movielover said:

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Why should we currently increase legal immigration when:

- we allow 1 Million+ legal immigrants
- we allow 85K H1B Visas and Masters exceptions per year
- we allowed 2 Million plus illegal immigrants in Biden years 1 & 2
- we are currently allowing 250,000 illegal immigrants per month (3 Million a year)
- the 2018 Yale & MIT study estimated "16.5 million, or as high as 29.1 million" illegal immigrants

Adding the new illegal immigrant entries, gives us this range: 23.5 Million to 36.1 Million current illegal immigrants.

https://thehill.com/latino/407848-yale-mit-study-22-million-not-11-million-undocumented-immigrants-in-us/

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Thank you for showing up and proving my point about conservatives who oppose all immigration.

We are really having a discussion about how immigration can support our economy through our labor force. Your numbers, whether or not accurate (and obviously you don't know this but you can't just add new entries to the existing numbers - people leave and re-enter, etc.) don't really speak to the availability of labor that we need.

We have chosen as a nation to make immigration difficult. That brings with is a number of tradeoffs. Every company I've worked for has failed to hit hiring plans pretty much every year. I work in tech, so some of that is industry specific, but worker shortages are a nation-wide and economy-wide issue. When we make it too difficult to hire domestically, we essentially force companies to offshore.

I work for a young, small but growing company and get dozens of cold outreach per week from people professing to help us hire. About two thirds of them are from domestic staffing agencies and recruiters and the rest are from offshoring businesses trying to convince us to build international teams. I think the fact that it can be easier for startups to build remote teams internationally than it is to hire domestically (including legal immigrants) is a problem for our economy. I've spent years dealing with the administrative headaches of H1-Bs and it really is mind-numbing, counter-productive and government at its worst. For anyone who hasn't dealt with the process, you would be aghast at how bad it is. With certain exceptions (basically the IT consulting firms), the vast majority of H1-B employers are doing things the right way and resorting to H1-Bs because the domestic talent pool is woefully inadequate. Hardliner anti-immigration conservatives like you are bad for business.

movielover said:

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Why should we currently increase legal immigration when:

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Asked and answered.

I worked at a small start up which grew - our developers were 100% H1B. We never hired a single American developer. The President worked our H1B visa staff 7 days a week until years later the top developer - coveted by Oracle - protested.

A friend was an H1B / prestigious Management Consultant and discovered that H1Bs were significantly underpaid compared to their American counterparts; they also purposefully delayed H1B paperwork.

H1Bs are younger, get paid less, lower HC costs, and can't move firms until they get their Green Card = ergo Indentured Servants. (Unless the rules have
changed.) H1Bs aren't more talented than
Americans.

I knew a Director of Development who only interviewed H1Bs. It turns out HR filtered out the domestic applicants.

movielover said:

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I worked at a small start up which grew - our developers were 100% H1B. We never hired a single American developer. The President worked our H1B visa staff 7 days a week until years later the top developer - coveted by Oracle - protested.

A friend was an H1B / prestigious Management Consultant and discovered that H1Bs were significantly underpaid compared to their American counterparts; they also purposefully delayed H1B paperwork.

H1Bs are younger, get paid less, lower HC costs, and can't move firms until they get their Green Card = ergo Indentured Servants. (Unless the rules have
changed.) H1Bs aren't more talented than Americans.

---

There are talented H1B workers and US workers. We simply don't have enough US workers to fill the available jobs - which is what is constraining growth. Elon Musk was an H1-B at one point - allowing the best and brightest from all over the world to come here and work makes our country and our economy better.

As for your old company - sorry, sounds like you worked at a bad company with poor business ethics. I wouldn't assume that the same applies everywhere but it could explain your view. We are doing everything we can to hire domestic workers but the supply is constrained.

As for your contention that H1Bs can't move until they have their green card - that is demonstrably false. They absolutely can and do change jobs - every single H1-B my employers have ever employed have joined with that status already.

And as for your contention that they are paid less, there is a market for tech workers and no competent H1-B software developer would agree to work somewhere for less than the market wage when they can go somewhere else for a market wage. Again, there is a big distinction with IT consulting, but for run of the mill software developer jobs - H1Bs are comped the same as US workers but bring with them a number of immigration challenges which cost real money (I mentally budget $10k+ per year) until such time as they get their green card, which right now is a 10+ year-long process even if you have your PERM.

Unit2Sucks said:

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movielover said:

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I worked at a small start up which grew - our developers were 100% H1B. We never hired a single American developer. The President worked our H1B visa staff 7 days a week until years later the top developer - coveted by Oracle - protested.

A friend was an H1B / prestigious Management Consultant and discovered that H1Bs were significantly underpaid compared to their American counterparts; they also purposefully delayed H1B paperwork.

H1Bs are younger, get paid less, lower HC costs, and can't move firms until they get their Green Card = ergo Indentured Servants. (Unless the rules have
changed.) H1Bs aren't more talented than Americans.

---

There are talented H1B workers and US workers. We simply don't have enough US workers to fill the available jobs - which is what is constraining growth.

---

Yes, we don't have enough US workers because the hiring class makes US workers hiring impossible in order to abuse the H1B system. Go look at some of the job requirements that get listed. Nobody would be able to fill that amount of requirements, nevermind somebody out of college. This is why your starbucks barrista can code using multiple languages. As long as these companies can claim "labor shortage" our government will keep letting them abuse the H1B slave system and screwing over american kids. This leads to skills degradation. A college kid can only retain their skills for a couple years before they lose the knowledge needed to work in their desired field.

MinotStateBeav said:

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Unit2Sucks said:

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movielover said:

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I worked at a small start up which grew - our developers were 100% H1B. We never hired a single American developer. The President worked our H1B visa staff 7 days a week until years later the top developer - coveted by Oracle - protested.

A friend was an H1B / prestigious Management Consultant and discovered that H1Bs were significantly underpaid compared to their American counterparts; they also purposefully delayed H1B paperwork.

