H-1B visa regime is likely to get tougher as Department of Homeland security mulls stricter restrict

[IronLionZion]

H-1B visa regime is likely to get tougher as Department of Homeland security mulls stricter restrictions on selection

https://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/business/india-business/h1-b-visa-regime-is-likely-to-get-tougher/articleshow/62236418.cms

BENGALURU: In further bad news for Indian professionals looking to work in the US, the Department of Homeland Security is readying a proposal that will make getting an H-1B tougher. It is looking to impose stringent restrictions on the H-B petitioners' selection process.

International immigration firm Fragomen's latest update on its website said the DHS has indicated it may revive a 2011 proposal that would require H-1B petitioners to preregister for the H-1B cap lottery and to submit cap petitions only after they have won cap numbers. "The DHS also plans to propose a priority system for allocation of H-1B cap numbers which would give priority to the most highly-paid and highly skilled, consistent with President Trump's 'Buy American, Hire American' executive order," it said in its update.

DHS announced the proposals in an update to its semi-annual regulatory agenda. It may also consider changes to H-1B wages.

Scott J Fitzgerald, partner in Fragomen Worldwide, said changes to the H-1B cap lottery system are not scheduled to be announced till February 2018. If such changes are announced under the standard process that allows for 'Notice and Comment', which typically takes several months, then the changes won't go into effect in time to cover the upcoming cap, under which filing begins in April 2018, he said.

Fitzgerald said if these provisions are introduced as an emergency rule — which waives the notice and comment requirement — then it could be covered in the next cap filing season. "This would be a real disaster for many companies as they either may not need to file cases already prepared (if there is a new "pre-registration" system) or they may not want to file many such cases, as many would be very unlikely to be selected under the new selection system," he added. Indian IT firms are the largest users of H-1B visas and non-immigrant visas that allow US firms to temporarily employ foreign workers. The US Citizenship & Immigration Services (USCIS) triggers a lottery system to select petitions needed to meet the caps of 65,000 for general category and 20,000 for advanced degree exemption.

Stephen Yale-Loehr, professor of immigration law practice at Cornell Law School, said the USCIS had done a lot already in the past few months to make it harder to qualify for H-1B visas. "The percentage of H-1B cases receiving a request for evidence has doubled to 41%. The USCIS is questioning whether some computer positions require a bachelor's degree," he said.

Yale-Loehr said the USCIS is taking longer to approve H-1B petitions and State Department consulates are screening H-1B visa applications more carefully than before. "All in all, it is harder than ever to get an H-1B these days," he said.
The Trump administration claims its immigration overhaul targeting H1-B visa holders is to deter H-1B visa fraud and abuse. This, experts believe, will restrict free movement of talent due to fiery protectionist policies. Vivek Wadhwa, distinguished fellow at Carnegie Mellon University Engineering , said there is little doubt that Trump is determined to keep immigrants, both skilled and unskilled, out.

Even if Trump finally bans H-1b and all related work visa programs, a certain portion of society is going to wonder if 4 million people got our fake documents from the same forger that did President Obama's birth certificate. "Whoa, this passport looks just like the American ones. Your English is so good. Where are you really from? The IT department is in the basement, are you lost? How could you vote in a US election? Beef is from a cow, you know, moo!"

[quartz007]

1. Does this mean more American workers

will get hired for tech jobs?

[Lithos]

5. Short answer

No...

This will accelerate off shoring and the use of automation via AI.

A fair number of IT jobs can be automated away with proper engineering.

Google Kubernetes, Cloud, DevOps, CI:CD, to name a few.

[uponit7771]

6. +1, the problem is two fold onshoring and off shoring

[quartz007]

11. off shoring is going on now

did you see the movie "Outsourced"? There is a whole
industry thriving in English speaking India based on
outsourced work from United States.

[Lithos]

16. Off shoring has been going on for years

One of the main roles which H1B's and L-1's have been serving is as an on-prem front end for a "ranch" of people offshore. Ie, they serve as the conduit for communicating work to/from off-shore people. This is really not going to go away. To be honest what I was talking about was the offshore of cloud based DevOps and Big Data work (data prep, etc.).

It's very ignorant to just assume the work goes just to India. The Philippines, Costa Rica, Malaysia, Ireland, Russia and Egypt also have thriving off-shore industries as well.

[quartz007]

18. correct @ Philippines, Costa Rica, Malaysia, Ireland, Russia

Last edited Fri Dec 29, 2017, 06:40 PM - Edit history (1)

But India has twice as many people as all of them combined, and English is the second language in India, with all college educated Indians learning to speak English, and there are more students in Indian colleges than any other country in the world, including USA, but excluding perhaps China. The largest circulation in the world of any English language newspaper is Times of India.

[msongs]

2. there's one program that can be got rid of IMO nt

[quickesst]

3. As a retired...

...and skilled blue collar construction worker making a pretty good living up to the last 10 years of my career, I think that white collar workers griping about poor brown people coming to America (at lower pay but better than they were getting in their own country) to make a better life for themselves and their families are somewhat hypocritical. I just can't generate much sympathy.
During my career as a blue collar worker I experienced the same thing with a few differences.
#1. There were no visas required.
#2. There was not an ocean separating the countries.
Last, but not least:
#3. Instead of Americans worried about our jobs and family, we were just being racist.

Liberal or conservative, class makes a big difference in perception.

