USCIS Completes the H-1B Cap Random Selection Process for FY 2016
uscis.govIMHO, fix this by replacing the 'random' with 'highest salary' (or total comp). Just go down from the top.
- It would alleviate (though probably not solve) the downward pressure on salaries.
- It would ensure that companies are well motivated to find domestic workers since they would, theoretically, be cheaper.
- It would ensure that H-1B's go to the people who would add the most value to the economy (or else the company would be less competitive due to overpaying).
- It would favor the most talented foreigners rather than putting them in a random lottery with new grads.
- It would allocate the H-1B's to the companies that need them most (since they're offering the most money)
- It would maximize the future tax take of the US government (maximum income => maximum taxes paid)
Ironically, this might have prevented me from getting my own H-1B as I got it fairly early in my career.
I don't think it would impact recent graduates as much as you think. The H1-B program is mainly criticized because of these consultancies importing cheap workers to the U.S. and applying for 10,000's of visa every year. I don't know anyone that complains about immigrants that are employed by top companies such as Google, Palantir, etc... These companies pay top salaries even to new employees without experience. I am sure they would be granted most of the visas they would request if salary was a criteria.
I think this hits a snag (as do many income-based schemes) when you consider the effect of region. This results in lots of H1-Bs going to San Francisco, and almost none to Atlanta, because salaries for the same position are twice as high in San Francisco.
It sounds like you believe that there should be an equal geographic distribution of H1Bs. I've never heard this as a goal - can you explain why it should be?
Not equal. Just not insanely skewed. Winner-take-all by salary means that a city where people make 150% as much as another city will get say 95% of the H1-Bs.
You could try and maybe normalize salaries based on the location I guess, but this also hits a snag when you take into account occupation. Some occupations generally pay lesser than others. Do they then not warrant H1Bs? Don't think so.
If an occupation has a lower salary, then perhaps its time for the occupation to pay more to attract local candidates. Otherwise the H-1B is being used to suppress wages.
agree on normalizing for location, but not on occupation. If certain occupations require higher skills, and are therefore able to pay higher salaries, then I see nothing wrong with them getting higher priority.
Good point, I have given that some thought too. Besides the problems already cited in the other comments, another problem is that smaller companies trying to grow might have a competitive disadvantage because of the upward pressure on the salaries.
I fail to see the problem here under this proposal. Small companies can buy the same talent at the same price, whether it's domestically or abroad.
You seem to be arguing that small companies should have special dispensation versus large companies to circumvent immigration laws in order to lower their labor costs.
If you think small companies have a thumb on the scale, then give them a thumb on the scale. e.g. special tax incentives for hiring. And in fact small businesses do get thumbs on the scale from the government all the time. e.g. government solicitations favoring (by mandate) small and minority or female-owned businesses, SBA loans, etc. If you think they should get more, by all means argue that, but why at the expense of the US labor force?
Where do you see me arguing that smaller companies should be allowed to circumvent any immigration laws?
I simply argued that OP's proposal - which is a not a law - would put companies with scarcer funds in disadvantage against bigger companies with more money to burn. I'm all for a free market, but what the OP is proposing is a market distortion since there are a limited number of visas.
Anyhow, you do realize that H1B filling requires a certified LCA, don't you?
What about startups that want to pay with equity instead of cash?
This seems open for abuse by stating an extremely high wage in the application, and then "adjusting" it once the candidate gets his visa.
I'm originally from France, came to the U.S. for undergraduate studies in 2010. My first year here, I fell in love and started dating an American student, and have been dating her ever since. Similarly, I fell in love with the United States, and wish to spend my life here. Currently, I am currently on OPT, applied for the H1-B process this year with my great SF company, and now am waiting to hear back about my 28% chance of getting a visa...
I'm not trying to scam the U.S., or cheat Americans out of a job, and my company is paying me the same amount as the americans who started at the same time as me. Instead, I want to be an American, and be a part of this country. Despite this, I am now at risk of being deported if I don't get the visa, and having to leave behind my whole life here, and my girlfriend here who I intend to spend the rest of my life with.
The worst part about this is that I am completely powerless, and at the whim of chance.
You're not completely powerless compared to others: you can marry your girlfriend ;)
OP if you read this, if you decide to get married, you REALLY need to do it before your visa expires (by as much as possible).
