[HN Gopher] Justice Dept files suit against Facebook for discrim...
___________________________________________________________________
Justice Dept files suit against Facebook for discriminating against
U.S. workers
Author : theBashShell
Score : 245 points
Date : 2020-12-03 19:59 UTC (3 hours ago)
(HTM) web link (www.justice.gov)
(TXT) w3m dump (www.justice.gov)
| killjoywashere wrote:
| I wonder if we tried investing in public education at K-12 level,
| we might get more capable local workers? Unfortunately, certain
| political interests find more votes among the under-educated.
| tisu32 wrote:
| You can boost the local education all you want (definitely
| worth it), you will never to grow locally the large volumes of
| talent necessary to run a globalized economy. Researchers,
| highly trained SEs etc are in high demand and there is simply
| not enough local supply to match.
| jedberg wrote:
| That would certainly help, but math is against us here. Only
| 4.25% of the world's population lives in the US. It's
| mathematically impossible for all the best people to already
| live here.
| wil421 wrote:
| I think you're missing the point here. Companies are abusing
| H1B to find cheap workers who can't leave.
|
| The whole point of H1B is to get smart and talented people to
| the US.
| renewiltord wrote:
| Immigrants considering software unions, look about this thread.
| You see what people are saying. You can see what they think about
| you. This is normal. This is how they feel about you.
|
| The unions are weak now and full of bleeding hearts who probably
| _do_ care. But when they cover a representative fraction of
| software engineers, this is what it will look like. You will
| stand at a union all-hands and you will look around you and it
| will look like this, having reverted to the mean.
|
| If you subsume your individual self into the whole, you are then
| subject to where the whole goes. Read this thread. This is where
| the whole goes. Semper Vigilo.
| strken wrote:
| As someone who recently worked in the US on an E-3, the
| opinions of the people in this thread are really not that bad.
|
| They're _wrong_ , of course - companies who hand out $500k/yr
| to US workers don't underpay visa holders doing the same role.
| The reason high paying tech companies go international is
| because their US recruitment funnel is drying up to the point
| where it's cost-effective to recruit internationally even with
| the increased overhead. They're not underpaying visa holders,
| they're using them to avoid increasing domestic wages even
| higher or lowering their hiring standards, which are different
| things altogether.
| renewiltord wrote:
| Oh, it's not about the badness or anything of the sort of
| their opinions. It's about being informed about who shares
| your objectives and who doesn't. Totally kind and good people
| can have opposing objectives. I don't want to claim that the
| people are bad or that their views are bad.
|
| But it's useful to know who aligns with you. And this is a
| golden opportunity.
| myhf wrote:
| > This is how is they feel about you.
|
| What are you trying to say? That commenters here don't like how
| immigrant workers can be forced to overwork?
| renewiltord wrote:
| Indeed, and I want the immigrant workers to be aware of how
| their prospective comrades in unions propose to solve this
| overwork problem. Fortunately, the raw data is right here,
| and I trust them to read it and draw the conclusions that
| they naturally must. All I'm doing is pointing them at the
| data and telling them the data is here.
| pavlov wrote:
| Interesting, a Justice Department lawsuit that specifically
| targets me! (This hopefully won't happen again very soon.)
|
| I work for Facebook in the US on an L-1 visa. I'm currently in
| the process of applying for permanent residence (green card)
| through the PERM process targeted here.
|
| The Justice Dept seems upset that Facebook doesn't advertise my
| job on the careers website. The reason is very simple: FB doesn't
| want to hire someone else for this job. They're doing the PERM
| process because they want to keep me.
|
| I know I'm not underpaid compared to my peers. I'm fairly high
| level and came to FB through an acquisition. I have deep
| knowledge and ownership of a very specific piece of the tech
| stack.
|
| It seems bizarre for the Justice Dept to argue that FB should
| just throw away their investment in me and hire an American
| instead. How would that help the USA?
| jacobriis wrote:
| "The reason is very simple: FB doesn't want to hire someone
| else for this job. They're doing the PERM process because they
| want to keep me."
|
| It may seem bizarre to you, but that is exactly what the law
| requires. You're confirming that the DoJ allegations are true.
|
| Don't be shocked if Facebook lawyers don't make the argument
| that actually breaking this law "helps the USA" it seems
| bizarre to enforce it.
| lazyasciiart wrote:
| L1 jobs explicitly don't need to be advertised because there is
| no requirement to show that no Americans were able to be hired.
| This lawsuit doesn't target you.
| pavlov wrote:
| That's curious because the agency that does these PERM
| applications on FB's behalf told me that they're doing the
| recruitment process and asked me for paperwork related to
| that. Maybe they were confused about my type of visa.
| lazyasciiart wrote:
| If you are on an L1a then you should be going for an EB1
| and that is unnecessary. If you are on an L1b then you are
| probably going for an EB2 and that application does require
| a PERM. But neither type requires one to bring you to the
| US in the first place.
|
| https://www.path2usa.com/l1a-vs-l1b-visa
| ucha wrote:
| I'm not surprised by this at all.
|
| I used to work in the US at at a large international bank with
| headquarters overseas that preferred having employees from the
| same country as HQ. We would advertise a position, internally or
| just to alumni networks of unis there. Once we interviewed people
| and knew who we wanted to hire, there would be a delay because HR
| would have to advertise the position publicly for at least a week
| (or two, I forgot), and then we could proceed officially with the
| hire.
| tempsy wrote:
| Seems like an open secret that tech cos like H1-Bs because they
| can pay them less and they'll work hard because the alternative
| is getting fired and being kicked out of the country.
|
| It's a really backwards system with messed up incentives that
| probably needs to be reformed.
| almost_usual wrote:
| Facebook seems like the last company that cares about paying
| less. They typically give out offers higher than other
| employers in SV.
| tempsy wrote:
| Some companies do care about costs. They care more about the
| second part.
|
| But it's also silly to say FB doesn't care about overhead
| when they made a big deal about paying workers less if they
| moved to a lower cost of living area.
| almost_usual wrote:
| I mean I think people will work harder for ~2m in vested
| RSUs and comp over 4yrs than getting kicked out of the US.
| Maybe that's just me personally.
| tempsy wrote:
| Not everyone at FB gets paid $500k a year, especially if
| you're on H1-B which is mostly for entry or mid level
| immigrants who have just graduated.
|
| And if they do at the entry or mid level it's because
| they joined at a favorable time and seen their unvested
| stock appreciate.
|
| There is a reason why Facebook likes H1-Bs.
| almost_usual wrote:
| > Not everyone at FB gets paid $500k a year, especially
| if you're on H1-B which is mostly for entry or mid level
| immigrants who have just graduated.
|
| I don't think mid level or new grads get that comp
| anywhere H1-B or not.
|
| > And if they do at the entry or mid level it's because
| they joined at a favorable time and seen their unvested
| stock appreciate.
|
| That's the upside of working for a public company.
| tempsy wrote:
| I agree but everyone on HN regardless of whether they
| actually work in SV or not seems to be under the
| impression that every new grad working in tech are all
| pulling $500k right off the bat :)
| adrr wrote:
| I'd hire any h1b out of FB if they wanted to leave. Will
| even pay market rates. Market is very tight on software
| engineers.
| tempsy wrote:
| Yes most people probably can find a new job without being
| actually kicked out.
|
| You still only have a little time to find a job. Just
| because you could find something fast doesn't mean it's
| not stressful, especially if you were fired for
| performance reasons.
| shiftpgdn wrote:
| The problem is they /can't/ leave. It's indentured
| servitude and a wage supression program.
| adrr wrote:
| They can leave, it's not hard to transfer a h1b. I bet a
| majority of FBs h1bs were poached from other companies or
| visa transfers.
| tempsy wrote:
| I'm talking about situations where they are possibly
| fired.
| loeg wrote:
| Anecdotally, +1. They were the highest offer in my recent
| round of interviews (Amazon and Google were lower, by
| 10-12%). (I'm a US citizen, if that is useful information.)
| zamalek wrote:
| > They typically give out offers higher than other employers
| in SV.
|
| That's putting it lightly. You can earn in the ballpark of
| 125%-150% of MSFT/GOOG (not sure about AAPL) in Seattle, all
| bonuses and incentives considered. On Blind, Facebook
| employees seem pretty open about focusing on their salary
| above everything [evil] Facebook does, and I would be lying
| if I haven't considered bending my morals for that paycheck
| (because it is absurd).
| lacker wrote:
| Facebook pays software engineers on an H1-B with the same
| salary scale that they pay all software engineers. Some
| companies might work that way, but the top tier like Facebook
| and Google do not.
| [deleted]
| tempsy wrote:
| Base salary is similar everywhere. It's the equity comp that
| is the difference, and the part that is more a function of
| the leverage you have as a candidate. H1-Bs are more
| desperate and less likely to have leverage to ask for high
| equity comp without a bunch of other offers.
|
| And again the bigger part of wanting H1-Bs is that they'll
| work a lot harder and turnover will be lower due to threat of
| having to leave the country.
| walshemj wrote:
| And get them to work more unpaid OT
| damnyou wrote:
| I know H-1Bs at Facebook who are pulling in 500k per year
| in RSUs.
| tempsy wrote:
| and? with tech stocks at record highs it's useless to
| look at current value of RSU comp vs what they got when
| they first signed.
|
| all i'm articulating is that there are incentives that
| tech companies like FB have for hiring H1-B over American
| workers of the same skill level. Is your point that
| compensation has nothing to do with it and that's it's
| exclusively for other reasons?
| wippler wrote:
| I think the argument was that it has nothing to do with
| it, companies don't sit and follow a rule that
| prioritizes hiring H1Bs (talking about companies like
| Facebook here). In fact there are quite possibly a
| ridiculous number of steps in hiring an employee on visa.
|
| What is alleged in the lawsuit seems purely self
| preservation, if FB doesn't jump through the hoops of
| getting PERM certified for the employee, they are going
| to leave and go to another company which does that.
| (Saying this without making a larger comment on
| immigration policies of USA)
| SirensOfTitan wrote:
| I knew and worked with multiple people at Facebook who were
| terrified of losing their jobs, as that would mean having to
| go back to an unstable home country.
|
| I knew others who didn't have such bad situations, but wanted
| to leave toward better offers and couldn't due to H1-B and
| desire to get permanent residency.
|
| Those I knew in the former category put in long hours because
| of their fear, those in the latter category were having their
| wages suppressed because of how these H1Bs are structured.
|
| Sure, FB paid the same to H1B holders, but they're getting a
| lot out of those folks because they have a harder time
| jumping ship.
|
| Further, just because FB pays H1B holders the same at each
| band does NOT mean that H1Bs might not drag down salary for
| everyone by accepting lower offers. There's a systemic
| component to this that ought to be explored.
| nrmitchi wrote:
| > There's a systemic component to this.
