alt Hacker NewsTrump administration is suspending Microsoft from a green card program
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The US will do anything but have a sane worker visa program, with clear path to citizenship. The lottery system is built to be gamed and so is the performative local "hiring" attempts.
On the flip side it always surprises me how rabid HN can be about throwing out H1B workers. I am sure some of the people who you may have come across were not deserving of it, but a large amount of them work hard to come here and setup roots. Cancelling visas or deporting them will not get American workers their jobs back. Please spare a moment to consider the pain and anguish it brings to families.
> with clear path to citizenship.
Or no path at all. Tying the citizenship carrot to the visa and letting the employers hold the stick is the worst of all possible outcomes.
Microsoft -https://h1bgrader.com/h1b-sponsors/microsoft-corporation-ew2...
Wipro - https://h1bgrader.com/h1b-sponsors/wipro-limited-l9k5mz3r21/...
I picked two examples to show the disparity. I do like where this is going, but as it frequently happens, it feels like a weapon than can be wielded selectively.
A law should handle fraud across all abusers.
A company that I worked for would hire foreign grads out of school on F-1 visas with zero experience; they’d come on board using the OPT extensions (good for up to 3 years) and then file for H1Bs immediately. If they didn’t get it they’d file again the next year and so on. If they get to year 3 of the OPT without getting an H1B they would be sent to an office in Europe where they work for a year and then get transferred back on an L1.
FWIW H1B recipients immediately get started on the PERM/GC process (if they wish), with only whatever new-grad level plus 0..2 years experience they have accumulated thus far.
Meanwhile job ads are posted in the kitchens as required by law (and I’m sure the local newspapers) with ~$80K salaries even though I that way way below what they paid even for new (US) grads [in the Boston area]. So no surprise no one ever applies for them (if they even see it).
I know the administration is controversial, but this is the correct thing to do for a lot of reasons.
The biggest one is the program itself is racist as hell. Microsoft is literally bringing in foreigners, paying them much less to do the same damn job.
It's always seemed odd to me that your employer somehow sponsors your Green Card. It always felt like it should simply be a measure of
A) How long you have been working as an H1B in the united states (say 10 years).
B) How much you have paid in taxes (say 1 million).
Whenever either of the above has occured, you take some citizenship test, and then you have a green card. Nothing to do with your employer dangling something for you, literally a measure of your employment history and/or taxable income.
I was thinking about this the other day in the context of the boardwalk town that I vacation in sometimes. There are a lot of college student aged workers who come from Europe for the summer and work in every service industry job imaginable in town. There are agencies that find these European workers and help them find jobs and housing.
It makes me wonder why there aren't more American young adults taking these jobs. I think it would be great fun to live at the beach for the summer. Maybe the wages are too low, or American kids are focused on internships? Or maybe the European workers are better employees? I don't know.
I'll let the data do the talking:
Cursed companies:
- https://permtrack.app/employers/microsoft-corporation
- https://permtrack.app/employers/tata-consultancy-services-li...
Blessed companies:
I feel the whole h1b program is ill-conceived.
The “can’t find local worker” requirement is a farce and a lottery is a stupid way to get the best people into the country.
I personally feel there should be a set number of foreign worker slots, set by labor market conditions per industry. Then, auction the slots to companies.
Having to buy the visa would force the hiring to the areas of most need, objectively, and get around the farce. Then, just let the companies bring in exactly who they want.
Auction money could go towards lowering domestic worker income tax.
A lot of the focus is the effect on pay, but some of the attention should also be spent on competence. There are individuals going through master's degree programs, which are essentially degree mills, to get hired at one of these (or similar) companies, who do not have the basic skills to do the job.
Not everyone, but a significant number, and if you've ever worked with one of these individuals, you know how demoralizing and frustrating it can be. Especially in the typical political climate in a tech company, where saying something even slightly related to immigration will get taken a certain way.
I know this is a much popular opinion now. But I can't help and ask this again:
If a company hires an engineer in India, instead of Seattle, how does America (and workers) benefit? Software doesn't require factories, or supply chains, its just a hiring decision.
The question is whether these restrictions increase American employment or just accelerate the exodus of jobs while making the US a less attractive place for talented people.
Maybe I’m in the minority here, but do we want to win talent war or not?
We should be thrilled to be attracting talent from other countries. Most countries do not have this luxury.
Bring smarter, qualified people to the US. If not, they’ll find a way somewhere else
Legal Immigration is a net positive to America. These folks follow our rules, work hard, move the needle and sometimes create entire companies and industries. The vast majority of educated legal immigrants who add value come here to study first, work, and then get their GC (except Indians who are stuck in the backlog hell).
