Veteran computer journalist Robert X. Cringely writes:
So that’s how H-1B visa fraud is done!
Reader Mark Surich was looking for a lawyer with Croatian connections to help with a family matter back in the old country. He Googled some candidate lawyers and in one search came up with this federal indictment. It makes very interesting reading and shows one way H-1B visa fraud can be conducted.
The lawyer under indictment is Marijan Cvjeticanin. Please understand that this is just an indictment, not a conviction. I’m not saying this guy is guilty of anything. My point here is to describe the crime of which he is accused, which I find very interesting. He could be innocent for all I know, but the crime, itself, is I think fairly common and worth understanding.
Read the indictment. It’s short and quite entertaining.
The gist of the crime has two parts. First Mr. Cvjeticanin’s law firm reportedly represented technology companies seeking IT job candidates and he is accused of having run on the side an advertising agency that placed employment ads for those companies. That could appear to be a conflict of interest, or at least did to the DoJ.
But then there’s the other part, in which most of the ads — mainly in Computerworld — seem never to have been placed at all!
Client companies paid hundreds of thousands of dollars for employment ads in Computerworld that never even ran!
The contention of the DoJ in this indictment appears to be that Mr. Cvjeticanin was defrauding companies seeking to hire IT personnel, yet for all those hundreds of ads — ads that for the most part never ran and therefore could never yield job applications — nobody complained!
The deeper question here is whether they paid for the ads or just for documentation that they had paid for the ads?
This is alleged H-1B visa fraud, remember. In order to hire an H-1B worker in place of a U.S. citizen or green card holder, the hiring company must show that there is no “minimally qualified” citizen or green card holder to take the job.
Recruiting such minimally qualified candidates is generally done through advertising: if nobody responds to the ad then there must not be any minimally qualified candidates.
It helps, of course, if nobody actually sees the ads — in this case reportedly hundreds of them.
When Mr. Cvjeticanin was confronted with his alleged fraudulent behavior, his defense (according to the indictment) was, “So let them litigate, I’ll show everyone how bogus their immigration applications really are.” Nice.
If we follow the logic here it suggests that his belief is that the client companies’ probable H-1B fraud is so much worse than the shenanigans Mr. Cvjeticanin is accused of that those companies won’t dare assist Homeland Security or the DoJ in this case. Who am I to say he’s wrong in that?
Employers are posting jobs that don’t really exist, seeking candidates they don’t want, and paying for bogus non-ads to show there’s an IT labor shortage in America. Except of course there isn’t an IT labor shortage.
My old boss Pat McGovern, who owns Computerworld, should be really pissed.
Pat hates to lose money.
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52 comments:
Hmm Steve. I notice there are no ads here. An opportunity?
How about an oldie but goodie link to Cohen & Grigsby law firm openly talking about how they can arrange H1B fraud.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TCbFEgFajGU
Does anyone know if they were ever prosecuted for this or is a law firm giving advice on how to commit H1B fraud considered to be a public service?
There's no reason to do this illegally. Just find the person you want, from Croatia or whatever, then describe that guy in detail in your advert. For most high-level guys, good programmers, etc., there's only one. It doesn't take fraud. Seems like this clown just offered a service that was plain fraudulent (skimped on the advert).
Here is a law firm holding a symposium advising its clients how to skirt the rules by pretending to look for qualified Americans, all the while knowing they are going to use H-1b to hire foreigners. They got exposed by Lou Dobbs in 2007. But surprisingly they did not back down.
The video is eye opening.
I don't like the emphasis on fraud. The entire premise is rotten. We should be talking about how it destroys the ability of the free market to function, which is how you convince the left libertarian contingent (I count myself as one.)
For the federal government's own civil service hiring it runs a big website (usajobs.gov) through which all openings must be listed and all applications must be made. How hard would it be for the government to set up a similar website (no snarky Obamacare comments please) where any employer wanting the privilege to use an H-1B visa had to list the job opening, location, and qualifications? Interested US citizens could apply and there would be an audit trail to catch any lawbreaking company that's bypassing qualified Americans.
