WSJ: 16k-20k Indian H-1B's have returned home

[Newsjock]

Source: Wall Street Journal

... Since nearly 40 percent of all H-1B visa holders are from India , the mounting layoffs are hitting Indian professionals particularly hard.

An estimated 16,000 to 20,000 Indian nationals have returned home, says Arvind Panagariya, an economics professor at Columbia University and a senior fellow at the Brookings Institution.

H-1B visa holders say they feel they are in a state of limbo, ready to pick up and move wherever the economy or work takes them. Lives have been disrupted, and some said they were under tremendous stress to pay back mortgage loans for buying houses and cars. Many had children born on U.S. soil and wonder how their children will adjust to Indian schools and a different way of life.

... Unlike previous generations who permanently settled in U.S, Mr. Sharma thinks of himself as part of a new Indian nomadic class: "If the next opportunity is in the U.K. or Africa , we will go there. …People have always moved to places of opportunity. While the U.S. will always be a beacon of opportunity, other countries have also started competing with it."

There is a difference between choosing to go back home and being forced to. H-1s have been reluctant to publicize their plight, for two reasons: They fear that most Americans are unsympathetic to their predicament, and many do not want their family and friends in India to know that their American dream didn't quite work out.

Read more: http://online.wsj.com/article/SB125782421975040485.html?mod=googlenews_wsj

[Larkspur]

1. I'm not sympathetic to their plight

My job was given to an H-1B visa holder and now Systems management plans to give it to one of their India employees in India. They flew him over for a month to learn what I do, but a month is not enough. Also when he returns home, he will be working India hours, not American East Coast hours, so the trainers who are working in the US will have to wait 11-12 hours for a response to their questions or problems once my contract ends.

[Deja Q]

15. Thank goodness management think these things through...

:sarcasm:

I'm sorry to hear about your loss.

Also, we in America are not alone: Other countries are having layoff problems (can't imagine why, NOT), and then there's a spat between China and India over visas there, too:

http://yaleglobal.yale.edu/content/china-india-stoke-21st-century-rivalry

http://blog.vdare.com/archives/2009/11/04/indias-business-visa-crackdown/
(this one is good; the claim is the Chinese got involved ILLEGALLY. Nice way to build a long-standing empire... or maybe not...)

[Sen. Walter Sobchak]

23. interestingly enough, if you are an Indian airline pilot Americans are the devil

It turns out that airlines in India are hiring American and other western pilots over promoting their own - the preference for foreign pilots is to lessen the impact of paralyzing strikes since the foreign contractor pilots are non-union.

[Craftsman]

2. Good riddance job thiefs

[Name removed]

3. Deleted message

Message removed by moderator. Click here to review the message board rules.

[mule_train]

4. locusts always move on once the field is barren, leaving those who planted it to starve nt

[Vincardog]

6. +1 locusts always move on once the fireld is barren nt

[OhioChick]

8. +2 n/t

[mule_train]

25. "But now the H-1B has become a distant dream, ending our great American dream"

"Our generation has benefited because America has welcomed us and we have learned so much here," said Himanshu Khare, a software professional in Boston on a H1B visa, but thinking of going back to India.

(Note he says 'WE have LEARNED so much HERE" But I thought THEY were the ones with the skills?!?!?! It's always been bullshit)

"But now the H-1B has become a distant dream, ending our great American dream. It's time for us to say goodbye to America , and hello to India "

praising the 'American Dream' and then bugging out the minute your life isnt perfect and taking the jobs with you to your home country - that's 'diversity' I can do without

the locust comparison is very valid --> They're PARASITES!

"ending our great American dream" how the f-ck does he think WE FEEL?!?!?! Where the hell are WE supposed to go?

[ecstatic]

5. Are they included in the unemployment numbers?

[closeupready]

7. The H-1 B program has been wildly abused to hurt the American worker.

So IMO, this is welcome news.

I do not begrudge anyone seeking to improve the circumstances of their lives, but legally.

[pampango]

9. Seems like India gets all the grief around here for H-1B visa problems, but they are less than 40%

of the visa holders? It seems to me that this visa program should be scrapped or reformed in such a major way that it would be unrecognizable. Why do we fixate so much on Indians?