H1Bs are younger, get paid less, lower HC costs, and can't move firms until they get their Green Card = ergo Indentured Servants. (Unless the rules have
changed.) H1Bs aren't more talented than Americans.

---

There are talented H1B workers and US workers. We simply don't have enough US workers to fill the available jobs - which is what is constraining growth.

---

Yes, we don't have enough US workers because the hiring class makes US workers hiring impossible in order to abuse the H1B system. Go look at some of the job requirements that get listed. Nobody would be able to fill that amount of requirements, nevermind somebody out of college. This is why your starbucks barrista can code using multiple languages. As long as these companies can claim "labor shortage" our government will keep letting them abuse the H1B slave system and screwing over american kids. This leads to skills degradation. A college kid can only retain their skills for a couple years before they lose the knowledge needed to work in their desired field.

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This is just counter-factual. It's much harder to actually employ H1-Bs and go through the time-consuming and expensive process - and that's assuming that they show up with their H1-B already in hand and you don't have to go through the lottery process. Hiring domestic workers is easy when you can find qualified ones (assuming you can get them to accept).

The other wrinkle is that you know when you hire a domestic worker you won't lose her to the vagaries of our broken immigration system, whereas with H1-Bs, you lose them after 6.5 years unless you can obtain a PERM which puts them on a long (and costly for the employer) path for obtaining a green card. Unless H1-Bs are significantly cheaper than domestic workers (which is not the experience in software development), no one in their right mind would choose an H1-B over a domestic worker of equal skill and experience.

There is a publicly available H1-B salary database which shows that they are pretty well paid in typical software companies. These numbers are a bit misleading because they don't include equity - another issue with H1-B system is that it only reflects cash compensation. Here's a link to Google's cash comp for H1-Bs in SF.

Unit2Sucks said:

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movielover said:

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I worked at a small start up which grew - our developers were 100% H1B. We never hired a single American developer. The President worked our H1B visa staff 7 days a week until years later the top developer - coveted by Oracle - protested.

A friend was an H1B / prestigious Management Consultant and discovered that H1Bs were significantly underpaid compared to their American counterparts; they also purposefully delayed H1B paperwork.

H1Bs are younger, get paid less, lower HC costs, and can't move firms until they get their Green Card = ergo Indentured Servants. (Unless the rules have
changed.) H1Bs aren't more talented than Americans.

---

There are talented H1B workers and US workers. We simply don't have enough US workers to fill the available jobs - which is what is constraining growth. Elon Musk was an H1-B at one point - allowing the best and brightest from all over the world to come here and work makes our country and our economy better.

As for your old company - sorry, sounds like you worked at a bad company with poor business ethics. I wouldn't assume that the same applies everywhere but it could explain your view. We are doing everything we can to hire domestic workers but the supply is constrained.

As for your contention that H1Bs can't move until they have their green card - that is demonstrably false. They absolutely can and do change jobs - every single H1-B my employers have ever employed have joined with that status already.

And as for your contention that they are paid less, there is a market for tech workers and no competent H1-B software developer would agree to work somewhere for less than the market wage when they can go somewhere else for a market wage. Again, there is a big distinction with IT consulting, but for run of the mill software developer jobs - H1Bs are comped the same as US workers but bring with them a number of immigration challenges which cost real money (I mentally budget $10k+ per year) until such time as they get their green card, which right now is a 10+ year-long process even if you have your PERM.

---

Are there any good American workers in this group?

https://www.cbsnews.com/news/tech-layoffs-sector-google-recession-2022-01-20/

Also, is your business desirable enough to get good workers?

oski003 said:

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Unit2Sucks said:

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movielover said:

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I worked at a small start up which grew - our developers were 100% H1B. We never hired a single American developer. The President worked our H1B visa staff 7 days a week until years later the top developer - coveted by Oracle - protested.

A friend was an H1B / prestigious Management Consultant and discovered that H1Bs were significantly underpaid compared to their American counterparts; they also purposefully delayed H1B paperwork.

H1Bs are younger, get paid less, lower HC costs, and can't move firms until they get their Green Card = ergo Indentured Servants. (Unless the rules have
changed.) H1Bs aren't more talented than Americans.

---

There are talented H1B workers and US workers. We simply don't have enough US workers to fill the available jobs - which is what is constraining growth. Elon Musk was an H1-B at one point - allowing the best and brightest from all over the world to come here and work makes our country and our economy better.

As for your old company - sorry, sounds like you worked at a bad company with poor business ethics. I wouldn't assume that the same applies everywhere but it could explain your view. We are doing everything we can to hire domestic workers but the supply is constrained.

As for your contention that H1Bs can't move until they have their green card - that is demonstrably false. They absolutely can and do change jobs - every single H1-B my employers have ever employed have joined with that status already.

And as for your contention that they are paid less, there is a market for tech workers and no competent H1-B software developer would agree to work somewhere for less than the market wage when they can go somewhere else for a market wage. Again, there is a big distinction with IT consulting, but for run of the mill software developer jobs - H1Bs are comped the same as US workers but bring with them a number of immigration challenges which cost real money (I mentally budget $10k+ per year) until such time as they get their green card, which right now is a 10+ year-long process even if you have your PERM.

---

Are there any good American workers in this group?

https://www.cbsnews.com/news/tech-layoffs-sector-google-recession-2022-01-20/

Also, is your business desirable enough to get good workers?

---

I don't suppose you happen to know what percentage of the Google layoffs were domestic vs international? I've been unable to find this breakdown for any of the big tech layoffs but think it would prove interesting. There certainly were talented US tech workers in the layoffs by every one of these large companies but that doesn't change the narrative one iota. Sundar Puchai was on an H1-B before he became a citizen and Google was co-founded by an immigrant. Satya Nadella was also an H1-B worker. Many prominent tech leaders are immigrants (and many of those started on H1-bs) because talent comes from all over the world.