The timing of the indictment of this Cal. state senator & his bro is very suspicious; probably Sony is behind it, trying to capitalize on the Abscam similarity right before Oscar voting for American Hustle closes Tuesday.
The H1B issue can be used to slightly pry some liberals away from "reform": start by pointing out that even Trumka says there's no hightech labor shortage. Ask them why Zuck etc. want so many H1Bs. Then, go from there to lower-skilled labor. Repeat over and over until they get it.
Another thing you can do is edit the WP page on FWD US, which is as bad as you'd expect. Don't link to WP, but do add contrary info that isn't there now (as long as you're willing to put up with WP types reverting your edits or banning you for violating one of their rules which are used to keep the bad info in and the good info out).
Another thing you can do is look up those who chat with FWD's reps: @JoeKGreen and @jrjesmer. If liberal useful idiots RT them (as some frequently do), ask them why they're helping billionaire and follow the plan in the first paragraph of this comment.
There are other FWD fans, like @reidhoffman. Work to undercut them to the SV workforce.
I worked two years at a company that largely staffed on this basis. The part that gets left out of the picture in most analyses is the business model behind the racket. Most of the H-1B visa holders my company hired were cheap and would work like dogs--12 hour days six days a week and the only holiday Ganesh's Birthday or whatever. But the company knew it was getting what it paid for: The bottom line was that these folks generated lots of code but it was useless unless they were supervised by a small cadre of much better paid, much less docile, and much more skilled American and European workers. These skilled workers also had to do really major debugging and rewriting of H-1B code. The skilled, native-born staff who kept things going were regularly let go or forced out so they could be replaced with newer, and hence lower-paid, cadres of technically proficient staff. Under the tutelage of these "first world" professionals, some of the H-1B folks did develop decent skills. They were often kept on while their less talented brethren were let go. The third worlders' goal was to get a green card while they had the opportunity and were employed in this country. They'd put up with a lot until they got that ticket to freedom. Almost everybody made out like bandits except the native-born software engineers, programmers, coders, and other technical staff who were pushed out of the industry as they got older and more expensive.
"This is alleged H-1B visa fraud, remember."
This statement by Cringely is awfully ambiguous.
I suppose he could mean "In a recorded interview, Cvjeticanin alluded to a belief that the companies essentially engaged H1-B visa fraud."
But the indictment itself alleges no H1-B fraud--only mail fraud by Cvjeticanin. The feds, at least in this indictment, don't care about the H1-B aspect-- it's incidental.
Re: my previous comment about the statement: "This is alleged H-1B visa fraud, remember."
Upon further review, it appears the statement is a continuation of his prior hypothetical. It would read better as: "This would be alleged H-1B visa fraud, remember."
What we need here is some amnesty...
Another way to do it, which I've seen: hire a college student for an internship. Train him to use some proprietary in-house software. Then when he's ready to graduate, advertise the job, requiring knowledge of that software. You'll get only one qualified applicant.
La trahison des clercs.
So much for "citizenism."
There's at least two writers running around under the pen name Robert X. Cringely and there have been others in the past. Make sure to identify which you are talking about. "Cringely" was a brand name in the now-lost world of print computer magazines.
http://www.npr.org/2014/02/21/280679375/director-alexander-payne-on-mining-every-film-for-comic-potential
That could appear to be a conflict of interest, or at least did to the DoJ.
Huh? Where is the "conflict"?
Suppose I'm a lawyer - err, excuse me, an attorney - who knows how to travel the H-1B road. And I have contacts at technology companies that want to hire H-1B visa holders (because they cannot find Americans who can do the work - of course). So I go out and recruit - however - qualified job candidates, and send them to my company contacts to start the hiring process. Naturally I offer my legal services to help with all that.
My question again: Where is the "conflict of interest"? Seems more like a synergy. A perfect kind of synergy. Is this supposed to be illegal?