If you do it after you'll technically be in the country illegally and they will reject your marriage visa automatically (i.e. you'll have to go home to apply for your marriage visa, they won't even accept your application while you're still illegally in the US).
It may already be too late to do this without having to leave the country. A marriage visa can take anywhere between six months and a year and half, unless you can get them to rush it though (which they've done before, but normally at foreign embassies rather than at the NVC, and without kids, a dependant, or either of you being US military it will be hard to get an expedited process).
PS - Maybe consult an immigration attorney in your case.
PPS - If your visa is expired try not to get "caught" with it expired. Sneak out of the country to avoid a ban, rather than getting a ban and trying to fight it. It could save you a long fight and literally years banned from the US.
Hey armchair lawyer, you're wrong. You can apply for adjustment of status immediately after exchanging vows. This gives you an independent legal immigration status while the application is adjudicated; "pending adjustment." Unless you are already in removal, you're good to go. Even if you are already in removal, if you haven't actually been deported, then you can make the same application for adjustment directly to the immigration judge.
And as long as you entered the country legally (e.g. not without inspection or fraudulently), simply having being out of status is forgiven when sponsored by a US spouse, so long as there are no other bars to the application.
That said, going out of status is never a good idea. But as long as you apply while you have a valid immigration status, there is no out-of-status time period.
Anyway, OP would be advised to consult with a qualified immigration attorney rather than HN commenters.
> Hey armchair lawyer, you're wrong.
Here's an actual lawyer that says you're in fact wrong (they're right):
http://www.alllaw.com/articles/nolo/us-immigration/apply-for...
Key quote:
> If you are in the United States with an expired visa, then you most likely are not eligible to apply for adjustment of status.
But the whole article, start to end, almost mirrors the above comment and contradicts most of what you said. Key question: Are you a lawyer? You implied you are but are giving legal advice which contradicts a proven law firm specialising in immigration law. You also criticised someone else for being an "armchair lawyer" (implying you're not).
> You can apply for adjustment of status immediately after exchanging vows.
"Applying" sounds great, but you are in no way granted anything while the process is on-going. In fact they very specifically recommend you avoid travelling to the US while your visa in processes, as that could result in a "misunderstanding" and them junking your visa because they believe you're living in the US already.
That's the advice I was given in person by someone at the US embassy in London. She said "make sure if you travel you, you have a return ticket, and don't take too much luggage or it could cause your application to be rejected."
> simply having being out of status is forgiven when sponsored by a US spouse, so long as there are no other bars to the application
Even though they tell you many MANY times when applying that applying from within the US without legal status will automatically get you rejected? This is the NVS and the US embassy. Where are you getting your information? Can you cite a source which proves that they forgive fiancee visa applicants for visa violations?
> That said, going out of status is never a good idea.
Why? They forgive it according to you. Kind of contradicts what you said before...
> But as long as you apply while you have a valid immigration status, there is no out-of-status time period.
Unless you apply for an extension on your OLD visa, you almost certainly will be out-of-status given how long fiancee visas take under normal circumstances.
> Anyway, OP would be advised to consult with a qualified immigration attorney rather than HN commenters.
I agree. Your comment here is full of misinformation and dangerous misinformation at that. At least the above comment is suggesting they follow the documented visa process (leaving, apply, then re-enter when it is accepted). You're proposing they ignore visa law because of some "magical" clemency you claim that fiancee visa applicants are granted.
Your advice is just dangerously terrible and wrong.
actually cplease is RIGHT and you are wrong
from your own link, here's the part that cplease is referring to (SPOUSES)
> Despite the general rule that people whose authorized stays have expired cannot use the adjustment of status procedure to get their green card, the following types of people may be able to stay in the United States and adjust status:
> Immediate relatives of U.S. citizens, namely their spouses, parents, and unmarried minor children (under age 21). Immediate relatives may adjust status even with an expired visa – but not if they entered the United States illegally, without a visa or other authorized form of entry.
once Synroc marries, he becomes a spouse and _should_ become eligible for adjustment of status
I knew it! This H1-B shortage is a conspiracy by hot American chicks to enslave foreign engineers!!
Just kidding, of course. But I do like @JOnAgain's suggestion of biasing the lottery by the salary. Of course it'll never happen, because that's our current political situation (we're still arguing over the perennial topics of abortion, guns, drugs, etc.). However, it may be biased against small, lean startups who can't afford to pay as much as Google or FB.
