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As I said in a downstream reply, this is all a diversion. H1-B visas represent 85K per anum of imported workers. US universiteis graduate 850K STEM students per year, so it's basically and additional 10% of skilled workers added to a market that isn't nearly as tight as people think. H1-B Visas are not an issue, they are a solution to the wrong problem.
The problem is an open border across which millions (almost 3 million in 2024, from a basic Google search) of people cross and only
250k (8-9%) get sent back. That is an all-time high number of deportations. In other words, ICE is working at full capacity to "repatriate" migrants and it's a drop in the bucket. Closing the Border is the first step, sure, but sending people back simply isn't going to happen, not in any meaningful way that conservatives hope for.So, how do you goose those numbers? go after the low-hanging fruit, i.e. the people you can find, who you already know follow the rules, and send them back.
The H1-B debate is a distraction so you don't notice that nothing will actually change.
Prediction: mass deportations will not happen. If we currently deport 250k that number will not rise above 350k. 85% confidence.
I don't think so. The precise number coming in right now is irrelevant when they were proposing an expansion of the program, and when the "but they're here legally" argument was already deploy to dismiss concerns over small towns being flooded by Haitians.
the "but they're here legally" argument isn't meant to dismiss concerns. It's meant to highlight that the government is limited in it's ability to throw people out and the legal ones are always the easiest. The debate is a distraction. Republicans need to be able to show at the mid-terms that they "threw the bums out that Biden let in." They will dump numbers on us. Those numbers (people kicked out of the US) are already higher than they've ever been and unlikely to increase without a mass mobilization of the ICE, cops, Border Patrol, every sanctuary city and the military. But you know an easy way to juice the numbers? send back the people you actually have some control over and all you have to do is let their visas expire. Boom!
This is a time honored American tradition, the same game from here-to-eternity. People hate H1-B fine--whatever. I sincerely don't care. Just don't be fooled into thinking this is the real discussion. It's a preliminary distraction set to prime voters for the mid-terms.
That's now how I remember it. When Trump/Vance brought up Springfield, I saw people deploy the argument in an attempt to point out hypocrisy ("but I thought you guys said you're only against illegal immigration"), literally no one said "we'd love to deport them, but it's easier to start with Mexicans.
It's not. The establishment really really wants more immigration in the west. They were getting it illegally all these years, but now that the negative sentiment against it is becoming unmanagable, they're looking for ways to still get it under the guise of legal immigration.
Well, I don't presume it would be easier to throw out Mexicans--I'm saying it's easier to throw out people you gave H1-B visas to as opposed to people you can't find because you don't know who they are or where they went. they aren't merely here legally, but have been granted the esteemed blessing of the state, which can be revoked at any time.
The US will have immigration always and forever. It's not a switch, it's a dial. The Biden admin, cranked it so far the knob came off. Whether or not H1-B should be expanded, decreased or eliminated is not a conversation of consequence. We're talking sub 100k numbers not multiple millions. The real immigration issue that voters care about --the millions of voters who crossed party lines or got off their asses to vote for Trump--is the open border. Almost no one cares or even thinks about H1-B visas. It was a foolish topic to even bring up--unless, of course, you're trying to muddy the waters and misdirect people's attention.
I think we can squish this into a prediction space. I don't care about H1-B visas but my prediction is "no change" (+/- 10k total approved visas) with 75% confidence. I think I predicted overall deportations somewhere else, but I expect that number (currently around 270k) to grow by no more than 10% by the midterm elections, 85% confidence. I think both H1-B will not change meaningfully, deportations will not grow meaningfully and the conversation will be about a failed discourse around H1-B to obfuscate the failure in securing the border and deporting the mass of migrants from the Biden era. I suppose we can make a bet if you want, or just see how I did in two years. I wouldn't hate to be wrong...
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That's what it is now - this got started in part because there was activism around increasing (perhaps substantially) the number of people admitted on such "skilled worker" visas, in order to fill the claimed shortfall in US skilled STEM talent.