I can't seem to take this seriously.
That H-1B is filled with fraud I have no doubt. I saw it firsthand for years - the disappearing Americans (mostly white and older), the mediocre - or worse - foreigners (mostly non-white, and young) taking their places. It facilitates age discrimination on a massive scale, and helped accelerate the demographic transformation of the SFBA.
Something about which non-silicon valley techie-types may not be aware ("laws? we don't need no stinking laws!"):
"Steve Jobs, Google CEO plotted ‘gentlemen’s agreement’ to keep wages down – report". rt.com, January 25, 2014:
"Apple founder Steve Jobs and Google CEO Eric Schmidt apparently kept a secret pact to institute a “no-hire” policy in which each executive promised not to recruit each other’s workers. Yet the tech superstars are just two of the business leaders to be implicated in the wink-wink agreement, which reportedly included Google, Apple, Intel, Adobe, Intuit, and Pixar. ...
... The deal’s consequences became so pervasive that the US Department of Justice launched an antitrust investigation in 2010, which laid the groundwork for a class action lawsuit filed on behalf of more than 100,000 Silicon Valley employees who allege they were deprived of over $9 billion since 2000.
The US 9th Circuit Court of Appeals refused to throw out the class action suit over the objections of executives at Apple, Google, Intel, and Adobe. The emails in question were unsealed Tuesday...
... A jury trial has been set for May 27 in San Jose, California."
"Appeals court lets class-action status stand in Silicon Valley collusion case", PC World, Jan 15, 2014:
"... violation of federal antitrust laws.
...alleged that... engaged in an “overarching conspiracy” to fix and suppress employee compensation and to restrict their mobility. Lucasfilm, Pixar and Intuit have since settled with the plaintiffs. ...violation of the Sherman Antitrust Act and the Clayton Antitrust Act, the plaintiffs contend.
...“At trial, the court predicts that this evidence is likely to be among the most persuasive to a jury as it illustrates and confirms many of the actual dynamics at play within defendants’ firms,” she said in the ruling."
Email discovery is... interesting. Some emails here:
"The Techtopus: How Silicon Valley’s most celebrated CEOs conspired to drive down 100,000 tech engineers’ wages", Mark Ames, January 23, 2014:
"eBay and its former CEO Meg Whitman, now CEO of HP, are being sued by both the federal government and the state of California for arranging a similar, secret wage-theft agreement with Intuit (and possibly Google as well)...
...The companies in the pact shared their salary data with each other in order to coordinate and keep down wages ...
...we see here in stark ugly detail is how the same old world scams and rules are still operative."
Seems it came easy for these guys to sell out American workers...
There is an entire pipeline that is at work here, but Steve and his commenters seem to be focusing on just the visa application part.
A significant number (well over a majority, I suspect) of visas are granted to foreigners who graduate from US universities. Companies extensively rely on such credentials to figure out who is qualified for a job. And campus hires (or hiring through campus connections) seem to be the primary hiring mechanism, not the posting of random ads in nespapers. Looking from the company's perspective, anyone can respond to an ad and one can glean only so much about a candidate's qualifications from a job interview.
And companies aren't stupid; they have learned to rely on credentialed candidates for good reason.
The impression conveyed of companies relying exclusively on visa holders seems to discourage a lot of Americans from pursuing a CS degree in the first place, so the percentage of foreign graduates keeps increasing. Vicious cycle.
Yet this impression is only partially correct. Over the past generation, software engineering has become more commoditized and the markets the companies rely on globally distributed. Much of a SW engineer's job is maintenance, which could be gritty and painstaking work with the possibility of multiple 3am calls.
I know this is an unpopular view on this forum, but companies cannot provide a much higher median salary for IT jobs than those that currently prevail, with visa holders in the mix; they just won't be competitive.
Kids who are trying to pick career paths will therefore naturally be drawn to law, medicine, or finance (unless they really love programming), thereby leaving the field somewhat open to foreign students.
