Yes, this may be a Linux list, but most of us have worked with or
around people with H1B visas since the computing field attracts
perhaps the largest number of such visa holders.
Congress does tweak things from time to time, and I’ve been out of
the corporate loop for a few years now, so some details may be
outdated. But for the most part, changes to immigration laws are few
and far between.
These people are employed by two distinct groups: either large
companies, like IBM, MS, Apple, Google, eBay, etc; or small job
shops that are typically run by a friend or extended family member
from their home country that has set up a “job shop” and hired
some people on H1B status so they can come to America.
There are some distinctions I skimmed over in my post since most
people don’t know many details.
A foreigner needs a visa to come to America. As a student, they have
one type of visa. If they are attending school here, they will
probably interview for a job. If they get a job offer, it’s
usually contingent on them getting an H1B visa, and that’s done by
the company that wants to hire them. This company is also their
“sponsor”, which all visas require. Each visa has a limited
lifetime, and some can be renewed. If you’re on a student visa and
want to change your visa (rather than extend it), you typically have
to go back to your home country and deal with it there.
There used to be a requirement that students to go back to their
home country after graduating for two years, but perhaps that has
been changed. They still have to go back to change their visa, but
that can be done fairly quickly.
Once an H1B visa has been granted, along with a work permit, and the
person has become employed, they usually want to file for a "Green
Card", which is what takes the longest time. Until their GC is
either approved or denied, they’ll need to keep renewing their
visa every few years, which will be done by their employer /
sponsor. Once they get their GC, their visa expires. If they leave
their employer/sponsor or any reason, their visa expires. If
they’re arrested for some kinds of criminal activities, their visa
can be cancelled. If they leave the country without a permit to
return, they’ll lose their visa.
FWIW, I sponsored a woman to come over here on a fianceé visa years
ago. It was quite an ordeal. I learned far more about our
immigration system and laws than I ever wanted to know, and I got a
first-hand view of how totally screwed-up it is. It’s quite
amazing that it works at all.
I’ve also helped a couple of former employers prosecute H1B hires.
It’s a total racket.
Folks are certainly free to take a stand that, “I’m not getting
involved with politics”. But if you want to see how horrible and
even abusive 70 years of political string-pulling can get, just try
becoming a sponsor for a foreigner who wants to come here for some
reason, or to help a company hire someone on an H1B visa. You might
also discover that perhaps 95% of everything said on the news media
and in articles about immigration laws and policies are flat out
wrong. It’s pretty much ALL politics, since most of it is lies and
misleading information, most of it spoken by politicians themselves,
who KNOW that most of what they say is wrong.
The sad fact is, if you want to put an audience to sleep, discussing
details about immigration laws is a great way to do it. I’d be
suprised if anybody has even gotten to the end of my missive here.
:)
-David Schwartz
On Jul 1, 2025, at 8:38 PM, mike/r via PLUG-discuss
<[email protected]> wrote:
This is a Linux list, so I won't get into the politics. Corporate
H1-B visas are limited to 85,000, including 20,000 reserved for
those with an advanced degree. While recently around 600,000 visas
are requested annually (both corporate and otherwise), most are not
granted. The visas generally last for 3 years and can usually be
extended another 3 years. In my (quite dated) experience, graduates
did not have to return to their home country. Do not take any of
this as my opinion on whether it should or should not be this way.
On 7/1/25 9:13 PM, David Schwartz via PLUG-discuss wrote:
I saw a video of part of a roundtable thing where there were HR reps
from MS, HP, and some other major software employers, and the part I
saw was about H1B candidates. This would have been about 10 years
ago now.
They said they budgeted $50k to prosecute every H1B visa. That’s
JUST THE LEGAL FEES for the immigraion paperwork over time.
There was also employee on-boarding, relocation, salary, and and
other stuff. For the ones who were married, or got married later,
they also included the visa / immigration costs for their family
members as well.
I wish someone would file a lawsuit against them in order to get to
a Discovery phase where they can find out exactly how much they
budget for job retrainingf or existing employees.
