The solution is easy: convert all H-1B Visas to Green Cards. If an H-1B employee is underpaid, they can jump ship. If we really have a shortage of engineers, then what harm is done? When H-1B expansion was first proposed, this is exactly what the IEEE advocated.
Too many companies, as evidenced in the linked article, claim there is an engineering "shortage" but who really mean that there is a shortage of engineers willing to be underpaid and badly treated.
This is my 10th year of employment in Bay area and by any reasonable estimates, I am not laying eyes on my Green Card for another half a decade. And no, i am not in the "slow lane". Makes me wonder if employers are lobbying Washington hard for things to be this complicated.
The irony is that for a lot of Indians/Chinese here, they could either wait 6-8 years, or they could leave the country for a year then transfer back in and have a GC in a year or less. It's particularly unpleasant for H1-Bs who start the PREM process as such. So much easier for internal transfers, especially EB1, O, an L1/L2... and easier still if you're not from a slow lane country (currently China & India, but Brazil was in this boat for a number of years, too).
A lot of companies (Microsoft is one example that I know of) are sidestepping H1-B entirely for college hires (and perhaps other channels of hiring?) for L1. Hire in Canada or the UK; apply for L1; transfer to the US in a year or two.
Apparently it's much more straightforward (and less prone to chance) as compared to H1B.
Its actually pretty cool to see Microsoft 'hacking' the visa system. They opened a center in Vancouver and put all their international hires there for 1 year, then brought them into the US on an L1 which allows them to get a greencard in 1 year- which prevents them from being in the 10 year to be free queue.
There is 0 difference in the speed of GC process. It does not matter if you are on H, L, O or don't have any status at all and applying from abroad. People are spreading this myth because L1-A and O-1 requirements are pretty close to EB1 so if you can get such a category of visa then you have a good chance to apply to EB1. But, again, if you fit these requirements already you can just apply to EB1 from any status (or lack of thereof).
Actually at least one cateogory, EB1-C, specifically applies to managers relocated from an overseas branch of the same company. An equivalently qualified manager on H1-B in the US is ineligible for that category.
Equivalently qualified manager on H-1B would have spent a year out of last 3 serving in such a position overseas so he would also be eligible. Alternatively, a L-1A manager who already spent more than 2 years in the US would be ineligible.
Didn't know that, thanks for the information. I was rejected in the H1B random lottery step (sigh) after getting an offer from a grown startup in SF, and did not investigate the green card process deep enough.
They screwed things up royally a few years back with the bonded Canadian workers in the timber industry in Maine. Some sort of snafu with immigration held up the paperwork, and a bunch of contractors on tight margins went tits up because they couldn't find replacements for those workers, some of whom had been working for them for 10, 15, 20 years under that system.
Not really. There are disproportionately more applicants from certain countries, and the US government wants to make sure they don't flood the system. There are a limited number of "slots" every year.
When every 1 out of 7 people on this planet is either from India or China, makes me wonder what was the thought behind the limited number of "slots".
Additionally, these "slots" seems to have been placed only in the last stage of green card, there are no country specific limits for H1B applications, Green Card Application(LCA), nor the I-140 Immigration petition for Alien Worker.
You can change jobs but it requires going through a bureaucratic obstacle, and if you ever find yourself without a job temporarily, you'd better find a new one _very_ fast or you're deported. Worse, switching jobs can make it a lot harder to get a green card since it resets. H1-B holders seem to find it hard to switch jobs which is why big companies like Cisco are are able to accumulate so many of them. They just park themselves at a big company and try to keep their head down and wait out the green card process.
With more flexibility afforded to H1-B holders to find a real market-rate job, many of the perceived problems of the program would go away in my opinion.
In a memo[1] dated 11/20/2014, Jeh Johnson (Secretary of Dept. of Homeland Security) stated:
As you know, our employment-based immigration system is
afflicted with extremely long waits for immigrant visas, or
"green cards," due to relatively low green card numerical limits
established by Congress 24 years ago in 1990.
...
The resulting backlogs for green cards prevent U.S. employers
from attracting and retaining highly skilled workers critical to
their businesses. U.S. businesses have historically relied on
temporary visas- such as H-1B, L-1B, or 0-1 visas-to retain
individuals with needed skills as they work their way through
these backlogs. But as the backlogs for green cards grow longer,
it is increasingly the case that temporary visas fail to fill
the gap.
...
To correct this problem, I hereby direct USCIS to take several
steps to modernize and improve the immigrant visa process.
DHS' own progress report lists [2]:
Proposing a draft rule and new guidance to enhance options for
high skilled workers to change jobs and accept promotions while
they wait for their green cards to become available.
This draft rule is, titled "Retention of EB-1, EB-2 and EB-3 Immigrant Workers and Program Improvements Affecting High-Skilled Nonimmigrant Workers" [3], is open for comments until Feb 29, 2016. So you'd think USCIS would have done something to, in Secretary Jeh Johnson's words "correct this problem" - right?! NO!!
Outside of establishing a one-time 60-day grace period for employees with an approved I-140 to find new employment, this rule falls much short of what was originally promised in Nov 2014. Here are the main provisions:
* Clarify and improve longstanding agency policies and procedures implementing sections of the American Competitiveness in the Twenty-First Century Act (AC21) and the American Competitiveness and Workforce Improvement Act (ACWIA) related to certain foreign workers, which will enhance USCIS’ consistency in adjudication.
* Better enable U.S. employers to employ and retain certain foreign workers who are beneficiaries of approved employment based immigrant visa petitions (I-140 petitions) while also providing stability and job flexibility to these workers. The proposed rule will increase the ability of such workers to further their careers by accepting promotions, making position changes with current employers, changing employers, and pursuing other employment opportunities.
* Improve job portability for certain beneficiaries of approved I-140 petitions by limiting the grounds for automatic revocation of petition approval.
* Clarify when individuals may keep their priority date to use when applying for adjustment of status to lawful permanent residence, including when USCIS has revoked the approval of their approved I 140 petitions because the employer withdrew the petition or because the employer’s business shut down.
* Allow certain high-skilled individuals in the United States in E-3, H-1B, H-1B1, L-1, or O-1 nonimmigrant status to apply for one year of unrestricted employment authorization if they:
1) Are the beneficiaries of an approved I-140 petition,
2) Remain unable to adjust status due to visa unavailability, and
3) Can demonstrate that compelling circumstances exist which justify issuing an employment authorization document.
Such employment authorization may only be renewed in limited circumstances.
* Clarify various policies and procedures related to the adjudication of H-1B petitions, including, among other things, extensions of status, determining cap exemptions and counting workers under the H-1B visa cap, H-1B portability, licensure requirements, and protections for whistleblowers.
* Establish a one-time grace period during an authorized validity period of up to 60 days for certain high-skilled nonimmigrant workers whenever their employment ends so that they may more readily pursue new employment and an extension of their nonimmigrant status.
I encourage everyone here to read and comment on this in the next few weeks. You can do it online by going to www.regulations.gov and searching for the eDocket number USCIS-2015-0008 [4].
Too many companies, as evidenced in the linked article, claim there is an engineering "shortage" but who really mean that there is a shortage of engineers willing to be underpaid and badly treated.