I don’t know if that is the usual case. Yes, there are more employment opportunities available, but if the employee has stuck it out for 5-6 years with a company as an H1-B and has put down roots in the company and community (as most of us do in regard to our jobs). They’ll only flee if the employer has treated them poorly or if the company isn’t willing to match the local market rate for wages (or if it can’t match a really good offer from another employer). In that sense, the employee has the same choices as any citizen at that point.
I’ve worked in the tech industry for a long time. The norm there is for the sponsoring company to start helping with the H1-B employee’s green card process almost on day one as part of the HR on-boarding process. It’s not altruism, it’s pure self-interest on the part of the company.
It can definitely be improved. Streamlining the path to citizenship, improving systems and paperwork handling (seriously, they constantly lose paperwork), and reducing the time and expenses involved are the key requirements. Do that and then we can even start reducing the time limits on H1-B and student visas.
Their status is elevated. They have more autonomy. As long as they don’t leave the country for longer than a year, they’re fine.
Or do you mean flee the job – or as I might put it, exercise their newfound autonomy and look around for better job prospects as is their right?
My view of student visas are that a graduating student should have a year to find employment here, gaining permanent residency. As it stands now it is only a source of illegal overstays and a brain drain from the country.
No. You know what ALL immigrants are, documented or undocumented… PEOPLE. They are human beings. Full stop. Meaning they are entitled to human rights, including the right to movement.
But borders are things we made up to keep the “right” (ie white) people in and the “wrong” people (non-white) out. Like everything else in our society our borders and how we enforce them are a byproduct of our white supremacist system. It also privileges the wealthy who create exactly jack and shit, compared to the many people who come here seeking a better life for themselves and their families, many of whom end up starting businesses of their own, which is the real back bone of our economy.
I’d give it two years, given how tough the job market is in the U.S. for any young person. And I agree, permanent residency should be granted automatically with the offer of employment, which again benefits all parties.
There is a disconnect with your quotation of immigration law and its application in reality.
The immigration and naturalization act is a phone book sized document filled with parts that are contradictory, at odds with national interests and open to arbitrary decision without due process.
The most glaring fault is the reasoning behind most employment visa programs. It’s created an underground economy for manual labor and legalized peonage for skilled workers. None of which “protects American workers” as intended. Guest worker programs have never worked anywhere and the premise is inherently harmful to the country. Why would we want to see skilled workers leaving when they could be further contributing to the economy? Especially since as a developed nation, populations shrink/age without immigration
That would literally be me right now, trying to transition from an H1-B to a PERM green card, and after the insane amount of time, effort, and goodwill on the part of my employer to get through this process, I have no intention of going anywhere.
yes, 100%. maybe it varies by company but ive seen major software companies drag their feet for years over greencards. even when direct managers did everything they could, hr and legal made sure it never quite got done
there’s zero incentive for companies to help their h1b employees. they can drag on green cards, raises, promotions just about forever
( edit: i don’t necessarily agree with the flee part - the people ive known generally like their jobs - but changing jobs post green card is what companies fear )
I fully believe that there’s no job that Americans can’t or won’t do, if they are paid competitively to do it. Unlimited labor supply is one of the major causes of work being underpaid and dangerous. Pretty tough to unionize and go on strike when employers have an endless tide of eager replacement workers.
I support this 1000%. I would support prison time too. Singapore goes even further, employers of illegal workers get CANED, because they are a rich country surrounded by poor countries and if they allowed illegal work it would turn their country into chaos and bring poverty. We don’t do caning and other Singapore-style punishments here, but I do support making penalties so harsh that no one would ever do it.
American companies would struggle to hire in certain labor categories, but there’s no such thing as a right to hire workers at low costs, or a right to be profitable. Americans have worked in agriculture and construction for hundreds of years, and still do. No honest work is beneath us.
My company uses the e-verify system for new hires. It’s free, fast, easy and we’ve never seen it make an error. I know nothing is 100% perfect but it is very good and should be mandatory, starting in construction, agriculture, and food service industries.
There’s the rub. Employers are simply not willing to pay competitively for the kinds of jobs that undocumented immigrants end up doing.
Also, there are a lot of citizens – including unemployed ones – who definitely consider such jobs to be “beneath them”. They tend to be the typical bigoted white Know-Nothings who support the wall, oppose “onerous” workplace safety regulations and standards (including mandatory use of free systems like E-Verify, because “tyranny”), oppose union organising, etc.
Let’s first get rid of conservative “right to work” laws and other policies destructive to union organising. Then we can talk about mitigating the effects of the bad ol’ immigrants.
I would be interested in seeing the numbers for each modern president – how many miles of wall were built under each administration. I mean, it’s not like Trump invented the wall or that no Democrats had wall built.
Illegal aliens do menial work in this country because decades of attacking labor unions has made it nearly impossible to sustain a living wage in most blue collar work.
Most 2nd+ generation Americans lack foreign language skills to a level of proficiency to work for foreign based businesses. Medical and STEM training is always in short supply and increasing demand.
