Ever since Elon said that the number of H1-B visas should be doubled, this topic has been blowing up on Reddit. However, many of the takes that I've seen on this subject, both outside of this sub and within it, are not very informed, getting many of the key facts wrong, and in some cases there's even blatant misinformation being spread around. I'd like to try and summarize the important facts to the debate on this post. There's numbered footnotes in this post, which relate to the sources at the bottom (Reddit does not support proper footnotes AFAIK)
I have an H1-B visa. I got a Bachelor in Computer Science at an American university, and now I work as a data scientist. Feel free to ask more personal questions about the experience in the comments
What is the H1-B visa?
H1-B is the main kind of temporary visa that is used for skilled workers. To simplify, to get an H1-B visa the main requirements [1] are:
– Having a bachelor's or higher degree
– Working in a field that requires your degree, or some other kind of specialized knowledge
– Get a job in the US in a company that is willing to sponsor an H1-B visa.
The H1-B visa has a legal cap of 85,000 on the number of people who can get it in a year. Since the number of people who apply for an H1-B visa has expanded dramatically since the program first started [6], there is now a lottery in place. The lottery gives any applicant an equal chance to get the visa if they apply. This quota is actually several different quotas, each with their own lottery. 53k for Bachelors, 20k for Masters, and 7k specifically for the lucky citizens of Chile and Singapore who don't have to deal with this mess.
The number of H1-B applicants has been blowing up recently. Last year, there were 781k applicants [7], almost twice as much as last year, and only roughly 11% of them were chosen in the lottery. That's a whopping 89% of candidates, some of which are extremely talented, who can't work in the US. If the H1-B quota doubled, it would still be below what it was all the way back in 2003, at 195k [6].
The H1-B visa is supposed to be the main pathway for immigrants who got their degree at an American university to continue working in the US and eventually get a green card.
Abuse in the H1-B system
I don't think this post can be complete without detailing the abuses of the H1-B system, and I don't want to sugarcoat things. For a complete breakdown, read this excellent article by Bloomberg (archive link). I'll attempt to summarize here:
– Nearly half of visas go to outsourcing companies and staffing firms. Each of these has their ways in which they abuse the H1-B lottery.
– Outsourcing firms, such as the WITCH (Wipro, Infosys, Tata, Cognizant, HCL) companies as well as some smaller ones, play a numbers game. Despite the fact that H1-B guidelines state that an employer needs to have a position available for each H1-B petitioner, they submit H1-B petitions for a huge number of their employees, more than they relocate to the US. They calculate how many jobs they need to fill, what they expect the acceptance rate to be, multiply to find out how many petitions they need to submit. These companies thus get more visas than companies like Amazon, but they're not just importing the top talent.
– Some HR staffing firms are even worse. They often function as visa brokers, selling tickets for US visas. They break the law in multiple ways, such as making employees pay the visa fees, withholding pay, and submitting outright fraudulent applications.
– Both of these groups of companies pay substantially less than the rest.
– USCIS made the mistake of allowing companies to submit each candidate multiple times in previous years. This allowed staffing firms to game the system by submitting each candidate multiple times through fake corporate entities.
– USCIS's anti fraud enforcement has been very lax.
USCIS closed the loophole of multiple submissions in this lottery year, and they are stepping up their anti fraud enforcement. It remains to be seen how successful that will be.
I want to stress that this is just part of the use of H1-B. The majority of H1-B visas are legitimate, they're mostly used by international students who want to stay and work in the US after their studies. Amazon and Intel, for example, are top H1-B employers, but they're used by firms of all sizes.
The abusers are taking advantage of the fact that the lottery has such a low chance nowadays. If the H1-B cap was raised, the outsourcing companies would react by submitting less applications. It's the lottery that allows a lot of this abuse to exist.
Is it easy to get an H1-B visa and immigrate into the US?
No. Let me explain how the pathway to immigration looks like for international students in the US:
– If you get accepted into an American university, you get an F-1 student visa. It allows you to stay in the US for the duration of your study, as well as work, but only in internships related to your major. No making ends meet with service jobs. Getting accepted is already not easy.
