Executive order expected to suspend H-1B, other visas until end of year

Disclaimer: I&#x27;m an immigrant.<p>There are companies like Cognizant&#x2F;InfoSys&#x2F;Tata&#x2F;... whose business model is based on abusing the H1B system, and that&#x27;s obviously wrong and I&#x27;m quite surprised they get away with it. I&#x27;m not defending that.<p>To those who broadly argue against skilled visas, consider this: Most H1B immigrants are between 20-30 age range. The prime age to join the workforce. Think how much investment you have to make on a child&#x27;s health care and education to make them into a highly skilled workforce. It would at least cost you 1$M and probably much more. Now all these immigrants have learned your language, passed job interviews, and are competing to come to your country to give you 1$M and help your economy. Why would you not want that? People seem to think that number of jobs is a limited constant and if you stop immigrants that will have a positive effect on the economy. But in reality companies can simply just scale. If they have more workforce they can do more. Things get done faster and they just make more profit. Stopping immigration obviously would dent the economical growth. Never mind that many top tech companies in the US were founded by immigrants or children of immigrants.<p>To those who say we must invest in local workforce, I wonder why would you have to stop immigration to start investing in local workforce? As if allowing immigration would reduce the amount of money for investment, while in reality immigrants pay taxes. I personally have paid hundreds of thousands of dollars in taxes so far. I&#x27;d be happy if this money was used to educate the American workforce. However I know that it doesn&#x27;t. I would like to see that change.

All data indicate there is no shortage of US Citizens that could fill STEM positions and that H1-B holders on average make well below market rate. Outright ban is the wrong tool and I can&#x27;t imagine that this is a reasoned policy response to a well understood abuse of wage-arbitrage. The right answer would be to mandate comparable wages for H1-B immigrants as for median employee with the same experience&#x2F;tenure etc...<p>&quot;A comprehensive literature review, in conjunction with employment statistics, newspaper articles, and our own interviews with company recruiters, reveals a significant heterogeneity in the STEM labor market: the academic sector is generally oversupplied, while the government sector and private industry have shortages in specific areas.&quot;<p><a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.bls.gov&#x2F;opub&#x2F;mlr&#x2F;2015&#x2F;article&#x2F;stem-crisis-or-stem-surplus-yes-and-yes.htm" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.bls.gov&#x2F;opub&#x2F;mlr&#x2F;2015&#x2F;article&#x2F;stem-crisis-or-ste...</a><p>&quot;Our examination shows that the STEM shortage in the United States is largely overblown. Guestworker programs are in need of reform, but any changes should make sure that guestworkers are not lower-paid substitutes for domestic workers.&quot;<p><a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;bloustein.rutgers.edu&#x2F;new-analysis-finds-no-shortage-of-stem-workers-in-the-united-states&#x2F;" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;bloustein.rutgers.edu&#x2F;new-analysis-finds-no-shortage...</a><p>&quot;Sixty percent of H-1B positions certified by the U.S. Department of Labor are assigned wage levels well below the local median wage for the occupation.&quot;<p><a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.epi.org&#x2F;publication&#x2F;h-1b-visas-and-prevailing-wage-levels&#x2F;" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.epi.org&#x2F;publication&#x2F;h-1b-visas-and-prevailing-wa...</a>

This has gotten very old very fast (beyond the obvious cruelty). I have several friends who keep watching their colleagues just have to up and leave over this and it’s causing a ton of issues for businesses that employ folks on work visas in general. It’s just disruptive to be disruptive&#x2F;feed the base.

Reminder of the top H1B employers. Its not about high tech workers in SV.<p><a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.h1bdata.org&#x2F;employers" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.h1bdata.org&#x2F;employers</a><p>Employer Name Employees Hired (All Years) Infosys Limited 182,945 Tata Consultancy Services Limited 102,722 Deloitte Consulting Llp 65,976 Wipro Limited 63,354 Accenture Llp 51,360 Ibm India Private Limited 47,839 Capgemini America Inc 40,954 Microsoft Corporation 40,828 Ernst Young Us Llp 38,631 Cognizant Technology Solutions Us Corp 34,138

H1-B was intended for highly skilled workers that the US had a real shortage of. But now it&#x27;s just being abused to bring in captive workers that are willing to accept lower wages and worse working conditions than otherwise while crowding out US workers.<p>What if, instead of bowing to corporate greed which cares not a bit for our country or our people, we actually invested in our own population and trained them to do the jobs H1-B workers currently do.<p>Scaling back H1-B in this way is the common sense approach. And it benefits other countries too by reducing brain drain.<p>It&#x27;s a win-win.

