[d_sem]

One of America's greatest assets is its brand as a place worth immigrating too. Much of the social capital is gained by high performing international hires who leverage the H-1B visa. We want methods for highly educated people to make the US their home. limiting this is short sighted and negatively impact the health of the country.

[dentemple]

I was once brought in to a Fortune500 company to teach basic ENTRY LEVEL web development to a room full of supposedly "highly educated" H-1B Software Engineers.

Much of my presentation included things that most of my unemployed American colleagues, all of whom were actively looking for work, already knew how to do implicitly. Because it literally was just basic, "This is how flexbox works"-type of stuff.

Maybe the H-1B program is a great program for hospitals. For tech, it is 100% being used to import cheap, disposable labor in a way that harms U.S. citizens economically.

[roarcher]

H1B workers are supposed to be people with qualifications that are in short supply in the United States. The unspoken part is that the "qualification" employers are so desperately searching for is usually the willingness to work for peanuts.

[Balinares]

Isn't H-1B contingent on compensation in line with the local median for the role?

[jalapenos]

It is contingent on you documenting your going through the motions of pretending to keep compensation in line with "the local median".

[redserk]

After graduating college I joined a company that paid generally below-market for everyone and had a significant number of H-1B employees and contractors.

The benefits were legendary but the pay was 20-30% lower than what was around.

I don’t have evidence of wrongdoing but I’ve occasionally wondered if it was some kind of scheme.

[jdlshore]

“Legendary” benefits (especially healthcare) are extremely expensive. It’s plausible that the average total compensation was the same, or even more, than other companies. The trick is that not everyone gets the same value from those benefits.

[avidiax]

The compensation is only measured in terms of salary (and maybe bonus).

Stock compensation is completely ignored. Since stock compensation can be a large fraction if not the majority of the compensation, this means that many H1-Bs may be underpaid compared to their coworkers, while appearing to the government to be the highest paid in that company and job role.

The other ignored aspect is effective hourly pay. Software engineers are nearly always exempt employees, so they don't receive hourly pay. But a manager can demand more from H1Bs, even if it would mean work during nights or weekends, and there's little the H1B can do. Local employees can more easily change jobs if that happens, and moreover, the threat that they can change jobs disincentivizes such abuse.

[WorldMaker]

It's a bit of a catch-22 because if you add enough lower compensated employees you shift the local median lower. If "everyone" in the local area is hiring more cheaper H-1Bs that gives you a chance to hire even more H-1Bs for even cheaper. Averages can be a fun game that way.

Even if you try to pin it to the median that does not include H-1Bs, you still are letting the market compete on labor cost and that competition can still affect the local median. Companies decide all the time that they could hire, for example, 2 H-1Bs for the cost of one "senior" local developer, encouraging that local developer to maybe only ask for 1.5x "an H-1B" to remain competitive in that market. Iterate that enough in hiring decisions and companies still have more control of that local median than labor does.

I don't know if there is a "fair" way to set the cost of labor for an H-1B, but "local median" or any other average-based math is probably not it.

[pessimizer]

This has been "proven wrong" by geniuses pointing out that Americans who work in the same jobs as the H1Bs are also making peanuts.

[Saline9515]

Then restricting the supply of workers ready to work for peanuts will force companies to raise their salaries to hire.

[TechnicalVault]

Or if the job is an outsourceable one that can be provided as a service then they will outsource it to a company overseas and still pay peanuts. The only reason they'll raise wages is if they have to, aka the service cannot be done elsewhere or automated.

[_DeadFred_]

If your company doesn't need domain experts/doesn't change to the point these people can be remote... you are a zombie company and will be replaced by someone that does utilize domain experts/dynamically changes all the time with conditions. Even with just a factory, when I moved from dev to IT, getting my people to understand our users by going out to the floor and sitting with people we were able to greatly improve efficiency in a way no remote IT could.

[tracker1]

They already are... Generally insourcing is to reduce the friction of doing so, because application managers and product owners don't want to relocate to the countries they're doing the outsourcing with.

[Saline9515]

A lot of jobs require or are better done on-premises, which is why they hire H1-Bs. Outsourcing is already cheaper, by far, especially if you want to go to the third-world.