|
| I truly think you are over-estimating the number of H1-B
| employees working these jobs in order to have the power to
| _systemically_ drag down wages for everyone.
| SirensOfTitan wrote:
| I didn't mean to make such a strong claim, merely to
| suggest there could be a more invisible component to the
| downward pressure. I've edited my comment to imply less
| certainty (though I think the amount of negatives makes
| it difficult to read now).
| 908B64B197 wrote:
| Don't forget it also drains the international talent pool.
|
| There are great schools outside of the US; it would be foolish
| for companies not to hire from there. Keep in mind that if
| right now I wanted to hire: A smart graduate from EPFL,
| Polytechnique or ETH Zurich who interned at CERN and has
| contributed to the Linux kernel for a software engineering job
| at a unicorn startup
|
| or
|
| A grad from a second tier "technical college" in India with a
| visa refusal rate of ~90% for a job doing manual UI testing and
| QA for a body shop
|
| my only path forward is H1. They'll both be listed as "computer
| related occupations" and apply for the same visa in the same
| quota. Does that makes any sense to anyone?
| Reedx wrote:
| Eric Weinstein makes the case that it's a wage tampering
| program for scientists and tech workers generally.
|
| https://twitter.com/EricRWeinstein/status/107032731818526720...
|
| https://www.ineteconomics.org/uploads/papers/Weinstein-GUI_N...
| microtherion wrote:
| Who says a founding member of the Intellectual Dark Web can't
| recognize discrimination, at least when it's their peers
| being discriminated against?
| wow_yes wrote:
| Serfdom. That's what the system is.
| at-fates-hands wrote:
| The whole system is rife with fraud and abuse.
|
| I've worked at several large corporations were workers would
| drift around different business groups, picking up work and
| getting another short term contract in order to stay in the
| country and continue to be gainfully employed. There was a
| running joke between managers about recycling developers so
| they never had to sponsor any of them.
|
| I also worked at two different startups where they hired a
| developer and then a few weeks into the gig, they figured out
| this wasn't the person they thought they had hired. The second
| time, I wondered to a co-worker about it and he said there's a
| huge problem with one person (the qualified candidate) doing
| the interview and then they send a totally unqualified person
| to the gig.
|
| I also experienced large teams were an Indian developer would
| be getting close to his H1-B expiring and suddenly send a
| manager an email about a "sick family member" and having to
| return to India, never to show up again. One of co-workers said
| its pretty common and the H1-B devs are constantly interviewing
| and if they get a fresh contract, they'll just leave the
| current company and start at the new one - without any heads up
| to anybody, they just ghost.
|
| The whole program is so unregulated and so many loopholes for
| both sides to take advantage of, it needs to be changed for
| sure.
| mlboss wrote:
| I will disagree with the pay less part. I know people who get >
| $500K as a software engineer on H1b. Getting worker on H1b
| requires 1-2 month legal process, lot of paperwork and extra
| money. I think it is more expensive for companies to hire
| foreign workers. Some startups straight out reject visa holders
| since they don't have resources to hire them.
| cbozeman wrote:
| They're hiring the kind of person that would command $750,000
| a year or more as a native American, then.
|
| I have a good friend who was network ops for Riot Games some
| years back. He is a German who is in America on an H1-B visa.
| He and I spoke openly about his salary once, which was
| $97,500. I know Felix is great at his job... but given the
| experience and knowledge he had, along with the insane
| responsibilities he was tasked with, I wouldn't have done it
| for less than $125,000.
| umanwizard wrote:
| > They're hiring the kind of person that would command
| $750,000 a year or more as a native American, then.
|
| No, they're not. Facebook employees have very thoroughly
| reverse-engineered the compensation bands in internal
| groups. We know for a fact that it makes no difference
| whether one is on a visa.
| tempsy wrote:
| base salary is similar everywhere. equity comp is highly
| dependent on how much leverage you have and what other
| offers you have.
| umanwizard wrote:
| Equity is part of what was reverse-engineered and is also
| in clear bands. There was no obvious difference between
| visa holders and others.
|
| Indeed, H1B holders might have less negotiation leverage.
| That's a real problem but not really what we're
| discussing.
| tempsy wrote:
| So you're arguing compensation has zero to do with
| preference for H1-Bs over American workers?
| umanwizard wrote:
| I'm arguing that there is in fact no preference for H1-Bs
| over American workers, at least for software engineers.
| Facebook wants to hire anyone who passes its interview
| process.
| tempsy wrote:
| It's less than what an American worker of the same skill
| level would get because their ability to negotiate is way
| reduced.
|
| Some companies do care about costs. FB cares more about the
| second part.
|
| And knowing that someone is getting $500k is an outlier given
| that more senior engineers would likely not be on H1-B at
| that point in their career because they'd have a green card
| by then. So your anecdote doesn't apply to the majority of
| cases I'm talking about which is at entry or mid level.
| claudeganon wrote:
| They hire H1Bs because it's much harder to change jobs with
| the visa. In an industry that otherwise has high turnover,
| even for people in the > $500k range, this gives the
| companies leverage over workers that they wouldn't otherwise
| have.
| [deleted]
| wil421 wrote:
| What company? It's public information and the salaries can be
| looked up.
|
| Here is Facebook:
|
| https://h1bdata.info/index.php?em=Facebook+Inc&job=&city=&ye.
| ..
| ra7 wrote:
| You are only required to report base salary in H1B
| petition, so that's what you see there. It doesn't account
| for total compensation, most of which is equity.
| coredog64 wrote:
| It's bi-modal. Big companies playing nice and using the law
| as intended pay well. Smaller companies and body shops abuse
| the process: I've seen H1B jobs advertised via legally
| required notices that were tens of thousands less than what I
| was being paid for the same position/experience.
| microtherion wrote:
| The big companies I have seen did indeed pay well. But I
| would not quite say that they used the law as intended. The
| hiring process for highly qualified contributors I've
| sometimes seen was more along the lines of:
|
| 1. Evaluate resumes and interview candidates, both US and
| foreign, practically _without_ taking into account national
| origin and visa status (With the possible exception of
| national bans / not eligible for visa due to past
| deportation, etc).
|
| 2. Once decision is made, let the immigration department
| figure out a legal way to get the person hired a visa
| (through H1B, internal transfer, whatever).
|
| 3. If the H1B process prescribes advertising the position
| to US applicants, that will be done, but the decision for
| that particular job has really already been made (then
| again, big companies are constantly hiring, so maybe US
| applicants get considered for other suitable jobs).
|
| So while I don't think these companies, in general, are
| trying to get cheap labor, or discriminating against US
| applicants, some of the provisions of the law (giving
| strict priority to US applicants) are only being followed
| in a ceremonial way, and, giving the fluid nature of job
| characterizations in the industry, are probably near-
| impossible to follow in a realistic way.
| an_opabinia wrote:
| The divide between US citizen W2 employees and everyone else will
| define our generation.
| genericone wrote:
| Based on what I'm reading, and what I've experienced, I would say
| a lot of Bay Area companies "[create] a hiring system in which it
| [denies] qualified U.S. workers a fair opportunity to learn about
| and apply for jobs that [the company] instead sought to channel
| to temporary visa holders [the company] wanted to sponsor for
| green cards".
|
| In some cases, these companies don't want to sponsor the employee
| for a green-card, but simply are satisfied with the work being
| done by the visa-holder, and want to continue to pay for that
| work. The companies don't want to have to look for qualified
| local talent every-time the visa renewal comes up.
| ViViDboarder wrote:
| This sounds like a broken process.
| bawolff wrote:
| > The companies don't want to have to look for qualified local
| talent every-time the visa renewal comes up.
|
| I can't imagine any sane company would. Hiring people is an
| expensive process, not to mention the morale hit of essentially
| firing someone for things out of their control. If i was a
| company, i too would want to stand by an employee if they were
| doing a good job.
| whimsicalism wrote:
| > If i was a company, i too would want to stand by an
| employee if they were doing a good job.
|
| Not if it meant violating labor laws, no?
| klodolph wrote:
| I don't think that interpretation offers much insight.
| Presumably, they _want_ to comply with the law and _want_
| to retain their visa holders. Both, at the same time, if
| possible. Whether they actually do both is a different
| question.
| bawolff wrote:
| Want != will != should.
|
| I want to sit on my ass and watch netflix all day. I don't
| actually sit on my ass and watch netflix all day despite
| wanting to and technically being able to.
| bladegash wrote:
| Also seems like allowing for it to continue would fail to
| discourage the companies from hiring the employees in the
| first place, assuming they were initially hired in a
| discriminatory way.
| chungus_khan wrote:
| If they don't want to have to look for qualified local talent
| every-time the visa renewal comes up, and the employee is being
| a valuable and productive member of society, that seems like an
| ideal case for some kind of permanent residency program. Maybe
| it could involve some kind of colored card?
|
| What an absolute mess this whole system is.
| claudeganon wrote:
| It's not limited to the Bay Area. They do the same thing in the
| Midwest for industries with high-turnover. They use the same,
| obviously dishonest tactics, like only advertising positions in
| the classified sections of local newspapers, where no one would
| ever look for them.
|
| I'm fully in favor of immigration (mom is an immigrant and so
| is my partner), but the H1-B system was obviously designed to
| create a tier of second-class workers who fear losing their
| sponsorship and thus tolerate lower wages and worse treatment.
| These visas need to be fully portable at any time, offered for
| positions only at above market rates, with greencard queue
| times also being drastically reduced and made independent of
| employer sponsorship.
| nrmitchi wrote:
| > They use the same, obviously dishonest tactics, like only
| advertising positions in the classified sections of local
| newspapers, where no one would ever look for them.
|
| As stupid as it sounds, that's not their decision. It is a
| part of the PERM process that the employer has to follow.
| I've started in a different comment here, the rules are
| extremely outdated.
|
| I believe the relevant section is SS656.17 Basic labor
| certification process Section (f). (you'll have to google it,
| I couldn't find a good source with a direct link)
|
| It quite literally says "newspapers".
| gt565k wrote:
| H1B's should be reserved for subject matter experts, innovators,
| field experts - as opposed to every shmuck with a masters or bs
| degree in CS or engineering.
|
| All those consulting firms like Tata Consulting Services are
| gaming the H1B process, middle manning the employees, and in
| result Facebook, Home Depot, and others hire them for 1/3 or 1/2
| less.
| tisu32 wrote:
| Alternatively, hiring internationally should be made a lot
| easier for highly technical roles. Facebook pays its foreign
| hires the same as Americans, so as to retain them. Making it
| easier to hire the most suited person (without thinking about
| nationality) would make more sense than making them dance
| around legal barriers like they currently have to.
| airstrike wrote:
| How about highly trained individuals who are willing to do
| high-paying work for which it is hard to find US workers?