I’m curious. HN has largely agreed that the current pandemic showed that remote work is absolutely doable. At the same time, people are claiming that the H1B visa, which allows immigrants to work in the US at largely American salaries, are taking away American jobs.<p>So the stated solution is to do away with the visa and send those people back to their home countries.<p>So why does anyone believe that when those people go back to their home countries, their employers would choose to hire someone else instead of keeping the same people hired at a fraction of the cost?<p>I mean, people seem to think that companies would be unhappy about paying someone 75k&#x2F;yr who was costing them over 200k&#x2F;yr (salary + payroll taxes, etc) in the US.<p>It makes absolutely no sense that the job would go to an American. The likelihood is that the job would remain with the same person but now they would pay taxes and spend dollars in their home countries at a fraction of the cost.

So many people here are celebrating this order due to its supposed abstract benefits but are somehow unaware of the its cruelty. So many visa holders in this country will be unable to leave and enter the country for the foreseeable future. If they have sick parents abroad they will not be able to visit them or, in the most tragic circumstances, say goodbye in person. It won&#x27;t matter whether someone is a world-class researcher with extremely niche skills or database administrator using commodity technology. They will live in anxiety, fear and uncertainty. One wonders how many proponents of these measures would be willing to uproot their lives and leave the place they call home at a moment&#x27;s notice. Life is about get a lot worse for hundreds of thousands of hard-working, highly-educated immigrants and there are comparatively few who will shed a tear for them.

This is great news for Canada. Once the Covid situation resolves, if Trudeau doesn&#x27;t give a lot of incentives for tech companies to build offices there Canada will miss out on a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity.<p>Canada has already been benefiting from the recent restrictions on work visas and rejecting visas for no reason, for example by saying a forensic pathologist isn&#x27;t a specialty occupation.<p><a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.npr.org&#x2F;2020&#x2F;01&#x2F;27&#x2F;799402801&#x2F;canada-wins-u-s-loses-in-global-fight-for-high-tech-workers" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.npr.org&#x2F;2020&#x2F;01&#x2F;27&#x2F;799402801&#x2F;canada-wins-u-s-los...</a><p><a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;insights.dice.com&#x2F;2020&#x2F;02&#x2F;11&#x2F;canada-continues-benefit-u-s-h-1b-confusion&#x2F;" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;insights.dice.com&#x2F;2020&#x2F;02&#x2F;11&#x2F;canada-continues-benefi...</a>

Not clear from the article what this means. Would it impact existing visa holders already in the US? What about those who got an H-1B in this year&#x27;s lottery? Is their visa canceled or postponed to a later date not known yet? (normally for a given year October is the earliest people can start working on H-1B)

I am on H1B visa currently, one of those with high paying jobs in my current geographic area. I did my Masters in EE and have been on H1B since 2008, waiting for my GC, which may or may not happen.<p>I want to ask a question to those who feel that I should not be here. Why is it wrong for someone like me to move from my home country legally as a student, then decide to work and live here, since it is legal and that option is provided by the government. My employer is also willing to bear all costs of making that happen. Of course, USA is a great country, maybe the greatest, and people want to live and work here. Is it wrong to have such a desire, and go about fulfilling it in a legal way? I am genuinely interested to know, since I get the feeling that folks like me aren&#x27;t exactly welcome, and would like to understand why that is.<p>On the ethical side of things, I have wondered if I have denied an American citizen a good life.I get the feeling that maybe I have, by the mere fact of me existing and being present in this country, since I haven&#x27;t misrepresented, lied or cheated anyone to get my job. I have no doubt that given enough time, my company will find someone like me, but how long it will take is anyone&#x27;s guess.

In this thread, people who have no clue about how H1B works are making dumb comments (both for and against) with such confidence. Before some one asks me, I was a H1B visa holder and know how the system works. It makes me think how many such people are commenting in other threads that they&#x27;ve no clue about. Never ever follow any advice from a HN thread is a good rule to follow.

