On the political facts behind retrogression.

Here is some basic political advice. Try to speak comforting, sweet words. Don't give discomforting advice yourself. Try not to bear bad news. Otherwise people by default associate you with bad news, even if you were intending good. If anything good has come by my H1 stay in the US, it is the understanding of politics that I have got here. Politics operates in all human realms. Babies to geriatrics. Monks to thieves. Home to office. To be a skilfull player, you have to understand human behaviour. The major driver of human behaviour is politics. I don't mean democrat vs. republicans, I mean basic human groupism, irrational likes and dislikes of other groups.

If you are deciding to come to the US on H1, I suggest you read this article. In fact all Indians on H1 should understand it. If you know someone who is considering H1, and wish them well, send them this article. That would be good advice, without becoming the messenger of doom. It is not good news. The good news about bad news is that you can detour around it. Or at least try to. Or just give up and go somewhere else. You can _do_ something about it.

The words which draw fear of the devil into the hearts of H1 holders are "out of status" and "retrogression".

Here's my political take on retrogression. Lawyers may differ, but here is the basic political reality.

When the number of valid applicants is more than the visas available for that country, the condition is called retrogression in the US immigration law. That means even though all you paperwork is ready , you cannot apply for i-485 (the actual application for the green card), till the ones before you in the prority date have been cleared. BTW, even if you have applied for 485, there is no guarantee you will get it in due time. Blame 9/11 for that.

But how did this situation arise? What is the root of the problem? To solve a problem, you need to understand the cause. Then you can decide, whether the cause can be fixed, or whether it is better to leave it because it is unresolvable. Death and taxes are some of the unresolvable ones.

The immigration law says that employment visas are capped at 145000 (or thereabouts). These include employee's family members (afaik). For each category (EB2, EB3 etc), the maximum visas that can be given to any country is 7%, ie, around 10000. So, the maximum green cards that can be issued to Indians on H1 are 20,000 per year. This will help you understand retrogression.

The US allows in some 85,000 H1s per year. Of these approximately 65-70,000 are Indians. Indians are very proud of this. Indian press goes rosy when it talks of how intelligent "our boys" are.

There is a huge irony here.

65,000 Indian H1s are coming every year. Only 20,000 are allowed to get green card by employment. The rest 45,000 go into the queue. So the ones who are applying next year face 45,000 which have to be cleared from this year first. Hence the queues, by basic math (which of course you are so good at, that is why they say they got you here), Indians on H1 are screwed. The ones who come later get screwed. That is true in general in America, but in Indian GC queues the reality is quite painful.

So how did so many Indians on H1 get the green card? America understands only money and power. If they can exploit you to the last drop of blood, they surely will. As the cause of all those hundreds of thousands of GCs is a rare and unlikely act of mercy and compassion by the American government.

In 2004-2005 (afaik), the US government got alarmed at the huge backlog of GCs pending mainly from employment quota from India. Someone noticed that since the quotas have been in place, most actually are not utilised fully. eg, Lesotho near South Africa may have 20,000 work resident visas, but those are hardly utlised. So they decided to use all those _unused_ visa quotas, and used them in the "GC approval wave" of 2-3 years ago. Hence a lot of Indians got their GCs.

As a side result of this decision, the quotas were all used up, and till now the EB3 category is retrogressed for all countries.

The only hope we have is that the government will again use all the pending quotas. But this there are not so many available since they were emptied recently in 2004.

This is a basic flaw in the system. No one wants to tell you this because no one wants to hear, or analyze bad news. That is basic politics. The Times Of India will keep printing rosy articles about how good India's math teachers are. All these crooks are just saying what the people want to hear. To hear the truth, you'll have to hire a lawyer. Or read H1b Majdoor.

Whether you want to stay in the US or not, if you want to work here you better have a green card. Otherwise you will be "h1 discounted". You career prospects will be under a cloud. And to get the GC you have hundreds of thousnds of Indians waiting before you in the retrogressed queue.

If any Indians come to the US on H1 without understanding this article, they are being set up for a huge "career risk". By coming to the US on H1 in such huge numbers with dollar signs in their eyes, Indians are only setting themselves up for a huge shock.

This was a short, sharp lesson in politics delivered with a mind of good will. While taking due cover behind anonymity.

Boys and girls, welcome to the real America. Here nothing is what marketing tells you.

YGWYD. "You get what you deserve".

One learns a lot in America. One of the wisdoms here is "follow the money". The idea being that you can spot the motives with a money trail.

