The elephant in the room: the H1B visa and the influx of Indian workers into the U.S. labor market. Many of them are willing to work for lower wages, demand less, and have fewer rights—essentially becoming exploited labor for Corporate America. Why would a corporation hire an American graduate who won’t tolerate these conditions when an H1B worker will?
Instead of confronting the issue directly, people often sidestep it with other excuses. The reality is, if we eliminated all H1B workers, every American in the IT industry, including recent graduates, would have a job. And don’t try to convince me that a Java developer from India possesses skills that our university graduates don’t.
H-1B workers at companies such as Google, Meta or Microsoft are not treated any different, they are not taking abuse or being exploited. There may be smaller companies where this is happening though.
One of the issues is conflation of IT jobs and High Tech jobs. Those making laws don't understand the difference -- they are all "computer jobs" to them. IT does not require immigrant labor. Companies such as Infosys and Tata don't need to be operating in the US. There are plenty of US workers available to do the job.
But High Tech is different. High Tech needs the best in the world, not the best in the US. The US leads the world in tech not because the best ideas were all American but because the best people in the world immigrated to the US. Stopping this will be ruinous to American prosperity.
The seminal research paper that kicked off the AI revolution (titled "Attention is all you need") was written by 2 Indians, 1 German, 1 British Canadian, 1 Pole, 1 Ukrainian, and 2 US born people. These people came to America, worked together and changed the world as we know it. Why would we want to stop it? Has this immigration undercut Americans? Far from it. These immigrants are the lifeblood of the tech industry, and their innovations create jobs.
H-1B's are absolutely exploited. I'd personally testify to the abuses at financial companies.
Hearing threats of "If you don't complete this by tomorrow, you can expect to be back in India by next week" From one Indian to another too...
It's awful to witness it. Please don't spread misinformation that "They are not taking abuse or being exploited"
That is extremely disingenuous.
Sorry that's untrue. Top companies such as Google, Meta or Microsoft absolutely do not abuse H-1B workers or treat them any different. As I said there may be smaller outfits, or IT shops where this is happening.
You have to look harder. It's not always explicit as OP says with threats of deportation. Rather there's a huge power imbalance.
Who can we ask to stay late? Who "doesn't mind" 12 hour days? Who "doesn't mind' being on call. Who won't mind if they get a smaller bonus or raise? How about Sandeep who is afraid to say no because if he says no too many times and loses his job him and his entire family have to move back overseas with minimal notice?
That's how real exploitation happens these days. And sometimes even good managers don't realize they're doing it, because, after all, poor Sandeep even said he didn't mind! He's just a really hard worker!
You are right, unless you have been present at every manager-employee interaction you can't say it has "never" happened. But to claim that this is happening requires more than just one or two instances, right?
I used to think the same thing until I was brought in on an important legacy project that put me tangential to the "inner circle" and heard a lot of this kind of thing along with other shady practices like authoring the RFP for the government to publish so that the requirements favored the company.
You've identified the problem, but not the solution. We must make it illegal for corpos to do labour exploitation in this way and then enforce that law for immigrants and native workers alike.
Immigration is good. Creating a two-tiered job market is not.
If you just end H1Bs, then many of these jobs will move permanently overseas, there won't be a magical moment of restitution for the aggrieved American tech worker.
Unionize if you want to actually make things change for the better for all workers in your industry. You can't post your way out of this.
It's truly amazing how little you need to intrude into the privileges of an already extremely privileged group as US software developers are, to make them go full "immigrats are taking our jobs".
well, they are. outsourcing is the bigger problem. just like outsourcing decimated manufacturing jobs, now it's decimating white-collar. i well and truly hope you get fired so you see how bad the market is. no other profession has this number of cruel, judgmental narcissists not looking out for their own kin.
> And don’t try to convince me that a Java developer from India possesses skills that our university graduates don’t.
Skills? Not necessarily, but there's something a lot of immigrants possess that your university graduates don't: freedom from the weight of student loans.
I'm not from India, so I can't speak for them. Plus, I imagine that the situation in India changed over the years and it's probably not the same as when this trend started. But I can speak for myself and people I know from many other countries, including China. Most of us have had an education that is on par with a lot of American colleges and universities, but without the crushing cost.
Get rid of all immigrant workers and the industry will collapse, because your graduates need to pay off a huge debt that immigrants don't have.
> Most of us have had an education that is on par with a lot of American colleges and universities, but without the crushing cost.
> Get rid of all immigrant workers and the industry will collapse, because your graduates need to pay off a huge debt that immigrants don't have.
You went to university because you decided (in expectation) the present value [1] of the future earning were worth the college fees and the opportunity cost of getting a university degree. So, don't complain about the debt: by your decision you computed that this decision was worth it. The only thing that you need to complain about is yourself that you did a wrong calculation for such a life-influencing decision of going to college.
