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A very significant traffic from search engines to my site is generated by the query “Obama + H1“. It is due to this post. On Bing and Google this query puts my blog as the #1 result but Yahoo doesn’t even show it on the first 5 pages (I didn’t look further). But for “Obama + H1B”, Yahoo manages to pull me into the third place.

While I am talking about search engines I might as well say that I am beginning to like Bing. The results are mostly spot-on (and getting better) and the daily images turns out to be a better idea than I thought it was. I knew a few people who made Bing their homepage just for the images. Well I know that the search page is not supposed to be the destination and should be as simple as possible but hey, if it manages to pull in people, then why not ? But I don’t know how the background image works out for low bandwidth users. For Google fans and power users I suggest trying Bing for 10 days without prejudice. I was not initially sold on the new branding but I made Bing my home page and you know what, I am liking it now.How it is going to turn out, we need to wait and see.

You might also want to do a blind search. And some old news in case you haven’t seen it yet, pretty impressive.

Free Press Releases reports

The United States Citizenship and Immigration Services recently announced a new ruling allowing holders of F1 visas to remain in the United States until the beginning of their employment, provided they have been accepted on an H1B visa.

More details here.

Patni was always known for its low salaries and bad HR practices. Now they added another feather to their colorful cap with this.

Goel’s base salary was $23,310, about half the $44,000 that Patni had said it would pay on the visa application…

Last year, Patni paid $2.4 million to 607 H-1B visa workers after a Labor Dept. investigation uncovered systematic underpayment of wages.

Well done Patni.

Worth a read.

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.

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.

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.

Getting a Green Card (or Permanent Residence Card as its more officially called) is the dream of most of the H1-Bs coming to the USA. Its the ticket to achieving their long term goals. Getting an employment based Green Card is a big deal, there are pit falls everywhere and it takes a inordinately long period to complete all the processing (to get more details on these check out any immigration forum or mailing list).

The European Union has proposals for a Blue Card that

… would provide educated immigrants, including tech professionals, with a two-year, renewable permit to work and reside in an EU member nation. Because the EU aims for a worker’s blue-card application process to take less than three months, the visa would provide a fast track for foreign-born individuals to land jobs in EU member countries.

By contrast, the U.S. green-card process can take anywhere from five to 10 years for an individual to gain permanent residency.

The complete article can be read here.