""Cringely" was a brand name in the now-lost world of print computer magazines."
That makes sense. Like radio stations that copyright the name of their funny morning DJ so they can fire their talent when they get too demanding.
When a guy has a middle initial of X, the subjective expected probability of his work being of value goes up at lest 25%.
The links to the non-compete agreement wage theft directly contradict all the commentators on previous posts saying someone like Zuckerberg could never unilaterally disarm on H-1Bs because his competitors would put him out of business.
The libertarian party line is that collusion from a small number of parties is counterproductive because markets are so dynamic that firms not offering the market clearing wage will be undercut. The wage theft story shows that this isn't how the world works according to Silicon Valley CEOs.
Wage theft collusion shows there are major barriers to entry in gaining market share. So if a major company chose to follow the law and hire qualified Americans before H-1Bs then you can't just assume it would be destroyed by competition.
I was a big "Robert X. Cringely" fan 25 years ago when he had the gossip page in Infoworld. I have no idea if this is the same Cringely.
"When a guy has a middle initial of X, the subjective expected probability of his work being of value goes up at lest 25%."
Who else did you have in mind? David X. Cohen of Futurama?
I get the impression that the main job of a Silicon Valley CEO is not to produce good software and make sure it is well-supported, but to cultivate and exploit the programmer-shortage myth.
At least, that is what the current state of software would lead one to conclude.
This sounds like what I observed around academia and biotech companies in the 1990s and 2000s. Wouldn't be surprised if it still goes on. Basically, they'd post a plain, short paragraph about a vague job for a position like a postdoc or a technician with its salary, etc on some bulletin boards around their building for a couple of weeks, then some Asian guy would show up a couple of weeks later.
In other words they already had their guy but did this minimal hoop jumping to fulfill the letter of the law.
There were even times when the posts advertising the job were made after the immigrant was already there and working at the position.
Must not be technically illegal, since I saw it going on so much for an extended period of time. Definitely should be, though, In my opinion.
"So if a major company chose to follow the law and hire qualified Americans before H-1Bs then you can't just assume it would be destroyed by competition."
Red Hat, located in North Carolina, seems to do just fine staffed mostly with American talent, a fair amount of which even seems to be local (the old Triangle Universities campuses). They do hire a lot of European programmers who have proven their Linux chops. They also do now have a large Indian subsidiary but it appears to largely be a distributor.
I'd be somewhat surprised if the story wasn't the same for SAS. SAS is large (one of the largest private software companies in the world). And apparently very different from silicon valley:
"SAS has a reputation as a good place to work. Its workplace benefits are based on the idea that they allow employees to focus completely on their work, by relieving staff of causes of outside stress that may be distracting. SAS CEO Jim Goodnight describes it as a triangle, where happy employees make happy customers, which makes a happy company. In academics it’s well-established that this approach is effective, but some feel it’s rarely implemented. In 2010, the on-site healthcare center saved the company an estimated $6 million. These benefits may also account for SAS' low turnover: SAS lost 3.7% of its employees in 2000, which is about one-tenth of competitors' rates."
....
...SAS also does not have a very formal evaluation process. CEO Jim Goodnight says he evaluates staff on how well they attract and retain talent, because he feels keeping and motivating the best talent, will cause everything else to work out. ...
SAS does everything in-house. ... The company does not outsource anything. This is because SAS believes it is more cost effective and the workers do better work."
So it can be done.
Now, in the engineering divisions of all too many silicon valley companies the approach would be to hire the cheapest even remotely qualified bodies you can get to actually move to the area. Don't steal employees from your local competitors, instead hire their cousins or buddies from back in school in the old country; it's easy for the ethnic network to put out the word.
Then stack rack them annually, with the bottom one tenth let go. This will motivate them and keep them in line. Never invest anything in technical employees or their careers, that's their business and turnover is so high you'd be a fool. Dangling a green-card in front of your employees works and costs little.
