Judge Rejects H-1B Visa Injunction 442
theodp writes "Judge Faith Hochberg has denied a preliminary injunction sought by the Programmers Guild to put a hold on a controversial 'emergency' rule change by the Department of Homeland Security to permit foreign students to work continuously in the US for two-and-a-half years after graduation without an H-1B visa. Hochberg indicated she failed to see how an increased labor supply could result in wage depression for engineers and computer workers. That seems disingenuous, since in Andaya v. Citizens Mortgage Corporation, Judge Hochberg recently saw first-hand how a US employer got away with paying an H-1B computer engineer as little as $15,000 to do a job with a 'prevailing wage rate' of $41,000. In that case, Hochberg ruled against Filipino H-1B visa holder Almira Andaya, arguing that 'nonpayment of wages as listed on the H-1B visa petition ... does not raise a substantial question of federal law.'"
Eliminate the H1-B (Score:1, Interesting)
As at IT professional, I hate the H1-B Visa program and want to see it eliminated. This judge is a complete idiot. Just because a person is from India or Bangladesh does NOT make that person a better IT worker. I work for a medium sized Midwestern University. There was another IT worker from India who went on about how technologically superior his country is and how his people are the ones that keep our technology going. Yet, this guy could not read the bright yellow and black tag on the side of a UPS that said to plug the battery in. There are about 10 others from the Indian subcontinent who work at my college in IT and every single one of them are sub par (of course, so is the rest of Information Services... but that is another kettle of fish).
As for my stance, I am for a reduction of ALL immigration, not just the H-1B.In my opinion, the the H1-B is just stupid. We should just train and hire our own people. We should also ban sending our jobs overseas just so corporations can give their CEOs 20 million dollar a year bonuses.
Re:"failed to see (Score:3, Interesting)
That's because you don't understand differences between labor and commodity. More oil means lower prices; more workers means more jobs and more work done.
The more workers you have, the larger is your economy, and EVERYBODY is better off.
If you don't understand the concept at least compare our economy in 2008 with that in 1492 (pre-immigration).
Who really built Silicon Valley? (Score:5, Interesting)
Last month I asked the aging Bob Johnsonâ"former CTO of Burroughs Corporation when it was a leading mainframe company in Minneapolis where he developed the magnetic ink you see on the bottom of your checksâ"what he thought caused the loss of the Midwestern high tech leadership to the coasts, and he said it was the financial dominance of the coasts.
That squares with what I observed while at Control Data Corporation/Cray Research, Inc.
The reason Bill Norris and Seymour Cray were able to start CDC thence Cray Research was because they violated SEC regs and went around selling stock at PTA meetings, making a lot of middle class people retire very comfortably. My late father bought some Cray stock early on which helped greatly with his retirement.
When I was at CDC in Arden Hills, MN attempting to deploy the mass market version of the PLATO network with Internet-like capabilities (the system that Ray Ozzie (Bill Gates' replacement at Microsoft) cut his teeth on) in 1980 the primary resistance was from a middle management that, due to the financial press' hostility toward Norris's vision of a society disintermediated by computer networking, small high-tech farms and locally produced and consumed essentialsâ"had itself grown hostile to Norris.
My proposed solution is simple to state but will perhaps require a war to institute:
Replace all taxes on economic activity with a tax on net-assets, assessed at their in-place liquidation value, at the risk free interest rate (which according to modern portfolio theory is the short-term US Treasury rate) so as to extract all economic rents from the private sector, and then, to prevent public sector rent-seeking in pork-barrel politics, disperse those funds evenly in a dividend to all citizens, as the beneficiaries of the land-trust called the United States.
That will not only stop the vicious centralization of power in the private and public sectors, but it will clarify the role of immigrationâ"it is a dilution of the benefits intended for the Posterity of the Founders of the land trust called The United States of America.
Re:"failed to see (Score:3, Interesting)
That's because you don't understand differences between labor and commodity. More oil means lower prices; more workers means more jobs and more work done.
Maybe overall and eventually, but it takes time for things to adjust.
The more workers you have, the larger is your economy, and EVERYBODY is better off.