EDIT: For what it's worth, I just heard a story from a friend about their close friend at Google who is on an H1-B and was close to obtaining Google sponsored permanent residency. They said that Google had changed their posture on sponsoring PERMs and now he is at risk of not being able to remain in this country.

MinotStateBeav said:

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Unit2Sucks said:

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movielover said:

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I worked at a small start up which grew - our developers were 100% H1B. We never hired a single American developer. The President worked our H1B visa staff 7 days a week until years later the top developer - coveted by Oracle - protested.

A friend was an H1B / prestigious Management Consultant and discovered that H1Bs were significantly underpaid compared to their American counterparts; they also purposefully delayed H1B paperwork.

H1Bs are younger, get paid less, lower HC costs, and can't move firms until they get their Green Card = ergo Indentured Servants. (Unless the rules have
changed.) H1Bs aren't more talented than Americans.

---

There are talented H1B workers and US workers. We simply don't have enough US workers to fill the available jobs - which is what is constraining growth.

---

Yes, we don't have enough US workers because the hiring class makes US workers hiring impossible in order to abuse the H1B system. Go look at some of the job requirements that get listed. Nobody would be able to fill that amount of requirements, nevermind somebody out of college. This is why your starbucks barrista can code using multiple languages. As long as these companies can claim "labor shortage" our government will keep letting them abuse the H1B slave system and screwing over american kids. This leads to skills degradation. A college kid can only retain their skills for a couple years before they lose the knowledge needed to work in their desired field.

---

Exactly. My former employer required outrageous qualifications, including a minimum of a Masters degree in CS, when all they would be doing is basic coding. We had a PhD from an Ivy League school coding. (A friend started coding in the 80s after going to a technical school for 6 months? He's now been a developer for decades.)

In a several year period, to my knowledge they only interviewed one American techie, revoked the job offer, and a new H1B applicant stepped in the door the next Monday.

An expert I read stated another way they get around hiring Americans is by requiring experience in, say, coding in Python. The expert's opinion was that any experienced sw developer who knows 5-6-7 languages can pick up a new language pretty quickly, and brings along decades of valuable experience. His conclusion is that such requirements are defacto age discrimination.

Unit2Sucks said:

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movielover said:

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Why should we currently increase legal immigration when:

- we allow 1 Million+ legal immigrants
- we allow 85K H1B Visas and Masters exceptions per year
- we allowed 2 Million plus illegal immigrants in Biden years 1 & 2
- we are currently allowing 250,000 illegal immigrants per month (3 Million a year)
- the 2018 Yale & MIT study estimated "16.5 million, or as high as 29.1 million" illegal immigrants

Adding the new illegal immigrant entries, gives us this range: 23.5 Million to 36.1 Million current illegal immigrants.

https://thehill.com/latino/407848-yale-mit-study-22-million-not-11-million-undocumented-immigrants-in-us/

---

We have chosen as a nation to make immigration difficult. That brings with is a number of tradeoffs. Every company I've worked for has failed to hit hiring plans pretty much every year. I work in tech, so some of that is industry specific, but worker shortages are a nation-wide and economy-wide issue. When we make it too difficult to hire domestically, we essentially force companies to offshore.

---

We have chosen, as a nation, to: (i) make legal immigration difficult but illegal immigration too easy (thereby losing control over who enters); and (ii) prioritize immigration for family reunification, etc., rather than giving priority to those immigrants who bring the most skills and value to our economy.

Canada and many (most?) other countries have a merit based system, From the link below:

"The system considers skills, work experience, language ability, education and other factors (e.g., strong French language skills, having a sibling in Canada, or a valid job offer in Canada, etc.) that contribute to economic success for immigrants once in Canada."

https://www.canada.ca/en/immigration-refugees-citizenship/corporate/publications-manuals/express-entry-system-immigrants.html

Many on the left can't bring themselves to admit that current US immigration policy is largely divorced from any economic cost/benefit analysis.

Edit: the Biden Administration has chosen an open southern border, along with outright encouragement (see Gavin Newsom). It appears NGOs are involved, as well. Hence 250,000 illegal immigrants a year.

President Trump's policies were the opposite of this - building a Wall, and when Cingress fought him, using trade policy and others means to get Central and South America to help stem the massive flows. It worked; and American wages rose for blue collar workers.

The majority of Americans want a secure border and more American manufacturing; but the elites and Wall Street want more cheap, compliant, $15-an-hour labor for their "service economy" plan.

BearGoggles said:

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Unit2Sucks said:

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movielover said:

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Why should we currently increase legal immigration when:

- we allow 1 Million+ legal immigrants
- we allow 85K H1B Visas and Masters exceptions per year
- we allowed 2 Million plus illegal immigrants in Biden years 1 & 2
- we are currently allowing 250,000 illegal immigrants per month (3 Million a year)
- the 2018 Yale & MIT study estimated "16.5 million, or as high as 29.1 million" illegal immigrants

Adding the new illegal immigrant entries, gives us this range: 23.5 Million to 36.1 Million current illegal immigrants.

https://thehill.com/latino/407848-yale-mit-study-22-million-not-11-million-undocumented-immigrants-in-us/

---

We have chosen as a nation to make immigration difficult. That brings with is a number of tradeoffs. Every company I've worked for has failed to hit hiring plans pretty much every year. I work in tech, so some of that is industry specific, but worker shortages are a nation-wide and economy-wide issue. When we make it too difficult to hire domestically, we essentially force companies to offshore.

---

We have chosen, as a nation, to: (i) make legal immigration difficult but illegal immigration too easy (thereby losing control over who enters); and (ii) prioritize immigration for family reunification, etc., rather than giving priority to those immigrants who bring the most skills and value to our economy.