If you need new skill sets, that's what universities are for, hire cheap young workers straight out of school (don't bother with those US or California schools that waste a lot of student's time by teaching stuff like philosophy and not just teaching them to use the latest software packages.)
Whatever you do, don't hire Americans who might think they are as competent and capable as you and might go into competion with you.
The problem of getting Americans with families today to move to the Bay Area is very real. The cost of living for a family is very high, a perfect example of Steve's theory about cheap family formation.
Ironically, silicon valley was created after WWII because Route 128 around Boston got so expensive. At the time, silicon valley (Santa Clara valley) was still the Valley of Heart's Delight, a largely empty ag area full of orchards. Cheap housing!
Even more ironically, I now know of senior technical types who can't afford to get married and buy a house in the valley and have moved to Route 128 to afford a house. High valuations, Google millions, oversees elite ethnic pooling, etc., keeps working to keep house prices high.
stari_momak - are you suggesting our host change his name to Steve X. Sailer?
I know this is an unpopular view on this forum, but companies cannot provide a much higher median salary for IT jobs than those that currently prevail, with visa holders in the mix; they just won't be competitive.
Then take the visa holders out of the mix.
Kids who are trying to pick career paths will therefore naturally be drawn to law, medicine, or finance
I love the casual assumption that these careers paths will be protected from what is being done to the IT career path.
"First they came for the IT workers, and I said nothing as I wasn't an IT worker ...."
@Dorito Joe: Basically, they'd post a plain, short paragraph about a vague job for a position like a postdoc or a technician with its salary, etc on some bulletin boards around their building for a couple of weeks...
Same thing regularly happens at the local, state, & federal government agencies I've worked with (but mostly at the local level). The hiring manager wants to hire some favored insider and goes through the facade of advertising and recruiting (often, along w/ HR's blessing).
"Anonymous said...
I don't like the emphasis on fraud. The entire premise is rotten. We should be talking about how it destroys the ability of the free market to function, which is how you convince the left libertarian contingent (I count myself as one.)"
Why is it so important to translate it into your language?
And companies aren't stupid; they have learned to rely on credentialed candidates for good reason.
Because they're stupid, sorta. More precisely, HR departments are clueless about the IT jobs they're hiring for and unable to judge candidates beyond checking a laundry list of skills. HR departments at IT companies rely on credentials for the same reason HR departments at other companies do: ass-covering. If you hire a high-school grad because you think there's something special about him and he turns out to be a dud, it's entirely your fault. If you stick to hiring credentialed people -- letting the colleges and testing boards do your judging for you -- it's their fault when you get a dud.
I know this is an unpopular view on this forum, but companies cannot provide a much higher median salary for IT jobs than those that currently prevail, with visa holders in the mix; they just won't be competitive.
Well, of course not, as long as all other companies are using cheap immigrant labor. That's why we're arguing for reducing it, or at least not increasing it further.
As for whether American programmers can compete with foreigners who stay home, I'll take that challenge any day. (I'm a part-time freelance programmer.) Thanks to the Internet, it's already completely possible for a couple Indians hacking away in their basements to produce the next Linux, Facebook, or Netscape. That's been true for years, and it hasn't happened. Not even a little bit. I don't know whether it's a lack of ability or a lack of entrepreneurial spirit, but it hasn't happened.
If a South Asian guy in South Asia learns to program and puts out his shingle in competition with me, low-balling me due to the difference in our costs of living, good for him. That's what I get for working in an industry where products are so easily "shipped" globally. But that's not what happens. What happens is either:
1) A US company goes over there and hires a bunch of newbies for peanuts, throws them at code that's way over their heads, and sells their services to US customers at a bit more than peanuts. (This is the IBM method.) (Any programmer who spends time on forums where coders help each other sees this every day: a guy with pidgin English asks for help fixing some code, and his questions make it clear that he'd struggle to write a working "Hello world" program. You look at his username, and sure enough it's "ravi"-something. The idea that Indian programmers are superior is completely laughable to anyone who does the work.) They're getting paid slightly better than street sweepers, but not great, so as soon as they pick up a little skill they move on, creating huge turnover which the company hides because the client never deals directly with the coders.
