I didn’t say that. Please don’t put words in my mouth. I don’t hate immigrants or immigration. It “makes us worse off” in that the abuse of the system leads to more economic inequality and racism. I hate the way that corporations are abusing the H-1B system as well as abusing immigrants. This abuse is a dual example of economic inequality and racism (as well as a racism-fomentor) which I said in the opening sentence of my post that we need to fight at the same time.
I see. I didn’t know that. I hope that sometime soon the government can work on H-1B reform that ensures that H-1B workers have more rights and aren’t trapped at a single company but are rather more mobile and able to get high-skill jobs commensurate with their qualifications and the original intentions of the H-1B, and required to get equal pay to citizens, like @nick_warr said.
This picture is exactly one of the things I was thinking about when I was writing my post.
One of the things that I’m struggling to put into words that don’t make me sound like I’m anti-immigrant or concern-driving trollies is like… I want the H-1B to be used for its original purpose of bringing highly-skilled immigrants to the U.S. to fill positions that simply can’t be filled otherwise so that students freshly graduated from American universities and colleges (both citizens and immigrants with student visas who’ve been studying here) are able to find the entry-level work that fits their degrees. And bringing in high-skilled H-1B workers that are able to go to where their talent can shine and is most needed allows those companies that hire them the potential to grow and be able to hire more of those entry-level workers. Reforming H-1B so that giants like Tata, Infosys, and more get their abuses of the system kicked to the curb, with offers of citizenship and more for those who’ve been found to have been brought over as part of abusive H-1B practices, would IMO be an effective way to dismantle a system that’s caused an increase in economic inequality and racism.
As a current H1-B Visa holder currently working on my EB-3 green card, I can tell you that most of these “reforms” (as envisioned by the outgoing government) have already pushed the process for genuinely highly-skilled workers to be a complex, multi-year process relying on the goodwill of corporations over as much as half a decade or more to go through the extreme effort to complete these processes. I am, supposedly, exactly the type of worker the Us “wants”, and yet I’ve been working since 2016 desperately hoping that my employer remains in a position to continually, at significant expense, sponsor my H1B / Green Card application through to completion, which is likely not to conclude for at least another 18 months or more.
This pushes highly-skilled workers away from even wanting to go through this process, and with the rise of COVID-19, I imagine will make that even more apparent.
Instead, prior to this process, US companies contracted me, directly funnelling more than a decade of high-end salary out of the US economy and to Canada instead, while gaining little for Americans. Making visa more difficult and more complex will only make that problem worse.
I’m not advocating for the kind of “do something” faux-reforms that the Trump Administration pushed through and resultantly made things worse. I firmly believe that a properly-staffed Biden administration can work to tackle the unnecessary complexities and red tape of immigration for high skill workers (and immigration in general) while simultaneously curbing abuse of the H-1B system.
As a naturalised citizen and as someone who’s been hiring manager for several H1-B holders I can confirm all of this. The visa holder (and often their family) is completely at the mercy of the employer. I always recall an H1-B hire at a Dotcom 1.0 startup where I was CTO, a guy who was in love with the immigrant narrative of America. When the startup lost funding after the 2000 crash, he was screwed in a way I just wasn’t. After spending money and time trying to start his Green Card process and despite my efforts to help him find another U.S. employer, he had to leave. Now he’s applying his talent and hard work as CIO of a major insurance company back in his home country.
It’s always been terrible (worse if you’re not white and English-speaking) but I shudder to think how much worse the process would have gotten if Il Douche got another four years.
Laverne Cox is well known, presumably not scraping by (though I’m guessing not part of the 1%), etc. which did not protect her from being attacked in a public place. She is still a Black trans woman, and having a successful career in a high profile industry will not fix all the obstacle she faces because of who she is. Does that mean she isn’t insulated some from transphobia and racism or classism? No, especially on the latter - being able to pay your bills and provide for your future helps enormously, as well as gives you some clout in our money-obsessed society. But she can and will be targeted because of her gender identity and race.
