- It would alleviate (though probably not solve) the downward pressure on salaries.
- It would ensure that companies are well motivated to find domestic workers since they would, theoretically, be cheaper.
- It would ensure that H-1B's go to the people who would add the most value to the economy (or else the company would be less competitive due to overpaying).
- It would favor the most talented foreigners rather than putting them in a random lottery with new grads.
- It would allocate the H-1B's to the companies that need them most (since they're offering the most money)
- It would maximize the future tax take of the US government (maximum income => maximum taxes paid)
Ironically, this might have prevented me from getting my own H-1B as I got it fairly early in my career.
You seem to be arguing that small companies should have special dispensation versus large companies to circumvent immigration laws in order to lower their labor costs.
If you think small companies have a thumb on the scale, then give them a thumb on the scale. e.g. special tax incentives for hiring. And in fact small businesses do get thumbs on the scale from the government all the time. e.g. government solicitations favoring (by mandate) small and minority or female-owned businesses, SBA loans, etc. If you think they should get more, by all means argue that, but why at the expense of the US labor force?
I'm not trying to scam the U.S., or cheat Americans out of a job, and my company is paying me the same amount as the americans who started at the same time as me. Instead, I want to be an American, and be a part of this country. Despite this, I am now at risk of being deported if I don't get the visa, and having to leave behind my whole life here, and my girlfriend here who I intend to spend the rest of my life with.
The worst part about this is that I am completely powerless, and at the whim of chance.
From what I've been researching, there are several of these so-called "consultancies" that hire mostly Indian guys (please don't take it personally, no offence intended), fake their resumes, and give them shitty life conditions in the US. Lots of people also pay for these consultancies to apply for them with fake jobs as to increase their chances in the lottery.
Its a shame that us with real, good-paying jobs have to go through that. I'm being hired because they cannot find someone in the US to fill this spot and because they already know me and think I'm a good fit for the company.
The people it really hurts are highly qualified individuals sponsored by a single well known tech company ... like I was two years ago. Luckily I got my H1-B then and am now well on the way to a green card.
We did not win the lottery both times, and opted for L1B instead this year. It is available only to the companies who have international offices in order to bring people from abroad to the US. Still waiting on this...
I'll probably write a blog post about the whole experience, once everything is over. Stay tuned.
P.S One thing is certain - US immigration desperately needs fix.
168.000 is pretty decent number to turn down after your own companies spend all those resources just for the selection of those applicants.
But it's not like they're "taking your spot" in the lottery; if there was no preferential treatment for Master's, they'd still apply as regular applicants.
[1] http://www.up.co/communities/usa/san-francisco/startup-weeke...
Because if a tech company wants to hire a foreigner, the visa process (regardless of skill^1) is basically worse than a coin toss. Which means companies have a much more limited pool of applicants. And let's be real, this country doesn't have nearly enough STEM professionals to meet demand.
1)Exceptions: Master's degree (another lottery), extraordinary ability (pretty tough).
... at current salaries.
My H1B was revoked by my employer in January. My I-94 is valid until September 24, 2015.
What are my options to go back and work in the US now? Is there anything besides filling a new petition in 2016?
Or is transferring the previous H1B still an option?
edit: typo
However, USCIS has recently released a new L1B adjudications policy for public feedback (http://www.uscis.gov/news/uscis-posts-updated-l-1b-adjudicat...) where they clearly define the "specialized knowledge" category. Maybe this will help companies to properly understand what's needed to demonstrate the specialized knowledge in the future, but I really doubt it.
From my experience 90% + people from H-1B is on these terms in the US. We had trainees on our "camp" that literally haven't seen PC keybaord before. Ending up as IBM tools specialists in Fannie Mea, Freddie Mac, Capital One.
This much about H-1B. And this much about interview process int the US too. And actually about dumb Americans who can't get a job in that country too.
The number of applications is slightly higher than last year, but still I fail to understand why it is on the top, because this same thing was happening for the last 4+ years.
My application was picked up in the year 2013, so I have been following both HN and the USCIS at that time. Never saw it make top of HN.