Some of these make no real sense, like L1 and J1 visas, which are so few and uncommon and are often granted to individuals. J1&#x27;s for example are for researchers coming abroad to collaborate with scientists here, there isn&#x27;t a real argument that J1&#x27;s are taking jobs from anyone else that I can tell. Not that anyone should be travelling at all this year but one would have to see if they get extended after covid dies down.<p>L1s also look like they&#x27;re geared towards essentially overseas managers moving to the US, particularly in the case of a single international company moving their executives around physically.

The Silicon Valley was built on the backs of H1-B workers. There’s the bay wouldn’t be the technical hub without access to the global workforce.

If you step out of the tech (STEM) bubble, you’ll see that this is going to have a lot of collateral damage. There are niche industries where H-1B is an actual necessity. I know that what people complain about, especially on a tech centric site like HN, is how it’s used in the development industry, but I hope that people remember that there is a world outside of tech that this negatively impacts.

if US bans H-1Bs these jobs wont go to americans, these jobs will just be offshored. Large american enterprises already have gigantic offices outside US to manage IT&#x2F;midoffice&#x2F;backoffice or have relationships with contractor firms like Cognizant.<p>It is so much easier to send one&#x2F;two americans as expats to India&#x2F;East Europe to manage outsourced staff and the trend will just accelerate.

Here are the top 10 employers of H1-B.<p>With the exception of MSFT, all of these are &quot;consulting firms&quot; or &quot;service&quot; providers.<p>So while everyone is having &quot;ideological, values&quot; based discussions, here is what is <i></i>really<i></i> happening<p>Employer Name Employees Hired (All Years)<p>Infosys Limited 182,945<p>Tata Consultancy Services Limited 102,722<p>Deloitte Consulting Llp 65,976<p>Wipro Limited 63,354<p>Accenture Llp 51,360<p>Ibm India Private Limited 47,839<p>Capgemini America Inc 40,954<p>Microsoft Corporation 40,828<p>Ernst Young Us Llp 38,631<p>Cognizant Technology Solutions Us Corp 34,138

Anyone who thinks this is good for the US is stupid. In the era of remote working, all this will do it hasten the retreat of software engineering from the US. Facebook and Google do not care where their employees live, they want the best in the world. This will just mean that jobs will truly flee the US.<p>Right now the US is winning because of such a high concentration of talented software engineers compared to the rest of the world. It’s the same reason why there is only one Hollywood, the same goes for Silicon Valley. If you prevent people from coming here, the top companies will find them in their own countries and then those are jobs lost forever. And then the drain begins. This is a stupid self-defeating move by a self-defeating president.

Xenophobia is a bitch. A few years ago I experienced an atrial fibrillation while exercising, so I called an ambulance, as I didn&#x27;t know what was happening to me and thought that that was the end.<p>Once in the ambulance the paramedic started asking me where I am from and if I came in on one of &quot;those visas&quot;.<p>I was afraid I was about to die, and this fucker was being xenophobic.

Terrible idea. Upping the salary requirement for H1-B achieves the goal of using it only for highly-skilled workers. Instead, now employers have to make do with bootcamp grads instead of foreign engineers at lower level positions, hurting businesses.

I wonder if they can make an exemption for the tech industry.<p>Feels like this is just going to accelerate the moves we&#x27;ve seen in the Bay Area towards companies going fully remote.<p>If this happens, the administration could see a lot of that money just leave the country altogether.

I can see how some people see this as positive but the premise that a talented and hard working foreign worker takes a job away from a citizen is short-sighted. Zoom out a little and instead of a talented and hardworking foreign employee taking a job you will see (on an average) that they help grow or expand projects and companies that opens door to hiring more people. Not only do they pay tax here and support social security benefits that many enjoy, they also help businesses survive and grow and help them stay competitive in a global market.<p>I&#x27;m not calling for open doors to everyone, this certainly needs a balanced approach. However, with such suspensions I think we seem to be going one extreme path. Global talent has helped develop industries and businesses here. Increasing restrictions to this extent and suspending these visas is going to push this talent out and promising businesses who want to get the best talent to work with them, will not-immediately but definitely follow their way out too. I hope the people who are celebrating this, at-least for a few minutes, come out of the myopic view and look at the long term economic consequences.

I&#x27;m (worriedly) curious how this will affect people trying to change jobs on a H1-B, as technically you need to file a new petition each time, and I can see them somehow denying those too.

