[qxf2]

I rarely comment but this story makes me happy enough to do so. I'm a former H1-B with an American Masters degree in STEM. I think this conviction will go a long way in making the system fairer.

Here is what happened. H1-Bs must be legally employed all (well most of) the time they are in the USA. To get past that rule, these H1-B shops act as employers and then farm out the employees to other companies. Employers need to pay H1-Bs at least the prevailing wage that is mentioned in their H1-B application. This employer did not. Instead, they reduced wages when the employees were on the bench. That is the violation that they have been convicted for. So this conviction is not that much about H1-B's replacing American workers as much as it is about an unethical employer paying his employees less than the promised wage.

Usually, people who join this kind of shop are people who have not been able to land a direct employer on their own and desperately want to stay in the USA. This judgment will go a long way in correcting the system because now all shops (and there are many!) that run this scam will close down. That, in turn, will decrease the number of people who end up applying for H1-Bs without a real employer. Hopefully, that will improve the perception around genuine H1-B VISA holders.

[mh_yam]

I am in the same boat (bachelors + masters from US universities and on H-1B).

I've been in the US for almost 10 years now since undergrad and have put down roots (friends, acquaintances, credit history, etc). It is very unfair for us to be put into the same bucket as body shop labor from India. I personally know several people who were forced to leave the US because they didn't get chosen in the H-1B lottery.

There needs to be a new visa that caters specifically to those in our situation. USCIS needs to let the consultancy companies and body shops compete among themselves for H-1B and stop screwing law-abiding international students who have devoted 4-6 (or more) years of their lives to living in the US, who suddenly might lose everything they've worked for because of the H-1B lottery.

[vitd]

Serious question - I don't in any way intend this to sound inflammatory. If you've been here almost 10 years and have set down roots, why haven't you just applied to be a citizen? It sounds like you want to stay, and frankly, it sounds like it would be good for us to have you. Is there something holding you back beyond just personal preference? (Or are you already in the process but haven't completed it?)

[dragonwriter]

> why haven't you just applied to be a citizen?

IIRC, an H-1B can't apply to be a citizen, you have to be a permanent resident to do that, which you can only do from an immigrant visa. The H-1B is a "dual purpose" visa, which is a non-immigrant visa that doesn't require you to leave the country before applying for an immigrant visa, but you still have to qualify for one of the immigrant visa categories and make it through any source-country-specific backlog for that category. (And the vast majority of tech-industry H-1B's are from India, which is also near the top for waiting list length in many of the immigrant categories -- including all but one of the Employment-based categories.)

[vitd]

Ah, I see. Thanks for the clarification.

[mh_yam]

Foreigners can't apply to be a citizen just because they've been here for 10 years. The US immigration system is so f*cked up and the current administration favors illegal immigrants over legal ones.

The most common pathway for those who complete their studies in the US and want to remain in the country to work is to obtain a work visa (H-1, L-1, TN, etc) under employer sponsorship. And then, some of these visas permit immigrant intent i.e. your employer can sponsor your green card even though you're technically on a temporary worker visa.

I'd love to get permanent residency and possibly citizenship. The framework in place right now is tedious and frankly, outright hostile to those of us doing everything right to remain in this country. Thankfully, I'm not from one of the countries with huge visa backlogs - I can only imagine their pain.

[surfmike]

One thing that helps at least is that the H1B lottery cap doesn't apply to students who got a graduate degree in the US. ie there are unlimited H1B visas for people in that boat.

[ninja_to_be]

It is not unlimited, but there is a separate lottery for 20,000 visas for advanced degree holders.

[khare_ashwini]

...and the unselected ones from this lot get one more chance in the general pool of 65000

[chime]

Is that already a law?

[chrisper]

Also many of these consultancy firms just flood the H1B application pool and then just take whoever got accepted. Very unfair.

[vostok]

This is why I strongly believe that H1Bs should be given out to employees that are offered the highest salary.

Clearly there is no shortage if you are not willing to pay one of the highest salaries.

Yea, this wouldn't be perfect, but it's much better than the significantly more gameable lottery system we have now.

[kolinko]

But then only H1Bs from Silicon Valley would get accepted, because that's where they pay the most. Other states, and even other cities in California (like Los Angeles) would suffer from the lack of opportunity to hire immigrants.

