Immigration problems? Stop the H1B programs taking OUR jobs! Arrest Companies Hiring illegal Workers

[J_J_]

This is the immigration reform needed in the US to protect US jobs and protect illegal workers who are abused by US corporations.

Millions of Americans cannot find work in the tech industry while these companies make up ridiculous qualifications no one can meet so they have to go to India because 'Americans aren't qualified'

All of these millennials stuck with huge debt from going to college cannot pay off their loans because workers are being imported and taking their jobs.

The whole situation is just stupid and no politician is actually trying to solve the problem.



And Republicans complain and complain about people coming over the border. Well, where are they going?

If they really cared, they would go to the businesses hiring them and exploiting them and shut them down.

When is the last time the media discussed going after corporations who are abusing illegal workers in order to stop illegal immigration?

[Nuclear Unicorn]

1. The Chamber of Commerce supports comprehensive immigration reform such as Obama is proposing.

Do you suppose it is some sort of altruistic impulse on their part?

[on point]

2. Needs to go on Prg Dem Agenda. There is no worker shortage. Only companies that ripoff workers

The whole worker shortage meme is fake. There is no shortage. Only companies that want to pay less and refuse to train workers.

I say if they want an H1B worker, then they hire him, but must pay a penalty of twice that salary into a fund to train workers to replace the H1B worker, so they really are temps. Let's see how long the 'shortage' lasts when those are the conditions.

[muntrv]

3. Like I've often said: It's the employer, stupid.

On the border we have a "keep out" sign, but next to it is a "help wanted" sign. Guess which one they are reading.

[Travis_0004]

4. Why is H1B bad, but other immigration good?

If an H1B worker comes over people complain, but if he was undoccumented doing the same job most people would push for ammensty. I dont understand the difference.

[Nuclear Unicorn]

6. Perhaps immigrant tech workers should simply dispense with obtaining documentation.

Apparently they will be able to do so in the relatively near future.

Another theory suggests that tech workers are predominantly white and upper middle class; perhaps some privilege is worth protecting.

[jeff47]

7. The H1B visa ties them to one job.

An immigrant who's got a green card or other visa can change employers.

If a company fires an H1B worker, the worker has to leave the country. It gives the company an extraordinary amount of power over the H1B worker.

To make it worse, the time limit on H1B visas means there isn't much of a market for a company to take over an existing H1B visa. They'd rather import a new employee. This again increases the company's power over the H1B worker.

Couple that with the massive abuse of the H1B process, such as playing games with the "can't find anyone" claim, and you get a terrible program.

ETA: That "playing games" part most commonly comes in three flavors:
1-Not doing a real search for employees.

I've got a profile on Monster, Dice, etc. It says I was looking for work in a few cities, but am no longer looking for work. I get about 1 email a week from recruiters at companies that just happen to also offer H1B services. They ask if I'm interested in a job in a city thousands of miles away from all the cities on my profile. When I say "no", they use that to back up their claim that they could not find a qualified American for the job.

(If an American does happen to say "sure, I'm interested in moving to that city with no assistance from the employer", they will always be deemed "unqualified" after the job interview)

2-Massive overstatement of requirements with an absurd salary.

The company will claim that their "Software Engineer II" needs PhD-level experience. A "Software Engineer II" typically has a bachelor's and 2-5 years experience. So SE2 pays about $50k less than an actual PhD-level job. So no PhDs apply, and the company claims they could not find any Americans. Instead, they found an H1B worker who's recruiter is lying about their experience.

(If an American does apply despite the absurdly low salary, they will always be deemed "unqualified" after the job interview)

3-Massive job drift

The company will add "and other duties as assigned" to the end of the job description. They'll hire an H1B worker as a lower-level employee, and pay them like a lower-level employee. But the company let the recruiter know they actually want a higher-level employee. So the recruiter finds a higher-level employee who will work for the lower-level price. And the company acts surprised at just how good that low-level employee is as they assign higher-level jobs to the employee.

[cascadiance]

8. I personally have seen a group of families moving in to a 900 SQ ft appt across from me...

... when I was getting ready to move out of a place where the rent was going to almost double shortly at the end of the dotcom bomb situation in the bay area. One day they were there. A few weeks later they were out on the streets looking elsewhere, when their H-1B handler wanted a place to stay and kicked them all out to take it for himself. There is a variety of abuse that happens when these foreign workers are employed under such a program.

These "body shops" are supposed to hire people at the prevailing wage, but that is just nonsense that they use to screen their ways of working around the system, that has been in place for decades now. These body shops only hire H-1B workers, so that they have no domestic workers to compare salaries to, and therefore hire them at much lower wages the way they want to. They don't contract "workers" to companies, but "service" to companies to help avoid the worker salary comparisons that might happen on site. I've seen even some managers laughing at the rates they were getting employees for when they hired them earlier.

Also consider:
- these workers can't vote like American workers can vote, which could distort other workers rights negatively if local politics is skewed by having less workers able to vote in a given location than it would if they were all domestic workers.
- these workers can't join unions. The high tech sector never had a chance to get unionized before the H-1B legions of workers moved in back in the day when high tech companies started to lay workers off (that didn't happen much for many of the years initially when the high tech sector started up in the 80's and 90's).
- these workers, since they are working temporarily here and often have their families living at home in places like India where cost of living is around a 10th of what it is here, send most of their earnings back home, rather than reinvesting it in our economy, the way that domestic workers would here, keeping our economy from recovering that much more too.
- these workers, when they leave, go back to places like India and build up the brain trust there for high tech expertise, that has had Bangalore, India replace Silicon Valley as the center of high tech development around the world now.
- this emphasis on the H-1B program being used by employers has also likely had a negative effect on slowing down those that apply for citizenship here that really want to become American citizens with their families here, and do what the real traditional American dream has provided for since the founding of our country. Instead many of them have had to wait around 10 years or so for their paperwork to be processed, etc.
- smart kids today, who might be the kind of workers that the high tech industry would value, see what is happening and how their job opportunities are being devalued, and often times limited, will instead look to other careers like medical or legal careers that are harder to outsource when they go to college, limiting our talent pool more artificially when we have had this program in place.

I love working in more diverse communities, which is why I moved to the west coast from the midwest. I have many immigrants who are my best friends. But I DON'T like exploitive programs like the H-1B that are being used to exploit these foreign workers, and at the same time screw many American workers along with those that want to become real American immigrants. So should all other Democrats.

I've been personally affected by this over the last decade or so, more recently having a lot harder time to find jobs other than contract work. Fortunately I just got a decent job to get back to work shortly. I and many like me probably wouldn't have had to go through this if we didn't have this program in place.

I don't like necessarily working with the tea party in congress on many of their agendas, but perhaps if there is some compromise to be had with them over the more corporatist elements of their party, some of them appealing more to their radical right wing constituents rather than the corporate interests that have bought and paid for this H-1B crap, might join forces with more progressive elements of the Democratic Party as we move away from the corporate influence of our own party hopefully and leave out the H-1B program from any future immigration bill that might go through congress. If no bill moves through, then perhaps Obama can at least help in an administrative capacity by helping trim down the time it takes to process real citizenship papers for those wanting to immigrate and not work as H-1B workers. If we could work together to push aside the corporatists that want H-1B expansion passed, that would be a win in my book.

[UglyGreed]

5. All Americans

are lazy or stupid and can not fill the needs of corporations, sub contractors and just plain old greedy people who do not want to share the wealth. I don't have a sarcasm tag or I would use it.