Tech Executives Slam Trump's Order Extending H-1B Visa Freeze

[ansible]

Source: International Business Times

Tech executives have slammed the extension of the ban on foreign work visas by the Trump administration, which is expected to affect 525,000 jobs amid the high rate of unemployment caused by the coronavirus pandemic. The executives say immigrants helped the U.S. become a global leader in tech and the restrictions come at a wrong time.

The executive order signed Monday (June 22) by President Trump will extend the 60-day freeze on new work permits for non-U.S. citizens that was first imposed two months ago. The order applies to H-1B, H-2B, H-4, L-1 and certain J-1 visas.

Google CEO Sundar Pichai tweeted Monday that he was "disappointed" by the order. “Immigration has contributed immensely to America's economic success, making it a global leader in tech, and also Google the company it is today. Disappointed by today's proclamation — we'll continue to stand with immigrants and work to expand opportunity for all," Pichai posted.

Herrera-Flanigan, Twitter's head of public policy and philanthropy for the Americas, said in a statement Monday. "This proclamation undermines America's greatest economic asset: its diversity. Unilaterally and unnecessarily stifling America's attractiveness to global, high-skilled talent is short-sighted and deeply damaging to the economic strength of the United States."



Read more: https://www.ibtimes.com/tech-executives-slam-trumps-order-extending-h-1b-visa-freeze-2998893

[The Mouth]

1. Fuck them

H-1B visas are used to avoid paying American workers a fair wage while exploiting people from other countries.

[William Seger]

2. Exactly right! They just want cheap labor.

[groundloop]

5. Damned straight. For years I've heard that there was a shortage of engineering talent......

What they really meant was that there was a shortage of engineers willing to work for peanuts. At the same time that companies were whining that they needed more H-1B visas because they couldn't fill critical engineering jobs they were suppressing wages of well qualified experienced engineers.

[iluvtennis]

6. Have to disagree with all of you. As someone who works in high tech in the Silicon Valley, H1-B

visas are a *must have*. We really do not have a sufficient engineering pool to pull from in the US. For whatever reasons, our students are not majoring in engineering. I've worked at Apple, HP, Microsoft, Ericcson, and many startups over the years - I can honestly say, there is no way we could have done the jobs without engineers from China, India, Romania, Brazil, etc - we just didn't have the numbers from US.

And by the way, I'm a former hiring manager and the engineers on H1-Bs weren't paid less than US engineers - engineering salaries were all on par and based strictly on merit.

Just sharing my direct knowledge of the situation to hopefully add some clarification.

[SpaceNeedle]

7. The far right and the far left have traditionally distorted the truth about H1-B visas

Thank you for your post.

[iluvtennis]

9. you're welcome. BTW, welcome to DU.

[forkol]

11. I've seen it very much abused

Had a VP stand up in a meeting and say that they were putting up a job posting just to meet the requirement that they needed to do that before they could put in a H1-B visa person. Nobody could apply, it was just fake. There are seminars that are given to HR that teach them how to bypass the regulations. Also, if they are contractors, that may be the rate they are paying the contracting company, but the contracting company is paying the H1-B the minimum they can get away with. It's also a person you don't have to provide benefits or other employee-like protections. It is also rife with worker abuse, especially in places like Silicon Valley.

To me it should be the last resort, and closely controlled and audited.

[iluvtennis]

12. Agree that contractors can be abused. My 25 year plus experience was with H1- B visas

was to hire full time engineers and that included full benefits.

At my employers , we hired contractors some times, but only for very limited time project work - eg 6 to 8 weeks, to do domain specific software development.

[OneCrazyDiamond]

3. They should setup a way to train teenagers.

Donate to the schools for classes that teach the skills big tech wants. Intern out of high school, and pay in college tuition. Something like that. Its early no coffee yet.

[IronLionZion]

4. If they support immigrants, then they should sponsor people for green cards and citizenship

H-1B and other work visas are not for immigration, they are for temporary workers who are then sent back to their home countries.

Or like DUers like to say, hire Americans. But then at some point, racists will have to acknowledge that millions of Indian-Americans like me are US citizens, we just look like H-1Bs. It's quite easy to tell the difference if one leaves race out of it.

[SpaceNeedle]

8. Green cards take a long time to get

Over 95% of H1-B holders eventually become citizens. With H1-B they can come here quickly and start working.

[IronLionZion]

10. And companies abuse that to use people as temporary guest workers

Temporary is the problem. It's not about welcoming new immigrants to America. These companies deliberately take advantage of workers by manipulating this misunderstanding with false promises.

[SpaceNeedle]

15. H1-Bs are not temporary and they get paid the same wages as natives

I know of no one who has been subjected to manipulation and false promises.

There is a long waiting list of highly qualified people to get the H1-B visas and generally the best and the brightest succeed.

[IronLionZion]

16. Welcome to DU!

What you say may be true in some fields or some companies but my experience has been the complete opposite. I've always worked in IT services contracting, always as the token US citizen with hundreds of H1Bs.

And pretty much all of the workers have been lied to by the contracting firms through bait and switch recruiting, frequent relocation without reimbursement, company taking employees' tax refunds, and worse. Plenty of these workers were promised green cards and have been strung along for years without ever seeing any progress just to be sent back to their home countries. They used bait and switch to recruit me. They told me they were recruiting US citizens for security clearance work, but it turned out they just wanted to tell the federal government they hired a token US citizen during the recession.

[kimbutgar]

13. We wouldn't need to import tech workers if we made universities more affordable and trained

Americans. I see all these young kids out there who are burdened by student debt and could do those jobs if we only made education more assessable and affordable.

Fund our public schools and universities by taxing the super rich 60% and eliminate deductions for them on everything!

[scarytomcat]

14. does dump get an exception for his properties?

he is a big user of H-1B
he wants only white people working for him