Can the recent H-1B visa crackdown impact Local Real Estate?

[EDS_]

Originally Posted by Walter Benjamin

The paper was published in 2017, and the authors explain why they chose this period to study:

We focus on the period 1994 to 2001 for a number of reasons. During the latter half of the
1990s, the US economy experienced a productivity growth attributable, at least in part, to the
IT boom, facilitated by the influx of foreign talent (Jorgenson et al., 2015). At the same time,
the recruitment of H-1B labor by US firms was at or close to the H-1B cap during this period,
enabling us to treat foreign supply as determined by the cap. Finally, more recent growth of the
IT sector in India and changes in the law authorizing the H-1B have complicated the picture
since 2001.

Do you think there is something wrong with their model?


The way the program is designed, H-1B workers aren't free to sell their labor to the highest bidder, but are indentured to their sponsors. And instead of allotting the visas for the highest-paying positions, there is an easily gamed "wage floor" system.

Why President Trump needs to fix the broken H-1B visa system - MarketWatch

Sorry I was attempting a silly joke that obviously didn't make any sense. I generally agree with that study.

My feeling about H1B is that the numbers allowed should be much smaller. We flatly need a good number super educated people what our system does not provide. However, we need to stop the gaming of the system by Tata and others. Maybe a hard salary floor of maybe around $120K and/or a specific (and real) demonstration of need etc.

[lifofifo]

Originally Posted by ea0337

If every high skilled immigrant in the US, from any country in the world faced similar issues, it would bring legal immigration to a standstill, which is not the case currently.

I'd argue that it's indeed the case right now. H1B is the primary method of high skilled legal immigration to the US. And because of the issues with the current H1B system (outsourcing companies gaming the system, Greencard backlogs etc.) - it's driving down skilled immigration from outside India and China.

Originally Posted by ea0337

The above situation that you speak of, applies mainly to H1-B workers from countries which are severely backlogged for green cards, mainly India, and China to some extent. So it boils down a case of too many people from these countries chasing limited number of green cards available to them.

I don't think it makes sense to have per-country quota for green cards in skilled categories when there's no such limit on the H1B. This ends up in kind of a chicken and egg problem. Because people from India and China won't get their green cards anytime soon, employers are more likely to hire them as they won't easily leave the job for a better paying one. As a result, even higher number of H1Bs will go to India/China every year. Because, which large corp. doesn't like such "loyalty"?

Originally Posted by ea0337

BTW, the problem is only getting worse as these outsourcing companies have found a loophole even in the EB1 category, which really makes life hard for everyone in lower priority EB categories.

Yeah, EB1-C abuse is a real problem. Outsourcing companies are bringing people in on L1 as "managers" and filling for their greencard under EB1-C, hence completely bypassing the H1B/EB quotas. USCIS seems to be well aware of this and hopefully they'll stop the abuse soon.