[_DeadFred_]

This. The problem for H1B advocates is most of us here reached our conclusions AFTER exposure to outsourcing/consulting and what H1-Bs got us/the new people we had to manage. Lots of us were also privy to managements' reasoning (cutting costs/your team is the most expensive and we don't want to pay that) which don't align with 'H1Bs are paid the same'.

[trhway]

> For tech, it is 100% being used to import cheap, disposable labor in a way that harms U.S. citizens economically.

I'd argue with the 100% - we all know the companies that do it. They get about half of H1B visas. So 50% :)

The blanket $100K (instead of say tiering it like raising fee $50K for each next 20K tier of visas with the $250K fee visas no subject to the cap - if only Tramp knew anything about business and specifically price differentiation :) would definitely revive interest for outsourcing to offshore.

Managing AI agents have some similarity to managing offshore teams. This time the offshore teams will be using AI agents. May probably lead to much higher performance/output.

Being rate limited, i'll answer to the commenter below here: The offshore teams are naturally assigned a well defined chunks of work, at least in a well managed situations. AI agents are also very suitable for that.

[franktankbank]

Ahh, so its as simple has having a well managed situation. Easy enough to outsource then. LETS GOOOO!

[lucyjojo]

> This time the offshore teams will be using AI agents. May probably lead to much higher performance.

What do you mean exactly by that. I do not follow...

[d_sem]

My equally anecdotal professional experience has been the exact opposite and certainly influences my view on this topic.

[thatfrenchguy]

> Maybe the H-1B program is a great program for hospitals. For tech, it is 100% being used to import cheap, disposable labor in a way that harms U.S. citizens economically

And yet, Apple, Google, Nvidia, Meta and Amazon would never be where they are without folks who are or who started on H-1B. A ton of their senior staff were once 20-something hired on H1B

Crackdown on the abuse of outsourcing companies, let actual tech workers who are (or will be) good at their jobs come here, it’s obvious policy. The US has benefited immensely from that brain drain.

[827a]

We issue 85,000 H1-B visas every year. Last year, there were 442,000 applications.

Its supply and demand. If you think any of these changes will cause fewer than 85,000 H1-B applications, then that is a good reason to believe that these changes might negatively impact the United States as a migration destination. However, with that added context and framing, I hope you'll agree that it won't; there's still going to be a smaller, but growing, number of people applying for the H1-B every year.

Increasing the number of H1-B visas has very little support from both sides of the isle. The 65,000+20,000 number was set, if you can believe it, 35 years ago. There were one or two temporary increases, but since 2005 its stayed at that 85,000 number.

[ido]

Why not set a salary floor for H1-B candidates? That's how the equivalent works in Germany (the floor is quite low imo but if it's too low it can be set higher). If you set the floor (maybe per profession) for software engineers at say $250k p.a. there'll be little benefit to bringing in unskilled labor, but the occasional great candidate could still get in.

[tao_oat]

There is a salary floor already, but it's pretty low at $60k/year.

[ido]

Sounds like it would have been simpler to just raise it to $160k instead of introducing a $100k fee.

[827a]

Yeah; it would have had the added benefit of generating more revenue for the government via increased income taxes ($100k * income tax rate over N years versus $100k only once).

But I think the reality about the H1-B program no one wants to state plainly is that its effectively a system of voluntary indentured servitude, and its important to all of the masters of the program that the visa holders accumulate as little power as possible.

[tracker1]

I've advocated for a long time that the fee should be 1:1 to the salary for the position along with a salary floor of $100k/year as it's for skilled work, which is largely historically been a break point. Today, that may be closer to 140 though.

The money generated should go towards grants for US citizens imo though, as it would shore up the "need" for foreign labor. As long as the economy is growing and there is demand it isn't a problem. If there's a legitimate need, then it should be worth the cost.

To those mentioning outsourcing will skyrocket, I doubt that as it's already widely used and there's a lot of additional friction without embedded staff/managers where the work is getting done, and even then.

[jalapenos]

Not simpler if the goal is tuk urr jaaabs

[fmobus]

I like Germany's BlueCard system (being a BlueCard immigrant myself), but implementing it for the US would have some extra complexity given the wild regional disparity in wages.

[bilekas]

The US has a new GoldCard system actually. : https://www.whitehouse.gov/presidential-actions/2025/09/the-...

