[Aurini]

The H1B thing is even worse here in Canada; they're not just doing it to the tech sector, they're mainly targeting all of the minimum wage jobs.

Living in Canada is EXPENSIVE; all of that free Healthcare comes at a cost. As such, minimum wage is far below living expenses, and fast food restaurants and gas stations can't find enough kids and seniors to man their positions. So their solution? Import third worlders to work as our slaves. On your average day, I see more foreign workers than I do native Canadians.

This is a major powder keg that we have brewing, and most Canadians are too afraid of being called racist speak about it, let alone do anything about it. It's essentially the Mexican problem in the US, only backed by force of law.

[Edmund Ironside]

Still just talk so far, but a lot of talk in recent days. The only thing that caught my eye in this story is this wording: "... fear that the number of H-1B visas could be slashed". Most of the mainstream talk so far that I have seen has been around how the visas are allocated, but if they actually start significantly cutting the total numbers of new visas granted each year, that would be more concrete and a very positive development for Americans.

Quote:

A number of multinational tech companies fear what could be President Donald Trump’s next move on the issue of foreign guest worker visas that are allotted to corporations every year.

Under Trump’s drafted executive order, the H-1B visa, which Silicon Valley tech companies use to hire foreign high-skilled workers, would be reviewed “to make H-1B allocation more efficient and ensure that beneficiaries of the program are the best and brightest rather than arbitrarily distributed by lottery.”

Multinational tech giants based in India fear that the number of H-1B visas could be slashed under Trump or GOP legislation, a policy which Trump has said puts American workers first.

Tech outsourcing companies based out of India like Infosys, Cognizant, Tata Consultancy Services, and Wipro are all bracing for potential reforms in the H-1B visa

http://www.breitbart.com/texas/2017/02/1...a-reforms/

[Edmund Ironside]

Quote:

H-1B Opiate Has Thwarted Advancement in Software Engineering
By John Miano, February 16, 2017

http://cis.org/miano/h-1b-opiate-has-thw...ngineering

This part is an example that helps explain exactly why I'm always trying to tell people that management doesn't have a real handle on IT labor costs, they just have a spreadsheet that makes it look superficially as though they understand it. In reality, the people aren't plug and play.

Quote:

When you put the software cost problem in the hand of accountants, they understand it as: American computer programmer cost $90 an hour and Indian computer programmers cost $80 an hour.

The obvious flaw in that accountant analysis is that in the best case it simply makes disasters cost less.

I shared with Stefan an experience I had before law school. I joined a project written in C++ that had serious performance problems. The original developers were not familiar with table joins in database queries. They wrote the system so that it used millions of nested queries where one query would suffice. I was in the process of replacing these millions of queries with single queries that obviously boosted performance tremendously.

While working on this issue, a senior accountant-type in the company (without consulting anyone familiar with the structure of the system) hired an Indian body shop to rewrite the entire system in Java to solve this problem. Their legion of H-1B programmers slavishly copied the C++ code into Java, including the parts that used millions of queries where one would suffice. The result was even slower than the original — another software disaster.

It is this fundamental problem of software cost that is driving the demand for H-1B workers. Unfortunately, cheap labor on H-1B became a distraction from fixing the underlying problems in software engineering. The H-1B opiate has thwarted the advancement of software engineering and undermines American leadership in this area.

"The result was even slower than the original" but, based on their cost-per-hour calculation, they told management that they saved a lot of money, on the assumption that the only alternative was to hire the same number of people to work the same number of hours to produce exactly the same thing at a higher per hour cost.

[Edmund Ironside]

This is partially about "guest worker" issues and partially immigration in general, but I didn't try to edit down the transcript from what was included on the source.

Quote:

But a conversation between Bannon and Miller from March 2016, on SiriusXM’s Breitbart News Daily first resurfaced by the Washington Post, shows Bannon and Miller may both hold a more conservative view on immigration.

...