2) The company doesn't want to deal with all that, so it brings in as many H-1Bs and other guest workers as it can, locking them into indentured servitude. This seems like it would be more costly -- cost of living is higher here -- but just living here is a perk to many, and it gives the employee much tighter control. This seems to be the method most companies would prefer, but they can't get enough visas (yet) to do everything this way.
Neither of those methods has anything to do with foreign programmers competing with and outdoing American programmers; in both cases the corporations have their thumb on the scale. If Indian programmers are as great as we keep being told, maybe in ten years all our new apps will be written in India. If so, fine. I won't be holding my breath.
On that last note: it's funny that the people who argue that it's critical to keep our IT industries here -- even if we have to fill them with cheap foreigners to do it -- don't seem to have the same concern about manufacturing jobs or agriculture. It's just fine for our food to be grown in Latin America by Latin Americans, and our stuff to be manufactured in China by Chinese. But computer programs are supposed to be written in America, by God, and that's how it's going to be even if we have to replace every single American programmer to do it.
A company in my state was busted several years ago for employing about 100 illegals, and they indicted the hiring manager, who was a legal, naturalized Mexican immigrant. It's striking how many of these immigration scams involve people who are immigrants themselves. It highlights what Mark Krikorian likes to say - more legal immigration means more illegal immigration, not less. And it's a solid argument for lengthening the time it takes to become a citizen. We need more time to evaluate potential citizens, not less; more time to know whether they will become criminals or public charges, not less.
As for H-1Bs: auction them, at no less than $50k apiece. Why the hell is the government giving something so valuable away for free?
I was a big "Robert X. Cringely" fan 25 years ago when he had the gossip page in Infoworld. I have no idea if this is the same Cringely.
It's the same guy. There was a big lawsuit where IIRC, the judge split the baby. Infoworld was able to keep the name for their print column, while the writer was able to keep the pseudonym for his non-print media work. His biggest work is the book "Accidental Empires" and a corresponding documentary for NPR.
I'm sure it's all in 'teh wikipedia.' ;)
Microsoft in its heyday made millionaires of about 2,000 of its employees, thanks to stock options. This was 20 years ago, when a million was still a lot of money. I haven't noticed a lot of stories talking about how many employee millionaires Google or Facebook have, although Google probably has more employees now than Microsoft had back in '94.
That's probably the bigger reason S.V. wants so many H-1Bs: the hit to their bottom line is billions, not millions. The tech industry used to offer bright young American math minds a really good shot at a 7-figure net worth. Those days are gone, so math geniuses go to Wall Street, instead.
Hilariously, those MSFT millionaires who stayed put bankroll a lot of the SWPL-approved heritage/sustainable/organic/local farming now.
Mr. Anon said...
"Anonymous said...
I don't like the emphasis on fraud. The entire premise is rotten. We should be talking about how it destroys the ability of the free market to function, which is how you convince the left libertarian contingent (I count myself as one.)"
Why is it so important to translate it into your language?
2/22/14, 10:37 AM
Oh, I dunno, maybe because it's a perfectly correct and strangely neglected argument?
But also because we're smart and we're a fair hunk of the people who are engaged on the topic. Frankly, socons make me sick. (And yes, I'm aware it's mutual.) However, we're on the same page on this particular topic, if you were capable of phrasing it in different ways. I have no interest in ethno national politics, or family values BS (I'm actually capable of managing my own family, thanks). However, I acknowledge that the ability to think like that, and act on it, is an inheritance.
I'm all in favor of the Sailer Strategy, as a necessary evil. But you need to understand that the white vote include a large number of leftists, centrists and libertarians. And if you want whites to band together, you're going to have to deign to engage with us. Otherwise you're no better than Conservatism Inc.