[bsder]

> Increasing the number of H1-B visas has very little support from both sides of the isle.

A lot of us simply want the H1-B to green card conversion time to be 12 months to 24 months MAX and all the expense should be borne by the company.

That unblocks the pipeline and prevents the whole indentured servant depressing salaries problem. Any company that genuinely needs an H1-B will obviously hold onto the H1-B when it converts to a green card. Companies that are abusing the pipeline will be obvious as the green card holders will leave and the company will have to reapply for more H1-Bs.

[thatfrenchguy]

It can be 12-24 months if you’re not born in India and your lawyers do all their paperwork on time and you apply when USCIS is not crippled :)

[Saline9515]

A very short conversion time leads to a profitable business model where companies sell green cards to wealthy foreign citizens. You could pay a lump sum of 300k, company keeps 1/3 and pays back the rest to you as a salary for your fake H1-B job. At a total cost of $100k+taxes, it would be one of the cheapest "golden visa" in the world.

[bsder]

> A very short conversion time leads to a profitable business model where companies sell green cards to wealthy foreign citizens.

I don't buy it. This is spectacularly easy enforcement. A company applying for H1-Bs over and over and over is going to stick out and should get its H1-Bs denied--regardless of whether it is selling them to wealthy foreign nationals or is running an IT sweatshop that people flee as soon as they can.

Any company that isn't abusing the H1-B process will be able to demonstrate all the green card holders that are still working for them.

In addition, if foreign nationals want to come to the US and pay taxes here, we should let them. The US was built on immigration from working-class people--wealthy foreign nationals are kind of a no-brainer.

  Not like the brazen giant of Greek fame,
  With conquering limbs astride from land to land;
  Here at our sea-washed, sunset gates shall stand
  A mighty woman with a torch, whose flame
  Is the imprisoned lightning, and her name
  Mother of Exiles. From her beacon-hand
  Glows world-wide welcome; her mild eyes command
  The air-bridged harbor that twin cities frame.
  “Keep, ancient lands, your storied pomp!” cries she
  With silent lips. “Give me your tired, your poor,
  Your huddled masses yearning to breathe free,
  The wretched refuse of your teeming shore.
  Send these, the homeless, tempest-tossed to me,
  I lift my lamp beside the golden door!”

[Saline9515]

> A company applying for H1-Bs over and over and over is going to stick out and should get its H1-Bs denied--regardless of whether it is selling them to wealthy foreign nationals or is running an IT sweatshop that people flee as soon as they can.

You understand that 10 US companies hired 50k H1-Bs in 2025, out of 85k visas? The second largest hirer is Tata Consulting Services, who then "resells" the H1-Bs to clients while taking a cut. It's already happening.

And even then, you can still create subsidiaries or stand-alone companies to avoid being seen as a "repeat customer".

> In addition, if foreign nationals want to come to the US and pay taxes here, we should let them. The US was built on immigration from working-class people--wealthy foreign nationals are kind of a no-brainer.

This is a democratic issue, the USA is not earthlings' free for all, but the land of the citizens of the USA.

Just as a country is not a sum of taxpayers, immigration is not always mutually beneficial. If young CS graduates can't find a job because entry-level offers are reserved for foreigners, they'll end up working in underqualified jobs and paying less taxes, on top of the human cost caused by this situation. Supply and demand laws exist, and the job market is not magically immune because Amazon decided that the skills of the 14k H1-Bs they hired this year couldn't be found on the local market.

[fragmede]

Cheaper than the $5,000,000 Golden visa proposed by the President, sure, but at that point we're really just haggling anyway so then it's just a difference of degree.

[Saline9515]

They want to have a $2M platinium visa that allows you to bring workers, no questions asked, and to reuse the visa if you fire the worker. At 5% yield it's akin to $100k/y, which is close to the initial proposal to tax H1-bs yearly.

[blitzar]

Its on sale now for $1,000,000.

[valicord]

That's already how it works unless you happen to be from a couple unlucky countries

[giobox]

> unless you happen to be from a couple unlucky countries

Those "couple unlucky countries" make up ~80 percent of all H1B applications (India + China). Your comment makes it sound like this affects only a small set of H1B applicants.