As the power and sway of these two men becomes increasingly apparent, their conversation is worth revisiting. Here is the exchange:

BANNON: Where are we in the Trump campaign with the H-1B visas? Because we got the oligarchs down there, man, and they have got Karl Rove and literally hundreds of millions of dollars, and they are coming with one reason. And they are coming for unlimited ability to go throughout the world and have people come here and compete with kids coming out of engineering schools and IT jobs. If you are in your 40s and 50s right now, people will tell you, they haven’t had a raise in decades in IT. What was supposed to be a great career turned out not to be a great career. It’s because of these visas.

And now you got all the engineering schools full of people from South Asia and East Asia. And it’s not that I have any problem with those folks learning, but they are coming here to take these jobs. You have turned over the entire American education system — we have cut out art, we have cut out history, we have cut out music. Why have we done it? STEM, science, technology, engineering, and math. We have told every minority kid in this country, you got to excel at that. What happens? They get into graduate schools, they can’t get engineering degrees, they can’t get into graduate schools because there are all these foreign students, when they come out, they can’t get a job. And they are looking for these people like Ted Cruz and Donald Trump who talk about immigration and talk about H-1B visas to stand up for them against these oligarchs. So where are we on this?

MILLER: Well, that was brilliantly stated.

[....]

High-skilled immigration and the H-1B visa are just not the same thing. And you’ll notice when you pick up a copy of the newspaper, you will often see the phrase high-skilled immigration — and sometimes it is used by people on our own side, and I just don’t ever use that phrase, because the reality is we are talking about less skilled foreign guest workers that are less educated than Americans, who are paid less than Americans, who know less about the computing industry and about the technology industry than Americans — so I just don’t use that phrase.

BANNON: Is Donald Trump going to stand up to these oligarchs? That are down on this island with Arthur Brooks and all the swells of guys at AEI ... down there with Mitch McConnell and Paul Ryan, who wants unlimited immigration. ... Is Donald Trump going to stand up to those guys, or is he going to kiss their ring?

MILLER: There is zero doubt what Mr. Trump’s position is on H-1Bs. And the statement that went out that evening from Mr. Trump, that he felt very strongly about, made clear that the H-1B program is going to be reformed dramatically to protect American workers. If you go back and look at Mr. Trump’s policy papers —

[...]

The word high-skilled doesn’t even appear in that paper — because again, we don’t use the term to describe high-skilled workers — other people can, that’s their choice, but the system that he wants is that on the permanent immigration that we would switch from a low-skilled to a high-skilled system, on the permanent immigration side. Not talking these guest workers.

BANNON: You saw these guest workers. You saw the CIS report yesterday. You saw that, what is it, 61 million? Isn’t the beating heart of this problem, the real beating heart of it, of what we gotta get sorted here, is not illegal immigration? As horrific as that is, and it’s horrific, don’t we have a problem, we’ve looked the other way on this legal immigration that’s kinda overwhelmed the country? When you look and there’s got 61 million, 20 percent of the country, is immigrants — is that not a massive problem? You were with Jeff Sessions for many, many years. Is that not the beating heart of this problem?

MILLER: Well, yes, it’s mind-boggling, and it is something I have talked about before at some length on your program. It’s important to understand that historically speaking, that immigration is supposed to be interrupted with periods of assimilation and integration. So if you looked at the numerically smaller immigration waves from 1880 to 1920, when the foreign-born population increased from 7 million to 14 million, there was zero immigration growth for the next half-century. In fact, the foreign-born population growth shrank remarkably. So from 1920 to 1970, the foreign-born population shrank from 14 million to about 10 million. The number of immigrants in the country, the total number of immigrants, shrank in 50 years, and the overall American population doubled. Now, to just finish this short history of immigration, from 1970 to today the foreign-born population has quadrupled, more than quadrupled, from less than 10 million to more than 40 million plus the kids that are from the CIS report.

BANNON: It’s scary. It’s scary.