Canada and many (most?) other countries have a merit based system, From the link below:

"The system considers skills, work experience, language ability, education and other factors (e.g., strong French language skills, having a sibling in Canada, or a valid job offer in Canada, etc.) that contribute to economic success for immigrants once in Canada."

https://www.canada.ca/en/immigration-refugees-citizenship/corporate/publications-manuals/express-entry-system-immigrants.html

Many on the left can't bring themselves to admit that current US immigration policy is largely divorced from any economic cost/benefit analysis.

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Sure definitely agree that the left isn't focused enough on bringing in more high skill workers but to be clear conservatives generally oppose any increase in any type of immigration. The left has been trapped discussing undocumented immigrants and has allowed that to be the only discussion.

This is the motte and bailey. You talk about preferring one group to the other, but really the GOP opposes all forms of immigration whatever the details are.

Perhaps you disagree with the conservative movement and the GOP and believe we should increase legal immigration but that would make you an outlier. I would love to see movement here but 100% of the legislative discussion is about undocumented immigration and border security. I don't see any chance we make any changes to address the continuing skilled labor shortage in our country through a more sane immigration regime.

I would love to hear your view though. Are you in favor of increasing legal immigration to bring in more skilled workers? How easy do you think it should be for healthcare workers, tech workers etc to legally immigrate to the US and earn their way to permanent residence and even citizenship?

No trap. Biden / Obama / Wall Street policies allowed illegal immigration to explode to record levels.

I believe President Trump preferred skills-based immigration.

Without opening the floodgates to more H1B Visas, maybe the racists in Silicon Valley would employ more American POC in technology. Open some tech boot camps for coding in West coast cities, going 10 hours a day.

movielover said:

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No trap. Biden / Obama / Wall Street policies allowed illegal immigration to explode to record levels.

I believe President Trump preferred skills-based immigration.

Without opening the floodgates to more H1B Visas, maybe the racists in Silicon Valley would employ more American POC in technology. Open some tech boot camps for coding in West coast cities, going 10 hours a day.

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You can believe what you want about Trump but in practice he reduced legal immigration significantly, while still relying on unskilled seasonal immigrant labor for his businesses who he underpaid and treated poorly. Trump has held just about every position on every side of every issue at one point or another so saying he "preferred skills-based immigration" isn't particularly meaningful. He was POTUS and didn't take any steps to increased legal immigration for high-skilled immigrants, which only exacerbated the labor shortage which contributed to hampering our economic growth for the last few years.

I would love to see more under-represented minorities in technology. The development of remote work has made it easier to hire talented people wherever they may live, so they don't have to come to silicon valley any more. More boot camps are a great idea and I would love to see them all over the country although if we're being honest there are many states, like Florida, where any attempt to help people of color would be banned by the hardliner governor and demagogued as indoctrination, etc.

Mother Jones: "None other than India's former commerce secretary once dubbed the H-1B the "outsourcing visa." "

Dr. Norman Matloff, a computer science professor at the University of California-Davis, is an expert on the H1B visa program.

"A 2007 study by the Urban Institute concluded that America was producing plenty of students with majors in science, technology, engineering, and math (the "STEM" professions)many more than necessary to fill entry-level jobs. Yet Matloff sees this changing as H-1B workers cause Americans to major in more-lucrative fields such as law and business. "In terms of the number of people with graduate degrees in STEM," he says, "H-1B is the problem, not the solution." ..."

"As it stands, though, there are plenty of stories like the one Jennifer Wedel told to President Barack Obama last year (see video below). "My husband has an engineering degree with over ten years of experience," the Fort Worth resident told the president during a web chat hosted by the social network Google+. "Why does the government continue to issue and extend H-1B visas when there are tons of Americans just like my husband with no job?"

""We should get his rsum and I will forward it to some of these companies, " Obama replied.

"But more than two months later, Wedel's husband was still looking for a job."

*******

Machine Design: H-1B visas make STEM careers unattractive to American students
June 10, 2013
Lee Teschler

"The idea that H-1B visas tend to reduce the attractiveness of science and technology jobs for U.S. residents got more visibility recently thanks to Norm Matloff, a computer science professor at U.C. Davis. Matloff penned a piece for the financial journal Barron's in which he explained the case for reforming U.S. policies on work visas.

"Contrary to the claims of tech-industry lobbyists, the U.S. isn't generally getting 'the best and the brightest' immigrant engineers and scientists," writes Matloff. The reason, he says, is that 20 years ago, the Immigration Act of 1990 replaced the old work visa, called Aliens of Distinguished Merit and Ability, with the version we have today, called Specialty Occupations and Fashion Models. Effectively, the change flooded the U.S. with foreign tech workers of lower quality than before. Moreover, it also resulted in foreign students of lower quality entering into U.S. doctorial programs, he says.

"The impact of the foreign-student and H-1B programs has been to displace American students from STEM fields. Since the average quality of the foreign students is lower than that of the Americans, the result is a net loss of quality in our STEM workforce," Matloff writes....

https://www.machinedesign.com/community/editorial-comment/article/21830515/h1b-visas-make-stem-careers-unattractive-to-american-students

Thanks for reminding us that you are an aggie. That UC Davis professor is just one opinion and it looks like he's been beating the same drum about H1-Bs since the 90's. The market for software developers has been incredibly strong for years now and I'm not aware of any real software developer who pays H1-Bs less than US workers. The market is such that doing so would result in only obtaining substandard developers. You can look at the official posted data to see that H1-Bs aren't a low cost option (I posted Google's SF salaries for software H1-Bs above - it's all public info).

I can post numerous articles about how we are at full employment rate in the software developer industry and that the labor market has been incredibly tight for years. I've also conceded that the consulting shops abuse the H1-B system (which the government should resolve) but I don't think there is any credible argument any more that H1-Bs are preventing Americans from getting jobs.