I don’t understand why intersectionality, the concept that it’s more than economic class that shapes your experience with oppression, is so controversial, when it’s so patently a fact of life. We know this because people across identities and economic classes regularly speak to these issues. Unless you think that literally all of us who aren’t white, straight, cisgendered men are lying or trying to pull on over on the world about our experiences, it seems to me that people would believe us that gender, race, or sexual orientation very much intersect with class, and that just focusing on class-based issues will not solve the problems that many of us face.
The US’s whole immigration system needs to be overhauled for the modern world and economy. The world is connected; the global economy is one economy; and the US still has an immigration system from the early 20th century.
Why won’t anyone understand that it’s harder for a white cis-het male to play the People’s Hero™ when he has to admit he’s been playing on Scalzi’s “easy mode” the whole time? /s
Following up on the topic of immigration, I came across this article this morning on the bigoted ladder-pulling attitude of some immigrants:
Every immigrant group that comes into America wants to be the last group through the door. Trust me, immigrants would rip the plaque off the Statue of Liberty faster than a Proud Boy at a tiki torch Black Friday sale. And every immigrant group knows the secret to achieving whiteness — patiently wait in the wings until the current whites believe Black people are catching up, at which point, the books are open, and the Irish are let in, or the Ukrainians, or the Czech, or the Cubans. In America, whiteness is a reward for stepping on others’ necks.
My mind is making links between the undo shortcut and the likely attitude of Biden’s administration towards young people.
I just saw Masha Gessen address this in a flashback episode of Full Frontal. The issue is that the whole conversation has been shaped in terms of what it good for the US, which is basically ceding the nationalist point. The question countries ought to ask themselves isn’t, “Is immigration good for us?” it’s, “Are we good enough to attract immigrants.”
If we’re moving beyond measuring his administration by the rock-bottom bar of the one we’ve endured for the last four years (which, let’s start doing now) then that link presages a lot of disappointment for me. Returning to the “normal” of the mid-90s is neither sustainable nor realistic for young people facing the threats of climate change and extreme economic inequality.
As usual, Gessen nails it succinctly. Why does the U.S. deserve all that talent and hard work when it’s increasingly unwilling to reward it like it used to?
This is why I believe that real, rock-solid reforms to H-1B that dismantle the racism-fomenting and inequality-creating flaws that it has would be a good thing alongside broad reforms to immigration in general.
We need to reward the talent and hard work of those with H-1B visas by ensuring that when they come over here, they get work and pay that’s commensurate with their talents and they aren’t held hostage by a single employer. We need to reward the talent and hard work of people who go to college here in the U.S. by ensuring that, whether they’re a citizen or an immigrant coming here to study on a student visa, they are able to find a well-paying entry-level job that fits their degree. And we need to make sure that the H-1B holder and the person coming here on the student visa are able to get their green card, if they want it, in a reliable and reasonably fast process that lasts for weeks instead of months or years.
Frankly, speaking as an American, we really should be embracing anyone who, as @gracchus so eloquently puts it, wants to join Team USA. That goes for anybody, not just code warriors and engineers.
OK, maybe not Sebastian Gorka, he can fuck right off, but everybody who isn’t a pseudo-intellectual neo-Nazi.
When did it ever reward talent and hard work, rather than race (white) and gender (male). The rest of us have never been given a level playing field. Ever. Anyone who thinks that’s true is naive or maliciously ignorant. Or actively bigoted.
I’ve been thinking about this for a few days and think it fits here.
In Maine, lobster fishing is a seasonal job. They generally make good money. They are generally encouraged to apply for unemployment benefits in the “off season” and do so. I’ve never, ever heard anyone deriding them for that.
Teaching is generally seasonal. They are not encouraged or allowed to apply for unemployment benefits during the off season, but can opt to get their pay spread over the full year.
I know some professional ballet dancers in companies. That is also seasonal, they make good money, and they are encouraged to apply for unemployment benefits in the off season.
Large Midwestern farmers receive huge payouts every single year, yet I never hear them derided as “takers.”
Yet the single working mom at the grocery story spending her $125 monthly SNAP benefits is the real problem.
There’s definitely a pattern in the races and class levels of these scenarios and how society treats them, and (aside from ballet, maybe) gender.
Indeed. Most people have been blinded by ideology and the propaganda that promulgates it to abusive inequities that should instead be stunningly obvious, and probably are to some outsiders.