[vostok]

If salaries in those areas are not as high as in the Bay Area, it means there is no shortage. It just means the salaries are too low to attract talent.

There are plenty of companies outside the Bay Area that pay comparable salaries. I have first or very close second hand experience with LA, Chicago, Seattle, Colorado, and New York. If other companies want to hire foreigners they should be willing to pay more.

[megablast]

No it doesn't. San Fran has higher salaries across the board, to go with the higher cost of living. It doesn't mean other areas don't need devs.

[vostok]

They can still hire devs. They just need to pay more. Total comp is not adjusted for cost of living for doctors, salesmen, traders, bankers, attorneys, and managers. Why do you expect it to be adjusted for software developers? This is less than intuitive for me.

[thaumasiotes]

Your causality is backwards. San Francisco doesn't pay high salaries because the cost of living is high; if that model obtained, San Francisco would immediately turn into a ghost town. The cost of living is high in San Francisco because of the high salaries.

[SilasX]

Arguably the effect goes the other way: engineers are more productive in SF, so they're worth paying more in SF. (If that weren't the case, then you wouldn't be able to pay engineers enough to want to live there while still making s profit.)

So the GP's policy would still fit the spirit of the H1B program, which is to allow slots for high-output roles.

[stale2002]

Well sucks to be those states. If those states want to compete, then maybe they should offer hire salaries. Why do they "deserve" to have cheap employees, but not other areas?

[IndianAstronaut]

Having a bidding system for H1Bs would quickly resolve all these issues.

[eva1984]

That will make company like MS/Google/FB/AMAZN, invincible. Startups are going to be starved. They will not have that much leverage to recruit desired talents.

[fra]

Are you saying startups could not compete without "cheap" H1B labor?!

The H1B is explicitly not supposed to bring in cheaper labor.

[michel-slm]

I think what he means is, startups can't deal with the uncertainty and lead times the current H-1B system imposes.

Large companies just project how many openings they would have in October next year, hire appropriately, and park them in offshore offices if they didn't make the lottery. And they can afford the application fee too

[vostok]

The current system also puts small companies at a disadvantage. I work at a tiny company that pays more than the companies you listed and we have a lot of difficulty getting new H1Bs.

If we had an auction style system then at least small companies would have the opportunity to pay more and get access to foreign labor. In the current system, this is not even an option so companies like mine are disadvantaged with no recourse. Startups could always hire native workers or hire foreign workers offshore.

[kofejnik]

otoh, artificially allowing startups to get cheap engineers means that these or some other engineers are deprived of an opportunity to make a lot more money at Google/Facebook. Engineers are thus being exploited by unethical employers flooding the system

[nojvek]

+1 on this. I would really like H1B's to be a bidding system. But guess who lobbies the govt?

[hkmurakami]

In addition, I hope that we can somehow figure out a way to give visas to STEM graduate degree earners over ones employed by such shops. That segment seems significantly underserved by the current system and it's resulting in a reverse brain drain away from the country even though we are investing in their education.

[morgante]

I don't like the idea of further endorsing and supporting credentialism.

If you can get a high salary, then you're in demand and we should keep you. If you have a STEM degree but can't even get a good job, then I don't see any reason to grant a visa.

[vostok]

I'm not sure that it makes sense to target STEM graduates in this way. Most of them would receive visas based on their high salaries whereas an explicit rule would only serve to increase the number of low quality STEM degrees.

[hkmurakami]

Yeah that did cross my mind, and now that it's been brought up, I'm inclined to think you are right.

I just learned that a bunch of acquaintances lost out on their H1B lotteries and will be shipped out of the country to international offices once their OPT terms end in 1-2 months. Since they were employed by strong companies, their salaries likely would have been high enough to qualify them for H1B visas under a system you propose.

[jacalata]

Actually I wonder if entry level employees would be crowded out completely in an auction system - wouldn't it end up being all senior engineers?

[davidw]

This idea is still predicated on the 'magic number' that the government has more or less randomly picked to be the number of H1B visas in a year. This number is, of course, far smaller than the number of family and other types of visas.

http://johnhcochrane.blogspot.com/2014/06/the-optimal-number...

