back to article US work visas for international tech talent? 'If Donald Trump is elected all bets are off'

Apart from marrying an American, the best known route for foreign techies wanting to (legally) share their expertise for a fee in the US is a work visa. But this route is overcrowded, increasingly expensive and, should Donald Trump become America’s 45th president, it'll likely slam shut for many hoping to work in Silicon …

  1. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    I don't have any issue work visas as long as the employees brought in are of exceptional quality and are paid and given the benefits that indicate that. From what I've read on many sites that is not always or even not often case. Abuse of the system by the Corporations that lobbied (read bribed politicians) for the system, hard to imagine ;)

  2. This post has been deleted by its author

  3. Shadow Systems

    Good for competition?

    Tell that to the workers forced to train their visa'd replacements. When you get fired, replaced with a visa scab the company can get away with paying a tenth of your salary, & threatened with the witholding of your severence if you refuse to train the scab, how is that good for the economy? It certainly isn't good for employment, morale, or doing anything besides lining the already fat pockets of the bastards at the top whom reap (rape?) the rewards.

    I hate Trump. I won't vote for him. But I agree the visa system needs to be stopped immediately, entirely, permanently.

    Want to do business here? Then hire someone whom LIVES here. THAT will help the economy, morale, & convince the public that you're not just a greedy fekhead whom deserves to be strung up by your nipples & used as a pinata.

    The same should go for everywhere. Want to do business in Scotland? Hire a Scot. Ireland? Hire an Irishman. England? Hire one FROM there. Don't hire some scab bastard from somewhere else, import them in at the expense of a local, just so you can pay them less, work them longer, & give them the boot (revoke their visa) the moment they realize JUST how shitty you're treating them.

    Do business in $Area, hire someone from $Area to do the work, pay them fairly, treat them as if you value them, & don't fall into the fallacy that humans are just replaceable cogs in the grist mill of your profit machine. We have this NASTY habit of throwing a monkey wrench in the gears (striking, unionizing, suing, sabotauge, etc) when you piss us off...

    (Edited because I haven't had enough caffeine yet.)

    1. Neil Alexander

      Re: Good for competition?

      But I agree the visa system needs to be stopped immediately, entirely, permanently.

      You've clearly been burned. I'm sorry for that, but that's no reason to be so insular and closed-minded. If we all looked at the world as full of opportunity instead of obstacles then we'd all be better off for it.

      I've never understood why skilled, proactive and willing people should have such a hard time getting a working visa anywhere. What a terrible thing to want to come to your country and contribute to society and pay taxes and better ourselves and the work we do.

      1. sundog

        Re: Good for competition?

        Remember that when you're forced to train some foul-smelling, arrogant, ignorant, mentally deficient fscktard to be your replacement, at 1/2 your salary, 1/4 your benefits, and none of your experience. Bonus points if they are a misogynistic prat who treats female secretaries and assistants like they're trash.

        Take comfort in the fact that you've given someone a 'chance to live the American dream' as you pack up your belongings from your foreclosed house and have to explain to your family that you were replaced by a foreigner who was happy to do the same job as you for half the pay.

        Enjoy struggling to find employment, even as an experienced worker, because companies can hire some foreign idjit who will promptly send better than half of their earnings back overseas to their family.

        No. Work visas don't need to be stopped, but they do need to be made so expensive for the companies that they aren't a viable choice vs hiring local talent. Same with outsourcing. They want to outsource the call centre to whatever-istan? Sure. 500% increase in federal taxes for every man hour they pay for out of country.

        Yes, while businesses are in business to make money (otherwise they're charities), most places tend to function on the 'GIMME GIMME GIMME' aspect of money at the expense of their employees. Whereas places that pay their employees fairly, treat them well, and give them a *reason* to work hard very quickly find out that happy, loyal employees are hard working employees. And hard working employees make you money. End of story.

        So enjoy your newfound free time, because congratulations, you're being fired and replaced by a foreigner. Oh, and I'm sorry that you can't collect unemployment benefits, because we gave all that money away to illegal immigrants. Got to think of everybody else's children first, you know.

        1. d3vy

          Re: Good for competition?

          @sundog

          Sounds like US employees could do with fighting for better employment laws...

          I always thought that the two weeks holiday you guys got was bad enough but now your saying that you can be replaced at the whim.of your company?

          1. Anonymous Coward
            Anonymous Coward

            Re: Good for competition?

            >Sounds like US employees could do with fighting for better employment laws...

            >I always thought that the two weeks holiday you guys got was bad enough but now your saying that >you can be replaced at the whim.of your company?

            They de-unionised years ago so this is the overall trend - USA is about the only democracy which has refused to sign up to ETI/ILO Freedom of Association so it's not even a right - weird thing is it's often those who would most benefit who are aggressively against it.

            (real) statutory maternity leave/pay is also an alien concept. Worked (in the UK) with a US colleague who got pregnant a few years ago - we had to explain her Statutory maternity pay/leave over and over because simply wouldn't believe it - initially she assumed she'd probably lose the job!

            1. Jaybus

              Re: Good for competition?

              Such a horrible place to work, and yet hundreds of thousands are queuing up for work visas. Perhaps Trump is just a humanitarian then? Trying to save those people from the horrible conditions in the US?

              1. Anonymous Coward
                Anonymous Coward

                Re: Good for competition?

                You got it. I am not saying anything in praise of Trump, or for that matter, any other scumbag pol. But:

                The H-1 system is a despicable system of modern slavery which harms everyone involved, except the companies that are pimping out the slaves. It would be much fairer and easier to simply increase the quota of visas for India under the green-card lottery system.

          2. Mark 85

            @d3vy -- Re: Good for competition?

            Sounds like US employees could do with fighting for better employment laws...

            I always thought that the two weeks holiday you guys got was bad enough but now your saying that you can be replaced at the whim.of your company.

            Exactly that. The unions have been eviscerated and the power now lies with the corporates and their lobbyists. Most states have what is called "work at will".

            Here's a link: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/At-will_employment

            Thus, they can fire anyone, at anytime, without any reason.

          3. Anonymous Coward
            Anonymous Coward

            Re: Good for competition?

            What? You say U.S. employment laws are relatively worse, than, presumably, the U.K.? Or Europe as a whole?

            Right now, in the U.K., an I.T. worker can be replaced by an Indian onshorer, whom he has to train while he is being "offboarded", and the grounds for the visa application for this onshorer is that the guy who is training him is not good enough for the job. This is perfectly lawful and going on continually.

            Every visa application for onshorers thruout Europe basically is made on the premise that "local skills are not available". And therefore, every one constitutes criminal fraud. Outside the U.S., none of the onshoring companies have had any significant legal problems with this, while in the U.S., there have been a few hundred court cases.

            And you tell me that U.S. employment laws, or at least, their enforcement, are somehow worse than the U.K. or other European country?

            1. d3vy

              Re: Good for competition?

              "Right now, in the U.K., an I.T. worker can be replaced by an Indian onshorer..."

              Example?

              I've worked in several large UK based companies for the last 14 years and have not heard of this happening.. (Whole departments being made redundant and outsourced yes but not the way that you describe) the whole trend for outsourcing seems to be turning round now anyway as companies see that it's not good business sense.

              The point I made was that in the UK there are better protections, you cannot simply be replaced by someone doing the same role for less money, if you are you can go to tribuneral and would likley win.

