I think it's definitely a concern as anecdotally it has become much harder to get a H1B. See https://www.nytimes.com/2017/11/23/opinion/immigration-visa-... and https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2017-11-06/trump-s-h...

Also worth mentioning is that Congress has been working on raising the minimum annual salary for people on H!B by $30k to $90k.

Looking at what's going on, my personal take is that H1B will stick around, but there will be fewer open spots and there will be a lot more competition. I'd talk to whomever you work with to currently sponsor H1Bs and get their take as well since I imagine it will be more accurate.

Also something that may be worth doing is talking to your representatives about the issue (senator and rep). Try scheduling a meeting to talk about H1B.

Thanks!

Yes. Our imagration lawyer is certainly a resource for understanding the current situation. But my feeling is things may change further. Hence my interest in this informal survey.

H1B candidate here. I was awarded my first term as a developer, but I am required to provide more evidence on my second run because they didn't believe that I was qualified as a web developer. I mainly work with newer technologies such as React, Elm, NodeJs, but they're not 'buying my worth'. I have a deadline to fulfill or I am kicked out even though I'm very much qualified.

As long as the candidates have a valid work status, isn't it illegal to discriminate based on type of work status?

Almost but not quite. There are many government projects that require all personnel working on the project to be us citizens or permanent residents. Companies can certainly limit hires to those categories if they work or intend to work on such projects. The way to screen for the is to ask if somone has their permanent legal right to work in the US. Ianal but I think to be perfectly correct, one has to ask all candidates that. Not just ones they think may not be.

Ianal but i think one is not allowed to descriminate based on national origin.

One can also discriminate based on ability to obtain security clearance.

You only hire OPTs or H-1Bs?

No. We’ve mostly hired not OPT/H1B. But I’m generally interested in hiring the best candidate regardless of nationality.

My concern is spending the resources on a good OPT candidate only to find that I can’t hire them long term. Previously I didn’t have that concern. Now I do. So I’m wondering if others share that concern.

Yup if Micheal Jordan was born in a Nigerian village that's where he should do his best work.

There are other visas for superstars -- see EB-1 or "Genius Visa". This is a discussion of the H1-B program. Web developers working in React aren't really the CS equivalent of Michael Jordan.

What about people who never get a chance to become superstars because they can't get the initial opportunities? An EB-1 visa requires "sustained national or international acclaim". Michael Jordan wouldn't have qualified for that simply based on his outstanding high school or college performance; he would have needed to get into the NBA before he could have achieved that.

The EB-1 visa serves an important purpose, but we also need to be playing the numbers game with skilled young people so that we can that we can get the portion who eventually turn into superstars.

Well, if you want to propose a new visa type for people who might become superstars in the future, you are welcome to do that, but if you engage with this seriously you will see that that's not really something to which there is an immigration answer.

We have laws on the books; an H1-B visa isn't supposed to satisfy all of your desires for human betterment. It's a temporary worker visa for a limited quantity of higher skilled immigrants, and was only made into law on that basis. It was never supposed to ensure that "no child is left behind". I would go to whatever country you are most worried about and work on education and legal reform there, if that is your overriding concern.

> an H1-B visa isn't supposed to satisfy all of your desires for human betterment

I wasn't worrying about human betterment; I was worrying about US betterment. We are not better off by keeping future superstars out of the country.

> It's a temporary worker visa for a limited quantity of higher skilled immigrants

The H1-B visa is a dual-intent visa. It is not solely a temporary work visa. It is intended to bring skilled workers to the US and to sometimes get them to stay.

> I would go to whatever country you are most worried about

I am already in that country (the US)

> I wasn't worrying about human betterment; I was worrying about US betterment. We are not better off by keeping future superstars out of the country.

There is already a visa for superstars, so you don't have to worry about that. There is also no caps on visas for academic and research positions, so you don't have to worry about that either. We are talking about H1-B.

> The H1-B visa is a dual-intent visa. It is not solely a temporary work visa. It is intended to bring skilled workers to the US and to sometimes get them to stay.

Yes, but you misunderstand the intent. The visa has two intents -- education and for profit. The education/research uses are not capped. The business uses capped. If they are a superstar, then they can get the EB visa. H1B is for middle of the road skilled workers -- eg. people slinging react code. So no need to worry about future Einsteins or superstars being blocked from entry because of H1B concerns -- that's a completely spurious argument.

> I am already in that country (the US)

Then you should not be worried about a shortage of skilled workers, because we have no such shortage. There is a shortage of cheap skilled workers, just as there is a shortage of cheap BMWs. Solving that "problem" is not the appropriate use of immigration policy, unless you believe the purpose of immigration is to arbitrage cross-country labor costs for shareholders of IP firms while our movies remain region coded and we push for stricter IP monopolies globally. When I can import medicine and music from the cheapest source around the world, we can then talk about doing the same for labor, otherwise you are just lowering costs for capital without also lowering them for labor, which results in shifting income from labor to capital -- something that is bad for any country.

> There is already a visa for superstars, so you don't have to worry about that. There is also no caps on visas for academic and research positions, so you don't have to worry about that either. We are talking about H1-B.

I already made it clear that I am not talking about current superstars; I am talking about people who are not currently superstars but have the potential to be. H1-B holders are almost universally young, well-educated people. They are much more likely than average to end up being superstars in the future. I also think it is absurd to suggest that only people in academic or research positions can end up being superstars.

> Yes, but you misunderstand the intent. The visa has two intents -- education and for profit.

No, that is not what "dual intent visa" means. Per the first Google result: "A dual intent visa allows foreigners to be temporarily present in the United States with the known intention of possibly immigrating to the U.S. permanently. That’s significant because most temporary visas require that the visitor intend to return home."

The H1-B visa is clearly intended to serve both as a way to temporarily work in the US and as a pathway to permanent immigration.

> Then you should not be worried about a shortage of skilled workers, because we have no such shortage. There is a shortage of cheap skilled workers.

That is a matter of opinion, and I disagree with your assessment. It is a much more realistic concern that overly restrictive immigration laws will harm the competitiveness of American businesses than that adding a few tens of thousands of extra software developers to the several million software developers already present in the US will result in lowered wages.

> The H1-B visa is clearly intended to serve both as a way to temporarily work in the US and as a pathway to permanent immigration.

But it isn't intended as a way for people to come in, get trained on domestic services, just so they can be outsourced later.

So how can adding a few tens of thousands of engineers not affect wages yet "harm the competitiveness" of American business? The only reason business wants these workers is to get them at a cheaper price. This all about price. So if the price doesn't change a whole lot, then the position of the business doesn't change a whole lot, either. If the price changes a lot, then so does the position of the business.

In any case, I fundamentally disagree that our immigration policy is too restrictive or that American businesses, which are already earning record profits, are not competitive.

Dangote came from such village and he stayed behind to build and develop his country. JJ Okocha came from a village and he was a super star before heading to Europe.