[ajmurmann]

I am VERY pro-immigration. I do have concerns about the H1B program though. IMO it's not great for both immigrant workers, as well as non-immigrant workers because it creates a class of workers for whom it's harder to change employers which weakens their negotiation position. If this is the case for enough of the workforce it artificially depresses wages for everyone. I want to see a reform that makes it much easier for H1B workers to change employers.

[Spooky23]

In context of tech, H1B is great for the money people in the US and India. It suppresses wages in both countries and is a powerful plum for employee “loyalty”. There’s a whole industry of companies stoking the pipeline of cheap labor and corrupting the hiring process.

In big dollar markets, the program is used more for special skills. But when a big bank or government contractor needs marginally skilled people onshore, they open an office in Nowhere, Arizona, and have a hard time finding J2EE developers. So some company from New Jersey will appear and provide a steady stream of workers making $25/hr.

The calculus is that more H1=less offshore.

The smart move would be to just let skilled workers from India, China, etc with a visa that doesn’t tie them to an employer. That would end the abusive labor practices and probably reduce the number of lower end workers or the incentive to deny entry level employment to US nationals.

[senderista]

H1-B also makes CS masters programs a cash cow for US schools.

[rightbyte]

How does H1B suppress wages in India?

[Aeolun]

All those people skilled enough to get hired in the US (for massive increase in wages) don’t try to get similar positions in India, thus, nobody has to compete to pay for them.

[bernawil]

I don't think so. You can argue emmigration takes away supply in the labor side. Why would prices go down? Quite the contrary. I don't think it necessarily raises salaries in India though, because that market seems to have a hard cap somewhere around 36k/year but it sure does opens up positions for newcomers.

[antithesizer]

Because it surpresses wages in the US, so Indian employers do not need to offer as much compensation to keep local workers who are considering emigrating.

[catigula]

I want to use you as a bit of a sounding board, so don't take this as negative feedback.

The problem is that the left, which was historically pro-labor, abdicated this position for racial reasons, and the right was always about maximizing the economic zone.

[hn_throwaway_99]

I saw a report recently about the political left in Denmark, who are basically one of the the only progressive movements in countries that understood what it takes to maintain support, and hence Denmark has had much less of a rise in support for far right parties than other countries in the world. Here's an article, https://www.nytimes.com/2025/02/24/magazine/denmark-immigrat....

Basically, progressives in Denmark have argued for very strict immigration rules, the essential argument being that Denmark has an expensive social welfare state, and to get the populace to support the high taxes needed to pay for this, you can't just let anyone in who shows up on your doorstep.

The American left could learn a ton of lessons from this. I may loath Greg Abbott for lots of reasons, but I largely support what he did bussing migrants to NYC and other liberal cities. Many people in these cities wanted to bask in the feelings of moral superiority by being "sanctuary cities", but public sentiment changed drastically when they actually had to start bearing a large portion of the cost of a flood of migrants.

[ajmurmann]

Is there a reason social benefits must be available to immigrants? It seems like those could result be tied to citizenship or something like a minimum amount of lifetime taxes someone most have paid.

[c0redump]

I mostly agree with you, but i think there’s something you got wrong. The democrat establishment didn’t abdicate their pro-labor position for reasons of racial equity- this was only ever a cover story.

The real reason is that they are totally beholden to powerful business interests that benefit from mass immigration, and the ensuing suppression of American labor movements. The racial equity bit is just the line that they feed to their voters.

[ajmurmann]

I think the problems are more complex and much harder to fix and more depressing. The actual policies by the Democratic party have been "pro-worker". Biden was strongly pro-union. I am hard pressed to think of any policy by the Biden administration that was focused on racial issues. However, it seems like the perception of the Democratic party is largely mixed in with leftists who don't even like the party.

I think the real problem is that the median voter is either unable to, has no time to or no interest to understand basic economics and second-order consequences. We see this on both sides of the aisle. Policies like caps on credit card interest rates, rent control or no tax on tips are very, very popular while also being obviously bad after thinking about it for just 1 minute.

This is compounded by there being relatively little discussion of policies like that. They get reported on but not discussed and analyzed. This takes us back to your point about the perception of the Democratic party. The media (probably because the median voter prefers it) will instead discuss issues that are more emotionally relatable, like the border being "overwhelmed", trans athletes, etc. which makes it less likely to get people to think about economic policy.

This causes a preference for simple policies that seem to aim straight for the goal. Rent too high? Prohibit higher rent! Credit card fees too high? Prohibit high fees! Immigrants lower wages? Have fewer immigrant!