              1. Anonymous Coward
                Anonymous Coward

                Re: Good for competition? @D3vy

                Astra Zenica.

                There's one..

              2. Anonymous Coward
                Anonymous Coward

                Re: Good for competition?

                Example: me, right now, and I'm suing. What planet do you live on? No, the employment tribunal does *NOT* cover this for contractors, which is who the victims most frequently are, having been forced into contracting by employers who refuse to fairly hire them on staff.

                BTW so far my costs are 35 thousand pounds. I have had to source that money from my savings. I have not yet been allowed to give evidence because defendant onshoring company has billions of pounds to pay for a superb legal team who have blocked me from submitting a statement. BTW, they have a court record of simply forcing these cases to either give up altogether, or settle for pennies, because the court award comes nowhere near the legal costs which are not fully covered by judgement. I have been told countless times by London Financial services companies "I would like to hire you, but my manager insists on "offshore resource" (LOL! "offshore" means onshore, except if you say "onshore" too loud it might cause problems). If you walk round any London FS shop, you will see entire floors of onshorers, who have replaced local staff for no other reason than lower wage costs.

            2. Anonymous Coward
              Anonymous Coward

              Re: Good for competition?

              >And you tell me that U.S. employment laws, or at least, their enforcement, are somehow worse than the U.K. or other European country?

              Nice infographic here on maternity/paternity rights here:

              http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2013/02/04/maternity-leave-paid-parental-leave-_n_2617284.html

              The US concept of At-will Employment is another thing which it is IME quite hard for UK/EU folk to get their heads round...

              Right to free assembly of workers - no such concept in the US - but a fundamental right in the EU

            3. Andrew Ansell

              Re: Good for competition?

              How are US employment laws worse than the UK?

              Maternity/paternity leave:

              UK 52 weeks split however you want between both parents, Several months of it paid and a slowly decreasing amount.

              USA 6 weeks unpaid for the mother. (12 weeks each parent with some pay in California)

              Job security:

              UK any professional job is will have a 4 week or more bilateral notice period. There is a legal minimum redundancy payment.

              USA your notice period is the time it takes to escort you to the door. No required payoff for laying someone off. (If on an H-1B this gives you 2 weeks to get out the country)

              Time off:

              UK professional jobs will typically have 25 days time off per year. The legal minimum is 20 days. Employers will encourage people to use them up.

              US no legal minimum. Typically ~20 offered for silicon valley tech companies however some companies strongly discourage people to use them.

              Sick pay:

              UK if you are sick you don't come in to the office. This does not come off your holiday allowance.

              USA if you are sick you either use your time off or come in and infect your coworkers.

        2. Anonymous Coward
          Anonymous Coward

          Re: Good for competition?

          Whereas places that pay their employees fairly, treat them well, and give them a *reason* to work hard very quickly find out that happy, loyal employees are hard working employees. And hard working employees make you money. End of story.

          Not quite. The problem is that those that seek to treat their employees fairly and equitably are squeezed out of the market by those that make a profit by exporting those jobs or abusing the visa system to push down their staffing costs. That's where your real problem hides. Similar to tax avoidance, the few big abusers ruin it for the rest of the market but they're the ones who get given all the leeway in the world because they bought a free pass during campaign time.

          As soon as a company starts shipping its MONEY overseas it's time to lift up the lid and audit them edge to edge, certainly when they can seemingly afford to sponsor politicians - you want to examine the exact ROI on that.

          There are, however, two ticking time bombs between all of this. Time bomb 1 has already been alluded to: when more and more people are pushed out of their job through cheaper employees, that has a direct impact on the country the business resides in (housing, benefits, local economy, taxable income). Politicians who allow this are effectively assisting in killing the country (let's not forget that a cheaper member of staff also pays less tax), and should be examined for what exactly they drag out of this because there is a secondary impact: as soon as that game is over, the locust, sorry, company will up sticks and move elsewhere leaving nothing but barren land behind. They don't care. Long live capitalism (which it isn't, it's disguised monopolism as there is no level market and competition)..

          Time bomb 2 is that the more people are unemployed, the more people will start wondering why. Unlike the Romans, they don't have access to bread and plays - they even lose their homes - so they'll find other things to do. This can't go on, especially if we keep in mind that these ones have guns. They may come to regret the NRA :(.

        3. John Brown (no body) Silver badge

          Re: Good for competition?

          "Remember that when you're forced to train some foul-smelling, arrogant, ignorant, mentally deficient fscktard to be your replacement, at 1/2 your salary, 1/4 your benefits, and none of your experience. Bonus points if they are a misogynistic prat who treats female secretaries and assistants like they're trash."

          That's an excellent reason for reforming the existing corrupt and abused system, but considering the founding principles of the USA, it's NOT a good reason to abolish the system either short term, long term or especially not permanently. Work visas are supposed to be for growing industries where the local education system isn't producing enough people to do the required jobs. It was never intended to be used to replace existing workers or even to minimise "local" recruitment. That is pure and simple abuse of the system by greedy people.

          1. sundog

            Re: Good for competition?

            Ah, read a bit further down in my post, and you'll see that I didn't call for a cessation of the work visas, but to make them uneconomical for business to use for 'cost cutting' measures. It will *help* ensure that the best and brightest still have a chance, but they need to be good enough to justify the expense.

            I don't want to stop immigration. Hell, almost all of us here in the US are immigrants. I want the visa system reformed. I want the number curbed, and the costs raised. Dump that extra money into primary and secondary education. Fund programs to help those that can't afford an education to get one.

      2. noh1bvisas

        Re: Good for competition?

        you can better yourself in your own country and not harm the USA doing it.

      3. constance szeflinski

        Re: Good for competition?

        It is not the good people who want to come to the USA that are the problem - the problem is greedy employers who see those good people as a way to pay less for the job. "I can get a foreigner to do the same job as a US citizen and only pay them two thirds of what the citizen will cost - sign me up."

        It is unfair to the US citizens who had to pay their way through college only to find that their jobs are being taken by foreigners willing to work for less than it takes to live (how they do it is beyond me - no college graduate should be forced to live like a poor starving student their entire working career - they are entitled to be paid what the job they trained for is worth - not get by on what someone who will do just about anything to live in the US is willing to put up with.

    2. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      Re: Good for competition?

      That's quite a rant. Why not have everyone confined to their parish at birth, to eliminate the risk of their jobs being taken away by "scabs" from the next village who can do these jobs better than the inbred locals ?

      1. frank ly

        Re: Good for competition?

        This is a local company, for local people. There's nothing for you here.

        1. Charles 9

          Re: Good for competition?

          And if there's NO ONE there who can do the job, and it's not the kind of job you can do on-the-spot training for?

        2. Anonymous Coward
          Anonymous Coward

          Re: Good for competition?

          "This is a local company, for local people. There's nothing for you here"

          At least outside the US our cans of cant don't contain HFCS

      2. Rich 11

        Re: Good for competition?

        Why not have everyone confined to their parish at birth, to eliminate the risk of their jobs being taken away by "scabs" from the next village who can do these jobs better than the inbred locals ?

        Ah, serfdom, how I miss it. At least everyone knew their place. Take Gobbo the village idiot, for example. He could sleep safe at night, confident that no other village idiot would creep across the parish boundary at sunrise and dance for scraps at the manorial breakfast table before Gobbo had even worked out how to put his boots on. Happy days.

