<story><title>Andrew Ng: The suspension of H1B is bad for the US and bad for innovation</title><url>https://twitter.com/AndrewYNg/status/1275250038898212865</url></story><parent_chain><item><author>btilly</author><text>H1B visas provide employers every incentive to lie to import cheap talent and work them hard.&lt;p&gt;There are ways to meet the very real need to import the best brains from around the world.  But H1B isn&amp;#x27;t set up to do this very effectively.&lt;p&gt;Off the top of my head, a better option would be to allow immigration with a $60k bond to the government that has to be paid down at $1k&amp;#x2F;month by the current employer.  With the employee in question able to transfer jobs at any time with the bond transferring to the new employer.</text></item></parent_chain><comment><author>throwawaygh</author><text>Really, we should just enforce the &lt;i&gt;original intent&lt;/i&gt; of the H1B.&lt;p&gt;1. Companies that import labor when they had a perfectly acceptable local candidate should face severe fines, and Justice should be given a real budget for running these investigations as a matter of course. And the burden of proof to demonstrate you needed to import labor should be pretty high. If you don&amp;#x27;t do this, then H1B abuse will happen.&lt;p&gt;2. Companies should be forced to pay H1Bs &lt;i&gt;significantly above&lt;/i&gt; prevailing wage, where &amp;quot;prevailing wage&amp;quot; is interpreted liberally instead of conservatively. H1Bs for software engineers making less than $200K (&lt;i&gt;maybe&lt;/i&gt; 150K) in a major metro area is a pretty obvious violation of the intent of the H1B, imo.&lt;p&gt;NB: this will have the effect of making H1Bs a lot harder to get and keep. But I think this is the least evil of all possible worlds. In addition, we could also independently argue for increased immigration in general. But midskill immigration to fill jobs for which local qualified candidates exist should not be done through the H1B program. That&amp;#x27;s not what it&amp;#x27;s designed for, and that mismatch between program design and actual use is the source of a lot of H1B mistreatment.&lt;p&gt;I actually &lt;i&gt;don&amp;#x27;t&lt;/i&gt; believe that ending the tie to an employer will help. I mean, we should do it anyway, but the abuse will continue.</text></comment>
<story><title>Andrew Ng: The suspension of H1B is bad for the US and bad for innovation</title><url>https://twitter.com/AndrewYNg/status/1275250038898212865</url></story><parent_chain><item><author>btilly</author><text>H1B visas provide employers every incentive to lie to import cheap talent and work them hard.&lt;p&gt;There are ways to meet the very real need to import the best brains from around the world.  But H1B isn&amp;#x27;t set up to do this very effectively.&lt;p&gt;Off the top of my head, a better option would be to allow immigration with a $60k bond to the government that has to be paid down at $1k&amp;#x2F;month by the current employer.  With the employee in question able to transfer jobs at any time with the bond transferring to the new employer.</text></item></parent_chain><comment><author>runawaybottle</author><text>It’s an artifact of colonialism that has been properly abstracted to fit the corporate interface, with a nice layering of cake to obfuscate reality.&lt;p&gt;I want no part of it.&lt;p&gt;Actually, no one one wants any part of it. The ones that take part in it are desperate.&lt;p&gt;I want no part in the desperation, it’s never good.</text></comment>