On the plus side, they did catch the four migrants who stole $12,000 in merchandise from Macy's despite living rent free at a 4 star hotel in Manhattan.

https://nypost.com/2023/01/23/four-migrants-arrested-for-shoplifting-12k-from-ny-macys/?sp_amp_linker=1*gpn74r*amp_id*cXdFNDhTY3BhTmt4SWtVbzhDbjBCZ2xEdkhuLXkxTE9MWi11Zk14MjRidDM3MkVwRXF5eldQQWFGSmY5Ui1nXw..

Unit2Sucks said:

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Thanks for reminding us that you are an aggie. That UC Davis professor is just one opinion and it looks like he's been beating the same drum about H1-Bs since the 90's. The market for software developers has been incredibly strong for years now and I'm not aware of any real software developer who pays H1-Bs less than US workers. The market is such that doing so would result in only obtaining substandard developers. You can look at the official posted data to see that H1-Bs aren't a low cost option (I posted Google's SF salaries for software H1-Bs above - it's all public info).

I can post numerous articles about how we are at full employment rate in the software developer industry and that the labor market has been incredibly tight for years. I've also conceded that the consulting shops abuse the H1-B system (which the government should resolve) but I don't think there is any credible argument any more that H1-Bs are preventing Americans from getting jobs.

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Dr. Norman Matloff: "The underpayment of H-1Bs is well-established fact, not rumor, anecdote or ideology. It has been confirmed by two congressionally-commissioned reports, and a number of academic studies, in both statistical and qualitative analyses."

There are many loopholes. Further, key for well-paying companies like Google is immobility.

Overall, Dr. Matloff asserts H1Bs are underpaid by 50% and their use is defacto age discrimination against American workers (over 35 years old).

Dr. Matloff: "For many tech employers, having immobile workers is even more important than having cheap labor. If an engineer leaves an employer in the midst of an urgent project, this can be a major problem for the employer. The H-1B and green card programs give the employer heavy leverage to force workers to stay."

https://heather.cs.ucdavis.edu/itaa.html

movielover said:

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Unit2Sucks said:

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Thanks for reminding us that you are an aggie. That UC Davis professor is just one opinion and it looks like he's been beating the same drum about H1-Bs since the 90's. The market for software developers has been incredibly strong for years now and I'm not aware of any real software developer who pays H1-Bs less than US workers. The market is such that doing so would result in only obtaining substandard developers. You can look at the official posted data to see that H1-Bs aren't a low cost option (I posted Google's SF salaries for software H1-Bs above - it's all public info).

I can post numerous articles about how we are at full employment rate in the software developer industry and that the labor market has been incredibly tight for years. I've also conceded that the consulting shops abuse the H1-B system (which the government should resolve) but I don't think there is any credible argument any more that H1-Bs are preventing Americans from getting jobs.

---

Dr. Norman Matloff: "The underpayment of H-1Bs is well-established fact, not rumor, anecdote or ideology. It has been confirmed by two congressionally-commissioned reports, and a number of academic studies, in both statistical and qualitative analyses."

There are many loopholes. Further, key for well-paying companies like Google is immobility.

Dr. Matloff: "For many tech employers, having immobile workers is even more important than having cheap labor. If an engineer leaves an employer in the midst of an urgent project, this can be a major problem for the employer. The H-1B and green card programs give the employer heavy leverage to force workers to stay."

https://heather.cs.ucdavis.edu/itaa.html

---

LOL, you do love referring to honorifics in your appeal to authority. Dr. Matloff has his position but it's just one position. In a tight labor market, having an H1-B does not prevent mobility. H1-Bs from Google (like all Google engineers) have been in high demand for years and have easily been able to leave Google for other positions.

Further, please point me to the cheap H1-B labor that Google is relying on. I'm not seeing it. They have 131 H1-b software engineers in SF, the lowest salary is $140k and the highest is $306k. This is just base salary and doesn't include RSUs, bonuses, etc. Seems pretty fair to me.

When the good Dr. Matloff starting his war against H1-Bs the numbers were much different. The cap was 195,000 per year and it was first come first served. Now it's just 65,000 (plus 20k for those with advanced degrees) and it's a lottery. It's much harder to build a team by exclusively leveraging H1-Bs, and it's much harder to underpay competent engineers given how competitive the market is. It sounds like you have a dated perspective and not a ton of personal experience on the current market. I suspect you will just keep re-posting the good doctors work because that appears to be all you have at this point.

It's legally complex. H1Bs can transfer, a transfer can be denied, they can be "benched" (illegally), etc.

The foreign IT management consultant I worked with was laid off, and hired by a new top-tier company. That company repeatedly delayed filing paperwork. He was so frustrated he resigned and went back to Europe.

China's importing of oil up 20%.

The U.S. Strategic Petroleum Reserve (SPR) has dropped 40% since President Joe Biden began using it to offset massive global prices increases in oil. However, the Biden Administration is doing nothing to increase domestic production. One analyst predicts gas prices to rise 30% this summer.

movielover said:

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China's importing of oil up 20%.

The U.S. Strategic Petroleum Reserve (SPR) has dropped 40% since President Joe Biden began using it to offset massive global prices increases in oil. However, the Biden Administration is doing nothing to increase domestic production. One analyst predicts gas prices to rise 30% this summer.

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How is Biden supposed to increase domestic oil production? We already have proven oil fields that are sitting idle. Maybe he could let oil companies raise gas prices to $6 or $7 per gallon, but I'm fairly sure you'd be squealing about that.

movielover said:

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China's importing of oil up 20%.

The U.S. Strategic Petroleum Reserve (SPR) has dropped 40% since President Joe Biden began using it to offset massive global prices increases in oil. However, the Biden Administration is doing nothing to increase domestic production. One analyst predicts gas prices to rise 30% this summer.

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Honorable President Joe Biden, husband of first lady Dr. Jill Biden, shrewdly used our strategic oil reserve to score billions for the United States Treasury by selling when prices were high (~$100 per barrel) and beginning to refill at lower prices.

Honorable President Joe Biden's chief of staff, Ron Klain, JD, summa cum laude from Harvard mentioned this way back in October, but I suppose you've been too busy to notice.