        But it's all gone now. I blame the Black Death. We never had it so good.

      3. Anonymous Coward
        Anonymous Coward

        Re: Good for competition?

        "Why not have everyone confined to their parish at birth, to eliminate the risk of their jobs being taken away by "scabs" from the next village who can do these jobs better than the inbred locals ?"

        This is how it was in England - until the Black Death, after which the more intelligent landowners started poaching land workers with higher wages and better conditions. The result was the concentrating of power in the hands of fewer people - but the surviving peasants benefited.

    3. DavCrav

      Re: Good for competition?

      "Do business in $Area, hire someone from $Area to do the work, pay them fairly, treat them as if you value them, & don't fall into the fallacy that humans are just replaceable cogs in the grist mill of your profit machine."

      Yeah, Harvard: Only employ professors from the Cambridge, MA area. And Google: don't think about hiring anyone outside Mountain View. Wouldn't want any companies outgrowing the specialist population of their local area. And if you live in a country/city without the industry you want to be in, well fuck you. Learn what the local companies do, and hope they have vacancies.

      For the love of God, where do these people come from? Social mobility: they've heard of it. Bloody immigrants: sod off back to Africa where you, and every other human being, came from.

      1. macjules

        Re: Good for competition?

        They are what are know as 'Trumpies'. Close the gates, build walls, shoot anyone who might be a Muslim and deride anyone who dares to suggest that Apple make all their computers and phones outside of the USA.

        1. Anonymous Coward
          Mushroom

          Re: Good for competition?

          @ macjules:

          So will you be attending next counsel meeting in San Bernardino? If you do, hold back on the cup of paranoia!

      2. Peter Simpson 1
        Stop

        Re: Good for competition?

        Obviously, at some level, you need to look outside the local area. But there's an obligation to provide employment for people in the area, where that is a reasonable option.

        I'd argue that importing IT people from India (or, in general, overseas) is in the long term, detrimental to the local economy. The H1B program is being blatantly misused to do exactly that. These are IT people, not professors. IT is a job doable by any graduate of a 2-year trade/technical school with a few years' apprenticeship. There is no reason to import people to do a job which has been done by locals for many years...except to lower costs. If you are a corporation who values your environment, you should offer jobs to your neighbors, because, in the long term, you want to be a good corporate citizen.

        1. SA_Mathieson

          Re: Good for competition?

          I'm writing an article about immigration and IT for The Register. Interested in hearing from those who make the case for preferring to educate locals rather than bringing in staff from overseas. If you can help, drop me a line - mail [AT] samathieson.com.

    4. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      Re: Good for competition?

      Shadow:

      Are you referring to companies like Disney or Southern Cal Edison? Who have broken the law and now being sued by DOL and others in California. While lawsuits are in the works, but like any bloated "blubberment" it takes time. Tell that to the displaced workers!

      1. Shadow Systems

        @sux2bu, Re: Good for competition?

        Those were precisely the corporations I was thinking of, the Disney article still fresh in my mind.

        1. Anonymous Coward
          Anonymous Coward

          Re: @shadow.. Good for competition?

          ;) some of us are still pulling the splinters out of our ass over Disney. I did have a ray of hope and a major FU moment. A recruiter (rolleyes) contacted me and they would hire me back to work on their wireless and do some in-depth training with some of the H1's for 60% less than I was making. Response was GFY, contact the OEM.

          If I could find a way to tell SCE to FU, I would. But typing without electrons is tough. :o

    5. diego

      Re: Good for competition?

      Dr. Michio Kaku speaks about how America's poor educational system has created a shortage of Americans who can perform high skilled technology jobs. As a result, America's H-1B Genius visa is used to attract immigrants who are skilled enough to perform these jobs.

      https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NK0Y9j_CGgM

      1. MD Rackham

        Re: Good for competition?

        There is no shortage of qualified IT personnel in the US. It's all a product of wanting to pay very low salaries and not even interview people over 40.

        Hire some "olds" (i.e., experienced workers) and raise salaries to attract more people and the problem is solved with local talent.

        I pay well over the market and am always amazed at the quality of applicants I get. The extra salary expense is easily recouped from having extremely low turnover, thus little downtime getting new hires up to speed. But then, as a private company, I'm allowed to think beyond the current quarter.

        1. noh1bvisas

          Re: Good for competition?

          "But then, as a private company, I'm allowed to think beyond the current quarter."

          .

          Heresy!!! (joking)!

        2. Anonymous Coward
          Anonymous Coward

          Re: Good for competition?

          I pay well over the market and am always amazed at the quality of applicants I get. The extra salary expense is easily recouped from having extremely low turnover, thus little downtime getting new hires up to speed. But then, as a private company, I'm allowed to think beyond the current quarter.

          It also allows you to employ people who "don't fit in" which is typically the area you'll find the creative thinkers. I'm one myself, and as the mainstay of my work is rescue operations where the people that DO fit in come unstuck, I couldn't do without my merry band of unfits.

          The hardest job is to get them to wear a suit on client sites, but as for problem solving skills they are more than 200% worth the cat herding effort and their salaries. Once you have shown them where they fit in the picture (because you have to integrate this bunch with people that do a normal 9 to 5 or you won't get any admin or financials done) you'll have a cauldron of magic that needs very little stirring. You do have to plan for the occasional explosion, but that is what true leadership is about and it's never boring. Besides, I *know* how they think :).

      2. noh1bvisas

        Re: Good for competition?

        "Dr. Michio Kaku speaks about how America's poor educational system has created a shortage of Americans who can perform high skilled technology jobs. As a result, America's H-1B Genius visa is used to attract immigrants who are skilled enough to perform these jobs."

        LOL! so skilled they have to be trained by the americans they are replacing. kids today aren't stupid. they see tech wages falling. why invest in a IT degree?

      3. Jaybus

        Re: Good for competition?

        "As a result, America's H-1B Genius visa is used to attract immigrants who are skilled enough to perform these jobs."

        Nonsense. H-1Bs are NON-IMMIGRANT visas, and so have nothing to do with attracting immigrants. Employment-based immigration visas are designated E1, E2, E3, or EW3.

        1. Anonymous Coward
          Anonymous Coward

          Re: Good for competition?

          Not nonsense, and this is precisely the point. H1-Bs are officially designated "non-immigrant". But in practice, they have *ALWAYS* been used as a deliberate immigration route. How do I know? Because I and many friends used it for exactly this. We had no intention of leaving the states after the H1-B expired. In practice, everyone who applies for an H1-B sees it as a foot in the door which will eventually result in a green-card.

      4. constance szeflinski

        Re: Good for competition?

        Yes, our education system is so awful that over 70% of those foreign employees were educated at US colleges. There are plenty of great people available for employment right here the problem is they know how much money they should be making and companies are loathe to pay them what they are worth. The funny thing is that I've never seen a development project come in on time or at budget using these cheap workers - in general when things get in real trouble they hire some very expensive old fart consultants (all US originals) to fix the problems the in the outsourced/foreign contractor code for more than it would have cost to do it right in the first place. Executives only see "I get x number of people for y number of dollars" - they never see that the x number of people just muck things up when fewer better people could bring the project in for fewer dollars in the end. Throwing more and cheaper people at a development project generally does more harm than good - but I've never met an executive that accepts that fact.

    6. Phil O'Sophical Silver badge

      Re: Good for competition?

