Python is an Equal Opportunity Programming Language

[Marko Rauhamaa]

Steven D'Aprano <steve at pearwood.info>:

> On Sat, 7 May 2016 06:50 pm, Marko Rauhamaa wrote:
>> Indian and Chinese H1B holders are getting screwed, which is of course
>> the whole objective of the country limits.
>
> The *whole* objective? You don't think that *part* of the objective
> may be to ensure that citizens of countries other than India and China
> can get green cards too? Given that there are only a limited number of
> green cards available overall, without per country limits it is
> conceivable that they would all go to people from one or two
> countries.

And? If 40% of the humanity happens to live in China and India, they
should have a 40% chance at getting in if you were targeting some kind
of ethnic fairness.

However, the whole ethnic consideration is silly at best, cruel at
worst. You should only look at human beings as individuals.

> Perhaps the country limits are also in place, at least in part, to
> manage the rate at which new immigrants arrive in the country?

No, there's a separate annual total maximum.

> It's not that country limits act as a permanent barrier to getting a green
> card. It's a per year limit, and there is a first-come, first-served queue
> system in place. If an applicant is otherwise eligible for a green card,
> the country limit will only delay, not prevent, them from getting a green
> card.

If you do the math, the wait times grow without bounds. In the end, they
may grow longer than your lifetime.

>> How this relates to Python? Well, I bet thousands of Asian Python coders
>> in the United States are under the threat of deportation because of
>> country limits.
>
> I'm not sure why you think that "H1B holders" are at threat of
> deportation. So long as they meet the conditions of the work visa,
> they are entirely entitled to stay and work in the country.

An H1B is only good for 6 years max. From then on, you'll be out of
status. You might still get some kind of provision to stay while you
wait for your paperwork to be processed, but as far as I know, you are
not allowed to exit the United States while you wait.

I was an H1B holder. Because of an amusing bureaucratic adventure (the
INS lost my paperwork and would only lift a finger after a court found
the United States in contempt), I ran out of status and was subject to
deportation for a couple of years. Luckily, I was part of a special
legal provision that allowed you to get a green card as long as you had
started the process before a particular date. One of the final steps in
the process was to file the actual green card application. One of the
questions on the application form was: "Are you in the country legally?"
I answered, "No," and the form instructed me to add $1,000 to the
application fee.

My process took five years.

> There are good arguments for removing the H1B programme. It's used to
> flood the market with relatively cheap labour made up of people who
> are less likely to unionise and more likely to put up with bad
> treatment, and drive wages down for others in the same field. But the
> inequities of the H1B programme are not caused by the existence of
> country limits.

I don't think I ever ran into that phenomenon. It's of course difficult
to measure based on individual experiences alone.

What I can tell from the current labor market in Finland is that it is
very difficult to find any*body*, let alone any native, who'd *apply*
for decent, run-of-the-mill software development jobs. And Finland is in
a slump, with constant news of IT layoffs, especially considering the
ongoing Nokia/Microsoft implosion. It's really weird.

I have never run into a situation where the employer has decided to hire
a software developer based on a salary bidding competition. What
companies are doing is they are outsourcing whole projects or products
to, say, Latvian or Russian companies, but that has little to do with
guest worker policies.


Marko