H-1B visas used by firm to create low-cost workforce, U.S. alleges

[primavera]

46. We should be pushing for better education

But there are lots of valid reasons for having professionals from other countries come work here and collaborate with our professionals. Maybe some coastal restoration expect from Nigeria wants to learn how we've handled oil spill clean-ups on the Gulf Coast so that s/he can apply those techniques to the smoldering wasteland that the Niger River delta has become at the hands of the oil and gas industry. Maybe some Australian scientist has made some important discoveries on marine algae that are potentially very useful for understanding red tide in this country (true example, btw, I actually worked with someone just like that once). Maybe some American company wants to be able to export their products to other parts of the world and they need native speakers of the local languages to translate their content into the local tongues (another real life example, I've known lots and lots of people who did that). Suppose a local Persian carpet retailer wants to be able to offer repair services to its customers, so it brings over an Iranian rug repair expert who can teach them how to do that (yet another real life example). The point is, there are tons and tons of valid reasons for allowing professional workers from different parts of the world to work here temporarily and share the benefit of their experience and expertise. The H-1B program offers only temporary employment authorization - not permanent - and the roughly 100,000 or so visas (it changes from year to year) authorized represent an infinitesimally tiny percentage of the 150 million or so jobs that exist in the US. In sum, the benefits are high and the costs, while not nonexistent, are relatively low.

Yet many here are on a veritable crusade against the H-1B program, convinced that it exists solely as a tool for providing low cost immigrant labor to corporations. To be sure, there are abuses of the program, as there are abuses of every program, both public and private, and yes, as long as there are abuses, we should endeavor to minimize those abuses. But so many here have already made up their minds after having read a few inflammatory anecdotal opinion pieces by disgruntled people in the software community who believe - maybe rightly, maybe wrongly - that H-1B workers stole their jobs, and are ready to chuck the baby out with the bathwater. It is disappointing to see so many here readily subscribing to such reactionary rabble rousing.