Comment by lovich

Comment by lovich 5 hours ago

6 replies

> As I understood, you mean that you want H-1Bs to be able to change jobs, not to hang in the country unemployed?

No explicitly not that. I want whoever sponsors and h1b or the equivalent in my fantasy world here to pay for the cost to society up front and then for that h1b person to have the same freedom as a citizen.

My thinking behind that is that if a company is saying we can not find a single citizen who can fill this role so we need to import one, then this makes it real. If that argument is true then I want said immigrant to be in the workforce with the same rules that I have, instead of being a second class citizen which makes them more attractive to companies because they are cheaper/more controlled

I believe that allowing for the corporation hiring said h1b to have any say, direct or indirectly, in said h1bs ability to remain in the market will necessarily make them an employee that US companies prioritize.

The only way to stop that, from my current understanding, is to make it so that corporations have to pay the cost to add a person to society, but have no say in the decision making process after.

Upon review of my post and thinking through why I feel that way, I realized I just want the same deal applied to corporations for bringing in new entrants to society as is applied to people marrying foreigners.

I married someone outside the country and as part of their green card application I was required to commit myself to personally covering their social security checks if they divorced me before they made, iirc the exact number was 40, enough payments into social security.

Somehow companies aren’t required to have that level of skin in the game

pandaman 4 hours ago

>No explicitly not that. I want whoever sponsors and h1b or the equivalent in my fantasy world here to pay for the cost to society up front and then for that h1b person to have the same freedom as a citizen.

That would be too much - an alien having all the privileges of a citizen but no obligations is above a mere citizen. If you want to become a citizen there is an employment-based immigration, if you don't - you are going to be restricted in any developed country because normal countries do not put foreigners above citizens.

>My thinking behind that is that if a company is saying we can not find a single citizen who can fill this role so we need to import one, then this makes it real.

Nothing like this happens with temporary visa workers. All that company claims in such a case is that they want to hire a foreigner and are going to pay no less than the minimum wage determined for the position. This system is based entirely on the temporary nature of the employment so there is not much scrutiny as the legal fiction here says that the foreigner is going to leave in 6 years tops.

  • lovich 4 hours ago

    > That would be too much - an alien having all the privileges of a citizen but no obligations is above a mere citizen. If you want to become a citizen there is an employment-based immigration, if you don't - you are going to be restricted in any developed country because normal countries do not put foreigners above citizens.

    My point is that issuing h1bs are a service for corporations in the us, ostensibly under the reason that no one in the country is capable of the job.

    I am saying that assuming that is true, and assuming that we value brain draining other countries of talent, then we allow for corporations to import workers, but they need to both pay for the cost of the worker and have no control over them afterwards.

    I don’t know whether the cost to society that would cover importing a worker is 10 dollars or 10 billion, but whatever is decided on as the amount I am suggesting is paid up front.

    Assuming the corporation paying for the import is correct that the immigrant has a unique skill, then we would want them to be generally available to our labor market instead of tied to a single company.

    That is my reasoning at least. Again poke holes in this but I do want a system that prioritizes improvements to my society or people in my society. If the benefits for whatever we end up in are centralized primarily in any single private actor, single human or organization, then I am probably against that plan

    > Nothing like this happens with temporary visa workers. All that company claims in such a case is that they want to hire a foreigner and are going to pay no less than the minimum wage determined for the position. This system is based entirely on the temporary nature of the employment so there is not much scrutiny as the legal fiction here says that the foreigner is going to leave in 6 years tops.

    I don’t know how to respond to this section. I am either missing some part of the h1b visa rules or we are talking about different things. What you described to me sounds like an agricultural visa or an au pair like J2 visa

    • pandaman 4 hours ago

      You keep insisting that H-1B or any temporary visas are for the jobs that cannot be filled by Americans. This is simply not true. There are no such requirements so you whole reasoning is based on a fantasy.

      • lovich 4 hours ago

        > You keep insisting that H-1B or any temporary visas are for the jobs that cannot be filled by Americans. This is simply not true.

        As a de facto description of the current situation in the United States I agree with you.

        The de jure description for why h1bs would be allowed is due to them, again _ostensibly_, having skills or a specific skillset that could not be found in a reasonable time frame and are worth importing.

        I am trying to game theory out ways to make the h1b system achieve the ostensible goals. I am not trying to defend the current system as it stands

        edit: I realized this might be our point of contention right now

        > There are no such requirements so you whole reasoning is based on a fantasy.

        I was under the impression that h1bs positions were supposed to pay a “higher than prevailing wage” but there has been a surge of activity around these terms the past few months on the internet and I can’t find definitive proof of that. If that fact isn’t true it would modify my view on the system