Yes. Total number of visas are not increased but people with US Masters degree will have a higher chance of winning the lottery. I am not a lawyer but based on my reading of the law USCIS is likely going to lose in court over this. Here is the relevant text of the law[1]:
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(5) The numerical limitations contained in paragraph (1)(A) shall not apply to any nonimmigrant alien … who … (C) has earned a master’s or higher degree from a United States institution of higher education (as defined in section 1001(a) of title 20), until the number of aliens who are exempted from such numerical limitation during such year exceeds 20,000. (Emphasis added)
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Based on the literal interpretation of law I think it is absolutely clear that the law clearly wants Students not to be counted against the cap until the 20,000 Masters cap is filled. I do not see any way to implement current USCIS proposal without violating this clause. It appears to me that DHS is unable to afford any competent lawyers these days and constantly proposing things that are illegal and not properly thought through.
Ignoring the legality of this move, this move does not benefit US society in any way. Implication that students with US masters degree are high skilled is pretty lame because majority of these students are from fly by night universities that do not even need GRE for admission. Most students after they are done with their masters work on OPT for around two years and seek sponsors for H1B during that time. Many of them simply approach body shoppers and consultancies which operate the low value spectrum of tech and will hire anyone. Also these are the companies at the forefront of most fraudulent activities.
Based on some of the unverified insider information, USCIS director Cissna has had a plan for a four pronged assault on H1B.
1. Simply refuse to renew H1B beyond 6 years. This impacts mostly Indians. He failed to implement this policy after the memo leaked to press.
2. Slow down entire H1B process to the extent most employers lose interest. He has successfully done this. My wife's H1B was filed in April 2018 and was approved in January 2019. No matter how kickass coder she is no employer will ever want to get into that kind of hiring process.
3. Create a system where you simply waste H1B visas each year. One way is to increase the rejection rates for new visas. If out of 65K visas say 10K visas are rejected these are never filled. Second approach which he wanted to implement this year but failed is to have this concept of "pre-registration" which everyone including immigration lawyers applauded. This is a sinister move. Under this move any company can file a lottery even without hiring an employee. After winning the lottery the company may simply refuse to proceed and that visa is wasted. Since there is no serious fee involved here any company who does not even have a hiring plan can enter the lottery and win it. This means a large number of H1B visas will not be claimed at all.
4. Rescind the H4EAD program to hurt families on H1B. Again affects only Indian citizens on H1B. I am told USCIS is unable to come up with good reasons to rescind this program and hence it is delayed for more than 2 years now.
H1B program is in a mess and current USCIS administration is acting in bad faith and making it worse, encouraging fraud and misuse.
> Implication that students with US masters degree are high skilled is pretty lame because majority of these students are from fly by night universities that do not even need GRE for admission
Are you arguing that people with less education are on average more valuable?
If you don't believe that it matters, then why do you care? It would be a purely neutral move. I don't see anything wrong with that.
If you think that this is a negative move, then that means that you believe people will less education, on average, are more valuable than people with more.
> Based on some of the unverified insider information
What is fundamentally wrong, if anything, with people with less education being more valuable? Would you rather have three engineers with an undergrad degree or one with a master's? Where do you draw the line?
In my experience advanced degrees do not equate expertise -- if anything, professionally, it's the opposite.
> Would you rather have three engineers with an undergrad degree or one with a master's? Where do you draw the line?
We are comparing 1 to 1, not 3 to 1.
In the context of this conversation, we are taking about whether it is a bad thing for someone with more education to receive priority access to the H1B visa.
And my opinion is that this is at worst a neutral thing.
The person I was responding to thinks that giving masters students priority is somehow negative.
In order for it to be negative, he would have to prove that these masters students are somehow worse, on average, than the non-masters students.
I think a high school drop out with 5 years of work experience coding can beat a masters from silicon valley university. In tech jobs degrees are in no way indicator of skill.
This is not comparing a person with 5 years if experience to a person without 5 years experience.
Instead, related to the H1B question, this is comparing the "average" person applying to the H1B program who has a bachelor's degree, and comparing that to the "average" person applying to the program with a master's degree.
It is not about perfect correlation. It is instead about imperfect correlation of the averages among these 2 groups.
Even in the worst case scenario of there being no correlation, it still benefits the US to give priority to masters students, as at the very least it means that they have spent more money on an American business (IE, the univerity).
I don't see anything wrong with priorizing more money to US businesses, all else being equal.
> s at the very least it means that they have spent more money on an American business (IE, the univerity).
I am not sure why it matters. Good chance the university is a visa mill and setup specifically for f1 to h1b transition like the recent DHS sting revealed. Such businesses needlessly muddle edu-sector and destroy capital on things that solely exist to bypass government red tape. It adds to economic inefficiency of the society.
Also, that is not the reason USCIS has given. "They spent money on USA business" is the criteria than the law should explicitly state that and everyone can then compete. My wife arrived on H4 and lost to H1B lottery twice. In that time she converted to F1 and then got her OPT is a small college. The degree was worthless and we spent $25K on her education. That enabled her to win H1B lottery in her third attempt in master's cap. Technically beneft to US society was significantly more if she had got her H1B in first attempt.
But that is not the point I am making. My central point is that USCIS policy clearly (I am not sure how much more clear it can get than that text) violates the law passed by Congress. USCIS at the very least need to provide credible evidence as to why this new system is better, why someone with US masters degree be automatically assumed to be higher skilled and based on what evidence and how it links to BAHA executive order whose pretext is being used for such changes. H1B visa is not meant for "high skilled" any ways. It is meant for specialized skill that is in short supply in USA. So there is a violation of far basic principles there too.
Yes. People with less education but few years of experience could be far more valuable than a masters degree holder from silicon valley university which is now shut down. Having a us masters degree is not correlated to higher skill in any way if we are not going to factor in university rankings.
It is very easy to validate claim. How many of the employers in bay area actually ask for masters or higher education for swe jobs ?
If it is a neutral move why waste taxpayer money and potential lawsuites for no benefit ?
My primary argument however is that the move is illegal and completely against the congressional intent.
Actually it says the 20,000 is only for Master/PhDs, so this could reduce the total number of H1Bs issued if there are fewer than 20,000 Master/PhD applicants. Otherwise the effect is more Master/PhD H1Bs and fewer others.
The 20,000 for advanced degree holders already holds in the current system, and it already over-subscribed. So this would not reduce the number of H-1Bs issued.
A large number (most?) of the H-1B visas go to students on F visas who have a job offer and want to change their status. Almost all the foreigners that I know on H-1B visas in my company came from a F visa. Some definitely were recruited from abroad, but it's simple economics. With so many people graduating from US universities, it's a lot easier to interview and subsequently apply for an H-1B for someone already here.
From the article are they just switching the order of the two lotteries? They aren't actually raising the number of visas offered, right?
This just has the effect of allocating more of the 85,000 visas granted to those with a Master's degree or PhD, right?
I'm sure the universities that heavily recruit international students to their graduate programs will love this.