That doesn't work if the new workers are all in one field, you end up with high unemployment and/or low pay for a while until people get displaced to other lines of work ("I just can't find a job as a programmer any more, I think I'll learn how to farm switchgrass instead.").
Re:Eliminate the H1-B (Score:3, Interesting)
I am for a reduction of ALL immigration, not just the H-1B.In my opinion, the the H1-B is just stupid. We should just train and hire our own people. We should also ban sending our jobs overseas just so corporations can give their CEOs 20 million dollar a year bonuses.
Speaking as a computer professional who lives and works outside the USA[0], I strongly agree with you[1] and would encourage all US citizens to lobby their politicians to adopt the above position (to paraphrase Randy Bush).
0. I guess, given your parochial view of global economics, that that makes us competitors, in your mind.
1. Seriously: I strongly disagree with some of the indentured-servitude aspects of the H1-B programme. They're unfair on the workers, and they're economically counter-productive to your country.
Re:I don't have a problem. And... (Score:2, Interesting)
I've seen the complaint many times. The problem is that in the US their is a shortage of IT education. Most universities have CS programs but as you said yourself CS is not about programming or IT, and yet we encourage people who want to program or do IT to get CS degrees. What we really need are vocational IT degrees.
No one would hire an Electrical Engineer when all they wanted was an Electrician, so why do companies hire Computer Scientists when they want IT people? When I was an undergraduate I saw three kinds of people in CS generally. Good CS people that could program but didn't really care about IT and software engineering, Good IT and Software Engineers who couldn't quite grasp CS, and people who were crappy programmers/IT/Software Engineers who didn't really grasp CS and just squeaked by on brute force. The first group went on the grad school like I did, the second group tended to end up in semi-abusive programming positions where the company overworked you or at companies with no future. The third group minored in business and got high paying jobs on BS and are now in management positions many of them working on MBAs.
Currently as a CS doctoral student I have dealt with alot of people out of the Indian universities and a large percentage of these people are what business want -- people with a vocational IT background who churn out code, and yet they make lousy CS grad students. The MCS (as opposed to the MSCS and PhDCS) degree has become a way for foreign programmers and IT professionals to get a foot in the door and get hired by an American company.
Less H-1B's, more and faster citizenship (Score:5, Interesting)
Instead of H-1B indentured servitude, gilded as it may be, we should fast track such people for citizenship. Any country that can make America's marginal tax rates look good or otherwise sufficiently pisses off their people DESERVES to lose their best and brightest. America has traditionally been the common meeting place of the world's best and brightest and I'd hate to see that change.
But the big corporations that give $megabucks to the Democratic and Republican parties, slightly more to whichever is dominant at the time, really like the H-1B system so I don't expect much to change. The fast-track citizenship idea is from National Review.
H1B's for her office... (Score:2, Interesting)
Let's start accepting H1B's for lawyers and judges. I guarantee she will change her tune then.
Comment removed (Score:4, Interesting)
Naw, there's a better solution (Score:2, Interesting)
Justlook at the way unemployment is going. The last thing we need are more workers.
The Programmers Guild has proposed a superb idea. Put the H1-B visa up for aution, rather than a lottery. This is a much more fair system, for a system that is supposed to bring in talent that isn't here in the U.S.. And it generates revenue for the U.S..
It's funny that the so-called "Free Market" advocates are against such a free market idea.
B.S. (Score:5, Interesting)
No, it's not hogwash.
I've worked for employers who do this routinely.
But let's talk about the process. If a visa holder wants to leave, he must first find another employer willing to accept (a) H1B's (which eliminates all but large businesses (b) H1B transfers (which eliminates even more companies).
If you are an H1B, and you make noise about leaving, your employer simply calls the IMS and you have a few days to leave the country.
Let's be real here... if H1B visa holders had freedom of movement, then their wages would be no different than prevailing wages. The fact that you have skilled professionals from overseas working for $25-50K (I made more than that out of college 30 years ago) either says that (a) the wage supply is too large (which undercuts the arguments for H1B's) (b) there is an economic barrier people with H1B's that prevents them from exercising their rights.