Miller: So there is no precedent for that kind of growth whatsoever. If you were to follow the history of the 20th century — and you want to win an immigration argument with your friends, and they say we should follow America’s history — well, the answer to that is, you’re absolutely right. We should follow America’s history, and the history of America is that an immigration-on period is followed by an immigration-off period.

http://www.vox.com/policy-and-politics/2...on-problem

[Neo]

I wrote about the H1B issue in the Trump thread. Not only are they bringing people here it seems as if they are screening for them only at the expense of American citizens. I don't doubt one bit that there is some sort of kickback system going on.

I'm still waiting for some clarity on this issue from the Trump administration. This is just my opinion, but I believe the delay is due to the original immigration order being blocked by the courts. It seemed they want to get the national security order straightened out, then go for this. I'm hoping we hear something in the next few weeks.

The recent reports I'm reading are that Indian IT firms have stepped up 'lobbying' (bribery) to try to get their way. I don't see Trump as being bought so hopefully this effort falls flat.

Until then, keep getting the word out everywhere.

[Edmund Ironside]

My emphasis added.

Quote:

In contrast to unskilled migration, the annual inflow of university educated legal immigrants is much smaller, at perhaps 200,000 professionals per year.

Nonetheless, these skilled migrants compete for white-collar jobs against the roughly 800,000 young Americans who graduate each year with degrees in business, healthcare, technology, and science.

The white-collar immigrant labor supply is augmented by the resident population of at least 1 million white-collar contract workers who hold long-term H-1B visas or work permits. Roughly 650,000 foreign H-1B workers are employed in a wide variety of white-collar jobs in the United States, including roughly 100,000 as academics, teachers, doctors, therapists, scientists, and designers at American universities. Other visa programs boost the number of resident foreign professionals to at least 1 million.

The H-1B program and other visa programs are used by many prestigious American companies, including Comcast, Carnival, Disney, McDonald’s, Caterpillar. and Uber. Also, many lesser-known U.S. companies hire Indian workers from Indian-owned outsourcing firms.

The large supply of foreign graduates — either immigrants or guest workers — pushes many middle-aged American professionals out of their careers and pushes younger American graduates into different careers with lower salaries.

The sidelined American professionals and their families have been a huge source of support for Trump because of Trump’s repeated opposition to the H-1B program. If Trump is willing to increase the inflow of skilled white-collar workers, he risks losing the support of many middle-class voters during the 2018 and 2020 elections.

http://www.breitbart.com/big-government/...migration/

[Edmund Ironside]

Sorry to repost again so soon after myself ... not trying to spam ... but since this seems to be the default H1B/"guest worker" thread, and I thought Molyneux covering the topic in some depth might be interesting to some folks here.

Why H-1B Work Visas Are Controversial | John Miano and Stefan Molyneux

I agree with him that free trade is a false concept internationally, but I thought his comparison was invalid ... IP issues involved there that muddy the analogy. That could be explained and defended in better ways.

Some of the discussion about scope creep was valid, but not particularly super relevant.

On the other hand, I'm really glad they got into the way that the influx of H1Bs is bad for corporate culture and may prevent efficiency improvements that might happen otherwise, because I think they are dead on about those. One of the most frustrating things about working in IT and being competent, especially being competent at understanding complex systems and interdependencies, is the way large organizations do really stupid things that cause great expense, then their solution to it is to hire larger numbers of cheaper workers, which just exasperates problems to a large extent. Instead of valuing more competent people, it's all about managing armies of questionable competence and showing supposed savings based on spreadsheet manipulation that has little to do with reality on the ground.

[greekgod]

Quickest way to smash this, revamp the salary requirement.

60K base is the floor for an H1 visa. 60K is many times entry level in some professions including consulting and some IT jobs. There is no value add there, at all. So basically, under this guise, you're admitting they aren't more skilled, they are more malleable and more compliant. Couple that with the fact that they are legally encumbered with many barriers and processes to change employers, its indentured servitude. Now of course the kids are going to jump at the chance of gaining US experience and a GC.

