That makes no sense. Are you saying just because India has more people than Thailand, more Indian should be able get this Visa? That’s completely unfair Thai men, women, and the ones in between.
Should India be able to send more soccer teams to the World Cup also?
I think setting limits per country at all is probably dumb. Should just be a global limit or maybe no limit at all and, perhaps making the program far more stringent about qualifications if needed.
Let’s say hypothetically India has 10,000 A+ candidates, and Thailand has 1,000 A+ candidates. India’s limit is 5,000 candidates and Thailand’s limit is 500 candidates based on population difference or other factors like diplomatic relations.
Half of India’s most qualified aren’t getting in while all of Thailand’s most qualified candidates are getting in plus 500 less qualified candidates.
So all else being equal if you’re very qualified you’ll have a better chance to win the lottery just by being born in a different country.
You know what the most important people should be when considering what is fair? Americans. Why should American policy care if fewer qualified Indians don’t get in? If less qualified Thais are available then fewer than the limit will be issued. The limit is not there to serve Indians.
The limit should be there to prevent the industry from further concentration and becoming a subsidiary of a foreign government like India. There is a national security element to this also.
The H-1B program is meant to fill jobs that otherwise would not be filled because qualified American candidates don’t exist. It’s a win-win situation and I’ve never seen anyone on either side of the aisle dispute the value or desirability of that.
You can argue that it’s been perverted and that’s fine but several intelligent people in this thread have already suggested foolproof methods for ensuring we only fill unfillable positions. That is to say, it’s a noble program that everyone supports and is fully capable of fulfilling its intended goal.
H1B is a noble program to help support the economic development of India from Indian perspective. From an American perspective it’s robbing Americans of well paying jobs right in our own country.
But if Indians or any other immigrants become naturalized citizens then your argument is just racism.
What makes you think that immigrants don't participate in the economy? Jobs aren't a zero sum game.
When someone gets a job they don't just take your job and then you don't have one. They now have a job and money to spend in the economy. They start businesses and patronize other businesses.
A productive working immigrant is an asset. You are thinking about this backwards: when someone like that immigrates to your country, wealth is being transferred from the home country to yours.
Based on your response, all Indians are just future Americans waiting to become one and any policy against the interest of India and its people now is racism. Perfectly logical but completely absurd.
It’s really nice to hear the perspective of a Native American. What tribe is your family from?
1. In the hypothetical scenario I outlined, a smaller amount of qualified people come in because of the arbitrary per-country limits.
2. I agree, let’s prioritize Americans. Immigrants create a net positive of jobs and economic activity for native-born American citizens. How many businesses that you patronize or work for would never exist if immigrants didn’t start them? Do you think America would be better off economically and have more jobs if companies like Apple, AT&T, Disney, and Qualcomm didn’t exist? Because those companies wouldn’t exist without immigrants and children of immigrants who founded them. Would you instead prefer a declining population?
3. It sounds like you’re suggesting that we use a comprehensive threat model [1] to decide whether immigrants are allowed in from a country so that their country doesn’t take over this country. As you know we have already failed this mission once by allowing British, Italian, Irish, Spanish, French, and other European immigrants to take over the US and we can’t have it happen again. Next thing you’ll know even the First Lady will be an immigrant who abused visa regulations to become a citizen!
4. It doesn’t seem like the US financial system has much of a problem with foreign ownership of companies in the status quo, so why is this suddenly a problem when it comes to individuals immigrating? No individual human being physically immigrated to the US when Budweiser got bought by a foreign company. The issue is entirely detached from immigration. Of course, once you become a citizen the concern of foreign ownership vanishes by definition since you are no longer foreign.
[1] https://i.kym-cdn.com/entries/icons/facebook/000/044/241/ski...
The beautiful thing about being an American is that we don’t segregate ourselves into tribes and castes anymore. I know some countries still have separate castes but fortunately we don’t.
Answer to 1-4: yes fewer H1Bs is a good thing. Everything else you said is just hot air and not worth a respond. While we are at it, let’s have fixed equal per country limit it so that no single country could hijack our tech industry anymore.
Paragraph 1: we don’t separate ourselves into tribes and castes
Paragraph 2: we can’t let the other tribes and castes hijack our stuff
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