So highly paid permanent resident tech professionals even more highly paid and a lot of non-permanent residents get even more harmed because of their country of birth....<p>I personally feel that the H1-B system needs to be rethought to encourage a healthier but not at the expense of bringing hard working immigrants into this country.

This will definitely expedite tech jobs moving to India. At current market rates, companies can afford to hire 3-5 engineers in India compared to 1 engineer in US with equivalent interview standards. I already see this happening with Amazon(with new hyderabad campus), Google &amp; Uber.

This could be a knock-out punch for many US universities. H1B is the visa International students pursue after paying full out of state tuition to colleges here.

This and eroding section 230. I wonder if tech companies are going to fire back at trump.

With all the push for remote work, won&#x27;t that also accelerate these jobs leaving US? Well, good for us outside the US.

My common sense frustration here is how can the US possibly have a critical shortage of developers on languages that are 20 to 50 years old? We have the third highest population in the world and claim to have excellent education, and these are high paying jobs at 2x-3x the national average yearly income.<p>So what qualifies the shortage? Is it like agriculture where Americans are too entitled for the work? Are Americans viewed as generally too low quality?

It won&#x27;t happen, but it would nice to see a comprehensive plan to address the talent shortage that the H-1B is designed to address. Disadvantages faced by people of color is front of the mind right now; it&#x27;s the perfect time to announce a detailed plan of training and education that would accomplish 2 purposes.

I think it is a very good idea ... poaching of the best and brightest talent from less developed countries who invested in the education of these people is a form of robbery.<p>If you need them , then let them work remotely and pay them fair wages as they would have received in the US and let them contribute their tax to their own country.

In the last few weeks many technology companies have been able to have their staff work remotely.<p>I wonder what suspending Visas means in so far as remote working is a thing.

There are solutions to the problems we discuss these days. We have experts and researchers who are dedicated to find better solutions.<p>But sadly, Politics are focused to win the election and next elections. Populism and non-populism, left and right, social-networks and media, we all made it so hard for experts and scientist to be heard and to be trusted. We are so loud that we are only hearing ourselves. We can talk non-sense with insufficient knowledge and call it open discussion.

Most tech companies are WFH right now, so if the government does this, there&#x27;ll probably be lots of work for foreign lawyers setting up subsidiaries in other countries so that all the people affected can literally work from Home.

This is going to have a chilling effect on international students thinking of coming to the United States.<p>Many people who do end up getting kicked out will probably take their jobs with them back home, especially in tech.

2020 is the election year.

I am not exactly sure how this would help people working in tech (and other tech related areas like business analysts, PM&#x27;s etc.,)<p>This makes it easy for companies to outsource work.<p>When all employees are remote what&#x27;s the value in bringing someone onshore? And once jobs are outsourced I don&#x27;t think they will come back.<p>So this could be marginally beneficial for onshore workers or it could be very bad.

I worked in the finance industry, IT side. I can say that these work Visas are abused in that industry. Less so in tech and startup space. I think having a min salary that&#x27;s 2x average for the job would also solve this. I&#x27;m will to see what type of data this pause provides.

All my friends in the US are staying put now, they can’t go see their families after covid because they have no idea if they’ll be allowed back in.<p>Bad for america, good for the rest of the world though- maybe by restricting American foreign policy we’ll see more competition for SV open up globally.

Simple solution - auction off the H1B visas. This will ensure only the most needed, highest-value employees get it. Works with any number of visas. I fail to see why this easy, simple fix that also earns money for the government is not applied.

Indians are running an Organized Mafia in America <a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;archive.vn&#x2F;XTZ5f" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;archive.vn&#x2F;XTZ5f</a>

You need highly skilled immigrants to pay for taxes and healthcare+SSA for the economy and those retired. If you don&#x27;t fund retirement programmes then you&#x27;re in trouble.

BTW any horror stories about H1B people stealing good jobs from locals?

Honestly I’m so tired of this shit. I can’t leave the US without the risk of not being able to come back, and my Mom is in a different country in a high risk category for COVID-19.<p>If she is infected and hospitalized, I have to quit my job and leave my home to spend last moments with her. Fuck Trump.

If this is true then next year the chances of getting an H1B would become less than half while the applications would double.

This is great news for Canadians who would like to move and work in America. A lot less competition

If you really need ppl to do the work make them here. Lots of ppl are available currently.