[mavelikara]

Making it easy to switch jobs will also go a long way in making this system much better.

Right now, the consultancy firms flood the application pool hoping to get few selected. They eat the cost of sending all the applications because they see it as an investment - they know that they can milk the few who get selected for many years and recoup many multiples of their initial investment.

Tying the H-1B to the employee not the employer will put an end to such abuses.

[bduerst]

This would make it easier to game, especially for wealthy immigrants who want to buy a visa to get a green card.

Also the H1B visa is for hundreds of different job classifications at different prevailing wages - are you saying there should be an auction for each? How will visas be distributed fairly amongst them?

[mahyarm]

Those people are a small portion of H1B visas, if at all, and all it means that instead of a %50 to %100 chance that they get it 'this year' doing it, it's a %100 chance. They also have other options like an L1 visa which is another %100 chance in a year and then can get a green card at the highest priority level as an international executive afterwards. Or they can open a mcdonalds franchise somewhere in a bad part of america and get a E visa for a $500k investment. The wealthy have many options to immigrate. And if they are wealthy they can do this with real corporations too since wealthy people have wealthy friends.

Gamebility by the 'wealthy' would be the least of their worries in this case. Most H1-B abuse are body shops such as infosys. 'Price' auctions would be a good improvement for employees, although it would concentrate the visas into places like SF & NYC even further.

On top of that, a US passport isn't attractive to the already wealthy. The US has high income tax rates relative to many other places and you can never escape it by moving out, unlike all other citizenships in the world. The already wealthy would move to london, monaco, switzerland or maybe dubai if their goal was wealth preservation.

[bduerst]

Less than 7% of approved H1B visas last year were with Infosys, HCL, and Cognizant - the three major H1B abusers. The remaining 93% were legitimate hires that would be priced out by the wealthy if there were a way for the wealthy to buy their visas.

Just because there is a problem that doesn't justify moving to a solution that destroys it. It's better strengthen enforcement so that fines can be used to make it expensive for abusers (like what happened in the article), rather than price out talent that isn't just in finance or high paying fields.

[vostok]

The wealthy can already buy their way into a US visa. I am in an immigrant community where this happens. Quite frankly, I think those programs should also be expanded.

[isoos]

Wealthy immigrants can obtain investor visa easier outside of the H1B pool (EB-5).

There is no reason why H1B should be distributed fairly, because the US has a green card lottery that is diversified across various jobs and countries anyway.

[bduerst]

The EB-5 requires starting a company and employing 10+ at >$50k/yr, meaning it costs $500,000+. Do you honestly think the H1B visa will bid higher than $500k/yr for base pay for the employee?

The lottery evenly distributes amongst the positions based on demand. By switching to wealth, you're creating a system that only the highest-paying job categories will prevail.

[gorkemyurt]

That's one way of doing it.

But most of the people use a regional center [1] to park the $500k is a big real estate project like Hunter's Point Shipyard in SF or Hudson Yards in New York with no additional yearly cost.

[1] https://www.uscis.gov/working-united-states/permanent-worker...

[vostok]

I am in an immigrant community where the EB5 is used. It does not cost $500k/year and it is an investment rather than a expense so it is not all comparable to the H1B program.

[CPLX]

You're aware that not every H1B is a developer right? Your proposal would change the whole basis of the program in a way that doesn't seem particularly thought out.

What about people who are botanists, or harpsichord teachers?

[jimbokun]

You could have separate categories for non profit and academic positions.

But for positions in private industry, I don't care. If you really, really need a foreign employee over a domestic one, you will need to pay the H1B premium, competing with everyone else.

It's more fair than a system based on luck, or arbitrary criteria of review board or something guaranteed to be games and manipulated.

[CPLX]

But the goal of the system isn't fairness, it's to provide needed skills to American businesses. It sounds like you're looking at this from the perspective of a job-seeking foreign national, but that's not actually a constituency here, they aren't American, don't vote, and our government is not intending to help them with this program.

The supposed point is to make sure American companies can compete. The idea of only allowing the very highest paid foreign workers in, and them all being software developers, has literally nothing to do with that goal.

[jimbokun]

"The supposed point is to make sure American companies can compete."

