The bigger problem with the H1B system is family reunification. 65,000 H1B visas a year is not that many. But because H1B is a path to citizenship in practice, just one skilled worker eventually will bring in many more family members who aren’t filtered for skills.
When we came to the U.S. in 1989–on my dad’s H1 visa—there were under 10,000 Bangladeshis in the country. Today, there are 270,000. Those aren’t 270,000 highly skilled and highly motivated workers. They’re here based on chain migration from handful of original skilled workers.
It is a problem with H1B because it undermines the whole idea of selective immigration. H1B is pitched to the public as a way to get "the best and brightest" from foreign countries. But because of family reunification, the decision to admit one skilled worker actually means one skilled worker plus potentially dozens of other people with no qualifications whatsoever.
Bangladesh gets around 50-60 skilled immigrant visas a year, but the Bangladeshi population in the U.S. has someone grown from under 10,000 in 1990 to over 270,000 today. That's the product of family reunification. Voters who supported H1B thought they were voting for a handful of Bangladeshi doctors and engineers, and instead they got Little Bangladeshes popping up all over the country.
To be clear, ANY US Citizen or Permanant Resident can eventually bring in some families after an arduous and long process.
This is a non-existent issue with H1-B.
The current wait times for an H1-B from the Rest of the World(ROW) is around 10+ years to be a citizen.
For India/China/Mexico, it's around 12-27 years to become a Permanent Resident if they applied for their I-140 before 2020.
If they applied after 2020, it's currently estimated at 34-75 years!
On paper, H1B is a temporary worker program that requires non-immigrant intent. In practice, there is a legal fiction called “dual intent” that allows H1Bs to apply for a green card without violating the requirement of non-immigrant intent. Once a permanent resident, they can sponsor spouses and adult children for permanent residency. Once a citizen, they can sponsor parents and siblings.
The U.S. gave my dad an H1 visa, which resulted in 8 other Bangladeshis moving to the U.S. If my mom wasn’t antisocial, she could’ve sponsored her dozen siblings, who could’ve then sponsored their children. That’s how you end up with ethnic enclaves like Little Bangladesh.
> the H-1B has instead been wielded as a tool by firms to displace American workers and depress wages in the information technology (IT) labor market
This is very hard to square with software professionals being the fastest growing profession both in terms of number of employed workers and earnings in the past 2 decades.
U.S. wages for software professionals are significantly higher than anywhere else in the world and nowhere else has as much software professionals immigration as the U.S.
I’m predicting that the uncertainty and discouragement of H1-Bs will lead to a destruction of jobs in the U.S. and a suppression of salaries as high quality software engineers don’t move to the U.S., allowing the center of gravity of the industry to shift out of the U.S.
Note: This is not to say there aren’t significant issues with the H1B system that need to be addressed. There are. But cutting off the supply of workers in the most remote friendly profession will not lead to an increase in wages. It will lead to an outflow of jobs instead.
> I’m predicting that the uncertainty and discouragement of H1-Bs will lead to a destruction of jobs in the U.S. and a suppression of salaries as high quality software engineers don’t move to the U.S., allowing the center of gravity of the industry to shift out of the U.S.
Statistically speaking if you take a bunch of low-mid level salary / skill folks and move them out of US, the average salary should increase no? R&D jobs in countries like India is still low compared to US. These are the high skill and pay jobs and they will continue to be here.
> predicting that the uncertainty and discouragement of H1-Bs will lead to a destruction of jobs in the U.S.
Do we have any studies pointing one way or another?
Given AI’s existing effects on junior demand, and the post-Covid normalization of remote work (and thus multi-shore teams), I could see the effect going either way.
> This is very hard to square with software professionals being the fastest growing profession both in terms of number of employed workers and earnings in the past 2 decades.
Just because the wages rose doesn't mean it wasn't suppressed. It's likely wages would have risen even higher without foreign workers increasing the supply of labor. It's simply supply and demand. No?