| Doesn't really match any of {subject matter experts,
| innovators, field experts}
|
| I'm talking lawyers and bankers and whatever else you want to
| throw in the mix
| [deleted]
| safog wrote:
| > All those consulting firms like Tata Consulting Services are
| gaming the H1B process, middle manning the employees, and in
| result Facebook, Home Depot, and others hire them for 1/3 or
| 1/2 less.
|
| This tells me you have no clue what you're talking about
| lazyasciiart wrote:
| This tells me you are unaware of the practice of contracting
| programmers.
| https://www.washingtonpost.com/technology/2020/03/09/tech-
| co...
| ra7 wrote:
| > in result Facebook, Home Depot, and others hire them for 1/3
| or 1/2 less.
|
| One of these is not like the other. Facebook pays extremely
| well even for H1Bs, not many come close to it in the industry.
| lazyasciiart wrote:
| These people are not paid by Facebook, but by Tata - they are
| contractors.
| ra7 wrote:
| This article is about Facebook hiring H1Bs as full time
| employees. You can't sponsor green card for your
| contractors. Also Facebook doesn't hire a lot of
| contractors compared to other big tech companies.
| lazyasciiart wrote:
| Yes, but the comment you are responding to is about Tata
| middle-manning H1B holders who then get paid less.
| [deleted]
| think814 wrote:
| I am someone who went through (fully legal) immigration hell
| while building a company that in the end, employed 100s of US
| workers and had global competition (meaning, if we didn't do it
| in the US the jobs would probably go to some other country).
|
| Here's my conclusion from this experience: if you are in a
| business that depends on Intellectual Property competes globally
| (i.e. not a nail salon hiring local workers), then in the area
| that gives you your competitve advantage YOU NEED TO HIRE THE
| BEST GLOBAL TALENT. Period.
|
| If the immigration system doesn't allow that, then either you'll
| hire remote, or you'll be beaten by an international competitor
| with more liberal skilled immigration rules. Neither is a great
| outcome.
|
| There are simple ways to ensure H1-B is used to hire this type of
| talent. The recent rules that prioritize H1-B applicants based on
| their salary are positive IMO and address a lot of the
| Tata/Infosys abuse (which is real). If you are truly going after
| the best global talent, that won't be cheap!
|
| H1-B is super old school. The notion is that you only hire
| someone in H1-B if there's nobody that can do the job. However,
| the challenge today is not if you _can_ do the job, but can you
| do it better than the global competitors? That concept is super
| foreign to immigration legislation (no pun intended :).
|
| Short of a whole new immigration framework, increasing the number
| of H1-Bs and prioritizing based on salary would be a good short
| term fix - no lawsuits needed.
| fooey wrote:
| The point of law is to serve the nation
|
| Is it in the nation's best interest for you to hire the best
| person? or to hire a tax payer?
|
| It's not old school, it's self protection.
| munk-a wrote:
| We're in a bad position today - but we should be aware that
| an under-investment in education and other social services
| has caused our tax payers to not be the best candidates.
| rhexs wrote:
| Would love a citation on this one. Forcing above average
| American students into cram schools to memorize leetcode
| problems would probably help make Americans "the best
| candidates" for the whiteboard merry-go-round, but I have a
| strange feeling interviews would start morphing again if
| that happened.
| tisu32 wrote:
| That's true, but there are many ways to "serve the nation".
| Note that a foreigner who comes to work in a country will
| also be a tax payer, the same way a US citizen is. In
| addition, given the barriers to entry, they might be more
| qualified than the equivalent "native" employee (since the
| company is willing to pull the extra effort). They might
| become citizens after some time as well. Also, if you make it
| hard to hire necessary talent from abroad (as is the case in
| the US, and to a lesser extent in Europe as well), you end up
| making your own companies weaker in the process.
| jtdev wrote:
| Talent and skill development also happens in the workplace...
| so requiring U.S. companies to hire U.S. workers serves the
| nation. We see a similar issue in academia, where top
| programs have a huge cohort of foreign students - students
| who are likely to take the knowledge gained (at institutions
| built in part through decades of public funding) back to
| their home countries (understandably).
| tisu32 wrote:
| That's not quite true in my opinon. Take your example of
| academia. Many students will chose to stay in the US after
| (if they can, because salaries tend to be higher than in
| many other countries) rather than depart. Also, instead of
| "taking" knowledge, they might actually create some new
| knowledge. Think about how many brilliant professors in US
| universities were once foreign post-docs there. If the US
| chooses to close it's border to this sort of talent, it
| will considerably weaken itself in the longer term against
| countries enacting more rational immigration policies.
| nrmitchi wrote:
| > prioritizing based on salary would be a good short term fix
|
| You have to remember that H1-Bs are used for many occupations
| and industries outside of tech. Prioritizing by salary only
| effectively means that 99% of all H1-Bs would go to 3-4 large
| companies.
|
| Yes, nurses, doctors, etc may not get paid as much as a FAANG
| engineer a couple of years out of college, but they are still
| often needed.
|
| I think that if you want to prioritize by salary _within
| industries_ that could potentially work, but then you 're
| bordering on a "new immigration framework".
| sjg007 wrote:
| There are plenty of doctors on H1Bs. The Midwest is full of
| them and they command high salaries. At any rate, different
| job categories can have different requirements. I know soccer
| coaches that are H1Bs. These are coaches who train elite
| junior teams for example. Musicians, theatre all works the
| same way.
| nrmitchi wrote:
| > The Midwest is full of them and they command high
| salaries.
|
| Yes, they do, but that does not mean they will beat out
| what FAANG is able to pay an engineer if H1-Bs are granted
| based solely on salary.
|
| > At any rate, different job categories can have different
| requirements.
|
| I'm not sure what you mean by this, but if you mean
| different _salary_ requirements, then that effectively goes
| away if you start granting H1-Bs based solely on salary.
|
| > Musicians, theatre all works the same way.
|
| This is... kind of my point? I seriously doubt that these
| musicians and artists are being paid comparably to a SF-
| based FAANG engineer. If they are, they are more-likely-
| than-not qualified for an O-1 anyways, so the point is kind
| of moot.
| paxys wrote:
| > Yes, nurses, doctors, etc may not get paid as much as a
| FAANG engineer a couple of years out of college, but they are
| still often needed.
|
| Doesn't that mean nurses, doctors etc. should be paid more,
| rather than the reverse?
| nrmitchi wrote:
| I'm not saying that they shouldn't get paid more, and I'm
| also not saying that people in tech should get paid less.
|
| But tying it to _only_ salary doesn 't create a balanced
| system.
|
| There are occupations that are understaffed and have a need
| for foreign skilled workers that simply can not practically
| match what a FAANG engineer gets paid.
| thelean12 wrote:
| "should be paid more" doesn't mean anything in the US or
| any society based in capitalism. With capitalism it's
| mostly supply, demand, leverage, and a few others.
| Compensation isn't connected to moral obligation.
| bagacrap wrote:
| I don't understand this comment. The justice department alleges
| that Facebook went out of its way to hide jobs from Americans
| bc there is a power imbalance that favors the employer of an
| immigrant worker. This wasn't about hiring better talent, but
| about hiring talent that you can underpay while still
| retaining. As a side effect, qualified Americans were harmed.
|
| These allegations may or may not be true but I fail to see how
| your framing addresses the complaint.
|
| I agree that forcing higher pay for visa holders helps to align
| incentives.
| curiousllama wrote:
| > The complaint also alleges that Facebook sought to channel jobs
| to temporary visa holders at the expense of U.S. workers by
| failing to advertise those vacancies on its careers website,
| requiring applicants to apply by physical mail only, and refusing
| to consider any U.S. workers who applied for those positions. In
| contrast, Facebook's usual hiring process relies on recruitment
| methods designed to encourage applications by advertising
| positions on its careers website, accepting electronic
| applications, and not pre-selecting candidates to be hired based
| on a candidate's immigration status, according to the lawsuit.
|
| Important to note: the allegations, if true, probably only
| indirectly impacted you or me. In other words, we all failed our
| Facebook interviews the good ol fashion way - through
| incompetence - not unfairness.
| programmerslave wrote:
| Not really. H1B immigrants raise the bar on hiring. Often times
| they are willing to work more hours, study more, etc for a
| chance to thrive in the USA. This reduces working conditions,
| effective wages, and employment prospects for Americans.
| lovecg wrote:
| Well sure, all of this is true. But the other side of the
| coin is the myth of America built by scrappy immigrants. What
| country we want to be is probably at the core of this and
| many other issues. You can't be both a worldwide magnet for
| hungry ambitious talent and an isolationist utopia with
| strong protections for local workers.
| supercanuck wrote:
| You are kidding right? I went managed interviews where the
| same person would perform the same interview with different
| names and you would interview a person and a different person
| would show up for work.
| supercanuck wrote:
| Same thing happening to migrants working farm fields in the
| USA.
| damnyou wrote:
| So give out ten times as many green cards and remove the
| restrictions.
|
| You don't want to do that? Oh, I see.
| nrmitchi wrote:
| > for a chance to thrive in the USA
|
| Or, because they are forced to under threat of deportation.
| This is only the case because of the un-due power that the
| H1-B system gives the employer. This un-due power can easily
| be taken away (by not tying the status directly to the
| employer, and giving the employee the actual freedom to
| switch positions).
|
| If the employer didn't have effective-deportation power over
| an employee, then maybe they wouldn't be able to get away
| with "reduce[d] working conditions, effective wages, and
| employment prospects for Americans".
|
| The enemy here isn't the foreign worker. If you're upset with
| anyone in this situation it should be an employer that is
| taking advantage of everyone else involved, and managed to
| put the blame on someone else.
| safog wrote:
| This is just blaming immigrants for their work ethic. You
| can't keep up with people that work harder than you, don't
| disguise it as "un-due power employer has over employee".
|
| The SWE market (where most H1s are employed) is so
| competitive that shmucks who run through 3 month bootcamps
| get 100k+ offers.
|
| The threat of being fired is not as effective as you think
| it is.
| programmerslave wrote:
| Most undergrad computer science graduates cannot find
| jobs right now
| sjg007 wrote:
| Unless they aren't being offered interviews, it's
| probably because they can't code. I don't mean that in a
| bad way but programming is not a skill that is emphasized
| in most undergrad CS programs.
|
| It's kind of a catch22 but that's one reason we have
| these boot camps / tutorials etc...
| lazyasciiart wrote:
| Compared to normal years, my local impression is that
| kids about to graduate really aren't being offered
| interviews. And those who just finished a summer
| internship that would usually have led to a job offer
| mostly didn't get those job offers. It really sucks to be
| them.
| [deleted]
| [deleted]
| whimsicalism wrote:
| > Important to note: the allegations, if true, probably only
| indirectly impacted you or me. In other words, we all failed
| our Facebook interviews the good ol fashion way - through
| incompetence - not unfairness.
