H-1B visas must end’: Wife of US citizen shares plight of landing IT jobs

[Nilgiri]

Your guess is as good as mine.

Years ago, when I was working at Motorola, it was announced we were opening a design center in India. I don't recall where. That design center was going to focus on the design of chips for the automotive industry.

We had a design group in Tempe. IIRC, it was TSPG, part of SPS. @Nilgiri may recall. Anyway, I knew several of the folks in that group. We all shot together at the local ranges. They went ballistic when that was announced. I asked them point blank how was that a bad thing. At the time, the demand for new vehicles was high and we weren't able to design much less produce the new chips fast enough. If this helps us maintain market share, it's a good thing.

As far as I remember, in the 90s when my dad would bring back those calendar diary things from work.... the "Motorola Asia pacific world map" inside it had Bangalore as the design center office.

This was when the bigger stuff on the map was:

HK (where my dad was, the place was literally called silicon harbour heh)
Singapore
Malaysia (Seremban)
Taiwan
China (Tianjin)

My dad was deputed a couple times to Tianjin, but mainstay shuttling he did was to Taipei across the straits obv given TSMC ecosystem there.

Till the late 1990s when we moved to Singapore. APAC expat memories heh.

 

[Night Memory]

I agree, but they are very tightly knitted community..

And thats a problem imo, thats what indians and chinese are accused of. Ethnic enclaves are nothing to celebrate about. They are disgusting.

 

[ihussain]

And thats a problem imo, thats what indians and chinese are accused of. Ethnic enclaves are nothing to celebrate about. They are disgusting.

Usually, I start the conversation with them by saying “Yalla, habibi.” So of course they hate me.

All jokes aside, I think the real reason they act like that is because they’re not very comfortable with the English language. Plus, they don’t like mentioning that I’m a car mechanic, work in a shawarma place, tow-truck driver, etc. That’s why I think they try to avoid non-Arabs, especially Al Bakistani's.

However, when a white person (especially a lady) shows up, all the ego and hubris goes away. Their flat face suddenly turns into a real-time smiley emoji.

 

[ihussain]

In my experience, Indian IT colleagues have been mostly polite, Indian IT recruiters who call me have been professional; it is when they get into a position 'above' you then watch out. Or when they interview you: Happened to me to once on a panel interview where I had a different way to extract and transform data then his preferred approach and he kept cutting me off and I finally said 'That's how I did it and it worked and everyone was happy and if you don't understand that then I don't know what to say' (paraphrased). Needless to say I didn't get the job. There was also an apparently Chinese/Asian lady in the panel and I could tell she was sympathetic toward me from her questions and during my arguments with the Indian guy.

There’s a thing: your skills can take you to a certain level, but the majority of managerial or team-level decisions are made during after-work wine drinking, office meetings or gatherings, happy hours, or good times after happy hours. That’s where these people fill the gaps and climb the ladder much faster than anyone else.

 

[Meengla]

Here is the usual Friday email from Kevin Lynn who has been fighting against the H1bs for a long time.

Trump Needs To Hear Pushback on H-1B and OPT From American Workers Impacted By These Programs

President Donald Trump made both legal and illegal immigration the centerpiece of his 2016 presidential campaign.

ifspp.substack.com

Trump Needs Hear Pushback on H-1B and OPT From American Workers Impacted By These Programs​

...
But something has changed this time around involving a new crop of Silicon Valley tech billionaires making their voices heard. While on the campaign trail in 2024, he blurted out during an “All In” podcast with several billionaires, including David Sacks, “I promise to staple a Green Card to anyone who graduates from ANY college, even 2-year community colleges.”

Then in December of last year, during the transition period, he came to the defense of Elon Musk during the Great H-1B Visa Christmas kerfuffle over the appointment of Sriram Krishnan to the Office of Science and Technology Policy.

In his recent November 10th interview with Laura Ingraham, Trump’s softened rhetoric on H-1B visas reflects the influence that Big Tech billionaires have with the administration, who’ve written massive checks and have influence. Let’s be clear about what the H-1B really represents. It is not and never has been about attracting “the best and brightest” to America. It’s about corporate outsourcing and white-collar displacement through H-1B and L-1 (intracompany transfers from abroad) visas. President Trump’s messaging completely misses this critical distinction.