> I’m predicting that the uncertainty and discouragement of H1-Bs will lead to a destruction of jobs in the U.S. and a suppression of salaries as high quality software engineers don’t move to the U.S., allowing the center of gravity of the industry to shift out of the U.S.
You seem to think that H1-B visas made the US the center of the tech world. It didn't. The US was the center of the world long before H1-B visas existed. Besides, if such a shift were possible, why wouldn't india hold onto their workers and become the center of the industry? Because India is incapable of being the center of anything. What region has the geopolitical clout along financial, cultural, scientific and military importance to become the center of the tech industry? India? Europe? China? Laughable isn't it?
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When we came to the U.S. in 1989–on my dad’s H1 visa—there were under 10,000 Bangladeshis in the country. Today, there are 270,000. Those aren’t 270,000 highly skilled and highly motivated workers. They’re here based on chain migration from handful of original skilled workers.
Bangladesh gets around 50-60 skilled immigrant visas a year, but the Bangladeshi population in the U.S. has someone grown from under 10,000 in 1990 to over 270,000 today. That's the product of family reunification. Voters who supported H1B thought they were voting for a handful of Bangladeshi doctors and engineers, and instead they got Little Bangladeshes popping up all over the country.
This is a non-existent issue with H1-B.
The current wait times for an H1-B from the Rest of the World(ROW) is around 10+ years to be a citizen. For India/China/Mexico, it's around 12-27 years to become a Permanent Resident if they applied for their I-140 before 2020. If they applied after 2020, it's currently estimated at 34-75 years!
The U.S. gave my dad an H1 visa, which resulted in 8 other Bangladeshis moving to the U.S. If my mom wasn’t antisocial, she could’ve sponsored her dozen siblings, who could’ve then sponsored their children. That’s how you end up with ethnic enclaves like Little Bangladesh.
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It's demented to think that they are undermining wages when unemployment was basically 0 when Trump and his moronic goons took power.
This idea that we should use borders to keep other people poor is just insane.
This is very hard to square with software professionals being the fastest growing profession both in terms of number of employed workers and earnings in the past 2 decades.
U.S. wages for software professionals are significantly higher than anywhere else in the world and nowhere else has as much software professionals immigration as the U.S.
I’m predicting that the uncertainty and discouragement of H1-Bs will lead to a destruction of jobs in the U.S. and a suppression of salaries as high quality software engineers don’t move to the U.S., allowing the center of gravity of the industry to shift out of the U.S.
Note: This is not to say there aren’t significant issues with the H1B system that need to be addressed. There are. But cutting off the supply of workers in the most remote friendly profession will not lead to an increase in wages. It will lead to an outflow of jobs instead.
Statistically speaking if you take a bunch of low-mid level salary / skill folks and move them out of US, the average salary should increase no? R&D jobs in countries like India is still low compared to US. These are the high skill and pay jobs and they will continue to be here.
Do we have any studies pointing one way or another?
Given AI’s existing effects on junior demand, and the post-Covid normalization of remote work (and thus multi-shore teams), I could see the effect going either way.
https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=42454509
Just because the wages rose doesn't mean it wasn't suppressed. It's likely wages would have risen even higher without foreign workers increasing the supply of labor. It's simply supply and demand. No?
> I’m predicting that the uncertainty and discouragement of H1-Bs will lead to a destruction of jobs in the U.S. and a suppression of salaries as high quality software engineers don’t move to the U.S., allowing the center of gravity of the industry to shift out of the U.S.
You seem to think that H1-B visas made the US the center of the tech world. It didn't. The US was the center of the world long before H1-B visas existed. Besides, if such a shift were possible, why wouldn't india hold onto their workers and become the center of the industry? Because India is incapable of being the center of anything. What region has the geopolitical clout along financial, cultural, scientific and military importance to become the center of the tech industry? India? Europe? China? Laughable isn't it?
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