"[On using H-1Bs rather than hiring abroad:]This seems like it would be more costly -- cost of living is higher here -- but just living here is a perk to many"
Not sure how many H-1B indentured servants view living in the US as a perk. I think most of them are in it for the money, being aware that permanent residency is unlikely.
USAA headquarters in San Antonio uses a lot of them. The H-1Bs live in apartments across the street and cram an ungodly number of unrelated individuals into each unit. Those complexes are like a mini Little India. They then walk to work and use the bus for any other transportation needs.
On google street view, one can view the Indians filing through USAA's corporate gates on foot while all the Americans are lined-up in their vehicles. It's quite a contrast.
All this in San Antonio, one of the cheapest labor markets of any large metropolitan area...
because we're smart and we're a fair hunk of the people who are engaged on the topic. Frankly, socons make me sick. (And yes, I'm aware it's mutual.) However, we're on the same page on this particular topic, if you were capable of phrasing it in different ways.
Let's grant all that, at least for the sake of further discussion. Why do you assume that we have to reason with you in your language, rather than you reasoning with us in ours? Why do you see us as the caterers and yourself as the one to be catered to?
2/22/14, 10:37 AM
"But also because we're smart......"
Not in my book, you're not.
".......and we're a fair hunk of the people who are engaged on the topic. Frankly, socons make me sick."
Yes, and f**k you too.
However, we're on the same page on this particular topic, if you were capable of phrasing it in different ways. I have no interest in ethno national politics,"
Then you have no right to an ethno-nation either. Live in the jungle, for all I care.
".....or family values BS (I'm actually capable of managing my own family, thanks)."
Right because you and your family are an island unto yourselves. You have no need of any kind of organic society out of which you originate. You're like the Harrison Ford character in "Mosquito Coast". Well - go ahead and reap the benefits of such a life-style. Again go carve a libertarian paradise for yourself out of virgin jungle.
"And if you want whites to band together, you're going to have to deign to engage with us. Otherwise you're no better than Conservatism Inc."
But you feel no need to engage us or see our point of view. We're just trogs whom you find useful.
Again, I would cordially invite you to go f**k yourself.
USAA headquarters in San Antonio uses a lot of them. The H-1Bs live in apartments across the street and cram an ungodly number of unrelated individuals into each unit. Those complexes are like a mini Little India. They then walk to work and use the bus for any other transportation needs.
On google street view, one can view the Indians filing through USAA's corporate gates on foot while all the Americans are lined-up in their vehicles. It's quite a contrast.
Well, what incentives to temp workers (who have to leave once their visa expires, or earlier if fired) have to invest in personal vehicles and comfortable living? Given the current state of visa and immigration laws, this is perfectly rational behavior. You can argue against allowing immigration and foreign workers all you want, but complaining that insecure people don't live American lifestyles is just petty.
Thanks to the Internet, it's already completely possible for a couple Indians hacking away in their basements to produce the next Linux, Facebook, or Netscape. That's been true for years, and it hasn't happened. Not even a little bit. I don't know whether it's a lack of ability or a lack of entrepreneurial spirit, but it hasn't happened.
Lots do such hacking in their personal time. There are a number of Indian entrepreneurs in the SV, and in India. They tend to focus on doing stuff that yields monetary returns, because they come from a culture that has been experiencing a persistent Great Depression for generations.
Producing the next 'X' is a largely random and fortuitous event, and doesn't happen everyday, so it's silly picking 3 examples and saying Indians didn't create them. As Steve Sailer himself has pointed out earlier, tech pioneers like Gates and Jobs happened to be raised in a great culture with ample opportunity both to learn the ropes and to get first mover advantage (boomer parents who gave them a lot of independence, healthy respect for tech learning, proximity of engineering companies, etc.)
Your post also persistently ignores the fact that most H1Bs are recruited from the pool of US university grads. Companies don't go looking for employment from remote Indian villages. It is no one's case that Indian programmers are better than American ones (the reverse is true on the average), just that the pool of candidates the companies consider includes a large number of foreigners by default.