|
| Not how labor markets work (:
| vsskanth wrote:
| A lot of companies advertise through newspaper to comply with
| PERM so they can file a green card application. pretty much an
| open secret. DOJ is finally looking into this now.
| uxp100 wrote:
| The actions described by this seem to cross the line somewhat
| clearly. But I always wondered about my former employer, who
| included the normal postings and the postings for H1Bs in the
| same places, but it was kinda clear which was which. Same hiring
| manager for all postings no matter the team, and a much vaguer
| job description. Like a type of role and some technologies to be
| experienced with instead of "you will work on team A who makes
| product B." Probably on the legal side of the line, but I never
| would have applied for one of the jobs that wasn't "for" me, why
| apply for generic Sr SW position when another job you could tell
| what team it was and talk to people on it.
| lacker wrote:
| This whole area of law is nonsense. Facebook software engineering
| doesn't have "positions". You don't apply for some specific role.
| They are hiring thousands of engineers every year, they hire for
| general software engineering skills, and you figure out what
| exactly you're working on afterwards.
|
| Meanwhile, US immigration law assumes that you are hiring one
| person at a time, and that each person is being hired for a
| separate "position". You cannot say, we need 3000 people in this
| role this year, we have 1000, so we need 2000 more.
|
| It ends up just being incoherent. You have to answer questions
| like "why are you unable to hire an American" and it's like...
| well we _are_. We're hiring many many Americans.
| CPLX wrote:
| I mean that's sort of the point. The program is supposed to be
| for specialized positions that you just can't get an American
| worker to fill. If you've just hired 1,000 Americans into an
| identical position you've demonstrated that you're misusing the
| intent of the program.
| rodonn wrote:
| Suppose you have a company and you need 3 people who can do
| X. You interview as many Americans as you can, and find 1 who
| can do the job. You fill 1 position with that American, and
| now start interviewing non-Americans and find 2 who you hire
| for the other two positions. This seems entirely within the
| intention of the H1B program.
|
| Now suppose instead of 3 employees, you need 3000. You find
| 1000 Americans able to do the role, and hire 2000 non-
| Americans for the remaining roles. This still seems
| consistent with the intention.
| safog wrote:
| Not really, they wanted 3000 positions, they only found 2000
| qualified Americans, so they hired the additional 1000 on a
| H1b.
| aeturnum wrote:
| I don't understand why hiring 3000 engineers for a generic
| "engineering" can be reduced to "Facebook doesn't have
| positions."
|
| Facebook is looking to hire a human to fill a spot in the org
| chart. The fact that they are hiring other people for other
| spots in the org chart (and they might be able to swap people)
| does not change that they are positions.
|
| >You have to answer questions like "why are you unable to hire
| an American" and it's like... well we are. We're hiring many
| many Americans.
|
| Saying no to this question means you are not hiring a US
| resident _for this position._ You 're hiring many US residents
| for other positions. That seems...accurate?
|
| Are you thinking that, if a company hires X number of US
| residents, that should entitle them to hire Y non-US residents?
| I'm not trying to be obtuse - I want to understand what a non
| "incoherent" policy would look like for you.
| bxji wrote:
| Correct me if I'm wrong, but Facebook hires people under a
| generic role (Software Engineer) and then has them choose the
| team they will join after a "bootcamp" session. So they are
| not preallocated to a team to fulfill a specific need, and
| it's not a direct 1 requisition to 1 person type system. I
| believe that's what the above poster was referring to when
| they mentioned Facebook hiring to be general.
| adamc wrote:
| Right. But the DOJ is saying you cannot use the law that
| way.
| Closi wrote:
| The purpose of the program seems to be to bring in workers
| where there is a specific need, so if it's a generic role
| then that's not helpful to their cause.
| dboreham wrote:
| Definitely not true. "Competent developer" is
| sufficiently specific. Role is just an instance of the
| class job.
| Closi wrote:
| What purpose do you need to hire that developer for?
| gimmeThaBeet wrote:
| I would say it's more to assert or, if you are skeptical,
| present, in good faith that your business model or strategy
| isn't H1-B employee arbitrage. I.e. for the purpose of this
| scenario, in a holistic sense, Facebook doesn't avoid hiring
| Americans.
|
| So like, the government says facebook had a bunch of PERM
| positions that they sandbagged recruiting for to Americans.
| But then, > while comparable positions at Facebook that were
| advertised on its careers website during a similar time
| period typically attracted 100 or more applicants each.
|
| Are these...the same positions? How does facebook's hiring
| process work? Is there actually any discrete limit to the
| 'slots' on the careers website? Do they have 2500 listings
| for software engineers, or just like, everyone applies, we
| are looking to hire ~2000 people this year.
|
| I can see where the government is probably right in saying
| "you did it wrong". But if you are facebook, and the hiring
| strategy is honestly:
|
| * Hiring for the 'American' positions is only limited by the
| company finding the applicant skilled enough. There is no
| numerical cap.
|
| * Only foreign applicants apply to a discrete, government-
| limited pool of PERM positions. This way you don't waste the
| PERM positions on Americans, who can apply to you nigh-
| unlimited pool of 'American' positions.
|
| * Starting salary for everyone is the same ($156k)
|
| I could certainly see that the government's way of
| interpreting your 'insidious hiring program' is flat-footed
| to the point of being wrong.
| umanwizard wrote:
| > Facebook is looking to hire a human to fill a spot in the
| org chart.
|
| This isn't true. Most (not all) engineers are just hired into
| "Facebook", in general, not onto a specific team with a
| specific manager. They choose a team to join about ~2 months
| after joining the company and going through an internal
| training and team selection process.
| aeturnum wrote:
| > Most (not all) engineers are just hired into "Facebook",
| in general
|
| That, to me, sounds like a place on the org chart. Like you
| have a division or a subsidiary and they have X engineers.
| Those engineers could be placed with more detail, but
| they're still inside the organization.
|
| If you're hiring janitors aren't they still janitors even
| if you don't know what building they will clean?
|
| I feel like I am totally missing the point that people are
| trying to make and I apologize for being obtuse.
| lacker wrote:
| I think you're just misunderstanding the terminology. An
| org chart is a diagram that shows the connection between
| each manager and the people they directly manage. When
| you don't know who someone's direct manager will be, they
| don't have a "place on the org chart" yet.
| Diederich wrote:
| Just to clarify (I'm not taking a particular position on this
| discussion):
|
| At Facebook, as of earlier this year at least, most Software
| Engineer and Production Engineer hires are definitely not
| headed toward a particular team. For the first few weeks,
| they're in 'bootcamp', which is quite generalized. For
| example: I've never done any meaningful Android or iPhone
| development in my life, but during bootcamp, I learned how to
| do Android and iPhone development (at a basic level) at
| Facebook.
|
| After the first few weeks, but with a couple of weeks
| remaining in bootcamp, new hires are actively looking at and
| talking to different teams with open positions to join. By
| the end of bootcamp, a total of about five weeks, the person
| formally joins a team.
| ajsnigrutin wrote:
| Is it so hard to get american workers? Don't they pay enough?
| Or why do they need foreigners?
| slumdev wrote:
| I'll just say it: They don't pay enough.
|
| Someone who can pass their interviews and earn $300k in SF
| can just as easily earn $150k in Mayberry. And that $150k
| goes a lot farther in Mayberry than $300k does in San
| Francisco.
|
| I'd gladly work for them if Zuck promises that I can remain
| in Mayberry while I draw a Facebook salary.
| damnyou wrote:
| There is no moral obligation to hire a worker just because a
| particular state blessed them with a set of papers, usually
| because they were born on the right side of a line drawn in
| the middle of a desert.
|
| edit to respond: Fine, then anyone willing to pay taxes in
| the US should get to work in the US.
|
| Again, fuck the police state. People and communities matter,
| the state can burn to the ground for all I care.
| ajsnigrutin wrote:
| But you can always find people in a shitty to do the job
| for cheaper than a local worker. why would local workers
| (=voters) want that?
|
| The government should make rules that make lives better for
| their citizens,... other citizens have their own
| governments to take care of them.
| [deleted]
| [deleted]
| emteycz wrote:
| You want foreigners for diversity of workplace and ideas, for
| their different perspectives, for their direct exposure and
| intrinsic knowledge of their home countries, for the
| different expertise taught at their different schools...
| disposekinetics wrote:
| Title VII of the civil rights act makes it illegal to
| classify applicants on the basis of national origin. If you
| are taking that into consideration while hiring you are in
| violation of the civil rights act.
| emteycz wrote:
| National origin is not the only way to measure diversity.
|
| Anyways, thankfully neither me nor my company is in the
| USA. If this is the reason why one can't build a diverse
| workplace, you built a very sad country.
| umanwizard wrote:
| That has nothing to do with why Facebook wants to hire
| foreigners.
|
| Facebook wants to hire foreigners because they want to hire
| essentially everyone who passes their interviews, and only
| some subset of those are American.
| akhilcacharya wrote:
| Its because many Americans don't pass the interviews. Many
| more do. BigTech generally hires agnostic of citizenship or
| current status.
|
| Source: Am American, and did not pass the interviews 2 years
| ago
| jedberg wrote:
| Only 4.25% of the world's population lives in the US. It's
| mathematically impossible for all the best people to already
| live here.
| unishark wrote:
| Companies don't just hire the best people, otherwise they
| would not be advertising for new graduates and intermediate
| levels of experience. They hire the cheapest people they
| can get for the skills they need.
| ajsnigrutin wrote:
| But do they need that many "best" people? Or are just "good
| enough" people from "shithole countries" cheaper than
| locals? I mean... why pay an american a good wage, when you
| can get someone from some poor country, give them a barely
| livable wage (especially with rent prices in silicon
| valley), bring them there with a h1b visa and treat them
| badly, because if they quit, they must leave the country.
| mynameishere wrote:
| What exactly does Facebook need the best people for? To
| implement the remaining 5 percent of MySpace?
|
| As to the H1-B thing, I suspect most of the people here
| haven't interviewed at the crummier software jobs (like at
| a commercial bank) but it's amazing how an entire
| department can be nothing but foreigners of no apparent
| excellence, and yet they can't "find" any citizens to hire
| even after interviewing them. There's heavy fraud top-to-
| bottom and it's going to get much worse.
| staunch wrote:
| FAANG resources are the highest in the country. They could
| afford to hire 100% US citizens if they chose to. Even if
| that made it much harder for non-FAANG companies. No one
| could afford to compete with them.
|
| The motivation for FAANG committing so much fraud using the
| H1B isn't really debatable. They do it to to steal money
| for their shareholders. The same motivation for all their
| tax cheating. The difference being that the H1B fraud is
| clearly illegal, even if it has remain unprosecuted by
| virtue of political bribery, etc.
