H-1B visa: New registration system will start in March
A new electronic registration system intended to streamline the expensive and cumbersome H-1B application process will be in place for the upcoming application season, with an earlier deadline, the federal government said Friday afternoon.
Instead of submitting a detailed and labor-intensive initial H-1B application for each foreign worker a company wants to hire, employers will instead submit registration documents requiring only basic information about the company and worker, U.S. Citizenship and Immigration said.
The registration period, for H-1B applications subject to the annual 85,000 cap on new visas, will run from March 1 through March 20, the agency said.
If enough registrations come in to trigger the H-1B lottery, the registrations will be selected by lottery, according to the agency.
“Only those with selected registrations will be eligible to file H-1B cap-subject petitions,” the agency said.
Under the previous system, employers would mail in lengthy applications, which typically cost thousands of dollars in preparation costs and filing fees, during a five-day window starting April 1.
Now, employers will pay $10 for each registration, and only pay application fees if their registration is selected in the lottery and they become eligible to apply.
(Score: 5, Interesting) by SomeGuy on Sunday December 08 2019, @04:11AM (6 children)
While I'm normally all for streamlining processes, excuse me if I have no sympathy at all for these TRAITORS giving away American jobs.
And yet, we can't fix the health care system.
(Score: 5, Insightful) by DrkShadow on Sunday December 08 2019, @01:01PM
Not only that, it encourages a race to the bottom.
Suppose you have a "need" for a very technical candidate, you've put in a great deal of time to find this candidate and your company has submitted an application for an H1b visa for this candidate.
Suppose you're looking for common-as-dirt IT workers but you want to pay them Indian wages. Then, you file 3500 H1b applications. You pay only for those that were selected to be filed, and you pay only $10 for those (even if you happen to not want those, say). (Suppose further that the "basic information" about a candidate allows for representations that could portray one or more kf the same candidate, even.) (Suppose you can pick-and-choose your candidates after you know how many will receive visas, and you can choose from your pool which candidates win the lottery.)
Whose application(s) is(are) most likely to be filled?
Additionally, i predict a 20-fold increase in applications, combine with cries for, "we need more visas! Raise the cap!"
(Score: 2, Disagree) by opinionated_science on Sunday December 08 2019, @03:59PM (4 children)
That isn't how the H1B system works. They must hire a worker at "prevailing wages" and post the job announcements publicly - go ahead , critique one see if you can get them to hire an American.
The more technical the job, the less likely a random citizen could qualify, but also the higher the prevailing wage to prevent claims of "under marker pressure".
In short, it is the *tech* industry trying to hire *technically* qualified people for tasks the domestic market doesn't have.
The trope of "American" jobs, seems to have ignored the value the immigrants bring the USA - and then become American.
There are of course, other visa classes for "professional performances" e.g. actor, athlete,artist etc...
(Score: 3, Insightful) by khallow on Sunday December 08 2019, @05:41PM (2 children)
At cheaper than US market rates. We know the game.
My view is skip the theater and just auction off 85,000 green cards to the highest bidders.
(Score: 2) by opinionated_science on Monday December 09 2019, @06:19PM (1 child)
read my post - prevailing wage- I worked at huge lab, and noone hired was cheap.
There are certainly companies abusing the system, but the system itself was setup sometime ago to be a benefit.
(Score: 1) by khallow on Monday December 09 2019, @10:09PM
If you couldn't find someone native at the prevailing wage, then the prevailing wage was higher than what you were offering.
The system was designed to be abused. An even bigger abuse than the "prevailing wage" fig leaf is the indentured servitude nature of the visa. It's much harder to job hop on an H1-B where you'll be kicked out, if you don't have an employer willing to vouch for you.
My take is that we shouldn't bother with the pretense. A lot of people want to migrate to the US because it sucks a lot less than where they came from. Let them come openly, just pay an appropriate fee to keep the non-serious ones out.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday December 08 2019, @08:52PM
What is the prevailing wage for an IT help-desk tech that speaks Swahili?
What are you paying those remotely? What are those paid in the US, of the ones (any? any??) that you can find?
The prevailing wage is based on the wages paid to an employee living in India, then. Great.
Now, next time, they'll look at a wage for an IT person that _doesn't_ speak Swahili, but largely has the same technical capacity of the person who speaks Swahili but is also on the IT team. Then, for IT, the wage is.. relatively low. Just look at what you're paying that qualified IT person that speaks Swahili.
Win, win! (Lose.)
(Score: 1, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday December 08 2019, @03:39PM (7 children)
I like how the rabid right-wing SoylentNews is deathly silent on even more tech jobs being given hand over fist to foreign nationals.
Really lets me know on which side all your toasts are buttered.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday December 08 2019, @04:28PM
That's because they're all busy trying to think of the optimal "Indian worker shitting on the street" joke to post in reply.
(Score: 4, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday December 08 2019, @05:51PM (5 children)
Silence doesn't always imply consent. Personally I'm just tired of the H1B scam, but I know it won't change unless everyone in DC is hanged, or Americans start shooting the H1B holders. Neither is very likely to happen.
(Score: 2, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday December 08 2019, @06:55PM (4 children)
I'm an H1B worker at a large university. In my department, 90% of the sudents are Chinese. 90% of the professors are Chinese. The non-Chinese students tell me they never signed up to come to China. I also have that feeling. It's a travesty - how are there no Americans? These are good jobs. No Americans. How?
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday December 08 2019, @08:58PM (1 child)
Are you referring to "student" being a viable job?
Or are you referring to how professors aren't American? For that one, probably the Chinese professors are all rather older, and came from China _already_possessing_ professorship. In America, competition is indeed fierce, but with enough tenured professors, international competition, never being able to defeat the experience of age, perceived Chinese research paper-mills -- most of them leave for better paying industry jobs rather than spend 3/4 of their life fighting for a position that they may never get, with a professor's wage being mached 30 years earlier in industry.
See also phdcomics.com.
(Score: 2) by c0lo on Sunday December 08 2019, @09:19PM
I wonder how the salary of a professor behaves at Mach 30?
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aoFiw2jMy-0 https://soylentnews.org/~MichaelDavidCrawford
(Score: -1, Troll) by Ethanol-fueled on Sunday December 08 2019, @09:16PM
Once you get a Poo or Chink in, and give them a little power, it becomes a positive feedback loop of Poos bringing in only more Poos and Chinks bringing in only more Chinks.
Poo men are rude and obnoxious but ultimately harmless and sometimes kind of lovable. But the Chinks are 100% spying for their government, or trying to recruit spies for their government, in some capacity. [wikipedia.org]
(Score: 2) by i286NiNJA on Monday December 09 2019, @10:46PM
It's simple.
1) Our public k12 system is designed to produce an overabundance of low-skill workers. When these people graduate they will not be able to test into our best universities, making more room for the right ones.
2) Our Universities receive less public funding than in the past so now our best schools are too expensive for anyone except for the right ones.
3) The right ones are the children of the global cosmopolitan elite be they natural born American citizens or the children of wealthy Vietnamese land owners.