Jobs, spies, foreign indentured servants and other musings.

America did something it should have done a long time ago, it sent yet another signal that the recruiting pipeline of technical computer related foreign workers has run its course. I am guessing the H-1B visa program is under strict surveillance for abuse or is about to be stopped and the Green Card pipeline (from H-1B to permanent residency and eventually to naturalized citizenship) is now being cutoff. I have written about this before and am surprised that it took this long. I have written about it as an insider. I was a tech recruiter and I have recruited many H-1B candidates from many different countries including one from China, several from India and others from Turkey and Romania.

The way I see it is there are two distinct issues. A country like China uses their entire diaspora in any way possible. There is an expectation that every Chinese person and their kin and future kin are expected to bring back something of value to the homeland that is China. If necessary, China sends strongmen to pressurize people, although most Chinese who have left families in China that can be threatened tend to cooperate (I’d guess, I don’t have proof).

India on the other hand does not use its diaspora for spying and I say that mainly because of the state of that country in terms of progress. I don’t need to prove it, I could just say “look at what China has accomplished and look at India.” Therefore, the only thing I can say is that the optics look bad here but not as bad as China’s. I mean, think about it, Microsoft was singled out as the biggest abuser of a system that imports cheap labor and suppresses American jobs and wages. And the CEO of Microsoft Satya Nadella was both honored and disgraced the same day. It’s not a good look when the CEO is Indian and most of the cheap labor imported is also Indian. Still they aren’t spies. Things could always be a lot worse.

I simply hope that the same amount of care and diligence is paid to the threat from China.

Note: I’d call the H-1 workers as cheap labor not foreign indentured servants like the VP does. Then again, civil servants don’t have to be civil.