Push the floor to 100K. This forces real skill vetting and ridiculous scrutiny on the Nearshore/onshore/offshore consulting firm model. No more games.

All else being equal, you can teach USCit undergrads those skills the 1-5 year experience H1's have and realize a lower overhead when you factor in visa costs.

And no more "women in stem" acts coming out of the whitehouse. How about "Americans in STEM"? COMP-Eh-Tish-UN. Isn't that what this movement is about? America first? COMP-Eh-Tish-UN!

[Edmund Ironside]

From press briefing Wednesday March 8:

Quote:

Q And then, secondly, does he have any plans to revamp the H-1B visa program by the April 1 deadline?

MR. SPICER: I think we've talked before about immigration as a whole. I think there is the legal part of immigration and then the illegal part of immigration. The President's actions that he's taken in terms of his executive order and other revamping of immigration policy have focused on our border security, keeping our country safe, our people safe. And then, obviously, whether it's H-1B visas or the other one -- spousal visas -- other areas of student visas, I think there is a natural desire to have a full look at -- a comprehensive look at that. He discussed the RAYS Act yesterday with Senators Perdue and Cotton. We'll have more on that coming forward.

But I think as the readout mentioned, he was very supportive of their efforts with respect to how we view legal immigration. He mentioned it in his joint address that we're one of only a handful of countries that doesn't use a merit-based system of immigration, and that is something that we need to look at in its totality.

https://www.whitehouse.gov/the-press-off...ean-spicer

[Fast Eddie]

(03-09-2017 06:01 PM)Edmund Ironside Wrote:  

From press briefing Wednesday March 8:

Quote:

Q And then, secondly, does he have any plans to revamp the H-1B visa program by the April 1 deadline?

But I think as the readout mentioned, he was very supportive of their efforts with respect to how we view legal immigration. He mentioned it in his joint address that we're one of only a handful of countries that doesn't use a merit-based system of immigration, and that is something that we need to look at in its totality.

https://www.whitehouse.gov/the-press-off...ean-spicer

Uh-oh. That sounds like implied support for a "merit based" immigration system that is designed to bring in foreigners to fill the precious "good" jobs we have left. Let's hope not, but it behooves us to monitor this situation.

[Samseau]

It looks like no one here has seen this:

http://www.reuters.com/article/us-usa-im...SKBN16B0GM

U.S. suspends fast processing of high-tech visa applications

Quote:

Foreigners aiming for temporary jobs at high-tech U.S. companies will undergo a longer visa approval process after the Trump administration announced it will temporarily suspend expedited applications for H-1B visas.

Trump standing by his promises.

[Edmund Ironside]

(03-09-2017 06:15 PM)Fast Eddie Wrote:  

(03-09-2017 06:01 PM)Edmund Ironside Wrote:  

From press briefing Wednesday March 8:

Quote:

Q And then, secondly, does he have any plans to revamp the H-1B visa program by the April 1 deadline?

But I think as the readout mentioned, he was very supportive of their efforts with respect to how we view legal immigration. He mentioned it in his joint address that we're one of only a handful of countries that doesn't use a merit-based system of immigration, and that is something that we need to look at in its totality.

https://www.whitehouse.gov/the-press-off...ean-spicer

Uh-oh. That sounds like implied support for a "merit based" immigration system that is designed to bring in foreigners to fill the precious "good" jobs we have left. Let's hope not, but it behooves us to monitor this situation.

The descriptions of "merit based" so far are too vague to give any clue. Even once things become more solid, if the Trump administration makes significant changes it will require a lot of examination of the details, and over time they will have to stick with it or the globalists will just morph their practices rather than revert to paying significantly higher rates to Americans. They might do more of any of these, plus probably others I haven't imagined:
- outsource to offshore firms
- "insource" by directly hiring ... at their own offshore subsidiaries
- buy software with "service" contracts ... where the "service" basically amounts to dedicated offshore people doing what local, internal people used to do
- use "cloud services" where what used to be entire internal departments get replaced by external cloud SAAS (software as a service). For example, you currently have an Oracle ERP system supported by a bunch of H-1Bs ... that used to be supported by a bunch of US citizens? H-1B program gets limited ... no problem. Just have your ERP system users log in to our server instead. We just hired all of those people who used to work on your system, they sit over here and do the same jobs, but it's more high-tech now because ... cloud.

