.entrypoint

Michael Arrington interviews democrat senator and presidential candidate Barack Obama.

MA: What is your position on H1B visas in general? Do you believe the number of H1B visas should be increased?

BO: Highly skilled immigrants have contributed significantly to our domestic technology industry. But we have a skills shortage, not a worker shortage. There are plenty of Americans who could be filling tech jobs given the proper training. I am committed to investing in communities and people who have not had an opportunity to work and participate in the Internet economy as anything other than consumers. Most H-1B new arrivals, for example, have earned a bachelor’s degree or its equivalent abroad (42.5%). They are not all PhDs. We can and should produce more Americans with bachelor’s degrees that lead to jobs in technology. A report of the National Science Foundation (NSF) reveals that blacks, Hispanics, and Native Americans as a whole comprise more that 25% of the population but earn, as a whole, 16% of the bachelor degrees, 11% of the master’s degrees, and 5% of the doctorate degrees in science and engineering. We can do better than that and go a long way toward meeting industry’s need for skilled workers with Americans. Until we have achieved that, I will support a temporary increase in the H-1B visa program as a stopgap measure until we can reform our immigration system comprehensively. I support comprehensive immigration reform that includes improvement in our visa programs, including our legal permanent resident visa programs and temporary programs including the H-1B program, to attract some of the world’s most talented people to America. We should allow immigrants who earn their degrees in the U.S. to stay, work, and become Americans over time. As part of our comprehensive reform, we should examine our ability to replace a stopgap increase in the number of H1B visas with an increase in the number of permanent visas we issue to foreign skilled workers. I will also work to ensure immigrant workers are less dependent on their employers for their right to stay in the country and would hold accountable employers who abuse the system and their workers.

The wait is over. Hold your breath while I say this – the final version of Visual Studio 2008 is out. Woo.. hoo !!! The official release date is Feb 27th 2008. Confused ? Read this.

MSDN subscribers can download it now. I am downloading the Professional Edition which is 3.31 GB (!) Now I can finally hack away on WPF, WCF, WF and Silverlight, without installing all the mucky CTPs, Betas and RCs. Time to dust off some books that are sitting idle on my shelves. I am so excited

For those who are not MSDN subscribers, trial versions are available here.

Attorney Robert L. Reeves writes an article on SunStar about a possible issue while applying for the H-4 visa. Worth a read.

Mike Elgan has an interesting proposal to solve the ongoing debate against and in favor of the H1-B program. The solution is something I haven’t seen anybody propose anywhere else, so it worthing looking at, if just for its novelty value.

Let’s transform the H-1B visa into a special “H-1B green card.” We can retain the 65k cap on the total number of skilled foreign workers, but they’ll be given all the rights and privileges of any other green card holder, except the “H-1B green card” expires after six years.

So if you think what is so novel about this, the main part of the proposal is

Most importantly, they should be allowed to apply for U.S. citizenship any time during their stay, and become fully naturalized U.S. citizens on the first day of their fifth year if they choose. However, if they fail to become citizens within the six-year period, they have to leave (as they would have with the H-1B visa).

If you are wondering what makes this a good plan, we should look at the deficiencies of the existing system. The most widespread argument against the H1-B visa program is that it lowers the wages for skilled workers by bringing in foreigners who are willing to work for lower salaries.

The recipient of an H-1B visa must be championed by a company, and cannot easily change jobs once here, which translates into a kind of low-paid “indentured servitude.” The visa lasts six years. Spouses can come with, but can’t work while here. To reapply, the visa holder must leave for a year before coming back.

The restrictions of the H1-B visa makes it difficult for the visa holder to negotiate wages to his favor.

This proposal benefits everyone (except foreign economies). It favors skilled immigrants who want to become Americans and keep their skills here, rather than bring them back (along with American trade secrets) to their countries of origin. They’ll have to be paid more (and therefore won’t depress American wages), because they’ll be able to change jobs, will be more likely to buy homes and have kids — all of which encourage the demand for higher wages. And they won’t be “stealing American jobs” because, soon enough, they themselves will be Americans.

Meanwhile, American companies like Microsoft, IBM and Oracle benefit, because the total number of skilled workers they can hire and import from abroad rises, as “H-1B green card” holders transition to citizens and free up more H-1B spots. American companies will be more competitive, and will be more likely to stay in business, hire more workers and grow.

We maintain our cap on temporary skilled workers, and America becomes slightly smarter and more skilled by the addition of a well-educated citizen of demonstrated value to the economy.

Read the complete article here.

Freshers Home provides a list of salaries for freshers working for major IT companies in India. According to the list, Google pays the highest for freshers (INR 12,00,000/annum) followed by T-Mobile (INR 8,00,000/annum) and Microsoft (INR 7,80,000/annum). Amazon and Trilogy shares the fourth place at INR 7,50,00.

A notable thing is that the biggies of Indian IT industry like TCS, Wipro, Infosys, Patni etc are the lowest payers.

Here is some excellent information if you have any plans for going to Mexico or Canada, instead of your home country, to get your H1-B stamped.

An interesting article.

This weekend I picked up 8 books for $6 from the King County library used book sale. One of the best deals I ever got

• Emma – Jane Austen
• Pride and Prejudice – Jane Austen
• The Mother Tongue – Bill Bryson
• Les Miserables – Victor Hugo
• Dont sweat the small stuff – and its all small stuff – Richard Carlson
• Flow – The Psychology of Optimal Experience – Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi
• The W. Somerset Maugham Reader – Somerset Maugham
• Selected Short Stories – Guy de Maupassant

This deal is all the more wonderful because of a coincidence. I had been to Borders on saturday and had picked up The Mother Tongue by Bill Bryson but decided against it at the last moment while standing in the queue to pay for it. That saved me $13.50 because I got it for $0.50 the next day

Code Project is a website which specializes on development on the Microsoft Platform. So its kinda surprising to see their latest survey results (Click on the image to get a better view):

This is unbelievable.