Despite Silicon Valley’s influence, the Trump administration has still moved forward on H-1B reforms. The administration unveiled H-1B specific policy initiatives they can tout, but these efforts need to go further and were communicated ineffectively. The much-touted $100,000 H-1B fee is riddled with loopholes and will likely face legal challenges. The Department of Labor investigations have mostly targeted small body shops, the low-hanging fruit, while Big Tech companies and massive outsourcing giants continue operating with impunity. The buried policy solution that should have been emphasized in the September announcement is the administration’s move to raise prevailing wage levels. These actions taken together, while welcome, are not enough.
...

 

[The Equalizer]

@AZ_HighCountry
Both were Indians, unfortunately. I never use the word “scum,” but their behavior really made me feel that way.

I would never accept being treated that way in a interview. Last time someone did that (physical interview) i stood up and left the interview without saying much, 2 hours later i sent an email telling ive withdrawn my candidate.

Not gonna feed the ego of scumbag interviewers, whomever they think they might be.

 

[AZ_HighCountry]

As far as I remember, in the 90s when my dad would bring back those calendar diary things from work.... the "Motorola Asia pacific world map" inside it had Bangalore as the design center office.

This was when the bigger stuff on the map was:

HK (where my dad was, the place was literally called silicon harbour heh)
Singapore
Malaysia (Seremban)
Taiwan
China (Tianjin)

My dad was deputed a couple times to Tianjin, but mainstay shuttling he did was to Taipei across the straits obv given TSMC ecosystem there.

Till the late 1990s when we moved to Singapore. APAC expat memories heh.

You are likely correct; the design center was in Bangalore. I remember Silicon Harbor all too well. Had friends at all of the above locations and one in particular was on-site in Tianjin for the commissioning of that fab.

Was some good times indeed.

 

[AZ_HighCountry]

I would never accept being treated that way in a interview. Last time someone did that (physical interview) i stood up and left the interview without saying much, 2 hours later i sent an email telling ive withdrawn my candidate.

Not gonna feed the ego of scumbag interviewers, whomever they think they might be.

I actually did that. Company in Tempe had called me out of the blue for an interview. Got through HR and first level. At 2nd level, it became abundantly clear that they weren't looking for seasoned program managers. They were looking for gophers. Programs managers would have no control over schedules, budgets, etc. but would held accountable if neither were met.

Afterwards, I sent a polite email to the recruiter expressing my dissatisfaction with the 2nd level interviewer, that it would have been nice to know some of those details upfront, and I wished them the best of luck finding a candidate who was willing to work under those conditions (it really was a sweat shop).

 

[Meengla]

I would never accept being treated that way in a interview. Last time someone did that (physical interview) i stood up and left the interview without saying much, 2 hours later i sent an email telling ive withdrawn my candidate.
Not gonna feed the ego of scumbag interviewers, whomever they think they might be.

If someone is not friendly during the interview stage then imagine what they would be like once they become your 'boss'.
You made the right call.

 

[ihussain]

Here is the usual Friday email from Kevin Lynn who has been fighting against the H1bs for a long time.

Trump Needs To Hear Pushback on H-1B and OPT From American Workers Impacted By These Programs

President Donald Trump made both legal and illegal immigration the centerpiece of his 2016 presidential campaign.

ifspp.substack.com

Trump Needs Hear Pushback on H-1B and OPT From American Workers Impacted By These Programs​

...
But something has changed this time around involving a new crop of Silicon Valley tech billionaires making their voices heard. While on the campaign trail in 2024, he blurted out during an “All In” podcast with several billionaires, including David Sacks, “I promise to staple a Green Card to anyone who graduates from ANY college, even 2-year community colleges.”

Then in December of last year, during the transition period, he came to the defense of Elon Musk during the Great H-1B Visa Christmas kerfuffle over the appointment of Sriram Krishnan to the Office of Science and Technology Policy.