H1B System is definetely unfair to international undergrads.
Like Synroc I came here for my undergraduate studies and work for a company in SF. I have no intention of leaving unless i am forced to do so.
I spent 5 (4 years of school + 1 year OPT) amazing years in this country and made many american friends, dated american girls lived in two of the most vibrant american cities (SF and NYC) and really adjusted to the American life style. It really hurts to be forced out after experiencing all these great memories. I deserve to stay here..
And now I am sitting in front of my computer refreshing by browser every 30 seconds waiting for an email from my companies legal department.
ps. Synroc take your girlfriend with you and let's move to London or something..
Get married maybe
1. You can apply for permanent residency under the extraordinary individual or highly qualified individual (if you have a specialty profession e.g. STEM)
2. Academic and non-profit jobs don't have a cap. You could take such a position and then apply for permanent residency.
3. You can apply for the green card lottery (I'm assuming you are born in France).
I like 2. and 3. Could I do 3. while doing 2?
Yes, as far as I know the lottery is independent of anything else, but you should check the USCIS website and consult an immigration lawyer.
Be careful with the lawyer: try and get one through a recommendation of someone you trust who has used their services. Because of the high demand for immigration into the United States, there are many unscrupulous people involved in such matters.
The goal of marriage really shouldn't be getting a visa... I'm saddened that we have to entertain this solution. It feels almost like exchange my body for some materialistic goal when I think about it (of course I'm not OP).
I agree. I would rather my girlfriend and I get married because we love each other and are ready, not because of immigration issues.
Marriage is a social construct. Strip away how everyone else views it for a moment and look at it in a different light: If there were no tax benefits, no immigration benefits, etc - would you be the person's partner anyway?
If so, get married for the visa, it doesn't change anything important anyway.
Incidentally this is what me and my wife did so we wouldn't have to deal with the immigration lottery, it's working for us.
I'm one of those 233k this year. Was an intern with a J1 a couple years ago, came back to my country to finish grad school, and my former employer wants to hire me back.
From what I've been researching, there are several of these so-called "consultancies" that hire mostly Indian guys (please don't take it personally, no offence intended), fake their resumes, and give them shitty life conditions in the US. Lots of people also pay for these consultancies to apply for them with fake jobs as to increase their chances in the lottery.
Its a shame that us with real, good-paying jobs have to go through that. I'm being hired because they cannot find someone in the US to fill this spot and because they already know me and think I'm a good fit for the company.
The worse part is that there are a lot of applicants filing multiple applications. They pay some agencies just to file H1B applications for them. This itself is against H1B application policy. There is an ongoing petition trying to get government's attentions: https://petitions.whitehouse.gov//petition/remove-and-ban-ch...
Multiple petitions with multiple legitimate sponsors is not actually disallowed. That being said, there are few situations where a legitimate sponsor would be on-board with an applicant simultaneously filing another petition. I'm not sure if an applicant is legally (as opposed to morally) required to disclose this to sponsors. It is certainly abused all the time.
It's a tragedy of the commons. In order to have a chance against 233k other petitions, if people can get multiple petitions filed on their behalf, they would be stupid not to. Which then inflates the overall number even further.
The people it really hurts are highly qualified individuals sponsored by a single well known tech company ... like I was two years ago. Luckily I got my H1-B then and am now well on the way to a green card.
Filing multiple applications is legitimate as long as it is all the sponsors who pay the application fees. But a lot of these sponsors (ICC) do not actually pay these fees, instead they get paid by the applicants to apply H1B for them.
I was going through this painful process two years in a row. Last year there were around 170k petitions filled. A year before that, around 125k.
We did not win the lottery both times, and opted for L1B instead this year. It is available only to the companies who have international offices in order to bring people from abroad to the US. Still waiting on this...
I'll probably write a blog post about the whole experience, once everything is over. Stay tuned.
P.S One thing is certain - US immigration desperately needs fix.
So, let's say Google wants to move you to US and wants to pay you $200.000+ because you're a unique scientist that filling a position that can't be filled by a US citizen. After spending time and money for the interview process, they apply for H-1B on behalf of you. Than there goes the lottery, than no luck, than what?
168.000 is pretty decent number to turn down after your own companies spend all those resources just for the selection of those applicants.
>So, let's say Google wants to move you to US and wants to pay you $200.000+ because you're a unique scientist that filling a position that can't be filled by a US citizen. After spending time and money for the interview process, they apply for H-1B on behalf of you.