      But I agree the visa system needs to be stopped immediately, entirely, permanently.

      Great, so instead of importing people do do the jobs in the US, they'll just offshore the jobs to wherever the people are. That way you lose not only the job itself but all the work and subsidiary jobs associated with it.

      1. Charles 9

        Re: Good for competition?

        Not quite because many jobs require physical presence. How do you offshore a construction job, for example? And offshoring a manufacturing job entails additional costs for transportation and perhaps tariffs and other customs fees.

      2. noh1bvisas

        Re: Good for competition?

        "Great, so instead of importing people do do the jobs in the US, they'll just offshore the jobs to wherever the people are. That way you lose not only the job itself but all the work and subsidiary jobs associated with it."

        .

        not all jobs can be offshored. if these big tech companies wanted to move, they would move. as for the subsidiary jobs, even those are less with an h1b. h1bs earn les, so they spend less. they live 6 guys to a one bedroom apt. they don't buy cars, shop (eve see an indian in a mall?), eat out (I always see them packing their lunches), they are also busy sending money back to their home country.

      3. fajensen
        Coat

        Re: Good for competition?

        Great, so instead of importing people do do the jobs in the US, they'll just offshore the jobs to wherever the people are.

        Nope: In many of those places they will cut your hand off for stealing or you get a trip to the organ banks. No bailouts in the 3'rd world, it's the chop or the bullet! Maybe a lynching. Not a good life for our bankers.

        Corporations simply want the 1'st world bennies but not any of the responsibilities that go along with that.

        Our spoiled-rotten CEx classes would simply not last very long without the protection, nursing and support from the societies and governments they publicly undermine at every speaking opportunity.

    7. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      Re: Good for competition?

      Imagine, a Hollywood where the natives had to fill every role. Dick van Dyke's legendary British accent might make a comeback.

    8. tirk
      Unhappy

      Re: Good for competition?

      "Visa scab"? Really??

      By that logic I assume you are not in favour of importing or exporting anything either.

    9. quxinot

      Re: Good for competition?

      It's a shame that technology companies can't figure out a way to communicate over a distance. Imagine, even writing code, administration, or support could be possible without even living on that side of the globe!

      Wait, we call that outsourcing and it's bad.

      It's bad when it goes to people that suck and get paid less than we do. It's good when it lets us be contractors for heaping bagfulls of gold.

      I suspect there's some whining here.

      Let's ignore the whole thing and pay attention to what matters for just a moment. Trump vs Hillary. Either we'll have a lunatic in a position of power, or a moron doing the same. (You may put those descriptions where you please.)

      Just like Zaphod, their job is to distract the public majority from the actual power taking the money and running off stage left. Let's not talk about the >500 elected folks in congress, when a majority of citizens cannot name their representatives and know nothing about their policies and decisions. The whole time, the rich and interested are buying policies ....er... lobbying.... and running to the bank, which is likely offshore someplace.

      But hey, let's go back to shouting at the singular person that's easy to hate. Let's bury our heads in the sand! It's incredible how many people can tell you that Bill tore off a piece with an intern, but can't tell you anything about what laws were passed, changed, and re-interpreted during his reign. Bill was very good at his job, clearly.

  4. Unicornpiss
    Meh

    Civilization

    I feel that if Trump is elected, that just staying out of big, nasty wars that could potentially destabilize the entire world is the primary concern.

    1. Christian Berger

      We are already there

      Look into Irak, look into Afghanistan. We already have big nasty wars destabilizing the entire world.

      It's hard to believe, but before US and Russian interventions decades ago, those countries used to be rather peacefull and free.

      Fighting injustice with injustice is not a way to go, and using drones to bomb places is hard to be seen as something that is justified or even a "fair fight".

      1. HereIAmJH

        Re: We are already there

        It's hard to believe, but before British colonialism a century ago, those countries used to be rather peaceful and free.

      2. Charles 9

        Re: We are already there

        Didn't the Taliban of Afghanistan commit acts of atrocity BEFORE we came storming in, though?

        1. Christian Berger

          Re: We are already there

          "Didn't the Taliban of Afghanistan commit acts of atrocity BEFORE we came storming in, though?"

          https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Taliban

          "The Taliban movement traces its origin to the Pakistani-trained and US-sponsored mujahideen in northern Pakistan, a loosely linked confederation of Islamist militias fighting the Soviets during the Soviet–Afghan War."

          You know history didn't start in 2001.

          1. Charles 9

            Re: We are already there

            Yeah, but that's a pretty loose thing there. Would you rather the soviets took over there in the 80's? The thing about the Cold War is that there's no real "good guy" here.

      3. Jaybus

        Re: We are already there

        Really? So the 1980-1988 Iran-Iraq war that resulted in a half million casualties and involved ballistic missile attacks on cities, the use of chemical weapons, and more than 500 attacks on neutral country ships is to be considered "relatively peaceful"?

        1. GrumpyOldBloke

          Re: We are already there

          Uncle Sam was heavily involved in the Iraq Iran war. Trying to regain control of the region after the Iranian's disposed the Shah/puppet of Iran. Israel wasn't happy either as the revolutionaries shut off their supply of cheap Iranian oil. Of course Iraq’s Ba'ath party was in power as a result of an earlier destabilisation and overthrow effort supported by the CIA who later armed the Kurds to stop the drift of Iraq towards Russia. Cheney's - we know Saddam has WMD's because we have the receipts - is a reference to the involvement of the US through Iraq's post WW2 history.

        2. Christian Berger

          Re: We are already there

          Again, dig deeper and you'll find that that war most likely was caused by someone US/USSR friendly coming to power being backed by said superpower... or if you dig deeper you will find things like the Sykes-Picot Agreement https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sykes%E2%80%93Picot_Agreement causing territorial disputes, dividing cultures and forcing artificial borders.

          History isn't "good vs evil". History is more complex. I do not believe violence is not a way to solve complex problems. You cannot bomb for justice.

    2. This post has been deleted by its author

  5. Nifty Silver badge

    And I was just imagining that after Brexit the UK could form a migration mobility club with Canada, US, OZ, NZ, where we could all work/migrate with barely any restrictions so long as there's a proper job offer.

    1. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      What's so special about the UK/US relationship to warrant "free" job migration between those two countries? Most Americans are not descendants of Brits. Upwards one quarter of the Swedish population migrated to the US in the late 19th century - early 20th century. Pretty much anyone in Sweden speaks decent English (easier to understand than some British English dialects me thinks).

      1. Mike Taylor

        Quite. The 'special relationship' relationship may have existed once. In the last twenty years when I've been traveling to the US a lot, it is chimeric. Out of the EU, we'd be somewhere south of the EU, BRIC comes, and other Latino countries in terms of Specialness. I've had many non-US colleagues in the US, only a couple are British (and my company is based in the UK and NL)

    2. Naselus

      "And I was just imagining that after Brexit the UK could form a migration mobility club with Canada, US, OZ, NZ, where we could all work/migrate with barely any restrictions so long as there's a proper job offer."

      We used to have that. It was called 'the British Empire'. Migration was so easy that it happened to loads of people who didn't even want to move.

    3. d3vy

      Wait... After brexit you want to let foreigners come over here and steal our jobs? ;)

      1. Anonymous Coward
        Anonymous Coward

        with caveats

        Wait... After brexit you want to let foreigners come over here and steal our jobs?

