[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.

[bduerst]

At $500k+. Surely you don't believe that H1B visas should cost that much for skilled talent to come to the U.S.

[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.

[bduerst]

We're referring to what it would cost for bad actors to abuse the system. Someone was saying that switching to a biddable H1B visa would solve problems because it's just like the EB5.