{"id":25282,"date":"2017-11-13T16:15:59","date_gmt":"2017-11-13T21:15:59","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/angry.net\/blog2\/?p=25282"},"modified":"2017-11-13T16:15:59","modified_gmt":"2017-11-13T21:15:59","slug":"companies-unhappy-with-h1b-reforms","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/angry.net\/blog2\/?p=25282","title":{"rendered":"Companies unhappy with H1B Reforms"},"content":{"rendered":"

Good day all. One of the pet peeves of most Information Technology professionals is the H1B Visa. This visa is used by companies to bring in foreign on what are supposed to be temporary work visas for a specific project.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

The person give the visa is supposed to have knowledge that American\u2019s don\u2019t have. Primarily you see people with these visas being database administrators and programmers. What actually has been happening is companies have been firing their American workers and bringing in much lower paid H1B visa holders. To make matters worse, many of the soon to be jobless Americans are forced to train their foreign replacements or not get any severance packages.<\/p>\n

This scam has led to several lawsuits against the worst offenders. To date, the courts haven\u2019t done much for American citizens. This brings us to President Trump. One of the things he promised during the election was an overhaul of the H1B system. It looks like that\u2019s occurring and corporations, along with the visa holders don\u2019t like it very much. Here are the details from Bloomberg<\/b><\/a>:<\/p>\n

Donald Trump came into office promising a restrictive new approach to immigration and there has been little question about his intention to follow through \u2014 with one seeming exception. Despite its enthusiastic rhetoric about the H-1B program, which provides temporary visas to high-skilled workers, the administration failed to make significant changes in time to impact the program\u2019s annual lottery this April, leaving some who had anticipated action fuming<\/a>. It has also declined to take up any of the legislative proposals for H-1B overhaul.<\/b><\/p>\n

To be honest, President Trump only had 3 \u00bd months. A lot of what needs to be done will require Congress getting off their dead asses and overhauling the immigration system.<\/p>\n

But a crackdown has been in the works, albeit more quietly.<\/strong><\/p>\n

Yeah, funny how that seems to be the Trump way of doing things. Get the morons in the Media, the Moonbats in Manhattan and the Clowns in Congress screeching at Trump about some bit of nonsense, meanwhile, he goes in an quietly makes a few changes that drive the Uniparty and their suporters right off the deep end.<\/p>\n

Starting this summer, employers began noticing that U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services was challenging an unusually large number of H-1B applications. <\/b><\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

Cases that would have sailed through the approval process in earlier years ground to a halt under requests for new paperwork. The number of challenges \u2014 officially known as \u201crequests for evidence\u201d or RFEs \u2014 are up 44 percent compared to last year, according to statistics from USCIS. The percentage of H-1B applications that have resulted in RFEs this year are at the highest level they\u2019ve been since 2009, and by absolute number are considerably higher than any year for which the agency provided statistics. <\/b><\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

Once again, we see the \u201cTrump Effect\u201d happening. No tweets, no press releases, just getting things done. In this case, it looks like USCIS is actually looking at these visas and asking if there really aren\u2019t any qualified Americans or permanent legal residents, (Green Card holders), available.<\/p>\n

The H-1B program is controversial largely because IT firms based in India have used it to hire for rote computer programming jobs. <\/b><\/p>\n

When they say \u201cRote programmers\u201d they are talking about people right out of school who are cheap and have no experience. In other words, by the book programmers. Experienced programmers cost a lot more money because…They are experienced and know what they are doing.<\/p>\n

The overall number of H-1B applications dropped this year<\/a> for the first time in five years. The skeptical eye the government is taking to applications has extended to all types of employers, according to immigration lawyers. Many are rethinking their own use of H-1B as a result. <\/b><\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

I have first hand information of one company that got rid of all their H1B\u2019s about a year ago, pretty much right after Trump won the election. Funny that.<\/p>\n

It\u2019s unclear how many applications are actually being rejected.<\/b><\/p>\n

I have a sneaking suspicion that Bloomberg has a good idea of just how many have been rejected, but doesn\u2019t want to say.<\/p>\n

In the meantime, the uncertainly alone is taking a toll on those who rely on the visas to work. Some applicants whose cases remained unresolved by Oct. 1, the annual effective date for new visas, have been sent home from their jobs. <\/b><\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

There are no official statistics tracking how many people are in this situation, but multiple immigration lawyers said this is the first year they\u2019re seeing it occur in any significant numbers.<\/b><\/p>\n

Good. The H1B visa program was never meant for what it\u2019s currently being used for, displacing Americans and permanent legal resident aliens from getting good jobs and being paid what they are actually worth. Now the immigration lawyers who handle these visas are upset that the rubber stamp they\u2019ve grown accustomed to has been tossed into an incinerator.<\/p>\n

Peter Roberts, an immigration lawyer whose clients include large multinationals and startups, the administration is punishing everyone. He said many of this year\u2019s challenges were \u201cbeyond ridiculous, trumped-up requests \u2014 no pun intended \u2014 issued either without legal basis or making no sense from a common sense standpoint,\u201d and questioned whether they\u2019d stand up. <\/b><\/p>\n

\u201cHow do you change the way we live? You can change the laws, or you can change the way we interpret them,\u201d he said. \u201cThis is the latter.\u201d<\/b><\/p>\n

Hmm, it looks like we have another shyster who\u2019s going to be looking around for an Obama Judge. Good luck with that! You may want to get the courts to usurp even more authority, but access to the United States is granted by the United States Congress and administered by the administrative branch. (The President) While you may find an Obama judge who will give you what you want, don\u2019t be at all surprised if it doesn\u2019t blow up in your face.<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

For Centro, a company in Chicago that makes technology for ad agencies, the problems started this summer. One of the applications had been chosen in the H-1B lottery. Emilie Clark, the company\u2019s director of human resources, happily called the employee to tell him his immigration status was settled for the next three years.<\/b><\/p>\n

But the employee called Clark back in August, terrified that something had gone wrong. He\u2019d received a letter from USCIS saying it would reject his application unless Centro proved the position required someone with specialized skills. Clark was surprised. She\u2019d been helping people apply for visas for four years, and this was the first time she\u2019d ever seen such a letter. <\/b><\/p>\n

BINGO!! What you just saw Ms. Clark was someone finally enforcing the law as written. The H1B visa program was meant to allow foreign workers with rare and specialized skills in for a specific project, and only if there wasn\u2019t an American or Legal Resident Alien who also had those skills available. I know for a fact that there are plenty of American I.T. workers who can\u2019t find a job in their chosen fields because they actually expect to be paid what they\u2019re worth.<\/p>\n

To Clark’s eyes, the position \u2014 which consisted of writing algorithms and required knowledge of multiple programming languages as well as a solid understanding of relational data storage systems \u2014 wasn\u2019t a borderline case. <\/b><\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

Really? Would you like me to send you a list of names bimbo?<\/p>\n

\u201cWe\u2019re entering a new era,\u201d said Emily Neumann, an immigration lawyer in Houston who has been practicing for 12 years. \u201cThere\u2019s a lot more questioning, it\u2019s very burdensome.\u201d <\/b><\/p>\n