I don't really care about this, either. I care more about American people than American companies. Companies, American or otherwise, are doing fine.

[vostok]

Is there a shortage of botanists or harpsichord teachers if they are paid less than software developers? This is not obvious to me.

I know plenty of people who went from biology (I know it is not botany exactly) to tech because there are /too many/ biologists.

[mahyarm]

Universities already have an unlimited quota for H1Bs, so at least the teachers can get it.

[jacalata]

Hmm, cite? People I know at universities aren't on H1B visas.

[oceliker]

https://www.uscis.gov/ilink/docView/PUBLAW/HTML/PUBLAW/0-0-0...

Relevant part:

SEC. 103. SPECIAL RULE FOR UNIVERSITIES, RESEARCH FACILITIES, AND GRADUATE DEGREE RECIPIENTS; COUNTING RULES.

Section 214(g) of the Immigration and Nationality Act (8 U.S.C. 1184(g)) is amended by adding at the end the following new paragraphs:

(5) The numerical limitations contained in paragraph (1)(A) shall not apply to any nonimmigrant alien issued a visa or otherwise provided status under section 101(a)(15)(H)(i)(b) who is employed (or has received an offer of employment) at--

(A) an institution of higher education (as defined in section 101(a) of the Higher Education Act of 1965 (20 U.S.C. 1001(a))), or a related or affiliated nonprofit entity; or

(B) a nonprofit research organization or a governmental research organization.

[jedberg]

Easy fix -- give the visas to the highest paid people in each job category. After you've gone through each category once, do it again for the next highest paid. Eventually you'll run out of harpsichord teachers and so the more popular categories would keep getting filled until the quota was reached.

Then you get highly paid people and you get a nice cross section of skillsets, and it incentivizes the companies to pay the highest wage for that skill.

[eru]

Who decides on how to clump the categories?

Why not just auction off the visas?

[eru]

That's a start.

But why not just give them to the highest bidder?

[jon_richards]

How do you value equity? Are H1-Bs not allowed to join early stage startups then?

[parennoob]

> Hopefully, that will improve the perception around genuine H1-B VISA holders.

This. As a fairly paid H1B (I have discussed salary openly with my American coworkers), I always cringe when stories like the Disney one come up, because I feel like the next day a couple of them are going to be saying, "Ugh, there's the H1B that's taking our jobs away".

For this reason, I hope all the fraudulent H1B companies are pushed out of business with strict penalties. Also I really wish there were some sane laws around H1B (sorting priority by salary relative to prevailing wage, untying employers from the visa, etc.)

[_audakel]

I think it is yet another point showing how broken our immigration / vIsa program is. This sort of blackmarket style operation would never have existed in the first place if the talanted non US (calling them aliens seems dehumanizing and encourages the us vs them mentality) workers could easily and affordably get permission to work here

[pkaye]

This sort of problem could also be resolved by adding whistle blower protection to H1B employees against their employers.

[praneshp]

You speak as if those employees are poor folks being exploited. They are "in" on the con, they know exactly what they are getting into.

[pkaye]

We don't know. There those who in it and there are some who are brought in on different terms and then the rules changed on them. Anyway this will make it easier to enforce because both sides can prove their point by showing bank records of payment. By give the employee sufficient leverage and the employer criminal penalties, it puts the employer on guard to do things correctly and legally.

[steego]

A much better solution would to remove any barriers an H1B worker has to shop for a better job. If we want to live an egalitarian society, it's in our collective interest for immigrants to earn as much as the rest of us. That only happens when we dismantle systems that provide an incentive to exploit immigrants.

[rhizome]

You're describing the entire framework of immigration, from green cards to citizenship, which already exists. You can say the H1B component should be removed, but business leaders will cry bloody murder if a whiff of that legislation ever crosses the transom.

[spiralpolitik]

The main problem with the current system is that there is no way for a H-1B holder to progress to a Green Card without employer sponsorship. This puts all the power in the hands of the employer with such sponsorships difficult to get these days.

A better solution would be to allow a H-1B worker in good standing to convert to a green card after 4 years without any kind of employer sponsorship needed.

This would bring the US in line with other developed countries that typically allow temporary workers to convert to permanent residents after a period of time independent of their employer.