I am telling you the truth on this page. Because I can afford to tell you the truth. Why? Because their is no connection between us other than this page. There is no give and take between us. We don't know each other, period. There is no monetary reason for me to lie to you.

The conventional wisdom about the US is that it is a meritocracy. You do good work, you will be paid well. The corollary is that if you are not being paid well, or not doing well in your career, you did not do good work. Basically, you deserved the mess that you are in. IYP. "Its Your Problem".

That was about the wisdom for public consumption. There is a cunning observation in economics called Gresham's law. It says that people will circulate poor quality money; they will hoard that of good quality. This observation can be generalized to the media and public life.

That which is available for mass consumption is usually trash. Reality TV is one example. Internet news is another. Why do the rich people send their kids to Oxford and not to the local public school? That which has value can never be found without effort.

Why am I telling you this for free? Let's say I suffered because of these misconceptions for a while and would like young and innocent to not suffer the same way. So here is my experience. In the US you do not usually get paid for your skills. Those jobs are few and far in between. You get paid for the connections you have. Here it is called the "address book". In India it was called "setting". Actually, who you know is power. You get paid according to the power you have.

What evidence do I have for this? The biggest hint is that salaries are top secret in the US. "Salaries are confidential" they will say. Fine, but the averages and standard deviations can be a decent way to measure fairness and whether one is being treated unfairly. Even those are not provided. You have to pay a service to find out what the median salary for you skills is. If the system is fair then why isn't it more transparent? Follow the money.

You are doing well, they'll say. But they won't give you the proof. "Believe in us". What they mean is you were starving in India and now you are making a lot. It makes them feel better. You don't know how much your colleagues are making. Hence any idea of merit based compensation is pointless. The truth is that the ones who make more while doing the same work have an incentive to prevent you from knowing your real worth. The longer they can keep the illusion, the more money they have in their pocket. Remember the thinking here is zero-sum. Your loss is their gain.

The other hint is that in most companies, the middle and top management only leaves when it is either fired or has accumulated so much that it doesn't want to work any more. The only people who leave for other jobs are the ones lowest in the power ladder. Because they found out the truth and found a better salary.

Power decides pay. As H1 employee, you have almost no power. They know it that you'll have to leave the country when you go out of status. Because of this they have power they pay you less than the market would. They keep the "spread". That is why they will try to delay your "freedom" till the last possible moment. And then, they will threaten you with non-competes or other ways of intimidation.

You get paid not for what you know but whom you know. You get paid less because you are new here and don't know anybody. They would rather it remained that way.

Have a happy new year. May the Buddha bless you.

H1B Inc.

The title of this article may surprise you but it doesn’t look surprising for those H1B software engineers who already got shipped to the USA, land of opportunities, where you have a dream to become a millionaire!! Probably many of the Indian software engineers are inspired by the dude who made Hotmail and sold it to Bill Gates and became millionaire. Welcome to the world of Corporations.

Most of the Indian owned consulting firms, who hire H1B holders, either do business with Direct Client model or Layered model. In case of direct client model the size of the company is pretty large and it deals with many clients and also has large number of employees or consultants on its payroll. In case of layered model the company is normally small or newbie in the market who needs to firm its feet on the ground. Such companies do not deal with companies which actually require consultants directly, because it does not have its reach to the HR of the client company. In such situation they are dependent on other consulting companies which have direct access to the HR of the client company. So in short, if you are employed by any of these direct client companies then probably you can earn more than the guy employed in Layered Model Company. The equation is very simple to understand. The layered model company has to give the cut out from your hard earned money to the vendor (the company who has direct client) who actually got you into the project. So if you will be hired by company at the rate of $100 per hour, probably you will end up getting approximately $50 per hour because the rest $50 is distributed between your layered model employer and the vendor. Initially when you got shipped from India the employer who hired you from India ends up paying you not more than $45k to $50k per year and in most cases you have to sign 1 year agreement. So finally you have become virtually bonded labor (bandhooa majdoor). Many employers even ask for H1B full visa cost from the employee if he/she breaks the so called agreement and leave the company before the employment tenure mentioned in the agreement.

http://www.desicrunch.com/ is the website which may help you to choose the right H1B sponsor employer and probably you can save yourself from the harassment. If you have become victim of any such harassment then post your feedback / review about the company here to help others.