        Only the the right type of foreigners..i.e the ones that look like us

  6. Pascal Monett Silver badge
    Trollface

    “It's very bad for business, [..] unfair for our workers. We should end it.”

    I think he's absolutely right.

    Let America show what its educational system can do. Stop importing intelligence from abroad, use your own.

    We'll see how well that goes.

    P.S. : couldn't include a sarcasm tag large enough

    1. Keith Glass

      Re: “It's very bad for business, [..] unfair for our workers. We should end it.”

      Pascal Monett noted:

      Let America show what its educational system can do. Stop importing intelligence from abroad, use your own.

      And therein lies the problem. PARTS of the American Educational system are outstanding (our "elite" tech schools, for instance).

      The problem is, their output is limited. A good chunk of the REST of the system are utter and complete crap.

      Case in point: a decade ago, I went back to get a Master's Degree in MIS (OK, I was checking off a box for HR so I could get promoted to the next level).

      And I found two distinctly separate types of students.

      The first were older students returning for grad work. Typically 30+, typically had nearly a decade, if not more, of "operational" experience in IT. And a surprising number of deployed soldiers (this was an online program). All were professional and competent in basic skills, and whatever their current specialty was. . .

      The second, were people who had just gotten their undergrad degrees, and were continuing on to get a Masters. Not only did they lack tech skills, but could not write or argue coherently, and often could not even get basic grammar and spelling right, much less argue from evidence.

      I remember, in particular, one student whose argument was that she FELT that her proposition was correct, and therefore we had to accept her statement at face value, despite a plethora of evidence pointing in another, almost completely opposite, direction. . .

      I also see a lack of basic skills across the board in entry-level hires at work. . . but they have GREAT self-esteem.

      And then I see SOME (ok, a few) of the H1b hires. Solid talent, solid skills. Just wish we had more American candidates like them. . .

      1. Sir Runcible Spoon

        Re: “It's very bad for business, [..] unfair for our workers. We should end it.”

        "And then I see SOME (ok, a few) of the H1b hires. Solid talent, solid skills. Just wish we had more American candidates like them. . "

        For years I thought about getting a job in the US, just needed to convince my wife (who isn't overly fond of the stereotyped American personae).

        Since the introduction of all the security theater at the airports I haven't even wanted to go there for a holiday, let alone to work (I even had plans for a West-East bike trip prepared).

        There are still lots of things I would like to see and do in America, but the negative side of things keeps me from making any solid plans in that direction and I don't see that changing any time soon :(

        1. Sporkinum

          Re: “It's very bad for business, [..] unfair for our workers. We should end it.”

          Bummer.. I did the West-East bike trip when I got out of the USAF back in '95. Would love to do it again, but I would also love to come visit the UK, as I never had the chance when I was station in Italy.

          1. Anonymous Coward
            Anonymous Coward

            Re: “It's very bad for business, [..] unfair for our workers. We should end it.”

            @Sporkinum, thanks for a positive comment.

        2. nilfs2
          FAIL

          Re: “It's very bad for business, [..] unfair for our workers. We should end it.”

          Agree, also, having to pay $170 to apply for a visa without a refund if you get denied because they reached the daily quota of issued visas. I would rather go somewhere else.

    2. steward

      "We'll see how well that goes"

      I believe you're using the Internet. That's an American invention. (Yes, a Brit in Switzerland put the web layer on top of it, but the Internet was developed by the US DOD.)

      Modern electronics rely on the transistor. Cell phones would look pretty funny if they had to use vacuum tubes

      How many Brits have walked on the moon?

      And then there's the inflatable tank, which helped the US save Europe's ass again in WWII, because Europeans can't even write a treaty that doesn't guarantee another war. (Hint: not enough arable land in Germany to support population, Treaty of Versailles banned most factories over the US' objections.)

      Apple computers. IBM computers. UNIX. C. Windows. Total Quality Management. GPS (another DOD project.) FAX (in 1925!) Solar cells. Digital networks.

      Cardiac pacemakers. Glucose meters.

      And if American companies are stopped from bringing in foreign workers under false pretenses to drop wages, you'll see a lot more of this.

      1. Rich 11

        Re: "We'll see how well that goes"

        Modern electronics rely on the transistor.

        If it wasn't for Paul Dirac, no-one would have known that such things were possible.

        which helped the US save Europe's ass again

        Ah, the US. Twice late to the game. Remind me why that was.

        Apple computers. IBM computers. UNIX. C. Windows. Total Quality Management. GPS (another DOD project.) FAX (in 1925!) Solar cells. Digital networks.

        Telephone. Radio. Film cameras. Television. And most of the underlying theories which allowed the development of technologies based on electromagnetism.

        See? Two can play that game.

        And if American companies are stopped from bringing in foreign workers under false pretenses to drop wages, you'll see a lot more of this.

        If that were so certain, you'd imagine the big tech companies would already have stopped hiring foreign workers and let the likes of Liberty U take up the slack...

      2. Steve the Cynic

        Re: "We'll see how well that goes"

        "And then there's the inflatable tank, which helped the US save Europe's ass again in WWII"

        Do you, here, mean DD (Duplex Drive) tanks?

        They were a British invention... (Fussy: the inventor was Hungarian, living and working in Britain.)

        Yes, the most successful DD tank was the Sherman - it was able to keep its gun pointing forward with the floatation screen up, while the British Valentine could not - but the DD system wasn't American in origin.

        1. Anonymous Coward
          Anonymous Coward

          Re: "We'll see how well that goes"

          "Yes, the most successful DD tank was the Sherman"

          But on D-Day the American Navy panicked and released much too far from shore so many of them sank, while the RN looked at the conditions and decided to go right in. The US weakness is to rely too much on technology while not paying attention to the human side, which is how they manage to have a heavily armed police force that kills hundreds of people every year (exact numbers unknown but > 450) while we have a much less armed police force that manages to arrest people while hardly shooting anybody.

          You could argue that it's this failure to pay proper attention to the education and training of the non-élites that has resulted in the H1B issue. There's enough Americans that a decent State educational system would make the US an exporter, not an importer, of talent.

      3. Anonymous Coward
        Anonymous Coward

        Re: "We'll see how well that goes"

        @steward

        "I believe you're using the Internet. That's an American invention."

        However it does somewhat rely on Computers, which are a British invention.

        "Cell phones would look pretty funny if they had to use vacuum tubes"

        Phones wouldn't exist at all if it wasn't for Alexander Graham Bell (Scotland)

        "How many Brits have walked on the moon"

        <conspiricy>Same as US. None. :)</conspiricy>

        Im going to skip the rest and pull out the trump (Pardon the pun) card.

        If it wasn't for the UK the majority of Americans would be speaking Portuguese/Spanish right now.

        I love that any conversation that casts the US in any kind of bad light turns into this massive willy waving contest over who has the best inventions and industry (Ill give you a clue - at the moment its not the US or UK - its somewhere distinctly more Asian)

        1. Phil O'Sophical Silver badge

          Re: "We'll see how well that goes"

          "I believe you're using the Internet. That's an American invention."

          Not really. It relies on digital packet-switched networks, which were pioneered by British/French engineers, since the American who had the idea couldn't get anyone interested. It was only after the UK MOD prototyped it that ARPA decided it was worth using.

