Can the recent H-1B visa crackdown impact Local Real Estate? (Howe: law, floor)

[BigDGeek]

Originally Posted by lifofifo

Your lack of knowledge on the subject, contradictory arguments and incoherence suggested otherwise.



I'm not.

Sure...because I'm the one who brought up green cards on a thread about H1Bs.

[BigDGeek]

Originally Posted by Bp25

While I appreciate BigDGeek's opinion on general matters around DFW, I am having a hard time with these comments. US is not just another western country, almost everyone or their ancestors immigrated here at some point. I don't think it's now fair to say that since we are already here, let's pretend further legal immigration is a bad thing.

Don't put words in my mouth, I said no such thing.

I said that we should eliminate H1Bs for low and mid-level technical jobs. I also mentioned that the US's immigration system is generous when it comes to chain (family) immigration...because it is. US nationality law is unusually generous; that is a fact, not an opinion.

[lifofifo]

Originally Posted by BigDGeek

Sure...because I'm the one who brought up green cards on a thread about H1Bs.

Yeah, just how unimaginable that the majority of the people moving here on H1B pursue green cards. No no. Completely separate issues. Nothing to do with one another!

[Bp25]

Originally Posted by BigDGeek

Don't put words in my mouth, I said no such thing.

I said that we should eliminate H1Bs for low and mid-level technical jobs. I also mentioned that the US's immigration system is generous when it comes to chain (family) immigration...because it is. US nationality law is unusually generous; that is a fact, not an opinion.

Your words "I know how long it takes people on H1Bs to get green cards and that wait times vary for nationals of different countries.

I also don't care.

We don't owe anyone a visa and I don't feel sympathy for people trying to immigrate here."

Those are the ones I'm having trouble with, your statements, not facts. I doubt you would have the same statements if you were standing in that queue for 10 years while being forced to work at the starting salary level.

I know that nobody forced them to be in that position, just like any of our ancestors were not forced to come here.

[ea0337]

Originally Posted by BigDGeek

I also mentioned that the US's immigration system is generous when it comes to chain (family) immigration...because it is. US nationality law is unusually generous; that is a fact, not an opinion.

True that. Check, for example, countries that offer citizenship by birth: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jus_soli

[Walter Benjamin]

Originally Posted by EDS_

Items from 15+ years ago do not count.

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

[san11]

Highest bidder will still not solve the issue. ( it's still in favor of corporate).
They will still be tied to corporate who filed their H1b and their wages will still be stagnant once hired. There is no freedom for H1b to change jobs easily.

[jpushiys]

Originally Posted by BigDGeek

It won't. They'll figure out a way around it very easily.

Green cards have NOTHING whatsoever to do with H1B visas. Nobody said anything about eliminating or reducing green cards (another conversation for another forum). We're only talking about H1B visas.

I think u r absolutely clueless about how this all works.

Half my family are immigrants who came on the H1/green card route, and the struggle they describe is sometimes hard to hear. A substantial number of people who come here on H1 are wanting to live here permanently (green-card) and not live like expats and go back home. But there is no guarantee that even though they stay here legally for more than 10 years that they will ever get a green card.

The united states grants visas to immigrants with a certain promise - come here, work hard and you can be a part of the American dream. People who believe in that dream come here, and find out that sometimes there is a major disconnect between that promise and reality. But going back to China or India or wherever they came from isn't that easy.

And H1-b workers can't change employers at will. That's really what keeps wages low.

H1-b reform is needed not just to protect american workers but to also ensure that immigrant workers on h1 don't become a modern version of indentured labor. The current system is a complete sham designed to screw labor - both native and immigrant - and benefit big businesses.

Banning or reducing H1-b will be even more disastrous. The only outcome will be a massive increase in outsourcing. To all those who think reducing H1-b will bring back american jobs - yeah... dream on.

[jpushiys]

Originally Posted by BigDGeek

Don't put words in my mouth, I said no such thing.

What ??? that's exactly what u said.....

[ea0337]

Originally Posted by jpushiys

And H1-b workers can't change employers at will. That's really what keeps wages low.

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.

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.

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.