My main point is it's a distraction from the actual immigration issues. I agree there is no reason to expand the program.
The claim there is a shortfall in skilled STEM talent is difficult because STEM is an overly broad category. Initially I dispute the claim -- there seems to me to be an extreme over-production of STEM graduates globally and in the US. Very roughly,
900k new grads for110k positions. About 200k of those grads are Master's and Doctorates, the rest are under-grad.the problem I have with the claim comes more from my experience. I think there may actually be a shortfall at the upper echelons of the various tech industries. The number of really good coders, deep algorithmic thinkers, experienced operators, etc. is kind of high. It's really tough to hire great engineers and no one wants the middling ones who fill out the fat belly of the jobs market. The H1-B program, if expanded, will produce more of these huckleberries, but only in proportions we already understand; you'll get a few more geniuses and a lot more chumps.
What I'm curious about is how we get the huckleberries without the H1-B program. We still require a legal path to hiring them and bringing them over. And maybe 99% chumps to 1% huckleberries is tolerable if that 1% initiates the next tech revolution. These types of games scale in ways that are difficult to predict.
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It’s not 85k, apparently it’s 868k every year,which then must be multiplied (to some mysterious degree) by: up-to 6 year extension; the family members brought in; those who overstay in sanctuary statesI was looking for the part where the "
900k application approvals" somehow became900k visas, but he never got there. the 85k number seems to still be the amount we actually give out per year. I'm going to stick with the 85K number. His entire post seems to be focused on the applications, but I don't see how it's relevant to the debate. Every person in the world could apply for every role and we'd still only give out X number of visas.I'm not surprised these are popular programs. It clearly keeps the costs down and from my personal experience, many of these large firms already have considerable populations of Indian employees and a working climate that is comfortable for them and self-reinforcing.
The big question that I haven't seen discussed is what's the actual jobs situation? Who's battling and for what? I asked ChatGPt for basic STEM jobs data. it seems reasonable:
89k or 110K annual positions is a lot! Based on the other numbers, I'll grant H1-Bs something around 10% of the total STEM workforce.
Then we ask, "well what about native US STEM grads?
So we have 110k jobs annually for
800k grads +90k H1BMaybe everyone is too focused on STEM? Seems like there's a bigger issue in overproduction that dwarfs the H1-B discussion. From my perspective, the problem is that real advancement in tech requires the input of an extremely rare type of tech-genius -- let's call them huckleberries. In the real-world, most people are mid-level, mid-IQ flunkies doing make-work in Excel.
Back to the the X post:
the X post backs up my claim that these are grunt-level positions. These are low-middle class folks who, by dint of a national culture overwhelmingly focused on STEM education, are trying to lever themselves up into the (American) upper-middle class.
From my perspective in a senior role in Fin-tech/IT who has done a reasonable amount of hiring over the past decade, we can't find good people for the high-complexity, high-responsibility roles we need filled. I've never hired an H1-B applicant as they've never passed an initial interview. I can also count them on one hand. The program simply does not concern me. If they're competing for jobs, they aren't the ones I'm trying to fill.
I maintain my claim this is not a big deal in the near or long term -- not nearly as big of a deal as STEM over-production in the age of AI. I also maintain it's a diversion from the real issue which is an open US-Mexico border and millions of low-skilled, unaccountable unknowns that will never be found let alone repatriated. It is a debate over wallpaper as the house burns down. Ending it won't do much, expanding it won't do much. What the discussion does instead is prime everyone to get upset about easily controlled, legal, largely pro-social and pro-American immigrants instead of 10x randos as it's a guarantee that the campaign promises of "closing the border and sending all the migrants back" will not happen.
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I thought the 868k was the number of certified applications, rather than the number of accepted ones (which is around 20%). I looked at the number of I-140 petitions, which is apparently how people on H-1Bs (legally) stay in America, and there are about 150k approved each year (~65k from India), this is then presumably multiplied by family members and so on.
You’re right actually, thanks for correction
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