[emmett]

This isn't at all how H1B visas work in Silicon Valley that I've ever seen.

There are definitely large contracting companies which abuse the H1B process in this way, but at Google/Amazon/Microsoft/Yahoo/etc I have never seen an H1B holder make any less than their counterpart born in the US.

Doesn't mean I don't agree the H1B system needs serious reform, but it's unfair to tar all employers with that brush.

(Best reform idea I've heard: the limited H1B slots go to whoever is paying the most for the job. Inherently prioritized the most economically impactful immigrants and also creates upward pressure on wages. Win/win!)

[curun1r]

> I have never seen an H1B holder make any less than their counterpart born in the US

I have. And based on the patterns I saw in hiring, I expect that it's the same across the industry, even when companies aren't trying to underpay immigrants. It's a fascinating perspective when you get involved with hiring at the offer stage and see the negotiations. You can send the exact same offer to an H1-B and a citizen and the counter-offers will be completely different. A citizen will ask for more comp and an H1-B will ask for an EB2 sponsorship. Both are entirely rational decisions the since employment flexibility of a green card is probably worth more to an immigrant than an immediate increase in comp.

> Best reform idea I've heard...

I still think the best idea is to impose ratios like other countries do. Let companies hire as many immigrants as the like so long as they're also employing, in similar positions, the requisite number of Americans as well. If the theory is that highly-skilled immigrants are bringing skills and knowledge that's in short supply here, we should be trying to have them work with Americans as much as possible so that Americans can learn from them. Companies that abuse the current system end up having nearly all-immigrant work forces. Meanwhile, smaller companies without large legal teams can have difficulty getting even a single H1-B hired. Ratios fix both problems and they also help immigrants assimilate faster because there's less chance they end up working with mostly other immigrants.

Your idea of using salary as the deciding factor is great in theory, but in practice we don't allocate capital wisely. We'd end up with a lot of H1-Bs in finance and almost none in science or any of the many lower-paying areas that require education and intelligence.

[conanbatt]

> I have never seen an H1B holder make any less than their counterpart born in the US.

By pure economic logic, they must. Because the cost of the immigration attorneys and process has to be paid by the employee. If the employer absorbed that cost, it would be cheaper to hire local at the same price(salary).

Not only that, but the lower level of mobility an immigrant has means he cant switch jobs as easily, thus sacrifices potential earnings that a local wouldnt.

There is no way around it: any restriction you make will harm the person being restricted. It is thus that it think any kind of immigration policy aims at harming individuals at the request of others.

The best reform would be remove the requirement altogether and let companies hire who they want, and individuals work where they want to. While the US pertains itself to questions like how restrictive their visas should be, other countries panic at the constant brain drain.

[sumedh]

> but at Google/Amazon/Microsoft/Yahoo/

They are not the majority, most visas go to the Indian Outsourcing companies.

[droopyEyelids]

Silicon valley H1B jobs are a tiny fraction of H1B jobs. Something like 90%+ go to InfoSys & Tata like consultancies which do exactly what the parent comment mentioned.

You're making an argument based on an infrequent exception to the rule

[emmett]

The parent comment was talking about H1Bs working for startups. Startups are not InfoSys or Tata. I agree with you and the parent comment, as I said, that H1Bs are widely abused by InfoSys and Tata and I would be very happy to see that abuse stopped -- but let's not tar startups with the same brush!