This is nothing new. The problems with work visas in the US are:
1. Cheap bodyshops consuming much of the quota; and
2. Immigration being tied to an employer.
(2) is a direct cause of (1).
For those that don't know, sponsorship for a green card basically involves two stages.
Labor Certification ("LC") is the first and most time-consuming stage. It involves "proving" you can't find a US citizen to fill the job. There is then a queue with a quota system based on country of _birth_ (not citizenship). For countries with a high number of immigrants (eg Mexico, Phillipines, India, China), the queue can be _years_ long. During that time the employee is essentially an indentured servant. Employers can and do exploit this situation.
The Department of Labor can add to this by randomly auditing a particular application, which will add a minimum of 1-2 years to the process. Sometimes this is for cause but the DoL's stated policy is to prevent petitioners from "gaming" the system so they disguise their auditing criteria by randomly selecting applications to audit.
The second stage is basically a formality: filing for adjustment of status.
So for a period of 10 years or more the employee may be in no position to leave, no position to negotiate and will quite possibly have to work under abominable conditions for substandard wages.
The LC process ostensibly has a prevailing wage determination step to ensure the employee isn't being victimized. Trust me, it's a joke.
Startups here, as a general rule, aren't the problem. These nameless bodyshops paying $50,000/year or less for a warm body to contract out to a Fortune 500 company for $500/hour are.
If you kept the current green card quotas and simply made H1B visas portable and immigration essentially automatic when your number (in the queue) is up then you'd end a lot of these problems.
H1B workers can switch jobs -- your point (2) is not true.
During the first 6 years or until the LC is filed, H1 workers can work for any employer in their field of study. After the LC has been filed, they can switch jobs as long as the job title/requirements are substantially similar (thanks to the American Competitiveness in the Twenty-First Century Act). And the recent executive action by Obama will make it even easier for post-LC workers to change jobs.
I have yet to meet someone on an H1 who felt tethered down to their employers. Almost every H1 worker I know has switched jobs at some point. This whole idea of the "indentured H1 worker" is complete lie, and anyone making it is being dishonest. It's just a cover-up for their hatred for immigrants -- a lie fabricated to cloak their hatred as concern.
AC21 portability (as it's called) allows for an employee to maintain their pending immigration status if they have filed an I-485 and it has been pending for at least 180 days.
Thing is, the I-485 is the last 10% of the process. The biggest hurdle is getting the Labor Certification, which is the part that can (and does) take years.
So an employee technically has H1B portability under the AC21 provisions but they must start all over again if they aren't in the last 5-10% of the immigration process.
1. Cheap bodyshops consuming much of the quota; and
2. Immigration being tied to an employer.
(2) is a direct cause of (1).
For those that don't know, sponsorship for a green card basically involves two stages.
Labor Certification ("LC") is the first and most time-consuming stage. It involves "proving" you can't find a US citizen to fill the job. There is then a queue with a quota system based on country of _birth_ (not citizenship). For countries with a high number of immigrants (eg Mexico, Phillipines, India, China), the queue can be _years_ long. During that time the employee is essentially an indentured servant. Employers can and do exploit this situation.
The Department of Labor can add to this by randomly auditing a particular application, which will add a minimum of 1-2 years to the process. Sometimes this is for cause but the DoL's stated policy is to prevent petitioners from "gaming" the system so they disguise their auditing criteria by randomly selecting applications to audit.
The second stage is basically a formality: filing for adjustment of status.
So for a period of 10 years or more the employee may be in no position to leave, no position to negotiate and will quite possibly have to work under abominable conditions for substandard wages.
The LC process ostensibly has a prevailing wage determination step to ensure the employee isn't being victimized. Trust me, it's a joke.
Startups here, as a general rule, aren't the problem. These nameless bodyshops paying $50,000/year or less for a warm body to contract out to a Fortune 500 company for $500/hour are.
If you kept the current green card quotas and simply made H1B visas portable and immigration essentially automatic when your number (in the queue) is up then you'd end a lot of these problems.