A "unique scientist" should probably be applying for an O-1A [0] rather than an H-1B.
[0] http://www.uscis.gov/working-united-states/temporary-workers...
The H1B is a bit of a hack for that situation. Let's leave aside qualifying for EB-1 or O-1 as my sibling commentors suggest. At a slightly lower level, what we'd really want to do to fix the problem you identify is to unclog the EB-3 backlog and especially the country specific EB-2 backlogs.
Employment based categories are only allocated 140,000 permanent visas a year (some of which are taken for NACARA catch-up).
http://travel.state.gov/content/visas/english/law-and-policy...
For Nobel Prize winners and champion soccer players there's O-class visa. H1-B is for the plebs.
actually, Miguel de Icaza, from Gnome and Mono fame, got an O visa, I wonder what was the initial Visa that Linus Torvalds got, but he could well apply for that O, with no objection from me.
Why would they even bother with these temporary visas? Just go for EB-1 if you are such a scientist. http://www.uscis.gov/working-united-states/permanent-workers...
You can work for Google in a location outside the US for a year then file for L1 visa. However, recent experience shows that 1 year might not be enough.
Someone in the Google league is large enough to hire an individual in one of their non-US offices, and then apply for L-1 visa for intra-company transfers.
Does anyone know or have an estimate on how many of the 233,000 total are filed under the Master's cap?
If we can extrapolate from the numbers at [1] (not sure how representative it is) then about 29% of the 233,000 total petitions would be filed under the Master's cap. That'd be around 67,337 Master's cap petitions.
It guess this mostly matters for people who meant to apply through the Master's cap (graduates of US colleges with Master's degrees). Since there were more than 20k (as USCIS stated), the rest are reduced to regular applicants.
But it's not like they're "taking your spot" in the lottery; if there was no preferential treatment for Master's, they'd still apply as regular applicants.
I'm curious too. Also it wasn't clear what the number was last year.
If any of you are in the SF Bay Area, I'm organizing a hackathon[1] on May 29~31 in SF focused exclusively on immigration. Shoot me an email at my HN username at gmail dot com and I'd be happy to give you a generous discount code.
[1] http://www.up.co/communities/usa/san-francisco/startup-weeke...
Why this is important:
Because if a tech company wants to hire a foreigner, the visa process (regardless of skill^1) is basically worse than a coin toss. Which means companies have a much more limited pool of applicants. And let's be real, this country doesn't have nearly enough STEM professionals to meet demand.
1)Exceptions: Master's degree (another lottery), extraordinary ability (pretty tough).
My guess is that so called 'Indian consultancies' are filing 2-3 times more H1B applications than they would reasonably need in order to receive as much actual visas as they can.
is there any cap on how many visas one single company can apply to?
No. And here, as an example, is the breakdown of visas issued per company for 2013:
http://www.myvisajobs.com/Reports/2013-H1B-Visa-Sponsor.aspxRank H1B Visa Sponsor Number of LCA Average Salary 1 Infosys 16,397 $75,154 2 Wipro 7,178 $76,920 3 Tata Consultancy Services 6,732 $64,350 4 IBM 6,502 $83,883 5 Deloitte Consulting 4,727 $98,264 6 Microsoft 4,075 $109,546 7 Larsen & Toubro Infotech 3,793 $59,408 8 Accenture 2,653 $72,704 9 Ernst & Young 2,353 $86,380 10 Satyam Computer Services 2,310 $70,495*updated table formatting
Rank H1B Visa Sponsor Number of LCA * Average Salary 1 Infosys 16,397 $75,154 2 Wipro 7,178 $76,920 3 Tata Consultancy Services 6,732 $64,350 4 IBM 6,502 $83,883 5 Deloitte Consulting 4,727 $98,264 6 Microsoft 4,075 $109,546 7 Larsen & Toubro Infotech 3,793 $59,408 8 Accenture 2,653 $72,704 9 Ernst & Young 2,353 $86,380 10 Satyam Computer Services 2,310 $70,495it seems that 9 out of 10 are obvious "body shops" (i.e. except the MS).
And speaking about "lazy government" - how one gets an LCA certified under 60K or even 70K in hi-tech?
