Ahahahahahaha
It’s counterproductive and racist all around but holy hell is it funny when these goobers fight each other.
this post was submitted on 15 Nov 2025
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Dude they turned on her so hard for just not pivoting when Daddy did. Bless these cult antics
The program doesn't need to end, it needs to have severe restrictions on use.
It 100% needs to end...
Like, how it was intended was fine, but now it's used to get employees who can't quit. Sign them to a contract that doesn't get OT and make em work 100 hr weeks when here till they burn out then replace them.
So Americans need to put up with it, or they won't get hired.
Yep, it's basically slavery via holding the visa for foreign workers who have to put up with the corps holding their status over their heads, all while driving down pay for citizens. It was a good thought, but it's being heavily abused now.
It was a good thought, but it’s being heavily abused now.
I'm not sure when it was a good idea and I also don't know a time when it was not being abused, if I'm being honest. At least in IT (and in general, engineering, or so I've heard) going back to the 90s...
Now, the other threat they hold over our heads is that companies will just outsource if we don't allow this, but that's not a law of nature or anything, either. There is no reason we should not tax such services like that, too.
America kept telling their youth (and probably keep telling them) to "learn to code" because those were the jobs they were told Americans should aspire to, etc. Since I've been in IT since the 90s, I have more than my share of doubts about this promise, since I've seen how we are treated and the strong desire in the corporate world to suppress wages, benefits, any sense of autonomy, etc...if America is serious about this message, maybe they ought to look out for the workers.
America will never look out for the workers. The workers have to unionize. Probably even the H1B employees. I think until that happens, we're going to see wages stagnate and fail to keep up with inflation.
Unfortunately people are so cowed by their employees and the system that they won't unionize.
Personally this is why I think we don't have universal healthcare and basic social support systems. They would enable us to negotiate.
I'm not sure when it was a good idea and I also don't know a time when it was not being abused, if I'm being honest. At least in IT (and in general, engineering, or so I've heard) going back to the 90s...
Well the H1 came decades before (and still exists, its more generic), and the B was supposed to be specific gaps for skilled workers - longer term allowed, you can change jobs on this one (the original requires you to get a new visa, the h1b you just need to file a petition), allowed for a longer stay which was helpful for people trying to become citizens, it was meant to be used far, far, far less than it is today and has limited that are constantly ignored, etc,
The H1B came out in 1990, it only took a few years for companies to work around the limitations that were intended and use skyrocketed.
So probably for around 2-3 years it was a good idea.
The original (presented) heart of the visas were to pull in some of the best and brightest of other countries to fast track them to become Americans, thus bolstering the output of America. This actually resembles the current American brain drain, where other countries are taking advantage of the mistreatment of scientists and other high-intelligence fields in the US to help their country have an even better output. In theory, the original plan makes a lot of sense. Improve the compensation of some of the smartest people around the world, and improve America. But in practice, it is being sorely misused.
The original (presented) heart of the visas were to pull in some of the best and brightest of other countries to fast track them to become Americans, thus bolstering the output of America.
I think if you'd ask most (non-racist) Americans about this, you'd probably get a willingness to find some way to get exactly that kind of result. Seems like a win-win all around, except for corporatists only looking at next quarter's profits.
The underlying rationale seems well-founded - there are smart people everywhere, how can we get entice some of them to come here and work for us? Hell, whether it was true or not, that used to be very much America's brand, too.
Unfortunately, the charade and exploitation that is where the H-1B very quickly ended up is very much our brand, now, too, and that just sucks. I'd love to find a way back to that original idea and find a way to live up to it...
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I was laid off from my first job soon after I trained an H-1B loaner engineer.
It was getting abused since at least the 90s, at least as far as I could see. Sure, it was anecdotal as far as what I saw, but you'd hear others saying similar things.
The sad thing is that even after the dot-com bubble, we still had H-1Bs, when something like that should have been an obvious trigger point to shut them down to zero, at least within IT jobs, and only raise them above zero once some other trigger point is reached, and even then, only very cautiously.
If companies really need to find such rare talent, maybe they find some kind of way to have Congress build them a path to bring someone in as a full citizen and work. We'll see how many "shortages" of local talent they have once all that rare talent are also free agents entirely capable of finding another job, LOL. I think the real "shortage" they are talking about is a lack of workers beholden to them, and willing to work for less than the prevailing wages...
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I think it needs to be replaced immediately with something less exploitative a skilled persons visa that's closer to a green card and requires multiple companies or a union to request skills then a government agency checks if those skills are actually in higher demand then capacity and issues reasonable length visas that merely require regular employment in a certain industry and become a reasonable speed onramp to green card status. Or something similar.
