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For the new political order taking shape in Washington, however, H-1Bs aren't quite welcome. Amid promises of sweeping changes to immigration policy, President-elect Donald Trump and his choice for attorney general, Sen. Jeff Sessions (R-Ala.), have tabbed the program for a major overhaul, and might even scrap it altogether. In the House, Rep. Darrell Issa (R-Calif.) is on the same wavelength.
Trump has described H-1Bs as a "cheap labor program" subject to "widespread, rampant" abuse. Sessions co-sponsored legislation last year with Sen. Ted Cruz (R-Tex.) to effectively gut the program; Issa, a congressman with Trump's ear, released a statement Wednesday saying he was reintroducing similar legislation called the Protect and Grow American Jobs Act.
Sessions and Issa's legislation primarily targets large outsourcing companies, such as Infosys and Tata Consultancy Services, that receive the vast majority of H-1B visas and use them to deploy workers to American companies seeking to cut costs. In 2015, the top 10 recipients of H-1B visas were outsourcing firms. As recently as 2013, the Justice Department, which Sessions stands to take over, settled with Infosys for $34 million in a visa fraud case.
If they were smart they'd change the program to maximize brain-drain from other countries by making H-1B a fast-track to citizenship instead of the 6+ year wait for a green-card that it now is. Bring in the best of them rather than the cheapest of them and let them compete on equal footing rather than the indentured servitude of the current H-1B program.
(Score: 5, Insightful) by Runaway1956 on Wednesday January 11 2017, @01:23AM
+5000 insightful
We, the common people, are brainwashed to believe that immigration is good for this reason or that. But, the decision makers across the country lobby for things like H-1B for one reason only. Immigration and work programs drive wages down. Always, it's all about the money.
(Score: 2, Interesting) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday January 11 2017, @05:30AM
People often forget that there are other types of visas for stealing the best and brightest. Want to bring someone in as an executive or management? L-1 or EB-1. Want someone really high in your company, run an entertainment or sports venue? O-1 or EB-1. Religious worker? R. From a NAFTA country? TN. Are a doctor or lawyer or the like. EB-2. And that is just for starters. However, my personal favorite is the ability to literally buy your way into the US with an EB-5, 'cause fuck the rules when you have money.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday January 11 2017, @04:46PM
but i never believed in that lie
the problem is that i never have found a republican I could vote for that didn't perpetuate the lie. And I never found a democrat to vote for that spoke the truth about h1bs that had a chance of gaining office.
Everyone on the ballot was about making outsourcing even better (it's already pretty great) and getting more cheap people available. There is so much lobbying on the topic that unemployed IT people like me can't afford the bribes that HCL and tata and infosys and disney and google and microsoft and... well. $5 to bernie sanders was a loss I guess.
Hopefully The Donald will properly do something, but I still expect to see exploitation of IT workers at an even faster pace. MS's own outsourcer pretty much singlehandedly ushered in the era of no longer needing a local IT staff. Just cloud it. yeah amazon and google had their services, but when people didnt have to pay some guy to check the server LEDs now and then (and that can be a good thing to eliminate this cost), an entire industry caved in overnight.
the h1b thing continues to kick those that had the servers pulled out from under them.