[anigbrowl]

10. Fear of the other

H1B is a good cover for venting about 'furriners'.

[Deja Q]

13. Most of us respond to the media. The media seems to prefer India over other countries.

Why not try asking any of the reporting staff, and not us peanut gallery shells? ;)

[Sen. Walter Sobchak]

14. Funny how you never see much rage about the 10,000 visas set aside for Australians

The issue with all forms of immigration is visa fraud, and frankly the H1B is one of the LESS abused classes of visa, relative to the L1 or K1 - but the media has decided the H1B is the appropriate target or rage, probably because it sounds like a bomber or something.

[liberalhistorian]

17. Because there's a real element of

hidden racism against them underneath everything else. It may be hard to hear, but it's the way it is.

[mule_train]

22. Q: What do you call someone who's against wage suppression?

A: A RACIST!!!!

the real question is, are we 'hidden racists' or are YOU a corporate shill hiding behind McCarthysim?

[liberalhistorian]

24. I'm also against wage suppression and outsourcing

and the use of H1-B visas and abuse of immigration laws to accomplish both ends. What I was referring to was that there doesn't seem to be nearly the level of rage toward the thousands of non-American white westerners (Europeans, etc.), Australians, etc., who have such visas and are also taking jobs from Americans as there seems to be against Indians. I find that very interesting.

[mule_train]

26. you dont work in IT, do you

I'm always getting lectured by people on this topic, who've never worked a single day of their life in IT

becasue if you did, you'd know that it is OVERWHELMING Indian, and that any place that has H-1b managers shutting out citizens is ALWAYS, ALWAYS Indian

and yes, I'm against ALL foreigners who expect to get in line ahead of American in our oun country in a depression = but in this case, it IS overwhelmingly Indian

[pampango]

27. The OP is about H-1B visas overall, not just in IT. Overall Indians get less than 40%

of H-1B visas that are issued. If Indians represent a large percentage of the H-1B visas issued in IT, they must be a fairly small percentage in other fields to be less than 40% overall. If this visa program is corrupt and inefficient, and it is, it is not just the IT field that is affected and it is not just Indians who are used to fill the visas slots.

Yet when we talk about H-1B the only nationality we hear about on DU is Indian. Of H-1B's overall, 27% are from Europe and 25% from the America (mostly Canada, but Mexico and South America, too). Our discussion of the negative consequences of H-1B's shouldn't constantly be focused on one nationality, even if they dominate one aspect of the H-1B universe, when the problems with it extend well beyond IT and Indians.

[upi402]

11. not their fault. US coporations in-source labor now

corporatism is running our nation.

our trade policies and labor laws are against US workers, not the people who take our jobs.

[Gin]

12. they went home to their jobs.. that got outsourced to their homeland

they are just following the money. (IMO)

[SoCalDem]

29. In-sourcing technical jobs & outsourcing manual jobs..

"want fries with that?

Global corporations, masquerading as "American companies", is one of out biggest hurdles in the bad economy. There are NO safe jobs. no jobs that cannot be eliminated, if the "bottom line" is in danger of losing money. What's left to us is a service economy, based on us selling stuff to each other.

About the only protected are of out economy is the military-industrial segment, but only because the government likes to keep its "secrets" safe

[Mudoria]

16. Bye bye...

[David__77]

18. What's with all the national chauvinism on this thread?

Comparing Indian workers with "leeches?" Wow... As if the people of India or any developing country are the enemy of the people of this country. Where is the solidarity with ALL working people? The game of the elites was always to pit people of different nations and races against one another, to pit the unemployed against the employed... And apparently it is still wildly successful.

[Xithras]

19. Of course they are, the jobs have all gone back to India as well!

Why stay here if the jobs are back home?

[HughMoran]

20. Fine with me

...many Chinese are returning home as well. Good.

[rucky]

21. I don't blame the workers...

but this is an exploitative program they signed up for. You don't think about the consequences when the opportunities are there - but there's always that element of being chewed up and spit out when they're gone.

[Odin2005]

28. Don't let the door hit your asses on the way out.