The administration needs to look at all of those possibilities and realize that there really isn't a distinct delineation between products/software/services/labor ... and they need to take on all of it at the same time if they really care about trying to save the US middle class from these people. It will be harder to do now that they have put in a couple of decades of shifting the knowledge to non-citizens.

I hope the reason it's taking time is that they realize the potential pitfalls and want to address it comprehensively ... not that they are using H1b/US IT workers as a bargaining chip with the multinationals. I think they need to take it a step at a time though, and start making some progress and realize that it will be an ongoing effort.

[Edmund Ironside]

Let's hope this criticism is premature and they are working on it. You'd think though as someone who was given stage time at Trump rallies she would have some access to ask about what the administration had in store.

Quote:

Sarasota attorney Sara Blackwell says President Trump "betrayed" visa critics

Lawsuits against companies such as Disney, Carnival Cruise Lines and IBM over their use of foreign workers have consumed Sara Blackwell's law practice in recent years, and for awhile the Sarasota attorney thought she had found an ally in President Donald Trump.

Trump's campaign invited Blackwell to speak at the candidate's rallies, where she railed against companies using H-1B visas to hire foreign tech workers to replace American workers.


Trump criticized the visa program during his campaign.

"The H-1B program is neither high-skilled nor immigration: these are temporary foreign workers, imported from abroad, for the explicit purpose of substituting for American workers at lower pay," Trump said in a statement last year. "I remain totally committed to eliminating rampant, widespread H-1B abuse."

But Blackwell, a Republican who briefly flirted with running for a state House seat covering northern Sarasota County last year, now doubts Trump's commitment to reforming the system.

"He dropped the issue when he won the Republican nomination and he's completely dropped it now that he's president," Blackwell said last week, adding she feels "completely betrayed."

While Trump may not be talking about the issue, Blackwell continues to bring attention to it. She appeared multiple times in an extensive H-1B segment on the CBS news program 60 Minutes that aired last week.

The 60 Minutes program focused on perceived abuses of H-1B visas, which originally were intended to help companies that could not find qualified Americans to do high-skill jobs.

The show interviewed a number of American workers who had been asked to train their foreign replacements. Former Congressman Bruce Morrison, who crafted the original H-1B bill, told 60 Minutes the visa program is not operating as intended and has become a source of cheap labor.


"I'm outraged," Morrison said. "The H-1B has been hijacked as the main highway to bring people from abroad and displace Americans."

The application period for the next H-1B visa lottery begins April 1. The visa system will continue as currently structured for another year — with 85,000 more visas issued — if Trump does not issue an executive order before then.

Trump Press Secretary Sean Spicer was asked about the status of H-1B reform during a press conference earlier this month. His answer led some observers to conclude the administration was focused on illegal immigration, and nothing would happen to reform legal immigration programs in the short term.

"I think there is the legal part of immigration and then the illegal part of immigration," Spicer said. "The president's actions that he's taken in terms of his executive order and other revamping of immigration policy have focused on our border security, keeping our country safe, our people safe."

Spicer did add that "I think there is a natural desire to have a full look" at visa programs at some point, including H-1B.

Blackwell said she has not had any contact with Trump's team since the inauguration. She sent a few emails that were ignored. She was annoyed to see Trump meeting this week with Bill Gates, the billionaire co-founder of Microsoft and an advocate for expanding the H-1B program.

"The fact that he's meeting with Bill Gates the Monday morning after the 60 Minutes interview is very telling," she said.

