Supreme Court Rejects IT Worker Challenge of OPT Program (techtarget.com) 43
dcblogs writes: The U.S. Supreme Court declined to hear a challenge against the Optional Practical Training (OPT) program, which allows STEM graduates to work in the U.S. for up to three years on a student F-1 visa. John Miano, the attorney representing WashTech, the labor group that brought the appeal, called the decision "staggering." He said it "strips Congress of the ability to control nonimmigrant programs," such as OPT, the H-1B program, and other programs designed to provide temporary guest workers. In the most extreme example of what the decision may allow, Miano said it theoretically enables the White House to let people on tourist visas work. The decision "gives more authority to the federal government to do what it wants," he said.
The OPT program permits STEM (Science, Technology, Engineering, and Math) graduates to work for up to three years under a student F-1 visa. Critics of the program said it brought unfair competition to the U.S. labor market. Ron Hira, an associate professor of Public Policy at Howard University, said the U.S. administration of the OPT program is so poor that "the program has effectively no controls, accountability, or worker protections."
A group of Senate Republicans, including U.S. Sen. Ted Cruz, argued in briefs filed with the court that the federal government was using the OPT program to sidestep the annual H-1B visa cap. More than 30 Republican House members also filed a brief in support.
The OPT program permits STEM (Science, Technology, Engineering, and Math) graduates to work for up to three years under a student F-1 visa. Critics of the program said it brought unfair competition to the U.S. labor market. Ron Hira, an associate professor of Public Policy at Howard University, said the U.S. administration of the OPT program is so poor that "the program has effectively no controls, accountability, or worker protections."
A group of Senate Republicans, including U.S. Sen. Ted Cruz, argued in briefs filed with the court that the federal government was using the OPT program to sidestep the annual H-1B visa cap. More than 30 Republican House members also filed a brief in support.
Work from anywhefe (Score:1, Troll)
Wasn't there an article on slashdot less than 24 hours ago that US workers calling themselves digital nomads love to go work in various countries? When it is done in reverse we’re pissed? This is just like Europe being pissed off when Africans want to come grab their resources and get the fruits of European labor. Europe didn't think of colonization as evil for over 200 years when they were the ones loading on boats to various destinations. How do Africans even know Europe exists? How come many Africa
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1. Jobs are not zero sum. For example, I believe most work creates jobs rather than eliminates them. Work improves quality of life and produces a net positive of goods and services that in turn enable the creation of more goods and services. For example, if you build a factory that enables products to be made that in turn may enable more jobs.
2. Zero unemployment is an impossible standard. Also, being unable to hire certain professions definitely eliminate downstream jobs. A broad based policy is stupid.
3.
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You're decades out of date. Actual Mexicans aren't crossing the border in great number anymore. Until recently it was most Guatamalans, Hondurans, Nicaraguans, and some Venezuelans. Now it seems like everyone is exploiting the porous border. We're even getting Sikhs for God's sake. Might get Ukrainians eventually.
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We're even getting Sikhs for God's sake.
I live in San Jose, the city with the largest Sikh temple outside of India. I work with Sikhs and a few live in my neighborhood. They are smart, work hard, improve the local schools, and increase my property value. Please send more.
Might get Ukrainians eventually.
I've also worked with Ukrainians. They're good people. I am happy to have more of them too.
Re:Work from anywhefe (Score:4, Informative)
"digital nomads" are totally different. From the point of view of the "various countries" they are moderately wealthy tourists who come in and spend money that otherwise wouldn't enter the local economy and they don't participate in the local labor market.
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They do. For example, if you did that in India they'll think they lose outsourcing revenue. If the work can be done remotely, your company could have hired an Indian.
Critics don't say it brought competition (Score:2)
What critics are saying is it brought cheap desperately labor that can be easily abused while cutting off opportunities for higher education to Americans. I know people in programs like this who asked why Americans don't take advantage of these programs and the answer is these programs aren't for us. We're two mobile and two able to dictate terms as a result.
Not that flooding the market with labor when you only thing I have to sell is l
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We have a couple H1Bs at our small company. Both were on F1 visas prior, and the F1 gives us a chance to decide if we are going to invest the substantial capital and time necessary to seek an H1B. H1B visas are the only effective path for legal immigration to the US.
While I am certain abuses happen, that is going to be true of any artificial barriers to a green card. Which would you rather have? Not allowing immigration simply is not an option.
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H1B visas are the only effective path for legal immigration to the US.
Not true. Asylum and refugee visas are also the other effective paths for legal immigration.
