Comment by sinecure
14 hours ago
This was never about talent. It's about companies hiring foreigners on h1b visas at below market wages where their life in the USA is contingent on their job performance forcing them to work harder and longer than their peers to remain in the country. It's a situation that only benefits companies, while harming US citizens who have to compete with the lower wages of foreigners.
I work in a global company. As an interviewer, I don't even know if the person I interview is a US citizen. I don't even know if they live in the US or another country, and I'm probably not allowed to ask. I just rate their performance. And everybody is paid the same.
I think the situation is quite simple. Companies want the best candidates they can get, and the larger the recruitment pool, the better.
If tomorrow you were to tell (let say) Google they now need to hire only US citizens, would they lower their hiring bar, or would they expand their Shanghai or Zurich offices? Are US citizens entitled to work at Google more than others for the sole reason they have a particular citizenship?
> Companies want the best candidates they can get, and the larger the recruitment pool, the better.
Yes, at the lowest wages they can get. Increase supply -> lower prices (wages) -> more corporate profits!
However, there are those who believe that corporate profits are not the highest good. Some of us also care about the earnings of American workers.
Also, "best candidates" alone does not "best company" make. You need people who can work well together—which requires some degree of culture fit. Immigration restrictions help preserve the cultural homogeneity that makes collaboration and social trust possible.
> I think the situation is quite simple. Companies want the best candidates they can get, and the larger the recruitment pool, the better.
Respectfully, this sounds terribly naive.
Why? All big and even medium tech companies have dev offices in EU and India. As example since it's much easier to deal with visas say in Ireland a lot of hiring was shifted to Irish offices.
Having worked at a few large companies, this was the case at all of them. I do think there is a messy middle of companies built on vibes.
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If the h1bs are given access to the jobs (training and experience), then is it the American's fault that they are no longer considered "best"?
Google (and friends) famously have teams composed of a single national origin (or caste...). What does that say about their hiring bar?
Google (and friends) are already expanding the Shanghai and Zurich offices.
> Google (and friends) famously have teams composed of a single national origin (or caste...). What does that say about their hiring bar?
That racism isn't only something white people are capable of.
> I just rate their performance. And everybody is paid the same.
For some visa classes, the law says you should hire an American citizen if they can do the job - not if they rank first at whiteboards or fizz-buzz.
> If tomorrow you were to tell (let say) Google they now need to hire only US citizens, would they lower their hiring bar
Does it really matter? To a point, obviously, but a lot of people are good enough for the role without being the world's best. The bar for getting into Google has dropped since its early days, and Google keeps breaking profit records quarter after quarter.
This entire "hire the best or nothing" mindset has led to a dysfunctional hiring process that's a pain to both employers and employees, and is prima facie unachievable.
> you should hire an American citizen if they can do the job
I went for a job in the US back in the late 80's (Specialist on hardware).
California it was exceptionally strict. While I was more than qualified it took months of the company advertising in the US, and at the end of it all an American was hired.
The second job for another company in California, same deal except they only advertised in the local newspaper (which felt off), and when I finally got an interview they said they couldn't hire me but recommended places in Mexico to jump the border if I ever wanted a job. Noped out of that fast.
Did eventually get to a spend a couple of years in the US in the 90's. It was the same hoops to jump through as the first company. Wasn't easy or fast.
No idea what it is like now. But I had seen the racism of "They are an immigrant, so they were only hired because we can pay them cheap", not as bad as my Indian co-workers though.
> not if they rank first at whiteboards or fizz-buzz.
As an interviewer, I don't rank candidates. I have my set of questions, some candidates solve them, others don't. You can argue that it's the bar to do your job properly. Should politicians tell big tech companies what's the bar for being a successful SWE?
> When it comes to national interest, the argument for "meritocracy" falls apart quickly.
A lot of US tech exists because of skilled foreign workers. I'm not sure what would be the tech industry without them.
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I was a hiring manager. H1B candidates got exactly the same wage as native born. There were no differences.
Being paid the same as the other guy doesn't necessarily mean the wages themselves stayed the same. Adding H1B candidates to the talent pool exerts downward pressure on salary due to the law of supply and demand. I can't say for sure whether the allure of a green card or threat of deportation play a material factor in lowering the average salary that H1B immigrants are willing to accept. But in an environment where talent is treated as fungible (even if it isn't always so), any such downward pressure affects everyone.
The prevailing wage for H1B software engineers is a very good salary for most software engineers in the world.
It's common for the prevailing wage to be double what that person could earn in their country of origin.
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When they're on visa managers know you can work them harder, especially during the PERM process
The idea is that the "same wage" you are talking about is too low to hire enough employees in the time needed that the company needed so they had to look abroad for people willing to work for that amount.
I was an H1B and this is a fucking lie.
Actually they get normal wages now. H1B’s get hired because H1B’s are now in hiring, recruiting, HR, etc.. they stack the candidate pool with their own shamelessly. I’ve seen it first hand.
Isn't that a work visa and not an immigrant visa
H-1B / L-1 are non-immigrant visas, immigrant visas are green cards yes. Pausing green card processing in consulates after (on sketchy legal grounds) forcing folks to not do adjustment of status for getting an immigrant visa inside the country is, indeed, how the admin is trying to get around doing their job the way the INA intends them to.
H-1B is dual intent, isn't it?
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If you mean the memo earlier this year, it was about tourist visas and similar doing aos in country when they are not dual intent visas, which makes it iffy.
They explicitly said that for h1b and l1 aos wouldn’t be affected as they are dual intent visas.
OP and you are obviously on different end of the spectrum. The truth is usually somewhere in the middle.
Recently[1] Microsoft laid off several thousand domestic employees while simultaneously hiring a couple thousand employer-sponsored-Visa workers.
[1]https://www.newsweek.com/microsoft-layoffs-2026-xbox-h1b-vis...
As a hiring manager no one tells you who is an immigrant and who isn’t when you interview them.
As an interviewee I've read "we're not sponsoring visas at this time" a million times.
At the HR/JD level, not at the actual interview.
The news is about immigrant visas and H1B is temporary non-immigrant visa...
And yet, they never applied the simple option of ranking the visa applications by salary, and approving in order of demand for the talent.
That would be a market based solution that allows everyone to get the talent they need without driving down American wages.
But the point isn't about helping Americans, it's about being peedormatively against letting in brown people.
They are doing that now too, however the problem is that h1b is used for roles outside of tech, believe it or not, and if you measure everything by Bay Area tech salaries a bunch of necessary but lower paying jobs will go unfilled
If it's truly necessary, the fact that it's unfilled would be directly related to it being low paid.
And if the employer isn't willing to pay the cost of labor to fill the position, it directly raises the question of whether its "necessary".
They can pay more, or hire American.
How does companies hiring h1b-holders (a non-immigrant visa) relate to a pause on immigrant visa applications?
Oh cool, good thing labor isn't fungible and nobody ever outsources.
What a brilliant plan. Lets make sure that we restrict the supply of doctors and medical personell, that's sure to improve care!