97 companies file opposition to Trump�s immigration order | TechCrunch

"BartSimpson" said
That's nice of those 97 companies to volunteer for immigration audits.

"BeaverFever" said
That's nice of those 97 companies to volunteer for immigration audits.

"martin14" said
Sure, because everyone knows the best business come from Somalia.

They don't call them failed states for nothing.

Virtue signaling at it's best.

How Trump�s Immigration Rules Will Hurt the U.S. Tech Sector
Instead of beelining for Silicon Valley, the top minds from countries like Iran may start heading to Canada, Europe, or Asia instead.

...But even without that change, which hasn�t yet been announced, the immigration ban from last week will likely deal a blow to the technology industry, which employs many workers without permanent-residency status in the U.S. from the seven countries included in the ban. Of the seven countries, one in particular has seeded the American tech industry with talent, much of which has risen to top spots in major tech companies.

Iranian-Americans founded or hold leadership positions at Twitter, Dropbox, Oracle, Expedia, eBay, and Tinder. Top venture capitalists like Shervin Pishevar, Pejman Nozad, and brothers Ali and Hadi Partovi, all of whom invest millions of dollars in technology startups, were born in Tehran.


�Americans use products created by Iranians, or go to doctor�s offices and are treated by Iranians regularly,� said Hadi Partovi, who co-founded Code.org with his brother Ali. �This is not a culture that threatens America, and for us to reject immigration from the country for a false sense of security seems wrong to me.�

Many of the Iranians working in Silicon Valley, Seattle, Austin, and other tech hubs around the country are green-card holders, or naturalized citizens. That means they shouldn�t personally be prevented from entering the United States under Trump�s immigration order. (After many green-card holders were initially denied entry to the U.S., the Department of Homeland Security clarified that legal permanent residents from the seven designated countries should not be affected by the immigration ban.)

But those who are in the U.S. on work visas or student visas are currently unable to travel outside the country, for work or for pleasure, because they may be unable to return. Plans to fly overseas for conferences have been put on hold, family visits canceled, and vacations postponed. There are more than 12,000 Iranian students in the U.S., making Iran the 11th most common country of origin for foreign students in the country. A 2014 Brookings study found that two-thirds of foreign students study science, technology, or business.

But the temporary immigration ban could dissuade those from countries beyond Iran and the six others included in the ban from coming to the U.S. to work and study. Foreign nationals from countries not included in the immigration ban might also stay away, fearing that their visa status could be thrown into jeopardy at the president�s whim. �And if we can no longer attract the best and brightest to this country, it has a chilling effect on business growth and innovation,� Partovi said.

And even green-card holders in the U.S., who are exempt from the ban, are weighing the benefits of staying in the country. Over the weekend, I spoke with Sara, a San Francisco-based tech entrepreneur who asked to be referred to only by first name, for fear of reprisal from the government. Sara is an Iranian-born Canadian citizen who has held a green card since 2015. She co-founded a technology company in San Francisco, where she also runs an art gallery, a restaurant, and a coffee shop.

...The American technology sector won�t wither up and die overnight without access to immigrants from the seven Muslim-majority countries that were designated as foreign threats. But the ban could be keeping the next generation of tech leaders from ever making it to the U.S. in the first place.

�I was 11 when I came to America,� said Partovi. �If I were 11 right now and trying to come to America under the same circumstances, I would�ve been banned by this recent executive order. I probably would�ve ended up in Canada.�

B.C. tech sector to get surge of talent fleeing Silicon Valley: insiders
MIKE HAGER
VANCOUVER � The Globe and Mail
Published Monday, Jan. 30, 2017 10:07PM EST
Last updated Monday, Jan. 30, 2017 10:12PM EST

British Columbia�s burgeoning tech sector is set to get a big boost from entrepreneurs and their employees fleeing Silicon Valley to dodge U.S. President Donald Trump�s immigration policies, industry insiders say.

Vancouver immigration lawyer Richard Kurland said he spent this weekend conducting more than a dozen client consultations with high-level engineers, managers and PhD or master�s students working in the U.S. tech industry. These prospective clients now want to move to Canada after Mr. Trump�s executive order last Friday blocking entry to citizens from seven Muslim countries, he said.

Mr. Kurland, who publishes the Lexbase newsletter on the Canadian immigration system, said his colleagues across Canada are all reporting similar interest.


�I�ve never seen anything like it from the United States. The last time I saw something like this was 1989 China � where you had top minds and top families seeking exit from the turmoil,� he said. �There�s this sense of fear and anxiety because you don�t know who�s next on [Mr. Trump�s] list.�

...�It�s not highly educated immigrants coming in and taking anything that�s even remotely considered a Canadian job,� Mr. Rafer said.

�It�s high-income foreigners coming in and bringing their job with them.�

The firm�s co-founder Michael Tippett, a fixture of Vancouver�s startup community, said he estimates as many as 10,000 people in Silicon Valley could be affected by Mr. Trump�s immigration policies.

Google has said more than 100 of its staff have been affected by Friday�s order and the tech giant has set up a crisis fund of $4-million to help workers dealing with the immigration ban.

Mr. Tippett, who ran Hootsuite�s new products division for two years, said he is confident that an influx of entrepreneurs can benefit Vancouver and other parts of the province.