Meanwhile, Blackwell said her Sarasota law practice is now totally focused on suing companies over their H-1B visa use. The issue first grabbed her attention two years ago when she read about Disney tech workers in Orlando being replaced by H-1B workers. Some of the Disney employees were asked to train their replacements.

Blackwell filed a lawsuit against Disney in 2015 on behalf of two former workers. She now represents hundreds of workers laid off from a range of companies, and her caseload is likely to increase. Her phone has been ringing nonstop since the 60 Minutes piece from people "saying their jobs are being offshored."

"The only people who benefit from it are the billionaire executives," she said.

http://www.heraldtribune.com/news/201703...sa-critics

[DarkTriad]

(01-25-2016 03:12 AM)Centurion Wrote:  

(01-25-2016 02:54 AM)MrLemon Wrote:  

If that same funding had gone to the US midwest, we'd have programming schools and IT development out the wazoo in Ohio and Michigan and whatever. Cash flow creates jobs, jobs create education, education trains young workers. It's a cycle. If you cut funds, education fails.

(01-25-2016 02:54 AM)MrLemon Wrote:  

So, at the point of a gun (the international deadliness of the US military machine) it's time to shut down the god damn H1-B program and force, and I mean force, Microsoft and other tech companies to start investing back in the nation that they owe allegiance to.

If you insist on relying on violent/terrorist/mafia tactics why not simply just let them hire whoever they want but extort cash from them instead? You yourself said how important cash flow is.

You're a little late to the party, the IRS was founded a long time ago. Do you think people pay taxes because they like to? It's all by the barrel of a gun at the end of the day. That's why you've got to be so careful about what we decide to force people to pay for.

[DarkTriad]

(01-25-2016 07:44 AM)PrtSc Wrote:  

(01-25-2016 06:29 AM)HenryHill Wrote:  

Dear government,

Ther are groups of people who engage in voluntary trade that I find non-beneficial to my self-interests. Please use violence against these people.

With love,
MrLemon

Without going into how morally despicable it is to plead for violence just so you face less competition, you will have to adapt sooner or later.

All government laws are through the threat of violence from the state. Stopping the program through a law or regulation would essentially be the same thing. A country should consider what's best for its citizens, whether it's free trade or otherwise.

People are missing the forest in the trees. The program itself is a creature of statute, eliminating isn't adding to gov't interference, it's reducing it. Stop giving them special treatment, and the problem is over.

[Zanardi]

I like the idea of the topic. Doing this, maybe the Romanians working there will return to our land and create a competitor for both companies.

[Edmund Ironside]

(03-27-2017 11:50 AM)Zanardi Wrote:  

I like the idea of the topic. Doing this, maybe the Romanians working there will return to our land and create a competitor for both companies.

That's mainly what H-1B in the USA is ... aside from lowering wages ... it's a training program for foreign competition. Thanks to decades of huge numbers of "guest workers", the potential for competitive IT work to be done in India is orders of magnitude above what it would have been otherwise. It has all been a big scam on the US middle class.

[polar]

^ short term greed drives long term job loss

[DarkTriad]

(03-27-2017 12:14 PM)Edmund Ironside Wrote:  

(03-27-2017 11:50 AM)Zanardi Wrote:  

I like the idea of the topic. Doing this, maybe the Romanians working there will return to our land and create a competitor for both companies.

That's mainly what H-1B in the USA is ... aside from lowering wages ... it's a training program for foreign competition. Thanks to decades of huge numbers of "guest workers", the potential for competitive IT work to be done in India is orders of magnitude above what it would have been otherwise. It has all been a big scam on the US middle class.

So true.

[RaulValdez739]

(03-10-2017 02:01 AM)Samseau Wrote:  

It looks like no one here has seen this:

http://www.reuters.com/article/us-usa-im...SKBN16B0GM

U.S. suspends fast processing of high-tech visa applications

Quote:

Foreigners aiming for temporary jobs at high-tech U.S. companies will undergo a longer visa approval process after the Trump administration announced it will temporarily suspend expedited applications for H-1B visas.

