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Comment by droopyEyelids | Hacker News Reader

To me the most interesting way of framing this is in terms of the changes that'll happen to the owners of businesses.

The question of the talent of the new employees is secondary when you realize they will have to move countries in order to be tied to a specific job on penalty of getting their visa revoked.

So suddenly, you create an unlimited class of employees with no bargaining power, and can play them against your native employees. This would be bad enough, but H1B visa holders usually make 20% less than their equivalent American coworkers.

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> tied to a specific job on penalty of getting their visa revoked.

This is true if you hire from third world. I am from Northern Europe, and having a visa revoked and going back to my home country would not be a threat to me. I'd just happily move back home, and find a job there.

Most people consider a move to a new apartment in the same city inconvenient.

There are very few people who wouldn't consider being forced to move across continents, while giving up their rights, a highly biasing factor in the pros/cons of any decision they made.

As a result, I can see programmers from Western and Northern Europe, who as of know may consider relocating to the US, change their mind and say "why bother". Any EU citizen will have easier time relocating to London/Berlin - two places in Europe where a lot of tech companies are located.

PG's point is that a lot of people from outside the US (including from Europe) currently would prefer relocating to the US but they have difficulty getting a visa. Long term more and more people would prefer the second best choice that's available to them.

"PG's point is that a lot of people from outside the US (including from Europe) currently would prefer relocating to the US but they have difficulty getting a visa"

No, from my reading of pg's point: Most of the top programmers live outside of the US, so we should make it easier to get them by changing immigration policy.

> Most people consider a move to a new apartment in the same city inconvenient.

This is a good point. But finding out that your employer is so nasty that they use your visa status as a bargaining chip, can be even more inconvenient.

Nearly every company larger than 100 people optimizes for financial outcomes. That's amoral, not evil, don't confuse yourself.

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