[claw-el]

I believe the main ‘change’ of this $100,000 fee is the composition of labor. A doctor applies for H1B too and various other non-tech job applies for H1B too. Startups and hospitals have a much higher chance to not willing to pay for the fee and we will just end up with less ‘doctors’ in the 85,000 H1B visa approvals.

[influx]

Given the cost of healthcare in the USA and the AMA artificially limiting the number of doctors, I'm skeptical this fee will change anything.

[thijson]

I saw a comment in another thread that the AMA recognizes the problem of a deficit in new MD's. According to the comment, congress provides funding for MD residents, and that is the real bottleneck.

[Den_VR]

Don’t forget that the real utility of these H1B is for citizens of countries that exceed their EB quotas, which are primarily India and China just on the basis of their demographics. Without more serious reform of the immigration system I see this as a positive step towards raising the bar on those extra quotas.

[_DeadFred_]

This. H1B should still have to align with America's immigration goals of allowing people form all over the world in, not just certain countries. It was hard to get the entrenched systemic bias for western europeans opened up and it seems like H1B is now captured in the same way by a few ethnic groups.

[827a]

Its a fair point, but this $100,000 fee should not have been the flashpoint causing half the United States to care about this issue, and it being the flashpoint has got us arguing for the wrong thing. Immigrant doctors should have their own visa classification. There's no reason they should be competing in the H1-B lottery with Big Tech, especially now that its so expensive.

That isn't on the table right now. Its possible that it could be, as sometimes you need to have a problem before people will feel incentivized to solve it. On the other hand: We've had a serious medical care provider shortage since, like, the early 2000s; over 20 years of Bush (R), Obama (D), Trump (R), and Biden (D) to have solved this obvious problem; and no one has. Chesterton's Fence sometimes exists for a reason.

[claw-el]

I want to clarify that I am not trying to argue but genuinely curious what is the ‘right solve’ here.

If we create an exception for doctors, what about ‘medical lab technicians’, ‘wastewater treatment professionals’ or ‘air traffic controller’? All these jobs faces shortage in US right now. If we leave it up to the executive branch at the time to determine exceptions, we will just end up in a situation in exceptions going to the industry with the ‘best’ lobbyist.

I am not in a position to decide a policy like this, but I have a wild idea. Why not lower the application fee for H1B (or make it free) or even make it super easy to apply. Right now, the companies that are willing to abuse the H1B system will do so because they know the higher the application fee, the less competition they have to get those 85,000 slots. If every doctor, speech therapist, medical lab technologist is applying for H1B, it would totally crowd out the H1B abusers and it might no longer be worth it for them to try to game the system. Just musing on ideas, not that I can implement any of these.

[827a]

To clarify one small point: You have to be a US Citizen to be an Air Traffic Controller. But, I understand your broader point.

Before raising the fee to $100,000 this week, the "official" fees one would pay to apply for an H1-B were, effectively, $0. Employers would pay a few hundred to a few thousand dollars, depending on their size. There might be some "unofficial" fees like lawyer and advisor fees to help with the process, but in essence: your "wild idea" was the status quo for 35 years.

At the end of the day, relying on temporary immigration programs to backstop critical job shortages isn't sustainable on the long-term. Its not fair to citizens, and its oftentimes not fair to the temporary immigrant either. The more efficient and feasible solution to these shortages is to incentivize citizens to enter these roles.

[milch]

I was told the total cost was about 10k or so including filing fees and lawyers, and so on, and O1 closer to 50k or so. Seems like most of big tech will just try for O1 instead now... I've heard some wild stories over the years of how people "manufactured" eligibility, and/or the kinds of arguments their lawyers made.

[mschuster91]

> The more efficient and feasible solution to these shortages is to incentivize citizens to enter these roles.

If one would purely go by the rules of the free market, the solution would indeed not be immigration, but either automating these jobs away, rationalizing them so you need fewer employees to handle the same workload or raise the compensations and non-payroll benefits to attract more (prospective) talent.

The problem is, it's one thing if you do that for air traffic controllers. Flights are too cheap anyway, making them a bit more expensive to pay for more ATC will also reduce demand which in turn would also have positive benefits on the environment (CO2) and airport residents (noise).

But for stuff like garbage disposal handlers, wastewater facility staff and other jobs on the high-ick, low-pay side of things? These are actually and literally vital for society to survive, but if prices were raised to reflect the fact that you need to pay people pretty huge sums of money to do these jobs? Barely anyone would remain to pay for these services.