By selling oil from the SPR at $96/barrel, we helped reduce the price of gas when it was at its highest.

Now, by refilling the SPR at today's much lower prices, we turn a profit for the taxpayers. pic.twitter.com/gXC9i1wEA5

— Ronald Klain (@WHCOS) December 16, 2022

The Wall Street Journal, famed conservative newspaper relied on by financial elites in this country, including many with advanced degrees, lauded Biden for his maneuver.

Quote:

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Emergency releases from the U.S. Strategic Petroleum Reserve are slated to end this month, concluding an unusual attempt to lower gas prices after Russia's invasion of Ukraine sent oil prices soaring.

Over the release period, Washington sold 180 million barrels of crude at an average of $96.25 apiece, well above the recent market price of $74.29meaning the U.S., for now, is almost $4 billion ahead.

The price of West Texas Intermediate to be delivered next month is down 40% from its wartime peak, reflecting concerns that China's pandemic reopening isn't juicing global demand.

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Not brilliant, common sense. President Trump signed an order to fill our Reserves during the Lockdown, but Deep State Democrats blocked it.

movielover said:

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Not brilliant, common sense. President Trump signed an order to fill our Reserves during the Lockdown, but Deep State Democrats blocked it.

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Too bad little donnie was too weak, unlike Honorable President Biden who is actually getting things done.

Unit2Sucks said:

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movielover said:

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Not brilliant, common sense. President Trump signed an order to fill our Reserves during the Lockdown, but Deep State Democrats blocked it.

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Too bad little donnie was too weak, unlike Honorable President Biden who is actually getting things done.

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Getting things done - major:

1. Disastrous pullout from Afghanistan
2. Armed terrorists for decades with $50 Billion+ in military gear, ammo, vehicles
3. Transfered our military technical advantages to Iran and China (night vision goggles, etc.)
4. Historic inflation
5. Historic food inflation - 250 Million worldwide now food insecure
6. Historic energy inflation
7. Stock market down 20%, worst since 2008
8. American household wealth drops 13.5 Trillion
9. Pushing 7 Million new illegal immigrants in 3 years at his current run rate (250K a month)
10. Fentanyl smuggling, addiction, and deaths explode
11. Trans Radicalism for children; includes supporting child castration and sterilization
12. Drawing down Emergency oil reserve
13. Forced use of untested, unproven Covid jab
14. Failed proxy war w Russia
15. Drove China and Russia together
16. Has added over $4 Trillion in national debt
17. Unprotected southern border, cartels running wild
18. Historic drop in school test scores (unneeded lockdowns)
19. Infrastructure Bill that isn't

There's a quickie. Leading to an approval rating between 36% and 40%. (Depends upon poll.)

Biden's approval rating remains higher than Trump's ever was (and ever will be). Maybe there just aren't enough dumb people to fall for your agitprop?

Thanks for posting your fever dream list though, we all really do respect and value your very well-founded opinions.

One question - given that you aren't a Cal grad, student or fan and have no apparent connection to the crown jewel of the UC system, why do you find it a good use of your time to post here? Are the aggie fans not eager to hear your hilarious takes on current events?

Unit2Sucks said:

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movielover said:

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Unit2Sucks said:

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Thanks for reminding us that you are an aggie. That UC Davis professor is just one opinion and it looks like he's been beating the same drum about H1-Bs since the 90's. The market for software developers has been incredibly strong for years now and I'm not aware of any real software developer who pays H1-Bs less than US workers. The market is such that doing so would result in only obtaining substandard developers. You can look at the official posted data to see that H1-Bs aren't a low cost option (I posted Google's SF salaries for software H1-Bs above - it's all public info).

I can post numerous articles about how we are at full employment rate in the software developer industry and that the labor market has been incredibly tight for years. I've also conceded that the consulting shops abuse the H1-B system (which the government should resolve) but I don't think there is any credible argument any more that H1-Bs are preventing Americans from getting jobs.

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Dr. Norman Matloff: "The underpayment of H-1Bs is well-established fact, not rumor, anecdote or ideology. It has been confirmed by two congressionally-commissioned reports, and a number of academic studies, in both statistical and qualitative analyses."

There are many loopholes. Further, key for well-paying companies like Google is immobility.

Dr. Matloff: "For many tech employers, having immobile workers is even more important than having cheap labor. If an engineer leaves an employer in the midst of an urgent project, this can be a major problem for the employer. The H-1B and green card programs give the employer heavy leverage to force workers to stay."

https://heather.cs.ucdavis.edu/itaa.html

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LOL, you do love referring to honorifics in your appeal to authority. Dr. Matloff has his position but it's just one position. In a tight labor market, having an H1-B does not prevent mobility. H1-Bs from Google (like all Google engineers) have been in high demand for years and have easily been able to leave Google for other positions.

Further, please point me to the cheap H1-B labor that Google is relying on. I'm not seeing it. They have 131 H1-b software engineers in SF, the lowest salary is $140k and the highest is $306k. This is just base salary and doesn't include RSUs, bonuses, etc. Seems pretty fair to me.

When the good Dr. Matloff starting his war against H1-Bs the numbers were much different. The cap was 195,000 per year and it was first come first served. Now it's just 65,000 (plus 20k for those with advanced degrees) and it's a lottery. It's much harder to build a team by exclusively leveraging H1-Bs, and it's much harder to underpay competent engineers given how competitive the market is. It sounds like you have a dated perspective and not a ton of personal experience on the current market. I suspect you will just keep re-posting the good doctors work because that appears to be all you have at this point.

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Tech H1B's are a good thing, and we should have a clear path to citizenship for those interested. If not interested, perhaps a limit to their residency. Besides bringing in talented folks, it also helps us discourage corporations from farming out work outside the country.

