Why the H-1B Visa Racket Should Be Abolished, Not Reformed

How am I supposed to know? Twice as fast is not significant plus a better technology does not always win. It is all about having the right connections. Maybe he got lucky during an elevator ride and pitched it to somebody.


Well, my eyes glazed over when he tried to explain it to me, plus he has a strong accent. So I really don't know all the details. But both him and his brother are hard workers, I know that. He got sponsored first, and eventually got his brother, then mother and sister over here. His father died when they were escaping Cambodia. His story of the journey is incredible.


anyway, he is an engineer. He studied hard and became something. To try and demean his accomplishments by somehow saying he was "connected" is an insult to him. He went to one of the worst public schools here, and still beat all odds learning English and math etc.
 
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Well, my eyes glazed over when he tried to explain it to me, plus he has a strong accent. So I really don't know all the details. But both him and his brother are hard workers, I know that. He got sponsored first, and eventually got his brother, then mother and sister over here. His father died when they were escaping Cambodia. His story of the journey is incredible.


anyway, he is an engineer. He studied hard and became something. To try and demean his accomplishments by somehow saying he was "connected" is an insult to him. He went to one of the worst public schools here, and still beat all odds learning English and math etc.

Same with trying to portray him as a typical example. I have heard myself of quite a few lottery winners. :cool:
 
Well, my eyes glazed over when he tried to explain it to me, plus he has a strong accent. So I really don't know all the details. But both him and his brother are hard workers, I know that. He got sponsored first, and eventually got his brother, then mother and sister over here. His father died when they were escaping Cambodia. His story of the journey is incredible.


anyway, he is an engineer. He studied hard and became something. To try and demean his accomplishments by somehow saying he was "connected" is an insult to him. He went to one of the worst public schools here, and still beat all odds learning English and math etc.

Is this your guy's company - https://www.cnet.com/news/procket-lures-cisco-exec-into-ceo-spot/ ?
 
Was his company profitable or he simply found a sucker with a fat wallet?:cool:

That's what it's all about now. M&A. The big boys all need to show growth, and the best way to do that is acquisitions. They pay outrageous amounts to keep up the appearance of growth. That is the goal of the majority of start-ups. Do something to attract the big players, and the sell-out is like winning the lottery. Needless to say, this does restrain true competition, but the people involved don't care if it's lucrative for them.
 
Like I said. The geniuses are going back home. They're coming here, they're getting an education, and they're going home. And I'll repeat that we're starting to see Silicon Valleys in China, India and elsewhere.

I'm pretty sure we can figure out how this story ends. American kids aren't learning to produce anything. They're learning only to be good little consumers of foreign goods made buy some kid who got the education here instead of our kids getting it. They're learning to be dependent on the products of other countries. It's why I've always supported STEM programs in public schools.

And before anyone gives me the business about government run schools, I agree with you. But I don't see anybody doing anything about it. All I see is a bunch of talk and posturing. So if were gonna have it, then at least educate them in a relevant way instead of the usual bow and obey books and lessons.

I've sat on a couple STEM boards in public school. So I have at least some background on the matter.

I have been involved in recruiting, and have talked to my share of college kids. Since about 2000, American kids have been discouraged from STEM degrees by the knowledge that companies are only hiring foreign workers. By the same token, some foreign kids are moving into STEM fields simply becuase they believe their connections will make it easier for them to find jobs.

And becoming educated in the US is one of the easiest and well-known paths to US citizenship. All of these factors have resulted in the situation we have today. It has nothing at all to do with the intelligence or skill levels of Americans vs. these foreign students, and everything to do with hiring preferences, enticements and politics.
 
That is shear baloney.

This misinformation about colleges in the US is scary. People take anecdotal information from X college campus and extrapolate to all US colleges and their students. Colleges encourage the hell out of their students to do stem courses. There are scholarship left and right and they put on so many conferences and events to hook students in.
 
The real world is a different place than your cocoon.

I was happy to see this recently. I hope its the beginning of a trend. Its something Ive been promoting for years.

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IT and programming apprenticeship programs are a great idea.
 
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This misinformation about colleges in the US is scary. People take anecdotal information from X college campus and extrapolate to all US colleges and their students. Colleges encourage the hell out of their students to do stem courses. There are scholarship left and right and they put on so many conferences and events to hook students in.

Yeah, it would be hard to see a University discourage someone from going for a STEM degree. Did anyone say that has happened?

I said "American kids have been discouraged from STEM degrees by the knowledge that companies are only hiring foreign workers".

I did not say that the University, their counselors, or their recruiters are trying to discourage anyone. They are discouraged by hearing that foreigners are getting hired over them. They are discouraging by hearing that pay is going down. They are discouraged by hearing that their grand parents or parents were forced to train their foreign replacement. They are discouraged by hearing that they are less capable than foreigners at these majors. They are discouraged by walking into a classroom that is 80% or more foreigners.

A happy sales pitch doesn't always overcome what they hear about in the real world.
 
Yeah, it would be hard to see a University discourage someone from going for a STEM degree. Did anyone say that has happened?

I said "American kids have been discouraged from STEM degrees by the knowledge that companies are only hiring foreign workers".

I did not say that the University, their counselors, or their recruiters are trying to discourage anyone. They are discouraged by hearing that foreigners are getting hired over them. They are discouraging by hearing that pay is going down. They are discouraged by hearing that their grand parents or parents were forced to train their foreign replacement. They are discouraged by hearing that they are less capable than foreigners at these majors. They are discouraged by walking into a classroom that is 80% or more foreigners.

A happy sales pitch doesn't always overcome what they hear about in the real world.