When we talk about positive case for H1B we talk about MS-like situation while it actually happens to be less than 10% of the total, with the rest of 90% looking like a "cheap labor" situation that H1B opponents talk about.
that's just... dumb? i mean, if a small startup asked for a visa, it should have bigger priority than Infosys asking for a ton of them. also, why aren't visas prioritised by salary?
h1b needs a reform asap :(
> let's be real, this country doesn't have nearly enough STEM professionals to meet demand
... at current salaries.
what in your opinion the current salaries are and what they must be in order to attract enough professionals? I mean do you see a lot of people who aren't STEM professionals because they feel the salaries are too low? If they aren't STEM professionals than where they are?
I see a continued loss of excellent, experienced -- 10-15 years into their careers -- engineers from sf to Seattle, Chicago, Colorado, Boston, and Austin driven by an admixture of the poor wages in sf/peninsula compared to housing costs, poor transport plus long commute times, very high education costs for children, high daycare costs, and family unfriendly work policies. Three friends and at least nine acquaintances over the last 24 months.
Compare the housing prices of what a three bedroom condo in sf (what a 2 child family wants) vs the other cities, plus the ability for mothers to take a couple years off work. Losing 15 to 20% of your salary to save 50% or more of housing costs is often a great deal.
The Bay Area is fundamentally broken in that cities refuse to build new housing and schools. Supply is limited, demand exceeds supply, and engineers are competing against each other for that very limited supply.
So if all us engineers' salaries went up, it wouldn't help. We'd just end up spending even more to out compete each other. (Well, I guess it would help push non-engineers out of the Bay Area, but is that really what we want?)
Perhaps an interesting way to interpret what you're saying is that SF is bad enough that people no longer want to move there since all their surplus income will be consumed by housing costs (valid concern!).
But new immigrant salaries are as good as american salaries in terms of how much they can push prices up; so hiring H1-B is essentially similar to a pay cut for people (same $$, higher housing costs); following this pay cut some existing engineers will leave.
In the end you just end up with replacing some old engineers with new ones through a costly lengthy process.
This is the kind of absurd logical games one has to play in order to not acknowledge basic economics of supply and demand.
The natural solution to this would be more rail to allow people to have reasonable commutes into the city. But some critics think rail encourages sprawl and the only answer is more skyscrapers and density.
And on the other side, NIMBY's in low-density areas like Menlo Park and Atherton killed the restoration of the Dumbarton Bridge Rail (also victim of a mysterious arson recently) and are delaying electrification of the Caltrain. The Dumbarton Bridge, for example, would allow people to live on the East Bay and take direct rail into Palo Alto, Redwood City or Menlo Park, and up and down the corridor.
If there is nowhere to house new engineers, why do companies apply for H1-B?
That's mostly orthogonal to the H1-B question - why do they hire anyone? (Most of the hires are not H1-Bs.)
I'd guess the answer is, marginally, hiring people is still good for companies. But combined with the lack of housing development, it's slowly but steadily making life worse for everyone in the Bay Area who doesn't yet own a house.
If it continues this way, eventually people won't move here without ridiculously high salary offers, and companies will be forced to expand in cheaper cities instead.
not sure what you mean. Elaborate?
First, you simply asserted -- without any evidence whatsoever -- that the US lacks sufficient stem professionals.
Two points:
1 - plenty of stem surveys (lumping all of stem together, as you did) show plenty of available candidates as calculated by the percentage of domestic stem graduates working in stem post graduation. see, eg,
http://www.usnews.com/opinion/articles/2014/09/15/stem-gradu...
2 - if you wish to limit the discussion to sf/valley type jobs, a honest claim is there aren't sufficient already trained engineers who wish to live in sf/valley at the prices employers wish to offer who already have the desired skills. There are lots of ways to address it: pay enough so that living here isn't a financial disaster (compare housing prices in sf/nyc (much cheaper than sf!), seattle, chicago, boston, etc), solve transport problems making san jose and sf essentially separate cities, figure out remote employees, hire women (and even retain them!), train engineers, etc.
2b - even a smidge of economics will tell you it's very hard for an actual shortage to exist; there's a clear lack of evidence of wage increases (over cost of living increases) that would accompany an actual tightening of the labor market
> pay enough so that living here isn't a financial disaster
Higher salaries and higher employment levels seem to correlate with higher, not lower, housing prices.
