This about the H-1B program is really interesting.

[nikibatts]

For year both Democrats and some Republicans have been trying to make changes to this program to protect American workers. For years the RW GOP never wanted to fix the program. Now, they will cave to Trump and give him credit for something the Dems have been trying to do for years. There are many good and bad points about this issue. This article give all side, I believe.

https://www.yahoo.com/finance/news/donald-trump-high-skilled-immigration-h-1b-visa-tech-silicon-valley-ceos-115713295.html

[bigtree]

2. like cancelling the 2014 change allowing spouses to work

...taking them back to being virtual slaves to their husbands, unable to earn independent incomes while living here.

http://blogs.wsj.com/indiarealtime/2017/01/31/what-the-white-house-said-about-its-plans-for-h-1b-visas/


This is a troublesome aspect for lower income applicants looking for a step up:

According to Reuters’ sources, Stephen Miller, president-elect Donald Trump’s senior policy advisor, is proposing doing away with the lottery system, and replacing it with a system that privileges applications from those with job offers that pay higher salaries.

This would likely cause problems for outsourcing firms, like India’s Infosys. These firms send in mass applications on behalf of lower-level workers, often paid less competitive wages than their American counterparts. Outsourcing firms end up receiving the majority of H-1B visas: in 2014, for instance, they got a third of the available visas.

According to Reuters’ sources, the discussion on how to modify the program was initiated at meeting in December between the president elect and representatives of large, high-profile American tech companies. These are the firms that stand to benefit the most from a program that privileged visa applicants with higher salaries, since the talent they recruit tend to be more highly paid.

Trump’s businesses, too, have brought in foreign talent through H-1B visas, including the special H-1B3, for fashion models “of distinguished merit and ability”—the visa that brought Melania Trump to the US.

read: http://finance.yahoo.com/news/trump-plan-h-1b-visa-154146646.html

[woodsprite]

3. My husband, an IT director, said this is a good thing.

Because it *should* mean that more Americans can be hired for these jobs. I'm thinking that would work only if the companies would be willing to pay. A lot the American workers my husband tries to hire say they couldn't possibly take $xxx. He works at a university and they don't pay market prices for the positions they have (they do make up for it with benefits, for now). He's had to look to H1-B visa employees to keep his areas minimally staffed. I'm afraid with this new change, they may just decide to do away with his area and outsource. They'd rather pay an ongoing contractor a much higher figure than pay a market wage to someone who would be their own employee.

[Amishman]

4. H1B needs to go

We need someone in congress to start pushing this. It would be wonderful if we could direct Trump's destruction towards something that deserves it.

[RealityChik]

5. H-1B ambivalence...

Living and working in the land of tech, aka Seattle, and being a tech worker myself, I have great misgivings about this program. It is abused big time by the local tech companies large and small. Microsoft, Google, Amazon etc are notorious for it, but they are not the only ones. It's especially hard to accept during recessionary times. These workers are usually paid as much as 30% less than the equivalent American worker doing the same job.

http://mynorthwest.com/530845/trump-may-hit-seattle-tech-employers/

But however negatively I feel about the H-1B workers, I'd rather have them working here, paying American taxes and being American consumers than have American jobs sent overseas or even to huge foreign contracting agency production and/or support centers just outside our borders to be close to their American corporate customers without having to pay American taxes, hire American workers or abide by American laws.

BTW, it was Obama who recently (2014?) began allowing spouses of H-1b workers to work in the U.S. as well. I only just learned that today researching the issue for my post! Makes me kinda mad.