Telling the median voter that H1-B visa holders are lowering wages due to the high friction of changing sponsors and that the solution is to loosen the visa restrictions is gonna go over well with much of the electorate. Even only the portion of initial problem statement will likely reach most voters in the form of "H1-B visas lower wages". Someone who will simply take that simplified issue and run with cutting down further on immigration will be much more likely to succeed with how public opinion is currently formed.

All this stuff is why I love learning about policy and absolutely loath politics.

[DenisM]

I’ve read some analysis than many swing voters supported Trump because they were unhappy with the economic situation, not due to culture wars. In their minds, and words, Trump may change at least something while democrats will certainly change nothing. Whatever pro-labor policies Biden had they didn’t move the needle.

What do you think of that?

[ajmurmann]

I think that all statistics show us that the economy was very strong, especially compared to other countries. We did the impossible and had a soft landing. However, we also learned that the public prefers unemployment over inflation, even if real wages go up. People see their wage increases as earned even if it's just a market adjustment.

Further, I'm very disappointed that the median voter doesn't seem to understand or care about the policies they vote for. Tariffs and deportations are recipes to cause more inflation, yet here we are.

[SpicyLemonZest]

Employment-based immigration policy just isn't controversial outside of very specific bubbles. Everyone who's considered the problem seriously, left and right, realizes that the H1B system is bad a point-based system is the way to go, which is why it's been part of every immigration reform proposal for over a decade with essentially no controversy. If this were the only aspect of immigration issues, or if people felt it was important enough to pull it out of broad immigration reform, it would pass in a heartbeat.

[Aeolun]

Japan will let everyone that can get a job in (and is willing to do the immigration process for them). This seems like a perfectly fair way to do things. If you don’t have a job, and can’t find a new one in 3-6 months, you have to leave again.

Don’t understand why other countries make it harder.

[tjpnz]

Japan (the country) doesn't do this. You still need a company to sponsor you and not every company can.

[Ray20]

Because other countries are not Japan, and if, say, the US were to pursue a similar policy, they would receive over 200 million immigrant workers and near-zero employment among the native population in the first two years

[jajko]

Switzerland is the same. By far the best implemented immigration policies in whole Europe, if only Germany and France egos would step down a notch, acknowledge their mistakes and take an inspiration from clearly way more successful neighbour. They have 3x more immigration than next country and it just works, long term.

EU would flourish economically and there would be no room for ultra conservative right to gain any real foothold (which is 95% just failed immigration topic just like Brexit was).

Alas, we are where we are, they slowly backpedal but its too little too late, as usually. I blame Merkel for half of EU woes, she really was a horrible leader of otherwise very powerful nation made much weaker and less resilient due to her flawed policies and lack of grokking where world is heading to.

Btw she still acknowledges nothing and keeps thinking how great she was. Also a nuclear physicist who turned off all existing nuclear plants too early so Germany has to import massive amount of electricity from coal burning plants. You can't make it up.

[throwaway2037]

First, I assume you are talking about highly skilled immigration to Switzerland. Does Swiss immigration policy also apply to non-highly skilled immigration? (Leave aside refugees for this discussion.)

How does Switzerland keep local companies from hiring workers on low wages to compete against locals? How do they police it?

[ajmurmann]

Does Switzerland not take any refugees?

[jajko]

Yes, some, but those are very different from economical migrants and their numbers compared to those migrants are small

[throwaway2037]

Can you give more details here? I don't fully understand your post.

[Aeolun]

Immigration based on “I have someone willing to pay me to work” (and go through the immigration process) is essentially unlimited. Immigration based on “I’m a poor refugee, please help me” is nearly nonexistent (helps they’re an island).

[woke_ai_god]

Nah Japan rejects a lot of people even for work visas, also the requirements for maintaining the work visa can be extremely burdensome. You are underplaying the amount of bureaucratic hurdles that the average person will in fact face.

This nation has always taken in at least some percentage of less well off immigrants. It's against tradition to do otherwise. I don't see why we should render the second category non-existent, or why that is some inherent good that everyone should agree to be the case? Am I allowed to believe otherwise?

[catigula]

My understanding is that Bernie Sanders used to say that mass immigration was a "Koch brothers thing" and his tune on this has since changed to align with "progressive" ideas, but I might be mistaken.

I already know that the right-wing supports h1bs, Trump himself said so.

[gosub100]

He recently addressed Congress and brought up the abuse of H1B such as for entry level accounting positions. The program was to meet shortages for highly skilled positions. Now its being abused to cheat new grads out of jobs and depress wages

[SpicyLemonZest]

Even in his most immigration-skeptical era (https://www.computerworld.com/article/1367869/bernie-sanders...), Sanders always acknowledged that some companies genuinely need a skilled immigration program to hire the global best and brightest. And note his line about "offshore outsourcing companies"; the issue's become even less controversial now that the balance of H1B sponsors is shifting towards large American tech companies who genuinely pay market rate.

