Indentured servant body shop to perm pipeline, usual suspects.

QGQBGdeZREunxLe 4 hours ago | parent [-]

It's relatively straightforward to transfer a H1B, describing it as indentured servitude has always struck me as hyperbolic.

The situation could be easier, make approved I140s portable and issue an EAD, but you aren't trapped with an employer.

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joshheitzman 4 hours ago | parent | next [-]

The green card process is not transferable. Once its started the applicant is stuck. I personally saw the company slow roll the process for one of my directs. I kept hassling them to move it along but to no avail. I saw this happen to colleagues at numerous companies.

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xp84 3 hours ago | parent | next [-]

Yup. I had a star developer on my team that we had been planning to sponsor but the company was being sold and our future was unclear. I had to advise her to go find a new job, because if she started the process with us and got laid off, even finding a new job willing to sponsor, she'd have to start over. She would run out of time on her existing visa and lose her legal status altogether.

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QGQBGdeZREunxLe 3 hours ago | parent | prev [-]

It is transferable under AC21. But that’s not the point. You are not stuck with an employer on H1B.

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joshheitzman 3 hours ago | parent [-]

Never heard of that. Apparently a lot of other people haven't either or consider it too risky as the government has to approve the transfer (as I found when searching for this now).

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QGQBGdeZREunxLe 3 hours ago | parent [-]

AC21 is the law that allows H1B to be renewed indefinitely with an approved I140.

It’s the reason Indians are allowed to stay in the U.S. whilst their Green Card is being processed. A bandaid on a completely broken system that caps Green Card allocation by country of birth.

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esseph 3 hours ago | parent [-]

> completely broken system

Absolutely

> that caps Green Card allocation by country of birth

?????

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QGQBGdeZREunxLe 2 hours ago | parent [-]

No more than 7% of EB Green Cards can be awarded to a single country and where you are born (not citizenship) determines which country you are allocated to.

The backlog for Indian born persons is over 100 years as a result.

https://www.cato.org/blog/18-million-employment-based-green-...

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esseph an hour ago | parent [-]

How is that a US problem?

Why should other people from other countries not be able to come here because a billion Indians want to migrate?

I don't think it's a US problem, that's a India problem.

I will say, I think the whole immigration system is a mess and I think it should be much easier and faster to immigrate to a different country as long as you can find work and meet the new country's various requirements. The systems that we have now globally pretty much suck.

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QGQBGdeZREunxLe an hour ago | parent [-]

It's fine to think this way but don't claim to be for meritocracy if you elevate one useless trait above the merit of others.

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esseph an hour ago | parent [-]

It can be a meritocracy while allowing equal access regardless of where one is born.

The whole idea is to allow for assimilation into the culture, not a replacement to any new dominant culture.

	▲	QGQBGdeZREunxLe 22 minutes ago \| parent [-]
		Then it’s not meritocracy. That’s not the idea of the U.S. immigration system at all if that were the case these limits would apply to family based immigration classes too.

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xp84 2 hours ago | parent | prev [-]

Maybe a little hyperbolic, but the point is that it adds an additional significant shackle.

If I decide my company treats me like crap, I can apply to any* job in the US that I'm qualified for.

If an H1B feels the same way, they need to search within a smaller subset of jobs that are willing to do that paperwork. Last time I was hiring (2025) we were not open to sponsoring H1Bs or green cards. It's just a lot of extra work and legal expense, and frankly we found plenty of talented developers so we were right to not do it. Tons of employers don't deal with it.

* Note: Adjust this figure down somewhat to reflect the fake job postings that I never had a shot at, because the employer is just pretending to look for domestic candidates to satisfy H1B or PERM requirements.

	▲	QGQBGdeZREunxLe 2 hours ago \| parent [-]
		So nothing close to "indentured servitude"? Let's give it another name and not undermine the history of slavery.