alt Hacker NewsI think every time the topic of H1B comes on HN, a lot of people have a lot of opinions, but don’t fully understand the immigration system. Like you correctly pointed out, the increase in H1Bs in the country is mostly contributed by the fact that country caps force some nationalities to permanently stay on H1B while others can naturalize faster. There are hundreds of thousands of people who come into the country every year through other visas (and also on H1B from other countries) and naturalize and take up jobs in the country. But that doesn’t matter because they are now US citizens.
If people from India/China were allowed to naturalize as fast as other countries, you’d not have the chart of number of H1Bs grow in the country.
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>There are hundreds of thousands of people who come into the country every year through other visas (and also on H1B from other countries) and naturalize and take up jobs in the country. But that doesn’t matter because they are now US citizens.
What you seem to be saying is that the problem is worse than we think for natives because of these immigrants dropping off of stats after they become citizens. Of course I think this myself. It doesn't matter if you make these people citizens so much, the point is that their effect on the job market is independent of citizenship.
if people from India and China were allowed to naturalize as fast things would spiral out of control. I know it's not a popular thing to say on this forum, but H1B visas are absolutely a wage control mechanism for US corporations even if that's not the spirit of the law. Note that I'm also an immigrant.