For all those who are still in India and dreaming to become a cool dude and want to drive BMW and wish to own a big 10 room’s house in USA, here’s how consulting companies pay you. If you are well experienced then you will be paid good hourly rates. It depends how you can finalize your deal with the employer. As you know that on h1b you can not work independently so you have to have employer. There are many employers who will only sponsor your H1B visa. They tell you to find the project and client on your own and negotiate the hourly rate you want, the employer just want approximately $10 to $20 per hour as he sponsored your H1B. Such employers won’t give you health insurance or 401K investment options. No other benefits. There are employers who can deal with you on 80%-20% sharing of your income, where whatever hourly rate is negotiated either by you or them; they will take 20% from the whole amount. Many such employers also provide health insurance and offer 401K too. There are employers who would like to employ you directly and they don’t deal with sharing of hourly rate. They pay you salary which you negotiate at the time of joining the company. Though you will be working with the company as an employee but actually you are deployed at the client’s place to work on some assignment or project. You won’t know what hourly rate your employer is charging from client as he pays you your portion of income which you negotiated with them and it is called salary. Hopefully you got the clear idea of how H1B and consulting works in USA. I hope that this article will at-least ignites a little spark in you before you fall into the American Dream.

Three five year plans

Those who are from India will remember that quaint ritual called the Five Year Plan. Here the government lays out in great detail what development will be carried out in the next 5 years. Nothings gets done eventually, of course. The whole thing is a sham to siphon taxpayer's money to well-connected contractors.

Most companies now have a policy of not applying for your "GC" (permanent residency) till the employee is approaching the end of 5 years of h1 status. The reason is that if the labour certification is not applied for before the fifth year is over, the employee cannot stay beyond the sixth year.

Once they apply for the GC, for most candidates it takes 5 years to process. That adds up to 10 years. Many emloyers have contracts that make the employee work for them beyond the receipt of the GC ( 1 year in my case) to "recover costs incurred". These 10 years you practically have no freedom to choose employers. That implies you have no power to negotiate for pay raises etc. In other words, you are gifting away the 10 most creative and valuable years of your career to your h1 employer, for a cheap price. Most likely the employee will not get any promotions either. No wonder they lobby to increase the h1 quota.

Assume you wish to become citizen to avail social security. To become a citizen it takes another 5 years after your GC. That gets it upto 15 years. Usual career is 30-35 years. One could suspect that after 10 years of being screwed by the system, the employee would be burnt out and not have much energy let to pursue a career.

So why do the employers delay the processing till the fifth year? The employers know they have the power to deport the employee. They know he will work for way below market rates till the employee gets "freedom". Therefore this becomes a zero sum game. The employee's loss is the employer's gain. He will delay the GC as long as possible because he is gaining from it.

Why doesn't anyone complain about this? That is more of a social psychology question - most of these victims are Indians. Indians have a historical fear and aversion to getting involved in government matters. Also, altruistic action is somewhat rare among Indians. In India for example, it is common to not help accident victims on roads because "the helpers would be harassed by the police". Actually, there hardly anyone has helped, so first hand knowledge of this is scanty, but these fears have sunk deep into the social psyche. What Indians don't understand is that USA is not India. In India one can live without getting involved in politics. In USA politics turns quickly into a zero sum game and if one does not protect one's interests politically, one would be likely exploited.

Be careful with that dream

The intent of this blog is not to present a negative view of the USA, or to destroy your "american dream".

Forewarned is forearmed.

The h1b spin factory exists for a reason. It makes money for those who run it. Actually, you as the h1 employee produce the money. The money they make comes from the money they did not give you because you lack free market access to other employers.

Our intent here is to provide you with some of the fine print. The spin factory won't do that. We have been through the system and we understand. We went through it because partly, we did not read the fine print - because sites like these did not exist. What we have been through,you don't have to - atleast you are forearmed and can make an informed choice. Most Indians just concentrate on getting the GC and then hell with it, others better take care of themselves. We see this as a pattern of Indian behaviour where involvement for the benefit of the community is considered foolish. We see this as a negative attitude.

Indians seem to take pride in not forming and acting as a community. We are too proud of individuality. In our opinion this is a big weakness. Getting involved in (even constructive) politics of the community is considered "bad". If we have suffered, we can still make good use of it and provide the ones to come with a map of the terrain. Modern labour markets are like a war. You as a soldier are toast if you are not given a map of the minefields.

We are trying to give you a map of the hurdles, disappointments and humiliations you might face while on h1. We understand it is a matter of luck. Success is decided not only by effort, but also by being at the right place at the right time. In USA, if you are at the wrong place, wrong time, you have a problem - more than what you might assume.

We understand that and we want you to be alert to the way the system will try to abuse you.

The whole game here is to create a scarcity, or put you into a position where you are humiliated for lacking the complete economic freedoms, and make a huge deal about it when you try get it.