�Imagine having some of the brightest minds in technology living and working in our city, contributing and building companies,� said Mr. Tippett, CEO of Vancouver-based Wantoo, an online software platform that collects and organizes customer feedback.

�And bringing investment dollars with them.�

If they're making the case that these policies hurt their businesses then the logical question to ask is 'why?'

And then send in ICE to make sure their workers are in the US legally. If they're not doing anything wrong they have nothing to fear.

"BeaverFever" said

How do you not know that tech sector jobs are some of the most in-demand and competitive jobs in the world and these companies source talent globally?

These companies abuse the H1-B visa program and they replace American workers with cheaper foreign workers.

"BeaverFever" said


No, you don't know what you're talking about. We're not talking a bout fruit pickers or call centre reps here.

In silicon valley, it's scarce highly specialized talent that's hard to find and they have to compete with tech companies all over the world for the same small talent pool. And these workers are not cheap they're extremely expensive no matter where they come from the wages they demand are the same

A few years ago, the pharmaceutical giant Pfizer informed hundreds of tech workers at its Connecticut R&D facilities that they'd soon be laid off. Before getting their final paychecks, however, they'd need to train their replacements: guest workers from India who'd come to the United States on H-1B visas. "It's a very, very stressful work environment," one soon-to-be-axed worker told Connecticut's The Day newspaper. "I haven't been able to sleep in weeks."

Established in 1990, the federal H-1B visa program allows employers to import up to 65,000 foreign workers each year to fill jobs that require "highly specialized knowledge." The Senate's bipartisan Immigration Innovation Act of 2013, or "I-Squared Act," would increase that cap to as many as 300,000 foreign workers. "The smartest, hardest-working, most talented people on this planet, we should want them to come here," Sen. Marco Rubio, (R-Fla.) said upon introducing the bill last month. "I, for one, have no fear that this country is going to be overrun by Ph.D.s."

To be sure, America's tech economy has long depended on foreign-born workers. "Immigrants have founded 40 percent of companies in the tech sector that were financed by venture capital and went on to become public in the U.S., among them Yahoo, eBay, Intel, and Google," writes Laszlo Bock, Google's senior VP of "people operations," which, along with other tech giants such as HP and Microsoft, strongly supports a big increase in H-1B visas. "In 2012, these companies employed roughly 560,000 workers and generated $63 billion in sales."
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But in reality, most of today's H-1B workers don't stick around to become the next Albert Einstein or Sergey Brin. ComputerWorld revealed last week that the top 10 users of H-1B visas last year were all offshore outsourcing firms such as Tata and Infosys. Together these firms hired nearly half of all H-1B workers, and less than 3 percent of them applied to become permanent residents. "The H-1B worker learns the job and then rotates back to the home country and takes the work with him," explains Ron Hira, an immigration expert who teaches at the Rochester Institute of Technology. None other than India's former commerce secretary once dubbed the H-1B the "outsourcing visa."

Of course, the big tech companies claim H-1B workers are their last resort, and that they can't find qualified Americans to fill jobs. Pressing to raise the visa cap last year, Microsoft pointed to 6,000 job openings at the company.

Yet if tech workers are in such short supply, why are so many of them unemployed or underpaid? According to the Economic Policy Institute (EPI), tech employment rates still haven't rebounded to pre-recession levels. And from 2001 to 2011, the mean hourly wage for computer programmers didn't even increase enough to beat inflation.

The ease of hiring H-1B workers certainly hasn't helped. More than 80 percent of H-1B visa holders are approved to be hired at wages below those paid to American-born workers for comparable positions, according to EPI. Experts who track labor conditions in the technology sector say that older, more expensive workers are particularly vulnerable to being undercut by their foreign counterparts. "You can be an exact match and never even get a phone call because you are too expensive," says Norman Matloff, a computer science professor at the University of California-Davis. "The minute that they see you've got 10 or 15 years of experience, they don't want you."

A 2007 study by the Urban Institute concluded that America was producing plenty of students with majors in science, technology, engineering, and math (the "STEM" professions)�many more than necessary to fill entry-level jobs. Yet Matloff sees this changing as H-1B workers cause Americans to major in more-lucrative fields such as law and business. "In terms of the number of people with graduate degrees in STEM," he says, "H-1B is the problem, not the solution."

Even detractors of the H-1B visa program concede that it can fill important roles, such as encouraging brilliant foreigners to permanently relocate to the United States. EPI immigration expert Daniel Costa suggests a couple of tweaks to the I-Squared Act: Require employers to prove that they've tried to recruit Americans before applying for foreign workers, and make sure that H-1B workers get paid as much as Americans do for comparable jobs. "If that was fixed," he says, "I think it would be a different story."

As it stands, though, there are plenty of stories like the one Jennifer Wedel told to President Barack Obama last year (see video below). "My husband has an engineering degree with over ten years of experience," the Fort Worth resident told the president during a web chat hosted by the social network Google+. "Why does the government continue to issue and extend H-1B visas when there are tons of Americans just like my husband with no job?"

"We should get his r�sum� and I will forward it to some of these companies, " Obama replied.

But more than two months later, Wedel's husband was still looking for a job.