The same thing (lottery for H1B) happened only the last 2 years (2013 and 2014), not for 4+ years (before that 2007 and 2008 also had a lottery).
It is relevant to HN because if we you start a company and need to hire, it can impact your strategy. If you're a software engineer, it shows that there is a high demand and it can be time to review alternative offers.
If you do it after you'll technically be in the country illegally and they will reject your marriage visa automatically (i.e. you'll have to go home to apply for your marriage visa, they won't even accept your application while you're still illegally in the US).
It may already be too late to do this without having to leave the country. A marriage visa can take anywhere between six months and a year and half, unless you can get them to rush it though (which they've done before, but normally at foreign embassies rather than at the NVC, and without kids, a dependant, or either of you being US military it will be hard to get an expedited process).
PS - Maybe consult an immigration attorney in your case.
PPS - If your visa is expired try not to get "caught" with it expired. Sneak out of the country to avoid a ban, rather than getting a ban and trying to fight it. It could save you a long fight and literally years banned from the US.
Just kidding, of course. But I do like @JOnAgain's suggestion of biasing the lottery by the salary. Of course it'll never happen, because that's our current political situation (we're still arguing over the perennial topics of abortion, guns, drugs, etc.). However, it may be biased against small, lean startups who can't afford to pay as much as Google or FB.
Like Synroc I came here for my undergraduate studies and work for a company in SF. I have no intention of leaving unless i am forced to do so.
I spent 5 (4 years of school + 1 year OPT) amazing years in this country and made many american friends, dated american girls lived in two of the most vibrant american cities (SF and NYC) and really adjusted to the American life style. It really hurts to be forced out after experiencing all these great memories. I deserve to stay here..
And now I am sitting in front of my computer refreshing by browser every 30 seconds waiting for an email from my companies legal department.
ps. Synroc take your girlfriend with you and let's move to London or something..
2. Academic and non-profit jobs don't have a cap. You could take such a position and then apply for permanent residency.
3. You can apply for the green card lottery (I'm assuming you are born in France).
If so, get married for the visa, it doesn't change anything important anyway.
Incidentally this is what me and my wife did so we wouldn't have to deal with the immigration lottery, it's working for us.
A "unique scientist" should probably be applying for an O-1A [0] rather than an H-1B.
[0] http://www.uscis.gov/working-united-states/temporary-workers...
Employment based categories are only allocated 140,000 permanent visas a year (some of which are taken for NACARA catch-up).
http://travel.state.gov/content/visas/english/law-and-policy...
Now, thanks to low quotas, and some rather unsavory consultancy companies, the H1-B program has now become useless for this purpose, as you have less than a 50/50 chance of getting an H1-B approved, just due to quotas. So while an honest company that wants to hire a good developer will not be OK with the delays and the low percentages of hiring someone in those conditions, a mill that interviews thousands of people and will place them in third party customers as consultants will gladly just keep flooding the market with applicants that probably will not get anywhere.
TL;DR The H1-B program used to be defensible, and maybe useful. The way it works now, it only works for companies who abuse it.
it wasn't so easy
This year there was an even more massive oversubscription, and the visas were allotted by lottery. Certain subcategories of visa are not subject to the cap (eg. those requested by non-profit research institutions and universities, including government labs.)
Well, they've run out of spots for 2016.
That means if you got an offer to work from a startup or a big tech firm there are about 23% changes you'll get the visa.
Yes, the "Indian" consultancies have been exploiting this system for ages and US Govt has been trying its best for past three years to not grant visas if USCIS can not establish Employer-Employee relationship. But still these consultancies always find loop holes.
I have come to this country as an immigrant as well. I went to an average university first in midwest and then transferred to a top 10 engineering school. I have seen "Americans" who can not do basic algebra in Calculus 1 classes. And I have studied/work with "Americans" who are at the top of their game. It is really subjective. Unfortunately, American media is exporting "Booty Culture" (think Kim K.) to the world rather than preaching about their rockstar scientists and engineers.
Wow, your lie tolerance threshold must be way higher than most people. I know a few very needy people who balked several times at "fake experience". You just can't hide that, esp not with poor English!