“Unlimited labor” is not a function of numbers of workers but on their expendability/fungibility. If the jobs do not require significant skills or training, then employers would rather go with an easily exploited workforce than one likely to complain or demand living wages.
Plus you miss the fact that immigration is necessary for sustaining workforces and markets. In addition to adding more workers to the economy it adds more consumers and markets as well.
The immigration laws are written largely to protect employers. Punishing them doesn’t mean much if you are deporting the workforce as well. Since that merely reinforces the motivation towards silence about the situation.
This is not true at all. I mean, sometimes it’s true, but often it’s not. A recent article about someone who went into debt to coyotes, requiring him to work for about two years, to make the crossing. Plenty more like this. Because of course coyotes are cartel affiliated and loan sharking and debt labor are part of the cartel business plan, so obviously this happens.
Victims of trafficking are often subjected to debt bondage or peonage in which traffickers demand labor as a means repayment for areal or allegeddebt, yet they do not reasonably applya victim’s wages towardthe payment of the debt, or limit or define the nature and length of the debtor’s services.Traffickers may charge victims fees for transportation, boarding, food,and other incidentals; interest, fines for missing daily work quotas, and charges for “bad behavior” may be added. Debt bondage traps a victim in a cycle of debt that he or she can never pay down, and it can be part of a larger scheme of psychological cruelty
Really, you seriously thought that coyotes never took anyone who didn’t pay up front? Come on, you didn’t realize that cartels do financing, and just like car dealers, they often make as much from the financing as from the transaction?
The person making your burrito or fixing your drywall could very well be working in debt bondage.
The influx of immigrants can dampen labor wages in the short term, but in longer term influx of immigrants stimulates and strengthens the economy. Especially since birth rates are flat, influx of population is a sure fire way to introduce more consumers.
But beyond that, I am not super keen on this “Fuck you, I got mine.” immigration policy.
My non-native ancestors didn’t have to ask anyone to move to the US. They just came over and set up shop. Everyone on my dad’s side planted in the middle of God-forsaken Texas and liven in all Czech communities. I know of at least one ancestor who came from France and settled around Indiana before integrating with the Natives and later being forced to move. My Scottish side is a bit hazier, but they came over early on too. And there are other lines introduced from elsewhere that I don’t know the specifics.
The point is: all of them came here for the same reasons modern immigrants come here - to escape their current situation and find new opportunity.Hell in Central and South American immigrants cases, many of them are escaping violence as well. So it would make me hugely hypocritical to adopt a hard-line stance against people who just want “life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness” when none of my ancestors had to worry about “legal” immigration.
That’s honest. Such an influx can dampen wages at least in the short term. The problem with an open border is that it’s not a one-time influx, it’s an infinite flux so the dampening goes on forever. Also, if we are going to accept immigrant labor for the long-term benefits, then it would make sense to do so at a time when the economy is on an up-swing and will be most able to absorb the labor, not at a time of economic catastrophe. Like right now. All this could be solved with absolutely mandatory e-verify and harsh penalties to employers who violate it, but that’s not something you will ever hear Biden mention, because they have donors to take care of.
Yeah that’s also an honest point. I don’t agree with it personally, as in my view a government exists primarily to serve its citizens, but I get how someone could have the view you expressed there.
That’s the point, though. Immigrants deserve the same consideration as newborn US babies, seeing that we set up our system and infrastructure on stolen land, after a lengthy campaign of genocide and slavery, with still nowhere near honest and fair treatment of our own POC citizens.
Branding immigrants as interlopers is stupidest irony the USA is capable of.
This is just one of many reasons there really shouldn’t be a wall at all.
The solution to immigration doesn’t necessarily have to be an “open border”. Indeed there needs to be a metering to a degree. But that doesn’t mean the current system isn’t overly restrictive and decentivise people going through legit channels. People seeking refuge would rather risk sneaking in if they don’t have a fair shot of being granted sanctuary. Death or living illegally is a pretty simple choice. People looking for work with out a legit avenue have the same reasoning. They would rather risk deportation than waiting nearly forever in the very very unlikely chance they get a visa to enter from a lottery.
This “risk it all for a better life and work your ass off” attitude is what founded America.
Going after employers aka companies, isn’t exactly a Republican (or Democrat) platform talking point either. “Why do you hate capitalism?” One could argue they should be paid legit wages, but again, the crime of wanting to work isn’t exactly something I am going to condemn people with.
I don’t disagree with that. I do disagree with the gate keeping on who should and shouldn’t become citizens.
Mich like having babies that grow up to compete for the same jobs, which for some reason nobody ever seems to complain about hurting the economy, even though they require far more resources and training to get working than adult immigrants do. Almost like there’s something more than economic impact at heart of the complaint.
Anyway, if you want to stifle illegal immigration, I don’t think it would be that hard to do. Stop cracking down on desperate people looking for a way to provide for their families, and instead start going after companies that hire them as a way to get cheap and abusable labor. For some reason, that never seems to be the approach either.