Sailerbait --
How to Get a Job at Google, by Tom Friedman
"Thanks to the Internet, it's already completely possible for a couple Indians hacking away in their basements to produce the next Linux, Facebook, or Netscape. That's been true for years, and it hasn't happened."
Wasn't one of the people ripped off by one of the big internet names an Indian dude?
It seems like that's the norm in IT - some techie dude(s) do something clever and they get ripped off by what was originally the sales team.
"Sailerbait --
How to Get a Job at Google, by Tom Friedman"
A few quotes:
"...Google had determined that “G.P.A.’s are worthless as a criteria for hiring, and test scores are worthless..."
"...the “proportion of people without any college education at Google has increased over time” — now as high as 14 percent on some teams."
"...the No. 1 thing we look for is general cognitive ability, and it’s not I.Q. It’s learning ability. It’s the ability to process on the fly...."
It is no one's case that Indian programmers are better than American ones
People like Zuckerberg and Gates most certainly do claim that. Maybe not in so many words, but when they say that American universities aren't producing enough quality programmers, but they can get them overseas if they had more visas, they're clearly saying the overseas ones are better. And they're not just saying there aren't enough Americans, because unemployment is high in the tech field; they specifically say Americans aren't trained properly so they need H-1Bs instead.
Now, do they really think foreigners are better programmers? No, they're not stupid. They think H-1Bs are cheaper and more controllable. But they can't say that, of course, so they're stuck claiming that they need them because they can do what Americans can't.
"Anonymous said...
USAA headquarters in San Antonio uses a lot of them. The H-1Bs live in apartments across the street and cram an ungodly number of unrelated individuals into each unit."
Wow! Thanks for the information. This requires a little more discussion - and a great deal more publicity. So USAA, which caters to US military veterans, their families, and even descendents, and carries out an extensive advertising campaign based on all that patriotic "support the troops" bullshit, hires foreign coolies. Their ads show people saying things like "My policy was earned at Bataan, 1942":
Mine Was Earned: USAA
Yeah, USAA serves those who served, and economically disenfranchises thier children. If you are a veteran with a kid who can't get a job - thank your very patriotic car insurance provider.
"Anonymous said...
It is no one's case that Indian programmers are better than American ones (the reverse is true on the average), just that the pool of candidates the companies consider includes a large number of foreigners by default."
And that pool has become larger because the employers preferentially hired the foreign students over whom they could wield an additional, non-monetary, stick - the H1B.
Anon: USAA headquarters in San Antonio uses a lot of them [immigrant workers]
Well, that's ironic - USAA sells its product only to active US military and veterans, but goes out of its way to employ non-US citizens.
"Well, what incentives to temp workers (who have to leave once their visa expires, or earlier if fired) have to invest in personal vehicles and comfortable living? Given the current state of visa and immigration laws, this is perfectly rational behavior."
Thank you for reiterating my point, namely, that these temp workers don't come to America as a "perk." Rather their lifestyles here are akin to one of indentured servitude (although partly by calculated choice).
"You can argue against allowing immigration and foreign workers all you want, but complaining that insecure people don't live American lifestyles is just petty."
I stand by what I wrote. I have no problem or complaints with the temp workers themselves as I neither work alongside nor live near them (and they're not here illegally, not prone to criminality, and don't to my knowledge claim gov't benefits).
While my description wasn't sugar-coated in PC-language, I don't view it as derogatory in any way, either.
Mr. Cvjeticanin's professional Facebook page boasts of his other successes at the expense of the country, such as:
While trying to escape political violence in Albania, our client was charged by the US Government with fraud, misrepresentation and previous illegal entry ("illegal border crossing"). After one year of heavy arguments and filing of I-601 Waiver of Inadmissibility, I am pleased to announce that our office has received approval of Waiver of Inadmissibility from the US CIS and Mr. Alban will be issued his Immigrant Visa at the American Consulate in Tirana and will be joining his wife in New York.
Heckuva job, Cvjeticaninie!
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