In the end, immigration has been used by Western societies as a stopgap to avoid the inevitable conclusion that the wide masses by far do not earn enough money, and now that immigration is drying up - in the case of the US, from the political climate, in the case of Europe including the UK, many people from Eastern Europe going back to their home country during Covid and discovering life there has actually vastly improved over the last decades - the cracks are growing so large they can neither be hidden nor overlooked any more.

[foogazi]

> Immigrant doctors should have their own visa classification.

The perfect is the enemy of the good enough

[bluefirebrand]

We're certainly seeing that "good enough" right now is hollowing out the lower and middle classes in society

So it isn't in fact good enough, it is pure evil

[foogazi]

> hollowing out the lower and middle classes in society

by giving H1B visas to doctors ?

[trhway]

> The 65,000+20,000 number was set, if you can believe it, 35 years ago.

With many companies having set up foreign R&D offices L1 is in many cases preferable alternative. There are about 75K of those visas issued per year. Increase of H1B fee without similar increase of L1 fee would probably create a pressure on L1.

[colechristensen]

We shouldn't be arguing yes or no, but instead "how much".

Charging a yearly fee to offset how H1-B is abused for cheap labor instead of high performers makes sense. Making that fee $100,000 with arbitrary waivers for friends of the administration is absurd.

[groceryheist]

The huge fee won't solve the cheap labor problem, only shift the equilibrium. The USA Tech job market faces increasing competition from Canada and Eastern and Southern European countries with lower wages but competitive talent better than available from generalist outsourcing. The new policy accelerates this trend as companies will seek to transplant workers from the USA into other countries. This is bad for American workers whose status as the geographic center of the organization declines.

In my view, the real problem with the H1-B program stems from the sponsorship system which ties each employee to a particular company and role. Unable to leave their position without threatening their residency, they are more willing to demand abuse (e.g., long working hours, poor leadership, subpar compensation) than the labor market requires.

An improvement to the program would make it easier for people to change job. Perhaps the government could permit highly skilled individuals to qualify personally for the visa so long as they sustain employment in their field.

[Saline9515]

We told everyone to "learn to code", but now it's "ho sorry guys, you're still too expensive so either we'll hire a team of devs in Eastern Europe, or bring in an Indian dev who'll work for less than you".

Yeah of course people are not happy about such bait and switch behavior.

[dotnet00]

This is the same ridiculous dynamic that keeps American manufacturing in the dump. People whine about wanting local manufacturing, then complain it doesn't pay enough, and then are surprised that the rest of the world doesn't pay their price (and funnily enough, are mostly unwilling to bear the price themselves too).

My impression is that Americans are having a hard time coping with the fact that Europe and Japan aren't bombed out husks anymore, China has developed, and India is slowly getting there too. That's why over the decades, Americans have slowly gone through hating every one of them.

Thus, the socialism hating capitalists seek strong isolationist market controls, as anything that doesn't have them winning must actually be unfair.

[Saline9515]

All of the other countries that you mentioned have strong protectionist policies, except maybe Europe, which is losing ground to China anyway.

[lazyasciiart]

> Perhaps the government could permit highly skilled individuals to qualify personally for the visa so long as they sustain employment in their field.

That is kind of how it works: when I was on a H1B I did look at switching jobs and had an offer from a company who would sponsor me. They need to file a Labor Condition Application to show that the position qualified for a H1B worker, but you can start working as soon as the LCA is approved if you already have the visa, while the I129 is processed.

[lovich]

That is mechanically different. All the leverage is in the hands of the companies seeking out cheap labor in that case.

I actually don’t think it should be like the poster you replied to suggested where the immigrant employee in question needs to maintain employment.

I would advocate that we structure employment visas like we do marriage visas which would mean we calculate whatever the total cost of the drain on our system would be if the new immigrant wasn’t working, charge the company that much to have them enter, and then the employee is free to quit immediately if they feel it’s in their interests

[lazyasciiart]

That’s not how marriage visas work in the US.

[colechristensen]

>The huge fee won't solve the cheap labor problem, only shift the equilibrium.

But that's exactly the idea. I don't know what "solving" a cheap labor problem even means.