1.4M green cards are given out each year, and of those, only 140k to legal employment immigrants. Their families get counted so it's <70k GCs most years. 95%+ of immigration happening here is family based, descendent based, or other ways.
We all need to learn about the system we criticize a bit more! The real problems are elsewhere.
Microsoft isn't the biggest user of this program, Amazon is: https://miserablyunemployed.com/market/h1b
An HR recruiter at an old job told me that they would post a job they preferred or only had budget for a h1b that they would post to obscure job boards and post the job on college campuses that they knew would not get many views. However they posted it met the legal definition to get what they wanted.
Microsoft is a global employer. This suspension means the job hires will be “in” India, or Canada, or Poland, or Japan, until the policy changes again. It’s not as significant as anyone would hope.
I’m quite shocked that this was even open to abuse to begin with. Clearly, the US has very strict immigration and green card laws. So enforcement has been lax? Or were deals made under the table with these companies and previous administrations?
The entire program is a farce. It's the process generating the fraudulent "golly, we just can't find a US citizen for the job" claims, complete with fake ads designed to be undiscoverable.
Any lawyers on this thread?
About 2 years ago I applied for a job at Spectrum Cable... under veterans hiring initiative.
When I asked why I didn't get the job,(At the very least I was well qualified and it was in Denver, where I live, at least a first round interview) the recruiter accidental (or maybe purposely) emailed me a thread that the job was for foreign hires only.
Over a decade ago someone on here commented that H1B1 visas should goto the highest paying jobs requested instead of random or whatever it was.
At the time we all saw the H1B1 program as a way for companies to hire cheaper labor that they can treat poorly.
Honest question and I'm probably going to ruffle a lot of feelings:
In the age of AI coding, what is the point of outsourcing your programming to TCS, Wipro, et al? These consultancies are not building groundbreaking innovative stuff, they're building the drudgery enterprise software to handle taxes or business intelligence tools. Things that are perfect for AI (don't get me wrong, AI is perfect for a lot of other types of coding too).
Or is it that outsourcing is cheaper than AI tokens?
Teams are international already. Why do they bring people to the US at all?
A nice office in Bukarest or Krakow or if you really need Munich or Zürich is good enough for most Europeans. I am sure there are equally nice places in Asia.
Almost all of the graduates hired by my company are migrants, and they then chain migrate other people over by putting in referrals for random people.
From the company’s perspective it is great, you can pay them less and artificially suppress wages.
From society’s perspective… well 30% of young people are unemployed despite record low numbers of young people. No births and no jobs! It’s genius!
Take this problem : “cheap outsourcing of simple coding work”, and replace outsourcing with AI, which will be far cheaper, much faster and much more compliant than any human being, and you can just imagine the disastrous situation we’re sleepwalking into.
To all the idiots who claim AI will create new jobs, will only change the work humans do, why didn’t that apply to Indian outsourcing?
As someone who uses Opus 5.5 daily, I feel like this admin is trying to put out a small fire, while completely blind to the all encompassing forest fire just around the corner.
Any company that does layoffs should immediately have all their visas revoked as well as all of their contractors.
One of the few things this administration has done that I actually applaud. These huge corporations have been abusing the Greencard and H1B system for decades, and it has gotten so out of control that people are really starting to notice. This is the kind of thing that can cause serious civil unrest, and justifiably so.
The problem is, no matter how carefully the regulations are worded, dirty lawyers will figure out how to work around them. Suspending the programs is probably the only fix at this point.
Microsoft is declared fraudulent but not Tesla, one of the leading H1B visa companies? Seems they just want to label it as fraud but not actually investigate any fraudulent activity, they want that $.
https://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/world/us/its-your-sense-...
"Y Combinator India Scandal"
It's really bizarre to hear admin officials talk about H-1(b) workers as "indentured servants" but not ever mention or touch the L-1 visa program.
It is over-the-top hysteria either way, but it is at least actually true of the L-1 program that you cannot change employers (at least without first getting a change-of-status to another visa). H-1(b) workers can and do change employers all the time.
Cynically I believe this is just blackmail for midterms.
The current administration will promise to Microsoft (and others) that they’ll reverse this decision as long as they are provided proper funding/support.
There are atleast seven other companies and not MS alone..
Cognizant, Infosys, Tata, Wipro, HCL, Capgemini, Microsoft and Adobe
https://www.thehindu.com/news/international/ussuspends-micro...
Nice business you've got there. Be a shame if something happened to it.
1. Non-paywalled dup: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=50006948
> Secretary of Labor Keith Sonderling added that some of the largest IT firms in the world would also be suspended from that program, including Cognizant, Infosys, Tata, Wipro, HCL and Capgemini.