– After you finish your studies, you get 1 year of work authorization, called OPT, that also only allows jobs related to your major. In this stage, many of my friends who either didn't want to stay in the US or couldn't find a job in their field left. OPT limits your unemployment days, so if you can't find a job, you're out. Add to this the fact that many companies will outright reject you for being on a temporary visa, and you have a major funnel here.
– If you have a STEM degree, you can get a 2 year extension and work for 3 years. This makes it more reasonable to find a job, as most companies would not be willing to hire you if you can only stay 1 year.
– During this time, you must find an employer who is willing to sponsor your visa. In many fields, this is nearly impossible. Outside of tech, not many companies bother with H1-B visas, and the other visas, such as O-1 (extraordinary talent), are even more difficult to get. Filing an H1-B visa can cost the employer something like $10-20k, not only in USCIS fees but also in lawyer fees, as typically an immigration firm will be handling the application. Many companies are not willing to pay that.
– If you managed to get through all of this, it's now down to luck. You only get a small chance of actually getting the H1-B visa. You can try again next year, but only if you have a next year in the US. Many companies will not sponsor on your first year so you usually have 1 or 2 tries.
– Once you get H1-B, it's not over. You still need to get a green card to stay permanently which is another long process.
Because of all of this difficulty, in fact what I see people do in order to stay in the US, more commonly than H1-B visas, is either marrying an American if possible (ironically, the easiest way to immigrate is to find a husband/wife), or continuing on to masters. Masters gets you another F-1 visa, with another 3 years of STEM OPT. You can even rinse and repeat this to stay as long as you like, or do part-time masters. There's online bullshit schools for this purpose as well, but keep in mind, they are quite expensive. Obviously, none of these methods are ideal, not from the perspective of the student or of the US.
From what I've heard from friends, all of this makes for a much harder immigration experience than you would have in other countries. It's a common myth that immigrating to the US is either than places like the EU, UK, Canada or Australia, but all of these countries have a proper skilled immigrant visa that doesn't require a lottery with a low chance of success, as well as easier paths towards permanent residency.
There is another way that the H1-B is used, and that's as an employee transfer visa. That's what the outsourcing and staffing firms do. They want to get this visa for workers who are not already in the US. I'm personally not very familiar with that. There is an L1-A visa for transfer but that's only for executives.
Are H1B workers paid less than Americans?
No. Not only are they paid more, they are paid more than Americans in the same field. USCIS [1] states
> The employer/agent will pay the H-1B worker a wage which is no less than the wage paid to similarly qualified workers or, if greater, the prevailing wage for the position in the geographic area in which the H-1B worker will be working.
WSJ [3] reports:
> In a 2021 analysis of immigrant pay, economist Omid Bagheri found that “in computer and mathematical sciences, temporary work visa holders on average make about 14% more than their U.S.-born counterparts.”
Note that this is by design. The H1-B visa is built to attract top talent, which would mean people that can earn more than the market average.
However, staffing firms and outsourcing companies do pay less than that[4].
Does the H1-B visa lock you into a certain employer?
No. The H1-B visa is specific to a certain employer, but you can transfer it do a different employer. From what I gather from coworkers, this isn't a huge deal. Transferring the visa is much less costly or complicated as getting the visa initially. People do change jobs while on H1-B visa.
Does the H1-B visa prevent you from getting a permanent visa (green card)?
No. H1-B is a dual-intent visa, which means you can stay in the US while intending to immigrate (i.e. go through the process of getting a green card). It's in fact a pathway to green card. Many companies prefer to have you on H1-B while going through the green card process.
Why does Elon want to increase the number of H1-B visas?
I can only speculate on Elon's mind, but many of the reasons proposed for why Elon would want to do it don't fit in with the picture that I've been describing here. What is definitely true is that it is within the interests of tech CEOs to increase H1-B visas. Tech companies rely on H1-B visas to get the qualified workers that they need. However, the fact that it is within Elon's interest does not necessarily mean that it is not within the interest of the wider electorate. We should strive the avoid this kind of zero sum thinking that is filling Reddit recently.