> solve transport problems making san jose and sf essentially separate cities
How would you even address that? It's run by public agencies controlled by three counties (San Francisco, San Mateo, Santa Clara). You need to get financial commitments from all three counties, railroad unions, state agencies like CalTRANS, etc. They're bringing BART to San Jose, so maybe things are already slowly progressing in that regard.
I had to resign from my job in San Francisco in order to go back to France for a couple months due to family issues.
My H1B was revoked by my employer in January. My I-94 is valid until September 24, 2015.
What are my options to go back and work in the US now? Is there anything besides filling a new petition in 2016?
Or is transferring the previous H1B still an option?
You don't have to go through the lottery again if you have already gone through the cap selection process once
When do they reach out to people if their application has been selected in the lottery or not?
From the way I understand it cases with premium processing should here back until May 11. From what I've heard, others "before October" (one company doing consulting for H-1Bs expects these until August 15).
My company's lawyer says that premium processing applicants receive their confirmation e-mail in the next few weeks IF they were selected. Regular processing should be notified by post late May/early June.
edit: typo
It can take months. Got my approval in August.
Is approval notice the same as getting picked up in lottery? I think you can get picked up in a lottery but approval is not guaranteed.
Now it makes sense why there are so many foreign Masters students.
They still need more than 6 months to answer the H1-B extension request, with the consequence that those candidates either cannot travel anymore or have to leave permanently.
In simple words, US Immigration system is quite messed up.
Rather it is companies gaming the system to get below market labor, and it has a huge negative impact on the entire market.
Do L-1 visas have caps? Why not hire oversees for a year and bring them in after that as a L-1 visa holder?
Almost 50% of all L1 petitions get RFE (Request for evidence). It's becoming harder to use this visa to bring people to the US these days, too. It's especially difficult for big outsourcing companies (proving and supplying enough evidence for the "specialized knowledge" (L1B) category is really non trivial for the companies and often not clearly understood by the USCIS officers, hence the RFE).
However, USCIS has recently released a new L1B adjudications policy for public feedback (http://www.uscis.gov/news/uscis-posts-updated-l-1b-adjudicat...) where they clearly define the "specialized knowledge" category. Maybe this will help companies to properly understand what's needed to demonstrate the specialized knowledge in the future, but I really doubt it.
L-1 visa holders can't change job.
How does this affect TN visas (if at all)?
Can someone translate to human language?
In the good old days, it wasn't so easy to hire a foreigner that studied computer science in an American university: They'd get an automatic 1 year practical training visa, and if after a few months you saw that they were a good hire, you'd sponsor them for an H1-B, and eventually a green card. That's how many senior people that were born overseas got to their spots.
Now, thanks to low quotas, and some rather unsavory consultancy companies, the H1-B program has now become useless for this purpose, as you have less than a 50/50 chance of getting an H1-B approved, just due to quotas. So while an honest company that wants to hire a good developer will not be OK with the delays and the low percentages of hiring someone in those conditions, a mill that interviews thousands of people and will place them in third party customers as consultants will gladly just keep flooding the market with applicants that probably will not get anywhere.
TL;DR The H1-B program used to be defensible, and maybe useful. The way it works now, it only works for companies who abuse it.
I think you meant "it wasn't so hard"it wasn't so easy
H1-B visas are used by US businesses wanting to hire non-american employees. There is an annual cap set on the number of visas (65,000 for people with bachelor's degrees, and an additional 20,000 for those with master's/phd).
This year there was an even more massive oversubscription, and the visas were allotted by lottery. Certain subcategories of visa are not subject to the cap (eg. those requested by non-profit research institutions and universities, including government labs.)
They received 233,000 applications for 85,000 work visas, and have randomly selected 85,000 of them. Everyone else can try next year.
There are more people asking for a spot than spots available. There are 65,000 spots available. If that sounds like a random and arbitrary number, you're right, that's exactly what it is.
If I understand one part correctly, they opened the lottery on April 1st and filled up the entire year's allotment 6 days later.
4 times the yearly allotment.
Every year, this branch of the U.S. government gives out so many of these work visas to qualified applicants. This is one of the most common ways many foreign developers are able to apply and work for a U.S. company, by being "sponsored" by their company.
Well, they've run out of spots for 2016.
Each year there are 20k work visas for people who graduated MSc in the US and 65k work visas for the rest of world.
That means if you got an offer to work from a startup or a big tech firm there are about 23% changes you'll get the visa.
