I'm struggling to follow what immigration has to do with discrimination against US-born individuals. Is the connection because, without the broader pool of applicants available through visa programs, companies would be forced to hire an increased amount of US-born people who wouldn't otherwise have been hired, some of whom would have been potentially not hired due to discrimination? If anything, my discrimination meter would go in the other direction, that when a company explicitly doesn't sponsor any visas, they would be discriminating against non-US-born individuals.
? Needing a work visa is fairly universal thing what does it have to do with discrimination? If US citizen wants to work in EU, Canada, India or whatever other country they too need a work visa.
It’s illegal to discriminate on the basis of citizenship status. You can decline to sponsor visas, but if an immigrant already has work authorization you cannot refuse to hire them just because they are not a citizen.
When employers hire workers, the birthplace of the worker is irrelevant. For people with the same qualification and experience, why would you discriminate between someone from Ireland, UK, India or China. For you it should be the same, and it is illegal to consider otherwise.
Now, why doesn't this extend when converting them to a permanent visa?
Country of origin and immigration status are not the same thing. A company cannot discriminate based on origin. Immigration status is something else. Companies are legally required to ask if you are eligible to work in the country. If your skills are in demand enough they can pursue a visa for you. If not, you’re just another cog in the machine. They are free to find someone who can meet the requirement.
I think residency status can have some bearing but not ethnicity. Any company can refuse to sponsor a visa but if someone is eligible to work without sponsorship I don't think you can ask more than that.
What I don't get is that the law allows hiring foreign workers only if a qualified American worker could not be found, but I have never seen any evidence of this. Has anyone heard of a company being forced to prove this, or experienced an interview process where they prioritize American workers?
I was asking about this specific person's situation. I do recognize (and despise) the visa issue that indentures immigrants to employers. But I'm curious what other circumstances there may be.
You absolutely can discriminate on the criteria of 'will this person require a visa now or at any point in the future', and tons of companies put that requirement right in their job postings. If your company told you otherwise they are mistaken
I’m not familiar with the US visa rules, but aren’t companies supposed to demonstrate that they can’t source talent domestically before bringing people in on visas? This seems odd and damaging to the US economy. And I say this as a non-US person
That’s what happens now. The company picks their own candidates. Did you think the government assigned employees to a company? Visa rejections may happen only if the immigrant has issues with their background, the paperwork/process was not done correctly or the quota has been hit.
I am always confused by all the it hurts job market for local candidates thing as it relates to tech jobs. There is huge amount of unfilled positions. The company I am at has many hundreds of open positions that they can not fill with qualified people regardless of their visa/citizenship and I am pretty sure this is not a unique situation. The pay rate is also same regardless of visa status to the best of my knowledge.
Foreign vs local is not the same as National Origin.
You can't just simply hire anybody from anywhere on the planet if they do not already have permission to work in the US and even then I don't see how someone not currently a resident in the United States would be able to make a play for discrimination on account of being a protected class.
Mmmh, not being familiar with US immigration laws, I'm not sure I get everything. Is this about companies who illegally "import" foreign workers when they could have recruited US citizens ?
As far as I can tell, the paper doesn't seem to control for citizenship or immigration status. It seems likely that Hispanic and Asian job-seekers, especially in Silicon Valley, would be much more likely to be from overseas and therefore require a work visa.
The law for immigration status in hiring is that you can't discriminate on the basis of it unless the government requires you to. The government's saying both that ITAR doesn't actually restrict asylees and refugees, and also that not being a "US person" under ITAR isn't really a bar that should count (you can get approval from the government for non-US persons to work on export-controlled stuff, or have them work on other things).
You can tell they're really hanging their hat on the first one, though: even if you say for simplicity you want to have only "US persons" under ITAR, that doesn't justify excluding asylees and refugees.
Among the evidence in the filing is, of course, an Elon Musk tweet, saying you need at least a green card to work at SpaceX.
Also, the numbers: over the course of about four years SpaceX hired exactly one asylee, and that one shortly after they were told they were under investigation.
I read the original post as accusing the employer of only hiring people who were not here on a visa (illegal and I feel immoral).
If he just didn’t want to deal with hiring people in the US because of the current insane political climate with respect to foreigners, I don’t blame him if he has an alternative.
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