> From my experience 90% + people from H-1B is on these terms in the US.
If you meant 90% of all H-1Bs - then it clearly falls into lying category. May be if you compromised so much for the job you don't have so much of a problem vastly upwards estimating something that benefits your viewpoint?!
I simply argued that OP's proposal - which is a not a law - would put companies with scarcer funds in disadvantage against bigger companies with more money to burn. I'm all for a free market, but what the OP is proposing is a market distortion since there are a limited number of visas.
Anyhow, you do realize that H1B filling requires a certified LCA, don't you?
Be careful with the lawyer: try and get one through a recommendation of someone you trust who has used their services. Because of the high demand for immigration into the United States, there are many unscrupulous people involved in such matters.
Rank H1B Visa Sponsor Number of LCA Average Salary
1 Infosys 16,397 $75,154
2 Wipro 7,178 $76,920
3 Tata Consultancy Services 6,732 $64,350
4 IBM 6,502 $83,883
5 Deloitte Consulting 4,727 $98,264
6 Microsoft 4,075 $109,546
7 Larsen & Toubro Infotech 3,793 $59,408
8 Accenture 2,653 $72,704
9 Ernst & Young 2,353 $86,380
10 Satyam Computer Services 2,310 $70,495
*updated table formatting
Rank H1B Visa Sponsor Number of LCA * Average Salary
1 Infosys 16,397 $75,154
2 Wipro 7,178 $76,920
3 Tata Consultancy Services 6,732 $64,350
4 IBM 6,502 $83,883
5 Deloitte Consulting 4,727 $98,264
6 Microsoft 4,075 $109,546
7 Larsen & Toubro Infotech 3,793 $59,408
8 Accenture 2,653 $72,704
9 Ernst & Young 2,353 $86,380
10 Satyam Computer Services 2,310 $70,495And speaking about "lazy government" - how one gets an LCA certified under 60K or even 70K in hi-tech?
When we talk about positive case for H1B we talk about MS-like situation while it actually happens to be less than 10% of the total, with the rest of 90% looking like a "cheap labor" situation that H1B opponents talk about.
h1b needs a reform asap :(
Two points:
1 - plenty of stem surveys (lumping all of stem together, as you did) show plenty of available candidates as calculated by the percentage of domestic stem graduates working in stem post graduation. see, eg,
http://www.usnews.com/opinion/articles/2014/09/15/stem-gradu...
2 - if you wish to limit the discussion to sf/valley type jobs, a honest claim is there aren't sufficient already trained engineers who wish to live in sf/valley at the prices employers wish to offer who already have the desired skills. There are lots of ways to address it: pay enough so that living here isn't a financial disaster (compare housing prices in sf/nyc (much cheaper than sf!), seattle, chicago, boston, etc), solve transport problems making san jose and sf essentially separate cities, figure out remote employees, hire women (and even retain them!), train engineers, etc.
2b - even a smidge of economics will tell you it's very hard for an actual shortage to exist; there's a clear lack of evidence of wage increases (over cost of living increases) that would accompany an actual tightening of the labor market
Higher salaries and higher employment levels seem to correlate with higher, not lower, housing prices.
> solve transport problems making san jose and sf essentially separate cities
How would you even address that? It's run by public agencies controlled by three counties (San Francisco, San Mateo, Santa Clara). You need to get financial commitments from all three counties, railroad unions, state agencies like CalTRANS, etc. They're bringing BART to San Jose, so maybe things are already slowly progressing in that regard.
Your stance could be taken on any technology-related content posted to HN. "Those who care about Linux will keep their eyes and ears open to Linux news. It doesn't have to be posted here because most OS users have Windows" sounds pretty ridiculous to me.
Compare the housing prices of what a three bedroom condo in sf (what a 2 child family wants) vs the other cities, plus the ability for mothers to take a couple years off work. Losing 15 to 20% of your salary to save 50% or more of housing costs is often a great deal.