Unit2Sucks said:

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BearGoggles said:

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Unit2Sucks said:

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movielover said:

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Why should we currently increase legal immigration when:

- we allow 1 Million+ legal immigrants
- we allow 85K H1B Visas and Masters exceptions per year
- we allowed 2 Million plus illegal immigrants in Biden years 1 & 2
- we are currently allowing 250,000 illegal immigrants per month (3 Million a year)
- the 2018 Yale & MIT study estimated "16.5 million, or as high as 29.1 million" illegal immigrants

Adding the new illegal immigrant entries, gives us this range: 23.5 Million to 36.1 Million current illegal immigrants.

https://thehill.com/latino/407848-yale-mit-study-22-million-not-11-million-undocumented-immigrants-in-us/

---

We have chosen as a nation to make immigration difficult. That brings with is a number of tradeoffs. Every company I've worked for has failed to hit hiring plans pretty much every year. I work in tech, so some of that is industry specific, but worker shortages are a nation-wide and economy-wide issue. When we make it too difficult to hire domestically, we essentially force companies to offshore.

---

We have chosen, as a nation, to: (i) make legal immigration difficult but illegal immigration too easy (thereby losing control over who enters); and (ii) prioritize immigration for family reunification, etc., rather than giving priority to those immigrants who bring the most skills and value to our economy.

Canada and many (most?) other countries have a merit based system, From the link below:

"The system considers skills, work experience, language ability, education and other factors (e.g., strong French language skills, having a sibling in Canada, or a valid job offer in Canada, etc.) that contribute to economic success for immigrants once in Canada."

https://www.canada.ca/en/immigration-refugees-citizenship/corporate/publications-manuals/express-entry-system-immigrants.html

Many on the left can't bring themselves to admit that current US immigration policy is largely divorced from any economic cost/benefit analysis.

---

Sure definitely agree that the left isn't focused enough on bringing in more high skill workers but to be clear conservatives generally oppose any increase in any type of immigration. The left has been trapped discussing undocumented immigrants and has allowed that to be the only discussion.

This is the motte and bailey. You talk about preferring one group to the other, but really the GOP opposes all forms of immigration whatever the details are.

Perhaps you disagree with the conservative movement and the GOP and believe we should increase legal immigration but that would make you an outlier. I would love to see movement here but 100% of the legislative discussion is about undocumented immigration and border security. I don't see any chance we make any changes to address the continuing skilled labor shortage in our country through a more sane immigration regime.

I would love to hear your view though. Are you in favor of increasing legal immigration to bring in more skilled workers? How easy do you think it should be for healthcare workers, tech workers etc to legally immigrate to the US and earn their way to permanent residence and even citizenship?

---

The bolded statement is false.

Per Pew which I think is a pretty solid polling company: Republicans are generally pro-immigration on the polled questions (50% or more) EXCEPT for allowing people who came illegally to stay - and even for those people I think there may be GOP support for allowing dreamers (i.e., children illegally entering with their parents many years ago) to stay.

Surprisingly, even 59% of dems recognize the need to increase border security.

https://www.pewresearch.org/fact-tank/2022/09/08/republicans-and-democrats-have-different-top-priorities-for-u-s-immigration-policy/

One important note: in reviewing polling you need to closely look at the questions. Gallup poll, linked below, has a different headline. But that poll very specifically did not distinguish between illegal and legal immigration, so the results don't reveal much. I think that GOP/conservatives are in favor of many (most?) forms of LEGAL immigration and very much opposed to illegal.

https://news.gallup.com/poll/395882/immigration-views-remain-mixed-highly-partisan.aspx

The problem is that many are quite obviously opposed to increasing legal immigration when, due to Biden/dem's very cynical neglect and illegal executive policies, we are already being overwhelmed by people entering illegally. Given the waves of illegal "refugees" creating havoc in American cities, I don't think most Americans (of either party) are saying "yes more of that please."

BearGoggles said:

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Per Pew which I think is a pretty solid polling company: Republicans are generally pro-immigration on the polled questions (50% or more) EXCEPT for allowing people who came illegally to stay - and even for those people I think there may be GOP support for allowing dreamers (i.e., children illegally entering with their parents many years ago) to stay.

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GOP voters may narrowly support this in polling, but GOP lawmakers consistently vote against pro-immigration policies . . . even amnesty for Dreamers, which is a very popular position.

People also tend to have a poor understanding of what "legal" immigration actually is. For example, people applying for amnesty at the border are actually following the law. The problem is that we don't have a swift and orderly process for handling all those applications.

How can we even have a fair evaluation when the Federal government and Democrats lie about how many illegal immigrants are here?

Unit2Sucks said:

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movielover said:

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Not brilliant, common sense. President Trump signed an order to fill our Reserves during the Lockdown, but Deep State Democrats blocked it.

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Too bad little donnie was too weak, unlike Honorable President Biden who is actually getting things done.

---

Movielover lies as much as Trump does.

Trump claimed that the SPR had been "virtually empty for 50 years" and that he filled it up during his term.
That's patently FALSE. The SPR levels have never fallen below 500 million barrels since the 1980's.

In fact, the highest SPR level was in 2010 when Obama was President.
Never mind that the SPR actually DECLINED while Trump was in office, from 695mm barrels to 638mm.

Trump issued a directive to fill up the SPR during Covid, but it was never carried out.
Didnt really matter, because the SPR was already within 13% of its highest ever level when that directive was issued.

But when you have gullible Trumper's believing that the SPR was "virtually empty" its easy to belive LIES.

DiabloWags said:

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Unit2Sucks said:

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One question - given that you aren't a Cal grad, student or fan and have no apparent connection to the crown jewel of the UC system, why do you find it a good use of your time to post here? Are the aggie fans not eager to hear your hilarious takes on current events?

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I could be wrong, but he sounds like a loser that is unemployed and still lives with is parents.
He has nothing better to do than to post here 20X a day . . . spewing his Trump *****

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1. He claims to want to avoid me.
2. More attempts at adolescent insults.