Thanks for the correction/clarification but someone should also inform these kids that those stories of their grandparents having to train their foreign replacements are greatly exaggerated. The chances that a company would replace your job with an equally experienced employee is next to zero. Also there is just 1 or 2 STEM job fields that experience this phenomena at all. Kids should still strive for STEM job because they are for the most part very secured, lucrative job titles in the US.
 
lso there is just 1 or 2 STEM job fields that experience this phenomena at all. Kids should still strive for STEM job because they are for the most part very secured, lucrative job titles in the US.

Agree. It is very degree specific. It's the IT fields that have been taken over by the mass influx. Degrees like Information Technology, Information Systems, Information Science and Computer Science. There are plenty of other STEM fields where this is not a huge issue (yet).

A couple of years ago, a first generation (his parents immigrated to the US) Indian student that I knew changed his major from Computer Engineering to Computer Science. The engineering program he was in was diverse. When he interned and saw the real world, he switched. Basically, it was Indian IT people telling him, "drop that engineering degree, go IT and join us, we guarantee you an easy job".
 
I have been involved in recruiting, and have talked to my share of college kids..

I'm sure that you have, Brian. And I commend you for it. I know about the college campus recruiting efforts. That's something that I haven't personally became involved with that but I know that it's been a successful effort. To some extent.

Since about 2000, American kids have been discouraged from STEM degrees by the knowledge that companies are only hiring foreign workers.

Right. But these companies are hiring foreign workers who came here and got the education that American youth didn't. The majority of the top technical colleges run flunkout programs. And toward the end of this response, I'm gonna take you back to 1994 and show you exactly why these kids (now in college) aren't qualified to be phd candidate in the STEM department. Just click on that link for a precise, correct, and thorough explanation. I know that because I went to war with the department of education about it for a very long time.

By the same token, some foreign kids are moving into STEM fields simply becuase they believe their connections will make it easier for them to find jobs.

50% of all PHD candidates are foreign born. And in some cases 100% are foreign born depending on the university. It's beyond just jobs. These people create entire industries. And, again, we're seeing Silicon Valleys popping up in India and China and elsewhere now. Where did they come from? They came from America via the H-1B. Without the H-1B many colleges wouldnt even exist in America.

And becoming educated in the US is one of the easiest and well-known paths to US citizenship. All of these factors have resulted in the situation we have today. It has nothing at all to do with the intelligence or skill levels of Americans vs. these foreign students, and everything to do with hiring preferences, enticements and politics

American graduates regularly compete at the level of third world countries, Brian. Surely you must know this. This is a fact. Do we need to rehash common core to demonstrate? That's just a popular term for the evolution of it, by the way. Common core has been around since the early 90s. It just wasn't called common core. Traditional math linguistics were killed by TERC. Although each course had it's own alter ego of 'TERC'. I only offer TERC here because we're talking about the STEM departments where traditional math is, of course, expected to be uderstood by any given phd candidate, foreign or American. Here's an example of what American Math students have been learnng sunce the early 90s based on the 1994 model that It's Time to Abandon Computational Algorithms Read that and tell me that these kids, in their late 20s now, are gonna compete with the phd candidates here on the H1-B. Again, 50% of phd candidates are foreign born. 100% in many science colleges.

Also, America hasn't contributed anything of significance since Apollo. And even that technology is being produced by foreign nations while our youth have been taught merely to consume, bow, and obey since the 80s that I can think of. I think Reagan opened up those floodgates so that kids were advertising targets for Chinese junk instead of educating them. I forget the name of the law(corporate penned, btw, by the same people who produced tjer stuff overseas.) but I can sure find it.
 
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Originally Posted by juleswin lso there is just 1 or 2 STEM job fields that experience this phenomena at all. Kids should still strive for STEM job because they are for the most part very secured, lucrative job titles in the US.Agree. It is very degree specific. It's the IT fields that have been taken over by the mass influx. Degrees like Information Technology, Information Systems, Information Science and Computer Science. There are plenty of other STEM fields where this is not a huge issue (yet).

A couple of years ago, a first generation (his parents immigrated to the US) Indian student that I knew changed his major from Computer Engineering to Computer Science. The engineering program he was in was diverse. When he interned and saw the real world, he switched. Basically, it was Indian IT people telling him, "drop that engineering degree, go IT and join us, we guarantee you an easy job".

You can't compartmentalize this issue like that. If there is a chain of argument, then every link in the chain must work, otherwise you're left with bunch of really important outliers that were ignored in your observation of the problem which ultimately become non sequiturs to you, but left behind for somone else to address because you didnt pay attention to the fundamental outliers to the larger issue. lol. You know who said it best? Michio Kaku. He correctly pointed out that science as a whole is the engine that drives prosperity. From steam power to electricity to the laser to the transister....to the computer...we're talking about the scientific establishment of this country. Without the H-1B, the scientific establishment of this country would collapse. Forget about Silicon Valley. There would be no Silicion Valley without the H-1B. Once the scientific establishment of this country collapses, the economy collapses, too.

I agree with Michio on this one. Sorry guys. I really think you guys are misunderstanding the nature of statistics here. And I think you're counting only your hits and disregarding your misses. Observational selection. Post hoc, ergo propter hoc in relation to the Indian gentleman, not to mention your argument is offered from a perspective of adverse consequences in the first place. Confusion of correlation and causation as the late Sagan liked to say. And again, I offer this respectfully.
 
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There's a much bigger discussion here. And I know the reason it's being avoided. It's because some friends will get caught up tripping over their own horse pucky if the larger issue is inserted into the terms of controvery here. That's something else. Respectfully. lol. It's okay. I love yuns all just the same. Actually, I don't recall reading anything here about free/forced trade either. Although mercantilism was mentioned.

Proceed...
 
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