[sliverstorm]

That's no longer an H1-B, that's a totally different program with different goals.

[vthallam]

Guess what the user meant is to make it easy for people on H1B to switch jobs which currently isn't. This makes so many employees to be at the jobs though low paying so as to keep their status in US.

Edit: for grammar!

[bruceb]

You can switch jobs on an H1-b visa. The window is too short yes but plenty of people with skills do it in SV.

[int_19h]

You can, but if you have a green card application in process, you'll have to start all over again, unless it was in its final stage. This can easily put you back by several years.

The fundamental problem is that US simply doesn't have a well-designed skilled worker immigration track, the way e.g. Canada or Australia do. H1B fills that niche in practice, but it was clearly not designed for it, and so there are all these warts.

[HarryHirsch]

You can, but it isn't for people with weak stomachs or dependents. Who thinks that that is intentional believes in conspiracies.

[steego]

You realize that a person doesn't have to belong to the Illuminati as a precondition to lobby for special or opaque legislation, right? The only precondition intent needs is a conflict of interest.

Look at Intuit. A number of years back, California piloted a program that simplified filing tax returns for people opting to take the standard deduction. They would mail you a form that was prefilled so you could simply sign it and mail it back. Intuit lobbied to kill it and won. No laws were broken. They were simply acting in the interest of their shareholders.

The American Immigration Lawyers Association is one of many lobbying groups that represents 13,000 members. Many of these members help the 80,000 some H1B applicants through the process and can charge legal fees in the ballpark of $10,000 to do that. Assuming all 80,000 applicants spent $10,000 in legal fees, we're talking about ~$1bn market on top for that type of work alone. In the grand scheme of things, it's not a lot, but it's one component that can create a conflict of interest.

Let's assume the AILA is an upstanding group and all of the lobbyists they hire are ethical boy scouts. They would never influence our legislators to intentionally complicate laws to serve their members. Instead, they would recognize that it's in our nation's best interest that our immigration systems are robust, thorough and comprehensive. They'd also emphasize that their members provide a critical service to sherpa honest immigrants through this thoroughly comprehensive system.

You don't need to be behind a ridiculous conspiracy to influence legislation to serve your best interests. These days, you're way better off being transparent and operating under an ethical framework.

[natmaster]

Why is America the only place to live in the world? Are you saying the rest of the world is terrible?

[happyslobro]

As a Canadian expat in Qatar, who is on a third lap around the world, I can assure you that there are many excellent and terrible places to live in the world. This fixation on America that I keep seeing everywhere is absolutely baffling. Maybe I should check it out ;)

[PhasmaFelis]

What on earth are you talking about? Did you reply to the wrong comment?

[splintercell]

Yes

[sliverstorm]

So this conviction is not that much about H1-B's replacing American workers as much as it is about an unethical employer paying his employees less than the promised wage.

Though, the two are deeply entwined. If you prevent this kind of exploitation, using H1-B's as a source of cheap labor (and thus cheap American worker replacements) becomes less feasible.

[verst]

Exactly! Thanks for this insightful comment.

[siculars]

Every STEM grad from a US program should get a greencard/visa stapled to their diploma.

Why isn't that happening?

[dmm]

I like the concept but I can see a few potential problems with the idea.

Firstly this would give universities the power to print green cards. That's a power they probably shouldn't have.

Secondly I really don't think there is a shortage of scientists or mathematicians so STEM is probably a suboptimal group to apply this policy. I personally know a person with a masters in geophysics who drives for lyft. Ask a recent biology major about their job prospects, etc.

[dzhiurgis]

I work for this such type of consulting shop abroad (first world), supposedly best in the country and earn same as average Uber driver.

I think the model is not limited to the US. There are plenty of people willing to have abroad experience, but it does demotivate you to certain degree.

I can imagine market geophysics specialists is extremely tiny.

[bduerst]

They need to be paid more than the prevailing wage for citizens working the same job in the area they are working.

[bduerst]

Thank you for clarifying. I think one of the biggest problems with immigration in the U.S. is that citizens aren't that knowledgeable in the H1B approval process, and tend to attribute these abusers to all H1B sponsors.

[WalterBright]

7 years is a very harsh sentence for a non-violent crime.