Unfortunately, most companies ("dalla") which do this are Indians. Your objective as an H1 employee of these companies should be to get away ASAP from these parasites and try to find a decent employer whom you can bear for the long process of green card. It is not easy to find these employers, and you will face a major handicap as an H1 employee. And not all phoren employers are that great. They have their own peculiar problems, on which someday later.

As an Indian you will face other handicaps ("Indians can't talk" etc). These smack of profiling, but you need that job, not the interviewer. If you communicate well in the interview, and the interviewer thinks Indians can't talk, then psychologically you have defeated him by disproving his biases. He'll hate you for it and then forget about getting that job.

To get credit, you have to have credit

This is a chicken and egg story.

In the USA, you are assumed to be a cheat unless you prove otherwise. I don't mean this in a criminal way. The government of the USA and its bureaucracies are one of the most efficient and fair I have seen. They are reasonably fair. The problem happens in the civil society.

To rent an apartment, for example, you need to prove to the landlord you are honest. That actually means to prove credit. There are private credit rating agencies in the USA. These agencies rate you according to your history of paying your debts on time. There are some problems with this system, mainly for newcomers:

• newcomers do not start from a "neither honest nor dishonest state". They start from "dishonest" state. That means the odds are stacked against you from the start. The reason is that people who give you credit can then charge you more.
  
• Indians historically are defensive and debt averse. This means they can go for years without having an entry in the system. Remember you get good credit when you pay off debt. Unless you carry debt, you cannot prove honesty in the civil sense.
• To carry debt, the usual route is to get a credit card. These cards report the balances and payments each month. These records then make it to the credit rating system. To get a credit card, they look at your credit history. Since you do not have any when you get into the USA, you are trapped. Don't worry, money solves all problems here. You just have to pay a little more and get a "secured" credit card. This card gives you credit, guaranteed by money you deposit with them. Usually they charge you a non-negligible fee for this service, and likely do not pay any interest.

This bias against newcomers is something you will see throughout the USA. The ones who have been in the system extract a good price of entry from newcomers. Car insurance assumes newcomers to be the worst drivers till they prove otherwise (for 3 years), and charges highest rates.

Union contracts are negotiated to get the best rates for those who have been in service, at the expense of the newcomers; because the future newcomers are not in the union yet to demand representation. The government keeps passing wealth to cronies and more and more debt to future citizens, because they do not vote yet.

This does not augur well for the future - eventually the future voters will rebel. But, as you will find out, you being on H1b are in bigger trouble. ' Later.

Social (in)Security

While on H1, you will pay social security, unemployment insurance, medicare etc. These taxes are deducted before any other deductions. The burden of these taxes falls on the middle class in the USA.

To claim social security in the usual case,

• you have to have more than 40 credits. for each year of payment you get 4 credits.
  
• you should be more than 65 years.

, one of these has to apply

• you are a citizen of the USA - then you can claim SS outside the USA from its embassies, presumably.
• you are a green card holder living in the USA. (Note that you lose the GC if you stay outside the USA for more than 6 months).
  

If your country has a SS treaty with the USA, you can transfer your SS credits to that country. Unfortunately, poor countries like India which seem to dominate H1b do not have these treaties. The reason is that India does not have a real SS system. India has an individually funded retirement fund, more akin to the 401(k) system.

As H1b, you are expected to stay in the US no more than 6 years. If you get residency then there is a hope of protecting your SS "investment". Otherwise the 7.5% that you have paid will be lost, for citizens of countries which have no SS treaty with the US.

To remedy this, the citizens of these countries should press their countries to establish a true SS system and negotiate a treaty with the US. Otherwise they should ask their countries to ask for the SS payments to be returned to the individuals who have returned after paying SS dues.

In many cases, people wish to return to their native countries when they grow old. In that case they can claim SS only if they have become US citizens.

Hum to chale pardes

So you have decided to come to USA on H1. Everyone everywhere tells you of the great life that awaits you. Tech billionaires. The guy who sold hotmail. Life will be cool. This is the land of butter, honey and money. The american dream. You got it made, lad.

Or so you think.

One lesson I have learnt after coming to US is to read the fine print. Read it. It is the only friend you'll have in the US. Find out what rights you have, and don't have. It'll save your backside. If you find out the fine print 4 years into the H1, when your kids are in school, it may be too late to salvage your career.

What you hear is the spin from the interested parties about H1. They spin because they have something to gain from it. Here we will try to air the H1b employees' point of view.