H1-B is being used for cheap labor, let's use a reasonable yearly fee to put some pressure on that usage to make it less lucrative.

[amluto]

Or maybe… make H-1B labor not be cheap. Give H-1B visa holders the same ability to change jobs and negotiate wages effectively that citizens and permanent residents have and give some teeth to the rules that sponsors may not underlay them.

[steventhedev]

No.

The H1-B visa is intended for bringing specific technical expertise that does not exist in the US for a set period of time. This is why one of the requirements is that you must have interviewed US persons first. Its the same reason it's a nonimmigration visa.

The rampant abuse of the visa has a remedy - criminal charges against the HR directors of any company who is found to have committed fraud, and capping the number of visas per company (setting up many shell companies is a strong signal that fraud is being committed).

If an H1-B worker can't negotiate on a global level for their expertise - they should not be on that visa.

[khuey]

> This is why one of the requirements is that you must have interviewed US persons first.

This is generally not a requirement for an H-1B. https://www.dol.gov/agencies/whd/fact-sheets/62o-h1b-recruit...

[steventhedev]

Reading through that I stand corrected. Thank you for sharing a link.

At the same time, if a US person applies and is similarly qualified, they must be offered the job.

Which is trivially abuseable by offering substantially less for the H-1B position. I'm not sure if there's an easy policy solution for that.

[Saline9515]

There are 85,000 visas emitted every year. Such measure isn't consistently enforceable as you can't really investigate each visa. As a result, it will be considered by the main offenders as a cost of doing business spread out across thousands of applications.

[tick_tock_tick]

> Such measure isn't consistently enforceable as you can't really investigate each visa

You don't have to look at every single one lying on government forms is fraud start putting at the company who signed off and the person brought over (before they are deported) in jail for a couple of years and people will clean up their act real quick.

[Saline9515]

- You need to have a clear way of defining liability, otherwise companies will lawfare. For instance "you could have hired someone else in the US" is impossible to really prove or disprove.

- Jailing a foreigner before sending him back to his country for an administrative offense is somehow a big waste of public money.

- A very hard punishment still requires to consistently catch offenders, otherwise it will slowly become hypothetic.

[tomp]

if the "cost of doing business" is executives actually going to jail

trust me, there would be 99% compliance in very short order

[Detrytus]

The problem is: if you do that, then you need to create a big government agency that will interview the potential candidates, evaluating their value on the job market, in order to grant them a visa. Right now that job is done by their sponsoring employer, but if you give people ability to change jobs freely then employers lose any incentive to do so.

[groceryheist]

You can still require people to sustain employment in their field. Maybe companies can attest that a particular role classification requires a type of high-end talent. Auditing or otherwise verifying the attestation addresses the current allegations that H1-Bs are given for some jobs not requiring high-end talent.

[hshdhdhj4444]

Having managed people on H1Bs (and therefore been intimately involved with the process) the problems with switching jobs are not the requirements. You’re only allowed to switch to a similar job or a “better” job in a similar line of work.

The problem is that the mechanics of the switching process is extremely cumbersome. Some of the relevant documents are held by your current employer and not with you. The new employer effectively needs to apply for a new application minus the lottery system. There are significant weeks to months worth of delays for the new employers to get approvals, so most H1B employees that transfer are actually working provisionally on the basis of their new approval still being pending. They are very limited in terms of traveling etc during this period. There are significant risks to changing your job when you’re approaching the end of your current H1B visa expiry. This was particularly bad for Chinese applicants who unlike most other nations’s applicants who got 3 year approvals, usually only got 1 year approvals.

The real problem in switching jobs aren’t the policies but the extreme uncertainty and bureaucracy involved in doing so.

[mitthrowaway2]

Employers are still incentivized to sponsor people who they want to hire, because they want to hire that person, they want the job done, and they couldn't find anyone else to do the job. They just have to keep the compensation and working conditions competitive enough to retain their worker.

[tracker1]

$100k/yr fee could definitely cover the cost of people doing said interviews/research into if the company is complying with Da Rules so to speak. Not to mention posting jobs well below market rates.

[hshdhdhj4444]

I don’t understand the logic behind why companies will be willing to pay an Indian $160k to work for them in the U.S. but will not be willing to pay the exact same Indian $50k to work from India.