I guess there won&#x27;t be any protests like muslim ban, this time.

i have no dog in this fight but the comments in this thread...<p>the amount of layoffs and unemployment since covid 19. this move is not to please you. it is to please the American people. only employers will care. the middle&#x2F;working class American won&#x27;t care (this is the biggest voting bloc that Trump needs)<p>this is a persuasion for Nov.

Tech hiring and salary suppression cartel&#x27;s going to have a rough time.

I think H1B visas should be obliterated. One of the justifications is that they bring in international talent to fill in &quot;shortages&quot; in America. However, according this article by the Harvard Business Review: <a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;hbr.org&#x2F;2017&#x2F;05&#x2F;the-h-1b-visa-debate-explained" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;hbr.org&#x2F;2017&#x2F;05&#x2F;the-h-1b-visa-debate-explained</a><p>- There is mixed evidence that there are actually shortages in STEM - People are graduating from STEM fields at a rather high rate than in the past, but only half of them end up utilizing their degree; in sectors such as IT, one reason being why graduates aren&#x27;t entering the field is due to a lack of job openings - Despite all the clamor about &quot;shortages,&quot; some STEM fields pay embarrassingly low, and in fact pay STEM workers less than they have in the past - There is no requirement that entities show proof of workforce shortage before hiring workers on H-1B visas - Some workplaces have already had American workers train in their H1-B visa replacements and then were out of a job<p>Not in the article, but some of my own experiences having been in the STEM field - Many internationals seeking to get hired in the US STEM force don&#x27;t actually have the &quot;everyday technology&quot; that the US uses, such as in molecular biology labs; this means quite a lot goes into training H1-B visa holders. Couple that with poor English-speaking skills. I found myself having to explain to an H1-B visa holder what a &quot;pen&quot; was, or a &quot;shelf.&quot; Granted, some H1-B visa holders underwent formal education in the US, obtaining PhDs and whatnot, so you&#x27;d imagine their English would be better, however... - Many countries look down on the US. I have worked for many foreign employers in STEM, and have been insulted just for being an American, and their views of America are largely stereotyped (Americans love guns, they eat hamburgers and pizza and are fat, etc.) - It changes the workplace culture; I&#x27;ve worked in a variety of STEM environments that had a lot of internationals, and more than once I was out-grouped for being an American. I have had opportunities closed off to me simply because my group&#x27;s sense of belonging was rooted in being &quot;non-American.&quot; This was detrimental to my aspirations in entering the STEM field as an American.<p>I don&#x27;t believe there is a shortage in STEM. The fact that it&#x27;s hard to even get a well-paying job in STEM, especially tenure positions in STEM, and that once you do land a STEM position you can face discrimination for being an American in AMERICA, H1B visas should be obsolete.<p>Get rid of the internationals. Focus on your American workforce and create incentives to enter STEM. Create a better system for learning math, and inspiring aspirations in science Create environments that will nurture American students instead of block their opportunities. Give Americans a chance to contribute to their economy instead of shoveling money down the pockets of people who don&#x27;t even like America or Americans and would go back home if they could.

we need to get rid of the executive order or at least severely limit its scope. both Obama and Trump have abused it -- presidents should not be able to hand down sweeping regulatory change like this at the drop of a hat without going through the legislature.

thank god, I&#x27;ve seen a lot of americans rejected especially POC of varied backgrounds turned down in favor of some H1B nonsense to often it really impacts the ability for folks to rise up and move to new industries

Most countries have suspended immigration at this point havent they? Hard to argue against such a thing amid covid.

As a former H1-B: makes sense. H1-B is abused a lot, and importing new entry-level workers when unemployment is at record highs after COVID makes zero sense. Although I&#x27;m sure Hawaiian judge will disagree.

Erratic government decisions can have severe consequences on businesses.<p>About time US companies realize that they need to have more fault tolerance to support their employees by open more global offices. This is especially true because the world outside is becoming more competitive and erratic business decisions like this will destroy product competitiveness.<p>As for foreign companies&#x2F;entrepreneurs&#x2F;would be business owners with capital, the US is shut. There is no need to do business here.

And yet everyone and their mother wanna move there no matter the price paid in uncertainty, pressure and mental health. They could try go to a country with a straight forward immigration process like Canada, but money is more important than anything else to some people.