Trump standing by his promises.

A good step but more needs to be done.

[Edmund Ironside]

Springtime, and the Planted Articles Are Blooming
https://normsaysno.wordpress.com/2017/04...-blooming/

[Travel Museums]

In a somewhat related issue big tech companies like google shouldn't be allowed to use their foreign offices to avoid paying us taxes. One reason for outsourcing is to keep money out of the USA. Hence googles offices in Dublin. They're fancy tax cheats.

It costs the US economy hundreds of billions each year adding up all the lost tax revenue. Trillions factoring in loss of jobs. And we worry about cutting 500 million for PBS funding. Gimme a break. They're tax cheats.

[Edmund Ironside]

Quote:

U.S. President Donald Trump will order a full review of the country’s high-skilled immigration visa program tomorrow, part of a continued push to clamp down on companies — including, potentially, some in the tech industry — that hire foreigners instead of Americans.

In a forthcoming executive order, Trump will commission the Department of Homeland Security, which issues the popular H-1B visa, to review the way they are rewarded. The agency is also instructed to suggest reforms so that visas only land in the hands of highly paid, specially skilled applicants, and not foreign workers who might be paid less than their U.S. counterparts.

On its face, Trump’s new directive — a push to “buy American, hire American,” as his aides described it today — does not change the immediate day-to-day working of the H-1B system, which many companies in Silicon Valley support. Instead, at least for the moment, it only opens a formal review of the program.

Quote:

After months of quiet, however, tech executives, including Apple CEO Tim Cook and Amazon CEO Jeff Bezos, received an early warning about Trump’s coming directive on a call last week with Jared Kushner, the president’s top adviser and son-in-law. Kushner convened them and other executives as part of his tech-focused efforts with the White House’s new Office of American Innovation, according to two sources familiar with the matter.

https://www.recode.net/2017/4/17/1533466...tion-order

More smoke, no fire so far.

[MrLemon]

(04-18-2017 09:24 AM)Edmund Ironside Wrote:  

Quote:

U.S. President Donald Trump will order a full review of the country’s high-skilled immigration visa program tomorrow, part of a continued push to clamp down on companies — including, potentially, some in the tech industry — that hire foreigners instead of Americans.

In a forthcoming executive order, Trump will commission the Department of Homeland Security, which issues the popular H-1B visa, to review the way they are rewarded. The agency is also instructed to suggest reforms so that visas only land in the hands of highly paid, specially skilled applicants, and not foreign workers who might be paid less than their U.S. counterparts.

On its face, Trump’s new directive — a push to “buy American, hire American,” as his aides described it today — does not change the immediate day-to-day working of the H-1B system, which many companies in Silicon Valley support. Instead, at least for the moment, it only opens a formal review of the program.

Quote:

After months of quiet, however, tech executives, including Apple CEO Tim Cook and Amazon CEO Jeff Bezos, received an early warning about Trump’s coming directive on a call last week with Jared Kushner, the president’s top adviser and son-in-law. Kushner convened them and other executives as part of his tech-focused efforts with the White House’s new Office of American Innovation, according to two sources familiar with the matter.

https://www.recode.net/2017/4/17/1533466...tion-order

More smoke, no fire so far.

A year later, and the game has gotten interesting. Trump hasn't hit the tech companies like I hoped he would. Yet.

Meanwhile the US public seems to be getting angry at the tech firms. We'll see if this translates into a total shutdown of the H1B program.

For example, if the Trumpista republicans win seats in the coming election, I would not be surprised to see a bill phasing out H1B, let's say over 3 years. Another "Fuck you George Soros" and "Fuck you California" move similar to the tax bill.

[palsofchaos]

Companies using off shore work isn’t nearly as bad as you think. The productivity of offshore work will never match the productivity of a tech worker or team in the states. In my experience, most offshore tech work is software testing not actual development and no one in the states wants to do manual testing anyways.