Posted on 09/16/2023 3:41:45 PM PDT by libh8er
GOP candidate Vivek Ramaswamy has vowed to “gut” the system for H-1B temporary worker visas if he wins the White House.
It’s the very system he’s used in the past to hire high-skilled foreign workers for the pharma company that built much of his wealth.
From 2018 through 2023, U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services approved 29 applications for Ramaswamy’s former company, Roivant Sciences, to hire employees under H-1B visas, which allow U.S. companies to employ foreign workers in tech and other specialized jobs.
Yet, the H-1B system is “bad for everyone involved,” Ramaswamy told POLITICO.
“The lottery system needs to be replaced by actual meritocratic admission. It’s a form of indentured servitude that only accrues to the benefit of the company that sponsored an H-1B immigrant. I’ll gut it,” he said in a statement, adding that the U.S. needs to eliminate chain-based migration.
“The people who come as family members are not the meritocratic immigrants who make skills-based contributions to this country.”
(Excerpt) Read more at politico.com ...
This is false. H1B visa holders are explicitly bound to their employer and cannot take another job without getting a new visa from the new employer, or transferring their old visa.
When the employer is an Indian agency, the employees are usually working under a contract of indenture and cannot leave without being released by the agency.
H1B employees have no legal or political recourse available to them in this country, and if they raise any objections about anything, they can be fired and immediately deported.
This is not a system we should permit to operate in America.
You don't know what your talking about. I work in that industry, I do know what I am talking about. Once you get an H1B , you the H1B is attached to you, and you can go to any other company and use it, and get extended. You absolutely do not need a new Visa to work at a new company.
But, the original company is on the hook for the costs. Getting an H1B is very expensive. It was $20k to pay the lawyers etc., but I haven't asked in a while, it could be more now. And once you pay that money, the employee can take off for a better paying job.
The first start up I worked at refused to hire H1Bs because it was too expensive and risky. They paid for H1Bs for two hires, and within three months both left for better paying jobs.
You need to do your research, you are uneducated about this. You may be confusing H1Bs with L1 Visas.
To get an L1 Visa, you have to work for one year for the same company outside the U.S. Then the company can move you to work for them in the U.S. But you can't go work for another company, unless they sponsor an H1B Visa for you. So a lot of them are trapped. Companies can bring an unlimited number of L1s every year. And the companies can pay them less, I guess, because of their lack of options. But not so with H1Bs.
Also, there are a max of 65,000 Visas per year, but Australia, Singapore, and Chile have a special deal where there is unlimited from those countries, but I don't really think that has lead to more from those countries. And, of course, Canada and Mexico have TN Visas, which are unlimited, but I don't think they have ever gotten close to the number of H1B Visas.
There is also an unlimited number of O-1 Visas, the so-called "genius Visa." There are not defined criteria, and I don't think lawyers have tested it. You apply and you are either accepted or rejected. I think there are about 10k-12k per year. You have to have a Nobel Prize, or some other evidence of your genius to get it.
And so do I. Or rather, so, did I. Got really sick of it and wised up.
I have seen exactly what I described and multiple times too.
It is possible to transfer an H1B visa if the new employer is willing to do that, and the previous employer does not object. If the employee was obtained from an Indian agency that holds an Indian indenture contract on that person, that transfer will not happen, unless the new employer pays a substantial buyout fee.
It is the modern-day equivalent of the slave trade.
US companies foolish enough to directly hire H1B's can get rooked if another employer is willing to accept the visa and pay a higher salary. I have seen that too. It is not common, but it does happen particularly with American companies run by Indians who want to bring in more Indians on staff.
I have no sympathy for American companies that lose in those circumstances. They deserve the losses. They should have spent the money on better salaries for Americans and better training programs. For Americans.
Once Indians get control of a department or a division, I have seen them insist on hiring only Indians, preferably from their own caste and region. They are flagrantly "racist" and white males need not apply.
What was old is new again.
No, the other company has no right to object. I've seen companies very angry that they paid all that money for the H1B, and the employee goes to another company to make more money.
Where do you think Intel’s problems came from? Cheap H1B labor + Indian management.
I am all too familiar with the problems that arise from cheap H1B labor and Indian management.
They can sometimes be corrected after replacing the Indian management with American or European management. And sometimes you just have to flush the whole team and start over.
I found that Indian technical staff could be very effective if they were properly supervised. The problem starts with American executives who want a skilled technical workforce that is cheap, submissive, obedient, and disposable.
Suckers! Serves them right.
So, a predatory company picks up the H1B visa sponsorship for the employee and he goes to work for the new company. And gets paid a better salary than the old company was paying.
Sounds like that free market in labor and services that they talk to us so much about.
Not gonna' find any sympathy here for the first company.
Every H1B person I have ever worked with was paid substantially less than his American counterpart, without exception. That was explicitly the reason for hiring them and was frankly discussed in closed-door conference meetings. They were hired in large numbers to undercut American labor costs.
The L1 visa holders I worked with, by contrast, were managers, executives, or very senior technical staff with genuinely rare skills, knowledge, or business contacts. And they were paid about the same as their American counterparts. They were hired very sparingly and came with foreign investment capital which exceeded their salaries.
The H1B program should be abolished - along with all the politicians and corporate executives who keep making excuses for it.
“L1 Visas are cheap labor, not H1Bs.”
H-1B salaries were lower than the “general” counterparts—significantly so, in many cases. - https://www.dice.com/career-advice/how-do-h-1b-salaries-compare-to-average-technology-salaries
I’m sure you’re familiar that an H1B is held by the sponsoring corporation.
I’m sure you familiar that the H4 EAD provides a 2 for 1 cheap labor program.
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