| shiftpgdn wrote:
| What % of that is developers? What is the global demand for
| software developers?
| jedberg wrote:
| Does it matter? There is no realistic way that all the
| best developers, or even all the good developers, already
| live in the USA.
| throw_m239339 wrote:
| > Does it matter? There is no realistic way that all the
| best developers, or even all the good developers, already
| live in the USA.
|
| Yes, it does, you used a figure to suit your argument,
| now people are rightfully asking for a more relevant
| figure to see if your argument still stands. So what % of
| developers live in USA? The rest is just purely your
| opinion.
| dboreham wrote:
| It doesn't. This is like asking what percentage of
| international level pop singers live in the US.
| Definitely not 100%. Even considering baseball players
| the proportion isn't 100%.
| jedberg wrote:
| I would contend that the unknowable numbers the person is
| asking for are not actually relevant to the argument at
| all.
| Bishop_ wrote:
| I'm making an assumption that facebook only wants to hire
| what they perceive is the top 1% (Or some other number) of
| programmers regardless of background.
| damnencryption wrote:
| Maybe they want some employees to implement scary backdoors
| or portals and it's easier to control an immigrant dependent
| on Facebook or with different sense of morality.
| umanwizard wrote:
| Why shouldn't they hire foreigners? It is a global company.
|
| When visa policies are tightened, FAANG companies don't
| decide "well, instead of hiring this Indian who passed our
| interview process, we'll hire an American who failed it
| instead". Rather, they expand their offices in places with
| less restrictive visa policies, like London or Vancouver.
| ajsnigrutin wrote:
| ...or they hire an american, who they have to pay money
| than a foreigner, and is not tied to them via their visa.
| sjg007 wrote:
| Except that they really don't. That may change post
| pandemic and would change in the long term due to policy
| decisions. But global offices tend to organize around
| specific functions and/or products. A lot happen by
| acquisition. You need, not just the talented employee but
| all of the support systems in place around them to operate
| in that country. That cost is a lot higher than bringing
| them over. Then you have the risk of them leaving too. Way
| more expensive than employing 4k H1Bs.
|
| Then once you get that office established you can bring
| people over on L1 visas I believe.
| randomdata wrote:
| Same reason bands from all over the world come to perform in
| America (well, in normal years, at least) even though America
| is full of performing musicians who are lucky if they ever
| make a penny? What reason is there to see the Rolling Stones
| when <band I have never heard of> is playing?
|
| When the job is more than perfectly repeatable steps defined
| by an employer, which certainly describes the development of
| software, where anyone can be replaced with anyone else,
| there is sometimes value in specific people doing the job.
| People who may or may not be American.
| ajsnigrutin wrote:
| Or maybe because foreigners are cheaper, are willing to
| work more for their pay, and even if treated badly, they
| won't quit, because they'll have to leave their country
| then.
| dekhn wrote:
| Facebook SWE does have positions. There is a generic SWE role
| they hire a lot of recent grads into, but there are many
| bespoke positions. In my case, I was hired at Google onto a
| specific team via a bespoke role ("Test Engineer, Site
| Reliability Engineering") that was distinct from the general
| Test Engineer role. I interviewed with the team that I would be
| working on.
| tozeur wrote:
| Are you a lawyer?
| conjecTech wrote:
| I think you just made the Justice Department's case for them.
| An H-1B is intended for individuals with specialized skillsets.
| The fact that Facebook engages in this form of mass, generic
| recruiting underscores the fact that they are not seeking out
| rare skillsets and don't really need to utilize this program to
| find people matching the required criteria.
| safog wrote:
| Mass generic recruiting doesn't mean that the jobs being
| filled aren't highly specialized. They're not hiring
| cafeteria workers on a H1b.
|
| SWE is a specialization and job descriptions typically ask
| for things like experience dealing with high QPS distributed
| systems which is a very specific skillset.
| triceratops wrote:
| "Specialized" != "rare". An auto mechanic has specialized
| skills, in that a general person on the street can't do that
| job. Auto mechanics aren't rare.
|
| Also, the proportion of the total population that's capable
| of getting a job at FB is quite small. _Within_ FB the people
| are largely interchangeable, precisely because of that high
| hiring bar. Everyone who 's hired is smart, so they can all
| do everything (in theory).
| leakybit wrote:
| It's not the governments problem that FB's hiring bar is so
| high.
| triceratops wrote:
| I don't even know what to make of this.
| bluedino wrote:
| Porsche-certified mechanics, are rare though.
| triceratops wrote:
| Right, they're specialized _and_ rare.
| usaar333 wrote:
| Well, they are rare though. If I have a problem finding 2,000
| qualified people in X time then that skill is rare.(I
| recognize "qualified" is the company's threshold to call).
|
| The problem at the core is the law itself. Why don't we
| instead just auction off visas to improve efficiency?
| Jare wrote:
| > Why don't we instead just auction off visas to improve
| efficiency?
|
| The areas with lower cost and wages can't compete
| attracting local talent, but auctions would make it even
| harder for them to attract foreign talent as well. It's a
| losing proposition for pretty much everyone.
| Closi wrote:
| Do you think they have a problem finding 2,000 if they are
| paying market rate, or can you suspect that this is seen as
| a cheap alternative for getting equivalently skilled people
| at a lower cost?
| usaar333 wrote:
| Facebook tends to be one of the highest payers in
| industry. It's possible paying even higher would net more
| people, but overall math suggests the best N people won't
| necessary be US citizens or permanent residents.
| rayiner wrote:
| Bingo. My dad came over here in an H1-B because his company
| needed a public health expert with experience in Bangladesh.
| There were probably a handful of people in the world with
| that background. The company wasn't going to find an American
| with those skills.
|
| I'm sympathetic to the idea that we should have a generic
| immigration mechanism for skilled workers. But we don't have
| that. Congress hasn't created one because the American people
| won't support one. (Or at least, the parties that want such a
| thing aren't willing to spend political capital on it so long
| as they can kick the can down the road by abusing the current
| system).
| triceratops wrote:
| It sounds like your dad should've come in on the O-1.
| xyzzyz wrote:
| O-1 requirements are very strict, and it's not enough to
| just be an expert on a random arcane topic X.
| freeone3000 wrote:
| It's not mutually exclusive. If a company has H-1B quota
| that is unused, it may be beneficial for the company to
| sponsor under the H-1B directive rather than start a new
| process for an O-1. O-1s are also significantly difficult
| to qualify for; it is unclear whether an "average" public
| health expert would qualify.
| rayiner wrote:
| O-1 didn't exit back then.
| triceratops wrote:
| Gotcha. The H-1B was first created in the 1950s for
| aliens of "distinguished merit and ability". In 1990, it
| became a visa for workers in a "specialty occupation".
| The 1990 law also added the O-1 visa.[1] It sounds like
| the H visa was rebadged as the O visa and a new skilled
| worker visa was named the H visa.
|
| 1. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/H-1B_visa#Creation
| damnyou wrote:
| Stop retconning history. The H-1B has always been meant as
| a path to permanent residence, which is why it has been
| dual intent since the beginning.
|
| The AC21 indefinite extensions were added because the per-
| country backlogs were not anticipated back when the program
| was created. But it has _always_ , from the very beginning,
| built a path to permanent residence in via EB2, EB3 and the
| dual intent provision.
|
| Edit: The person replying to me about the H1B not being
| dual intent from the beginning is wrong. I have receipts.
| The H1B was introduced in the Immigration Act of 1990.
|
| https://www.congress.gov/bill/101st-congress/senate-
| bill/358...
|
| > `(h) The fact that an alien is the beneficiary of an
| application for a preference status filed under section 204
| or has otherwise sought permanent residence in the United
| States shall not constitute evidence of an intention to
| abandon a foreign residence for purposes of obtaining a
| visa as a nonimmigrant described in subparagraph (H)(i) or
| (L) of section 101(a)(15) or otherwise obtaining or
| maintaining the status of a nonimmigrant described in such
| subparagraph, if the alien had obtained a change of status
| under section 248 to a classification as such a
| nonimmigrant before the alien's most recent departure from
| the United States.'.
|
| Edit to respond to the second reply: The _H-1B_ is dual
| intent. I did not make any claims about a visa category
| that no longer exists. Besides, the argument about whether
| the H-1B is an update or a new category doesn 't matter --
| it is clear that Congress intended for the H-1B, as created
| (or updated if you will) in 1990, to be a path to permanent
| residence. The assertion that it was never intended that
| way is ahistorical.
|
| Further edit: It sounds like rayiner's dad came in on an
| older H-1 which indeed didn't have the dual intent
| provision, not an H-1 _B_ which does. The details matter
| here!
|
| Further, further edit:
|
| > The only reason you need "dual intent" is because the law
| still requires H1-B holders to have non-immigrant intent.
|
| I literally pointed to the provision of the 1990 Act which
| does _not_ require non-immigrant intent for people in H and
| L statuses. This is what Congress intended.
|
| Of course the H-1B isn't an immigrant visa. It is a _dual
| intent_ visa, in that it preserves the _option value_ of
| not having to become a green card holder (and thus pay US
| taxes worldwide if you decide to leave later, etc.) So
| someone on an H-1B can choose to become a permanent
| resident, but doesn 't have to become one.
|
| I'm sympathetic to the argument that people should have to
| decide within a few years either to leave or to stay
| permanently, but for that the green card backlogs need to
| be eliminated by statute.
| rayiner wrote:
| That's incorrect. The H1 visa is by its terms a temporary
| work visa of limited duration:
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/H-1B_visa. It was created
| in the 1952 INA. In the 1990 INA, it was split into the
| H-1A and H-1B, but continued to be an non-immigration
| visa, as distinguished from immigration visas introduced
| in the 1990 statute:
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Immigration_Act_of_1990
|
| "Dual intent" is the "administrative fiat" I was talking
| about. Both the 1952 and 1990 INA define an H-1 worker as
| an alien "who is coming temporarily to the United States
| to perform services." Non-immigrant intent is a
| prerequisite for the category. Since the 1952 Act, the
| INS adopted a fiction of dual intent to turn the H-1 visa
| into a de-facto immigration visa. However, the State
| Department didn't recognize dual intent. When an H1 visa
| holder filed an immigration petition, the State
| Department treated that as signaling intent to immigrate,
| in violation of the H1 terms. When the visa holder
| travelled, they risked not being allowed back in the
| country, causing significant hardship.