> "We will not accept any new or process any pending permanent labor certification applications involving these companies," Sonderling said.
2. I'm kinda surprised those firms were even trying to get green cards for their employees. I thought their whole model was to rotate offshore people into the US for temporary assignments on H1-Bs.
> Under the PERM process, employers seek certification from the Department of Labor that there is no qualified, willing or available US worker for a specific job. It's a step required before filing petitions for most employment-based green cards.
3. That was always kinda bullshit and was unfair to everyone. You've got some guy who's settled, been working for years, made friends, etc. then you check that there's no US qualified worker? That check should have always been the first step of an H1-B. Delaying it actually made me pretty sympathetic to the attempts to game the system to prevent and American from getting the job. Even if H1-Bs were technically for temporary workers, everyone saw them as a step on the way to permanent residency.
4. So have they done anything about offshoring yet? Because focusing on H1-Bs and green cards is focusing on the problems of 20+ years ago.
It's probably been 15 years since my employer sponsored any significant numbers of employees for H1-Bs, it's all offshore hiring in Asia to company offices in Asia now.
So many other top firms committing this kind abuse.
They're suspending the PERM process for H1-Bs but are they suspending microsoft from filing for new H-1Bs? It's my understanding the wait list for Indian workers to get a green card is like 100 years, so what difference would it make anyways?
Good, the market is dropping. Now add a tax to American corporations that outsource. Then you can fix h1b etc
Lots of debate going on here, I know this boils down to hire a local if they exist, versus someone who will accept a sub-maximal rate due to getting extra value from coming to the USA, or extending a visa, or the sunken cost of already being here and not wanting to leave.
IMO companies should just say "fine we'll hire off shore contractors who pay nothing in taxes then."
Curious nobody sees this as retaliation for Bill Gates very firm stance against AI. Even though he’s not running anything at MS is not a random blogger stating bold stuff.
Other large companies are massively abusing the employee sponsored green cards too.
So, what particular thing was it that Microsoft refused to do recently? There has to be a link here.
The Green card program needs to be cleaned up but this administration isn’t the one to do it, and the way things have been going in the last 60 years I don’t think anything will be done that will be clear headed and fair all round.
Special interests in the business world at the upper end likes the status quo.
Why did it took decades to see this simple H1-B industry practices thriving in glory? The post-grad visa machine, core practices of consulting companies, salary differences etc?
Once you have hard-working foreign workers available for less salary, it is highly natural a huge industry would come up and work hard to make gains of the worker supply chain. Elementary, Uncle Sam.
I understand this is a politically charged topic, and every comment is going to be a flame war nonetheless, so here we go.
No matter your political inclination, overabusing green cards to import cheap labor in detriment of the American wage is not even a secret: everybody does it. So the claim is, at least, correct in its formulation.
However:
- It doesn't include Amazon, the biggest offender by far?
- Suspends green cards but not H1Bs? so what the point is exactly? replacing cheap labor, for a potential revolving door of cheap labor? make sure cheap labor is never guaranteed to stay, so they don't dare to think about not being cheap anymore?
- People really thought that Microsoft was different to Tata in methodology and discipline? Did you really have to interact with people in either company? I did, and let me tell you, "highly skilled" or even "skilled at all" is nothing short of an exaggeration.
What did poor lil' Microsoft due to piss off the administration?
Change PERM requirements.. this is well within their powers in the executive branch. Otherwise this just seems like a targeted vendetta against MS
I'm surprised at how easily some of you are convinced. It's the midterms coming up; this programme has been abused for years (to my understanding) the timing is a little odd, no?
It is so dumb to think of an immigrant as someone who steals a job from a "local", American or else.
When I left Italy to work for Amazon I was 30 years old. Until then, the Italian government (but really, my parents' taxes) paid for my education and healthcare.
Briefly after I became a "productive" member of society, I moved to a few countries and eventually ended in the US at age 35, and worked there for ~10 years. The US got the equivalent of half a million dollar, perhaps more, for free, and had the luxury to use it for these years.
A skilled immigrant is a gift to the country he/she moves in.
We should tell our politicians to stop this BS.
Vance said “They’ll put an advertisement in a small-town newspaper. They’ll go out there and say that ‘We have advertised for a position with our company, and nobody is responding to it.’ And they will use that lack of response to then go and replace American workers with what is effectively foreign indentured servants”
My understanding is that this is pretty much how everyone does it, no? Not to say that I'm surprised that they're applying this argument asymmetrically to their allies vs. foes, of course, nor to say that I necessarily agree / disagree with this tactic.