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H1Bs now require a $100k payment per year (I believe, seeing some remarks saying it might be per visa) to the government due to Donald Trump executive order, plus if you are currently overseas and hold a H1B you need to pay $100k effective immediately on your next entry into the USA if you are not within the country by the 20th of September.
As a foreign non-Lawyer I don't know how effective this is going to be/liable to be immediately derailed in the courts, but I do think it's a positive step towards ensuring skilled immigration is used for the genuinely effective instead of ye olde 'I can import a foreigner who I have more power over at a 10% discount rate to domestic workers'. I'm also deeply skeptical of the 'productivity' of the vast majority of tech H1B hires and wish them the best of luck in attempting to offshore the competencies required to make AI-powered Grindr for Daily Fantasy Sports
Thank god. The H1-B system is well-known to be an absolute cesspit of corruption and fraud. The original purpose was for US businesses to selectively fill positions that there was a shortage of US talent for, but it's been heavily gamed by Indian diploma mills. Even the idea of a "labor shortage" doesn't really make sense when since it's not like the market would have never cleared, it was more an issue of the right pay/benefits. Indians were much more willing to put up with crappy conditions and lower pay, which made the field worse for everyone, and that's before talking about the blatant nepotism they'd often engage in.
Here's hoping the rule will actually stick, but given Trump's previous track record, I'm kind of doubtful. There's a high chance the courts either shred this outright, or at least significantly water it down.
The solution to that is the salary floor. Given that the modal diploma mill graduate isn't that smart, if you put the floor in the right place, firms won't pay that for what they get.
The salary floor is in the works. That is something which, to the best of my knowledge, needs to come from Congress. Thus the American Tech Workforce Act, which would raise the floor from $60,000 to $150,000, among some other things which all seem aimed at reducing the number of H1B visas. It would also get rid of the provision that allows recent graduates of American universities to work here for three years.
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Agreed. This 100K payment thing seems less effective than a salary floor, which is an idea that's been floating around for a while. That, and don't tie H1Bs to employers like serfdom so they'll be less willing to put up with crappy conditions.
I think in some of these cases (I'm going to not express an opinion on the policy change itself at the moment) we're seeing the lawyers in the administration find the closest approximation that is (arguably) allowed by the text Congress passed. In this case, it seems to be that they're allowed to recoup the costs of the program via fees (and government accounting is famous for keeping costs reasonable). I suspect --- but would need to wade into far more details than I care to tonight --- that they weren't directly empowered to raise the salary floor. The first AI agent I asked suggests that the floor is set by Department of Labor statistics, which may not be easy to change without even larger side effects.
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Isn't tying H1-Bs to the employer just a necessary function of the entire concept? The company applies to hire them for a specific position it claims it cannot find Americans for. Ending the corporate bondage is just ending the entire program.
They could just ask Congress to change the law. Trump can whip congressional Republicans to do pretty much whatever he wants, and there would be more than enough Democrats in favor of liberalizing H1-B work restrictions that it would almost certainly pass.
Yes, I suppose it is theoretically possible to functionally end the program by just tolerating free immigration by anyone who ostensibly has a job, but I'm not sure why you think the Trump administration would not just tolerate that, but actively spend political capital (such as a scorched earth revolt by it's base) to achieve that end?
Hooray economic zone?
But if in exchange you make the fee be 150k paid then first employer over three years (and renewals cost 75k for every additional three years), then you would probably severely limit the people coming over to be only truly good people.
Why would an employer pay any of that if there was no restriction on the H1-B dipping to a different job? From an employer who can afford to pay them more because they didn't just drop a bunch of money and HR hours on bringing them over?
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It helpfully clarifies that the issue is not actually exploitation of H1-Bs and is in fact just opposition to immigration.
Can you clarify what this means? The US is an economic zone. It will still be an economic zone if it expels every single foreign-born individual and closes the borders.
Things can have more than one reason. AIUI, a large part of the appeal of the H1-B from the immigrant perspective is that it's a foot in the door that leads to permanent and eventually chain immigration. That might be more tolerable if we were getting generational talents and specific, genuinely needed skills, but the system seems to be systematically gamed to hell and back.
The US isn't just an economic zone. Put it this way, would you be ok with being deported to India if it made numbers on a chart go up? Or do you think you have some sort of right to be here?
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