The reality is getting rid of skilled labor visas entirely is shooting ourselves in the foot in a way that reminds me of how much of the Manhattan project's scientists came from axis nations. What we have now is hurting the visa holders and the labor they compete with, but we really do benefit from being able to bring in the exceptional.
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Americans can totally do all these high skill jobs they just need some training!
Usually starting with an engineering degree...
It's not just the skills but the pay. H1-Bs are not too far off from slave labor since the person is tied to the company. H1Bs should be allowed to switch employers (after some initial trial period) and it will make them more expensive to keep, leveling the playing field with US workers.
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Playing “Who is the more extreme patriot?” Trump went in like an aimless wrecking ball, she’s going to do precision extreme moves. Bet she runs for prez. All or nothing.
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Wow, this is extremely stupid. Like getting on the freeway and shooting your tires on a turn. We're gonna be spiraling for a while from that moment until all the dust clears.
Normally I'd just ROFL but this is the era of stupid so instead I'm going to assume that stupid will happen.
So our technology will be ejected to other countries and that will start a global economic boom outside our country. Which is great for those countries. But that also means our country will be less advanced. We won't have the edge.
Let's hope our kids make better choices.
This isn't going anywhere. Trump will be against it just because she's for it. Democrats won't go for it.
The fact is H1B visas are problematic and necessary. I don't think anyone wants to take too close a look at it.
Honestly., I really think workers should be able to move through borders like water. All it should take is applying for a job, getting the job, and moving (and filling out so the proper tax documents, etc before you start working.)
Yeah, I don't agree.
Here in Canada we pay a buncha tax to get things like universal healthcare and to fund various social programs, we also handle taxes differently than other jurisdictions.
Like even with the existing setup, one of the issues we have is that there's been a fairly standard style of immigration where chinese citizens will buy property in Canada and have the kid and "stay at home mom" living in Canada, while their Dad/breadwinner stays in China. One reason its done this way is that Canada was considered to have better education opportunities and social supports for the non-income earning side of the family -- and property taxes are fairly low in places like Vancouver, with income taxes being very high. However in China, it's the opposite -- high property taxes, low income taxes. So as a country/region, you end up with basically no tax income, but high social program costs, with 'needy welfare' people living in multimillion dollar properties.
And once the kid is through school, and entering the workforce.... they often go back home to china to take over the family business from a retiring parent. That parent then comes to Canada, and enjoys the old age social security network.
If you remove all impediments to inter-country immigration, I reckon that sort of abuse would become so rampant that social programs would become essentially unsustainable.
Those sound like the sorts of issues that could easily be addressed by well thought out legislation. I have a nephew that recently got a digital nomad visa so that he could work for his US employer while traveling around Europe. Some of those countries require you to prove you have health insurance or buy insurance from their national health network. Those countries also regulations regarding taxes, etc. that the visa holder is responsible for.
So Canada should pass laws to close the loopholes you describe. They would need regulations similar to digital nomads that apply to foreign exchange students etc.
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Canadians that move abroad don't pay the sales tax and lose their insurance. Why shouldn't people who moved to Canada and pay the sales tax get the healthcare insurance?
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You are making two claims, perhaps indirectly, that I think are simply false. (1) You claim there's no contribution requirements for national pension. Not true, says the government website. (2) You claim the mom and kid don't pay taxes in the hypothetical. The national government already has various rules to prevent "income sprinkling" that address this exact issue.
So basically, you're accusing the Canadian tax agency of failing to do its job without presenting evidence of that.
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Are you a globalist? What you say makes perfect sense. I'm a globalist too. Being a globalist is the end result of societal progression, not some evil cabal. Everyone on earth should shoot for globalism and then the planet would be running on all cylinders.
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My current employer is headquartered in Austin, TX. We have software engineers, QA engineers, and other technical people working remotely all over the world, including Germany, Ukraine, India, Australia, and elsewhere.
H-1B visas are how our universities fill crucial teaching roles. Ending them would be disastrous to American higher education.
To this administration, that would be a feature not a bug.
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Do not discount her, she's keenly sensing a disruption and looking to create a schism. Pay attention to her statements now basically "I just want everyone to be kind to each other, I am sorry I participated in the divisive politics of yesterday." This will ring a bell with a lot of folks in the rural areas. Then she leaps on his anti-populist mistake. I think we might be looking at the next leader of the party.
Honestly.... It would be so fitting.