This is the process I went throught back in 2005 to get a job in IT after graduating in Business in Poland: 1. Got a position with an Indian company that promised a job after paid training ($5k) 2. After 3-month long training they totally and completely faked my resume. I.e. included 5-years experience, fake credentials, fake references. 3. Got me a job with large, large bank. 4. Got half my salary for 6-months. 5. After that I was on my own as I couldnt stand lies anymore.
From my experience 90% + people from H-1B is on these terms in the US. We had trainees on our "camp" that literally haven't seen PC keybaord before. Ending up as IBM tools specialists in Fannie Mea, Freddie Mac, Capital One.
This much about H-1B. And this much about interview process int the US too. And actually about dumb Americans who can't get a job in that country too.
I see your point here, and it is valid -- to some extent.
Yes, the "Indian" consultancies have been exploiting this system for ages and US Govt has been trying its best for past three years to not grant visas if USCIS can not establish Employer-Employee relationship. But still these consultancies always find loop holes.
I have come to this country as an immigrant as well. I went to an average university first in midwest and then transferred to a top 10 engineering school. I have seen "Americans" who can not do basic algebra in Calculus 1 classes. And I have studied/work with "Americans" who are at the top of their game. It is really subjective. Unfortunately, American media is exporting "Booty Culture" (think Kim K.) to the world rather than preaching about their rockstar scientists and engineers.
> job after paid training ($5k) 2. After 3-month long training they totally and completely faked my resume. I.e. included 5-years experience, fake credentials, fake references. 3. Got me a job with large, large bank. 4. Got half my salary for 6-months. 5. After that I was on my own as I couldnt stand lies anymore.
Wow, your lie tolerance threshold must be way higher than most people. I know a few very needy people who balked several times at "fake experience". You just can't hide that, esp not with poor English!
> From my experience 90% + people from H-1B is on these terms in the US.
If you meant 90% of all H-1Bs - then it clearly falls into lying category. May be if you compromised so much for the job you don't have so much of a problem vastly upwards estimating something that benefits your viewpoint?!
May be it's not 90% but I have a friend who experienced the same thing, she gave up after 2 weeks once she realized the lie. I honestly think the US government is lazy in this aspect. It's not that hard to track down those consultancies. Not relevant but that reminds me of the tax case where an unemployed girl filed for $2M tax return and got the money (only got caught later when she lost her card).
And then you also have the fake universities giving out diplomas and OPT: http://www.mercurynews.com/crime-courts/ci_25410171/visa-mil...
OK and why is this the top of HN? Because of the number of applications?
The number of applications is slightly higher than last year, but still I fail to understand why it is on the top, because this same thing was happening for the last 4+ years.
My application was picked up in the year 2013, so I have been following both HN and the USCIS at that time. Never saw it make top of HN.
Immigration is one of the hottest debate topics at the moment, and H1-Bs especially have huge repercussions for the tech sector. My guess is that this particular article is being upvoted because people here want to discuss it.
"slightly higher"? I know that slightly is subjective, but going from 175k to 233k seems quite significant to me... Especially considering that last year was already a new record.
The same thing (lottery for H1B) happened only the last 2 years (2013 and 2014), not for 4+ years (before that 2007 and 2008 also had a lottery).
It is relevant to HN because if we you start a company and need to hire, it can impact your strategy. If you're a software engineer, it shows that there is a high demand and it can be time to review alternative offers.
I'm neither an immigrant nor an employer, but I care. In the comments I learned a fair bit about issues with my countries immigration policies which I did not already know.
Because HN caters to tech audience and majority of the H1-B petitioners are tech workers. Get it?
I myself am an immigrant. I seriously don't see any need, because all the new immigrants will keep their eyes and ears open to see if their application is selected. All citizens/ existing immigrants, don't really care.
Speak for yourself. There are plenty of us who care.
It is ironical, in asking me to speak for myself you are using the "royal" us.
There are tons of things posted to HN, which inevitably some people find interesting and some people don't. The fact is, many H-1B visa beneficiaries are in the technology field. In addition, many technology companies are pushing for immigration reform and this isn't the first time I've seen the subject come up here.
Your stance could be taken on any technology-related content posted to HN. "Those who care about Linux will keep their eyes and ears open to Linux news. It doesn't have to be posted here because most OS users have Windows" sounds pretty ridiculous to me.
I'm a citizen of the US and I care. Especially about the abuses inherent in the system.