> by your decision you computed that this decision was worth it
> The only thing that you need to complain about
> you did a wrong calculation
Is that a general "you" or are you replying directly to me? Because if it's the latter, you need to read what I wrote more carefully.
I'm one of those immigrants I wrote about. My education, back where I was born and grew up, was both free and top-notch.
The point of my reply was to explain why "if we eliminated all H1B workers, Americans in the IT industry would be at full employment" is a disturbingly naive idea.
Speaking of disturbing oversimplifications:
> The only thing that you need to complain about is yourself that you did a wrong calculation for such a life-influencing decision of going to college.
If you think that life is as simple as that, you either haven't lived very long or were privileged enough to live in a bubble where things are so cut-and-dried black-and-white.
There are two types of H1B recipients, the type that you describe (in somewhat discriminatory terms) and the type that the program was built for.
The actual geniuses that move to America and stay here to build crazy stuff are also H1B visa holders.
We do NOT want to turn those people away. If you don’t like immigrants “taking your jobs” you are definitely not going to like the alternative reality of a brain drain. You aren’t going to like the alternative reality where there aren’t any immigrants starting businesses to hire you. Without immigration there’s no Google or Apple (these weren’t specifically H1B immigrants but still, Sergey Brin and Steve Jobs’ dad were first generation immigrants)
Again I must point out that every H1B employee that is here is physically in America buying things from American businesses. Immigrants starting businesses at a higher rate than native born citizens.
But I think it’s obvious that the program needs reform. Big companies have been gaming the system and using tricks to abuse it, and they use the visa’s restrictions to trap employees and give them below-market working conditions under the threat of visa revocation.
My proposal would be:
1. Make the visa cost more to acquire depending on the amount of employees in the program at a single company. If your company has 10,000 H1B employees your cost to add another one should be a lot higher than a small company with one H1B worker.
2. Make the visa guarantee permanent resident status to the recipient for a time period once they’ve worked for their company for ~90 days. They should have full job mobility just like a citizen so their employer doesn’t use the program as an excuse to pay below-market wages.
3. Provide a real path to citizenship that doesn’t take decades. I think that people in the country who can treat it like a long-term “forever home” will be more beneficial than ones who have plans to go back home eventually.
> And don’t try to convince me that a Java developer from India possesses skills that our university graduates don’t.
Everyone defending H1Bs forgets why we even have an economy. America never signed up to be some hegemon that needs to compete with the entire world. America exists for the sake of Americans, not the world, first and foremost. We can help other people after that point. You get revolutions and revolutionary acts when it feels that the opportunity for foreigners and the aristocratic is exceeding opportunity for the normal everyday people born here, and that is a legitimate injustice.
Maybe we should let people work wherever they want?
The tech companies will just offshore the jobs they’d otherwise use for visas. India is a cool place. Lots of Americans would do well to live and work there. They’d probably even be a bit happier. But they can’t because of visas.
For most of human history, you were free to decamp to greener pastures. Cultural chauvinism still existed and thrived in this more porous world. Why do we accept limitations on our freedom of movement?
People are moving around a lot faster than before with cheap air travel and modern internet. Some like this new dynamic, others don't. It's an evolving situation.
Now with AI, cheap labour is overrated and all Those people want is for you to make a contract with openai/meta whatever or to break your business for them to take.
There will be no new jobs. The BBB comes with a hidden line saying that no billionaire should get sad for any reason
The only people losing the competition is those who cannot afford to pay more anyway that will need to use AI or get out of the market completely.
> America exists for the sake of Americans, not the world, first and foremost. We can help other people after that point.
But you do want to sell to all of the world, am I correct? So you basically want the pros and none of the cons?
And you also expect the rest of the world to buy an your debt? Because America as a country would be bankrupt instantly if that rest of the world stopped supporting you.
Almost every country short of Liechtenstein would be bankrupt if other countries stopped buying their debt.
As such, the argument is not relevant, unless you believe that ethnicity has no correlation to country, and India should welcome Americans just as well.
> Almost every country short of Liechtenstein would be bankrupt if other countries stopped buying their debt.
Sure but not many countries never seem to run a deficit.
> and India should welcome Americans just as well.
Somehow I've met 10+ Americans who all seem to think you just submit a form and get an H1B... Being a non resident alien is no fun.
Being forced to leave the country to renew your visa? Makes sense but there's a certain uneasiness that goes with it every time
Switching employers is much harder, because the new one needs to be willing to sponsor
The pathway to staying in the US long term is super long. If you are this talented person from India and want to make America your home, getting a green card takes over 12 years... All those years you're essentially in limbo especially with current political circumstances.