[bradlys]

What if tech roles at big tech roles actually paid more like the same prestigious firms in finance in nyc?

People in tech are so quick to shoot themselves in the foot.

[SpicyLemonZest]

Not sure what you're aiming to get out of this comparison. Software engineers make quite a bit more at prestigious tech companies than they do at prestigious finance firms in NYC, and prestigious finance firms in NYC extensively recruit people from outside the US. Even if you want to compare engineers in tech to bankers in finance, I'm not sure Goldman is paying all that much better than OpenAI these days.

[fijiaarone]

The job of the high paid people in finance at prestigious firms is to look nice in an expensive suit. Know many people in tech with those qualifications?

[throwaway2037]

Regarding the first sentence, it is already true for software developers. You can (and probably will) make more money at FAANG compared to global ibanks in NYC.

[catigula]

I don't really think that is what's being discussed here.

Even literal Nazis were exempted from immigration controls on the basis of extreme merit.

[DonHopkins]

>Trump himself said so

TACO Trump himself said he'd reveal his health care plan in two weeks, many many years ago, many many times. But then he chickened out again and again and again and again and again. So that the buk buk buk are you talking about?

[bernawil]

was the left ever truly anti-immigration? I genuinely ask. Because the last leftwing explicitly pro-union movement I can remember was the late 90s/2000s anti-globalists, the ones that used to protest the G7 summits and the like. But they were in favor of immigration, so it always seemed contradictory. Anyway, it's not like the right doesn't have its own equally contradictory positions.

[bdangubic]

amen! that will never happen though, nothing ever happens here that helps the workers and whatever rights we have now are slowly dwindling (immigrants or otherwise…)

[andrekandre]

  > nothing ever happens here that helps the workers and whatever rights we have now are slowly dwindling

its almost as if we need a 'workers party' or something... though i'd imagine first-past-the-post in the u.s makes that difficult.

[kstrauser]

I agree with all of that. I've seen employers treat workers with H1B visas as slaves, basically. Local employees had a pretty decent work-life balance, but H1B employees got calls at 8PM on a Friday night to add a feature. And why not? What were they going to do quit (and have, what is it, something like 48 hours to get out of the country)?

I felt enormous sympathy for my coworkers here with that visa. Their lives sucked because there was little downside for sociopathic managers to make them suck.

Most frustrating was when they were doing the same kind of work I was doing, like writing Python web services and whatnot. We absolutely could hire local employees to do those things. They weren't building quantum computers or something. Crappy employers gamed the system to get below-market-rate-salary employees and work them like rented mules. It was infuriating.

[lokar]

It sucks that people are treated that way.

While working at Google I worked with many many amazing H1B (and other kinds) visa holders. I did 3 interviews a week, sat on hiring committees (reading 10-15 packets a week) and had a pretty good gauge of what we could find.

There was just no way I could see that we could replace these people with Americans. And they got paid top dollar and had the same wlb as everyone else (you could not generally tell what someone’s status was).

[kstrauser]

I fully, completely support the idea of visa programs running like that. If you want to pay top dollar for someone with unique skills to move here and help build our economy, I am fully behind this.

But wanna use it as a way to undercut American jobs with 80-hour-a-week laborers, as I've personally witnessed? Nah.

My criticisms against the H1B program are completely against the companies who abuse it. By all means, please do use it to bring in world-class scientists, researchers, and engineers!

[c0redump]

This was true up until pretty recently. CS has come to be seen as a “prestigious” degree, and SWE as a “prestigious” career. Lots of kids who, 10 years ago, would have studied law, medicine, finance, or hard sciences, are studying CS. At my alma mater, CS is the largest major by a huge margin. The result of all this is there is a massive supply of smart and capable American citizens with formal training trying to break in to the job market, with limited success, due in no small part to the labor oversupply caused by immigration.

https://www.linkedin.com/posts/jamesfobrien_tech-jobs-have-d...

[guestbest]

If the foreign candidates were so much superior than locally born candidates as you explained, why not just open a campus in that country and thus save the best employees from having to uproot from their native culture?

[lokar]

Good question. In many cases they did. The Zurich office has people from all over Europe.

But, for existing teams they wanted (reasonably) to avoid splitting between locations. So you need someone local.

[disgruntledphd2]

I think the real reason for hiring locally is both that communication works better, and that the higher ups don't want to give the impression that their jobs could also be outsourced.

[ajmurmann]

Time zones can be a real issue even with remote work. There are of course also arguments for in-person collaboration.