Comment by darth_avocado | Hacker News Reader

Comment by darth_avocado | Hacker News Reader

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My comment was in response to your claim that EB system was created for people with rare skills, which it clearly isn’t. You were in a job that only 1000 people were able to do, you being one of them. And yet you suggested that EB1 would more laborious and not fit for you.

> You may be eligible for an employment-based, first-preference visa if you are an alien of extraordinary ability, are an outstanding professor or researcher, or are a certain multinational executive or manager.

Yet you went for EB2, which is designed for a different set of immigrants where the proof of exceptional ability is a lot more lax

> You may be eligible for an employment-based, second preference visa if you are a member of the professions holding an advanced degree or its equivalent, or a person who has exceptional ability.

And you’re concerned about gaming the system? And you’re also claiming that EB system was designed to work for exactly the scenario that you fit?

As I said, EB-1 does not require rare skills. PERM based EB-2 and 3, though, require that there are no US workers with such skills available so it's highly correlated with skill's rarity. So why and where would I say that the entire EB system is created for people with rare skills?

>> You may be eligible for an employment-based, first-preference visa if you are an alien of extraordinary ability, are an outstanding professor or researcher, or are a certain multinational executive or manager.

Yep, and I am none of this.

>Yet you went for EB2, which is designed for a different set of immigrants where the proof of exceptional ability is a lot more lax

Yep, because EB2 does not require any exceptional ability, just the lack of a US worker available, willing, and able to do the job and a master's degree.

The lack is established by a good faith recruitment process, not an exhaustive search. This is intentionally vague because it's a non-sensical requirement that is hard to prove one way or the other and was only added as a political compromise. The company is free to tailor the minimum requirements to its liking. Recall that this is a free capitalistic country. So you can establish that you can't fill the req. locally and hence are hiring a foreigner. The reason I'm pointing this out is because you have picked some type of textual or literal interpretation of things ("this is what EB is for"), and companies have lawyers who are good at following the text.

The company is free to tailor the minimum requirements to its liking however it must be able to persuade the government that the job cannot be done without these requirements and a foreigner meets them. If you could just require a Nobel Prize in Physics and 50 years of experience for your PM or JS-jockey job then we would not be seeing articles like this. So I don't see why would you be pointing it out.

>and companies have lawyers who are good at following the text

Apparently not very good lawyers at Apple: https://www.justice.gov/d9/2023-11/ier-apple_settlement_agre...

Or Meta: https://www.justice.gov/archives/opa/pr/justice-labor-depart...

Just a couple of recent high-profile busts. The problem is not "good lawyers" but the fact that the only punishment for breaking the law is a pittance of a settlement.

The "busts" are more theater than anything else. The DOJ also sued companies for not hiring enough immigrants (https://www.justice.gov/archives/opa/pr/justice-department-s...) .

>The problem is not "good lawyers" but the fact that the only punishment for breaking the law is a pittance of a settlement.

That's how settlements go. The government gets to do its theater, the constituents believe that the government is fighting for them, and companies write this off as the cost of doing business.

It doesn't matter how you evaluate these busts, what matters is that they contradict your claim.

I don't see the contradiction here. The game is as follows: Company has to make a good faith recruitment effort. Not an exhaustive search, not beyond reasonable doubt. Just good faith which follows the preponderance of evidence standard. This is by design. The government doesn't believe that it can win on the merits, and hence they settle. The settlement gives everyone what they want.

> Company has to make a good faith recruitment effort.

Yes. And as the topical article and countless other ones state - they don't. They actively obfuscate their job openings so they do know they act against the law. And it's so easy to observe that their "good lawyers" cannot help here.

>The government doesn't believe that it can win on the merits, and hence they settle.

That's just, like, your opinion, dude.

>That's just, like, your opinion, dude.

That's the official opinion of the government, the judiciary, and the defendants. A settlement is not admission of guilt - the opposite actually. What are we even debating here ?

> "good lawyers" cannot help here

A settlement for a pittance, as you said, is the mark of a good lawyer.

>That's the official opinion of the government, the judiciary, and the defendants.

If it has been an official opinion it would have been published and you had a link to it, would not you? Settlement is not an admission of guilt nor is it admission that the case can't be won on merit.

>A settlement for a pittance, as you said, is the mark of a good lawyer.

Different lawyer handle DOJ prosecution and immigration (immigration lawyers are usually not even members of BAR). The government settles this kind of cases because of politics, not merit. If there had been a modicum of will to go after lawbreakers, these cases would try themselves - tons of witnesses, tons of evidence zero traces of "good faith".

> The government settles this kind of cases because of politics, not merit.

The government also files these cases in the first place because of politics, not merit. See my point about theater earlier.

>If there had been a modicum of will to go after lawbreakers, these cases would try themselves - tons of witnesses, tons of evidence zero traces of "good faith".

That's just like, your opinion, dude.

>The government also files these cases in the first place because of politics, not merit. See my point about theater earlier.

Yeah, a completely different case by a different organization means this case is also political... I don't really know what to say at this point. You seem to be arguing on random tangents without touching the issue of this HN item: companies obfuscating job adverts for the positions involved in PERM. For all I know you might not even know what does "good faith" mean and truly think it's a good faith behavior so you are more interested in discussing random stuff. I am sorry that I am not.

> different case by a different organization means this case is also political.

It's the same issue - the DOJ is going after companies and their ads. In SpaceX's case, the ads said citizen/LPR only due to export control, and DOJ got mad that it would exclude asylees and refugees for some of these positions which may not actually have export control requirements. Your complaint is also about ads and whether they are in print media or online or obfuscated etc. If you think that ads in print media violate the law, you need to prove that in a court of law. Note that the law explicitly requires ads in Sunday newspapers, whereas online ads are not mandatory. There is a check list of what is and is not required, and the lawyers are following the text (https://www.law.cornell.edu/cfr/text/20/656.17). The government doesn't think that there is positive EV in taking it to trial, and hence settles. You, as an individual, can still pursue a civil suit if you are injured.

>For all I know you might not even know what does "good faith" mean

There are thousands of bogus laws in the books and the government is not your friend. Good faith in this context means doing the minimal amount of work needed to comply with the law. Innocent until proven guilty, and the government has the burden of proof. This is how I view all interactions with the state.

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