So if all us engineers' salaries went up, it wouldn't help. We'd just end up spending even more to out compete each other. (Well, I guess it would help push non-engineers out of the Bay Area, but is that really what we want?)
But new immigrant salaries are as good as american salaries in terms of how much they can push prices up; so hiring H1-B is essentially similar to a pay cut for people (same $$, higher housing costs); following this pay cut some existing engineers will leave.
In the end you just end up with replacing some old engineers with new ones through a costly lengthy process.
This is the kind of absurd logical games one has to play in order to not acknowledge basic economics of supply and demand.
And on the other side, NIMBY's in low-density areas like Menlo Park and Atherton killed the restoration of the Dumbarton Bridge Rail (also victim of a mysterious arson recently) and are delaying electrification of the Caltrain. The Dumbarton Bridge, for example, would allow people to live on the East Bay and take direct rail into Palo Alto, Redwood City or Menlo Park, and up and down the corridor.
And as long as you entered the country legally (e.g. not without inspection or fraudulently), simply having being out of status is forgiven when sponsored by a US spouse, so long as there are no other bars to the application.
That said, going out of status is never a good idea. But as long as you apply while you have a valid immigration status, there is no out-of-status time period.
Anyway, OP would be advised to consult with a qualified immigration attorney rather than HN commenters.
Here's an actual lawyer that says you're in fact wrong (they're right):
http://www.alllaw.com/articles/nolo/us-immigration/apply-for...
Key quote:
> If you are in the United States with an expired visa, then you most likely are not eligible to apply for adjustment of status.
But the whole article, start to end, almost mirrors the above comment and contradicts most of what you said. Key question: Are you a lawyer? You implied you are but are giving legal advice which contradicts a proven law firm specialising in immigration law. You also criticised someone else for being an "armchair lawyer" (implying you're not).
> You can apply for adjustment of status immediately after exchanging vows.
"Applying" sounds great, but you are in no way granted anything while the process is on-going. In fact they very specifically recommend you avoid travelling to the US while your visa in processes, as that could result in a "misunderstanding" and them junking your visa because they believe you're living in the US already.
That's the advice I was given in person by someone at the US embassy in London. She said "make sure if you travel you, you have a return ticket, and don't take too much luggage or it could cause your application to be rejected."
> simply having being out of status is forgiven when sponsored by a US spouse, so long as there are no other bars to the application
Even though they tell you many MANY times when applying that applying from within the US without legal status will automatically get you rejected? This is the NVS and the US embassy. Where are you getting your information? Can you cite a source which proves that they forgive fiancee visa applicants for visa violations?
> That said, going out of status is never a good idea.
Why? They forgive it according to you. Kind of contradicts what you said before...
> But as long as you apply while you have a valid immigration status, there is no out-of-status time period.
Unless you apply for an extension on your OLD visa, you almost certainly will be out-of-status given how long fiancee visas take under normal circumstances.
> Anyway, OP would be advised to consult with a qualified immigration attorney rather than HN commenters.
I agree. Your comment here is full of misinformation and dangerous misinformation at that. At least the above comment is suggesting they follow the documented visa process (leaving, apply, then re-enter when it is accepted). You're proposing they ignore visa law because of some "magical" clemency you claim that fiancee visa applicants are granted.
Your advice is just dangerously terrible and wrong.
from your own link, here's the part that cplease is referring to (SPOUSES)
> Despite the general rule that people whose authorized stays have expired cannot use the adjustment of status procedure to get their green card, the following types of people may be able to stay in the United States and adjust status:
> Immediate relatives of U.S. citizens, namely their spouses, parents, and unmarried minor children (under age 21). Immediate relatives may adjust status even with an expired visa – but not if they entered the United States illegally, without a visa or other authorized form of entry.
once Synroc marries, he becomes a spouse and _should_ become eligible for adjustment of status
I'd guess the answer is, marginally, hiring people is still good for companies. But combined with the lack of housing development, it's slowly but steadily making life worse for everyone in the Bay Area who doesn't yet own a house.
If it continues this way, eventually people won't move here without ridiculously high salary offers, and companies will be forced to expand in cheaper cities instead.