The proposal does not give a blanket approval for spouses of H1-B workers to work. It only allows spouses, for those H1-B holders who have maxed out the original 6 years on their visa and are now awaiting their turn in line for Green Cards (which for India and China is ridiculously long).
But it still is progress.
I'd hope they remove country based discrimination in EB visas. And better yet pass immigration reform sooner rather than later.
For a country founded on the "self evident truth" that "all men are created equal", it is really sad to see discriminatory lines based on the "country of birth" [1]. It's not even based on nationality, but on country of birth, so applicants are effectively being considered "created differently" depending on random circumstances at birth.
The citizenship vs. birth country thing bums me. I have two nationalities and with the one that's not from my birth country I would be eligible to the diversity visa lottery :/
This really gives me second thoughts about going into CS, as someone who was born in India (but is now a Canadian citizen (which apparently doesn't matter at all)).
> a country founded on the "self evident truth" that "all men are created equal"
This is the "proposition nation" myth: the idea that America is not a normal nation of a people with a heritage. Instead America is merely a place with some abstract ideals.
This is of course complete hogwash. The founders were very much aware of Americans as a distinct people, despite written nods to some universalist enlightenment philosophe prattle.
This gets into the real problem: You have a bunch of H1-Bs who have passed labor certification, and will in 95% of all cases get a green card the minute a visa number is available for them, and yet, they can't really switch employers easily, and by the time the application is due, the'll probably be doing a very different job.
So why have a green card limit for H1-B applicants? After they apply, they can work in the US for an indefinite period anyway. So the only difference is that they spend 3-10 years with limited rights that actually depress everyone's salaries. After that much time in the US, they have already immigrated: They probably own a house, their children are American.
Get rid of the yearly quota for people already in the country: It's not as if a more mobile workforce that is already here is a problem.
There have have few proposals that give blanket approval for spouses of H1-B: The Senate bill of 2013 does, and few House proposals as well, like the House SKILLS Visa Act (https://www.govtrack.us/congress/bills/113/hr2131/text).
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?
The diversity argument is turned on its head - esp. when there is legislation to legalize "illegal/undocumented" workers who are mostly from Latin America and primarily from Mexico. Indians are not even 1% of US population. The Green Card caps per country is absolute joke.
Applicants from any single 'country of chargeability' cannot exceed 7% of the total number of available employment-based green cards in a year [1].
In practice, someone from Iceland or Tuvalu can get an EB (category 2) visa in about a year, whereas the average for someone from India or China is more like 5-6 years [2].
In which we learn that there is not such thing as non-bias. Whether de facto or de jure, there are always biases. Either a person chooses them, or nature chooses them. There is no universally "fair" distribution over a scarce commodity.
> India and China are vast countries, the diversity should also take into account population/area of the country on which limits are enforced.
It is not clear to me how having a diverse country that is not dominated by immigrants from one or two ethnicities arrives from letting this happen. Or how it is fair to the guy from random tiny country X when he has to compete against two largest sources of immigrants to this country.
There's a separate category specifically designed to diversify the source nation of incoming immigrants -- the DV (lottery) green cards. It has a quota of 50,000 visa per year, as compared to around 77,000 for all of EB-2 & EB-3. The purpose of those visas is supposed to be bringing qualified workers into the United States, additional restrictions just hurt that goal.
Furthermore, it doesn't make any sense to treat each country as if it were equal size. The per country employment based limit is not much less than Tuvalu's entire population.
There is no "per country employment based limit". It doesn't matter if you were born in France or Tuvalu, everyone gets an equal shot at the H1B. The "per country limit" is for a more permanent status. I see no problem in the country deciding that it doesn't want to become a homogenous society dominated by one ethnicity. This is completely different from employment based equality.
Thing is, its not even ethnicity that decides the cap. Its 'place of birth'. If you are an Indian citizen, born in the UK, you get to skip the Indian line.
Still, I see no basis for discrimination based on place of birth, ethnicity, race, caste, creed, color etc. when I can do my job right and be good at it. I would agree that if it were a lottery or family based immigration, such caps could prevent chain immigration. However, employment based visas having that cap makes absolutely no sense and blatantly discriminates.
Employment based (EB) is the name of one of two major categories of permanent resident visas. It's a term of art that doesn't include H1Bs. Given that what you quoted included the term EB I thought that was rather clear.
As for one ethnicity dominating the country -- the entire permanent resident visa program subject to the 7% rule is only 366,000 visas per year or .1% of the population. Even if all of those visas went only to Indians and Chinese the US would be in no danger of being "dominated" by one (or rather two) ethnicities. In any event on the family based side, which has a larger allocation than the employment based, it is Filipinos and Mexicans who face the longest waits, not Indians and Chinese. Finally the mapping between ethnicities and countries of birth is not one to one.
But it still is progress.
I'd hope they remove country based discrimination in EB visas. And better yet pass immigration reform sooner rather than later.
Edit: Here is the link to the original proposal: http://www.reginfo.gov/public/do/eAgendaViewRule?pubId=20121....