|
| With the INS having backed Congress into a corner, the
| 1990 INA included a narrow solution to eliminate the
| specific hardship and maintain the status quo. But it
| didn't change the fundamental nature of the H1 visa as a
| temporary immigration visa. It's still a temporary non-
| immigrant visa in the statute, as distinguished from
| immigrant visas which are also in the statute. The
| committee's legislative history for the 1990 INA makes
| clear that Congress was just kicking the can down the
| road and alleviating that specific hardship without
| reconceptualizing H-1B as an immigrant visa:
|
| > The difficulties encountered by those seeking temporary
| admission who have also expressed a desire to immigrate
| at some time in the future have caused severe personal
| hardship as well as inhibited frequent travel to the
| United States for business purposes. This has been
| particularly onerous for the beneficiaries of H and L
| visas. The Committee [on the Judiciary] sees no useful
| purpose in denying temporary entry to the United States
| for business purposes because of an inability to show
| that a residence abroad will not be abandoned. Such
| presumption of immigrant intent in particular
| circumstances creates purposeless, but often
| insurmountable, barriers for the prospective employee and
| the employer. For all categories of nonimmigrant visas
| (including the H and L), the bill provides that the
| filing of an immigrant petition cannot be a factor in
| determining whether an alien intends to abandon a foreign
| residence. The Committee notes, however, that the
| consular officers may rely on other evidence indicating
| the possibility of overstaying a visa, such as records of
| past visits to the United States.
|
| If the H1-B was "meant as a path to permanent residence"
| the whole "dual intent" thing would be meaningless. The
| only reason you need "dual intent" is because the law
| still requires H1-B holders to have non-immigrant intent.
| It's a kludge to deal with the fact that Congress can't
| actually muster the votes to create a real skilled
| immigration system.
| xyzzyz wrote:
| > which is why it has been dual intent since the
| beginning.
|
| It has not.
| renewiltord wrote:
| You're actually right. The H-1 is not the H-1B (in the
| same way that user ID 1030 in your database is not user
| ID 103) which is probably where the confusion is stemming
| from.
| dragonwriter wrote:
| > The H-1 is not the H-1B (in the same way that user ID
| 1030 in your database is not user ID 103) which is
| probably where the confusion is stemming from.
|
| The H-1B is, under the statute, one of the subcategories
| within the H-1, and is covered by the same rules except
| to the extent they are explicitly distinguished. The
| H-1B1, another subcategory, _is_ explicitly not included
| in the carve-out of the H-1 from the rule generally
| prohibiting immigration intent for nonimmigrant visas,
| which, so the H-1B1 is not, while other H-1s including
| the H-1B are, dual-intent visas.)
|
| H-1 nonimmigrant visas are the set of visas governed by 8
| USC Sec. 1101(a)(15)(h)(i), which included the H-1A [now
| defunct, formerly Sec 1101(a)(15)(H)(i)(a)], and includes
| the H-1B [Sec 1101(a)(15)(H)(i)(b)], the H-1B1 [Sec
| 1101(a)(15)(H)(i)(b1)], and the H-1C [Sec
| 1101(a)(15)(H)(i)(c)].
|
| https://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/text/8/1101#a_15_H_i
| renewiltord wrote:
| Right, but it's not the H-1. They're named that way
| because of the category of the code but it's a new visa
| category that is distinct from the H-1 from the 1950s.
| The area covered by the H-1 is now in language covered by
| a different visa.
| xyzzyz wrote:
| Replying to your edit, H1 visa has been introduced by
| 1952 Immigration and Nationality Act, and in 1990 it was
| only split into H1A and H1B, to separate out nurses into
| H1A.
| rayiner wrote:
| > Edit: The person replying to me about the H1B not being
| dual intent from the beginning is wrong. I have receipts.
| The H1B was introduced in the Immigration Act of 1990.
|
| The statute doesn't say anything about "dual intent."
| That's an administrative fiction. Under the actual law,
| the H-1B is a "nonimmigrant" visa status for temporary
| workers.
|
| The status is defined in Section 1101(a)(15), which
| describes various "classes of nonimmigrant aliens." See:
| https://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/text/8/1101
|
| In that same provision, subsection (H)(1)(b) defines the
| status as a worker "who is coming temporarily to the
| United States to perform services" in a "speciality
| occupation."
|
| The provision you quote doesn't create some concept of
| "dual intent." It simply says that someone shall not be
| presumed to have immigrant intent just because they file
| an adjustment of status petition. Why would that even
| matter? Because H-1B still requires nonimmigrant intent!
|
| If Congress had designed H-1B to be a pathway to
| permanent residency, it would say that in the statute.
| Instead what happened is that for 40 years the executive
| branch abused the H-1 program to turn a temporary
| immigration visa into a de facto permanent immigration
| system. Congress didn't want to blow up the status quo,
| but also couldn't get the vote to create a real system
| for permanent immigration of skilled workers. The 1990
| INA doesn't even use the words "dual intent" or anything
| like it. Congress did the minimum it needed to address
| the situation where State Department was barring H-1
| holders who has filed an immigration petition from re-
| entering, because that's all they could get the votes
| for.
| dragonwriter wrote:
| > The statute doesn't say anything about "dual intent."
|
| V, L and H-1 (including H-1b, but excluding H-1b1)
| nonimmigrant visas are explicitly, by statute, excluded
| from the rule requiring nonimmigrant visa holders to
| _lack_ immigrant intent; Immigration and Nationality Act
| Sec. 214(b), as amended, codified at US Code Title 8,
| Sec. 1184(b).
|
| "Dual intent" isn't an administrative fiction, its a term
| of art for the nonimmigrant visa categories excluded from
| the generally applicable requirement for having (and
| demonstrating) the absence of immigrant intent. Its true
| that there are some visa categories where "dual intent"
| is applied adminstratively rather than from a clear
| statutory rule, but V, L, and H-1 (except H-1b1) visas
| have explicit statutory allowance for dual intent.
|
| > If Congress had designed H-1B to be a pathway to
| permanent residency, it would say that in the statute.
|
| But...it does say that in the statute.
|
| > Instead what happened is that for 40 years the
| executive branch abused the H-1 program to turn a
| temporary immigration visa into a de facto permanent
| immigration system.
|
| Whether or not H-1 may have been abused that way between
| 1980 and 1990 (the first 10 years of your "40 year
| period") [See EDIT below], the exemption of H-1 and L
| visas from the no-immigration-intent requirement has been
| express in statute since the Immigration Act of 1990, so
| for the last 30 years the behavior you complain about has
| been strictly as directed by statute.
|
| References:
|
| Summary: http://www.americanlaw.com/dintent.html
|
| Current codification and history:
| https://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/text/8/1184 [history
| of amendments, including text added by the 1990 amendment
| at issue, by clicking "Notes"]
|
| [EDIT: The H-1B can't have been abused between 1980 and
| 1990, while I checked when the H-1B was added to the
| exception from the no-immigration-intent rule, I didn't
| check when the visa category itself as added, which was
| at the same time in the INA of 1990. So, no, it was never
| abused as a route to immigration, it has always
| explicitly allowed that use in the statute. Conceivably,
| the unsplit H-1 could have been abused between 1980 and
| 1990, though.]
| lacker wrote:
| _An H-1B is intended for individuals with specialized
| skillsets._
|
| Specialized, yes, but it isn't supposed to be for completely
| unique skills. If someone is one of the top 100,000 software
| engineers in the world, that _is_ a specialized skill set.
| And it makes sense for our country to encourage those people
| to immigrate.
| rayiner wrote:
| > And it makes sense for our country to encourage those
| people to immigrate.
|
| That's a decision for Congress to make and it hasn't done
| that. What it has created is a temporary immigration system
| for skilled workers. The skills don't have to be unique,
| but employers must prove that they can't find workers with
| that skill set domestically at prevailing wage rates. And
| that it seems absurd for places like Facebook to say that
| when they reject so many applications from talented
| developers.
| gautamdivgi wrote:
| That it has a fairly well documented system I suppose?
| Their interviews are well defined. They tell you what
| their interviewers will look for. The hire/no-hire
| decision is made by a panel not a single individual.
|
| Whether tech interviews should be algorithmic or not is
| beside the point. But they have a very well-defined
| process. So every rejection and acceptance is probably
| very well documented.
| lacker wrote:
| _And that it seems absurd for places like Facebook to say
| that when they reject so many applications from talented
| developers._
|
| It isn't absurd at all. Facebook is one of the companies
| doing this the right way. Facebook interviews H1-B
| candidates in exactly the same way it interviews American
| citizens, and they pay the same to H1-Bs and American
| citizens in the same role. When they reject an American
| candidate, it's because they don't think that candidate
| is sufficiently skilled, not because they want to hire a
| foreigner with the same skills for cheaper.
| xyzzyz wrote:
| And how are you going to show that your candidate actually
| has the "is in top 100,000 in the world" skill?
|
| I think that US should have an option to give residency to
| top professionals, but H1B visa hasn't been designed to
| allow that, and it is now used for that through hacks,
| legal fictions and tacit agreements.
| damnyou wrote:
| No, the O-1 is meant for individuals with specialized
| skillsets. The H-1B is meant for workers with a bachelor's
| degree or above, or equivalent experience.
|
| Besides, the idea of trying to segregate workers like this is
| bogus anyway. Fuck the police state.
| programmerslave wrote:
| They really don't hire that many Americans
| PoignardAzur wrote:
| You should really elaborate when you make a claim like that.
| programmerslave wrote:
| Go look on linked in. Of FB engineers, probably at least
| 40% are Chinese.
| PierceJoy wrote:
| Is this a serious comment? First, skimming Linkedin is
| hardly an accurate way to see the racial makeup of a
| company. Second, Facebook has offices all over the world.
| Third, and most importantly, you know Chinese Americans
| exist, right?
| [deleted]
| jtsiskin wrote:
| Yeah, I want more details.
|
| It claims that Facebook specifically did not advertise some
| roles on its careers website, which led to these specific roles
| having ~0 US applications. Whereas most other roles have
| hundreds of US applications.
|
| What 'roles' were these? Is there some specific role they are
| not advertising?
|
| Edit: The original complaint https://www.justice.gov/opa/press-
| release/file/1342786/downl... You are exactly right; there are
| no 'roles' and it stems from the completely different type of
| hiring exactly as you describe.
|
| "Beginning no later than January 1, 2018, and continuing until
| at least September 18, 2019, Facebook's standard operating
| procedure was to automatically initiate a PERM process when a
| temporary visa holder who was a Facebook employee in a "level
| 3" role1 or above asked Facebook for a permanent position, if
| the PERM process was needed to offer the PERM beneficiary such
| a position. 36. Facebook's standard operating procedure was not
| to consider the temporary visa holder's job performance or
| seniority or consult with the employee's manager about the
| temporary visa holder's job performance before initiating the
| PERM process on his or her behalf. 37. As noted above, to file
| a PERM application, Department of Labor rules first required
| Facebook to ensure that there were no minimally qualified and
| available U.S. workers for the position that Facebook wanted to
| offer to the PERM beneficiary. 38. From at least January 1,
| 2018 to at least September 18, 2019, when a Facebook employee
| who was a temporary visa holder expressed interest in receiving
| a permanent position through the PERM process, Facebook
| diverged from its normal recruiting protocols by not
| advertising the position on its external website,
| Facebook.com/careers, by not accepting online applications, and
| by requiring interested applicants to apply to the position by
| mail."
