How will the new high-skilled worker visa rules affect Silicon Valley?
If they want to recruit foreign talent this year, Facebook and Google may have to wait. 聽
US Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS) announced a six-month suspension of the H-1B expedited service option on Friday, an adjustment many suspect is the first in a more serious reform effort by the Trump administration.
Silicon Valley as well, but the unintended consequences of the H-1B visa program has made it enemies on both sides of the aisle.
H-1B鈥檚 stated purpose is to attract highly educated specialists to US jobs that companies can鈥檛 fill, and while it applies to a number of industries, the majority of recipients work in technology. A 2015 USCIS report to Congress found that the previous year, were for computer-related jobs. Facebook is classified as an 鈥淗-1B dependent鈥� company, with more than 15 percent of its employees relying on the program.
The visas are good for three years, after which they can be extended for another three.
The 鈥減remium processing鈥� option, first introduced in 2001, allowed companies to pay an to have their petitions reviewed in two weeks, rather than the usual two to three months. As of April 3rd, that service is dead, although USCIS says that an expedited option will remain available in special cases such in . 聽
USCIS claims the measure is necessary to work through a , but this explanation confuses some, who point out that faster processing was cited as a in the first place.
The change has the potential to make big waves in the tech industry, where as many as 1 million H-1B visa holders make up , according to The New York Times. The program grants up to 85,000 visas each year across all sectors, but more than 300,000 apply, resulting in a lottery system some find unfair.
That lottery is coming up in April, which may explain the timing of the change. The announcement came down almost simultaneously with the publishing of a letter from Sen. Richard Durbin (D) of Illinois聽聽and聽replace the lottery with a system prioritizing graduates of US universities and the highest-paid workers.
鈥淚f you do not take action in the next few weeks, outsourcers will secure the right to import tens of thousands of low-wage foreign guest workers to replace American workers,鈥� Sen. Durbin wrote.
He refers to the common complaint that foreign companies game the system by flooding the government with applications, hire workers for temporary training at half the standard salary, then rotate them back to the home country.
But some think American companies are unfairly benefiting from the program as well, hiring young, foreign workers for less than they would have to pay more experienced Americans.
鈥淭he law supposedly forbids underpaying, but the wages it sets are well below market rates. And the law allows hiring young H-1Bs instead of older Americans, at a big cost savings,鈥� Norman Matloff, a professor of computer science at UC Davis tells 海角大神 in an email.
In Dr. Matloff鈥檚 opinion, not even the H-1B recipients are winners. He calls them 鈥渄e facto indentured servants,鈥� since workers almost always stay at the sponsoring company for the entire three-year period of the visa, a rarity in the fast-moving tech job market.聽
鈥淚 feel like a lot of H-1B holders are kind of held hostage to staying at their company,鈥� says an employee of a large Bay Area tech company, who asked not to be named for fear of retribution.
Matloff proposes a number of reforms, including making visa holders waiting for green cards 鈥渇ree to change employers at any time.鈥�
The new rules don鈥檛 address those concerns yet, but many think this is just the opening salvo in a complete overhaul of the system, which Trump made a cornerstone of his immigration policy during the campaign.
" as a cheap labor program, and institute an absolute requirement to hire American workers first for every visa and immigration program," he wrote in a statement on his campaign website.
Meanwhile, Silicon Valley is hunkering down amidst the uncertainty, with some until the situation settles down, Dick Burke, CEO of a company that helps companies secure work permits, told Bloomberg.
And they might not have long to wait. Both Democratic and Republican reform bills are in Congress.