This may have an effect at the margins where the company is contractually or due to some rare product specific reason required to have the person be within the U.S. But the vast majority of H1Bs are working for major tech companies that have massive campuses all over the world.

[xyzzy123]

There are a few different scenarios but outsourcing firms / consulting (infosys, tcs, wipro etc) take up about 1/2 the tech h1bs.

As a body shop you can charge a higher rate and get bigger margins on an on-shore body.

I see your point about faangs and direct hires though. I suppose they must believe that something about being in the U.S. makes those people more productive or their output more valuable.

[jalapenos]

Clients pay a premium to see the bodies, especially from the comfort of their own offices. I assume it's a fetish thing.

[baq]

time zone premium.

[tracker1]

+this ... it's already the reason there isn't more outsourcing than there already is. Product owners and project managers don't want to work odd hours or have to be embedded in overseas offices to be effective.

[lazyasciiart]

It’s the same logic as RTO.

[jalapenos]

The solution proposed elsewhere of doing it Dutch auction style, award the quota from highest salary bid to lowest, fixes the whole thing very straightforward.

But people loathe common sense, so that wouldn't do. And it's not dramatic and aggressive enough for Trump.

[gadders]

There is a website called jobs.now which has collated all of the H1B jobs that get (quietly) advertised to so that companies can demonstrate that no suitable US person can do the job.

Some are legitimately highly skilled, but you also see jobs like:

https://www.jobs.now/jobs/164577823-lead-software-engineer

>>Develop and implement next generation Human Capital Management (HCM) software.

>>Requirements:

>>Bachelor's degree or foreign equivalent in Computer Science, Informatics, Computer Engineering or related field

>>2 years experience in software development

>>Develop and implement HCM software solutions for global enterprise

>>Create applications on cloud platforms

>>Work with Golang and NodeJS

>>Participate in full product cycle from wireframes and database models to UI/UX development

>>Home telecommute available

>>Application Instructions: Send CV to: LS, EPI-USE America, Inc. 303 Perimeter Ctr N., Ste 300 Atlanta, GA 30346

When was the last time you had to post a CV to apply for a job? This blatantly designed to ensure no US person applies (and if anyone in the US is qualified and wants to apply to stop the visa abuse, please do).

[jalapenos]

And I'm sure any CVs that do arrive at that address will get "accidentally" fed into a shredder.

[AngryData]

I guess the question then is, does H1-B actually make people want to live in the US? Or is it just a good way to earn some money and experience while they are young and then move back home and start their own business with their capital that goes much farther there? Because that is what it seems like it is best setup for since you can be given the boot and deported on short notice by the whim of a corporate manager.

[foogazi]

> does H1-B actually make people want to live in the US?

Yes, H1-B is a dual intent visa that can be converted to a green card

The visa holder enters as a temporary worker but is not penalized for having an intent to immigrate permanently- (as opposed to a travel visa where you must prove permanent ties to another country)

[pjc50]

> does H1-B actually make people want to live in the US?

People want to live in the US, and earn US wages. H1B is just one vehicle for that.

[charcircuit]

>We want methods for highly educated people to make the US their home.

Who is we?

[vkou]

People who recognize that countries become wealthy when people do useful work in them.

An educated, young person doing useful work that comes to your country is a massive gift, and a debit to the country they have left.

[Saline9515]

Highly educated US graduates currently experience difficulties in landing a first job[0]. Should they or the foreign workers be prioritized?

[0] https://www.wsj.com/economy/jobs/jobs-unemployment-rise-youn...

[vkou]

Let me flip it around for you.

Would the country benefit if skilled young people started fleeing it? People that you've invested decades of labour and education into?

Surely, this would be great news for the ones who remained. Why shouldn't we pursue policies that result in just that?

---

If net emigration of that demographic wouldn't be a net benefit, why do you think the reverse is a net harm?

[Saline9515]

A democratic State is supposed to work in the interests of all of its citizens. Degrading the economic environment to lead young graduates to "flee" is clearly against this mandate.

The strategy that you mention is however used, with success by countries that are either dictatorships (e.g Algeria) or that have too many men, due to archaic sexist traditions of aborting females (e.g India). Maybe you'd prefer that the USA become more like those two examples?

[donkeybeer]

You failed to understand a warning vs an endorsement.