        2. Anonymous Coward
          Anonymous Coward

          @AC - "computers are a British invention"

          That's debatable.

          https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Atanasoff%E2%80%93Berry_computer

          1. Anonymous Coward
            Anonymous Coward

            Re: @AC - "computers are a British invention"

            This is not debatable.

            https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Konrad_Zuse

          2. d3vy

            Re: @AC - "computers are a British invention"

            "computers are a British invention.

            That's debatable

            Two words.

            Charles

            Babbage.

            Thank you and good night.

        3. Captain DaFt

          Re: "We'll see how well that goes"

          "If it wasn't for the UK the majority of Americans would be speaking Portuguese/Spanish right now."

          Now, now, play fair. At least a third, probably half, of North Americans would be speaking French or Russian.

          Alaska, Louisiana territories, Quebec, anyone?

      4. Anonymous Coward
        Anonymous Coward

        Re: "We'll see how well that goes"

        @Steward

        Did you just use Apple computers in a post arguing that the US should stop bringing in foreign workers?

        Because Wozniak is such an all American name?

        Or maybe its because you didn't realise that Steve jobs father was a Syrian immigrant to the US?

        Not to mention that most of the innovations that you listed are just additions to existing tech that the US didn't invent,

        Internet : Computers (UK - Charles Babbage - Tommy Flowers - Alan Turing)

        Cell Phones : Actual Phones (Alexander Graham Bell - Debatable but the other guy was Italian not from the US so the argument is moot anyway)

        Apollo program - Lots of German scientists shipped after the war.

      5. Rob Daglish

        Re: "We'll see how well that goes"

        Fax - May 27, 1843 (sorry, electric printing telegraph). Alexander Bain, Scotland,

        Scanning phototelegraph, Bidwell, 1881.

    3. captain_solo

      Re: “It's very bad for business, [..] unfair for our workers. We should end it.”

      Right, but in the U.S. instead of educating kids in STEM and giving them critical thinking skills we are worried about them being conversant in which bathroom a confused 11 year old should use and recruiting a bunch of barely educated fools into SJW fantasy leagues.

      1. Anonymous Coward
        Anonymous Coward

        Re: “It's very bad for business, [..] unfair for our workers. We should end it.”

        Right, but in the U.S. instead of educating kids in STEM and giving them critical thinking skills we are teaching creationism and legalizing religious hatred.

        FTFY

    4. Jaybus

      Re: “It's very bad for business, [..] unfair for our workers. We should end it.”

      No worries! There are more than 1 million foreign students attending US universities. I'm sure they can enlighten the US professors.

      1. Anonymous Coward
        Anonymous Coward

        Re: “It's very bad for business, [..] unfair for our workers. We should end it.”

        Most of the US professors are foreigners too, go figure.

  7. Lars Silver badge
    Trollface

    All bets are off

    All bets are off with Trump as we don't know anything about his "ideas and plans" because he doesn't know either. His show for the election will change, and has already started to change.

    I would advice Americans to listen to Dr. Michio Kaku:

    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=e7D3_eGaO5k

    The problem the US has created is internal not external and some Americans find that disgusting to accept, rather blame everybody else. There is no short time solution to education, but to get educated people from abroad. This is not to say that there is no abuse of the system by the Corporations. And of course the (almost) whole country was made by immigrants.

    The Trump icon for as short a time as possible.

    1. ecofeco Silver badge

      Re: All bets are off

      Th U.S. of today reminds me of an old missive about Spain when it was an empire. Spain had pretty much stopped making things by that time and was importing almost everything and trade/market speculation was the biggest industry of the day. The main point being that it was said Spain used to BRAG that they no longer made things and didn't have to.

      We know how that worked out.

      1. Jaybus

        Re: All bets are off

        Not sure I see the comparison. While the US is indeed the largest importer, it is also the third largest exporter behind China and the EU, and that is lumping the EU nations together, else it would be the second largest exporter.

    2. fajensen

      Re: All bets are off

      But - we do know that Hillary is both a war-monger, a crook and cannot be bothered to take the advice of the best expertise available (which is what email-gate shows). This means that Hillary will hire hacks and sycophants as advisor's, which then means that more disasters will flow.

      When one is in the shit, then, that is the time to buy risk rather than "the safer option" or "business as usual" - you know, more of what it was that got us into the mess. It is rational that "all bets are off" .

      Trump is being smart with his "ideas and plans", first, it's like talking to lawyers: Any word added to "the contract" is another opening for an attack by the oppositions legal team, and, being an experienced CEO Trump know that the future is unpredictable and it generally does not make sense for "the strategic level" to produce those detailed plans and clear directives that the bean-counters at the operational levels insist on.

  8. zebm

    Surely an auction is better?

    Getting a H1B could be dependent on the amount of tax that you pay which would make the cheap foreign labour calculation more complicated.

    Disclaimer: I turned down the offer of relocating to Detroit for piss-poor pay when my UK R&D site was closed.

  9. Nick Kew

    Don't get hung up on geography

    Working for Silicon Valley doesn't require any kind of visa for anyone.

    Just regular broadband.

  10. noh1bvisas

    1. the power to make/change visa law lies with congress.

    2. trump hires h1bs and h2bs instead of Americans.

    3. fortunately, trump will never be POTUS.

    1. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      "fortunately, trump will never be POTUS."

      Suppose Trump waits until a few weeks before the election then drops an evidence bombshell that assures Clinton gets convicted of a felony, disqualifying her from the post?

      1. Captain DaFt

        What if the backlashes against both Trump and Hillary pushes Sanders into the White House?

        Slim chance that, but the probability is there.

        1. Lars Silver badge
          Go

          Go for Sanders

      2. Brian Allan 1

        So much B.S. flying around regarding that... Not going to happen!

      3. a_yank_lurker

        Blowhard can not drop the bombshell that convicts Hildabeast. He is not POTUS nor does he have any access to the information the ferals have that would destroy her politically. The mostly likely non-feral source of such a bombshell would be from the Russians or Chinese if either publish the emails from Hildabeast's email server. Contrary to her claims, I would be shocked if both did not have all her emails. If Hildabeast is indicted it would by current donkey administration deciding to make her toast for internal donkey reasons. They are not overly fond of Hildabeast and Bubba.

  11. Christian Berger

    Who wants to work in the US anyway?

    I mean it's hugely expensive, there is little infrastructure, there are only few jobs that are interresting and non destructive.

    1. martinusher Silver badge

      Re: Who wants to work in the US anyway?

      With a few exceptions the entire US is a bargain basement compared to the UK -- the cost of living is cheap. There's plenty of infrastructure, especially in urban areas. Jobs are variable, just like anywhere else. Its not a lucrative as it used to be.

      The biggest mistake an English person can make coming to the US is not remembering that its a foreign country. Sure, you can more or less understand the language and read the signs (of which there are far too many) but the culture, although familiar in a way, is actually very alien.

    2. noh1bvisas

      Re: Who wants to work in the US anyway?

      "Who wants to work in the US anyway?

      I mean it's hugely expensive, there is little infrastructure, there are only few jobs that are interresting and non destructive."

      .

      odd you don't say where you're from. I've had the good fortune to travel in over 50 countries. the US has no equal.

    3. a_yank_lurker

      Re: Who wants to work in the US anyway?