[Willie Pep]

7. Yeah it is a big change from the attitude I recall from the past.

When blue-collar workers complained about offshoring and the use of cheap immigrant labor with few or no legal rights they were called nativists, racists and stupid people who cannot compete in the new global economy. The constant refrain from many white-collar workers was "you should have gotten an education, dummy."

But now that some white-collar workers are feeling the heat they want protections. I have mixed feelings about this because I do see how global wage arbitrage hurts workers, particularly in the developed world where workers have fought and won many battles for better pay and conditions, often literally with blood and are now seeing the fruits of these struggles disappear. But there is so little solidarity between workers, especially in the United States, that it is sometimes hard for me to get upset.

[quickesst]

9. I really enjoyed my work...

.......... in construction. I liked the idea that you could work all day and as you were walking or driving away you could look back and actually see what you had accomplished, and when the project was all said and done what was left was a nice air conditioned office building, with nice air conditioned offices for white collar workers to work in. Although I am sure there were exceptions, I am hard-pressed to believe there was much appreciation for the literal blood, sweat, and tears it took to make those conditions a reality. It doesn't bother me at all now, simply because there are fewer and fewer American men and women interested in blue collar careers, especially construction.Nowadays, if it weren't for immigrants, there wouldn't be s*** built in America. My retirement is not what it could have been, but all in all, I'm enjoying it. As far as the "you should have gotten an education" part, I would have thoroughly enjoyed calling a meeting of white collar workers, throwing a hundred page set of blueprints down on the table, and saying, "Here, build this."

[quartz007]

13. The loudest complainers are not blue

collar. It is the thousands of American IT workers,
who lost their high paying jobs to IT workers from
H1-B visa imported workers. These Americans are
skilled at using computers and are ubiquitous bloggers
both from the right and the left of political spectrum's.

[IluvPitties]

4. Thanks to the H1B visa program

I met my wife, so I have a soft spot for it.

[IronLionZion]

10. There is a US congresswoman who was a former H-1b

Sometimes they even steal jobs away from Republican politicians.

[IronLionZion]

8. As an American born US citizen

who has been told repeatedly that I'm stealing jobs away from Americans, my loyalties must be to some other country, and companies constantly assign me to IT without even looking at my experience or training which is in a very different field, I just have to wonder how many other types of people would put up with this?

I get contacted by headhunters all the time for contract jobs in the midwest(Iowa/Kansas) and the dirty south(Mississippi/Alabama). They clearly and desperately need IT services contractors for short term(few months) jobs in the red states.

Are people here applying to client services contracting firms? Even if you insist on American companies like I have lately, IBM, Lockheed, DXC, Deloitte, etc. do this type of contract work. If you were open to it, the Indian firms: TCS, Infosys, Wipro, etc. do hire Americans.

There's nothing racist about pointing out that there is something wrong with a law that our politicians have created that is bad for American workers and should to be reformed with better limits. There is something racist with thinking a person of Indian heritage must be a foreign worker. There is something racist about blaming the workers who are willing to waste money to relocate across the country and be separated from their families for several months at a time for these short term contract jobs in rural areas that are far away from the liberal blue cities that attract most American tech workers but are in red areas with bigotry and hatred everywhere. Here in the DC area, racist idiots complain about H-1bs stealing jobs when many of the workers are US citizens with security clearances who have Indian ancestry. It's not hard to check a person's documents. It's the same deal where Trumpsters think illegal immigrants voted for Hillary.

Every time someone complains about foreigners stealing jobs is time that could also be spent applying for jobs or pursuing low cost training. Websites and phone apps have made it much faster and easier to do both.

[Demsrule86]

14. They foreign workers cost the companies less and yes that needs to stop.

I have seen things at HP which were just sickening.

[IronLionZion]

15. Have you applied for jobs at services contracting firms?

I've seen people work for 6 months and then stop getting a paycheck and lose their health insurance. My last job was 8 months long.

I've seen people own a house and work in a different state only seeing their families on the weekends. I've lived all across the United States and had multi-hour daily commutes.

Americans are accustomed to a certain lifestyle and would find contracting to be a major hardship. But still it is the trend for companies to hire these service firms for their cost centers. They would keep internal employees for revenue centers. I didn't make the world this way, the company's executives did. I don't see this trend reversing anytime soon. It's the new normal. The services industry has been growing rapidly over the last several years. Clients need workers on a very temporary or seasonal basis as their projects and workload varies.

The jobs are there, but it won't be as nice as it used to be. As I said, there are headhunters reaching out all the time with short term positions in undesirable locations if you want it. Any time I've posted jobs on DU, I've gotten flamed as some sort of traitor. If Americans want these jobs, they should apply for them.

[Demsrule86]

17. Well, you can accept the few crumbs companies throw our way...and we may have to for a

while, but the bigger picture is to make companies do the right thing through regulation, after electing Democrats...and the first battle is to stop importing cheap labor. This makes the jobs more competitive and should lead to higher wages...and of course outsourcing must be dealt with as well...probably through tax penalties. The idea that the companies have the right to make what is a slave worker employment market is wrong, and they must be stopped. My hubs worked for a temp agency in his last job, but was paid fairly and had access to health care. He did lose the job as they are preparing to move the operation to Mexico and now has a permanent job with better money. He is an engineer and thankfully, there is demand. I do understand the situation. But we must fight these greedy companies...not reward them.

[Demsrule86]

12. I can't be sorry about that...I worked at Sprint in Georgia...and I watched as two floors of

American workers were laid off on a Friday...kept a few to retrain the mostly Indian workers who showed up on Monday.