausible when you tell it, then while I respect your right to do so, I don't personally give it any credence.

ryukoposting 1mo ago

I've also seen H1B abuse in startups. Maybe H1B abuse doesn't scale all the way down to 1-5 person companies, but 20-50? Absolutely. A single liason who knows the H1B process easily pays for themselves when you can turn around and hire 15 talented Big 10 grads 25% below market value. This isn't me bitching about how them foreigners are suppressing wages or whatever. They aren't. I'm a citizen so I had leverage, and it wasn't that difficult to find greener pastures. It just sucks to see good people getting screwed. I helped a few of them get out with some strongly-worded letters of recommendation.

kmeisthax 1mo ago

The problem with H-1B visas is that they are effectively golden handcuffs - tolerate whatever abuse we give you for X years and you get permanent residency. The fix would be to allow H-1Bs to jump to any employment, not just employers capable of sponsoring an H-1B. But that creates a new problem: H-1B sponsoring employers are now spending extra time and bureaucracy just to be the welcome mat immigrants step on before getting a real job. This isn't really feasible for them. It would be easier to more or less "just throw open the floodgates" - i.e. hand out work visas to anyone who can pass a background check and let them apply to any job a US worker can. This would immediately fix most immediately conceivable problems with restricted immigration creating a second class of worker that is cheaper to hire. On the other hand, nobody wants immigrants anymore. There are an increasing number of people for whom their birth citizenship is the only valuable asset they have, and this sentiment is geographically distributed. It's actually more prevalent in the kinds of countries that are sending people to rich countries - i.e. ask the average Indian how they'd feel about, say, liberalizing immigration with Pakistan or Bangladesh, and they'd probably say something so racist it'd make people at MAGA rallies blush. Of course, the reason why this happens is pretty straightforward: POSIWID. The people who benefit from immigration visas being handcuff-shaped are the same people who own the news media and are reminding people day in and day out how dangerous and awful the people they're bringing in are. "Wait, it's all slavery?" "Always has been."

JuniperMesos 1mo ago
> The problem with H-1B visas is that they are effectively golden handcuffs - tolerate whatever abuse we give you for X years and you get permanent residency. Right, people on H-1B visas are being paid less in money because they are being partially compensated in the legal right to live in the US instead of India. > On the other hand, nobody wants immigrants anymore. There are an increasing number of people for whom their birth citizenship is the only valuable asset they have, and this sentiment is geographically distributed. It's actually more prevalent in the kinds of countries that are sending people to rich countries - i.e. ask the average Indian how they'd feel about, say, liberalizing immigration with Pakistan or Bangladesh, and they'd probably say something so racist it'd make people at MAGA rallies blush. Every single Pakistani and Bangladeshi could've been a citizen of India if a good number of people hadn't decided in 1947 to go to great lengths to make that not be the case; I for one am unwilling to say that they were wrong. I think the framing that "their birth citizenship is the only valuable asset they have is mistaken; the actual valuable thing is not being a citizen of the other country demographically controlled by a rival ethno-religious group ("Unbiased at least he was when he arrived on his mission / Having never set eyes on the land he was called to partition / Between two peoples fanatically at odds, / With their different diets and incompatible gods"). > The people who benefit from immigration visas being handcuff-shaped are the same people who own the news media and are reminding people day in and day out how dangerous and awful the people they're bringing in are. No they're not; these are separate groups of people. The people who benefit from immigration visas being handcuff-shaped are the immigrants themselves (because it's still better than living in India or Bangladesh), and certain wealthy business interests (who like being able to hire cheap labor and can more easily insulate themselves from the costs of the people doing that labor also existing in American society). The people constantly reminding American citizens how dangerous and awful the immigrants are, are not the same people as the business interests, and are explicitly willing to accept economic costs in order to not have the immigrants be physically present.