      There are many places in the US (and Canada) that are very reasonable places to live. One common mistake many make is underestimating the size of the US or Canada compared to say UK or France. For example to drive across the US or Canada is a multi-day journey, the distance is roughly the same as crossing the Atlantic Ocean. Also, parts of both are very sparsely populated, particularly northern Canada and the western US.

  12. disgruntled yank

    Umm.

    It seems implausible to me that Trump could be elected. (Of course, it seemed implausible to me that he could be the nominee-apparent, and there he is.)

    There is a great ambiguity in tech employment. On the one hand there are the H1Bs who are designing chips at (let's say) Intel or MIPS, and who have genuinely rare tech skills. On the other hand, there are the H1Bs who are doing basic CRUD or such work, and whose skills are not rare at all--it's just possible to pay them a bit less and control them more than the local talent. Do you really think that the replacements at Disney all graduated at the top of their class from IIT or ETH?

  13. Will Godfrey Silver badge
    Stop

    Gah!

    This nationalistic pride in technology is stupid. All 'new' developments are based on earlier 'new' developments back through the mists of time. Therefore, those who should be honoured for setting the ball rolling were the early humans who discovered how to make fire.

    I understand they were in Africa at the time.

  14. Wolfclaw
    WTF?

    So let me get this, the US Of A$$ have quotas, but when Obumface came over to have a round of golf with Camoron, he wants us to remain in the EUSSR who do not let you have quotas to members citizens. Typical US Of A$$ hypocracy at work and Obumface needs to put his own house in order before opening his clap trap about UK and the EUSSR !!

    1. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      @ Wolfclaw

      What Obama said in Britain is that the country is stronger and of greater importance within the EU than outside. I have no doubt he is right too.

  15. hellwig

    Make Them Fair

    First, no company in the US should be allowed to staff more than X% of workforce (spread equally across the various employment levels) with visa'd employees. If you're an Indian company needing an American presence, fine, but why would you need 50% of your 50+ workforce to be foreign nationals?

    The visas should be used only to staff people you cannot find locally. To that matter, every position available to a foreign person should first have to be offered locally (i.e. posted on job sites and in news papers, distributed to recruiters, etc...). And finally, the pay should be commensurate! If you have 20 engineers, and 5 of them are on visas, the pay to the 5 visa'd employees should have an average/median pay on par with the 15 Americans. "Wouldn't American's be forced to work for less?" By capping the percentage maximum of visa'd employees, companies would have to offer a salary that will entice US citizens to work for them. Supply and demand (as with any job) will work out a "fair" salary, with the added bonus that not every position now has to be fought for against a cheap foreign national.

    And where does the money paid for Visas go? I say increase the cost 10-fold (at least), and pay the extra money into scholarship funds for US citizens to improve their own skill set. Let the companies claiming they can't find competent workers in the US pay to make our US citizens more competent!

    1. Dadmin

      Re: Make Them Fair

      "Blah, blah, blah, blah"

      Good point, but I work with mostly Indian folks, and the reason they are needed is that most of the US programmers in the tech industry are complete shit. I have yet to meet more than a handful of US born programmers/devs who are not just wasting air and a nice chair. The vast dearth of good programmers, and other tech folk, must be filled, and the best way is with grads from the many tech schools in India, or other tech savvy countries like; UK, AUS, NZ, Japan, etc. They learn mostly Java and I think C, but whatever they are doing there, in India, is working; the better programmers are usually the people from a country that does not stifle innovation and creative thinking like our mostly shitty schools here do. They can only go as fast as the slowest person, and that is a shame. I have to make up for the crap educational system myself by reading select tech topics in all the newest branches. There are more programming jobs than people who can program at a enterprise level.

      1. fajensen

        Re: Make Them Fair

        . I have to make up for the crap educational system myself

        Oh, the irony - India and Japan studied and implemented current research into public education that US researchers developed but never successfully applied in American schools.

        http://www.nytimes.com/2014/07/27/magazine/why-do-americans-stink-at-math.html

        Takahashi was especially enthralled with an American group called the National Council of Teachers of Mathematics, or N.C.T.M., which published manifestoes throughout the 1980s

        1. Charles 9

          Re: Make Them Fair

          "Oh, the irony - India and Japan studied and implemented current research into public education that US researchers developed but never successfully applied in American schools."

          Because most Americans DON'T WANT to implement tough national standards. Indeed, many school districts feel each should do their own thing, not realizing this inevitably causes uneven education. Come on! You can't have it both ways! Either you're going to have uneven education or your kid could be left behind (and note, extreme social pressure is one reason Japan has such a high suicide rate; South Korea's even worse).

    2. Lars Silver badge
      Happy

      Re: Make Them Fair

      "and pay the extra money into scholarship funds for US citizens".

      A country that doesn't understand the importance of affordable and good education for the whole population is bound to fail. Even the Soviets with that rubbish system did not give up on STEM.

  16. Peter Simpson 1
    WTF?

    H1B - "degree-level skills"

    To handle Windows trouble calls and backup servers?

  17. Dadmin
    Coat

    It's worse: new Trump Vice Pres choice is...

    Vlad "The Inhaler" Putin.

    Is that Trump/Putin 2016, or Putin/Trump 2016? Sounds like a crap in two suits either way.

  18. oneeye

    abuse not limited to tech!

    There are visa Abuse's in every sector of the US economy. This is the real issue at the heart of the controversy. Although I'm not a Trump fan, far from it, the abuse of the US visa programs need to be addressed. If the tech sector really wants to help themselves, then they should be addressing the main issue, and help clean up the programs. Stop the whining, and do something proactive to protect workers rights. Then perhaps you will have more credibility. And as for Trump doing anything, he can't be trusted because he has been on every side of every issue. So, stop the "FUD"

    1. ecofeco Silver badge

      Re: abuse not limited to tech!

      With few exceptions, and none of them I can think of right off the top of my head, the H1b system is one corrupt crap fest.

  19. Eduard Coli

    The numbers for H1-B are far higher. There are to be 65,000 new visas for industry at the college-graduate level of skills, there are to be 20,000 more for high-tech workers with U.S. graduate degrees, and there are to be no limits at all for H-1B workers toiling at university addresses - not necessarily working for an academic institution, but simply working on campus. This year the 65,000 and the 20,000 limits have already been reached. Then there are H1-B workers who stay after their visa is up, who know how many of these guys are sitting in a job illegally. The visa system in the US is broken and is tailored to replace American workers with cheap, clueless foreign labor.

    1. ecofeco Silver badge

      Have an upvote to offset the clueless moron (or maybe the sock puppet) who gave you a downvote.

      1. Lars Silver badge

        @ ecofeco

        I think the down vote might have something to do with this - "cheap, clueless foreign labor.". Never mind the "labor", but ending a "speech" with a fart doesn't always work that well.

  20. CmdrX3

    Something else that was abused

    The H1-B was supposed to allow companies to bring in essential workers to do jobs that couldn't be filled by US workers, but instead as usual it has been abused by companies in order to cut their costs by bringing in cheap overseas workers to replace more expensive US employees. They are not filling positions that can't be filled, they are filling positions that can be filled far cheaper and getting their what will soon be predecessors to train them.

  21. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    Don't bet on it. The purpose of these visas is to drive salaries of skilled employees down. If Trump cripples this program and the wages for these people go up, it will piss off major corporations and the rich. Trump exists to support the rich and they will take it out on him. Just my opinion

  22. Herby

    What is a "native" to do??