|
| Essentially, it seems like when a temporary visa holder working
| at Facebook wanted to have a permanent position, Facebook would
| create a 'dummy' role for them, then advertise it where people
| would not apply, so that they could then hire the employee
| permanently. But I wouldn't call this discrimination at all; I
| would call this Facebook hiring as many talented people as they
| can, as fast as they can. The same 'role' is still available
| and on the careers website.
| davidgay wrote:
| It's a reference to these "positions": 'However, the PERM
| process requires an employer to first demonstrate that there
| are no qualified and available U.S. workers for the position
| that the employer plans to offer to the temporary visa
| holder.'
|
| I.e., not really new positions, as the temporary visa holder
| is already in said position.
| derivagral wrote:
| It took the original as well as your quote, but my hot-take
| is: FB loves to automate; FB wants to scale hiring; FB
| automates an annoying process. Oops, that step (done
| automatically) is technically illegal. However, it probably
| never really came up in review or was optimistically ignored.
|
| I'm torn between the "FB should be allowed to scale!" side vs
| the protectionist "Forcing higher demand would materially
| impact my personal wages in this profession."
|
| IANAL or a FB employee.
| tomkat0789 wrote:
| It's nice that this is getting some attention, but I hope it
| results in good policy!
|
| Other stories I've bumped into:
|
| Trump's executive order - I guess this is now defunct:
| https://www.theregister.com/2020/10/29/h1b_visa_change/
|
| US Senate moves to abolish per-country visa caps:
| https://www.theregister.com/2020/12/03/fairness_for_high_ski...
| tisu32 wrote:
| An easy way to solve this issue would be to just liberalize the
| whole immigration process: for e.g. software development,
| research and any technical field, make it equally easy to hire
| either Americans or foreigners (whichever person is best for the
| role) on the basis of competence only. That would make the
| process more fair both to Americans and non-nationals and would
| ensure the best person for the job gets retained, rather than
| either the one lucky enough to be born on one side of an
| imaginary line, or the foreigner who might be hired simply
| because cheaper/harder to leave company.
| Veen wrote:
| It is not the job of the US Government to ensure "the best
| person for the job gets retained" or "the process is more fair
| to non-nationals". Its primary goal is to do whatever is in the
| best interests of US citizens and the United States. It's
| possible to argue that it fails to achieve its primary goal,
| but unreasonable to expect it to prioritize employment
| opportunities for citizens of other countries.
| nrmitchi wrote:
| > Not only do Facebook's alleged practices discriminate against
| U.S. workers, they have adverse consequences on temporary visa
| holders by creating an employment relationship that is not on
| equal terms. An employer that engages in the practices alleged in
| the lawsuit against Facebook can expect more temporary visa
| holders to apply for positions and increased retention post-hire.
| Such temporary visa holders often have limited job mobility and
| thus are likely to remain with their company until they can
| adjust status, which for some can be decades.
|
| I guess it's good that the Justice Department is openly
| acknowledging that this is a problem. Maybe we'll see if actually
| get addressed at some point now.
|
| That being said it feels like a slightly out-of-place comment
| when much of this allegation is about hiring for jobs as part of
| the PERM process. If Facebook is purposely going through the PERM
| process with these employees, it is _actively working to remove
| those un-equal terms_. After the PERM process, the employee is
| free to leave and not remain with the company until they can
| adjust status.
|
| Yes, the PERM advertising rules are stupid and outdated, but I
| don't see any evidence here that Facebook didn't follow them.
|
| If the Justice Department wants to go after true abuse of the
| H1-B program, there are significantly-more-legitimate targets
| (Tata, Infosys, etc).
|
| I honestly can't believe that this has made me _defend Facebook_.
| sjg007 wrote:
| What are the rules on advertising jobs? In the past, I've seen
| positions notified internally on a pin up board in the
| lunchroom. Apparently there is some law that requires that. I
| wonder if that's the bare minimum or if jobs have to be
| notified online now. I know a lot of legal things have to be
| notified in newspapers for example. This is usually the print
| edition which have less subscribers these days.
|
| But now that companies are fully remote, how are you supposed
| to be notified of pending H1B, jobs etc... ? It seems like an
| interesting question!
| lacker wrote:
| Facebook hires H1-B software engineers for the same jobs that
| it hires Americans. You can find them on Facebook's career
| page:
|
| https://www.facebook.com/careers/areas-of-
| work/engineering/?...
|
| Almost any job that an H1-B is getting hired for at Facebook,
| an American can apply for that same job by just going through
| the standard application process.
| clusterhacks wrote:
| FTA:
|
| "The complaint also alleges that Facebook sought to channel
| jobs to temporary visa holders at the expense of U.S.
| workers by failing to advertise those vacancies on its
| careers website, requiring applicants to apply by physical
| mail only, and refusing to consider any U.S. workers who
| applied for those positions."
| sjg007 wrote:
| Yeah the "channeling" of jobs seems to be the big issue
| as well as blanket disregard for American applicants.
| trhway wrote:
| I'm a US worker, GC, no any public visibility/reputation
| in the industry, just a regular cog at a regular BigCo,
| and FB recruiters are going out of their way to reach.
| The JD should instead go after real offenders like
| Accenture, Tata, IBM, etc.
| yegle wrote:
| In my company, when you WFH for extended long time, you'll
| need to print the notice and post it to the refrigerator.
|
| It's that stupid.
| ajaimk wrote:
| "In 2 separate places "
| ianmobbs wrote:
| > The complaint also alleges that Facebook sought to channel
| jobs to temporary visa holders at the expense of U.S. workers
| by failing to advertise those vacancies on its careers website,
| requiring applicants to apply by physical mail only, and
| refusing to consider any U.S. workers who applied for those
| positions. In contrast, Facebook's usual hiring process relies
| on recruitment methods designed to encourage applications by
| advertising positions on its careers website, accepting
| electronic applications, and not pre-selecting candidates to be
| hired based on a candidate's immigration status, according to
| the lawsuit. > > In its investigation, the department
| determined that Facebook's ineffective recruitment methods
| dissuaded U.S. workers from applying to its PERM positions. The
| department concluded that, during the relevant period, Facebook
| received zero or one U.S. worker applicants for 99.7 percent of
| its PERM positions, while comparable positions at Facebook that
| were advertised on its careers website during a similar time
| period typically attracted 100 or more applicants each. These
| U.S. workers were denied an opportunity to be considered for
| the jobs Facebook sought to channel to temporary visa holders,
| according to the lawsuit.
|
| Facebook was not actively working to remove those un-equal
| terms. They set up a separate, physical-mail only pipeline for
| these candidates, and denied any US Citizens who applied using
| the obscure pipeline.
| geofft wrote:
| If the Justice Department wants to go after true abuse of the
| H-1B system, they should issue a press release saying that the
| unequal terms are fundamentally unjust for workers and
| therefore unavoidably appealing to employers and they refuse to
| prosecute mistreatment of non-H-1B workers until Congress acts
| to address this, because they see it as a waste of resources to
| dissuade companies from doing something so absurdly rational.
| _jal wrote:
| > there are significantly-more-legitimate targets
|
| Yeah, this is giving me the feel of a very tailored lawsuit -
| it is media-friendly, unlikely to be systemically disruptive,
| and I'd call it extremely likely that it is settled for a press
| release and no meaningful change.
|
| > I honestly can't believe that this has made me defend
| Facebook.
|
| I'm going to go take a shower, too.
|
| Also, I wonder what C19 does to H1B visas over the long term. I
| expect my company to announce permanent WFH at some point,
| keeping a much smaller physical space for exec meets and
| whatever.
|
| It may well be that the demand for physical presence H1Bs drops
| significantly in tech firms.
| reader_mode wrote:
| >It may well be that the demand for physical presence H1Bs
| drops significantly in tech firms.
|
| Even if you're not required to be physically present there's
| still value in being under the same legal system - good luck
| enforcing NDA/IP ownership on an employee you never met from
| a random country across the world with a different legal
| system and different employment laws.
|
| Also employee retention is even harder in that scenario (the
| opposite of H1B scenario where you basically capture the
| employee).
|
| I say this as someone who's freelancing for US clients from
| Eastern Europe - the only model I saw working for non-trivial
| stuff is opening offshore offices with a dedicated
| team/staff/etc. - but then you're dealing with plain old
| offshoring C19 probably makes this harder because travel is
| harder and you probably want to fly key people to set things
| up properly.
|
| There are full remote companies like GitLab but most of their
| stuff is OSS anyway and their core product is not very
| innovation based (something that needs IP/NDA protection),
| this kind of work was getting outsourced/offshored full speed
| even before C19.
| nrmitchi wrote:
| > Even if you're not required to be physically present
| there's still value in being under the same legal system
|
| I mean, sure, ya, there is value. Unfortunately it's not
| really the kind of value that USCIS cares about when it
| comes to work authorization.
|
| > There are full remote companies like GitLab
|
| Gitlab is not a US-based company anyways, and does not do
| any US visa sponsorship. Also, claiming that their work
| isn't innovative and is therefore getting off-shored kind
| of discounts the work of everyone working there.
| r00fus wrote:
| So a legal/regulatory equivalent of a strawman argument?
| unishark wrote:
| > That being said it feels like a slightly out-of-place comment
| when much of this allegation is about hiring for jobs as part
| of the PERM process. If Facebook is purposely going through the
| PERM process with these employees, it is actively working to
| remove those un-equal terms. After the PERM process, the
| employee is free to leave and not remain with the company until
| they can adjust status.
|
| I think they meant the special PERM "benefit" for employees is
| used as a carrot to attract temporary workers who may or may
| not ever get it themselves. You can't leave because you'd lose
| your advantaged insider status.
| nrmitchi wrote:
| I may be misunderstanding, but if you are alleging that
| Facebook is "promising" foreign workers that it will go
| through the PERM process with them, and then reneging on that
| "promise" once they are hired in order to prevent them from
| quitting I have seen 0 evidence of that, not is that what is
| being alleged.
|
| If you are saying that "not all H1-B workers go through the
| PERM process and get permanent residency", then yes, that's
| how it works, and is not at all unique to Facebook. And H1-B
| is not, and is not meant to be, a guaranteed path to a green
| card.
| safog wrote:
| I don't know what you mean but to add additional context, the
| PERM process takes ~1 year and the employee is free to leave
| before / during / after the process. It is not exceptionally
| hard as an employee on a H1 to have an employer sponsor PERM
| for you, most (90+%?) employers do it, so it's not an added
| draw towards Facebook if they do sponsor the PERM / GC.
