H1B is ripe with abuse - this article by Bloomberg says that half of all H1-B visas are used by Indian staffing firms that pay significantly lower than the US laborers they are replacing:
- https://www.bloomberg.com/graphics/2025-h1b-visa-middlemen-c...
If the US loses its massive lead in the network effects of a large labor pool, the amount of work in the US will shrink, both by moving to other countries and less overall innovation.
This is not a beneficial move for most software engineers.
How many people on here can truly say that they were considering between two different countries. That doesn’t happen at scale.
There is a global competition for coming to Western Europe, Canada, and the US
Hi!
I know I'm just a datum, but I gotta represent myself.
The slate of policy choices in the US is removing it from that list of countries, and will strengthen those countries' labor forces.
Right now SV salaries command a huge premium, because all of SV is predicated on increasing productivity, increasing the economic pie, and rewarding those who do so with a fraction of that gain in GDP.
Treating SV labor like plumbing or construction labor fundamentally misunderstands the dynamics and the creation of wealth.
/me
I started in Slovenia, considered London, actually got an offer in Canada, but ultimately chose San Francisco. Figured that if I’m going to the trouble of moving abroad, I might as well go to the center of the industry.
Got lots of friends who chose various EU companies based on desired lifestyle/work/partner balance. You have lots of options as a good engineer. Especially before the last 3 years of market shenanigans.
SV labor is largely not different than a skilled trade, except at the higher levels.
During last century, USA has been the most benefited from that kind of immigration.
Personally I think that this is a very short sighted decision by USA administration. But overall, I think that this will benefit the rest of the world. Maybe in a few years even USA will start exporting their best minds abroad!
That's where the massive salaries come from, that massive wealth creation. It's not just taking larger chunks of a fixed size pie.
This is inaccurate. The U.S. had a highly restrictionist immigration system from 1921-1965. The foreign born population dropped from almost 15% to under 5% by 1970.
During that time, the U.S. had a small number of highly skilled immigrants, such as German scientists fleeing the Nazi regime. You’re talking about a very small number of truly exceptional people. A $100k/year fee is not going to shut down this kind of immigration.
I relocated to Amsterdam from India. When I got to know about the salaries my peers were making in the same company but in the US I felt like a fool. Being a manager I had access to compensation data so yeah it was hard to not feel being done by.
The leaders/parties supporting immigration in those countries are ambivalent to receiving high skill immigrants or refugees.
Source: DHS Yearbook, https://ohss.dhs.gov/topics/immigration/yearbook/2019/table1...
We have been around 1 million per year for decades. If we still had that policy, adjusted for population you’re talking about cutting legal immigration by one-third to one-half.
And that’s not counting a large increase in “gray market” legal immigration (TPS, asylum, etc.)
Sure some electrical capacity goes to non-productive uses, but much of it is also spent doing things like enabling widespread computer usage.
SV labor is downstream of skilled trades.
As someone who lived in all three geographies and interacted with immigrants who lived in there, here is my raw take:-
Western Europe:- Love it and people are so nice but they are also (I am sorry to say) racist. Proof:- How many immigrant CEO's do you see from companies based in Western Europe? The top 4 largest tech companies in the US have two indian CEO's for more than 10 years now.
Canada:- Super nice and immigrant friendly more than the US, but the size of the country (approx 10% of the US) doesn't have the financial/economic/social infrastructure that is needed to support a large number of immigrants. Also tech salaries are miserable compared to the US
US:- For all its faults, US is truly the only country where immigrants looking for a better future can immigrate and assimilate into. For how long this lasts remains to be seen but I don't think that is going to change anytime soon.
The US, UK, and Canada all have special provisions in their immigration programs aimed at attracting and prioritizing highly-skilled workers.
Both the UK [1] and Canada [2] both use a points-based ranking system that prioritizes highly-skilled immigrants. The UK system is clear in its goals:
> introduce an Immigration Bill to bring in a firm and fair points-based system that will attract the high-skilled workers we need to contribute to our economy, our communities and our public services.
And while the US H1-B program is lottery-based, 20,000 slots are reserved for people who hold a master's degree from a U.S. institution. Proposals have also been made recently to change to a points-based system. [3]
> They built themselves into places that high skill immigrants seek, but that is more of a side effect than a competition
Wherever there is choice, there is competition. 55% of billion dollar startups in the US have immigrant founders, employing an average of 1,200 employees each [4]. If these people don't come to the US and start companies, the US will feel the effects - even if they were just "side effects".
[1] https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/the-uks-points-ba...
[2] https://www.canada.ca/en/immigration-refugees-citizenship/se...
[3] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/RAISE_Act
[4] https://www.fosterglobal.com/blog/55-of-americas-billion-dol...
This choosiness is actually a sign that immigrants are competing to enter those countries. The points based system is (in theory) a way to identify the ones we want.
That said, illegals and “refugees” outnumber H1Bs, further reinforcing that Western countries don’t care about global talent.
It goes both ways. A more streamlined application process and straightforward path to permanent residency is a draw to would-be immigrants who qualify.
I won't discuss illegal immigration or asylum here as those exist for different reasons, other than to say that it's a logical fallacy to assume that just because A is bigger than B, a country doesn’t care about B.