Are you calling for open border with no controls? That's the only way to get meritocracy.

The system is set up so the casino wins. You cannot, with a straight face, argue the odds are in your favor, but there are rules about how the casino works, both formal and informal.

When a casino only investigates cases where someone wins $1 million on the slots, to see if there's a fault in the system, while never investigating all the times that people lose, that's technically within the legal system, but the spirit of gambling is not being upheld, and people get upset. Just ask Katerina Bookman.

The immigration system, with the thumb firmly in favor of the interests of capital, is still based on the expectation of good faith by those running the system, as doing otherwise results in orders of magnitude more rules, or an alternate set of unspoken rules based more on vibes.

"Pausing" is a bad faith breaking of the spirit of the system.

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somenameforme 13 hours ago | parent | next [-]

I think what he's saying is if a corporation has a genuine need of some high specialist in a skill, and no American has that skill - then okay, such is life - bring in a foreign worker. But corporations have abused the system to unnecessarily employ immigrant labor in lieu of American, because immigrant workers not only tend to earn well below market wages (which is supposed to be illegal), but also tend to be far more easily coerced and loyal because their visa is dependent upon them staying with their employer.

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enaaem 9 hours ago | parent | next [-]

The way it works in some countries in Europe is that you have to pay the foreign worker a minimum wage that is x% above industry standard for that role. No need to check if they have special skills. This will obviously not fly among corporate donors.

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locknitpicker 8 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-]

> I think what he's saying is if a corporation has a genuine need of some high specialist in a skill, and no American has that skill - then okay, such is life - bring in a foreign worker.

I don't think so, as that would be a silly point to make. I mean, it's absurd to assume a hiring round should't extend offers to other candidates if current applicants can just barely meet the hiring bar. This is a contrived scenario intended to rationalize excluding better candidates on technicalities that only serve the interest of low-skilled, low-competence applicants that can't compete.

And by the way, I've worked with my fair share of US emigrants, both veterans and juniors fresh out of college, and I would hardly describe them as raising the hiring bar. Nevertheless it would be colossally stupid to argue they should have not been considered for the position just because they were foreigners.

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somenameforme 4 hours ago | parent [-]

Most H1-Bs earn well below market rates for the roles they fill. [1] The exact data gives 46% of H1-B's earning in the 34th percentile of local rates for their roles, and 60% below the median. That's hard to square against them being world class super employees.

But the interesting thing is that there's a simple solution that we should both be able to agree on, in spite of having quite different views. If you genuinely believe they're super-world-class workers, then you should certainly be enthusiastic about, for instance, rules that would require they be paid wages well above the median for their role. In both of our narratives, that goes a long way towards righting an injustice, we merely disagree on for whom.

But this solution solves it in all cases. And the companies using, but not abusing, H1-Bs certainly wouldn't mind since they'd be mostly unaffected. Finally this would also help prevent wage stagnation. There are many hundreds of thousands H1-Bs and them being paid such low wages is going to have an affect on the market.

[1] - https://www.epi.org/publication/h-1b-visas-and-prevailing-wa...

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locknitpicker 3 hours ago | parent [-]

> Most H1-Bs earn well below market rates for the roles they fill.

The problem with visas such as H1-B is not salaries. They are a consequence of the exploitation conducted by US employers. The problem with H1-B-style visas is that in practice they work as a modern day take on indentured servitude, and they are designed as a oppression tool where employers can coerce employees to remain at their service under threat of seeing their life uprooted.

So,framing visa discussions on how they make it hard for incompetente locals to compete for jobs completely misses the problem, and helps perpetuate systems of abuse.

Some companies employ systems based on sponsorship that help attract skilled labor whose skill levels are above and beyond what's available in the country's job pool. That's something that helps grow the local industry. Framing this discussion on H1-B visas being coerced into working for meager salaries indicates that the real problem is not being identified.

	▲	cindyllm 3 hours ago \| parent [-]
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eesmith 12 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-]

If true, that interpretation hardly seems relevant given that all immigrant visa applications are paused, with the goal of determining whether immigrants are likely to become dependent on public benefits in the US.

It's not simply a pause on immigration by people applying for a category which requires special expertise.

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dcow 11 hours ago | parent [-]

I suggest you read up on how we got here.

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eesmith 6 hours ago | parent [-]

I am well aware of US immigration law history and the views of the current administration regarding immigration.

How does reading up on the history change how the stated reason for this pause has nothing to do with the meritocracy issues, fraudulent H1B visas, etc. that you complained about?

Do you think those labor issues will be improved after the training is finished, and if so, why?

How does your earlier comment explain why visas based on family preference are also apparently on pause as well?

Of course if we look at the history of US immigration we can easily see how for over 150 years it was explicitly set up to support a white supremacist race-based culture, which broke down with the civil rights movement and the incoherency of "whiteness" as a legal or scientific definition (are Arabs white? Are Asian Indians white? Are Chinese immigrants in Mississippi "white"? - https://archive.org/details/mississippichine0000loew/page/n7...).

With the current reactionary administration's antipathy towards nearly all immigration, except seemingly white South Africans and Nordics, it's far easier to interpret this action as deliberately gumming up the works and causing distress, rather than some systemic beneficial labor reform like what you want.

I assume that's what you mean by reading up on how we got here?

	▲	dcow 4 hours ago \| parent [-]
		No I am talking about why a specific pause on 75 countries turned into this global pause that we all find concerning. You seem to have a wishful view of humanity as some post border utopia but that’s not how our or anybody’s laws work. If you want to go post border that’s a super interesting idea to talk about over some beers or whatever. But looking at our very standard immigration process and telling people who are concerned about curbing real fraud that enforcing our laws is racist is pretty out of touch.

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SmirkingRevenge 5 hours ago | parent | prev [-]

> But corporations have abused the system to unnecessarily employ immigrant labor in lieu of American

I'm not going to say this has never happened, but in general I don't think it's common or widespread. Generally, businesses going to the trouble of bringing in foreign labor through the various programs are trying to fulfill labor shortages.

You should be able to see evidence of it happening in jobs and unemployment numbers. You'd see it higher unemployment among American citizens than the workforce as a whole

Towards the end of the Biden admin, there was a great jobs report, but right-wing media and MAGA pundits spun it by saying the vast majority of all the new jobs were taken by immigrants.

That wasn't a lie, but it wasn't because immigrants were taking jobs that would have otherwise been filled with Americans as they tried to portray. If you looked at the employment numbers by citizenship status, citizens were sitting about as close to full employment as we could ever be. The only way to fill those jobs was to expand the labor pool.

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dcow 13 hours ago | parent | prev [-]

I didn’t follow your casino allegory. Anyway I happen to agree that “pausing” is inhumane. What I’m trying to communicate is we didn’t get here in a vacuum. There is a real problem and good faith attempts have been made to curtail it by putting pressure via “taxes” on the “interests of capital” abusing H1B. Cooperation would have prevented this.

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eesmith 12 hours ago | parent [-]

Is an un-rigged and meritocratic system possible if there are border controls?

If not, then using words like "rigged" and "meritocratic" as a complaint about the current system can only mean that you want no border controls.

If so, how? Every system I can think of can be rigged, and exclude people who have merit, resulting in a system which favors the rich and powerful.

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dcow 12 hours ago | parent [-]

I disagree.

	▲	eesmith 7 hours ago \| parent [-]
		I simply do not know how you can use "meritocracy" to support your position, while also supporting an artificial barrier to free movement which prevents a more competent foreign worker from moving to the US to displace you from your job. I guess I will remain unenlightened.