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Right... and those are great for skilled workers? We have at least 15% open positions for our company, and it is a widespread problem in our industry. When the F1 and H1B programs were working we were maybe at 3-5% open positions. As our birth rate has dropped our need for immigrants has increased, and with the boomers retiring (with GenX not far behind), it is getting worse.
(We do actually have two employees that migrated with Refugee status >15 years ago, but they were both unskilled and trained by
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Right... and those are great for skilled workers?
That's a different conversation, which we can have right now if you wish. It still stands as a valid counterargument to your claim that H1Bs were the only effective paths for legal immigration.
Pick a topic and stick to it instead of moving goalposts dressed as red herrings.
Now, regarding skilled workers. A significant amount of asylum seekers and refugees are actually middle class, professional people with the capital to travel and apply. A lot of the Syrian refugees we decided not to take back in the 4
Re:Critics don't say it brought competition (Score:4, Interesting)
How about throwing away the H-1B program completely? The H-1B program is based around workers that are so necessary to business that they are superior to US workers. If they are that superior, then why are they bound to one employer and deported if fired? They should be given a full permanent resident, "green card" visa, with a path to citizenship if they are that vital to the US.
Otherwise, it is just a way to abuse both workers coming in, because they have to work insane hours or face deportation, and it is a way to hose US workers, especially when entire departments are all H-1B visa holders, not solely because they are superior in any way, but because they are indentured servants.
Chuck the H-1B program, and if someone is that needed (and not there because they are cheap and can be brutalized without any fear of reprisal), the workers get a permanent residency visa, and a path to being a US citizen.
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The H-1B program is based around workers that are so necessary to business that they are superior to US workers
Not true. It's about availability, not superior skills.
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Adding to this, H1B visas don't tie an employee to a company (if you are on an H1B, another company can apply for an H1B for you, without affecting the quotas): it's the green card process that ties people to companies.
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H1B visas are the only effective path for legal immigration to the US.
Total and utter bullshit.
I guess you've never heard of the L-1 (uncapped dual-intent work visa, valid up to 7 years), TN (uncapped, unlimited work visa for Australians and Canadians), E-1 (Treaty Trader), O (extraordinary individuals) visas?
Not to mention the uncapped spousal and parental visas that U.S. citizens can sponsor for their immediate family?
H1B visas are primarily used by immigrants from a small number of nations, primarily because of the 7% cap on greencards. Fix that unfair abomination, a
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Why not hire people already in the US? Don't want to pay a proper US salary?
You could hire someone from the US but you'd rather have someone you have leverage over and can keep under your thumb. Disgusting.
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Because there are none. We pay competitive salaries for our industry but significantly fewer people are getting into it than are retiring. The one "artificial barrier" to hiring for us is that we need people that will be eligible for the PE exam within ~5 years.
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Tell us you want to pay below-market wages without telling us you want to pay below-market wages.
People aren't enticed by "competitive salaries." Why on earth would I switch jobs for a salary that is exactly the same as my current salary? Enticing people away from other companies usually requires 20% on top of "competitive salaries" adjusted for cost-of-living.
Re: Critics don't say it brought competition (Score:2)
"We pay competitive salaries for our industry"
So, unfairly little?
Re: Critics don't say it brought competition (Score:4, Insightful)
Americans "don't take advantage of these programs" because there are no advantages to take - US citizens do not need permission to accept a job during or immediately after their college education. Or, you know, anytime they want.
There is literally no "special benefits" on OPT other than extra bureaucratic tax to beg for conditional permission to accept an entry-level job for a limited time... with no guarantees (to the person or the business) that will accrue to an H1B and long-term career, for that matter.
Unless you mean US citizens don't take full advantage of the internship and job placement opportunities offered by their universities... which is probably true, but unrelated to the OPT program.
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Still that's not the complaint the complaint is that we can't possibly compete with cheap and abusable labor. So the only solutions to keep that labor out of the country so that the jobs that are here and that multinationals aren't comfortable shipping overseas at least go to us
This is a good take for the individual, but what we have to realize here in the US is that individuals do not make sweeping policy for the entire country. That's the purview of the owner class. And the owner class ABSOLUTELY wants all the cheap and abusable labor it can find. So the only solutions to them is to keep bringing in cheap and abusable labor in any method they can until all of the "at home" labor is willing to work just as cheaply and take just as much abuse as the current batch of lowest rung wo
OPT is not H1B (Score:5, Insightful)
This isnt about foreign meat packers or low-level IT flunkies with a fake foreign degree undercutting local people on H1-B visas. Most of these people are hard working, very intelligent, highly technically trained BY THE US SYSTEM, and highly motivated to stay here. They’ve got real, US-level skills. Most of them know the US is a better place than their home countries and they want to join up. They are exactly the sort of people that a society should want to keep. Totally self-defeating to deny them any chance of finding a job here. Why instantly kick them back to their original country?