Keep in mind, this isn't only Elon. The Biden administration was taking steps to expand the H1-B visa [5]. It's entirely plausible that if Kamala got elected, we would still see this kind of move. The H1-B lottery is pretty much in a crisis with plummeting acceptance rates, so it is hardly surprising that this topic is coming up. I think a lot of the backlash against H1-B right now is coming from ad-hominem, simply being against it because Elon said so.
Does Trump actually intend to increase the number of skilled immigrants who come in?
It's less clear than you might think. Trump vaguely said that the H1-B is "great" [8]. He didn't say anything specific about policy. The previous Trump admin actually made it significantly harder to get H1B visas and Green cards [2]. Elon's influence remains to be seen, but I'm sure you all realize that immigration isn't exactly the Republican party's or Trump's cup of tea. It's one of those areas where internal conflict is like to decide the outcome.
Do H1-B workers take away American jobs?
H1-B visa applicants already have jobs. So in the short term, no. In the medium term, jobs work by supply and demand, like everything else. After a while, an increase in immigration will cause depression in wages, but the number of available jobs will increase. In the long term, many immigrants become entrepreneurs, adding jobs to the tech industry.
Wages in the US tech industry are sky high compared to the rest of the world. Software Engineers, Data Scientists like me, etc. earn about twice as much as we would be earning in the EU. The US tech industry is by far the best paying in the world. It needs immigrants to keep wages within reason and contribute talent, or the US risks losing its lead in innovation.
I realize that this is a hard pitch if you work in tech. However, this is a classic case where the costs are concentrated and the benefits are diffuse. The US as a whole benefits from attracting top global talent, growing the tech industry which brings in a lot of tax revenue, . If you are not personally in an affected tech job, you lose from the H1-B cap blocking global talent from immigrating.
> An economist at the Federal Reserve Bank of Richmond estimated that a mere 10% reduction in high-skilled immigrant workers would shrink the US economy by about $86 billion. [4]
Can families of H1-B workers work?
Okay, I put this one in just because I'm personally annoyed by it. Dependents of H1-B workers can only work once they get an approved I-140 [1], which is the penultimate step to getting a green card. Getting it can take years. My partner will not be able to work in the US for years because of this stupid policy, so she will either have to not work or get a masters just so she can work. Why the US government doesn't want her to work and pay taxes is beyond me.
Conclusion
I don't think that the H1-B visa is anywhere near perfect, but it is crucial to the economy of the US. The tech industry heavily relies on it, and there is a growing crisis within the H1-B system, with plummeting acceptance rates. I'm happy to discuss potential H1-B reforms, but the recent backlash has been unconditionally against the visa, and I've seen so many comments on Reddit that ignore the various facts that I explained above.
Moreover, raising the cap on H1-B, in my opinion, is unavoidable. There is no doubt that the demand for the visa has skyrocketed, and the US needs to react. Cap increase can come with more strict requirements, but the lottery system benefits nobody.
Sources
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https://www.uscis.gov/working-in-the-united-states/h-1b-specialty-occupations
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https://www.bloomberg.com/graphics/2024-staffing-firms-game-h1b-visa-lottery-system/
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https://www.wsj.com/articles/us-expand-h1b-visa-program-11667596983
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https://www.nbcnews.com/politics/donald-trump/trump-h1b-visa-program-maga-elon-musk-rcna185656
Posted by shumpitostick
3 Comments
Minor Error: The W in WITCH stands for Wipro.
Oh wow an actually factual summary of the H-1b program that provides an actual overview, covers the major issue of fraud by the consulting firms, and touches on prevailing wages. Don’t see a lot of that on reddit.
Nobody cares though. The xenophobes have realized that it’s safe to take their masks off and visas are just the latest in an ever growing line of justifications.