That's what people are willing to put up with to be granted the ability to live and work in the US. I'm not saying that's unfair and you cannot require such things but don't think it's a walk in the park
Anyone living, working, or otherwise contributing to society in America can become an American.
> America exists for the sake of Americans, not the world, first and foremost. ... opportunity for foreigners [...] exceeding opportunity for [...] people born here, and that is a legitimate injustice.
That is IMO an un-American statement. America is, in theory, the land of opportunity. Not only for the "right kind of people".
> That is IMO an un-American statement. America is, in theory, the land of opportunity. Not only for the "right kind of people".
The people who live here have a right, first and foremost, to opportunities. If they are vocally and statistically proving that opportunities are bad right now, the H1B needs to be pulled for their sake. It can be put back once balance has been achieved.
> Anyone living, working, or otherwise contributing to society in America is an American.
Absolutely not. If I export my new invention to Europe and it changes society, I am contributing to European society, but I am not European. If I take a visa to Europe and start doing contract work illegally, I am not European.
Look. If the government is worried with people who are already there is not because it is going to get better.
This is just populism. They want you to think you need to be saved, they want to be your figurative father
Because sometimes people need to be saved, because the current system is actually broken, unfair, and inordinately stressful.
Populism is the normal population yelling "you forgot about us." Nothing more. Where it goes from there, depends on the politicians grasping that fact, and what they offer as a solution. This is also why populists win - their clientele doesn't feel like they have much to lose; while the competing politician is yelling about abstract global principles and norms and basically saying "your situation is unfortunate, screw you; you don't get it, idiot; pull yourself up, bootstraps!"
Edit for reply: > Populism creates problems or do not solve them in order to exist.
This is just upper class elitism with a thin veneer. Upper classes have constantly, always accused the lower classes of exaggerating their problems; and have constantly, always accused those claiming to address those problems as making them up. It's also a defense mechanism - because it lets you conveniently accuse the lower classes of voting in Mr. Mustache while washing your hands of any responsibility, because the problems were made up and people are gullible, obviously.
You are probably right, my point is that Populism, and at least it, does need to perpetuate de problems, hence, no populist leader is/was ever effective.
Not an answer but an appendix.
There is common misconceptions on the definition of politics.
For the masses politics means to define policies through negotiation and prioritisation.
For politicians, it means something related to exert political power.
I agree with the point that populists have a strong incentive to not solve problems, but I'm not sure that means populists can't be effective. For example in US history FDR was arguably a populist, and I would say pretty effective. And while the US populist party imploded fairly quickly, a good chunk of it's policy wants wound up happening in the next decade or two during the progressive movement.[1]
Using the power definition of politics, it still seems to me that because the ability to exert power is only given when there is a need to be solved, a (for example) plutocrat has a similar incentive not to solve problems as a populist, and would be similarly likely to not be effective. I suppose an explanation that's consistent with both perspectives is that political leaders in general are not effective.
I had a friend that had a T-shirt with an old photo of a bunch of American Indians (I think Apache), standing with guns and other weapons. They looked rather fierce.
It said "Homeland Security: Fighting Terrorism Since 1492".
> Anyone living, working, or otherwise contributing to society in America is an American.
No. That is very much not a legal or even sociological definition. There are plenty of people who live and work in America who have other nationalities and would prefer to not be considered American, even. A lot of Americans (I am one, before you assume something else) have a weird complex where they think everyone wants to be them. But that is very, very wrong to assume.
I worded my thoughts poorly. You can become a citizen through naturalization.
The original commenter says America is for Americans (assuming they mean citizens) and I was trying to point out that not all Americans are born in America.
I did not intend to imply that everyone wants to be an American.
What’s new is the sophisticated scams and parallel industries that exist to support falsified H1B petitions.
It’s your civic duty to apply to H1B job postings. This is probably 10x more effective than using LinkedIn, which is designed to keep you in a holding pattern indefinitely.
The crazy thing is how suppressed this opinion was. You got banned on most websites for bringing this up. I credit free speech on X for bringing h1b visas into the national conversation
Any example? Unless it was completely racist, I feel like a lot of people have been complaining about H1Bs for many years without any problems. Also here on hacker news.
There's been a major shift just in the last few months. Those of us who have been concerned about this problem for years welcome them to the party, but with a bit of an eye-roll, because it's obvious that the shift wouldn't be happening if it were trucking and farming jobs under assault and not tech jobs.
Instead of confronting the issue directly, people often sidestep it with other excuses. The reality is, if we eliminated all H1B workers, every American in the IT industry, including recent graduates, would have a job. And don’t try to convince me that a Java developer from India possesses skills that our university graduates don’t.