America deserves its first cro-magnon president now that they make up such a huge portion of the USA
I have long thought - since the 90s - that the H-1B program needs a lot of oversight and a revamping on exactly how it is governed, but I don't for a minute think that MTG understands the nuance here. Trying to talk about this in certain company is always fun, because it's like trying to talk about Israel in the early 90s - you'd get accused of being a nativist or whatever immediately w/ almost no thought, just like talking about Israel in frank terms would get people called "antisemitic". It seems that, like the Israel thing, it's kind of broken through into the national conversation at least vs. just people within IT only. Unfortunately, it seems to be nativists like Bannon and MTG trying to make the counter H-1B arguments, and I hate that.
If we really cannot find local talent for an endeavor, and it is truly something that is rather time-bound, sure, bring in people for 3-6 years, I guess.
But I think the terms that the person is under should not be something where they have much reliance on the good graces of a company. And I think finding easy paths for them to transition to full citizenship if they so wish should be there. And I think the requirement should be that they are paid 2x what the going rate here might be.
But using these visas for cheap labor for companies to exploit in things like programming jobs - most especially in a crappy job market exacerbated by things like AI - well, hell to the no. We have PLENTY of that talent in this country, FFS. Companies just want to suppress the cost of doing business here.
And for people saying that this is the alternative as opposed to shipping jobs overseas - bullshit, we can tax the shit out of overseas services, too. Apparently, Pedonald is even able to do such things as tariffs on goods without an act of Congress; it would be something that could be done on services as well.
Ending H-1B will only further accelerate domestic layoffs for outsourced talent. 🙄
Because there was something stopping them from outsourcing from the start, or what are you trying to say?
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Is there no middle ground, like keep the program but invest in education and tax incentives for hiring from US universities?
I think there are lots of options that could be explored. One is if these are for truly research types of things, maybe keep a smaller amount of the visas, but only for that. And make it easy for them to become full citizens if they wish. Make it easy for them to float between entities (corps, universities) so that they are truly free agents in the marketplace, etc., even if they don't opt for citizenship.
Another would be to find ways to fast-track truly rare talent right to a path to citizenship that is not tied to an entity at all. Or maybe it is, but for maybe three months as a trial run, then they are full citizens free to work for anyone (or not at all, or go to school again), and vote, etc...
But as for stacking the deck for corporations with lots of compliant cheap labor to be used in IT and engineering, keep American workers in line, and drive down wages....nah.
The supposed aims and the rationales given for the H-1B are easily punctured the minute you ask - wait a minute, if these are such precious commodities that cannot be found here, why the fuck would we send them packing in 3 to 6 years? Why wouldn't we do everything possible to entice them to stay and become full citizens? Surely they'll end up starting up businesses of their own, etc...it's truly the American dream. Why are we subbing a 3 - 6 year gig for the American dream, FFS?
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I can't speak for the tech industry only the system as a whole.
I think people calling it slavery or likening it to some kind of bonded labor are obviously exaggerating to a degree.
The only situation where its clearly problematic are for countries like China and India that have massive populations but still have the same green card cap as a nation a tenth of their size.
Everyone else on an H1b would generally be working towards a green card on a timeline of 3-5 years. Yes mobility is limited during that time (though not absolutely so) but I can't think of a country on earth where new immigrants don't have to work with their hands tied to a degree.
Right now employers only have to pay the prevailing wage to an H1b employee. This can be significantly less than the median.
I think the median should be the absolute floor. One can make an argument to have 75th percentile be the floor also.
I think if a company is allowed to pay below median wage for a large number of employees they should be forced to invest in local education / apprenticeship. Even if they are allowed to, there should be strict caps on this.
There are many H1bs that get paid above the median wage in the US but I think conversations around the tech sector tend to dominate so the perception is that these are mostly lower wage entry level workers. It's really the tech sector that has exploited the system the most so I think it's worthwhile distinguishing tech H1bs and therefore considering more significant restrictions on a sectoral level.
It is very close to slavery. Your employer gets absolute power over you and your immigration status. "You're fired" means "you need to leave everything you built and everyone you love behind".
Are you gonna risk leaving your family behind and being banned from the country to join a union? To protest bad work conditions.
It is a scourge of a system that legitimizes the exploitation of immigrants.
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17ish years in tech here…
H1-B’s at one of my previous companies (2015-2017) were regularly working 70+ hours a week and getting paid less than new hires coming out of college.
They often were either isolated, or stuck within their one self made cliques of other H1-Bs from their country of origin. They did not try to socialize or make friends. More often than not, they’d leave and go home within 2 years. You could feel the despair and unhappiness.
Aside from how it impacted the H1-Bs (which from what I saw was almost all negative and fucked up), I wasn’t thrilled about seeing a multi-billion dollar org making so much extra money, and then not really distributing it correctly.
The H1-B thing helped one group of people to the detriment of everyone else at that org. I’m pretty sure you can figure out the only group that it benefited.
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