I don't have an ax to grind here, and I think that there really should *not* be a barrier for skilled people to come into the United States, but I think it benefits everyone to eliminate the H1B and simply allow any highly skilled person to enter the United States. I don't see the downside, provided they have the same ability to negotiate wages as people who live here.
Re:Free Market and Visas don't apply to judges. (Score:3, Interesting)
"to the detriment of the customer."
Maybe -- but do you know something? *I* am the supplier, and NOT the customer. As to the customer -- they get the benefit of dealing with professionals.
I would love to organize.
Re:I think you're missing the point (Score:1, Interesting)
> H1B wages are depressed precisely because the visa > holder will be deported if they quit.
Actually, H1-B visa holders can switch employers. But, if they want to become permanent residents (green card holders), then they have to depend upon the employer to apply for it. Thats where the whole messy thing comes in. The employment based green card processing is a long process mired with inefficiencies and long waits (6 - 10 years).
And one of the requirement for green card approval is that you will be working in the same or similar occupation till you get your green card. So, basically stuck on the same job and cannot take promotions or switch to management. How absurd?
The whole process was designed for 80's and did go through little or no change for current economy.
Re:B.S. (Score:5, Interesting)
Re:Eliminate the H1-B (Score:3, Interesting)
Re:Protection of the tech jobs market (Score:3, Interesting)
Yes, maybe we will have a standard of living like India, but not because we've gone down in our standard of living... it's because they will have come up. India has grown very well in the last 15 years, and so have we. I believe this illustrates that a rising tide can raise all ships. A prosperous India is in everyone's best interest, esp as a counter-balance to China.
Also, you are incorrect, protectionism does NOT hit rich people the hardest, it hits poor people the hardest. Those rich folk that own companies no longer have to compete with the likes of the foreigners for providing products or services, thereby lowering quality and wages and raising prices. One need only look at the current situation in Venezuela, the economic history of Latin America, or even the Great Depression era to find this is the case.
Re:Protection of the tech jobs market (Score:3, Interesting)
When "free trade" includes a race to the bottom in wages, working conditions, environmental standards, product quality, and the maximization of external costs, "free trade" is not good for everyone.
When folks in Germany or Japan can build a better car for a lower price then U.S. automakers, while paying employees a good wage, giving them good working conditions, and keeping the environment relatively clean, that's competition making for better products. It can be rough for workers when the company they work for comes out on the losing end, but with appropriate legal and social structures to provide some padding there, the result can be good.
When China can produce cheap crap at a price that puts American industry out of business while using prison labor and polluting the environment, that's not good.
supply and demand 101 (Score:3, Interesting)
Of course an increase in supply will decrease demand. Duh and obviously this judge did not take Highschool economics 101 or use common sense.
If she wants to argue its not the government's job to make competitive salaries then I would agree with her. Something doesn't seem right about this ruling and the fact that federal government already has dirt on her as another slashdotter pointed out might have something to do with it.
Well I am about 100k in college debt and was told to expect to make 12/hr when I graduate! Why did I go back to school? The economic climate is not favorable to employees right now and I would not be surprised if alot of laid of I.T. workers banded together and become more pollitically involved. I majored in B.A. and gave up in I.T. An MCSE, A+ and 2 years experience is not enough to keep a job anymore and I do not want to keep getting outsourced and shafted.
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CPAs and accountants are going to be outsourced next and lawyers. If you want a lawyer for new York state law you go to New Jersey. Why can't you fly to an Indian lawfirm where they are alot cheaper? All hell will break loose when this happens as most politicians were lawyers.
Re:Protection of the tech jobs market (Score:2, Interesting)
I've worked for Fortune500 companies for decades and been a technical interviewer for years: nearly all jobs are pedestrian, and companies do not need nor want the best and brightest (except when testifying before Congress). They only want the cheapest, even if it means lower management gets overridden by upper management to force hiring the worst and cheapest.
And, correct, companies have no idea how to define quality in their workers, which is why they settle for cheapest short-term, because that is all they can measure successfully.