This goes into effect in around 24 hours. It looks like it’s gonna be as chaotic as the Muslim travel ban. You’re gonna have some H1Bs that have already started their air travel right now. And they’re gonna show up on Sunday after a long flight, and customs is gonna ask them to pony up 100 grand on the spot at the airport or get deported.
many small or medium-sized companies “will tell you they actually can’t find workers to do the job”.
Hahahahahahahaaa… BULLSHIT.
There are PLENTY of workers out there, there just aren’t many willing to work for sub-poverty wages.
If your business relies on H1B workers in order to exist, then you either have an abysmally shitty business plan, or you’re pulling too much out of the company for your own benefit.
So I (kinda) understand where this is going with an attempt to protect Americans. but how does it not just blow up and instead of offering more jobs to Americans in the US, won’t companies just offshore the jobs instead of offering them here?
Honestly, I detest Taco, but the H-1B thing - at least within IT - is a scam to suppress wages within the IT industry. Not that I think Taco is doing this for labor rights, but more for the xenophobia. I’d much rather more oversight was put on this and far, far fewer visas issued, and only for very extreme, well vetted, situations.
If companies really need more workers, give more foreigners full citizenship and the ability to properly negotiate wages! But they do not want workers with actual mobility, they want obedient indentured servants who are highly fearful of losing their job.
Also, never believe the bullshit coming from companies about not being able to source talent in the United States. Especially when there are so many job-seekers - you can just assume that is total bullshit.
Followup - I’m glad to see this upvoted so much. I remember trying to talk about this in the 90s - online as well as IRL - and people would just generally shrug and just say, “well, you’re just racist”. Which is just an incredibly stupid dodge and has nothing to do with any of the matter at hand.
I honestly think it was intentionally set up just like that so much discussions about it were thoroughly ignored and sidelined with such “arguments”. Reminds me of the way Israel was discussed, TBH. I think the tide is turning on both for similar reasons - there is no longer such a choke hold by corporate gate-keepers.
I think we should grant them full residency for the duration, with an easy path to permanent residency if they behave while they’re in the country (eg not getting arrested or something, being gainfully employed throughout in their field). If these are people that really have skills we have a critical shortage of, then we should be begging them to stay in the country.
I think the main problem is one of lateral mobility once they have a visa. Having people who make 10x what they make in their home country, and they can’t change jobs if they’re mistreated, effectively means they’re okay with being treated like slaves for a few years. Which makes the market suck for everyone else. If companies had to actually worry about retaining H1Bs because they could change jobs after sponsoring a visa, the problem would mostly solve itself.
Yep, as long as the employer is the one paying the $100k, this is actually a good change.
Bingo. I had interviews with Apple and Google with 2 relevant collage degrees. They offered $18/hour. I quit a $25/hour job to get through college.
Too bad back then. I was an Apple fanatic back in the day and their next ad campaign was exactly my skillset. The whole experience really soured the company for me and I never bought another product from them again.
Make it a million.
Also, I doubt this will actually happen.
And if it does, all those megacorps will simply enhance their offshore development centers. They’ll not hesitate to fuck over the h-1b holders, who are mostly perfectly nice and normal people just like everyone else. Heck, most of the ones I’ve met were really nice.
They’ll not hesitate to fuck over the h-1b holders
This is the entire point of the system. It’s to make them beholden to the company and entirely disposable. It’s also set up to be rampantly ageist. What happens after the 3/6 year term is up? Well, time to replace you with a new one, probably younger, because Jebus forbid we pay you market rates for your seniority! Away with you…
A far more healthy option would be to offer full citizenship to the workers we supposedly cannot source locally. That doesn’t put the company in the driver’s seat. It would benefit America, though, by having this talent come here, grow roots, and enrich the nation. We want to encourage smart people to come here and be full participants, not indentured servants that only stay here on a company’s whim. Hell, more than a few might even start businesses of their own, and in this free market system, aren’t we supposed to be celebrating that?
Honestly, if Taco were to just unconstitutionally declare tariffs on random countries and at random levels, we could do worse than having services like offshoring heavily tariffed.
There is no reason that work cannot be done here, most especially if we have people in IT looking for work. This is one area where jobs can and would be done locally, without drastic retooling, retraining, and building out infrastructure, unlike the kind of things Taco has been doing on a whim to manufacturing and farming.
RIP high tech work force
I mean, they could make the sponsorship of the visa cost money instead…
I really thought it was a Flu variant when I read the title.
Fascism is infectious so, kinda.
Let’s make it $200,000.
Can’t forgive student loans, but can do this?
That’s comparing giving money away to charging money.