|
| If they leave after the PERM + I-140 have been approved,
| companies have a limited period of time to revoke the I-140
| but this is extremely rare and won't happen unless the
| employee has really burned their bridges. Six months (afaik)
| after the I-140 has been approved, the company can no longer
| do anything about it, the employee can leave without any
| immigration related ramifications.
| lazyasciiart wrote:
| The wait for a greencard can be decades if you are from
| India and you are only allowed to work for H1B employers
| during that time. Even the wait for I-140 approval is
| unpredictable, because the USCIS doesn't have any need to
| approve it far ahead of your priority date becoming current
| - it can be years, and you can't change jobs in that
| period.
|
| https://www.cato.org/blog/150-year-wait-indian-immigrants-
| ad...
|
| https://qz.com/india/1828970/over-200000-indians-could-
| die-w...
| ra7 wrote:
| > Even the wait for I-140 approval is unpredictable
|
| Yes, but you have the option of premium processing for
| I-140 and I think the benefits far outweigh the cost in
| this case.
| nrmitchi wrote:
| IIRC the premium processing still isn't a guarantee.
|
| If you pay it, and you don't get it within the 14 day
| period, you just get the premium processing fee back.
| ohhhwell wrote:
| Yeah, this is true, but there are also people on L1 visa
| which are tied to the company all the way until GC.
|
| Also worth adding that interviews or hires from the PERM
| process would significantly add to length of the PERM
| process, if I remember correctly.
| [deleted]
| darth_avocado wrote:
| I think what people are missing here is that this lawsuit is not
| about hiring foreign workers over US workers, it's about
| circumventing the PERM process. The PERM process is a bit
| outdated and requires you to advertise for the same position that
| a person is already hired for and has been working in, to prove
| that there isn't another person who can take up the job. It is a
| flawed process because even though the process is to prove that
| the person is filling gaps in the labor market, it doesn't fully
| capture that. Say you have 10000 infrastructure engineers in the
| market that are US citizens and there are 15000 job openings, if
| you advertise a job opening, you'll always have candidates who
| are basically switching jobs and therefore according to the PERM
| requirements, you can't hire foreign workers. But in reality you
| still need to fill 5000 jobs. So to compensate for that a lot of
| companies, follow the process which requires you put a job
| posting in print media and collect applications via mail, but
| don't go the extra mile to post online. Because they already have
| the candidate working in their company, and they need to prove
| that they are worthy of the job. FB isn't to blame here tbh, it's
| the immigration laws that were drafted decades ago. I bet FB
| walks free of this one.
| belltaco wrote:
| >Such temporary visa holders often have limited job mobility and
| thus are likely to remain with their company until they can
| adjust status, which for some can be decades.
|
| They need to fix that and address the root issue rather than
| force tens of thousands of companies to fire ppl who were working
| for several years and have a lot of institutional knowlege.
| whimsicalism wrote:
| > They need to fix that and address the root issue
|
| What does it mean to "address the root issue"? This is a
| platitude because any "address"-ing will have pretty clear
| winners & losers.
| jedberg wrote:
| A couple of easy fixes -- one, don't make H1B dependent on
| the employer. Once you've worked for say, one year, convert
| it to a general work visa.
|
| Two, automatic green-card for anyone who completes a four
| year degree at an accredited US institution.
| nrmitchi wrote:
| 1. Definitely agree with that. Even if you keep the same
| H1-B term (7 years), you now have an EAD (Employment
| Authorization Document) for those 7 years.
|
| 2. I _strongly_ disagree with this one. The end result will
| be accredited US institutions effectively selling green
| cards. If you thought tuition was high before this, think
| about what will happen after these schools can effectively
| sell permanent residency to the highest bidders (for prices
| under the EB-5 investment visa cut-offs of course)
| jedberg wrote:
| Is number two really that bad though? Right now, rich
| people can find ways to "buy" citizenship already. Now at
| least some of the money and gatekeeping would flow
| through colleges. Especially public colleges, who _love_
| foreign students, because they pay full tuition.
| fakedang wrote:
| You won't get the brightest students, but rather the
| richest.
| nrmitchi wrote:
| Yes, selling green cards is bad. The EB-5 program is the
| "government sponsored" way of doing it. I also think that
| is bad, and abused, but I digress.
|
| If your argument for it being good is "the money goes to
| public colleges, which is basically the government!" then
| the government should just be transparently selling
| permanent residency without the smoke-and-mirror charade
| of a "school".
|
| Are you then going to exclude private schools? I would
| guess that a degree from Harvard is more worthy of a
| green card, but then why should Harvard get a bunch of
| "free money" for selling a green card?
|
| US Colleges will still only have a certain amount of
| capacity. If all of a sudden it comes with a free green
| card, either 1) less US students can afford to go there,
| because tuition has risen so much due to "supply and
| demand", or 2) US students still go there, and end up
| with even more debt than they currently have.
|
| > Now at least some of the money and gatekeeping would
| flow through colleges. Especially public colleges, who
| love foreign students, because they pay full tuition.
|
| With the EB-5 programs (the way to "buy" a green card),
| you have to invest within Qualified Opportunity Zones
| which are (in theory) designed to assist lower-income
| areas, or create a certain number of new jobs (I'm sure
| there are other investments that qualify too; I'm not an
| expert on this program).
|
| Having funds go towards these endeavors is arguably
| "better" than going into the pockets of an already
| administratively-overloaded university system.
| bluecalm wrote:
| I think degrees already have too much weight. You don't
| want gatekeepers to control even more areas of life. Just
| make it: "if you worked for at least n years and paid at
| least n in taxes you get a green card".
| jedberg wrote:
| That's also not a bad idea.
| triceratops wrote:
| Fix the green card backlog for people born in India, China,
| Mexico, and the Philippines so they aren't stuck on an H-1B
| for decades and they have more negotiating power. Everyone
| else can already get an employment-based green card within a
| couple of years of arriving in the US.
| pitaj wrote:
| Addressing the root issue means reforming immigration laws to
| be far more permissive in all aspects. Which is a win for
| immigrants because they no longer can be threatened with
| losing their job _and deportation_ , meaning they won't work
| for far lower wages than citizens. That's also a win for
| citizens, as now their aren't competing with an underclass
| forced into worse working arrangements. And it's also a win
| for companies, as they don't have to try to find local talent
| before hiring an immigrant.
| whimsicalism wrote:
| > a win for immigrants because they no longer can be
| threatened with losing their job and deportation, meaning
| they won't work for far lower wages than citizen
|
| H1B visa holders are required to be paid the prevailing
| wage and if this is a big problem, then the DOL can raise
| the H1B wage to help those threatened with deportation.
|
| I am skeptical that removing the requirement to find local
| talent first would be a win for permanent residents &
| citizens.
| rayiner wrote:
| Why more permissive? Is there really any documented need
| for more skilled workers in a country of 300 million
| people?
| bluecalm wrote:
| It's obvious if you ever were anywhere close to a process
| of hiring a programmer. It's hard to find competent
| people. There is a lot of competition. A lot of positions
| companies could profitably hire at decent salaries won't
| ever be filled because salaries of people qualified to do
| those jobs start above profitability threshold.
|
| Besides, it's not rocket science that having more
| talented productive people in your country is a good
| idea.
| whimsicalism wrote:
| > decent salaries won't ever be filled because salaries
| of people qualified to do those jobs start above
| profitability threshold.
|
| Wait, so will this move lower engineers salaries or raise
| it because they won't have to compete "with an
| underclass."
|
| The reasoning isn't self-consistent because obviously it
| will mean lower wages for engineers.
| sidlls wrote:
| Have you considered the difficulty in hiring is partly
| due to artificially complex and high standards? That
| maybe, to some degree, these standards are promoted in
| part to contribute to a feedback loop?
| nrmitchi wrote:
| > And it's also a win for companies, as they don't have to
| try to find local talent before hiring an immigrant.
|
| I'm with you up until this. Lets be real here, if there is
| enough reform to put H1-B and American workers on "level
| playing field" in terms of not being abused, American
| companies are going to look for American workers first (or
| people who are already on H1-Bs, and can now switch jobs
| more easily). This is simply because the American worker
| has the advantage of not having to go through the
| application process, and of being able to start working
| right away; the company won't have to wait _months_ to
| bring the employee on board.
| pitaj wrote:
| I wasn't super clear about what exactly this permissive
| system would look like, but I'll flesh it out a bit in
| response.
|
| I'm in support of open borders. Somebody wants to enter
| the country? Do a background check, give them a tax ID
| and let them in. Everyone is a resident without fear of
| deportation unless they commit a felony. After 5 or 10
| years of residency, anyone can become a citizen.
|
| I realize that's pretty extreme, though, so here's a more
| conservative reform approach:
|
| End the H1-B program entirely. Just grant people
| temporary work visas on request after a background check.
| No company needs to be involved at the beginning. If a
| person is able to find at least 3 months of full-time
| work in the first 6 months, they're given work residency.
| nrmitchi wrote:
| I think we both have opinions that go in the same general
| direction. My point was just that "more permissive H1-B
| rules" doesn't take _any_ advantage away from existing
| American workers; a logical company would be even more
| inclined to hire an existing American worker over
| attempting to get a status for a new foreign worker.
| Ericson2314 wrote:
| It's possible to have American and foreign workers be the
| winners, and the employers be the looses.
| rayiner wrote:
| If the system sounds crazy it's because it's being used for a
| job it was never designed to do. The H1B system was marketed to
| the public as a temporary skilled worker visa. Mostly by
| executive fiat, it was turned into a de-facto permanent
| immigration mechanism. The whole system makes much more sense
| if you look at it in terms of the original purpose: to allow
| temporary workers to work in fields where there is a shortage,
| but who will mostly go home at the end of the 3- or 6-year
| period.
| chungus_khan wrote:
| What a really funny coincidence that it just happened to
| degrade in a manner that massively benefits corporate
| interests too. My other favorite coincidence is when I put a
| coin in a vending machine and a can comes out the bottom.
| sidlls wrote:
| "The root issue" is quite complicated, though.
|
| I think it's great someone who comes from an area where
| US$5k/month makes them extravagantly wealthy can get a job
| paying $10k/month. More power to them, and good for them for
| having that opportunity!
|
| Then I think about it in another context. One that considers
| the huge subsidies (direct payments, defense) the US provides
| these countries, and in the context of the market wage in the
| absence of these visa programs. That is, the context in which a
| US (permanent resident or citizen) worker's already tiny salary
| negotiation leverage is diminished by the existence of this
| labor pool. That's not such a great thing, in my opinion.
| munk-a wrote:
| I'm quite afraid the timing of this filing will allow Dems to
| kill this off when Biden takes office without taking any
| political damage due solely to the association with the current
| administration. As someone who leans Dem that would be quite
| tragic.
| scottmcleod wrote:
| Not surprised
| [deleted]
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