In his recent November 10th interview with Laura Ingraham, Trump’s softened rhetoric on H-1B visas reflects the influence that Big Tech billionaires have with the administration, who’ve written massive checks and have influence. Let’s be clear about what the H-1B really represents. It is not and never has been about attracting “the best and brightest” to America. It’s about corporate outsourcing and white-collar displacement through H-1B and L-1 (intracompany transfers from abroad) visas. President Trump’s messaging completely misses this critical distinction.

Despite Silicon Valley’s influence, the Trump administration has still moved forward on H-1B reforms. The administration unveiled H-1B specific policy initiatives they can tout, but these efforts need to go further and were communicated ineffectively. The much-touted $100,000 H-1B fee is riddled with loopholes and will likely face legal challenges. The Department of Labor investigations have mostly targeted small body shops, the low-hanging fruit, while Big Tech companies and massive outsourcing giants continue operating with impunity. The buried policy solution that should have been emphasized in the September announcement is the administration’s move to raise prevailing wage levels. These actions taken together, while welcome, are not enough.
...

I agree that these actions are not enough. I phrase it this way: if the administration put even 25% of the effort that Sean Duffy put into the trucking industry, it would clean up the mess.

 

[SoulSpokesman]

@Meengla sb

Look at it this way. By allowing H1Bs to come in USA keeps:

Corporates profitable.
H1Bs pay taxes and social security contributions.
H1Bs spend a part of their salary in consuming goods and services in US itself boosting GDP.

You stop taking in H1Bs, you risk jobs getting Bangalored. Corporates still make profit, but the salaries and wages move to the Indian GDP account and not US.

Regards

@AZ_HighCountry Saar, @ihussain

 

[Vikramaditya1]

India has one of the highest youth unemployment % in the world - higher than Pakistan jbtw. Also, India has a very high income disparity, again more disparity than Pakistan. A macro number like GDP or 5 trillion might make you happy but if you dig a little down the surface - wealth concentration, high income disparity, high youth unemployment, no hope in manu sector will tell you why indians are running to the west. Just to give you an idea, from what i remember, there are more people than Pakistan’s whole population in India which earn less than 3 dollars a day. India is extremely poor.

Youth employment is a fancy term for 15-24 working this is west coded, Indians don't flip burgers at 15 in the local shop to get "experience".

I wonder why you avoid talking about unemployment rate, maybe because those are not "favorable" numbers for this argument.

Another one "income disparity " the US has worse income disparity than Botswana and Eswatini. Doesn't mean anything anyway. What is the point of being equal in poverty.

At the end of the day, the only numbers that matter are how well your country is doing from these macro numbers, it gives an idea how fast an economy is growing. How quickly you can pull people out of poverty. How many cities you can build how much investment you get, all these trickle down to poverty reduction and economic growth. Not by being happy that you and your neighbour being poor and your towns income disparity is low.

 

[The Equalizer]

If someone is not friendly during the interview stage then imagine what they would be like once they become your 'boss'.
You made the right call.

Exactly.
It tells a lot about the company culture.

 

[r3alist]

Plus, if they are scheming then others also have option for planning for scheming. So there's no excuse but, I do see the hate firsthand — and it’s not healthy; it’s scary.

Others do not have the same option that's the point.


Remember the h1b scheme is for people who are meant to be highly skilled not cheap, and definitely not a scheme to exploit to allow another nation a preferential route to the American dream.

Which is what many Indian graduates used to have... The American dream

A lot of the h1bs provided are not even coders, they work maybe as business analysts or project management or in totally different functions, and they definitely do not do the long hours that are often claimed

 

[Watandar]

Others do not have the same option that's the point.


Remember the h1b scheme is for people who are meant to be highly skilled not cheap, and definitely not a scheme to exploit to allow another nation a preferential route to the American dream.

Which is what many Indian graduates used to have... The American dream

A lot of the h1bs provided are not even coders, they work maybe as business analysts or project management or in totally different functions, and they definitely do not do the long hours that are often claimed

That's the main problem with the H1b, it was meant to address genuine shortages in the American economy for highly educated and skilled people. So when it's used to bring in African nurses , because there is indeed a major shortage of nurses, or doctors from Mideast/South Asia because once again, there is a genuine need, then the H1b is serving its purpose.

The H1b was NOT meant for what it became, a wage suppression tool for corporations in IT and a cheat code for Indians only to immigrate to America.