BearGoggles said:

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Unit2Sucks said:

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BearGoggles said:

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Unit2Sucks said:

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movielover said:

---

Why should we currently increase legal immigration when:

- we allow 1 Million+ legal immigrants
- we allow 85K H1B Visas and Masters exceptions per year
- we allowed 2 Million plus illegal immigrants in Biden years 1 & 2
- we are currently allowing 250,000 illegal immigrants per month (3 Million a year)
- the 2018 Yale & MIT study estimated "16.5 million, or as high as 29.1 million" illegal immigrants

Adding the new illegal immigrant entries, gives us this range: 23.5 Million to 36.1 Million current illegal immigrants.

https://thehill.com/latino/407848-yale-mit-study-22-million-not-11-million-undocumented-immigrants-in-us/

---

We have chosen as a nation to make immigration difficult. That brings with is a number of tradeoffs. Every company I've worked for has failed to hit hiring plans pretty much every year. I work in tech, so some of that is industry specific, but worker shortages are a nation-wide and economy-wide issue. When we make it too difficult to hire domestically, we essentially force companies to offshore.

---

We have chosen, as a nation, to: (i) make legal immigration difficult but illegal immigration too easy (thereby losing control over who enters); and (ii) prioritize immigration for family reunification, etc., rather than giving priority to those immigrants who bring the most skills and value to our economy.

Canada and many (most?) other countries have a merit based system, From the link below:

"The system considers skills, work experience, language ability, education and other factors (e.g., strong French language skills, having a sibling in Canada, or a valid job offer in Canada, etc.) that contribute to economic success for immigrants once in Canada."

https://www.canada.ca/en/immigration-refugees-citizenship/corporate/publications-manuals/express-entry-system-immigrants.html

Many on the left can't bring themselves to admit that current US immigration policy is largely divorced from any economic cost/benefit analysis.

---

Sure definitely agree that the left isn't focused enough on bringing in more high skill workers but to be clear conservatives generally oppose any increase in any type of immigration. The left has been trapped discussing undocumented immigrants and has allowed that to be the only discussion.

This is the motte and bailey. You talk about preferring one group to the other, but really the GOP opposes all forms of immigration whatever the details are.

Perhaps you disagree with the conservative movement and the GOP and believe we should increase legal immigration but that would make you an outlier. I would love to see movement here but 100% of the legislative discussion is about undocumented immigration and border security. I don't see any chance we make any changes to address the continuing skilled labor shortage in our country through a more sane immigration regime.

I would love to hear your view though. Are you in favor of increasing legal immigration to bring in more skilled workers? How easy do you think it should be for healthcare workers, tech workers etc to legally immigrate to the US and earn their way to permanent residence and even citizenship?

---

The bolded statement is false.

Per Pew which I think is a pretty solid polling company: Republicans are generally pro-immigration on the polled questions (50% or more) EXCEPT for allowing people who came illegally to stay - and even for those people I think there may be GOP support for allowing dreamers (i.e., children illegally entering with their parents many years ago) to stay.

Surprisingly, even 59% of dems recognize the need to increase border security.

https://www.pewresearch.org/fact-tank/2022/09/08/republicans-and-democrats-have-different-top-priorities-for-u-s-immigration-policy/

One important note: in reviewing polling you need to closely look at the questions. Gallup poll, linked below, has a different headline. But that poll very specifically did not distinguish between illegal and legal immigration, so the results don't reveal much. I think that GOP/conservatives are in favor of many (most?) forms of LEGAL immigration and very much opposed to illegal.

https://news.gallup.com/poll/395882/immigration-views-remain-mixed-highly-partisan.aspx

The problem is that many are quite obviously opposed to increasing legal immigration when, due to Biden/dem's very cynical neglect and illegal executive policies, we are already being overwhelmed by people entering illegally. Given the waves of illegal "refugees" creating havoc in American cities, I don't think most Americans (of either party) are saying "yes more of that please."

---

I might need a bit more handholding here.

I reviewed both of the articles you linked and didn't see any real support for increasing legal immigration of high skilled workers. Both articles seemed entirely focused on the southern border situation. If you are saying that more than half of GOP appear to "somewhat" support a few categories (immigrant children remaining, refugees, sponsoring family members) but do you really think those results are representative of where the party is at? The GOP are the reason there is no legislation for DREAMers. The GOP in practice wants to limit refugees as much as possible. And the GOP constantly rails against "chain migration." Perhaps the distinction is that very few of the GOPers in the Gallup poll actually consider these "very" important goals. The vast majority believe they either aren't goals at all or are "somewhat" important. Perhaps when you remove the independents who are conservative leaning we are left with less than a majority but there isn't enough granularity in the polling to tell.


I think it may be possible that lots of regular GOP folks like you (eg voters) may in fact support increasing high skilled immigration in the abstract, but in practice the entire focus is on the southern border and that no congress people or party leaders have made any serious efforts to increase legal immigration. The closest I can recall is the proposed RAISE Act which would prioritize high skilled workers but actually reduce legal immigration by half. The motivation there was pretty obvious.

Unit2Sucks said:

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I think it may be possible that lots of regular GOP folks like you (eg voters) may in fact support increasing high skilled immigration in the abstract, but in practice the entire focus is on the southern border and that no congress people or party leaders have made any serious efforts to increase legal immigration. The closest I can recall is the proposed RAISE Act which would prioritize high skilled workers but actually reduce legal immigration by half. The motivation there was pretty obvious.

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Yup.
The RAISE ACT was co-sponsored by Tom Cotton and David Perdue in 2017.

The bill sought to reduce levels of LEGAL immigration to the United States by 50% by halving the number of green cards issued. The bill never made it to the senate. A similar bill supported by Trump was defeated in 2018 on a 39 - 60 vote. In 2019, Cotton and Perdue and other REPUBLICANS tried to re-introduce the legislation, but the bill did not advance.

I've never seen a GOP member of Congress support high-skilled immigration.