    Being a native (yes, I was born here) of Sillycon valley, I've seen it all. You start in the tech industry (I wrote my first program over 50 years ago) and keep on going. If you have people getting these visas (what no Master Card?) you need to wonder what is really going on. In this day and age, one could just as easily do "work" from the other end of an internet connection, as a physical embodiment most likely isn't needed. So, we have a couple of cases: 1) Import the worker (for whatever reason) and let them find out what it costs to live here in the USA, or 2) export the job to the other end of a wire where monsoons happen yearly. Given the choice, importing a worker may be the better choice.

    The bigger problem is that job providers (companies) are having trouble getting proficient talent. The younger ones seem to think that right out of school they are entitled to a nice $100k job when they have no experience (and being tied up in acedemia for so long think that they can program a BIOS in Java or some such. The more experienced have figured out that they don't know everything and apply their skills to forge ahead. When an economic downturn happens they hope it doesn't last too long (unfortunately not the case for the last 8 or so years) then soldier on.

    Life goes on, and visas will be issued, jobs exported, and iron turns to rust. One hopes for startups and new horizons and keeps a positive attitude which is what we should all hope for. (*SIGH*)

    1. ecofeco Silver badge

      Re: What is a "native" to do??

      Entitled graduates aside (and what else is new there?) the problem is not the ridiculous expectations of the less experienced, but the deliberate ostracizing of those with experience because they have earned their wage level and the blatant and documented widespread abuse of the H1B system..

  23. Panicnow

    Quality over quantity

    Both Trump and Brexit would reduce mass unselective migration, thus make selected migration EASIER!

    Bad people take half a story and conflate it with their prejudices to create a monster that doesn't exist

    1. Charles 9

      Re: Quality over quantity

      Most unselective migration is the result of desperation. Take a look at what's happening not just in the US but in Australia and throughout Europe. Millions of people are basically fleeing a death sentence for just a chance elsewhere. With the Grim Reaper at their heels, they have the most powerful motivations to persevere. Put a wall up and they'll just find a way to get past it. In the US, they use tunnels or hit the boonies. In Europe, they cut fences. In Australia, they make mad dashes in overloaded boats. AND the UN's getting on everyone's cases to stop being so cruel to the disadvantaged.

  24. Brian Allan 1

    Open It Up!

    There should be no limit for qualified personnel! If a company/country cannot obtain the educated personnel locally, by all means go get them elsewhere. Lots of excellent talent in this small global community... Let's use it to our advantage!!

  25. martinusher Silver badge

    Discriminatory? How Sad.....

    You could say that organized abuse of non-immigrant visas by Indian outsourcing companies have screwed up the system for everyone. Time to be discriminatory.....this is supposed to be a way for companies to recruit to overcome talent shortages but its turned in a bear pit dominated by people who know how to play the system.

  26. Daedalus

    Ahem

    Once more we remind you that the Prez is not a dictator. VISA laws are set by Congress. He can propose, they dispose.

  27. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    I emigrated to the USA on an O-1 visa a couple of years ago, after I sold my family company's IP to an American firm with whom we were always on good terms with. The purchase came with a job offer I couldn't refuse. Right now, the product lines I brought with me are turning over $1,000,000, and my exceptionally wide range of skills (which were vital to the O-1 application) used to develop a whole new line of products

    What would Mr. Trump do with the likes of me ?

    1. martinusher Silver badge

      @Coward...

      >What would Mr. Trump do with the likes of me ?

      By now you have probably figured out that Mr. Trump is "full of it". The mouth runs ahead of the brain. Over the next few months you'll see all this walking back as his potential cabinet takes shape. Its will be filled out with 'the usual suspects'; President Trump may run his mouth 24/7 but the Republican Establishment will run the country. (Not a very edifying prospect, IMHO -- they haven't got that great a track record.)

      Congress has already made the life of immigrants a lot more dicey by systematically expanding the number of ways a person can be summarily deported while systematically reducing the discretion of immigration officials -- or judges -- to use discrimination in those cases. Its remarkably easy to fall foul of the system and the only defense is to become a US citizen. This has a number of drawbacks, among them being that your financial soul becomes the property of the IRS in perpetuity.

      So what would become of you? Business as usual.

      BTW -- I came to the US on an H1 in the 1980s, back when the visa process seemed to follow the rules. Now there's probably a ton of talent out there we can't get at because the system is clagged up with unnecessary Indian IT contractors.

  28. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    fer feck's sake

    Are you all ravin' loonies or something. Downvote me all you will. Sure, 'experts' should not be coming into a country to -replace- perfectly good local 'experts' doing the same job, agreed. (I'm not sure where I'm going yet, but this comment thread is just full of hateful 'they're stealing my job' guys).

    I worked once for a high-tech company which at one point decided to try to push the product into the US, at some success. Thing was, it was pretty niche, and you wouldn't just hire random bloke with IT experience to do it. My company brought in several engineers, on various visas to do the job -AT FIRST-.

    After deployment started to roll out, and things were smoothing over, we started hiring local US engineers and trained them for the job, and slowly but surely all us evil "furners" moved out to other countries, after having created upwards of 50 jobs in the US. AFAIK, as I left the company, they are still doing great, and expanding.

    The general attitude you give is "we Merkin's know everything better". You don't. Sometimes, even in IT, there are small, innovative companies that are actually smarter, and hold a niche, and they create jobs.

    If you are an asshat company hiring call center folks from India on H-1B, then fine. Gettafuckouttathere. You don't need to do that.

    FFS. Trump? You will get all you deserve.

    1. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      Re: fer feck's sake - FFS. Trump? You will get all you deserve.

      While I agree with most of your post, could I just point out to you and some others that the alternatives were Cruz and Rubio?

      It was like the Russian electorate being given a choice between Stalin, Yeltsin and Putin. If that was what was on the table, voting Putin would be the rational decision.

      1. Charles 9
        Joke

        Re: fer feck's sake - FFS. Trump? You will get all you deserve.

        Well, whatever happened to "None of the Above"?

  29. bigmike678

    Im from the US and I have no problems with someone from another country coming here to work. After all the vast majority of Americans were immigrants not too long ago. The problem is when companies (like Disney, etc.) feel its ok to fire someone who is doing their job and well and threaten to not give them their benefits unless they train their replacement. They all do this because they know they can bring someone over and hire them fora fraction of the cost.

    Forcing companies by law to pay someone working on a visa as same as someone who is a US citizen is the only way to solve this problem. Sadly i cant support the visa system as it stands right now until this is fixed

  30. StuartMil

    "Work" visa's should be limited to situations where local employees are unable to be found for the position.

    But visa eligibility should be based up qualifications and local requirements, not political BS from a multiple time bankrupt who wants to build a wall with half of the construction workers being illegal immigrants.

  31. Trollslayer

    Or they could educate Americans.

  32. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    Donald Trump auditioned for the US version of "The Ring" horror movie

    However he didn't get the part of Samara as he hoped, apparently his back combing was too extreme for the US movie rating system

  33. IGnatius T Foobar

    Here in the US, the big companies that use H1B workers aren't looking to fill positions that they can't fill with domestic talent. They're using it to get indentured servants who will work for a fraction of the cost.

    Trump is looking to put a stop to that, and good for him. American jobs need to be filled by American citizens. Unless the unemployment rate is ZERO, the H1B cap should be ZERO.

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