Most Indians are like that, I've seen that here in Europe too. I attend tech meetups and paper study groups regularly and only friend with people I admire. Race doesn't matter to me. And yes, usually they are not Indian anyway.
61 karma · joined November 10, 2015
What I see is that even in today's MOOC/highly-connected world, I'm missing out on interacting/working with the brightest minds in the world, who all seem to be currently concentrated in the US. I can only go so far by watching their talks online, reading their research papers or studying their code. I wish to live/work in that environment for at least a few years.
Not everyone can get everything they want, I get that. But then, I see folks who are neither the best nor the brightest nor the most hard working getting to the US by gaming the system and that hurts.
PS: This is from the point-of-view of a foreigner from a less privileged background. There is a whole other gamut of concerns of US citizens about their own jobs, assimilation, social concerns and all that and I am aware of that.
Maybe 10 years ago, the best and the brightest of Indians/Chinese, who studied at the top US schools would have got their H1B in this 20K advanced-degree quota. Not true today.
Though the average Indian/Chinese is poor, there are tens of millions of parents in India/China today who can afford the $50K "investment" for their non-so-bright child. I see this among my affluent relatives and friends in India.
There is an easy way to check this: plotting the applicants of this 20K advanced-degree quota against the US News/other university rankings of their university.
An easy but not perfect way to fix this would be to give the 20K slots to the applicants from the highest ranking universities.
I am from a small town in India and my family was lower middle class. My parents burnt up all they had just to pay for my Bachelor degree. That is the reason I could not afford a Masters degree in the US. And there surely are many students from my background who worked hard to get to where they are.
That does not take away from what I see: Indians who have zero interest in computer science or even in their own work are grabbing the H1B of Indians (or Americans) who have that love and work hard.
There are two ways to game the H1B, the NYT article covered only one of them. The other is the 20,000 visas given to those who finished a Masters/PhD degree in USA. If they break out the numbers for these, they will find something that is an open secret known to all Indians: this 20K too is totally dominated by Indians.
Among my family and friends back in India, how to game the H1B's other 20K visas is also an open secret. These mediocre-to-hopeless students from India just apply to some university in the US for a Masters. Either it is a shit-degree from a mediocre university or a shit-degree from a shit-university (most of them seem to be in Texas). Doesn't matter. They get the admission, pay the fees, pass the course. Then they take internships to stay on after the degree, keep applying and taking interviews relentlessly until something works out. I believe they can stay on in the US for a few years by extending their visa in this way, until they get a H1B.