Cancelling OPT would be an absolute self-inflicted disaster. My opinion of this supreme court is pretty low, but they made the right call on this one - it didnt even deserve a hearing.
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But it doesn't matter because it's the "brown people terk yer jerb!" crowd that we are dealing with here.
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Who said anything about canceling OPT? It's a question of whether the program should have limits, and whether or not the executive branch can fudge the limits (or ignore them completely).
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Maybe so but they are also people who took a place at that University that could have goon to an American citizen.
The role of our government is provide the blessings of liberty to OURSELVES and OUR POSTERITY, if we do that for others fine, but all indications are our existing citizens are being displaced and often left behind economic for benefits primarily accrued to outsiders. That should not be looked at as 'acceptable'
Re: OPT is not H1B (Score:2)
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Medic
On the one hand, on the other hand ... (Score:3)
On the one hand, H-1B and other immigrant worker programs can be horribly abused, mostly by contractors ("body shops"), sometimes by companies directly hiring. The abuse comes in the form of both mistreatment of immigrant workers, and negative salary pressure and/or lost employment opportunities for citizens and green card holders.
On the other hand, H-1B is completely broken for Indians, and seems excessively permissive for mainland Chinese. I've had H-1B coworkers who were complete crap and others who I count as not only excellent coworkers but good friends. The good ones shouldn't be under constant threat of being forced to leave the country on a few weeks notice.
But I don't think this is what this is all about. I don't think H-1B immigrants are anyone's favorite right now.
My final thought is that we have historically low unemployment, and we just plain need more workers. We also work existing employees too many hours. This is no longer 1940 where the 40 hour work week was standardized. We're just doing it wrong in both little and big ways and no one seems to want to sort it out.
Re:On the one hand, on the other hand ... (Score:4, Interesting)
My final thought is that we have historically low unemployment, and we just plain need more workers. We also work existing employees too many hours. This is no longer 1940 where the 40 hour work week was standardized. We're just doing it wrong in both little and big ways and no one seems to want to sort it out.
Additionally, (and incidentally), we are about to enter into a perennial worker shortage as the Boomer generation is moving into retirement, with Millennials, Gen-X and Gen-Z folks not being enough to fill these positions as well as new ones created in this expanded economy of ours.
We need to increase legal immigration at different tiers of skills. We just don't know how to proceed (not to mention that the topic has been death-kissed by toxic politics.)
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My final thought is that we have historically low unemployment
The rate deliberately doesn't count people who have been looking for a job for more than six months. We just pretend they are not looking for work at that point. The longer the economy is shitty for workers, the more of a lie the unemployment rate becomes. I was off for a year and three months. Over and over I talk to people who only got their job after being unemployed for a year, or people who have been unemployed for more than a year. These people are still looking, but they're not counted.
SCOTUS does wrong even when it does right. (Score:3)
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Their aim is to preserve executive power over immigration.
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Knowing that Democrats will exercise restraint while Republicans will behave with out-of-control criminality, it's a win-win for them.
We train these people in our schools (Score:1)
Funny, OPT came from Republican administrations (Score:4)
The OPT program was introduced in 1992, under the Bush administration. The extension was introduced in 2008, under the Bush Jr. administration. The only part of it attributable to a Democratic administration was the Obama-era change of the extension from 17 to 24 months. IIRC OPT was introduced to allow companies to side-step the H1-B and similar visa caps, so the current administration using it for the same purpose seems to be a case of "working as intended".
Good. (Score:2)
The decision "gives more authority to the federal government to do what it wants,"
and so it should be. .. oh well )
it's not up to whiners, complainers and loudmouths to run the country. ( sounds like the fatberg
specially not immigration and work matters.
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Just do away with separation of powers, president is always right when I agree with him.
For that matter, lets just let the Supreme Court do the law making ... when I agree with them.
Bogus ‘Worker Shortage (Score:1)
But as Forbes Senior Education correspondent Peter Greene wrote in 2019, in the midst of another so-called “labor shortage” panic specific to teachers, this framework is the absolutely wrong way for our media to look at mismatches in wages offered versus those accepted. He wrote:
You can’t solve a problem starting with the wrong