[jalapenos]

Not if you're an educated young local person who got nudged out of a job as a result.

The "country" is an amorphous - having the money to move out of your parents basement is not.

You could just as soon zoom out to the earth rather than fetishizing "the country", then it's zero sum.

[_DeadFred_]

During America's 1900s immigration boom as much as half of the people that came gave up and went back to their home countries, yet more people continued to come.

[franktankbank]

So you are basically selling chips off the old American block every time you do this "one-weird trick".

[jalapenos]

Very tautological - it's worth immigrating to due to immigration.

[insane_dreamer]

That’s not an accurate representation of H1B in practice. We have O1, EB1, EB2 for what you describe.

[sjzisjjsj]

> One of America's greatest assets is its brand as a place worth immigrating too

Not really, no. That’s mostly propaganda that got pushed hard in the 60s - right around the time the wealth gap really started growing and hasn’t stopped ever since.

The only reasonable argument for any immigration is if it equally enriches all us citizens. Given the ever increasing wealth gap this is obviously not the case.

The alternative is: no immigration, focus on increasing native births by ensuring it’s easy to have a large family. Ensure our elites have a sense of “noblesse oblige” and are self sacrificing instead of chasing profit. Some minor level of immigration is fine (for the Werner von Braun types), but staffing companies that build iPhones and gambling websites is not a good use of our resources.

All of my immigrant friends mention they’ll return to their home country if things get bad here. This is my home country, and I want my country filled with people who are here because they see it as their home, not a business transaction. I have nowhere else to go.

[dotnet00]

Why do you expect someone who hasn't yet become a citizen to say otherwise? My sister assimilated, got used to the idea that she would settle in the US and live like an American, then her green card application got rejected (something about repeated errors by either her employer or attorney). 2 years later, she's still gradually recovering from the mental health impact and rebuilding her life elsewhere.

You can't both have a system that can kick people out on a whim with zero recourse AND expect those people to be fully devoted to being American before they actually become citizens. They have to avoid committing fully before them, and especially nowadays with the unnecessary cruelties of the current administration (the entire "fly back within 24 hours or pay a fee that we don't yet have a process for" thing)

[sephamorr]

In their defense, if "things get bad", they probably lose their job and will be forced to leave. It's hard to put down permanent roots if you can be kicked out in 90 days.

[macintux]

> The only reasonable argument for any immigration is if it equally enriches all us citizens.

Name any economic policy that will equally enrich all citizens. That seems like a ridiculous bar to meet.

Immigration obviously dates back far, far before the 1960s. What in the world leads you to believe that it’s responsible for the current (admittedly massive) inequalities we face?

[sjzisjjsj]

> What in the world leads you to believe that it’s responsible for the current (admittedly massive) inequalities we face?

It’s a symptom of the problem not the primary cause. Our real issue is elites that view us as cattle. Rulers that care about their people take a much more measured approach to immigration.

And yes, obviously pedantic equality is not achievable. I want more roads, trains, healthcare etc and less IPOs.

[dyauspitr]

>50% of our unicorns are first generation immigrant founded, the majority of those are Indian. The H1B might be one of the greatest job creation programs in the US.

[krapp]

Every immigrant wave that came to the US (voluntarily) came here to make money, with the sole possible exception of the Puritans.

[jalapenos]

Mind-blowing this take gets a heavy downvote. There's not a single even "spicy" take in there.

Maybe the "native births" bit is a trigger - but how was that actually ever wrong? Perhaps from consumer culture I guess - why go through the hassle of raising babies for 20 years until they become ripe consumer-taxpayers when you can just import them ready-made for free, or some such thinking.

Really illustrates how leftist the tech class is.

[justinrubek]

I think the opposite. If you think this illustrates leftism, you are probably much further to the right than you think.

[mikert89]

"One of America's greatest assets is its brand as a place worth immigrating too"

Rich people started playing this on repeat while they crushed the standard of living via immigration and low interest rates

[pjc50]

Historical question: at what date do people think immigration started becoming a net negative to the US? The Mayflower?

[mikert89]

1960s

[trextrex]

When people from outside Europe started migrating to the USA? What a coincidence.

[sjzisjjsj]

Hart cellar laid the groundwork and more recently the immigration act of 1990 and lack of southern border enforcement.