Here’s some context: Companies that hire for DoD jobs take up
around 70% of all BS graduates who are US Citizens, because they
cannot hire foreigners. DoD hires account for a majority of MS and
PhD grads who are also US Citizens. These employers do not have any
incentive to pay for graduate school for these folks, so very few of
them go on to graduate school.
However, a significant number of STEM students, especially in
Engineering and Computer Science, are foreigners. They can get their
BS here and then their MS, but then they have to go back to their
home country for 2 years. Predictably, this encouraged a lot of
companies to set up facilities to hire these people in their home
countries. But once that 2-year window is expired, many of them are
brought to America.
In order to qualify for an H1B visa, the person has to have
relatively unique skills, and it’s very rare for someone without a
MS or PhD to qualify for an H1B.
Because DoD hires account for such a large percentage of US Citizens
at all levels, it’s difficult for US employers to hire them. Which
leaves foreigners as the largest pool of prospective employees —
especially if they want to hire people with graduate degrees.
That’s fine and dandy, but what’s wonky about it is why a
company like MS would spend so much to hire H1B candidates rather
than retrain US employees. It’s really very simple.
The main reason is the length of time it takes to get a green card.
The last I heard, it was taking nearly 10 years for people from
India to get their GCs. Some countries are as low as 4-5 years.
People on an H1B visa are earning a ton of money relative to what
they’d get back home; they live cheaply and send most of their
earnings to their families at home. The employer is paying for all
of their immigration fees which is probably over $100k over time, if
not more.
But here’s the thing: because it takes so long to get the GCs,
these people are basically slaves. They keep a very low profile,
they never complain, will not argue with anybody, or do anything
that might get them fired. Because if they leave, all of the funds
paid by their employer are LOST and their application is immediatly
dismissed. They have 30 days to find another employer willing to
start over on their H1B from scratch … or they have to leave the
country.
Which is why when they have layoffs, the US Citizens are always the
ones to get cut. Unfortunately, it’s NOT illegal, and is a very
common practice. If it WAS illegal, these companies would probably
move 100% of their software development off-shore.
Personally, I think they should be required to EARN THE RIGHT to
process H1B visas, showing they have spent some reasonable amount of
money retraining say, 10 US Citizens in order to hire ONE new H1B
candidate. Or pay to put ONE US Citizen through graduate school and
earn a Master’s degree in order to hire ONE foreigner with a
Master’s degree.
As it is, there are NO restrictions on how many US Citizens they can
layoff versus how many foreigners they can hire.
The only limitation is that there are only 65,000 H1B visas per
year, and that includes spouses and family members. They become
available in October, and are usually all scarfed-up in a day or
two.
This is one of those things that will hopefully be fixed whenever
Congress decides to fix our outdated, unfair, and mostly broken
immigration laws.
-David Schwartz
On Jul 1, 2025, at 4:45 PM, Keith Smith via PLUG-discuss
<[email protected]> wrote:
Hi,
"Between May and June, Microsoft laid off 2,300 employees in
Washington alone, including 817 software engineers ... During the
same period, Microsoft submitted 6,327 H-1B visa requests for
software engineer roles matching the same job titles and location as
those affected by the layoffs" - As far as I know this is illegal.
About 16 years ago I was on the Tucson Free Unix List and made a
post about H1B visas. I was met with a reply of "what's the matter
are you afraid of someone more skilled". I expect there are folks
on this list that fee the same way.
H1B visas are bad for our country especially when there are plenty
of skilled people right here.
I often wonder why Gates never created a school to teach the skills
he needs for his company.
I'm 69 years old and when I take a trip down memory late I feel I
would have been better off staying in the field I was in and enjoy
technology as a hobby. It has been a rough ride. I feel for those
being laid off and especially those being laid off so some really
rich folks can take advantage of the system.
Bravo to those who are ditching M$ for Linux. I have tried multiple
times and I think October (end of life for M10) will be the end of
M$ for me.
