Vice President Mike Pence on US Jobs, H1B and Corporate Tax Reforms
By Sharanya Gopinathan
Photo Courtesy: U.S. Customs and Border Protection via Flickr CC 2.0
Several news outlets reported yesterday on the panic that holders of the H1B temporary work visa to the United States are feeling after a draft of a proposed executive order decreeing a crackdown on such visas was leaked by news agencies. Outlets like Buzzfeed and CNN even stylishly reported that India was freaking out over the proposed changes. The changes are thought to include, among others, a doubling of the minimum salary required for h1b visa to $130,000 and making a US Masters degree mandatory for H1B visa holders.
What many outlets forgot to mention though, was the impact the proposed executive order might have on holders of the H4 visa, issued to spouses of H1B visa holders. Until very recently, those on the H4 visa werent allowed work in the United States, which naturally meant that they wereexcluded from the labour market, and thattheir legal and financial status was tied to that of their spouses immigration status. Ninetypercent of H4 visa holders are women, often highly educated and skilled spouses of employees in the IT sector. Being on the H4 visa meant that these women were virtually imprisoned, and it was after extensive coverage of their position that in May 2015, H4 visa holders were finally allowed to apply for Employment Authorization Documents to work in the United States.
If the word on the street is true though, the proposed visa crackdown couldmean that H4 visa holders (80 percent of whom are Indian) will have their much sought-after right to work in the United States heavily curtailedor removed entirely, reverting themto living under a highly restrictive visa regime. As seems to be the case with anything that Donald Trumpdoes now, we just have to hold our breath, hope for the best and expect the absolute worst.
How Donald Trump"s Action on H1B Visa Effect Indian NRI"s in USA? || Story Board || Full || NTV
What exactly US President Donald Trump intends to do about the H1B in the near future has Indian IT perched on the edge of their seats in nervous anticipation, if not anxiety.
There"s good reason for their paranoia. Around 65 percent of the 65,000 H1B petitions approved a few years ago (out of around 230,000) went to outsourcing firms in India of the likes of TCS, Cognizant, Infosys, and Wipro. These companies make a good chunk of their annual revenue from sending engineers to the US on projects, after which they are supposed to return home. Infosys, for instance, rakes in at least 60 percent of its revenues in this fashion.
Any decision, whether a cap on the visas or another hefty fee increase, will be a blow to an industry that is already seeing flatlining growth and a murky, if not perilous future.
So when Trump started ranting against the program last year while on the campaign trail, alarm bells in the industry began to ring. A March 2016 post on Trump"s website quoted him as saying: "The H1B program is neither high-skilled nor immigration: these are temporary foreign workers, imported from abroad, for the explicit purpose of substituting for American workers at lower pay." He later added: "If I am president, I will not issue any H1B visas to companies that replace American workers and my Department of Justice will pursue action against them."
Some say that, despite all this fire and brimstone, Trump has been contradictory and ambiguous, pointing to a rash of statements such as the one made during a Republican debate in March last year when he declared that he was "softening" his position, because "we have to have talented people in this country." However, he has also on multiple occasions talked about enhancing the tech talent in the country by giving graduate students an easy path to obtaining greencards, which could be more what that statement was about than anything else.
That said, his choice for attorney general, Alabama senator Jeff Sessions, is a ferocious and vocal critic of the H1B and will no doubt do his best to influence the president if his nomination goes through.
A MIDDLE GROUND?
Recent events have deepened the mystery. According to Reuters, Trump"s senior advisor Stephen Miller suggested deep-sixing the existing lottery system for the H1Bs and replacing it with visa petitions for jobs that pay the highest salaries. This is something that the Electrical and Electronics Engineers, that industry"s largest professional association, approves.
Reuters also suggests that at a meeting with the country"s tech titans a month or so ago, Trump was apparently not so energised to take a scythe to the visa program and "seemed to be searching for middle ground." Apparently, a dozen of the top tech executives in the country were in a huddle with him to try and figure this out. Amongst them was Microsoft"s Satya Nadella, who apparently tried to impress upon Trump the importance of being able to recruit from abroad when necessary. (In fact, both Nadella and Sundar Pichai, the boss at Google, probably benefitted from the H1B in their own career trajectories, which is as good a case as any for the benefits of the H1B.)
The ultimate irony however is that Trump has himself used the H2B programs to hire low-skill workers from Mexico, a visa program that has been heavily criticized by US government watchdogs for failing to protect American workers" rights. Trump"s team will also not disclose whether his wife Melania was on an h1b -- she has admitted to being on a visa -- in the 1990s when she was modeling in New York.
Nevertheless, what matters here is Trump"s inclinations within the tech firmament. What seems interesting about Trump"s role at the meeting was his apparent interest in potentially architecting the best solution for all -- dramatically different from his rhetoric on the stump. He was apparently keen to gauge whether one of the proposals on the table during the meeting that aimed at boosting the application fees as an effective way to thwart bulk filing of the visas was acceptable or not by the CEOs, to which they said that they had no objections. Reuters mentions that one of its sources at the meeting "didn"t think that the president was hostile to H1B visas," which is a dramatically different message to what was thought of last year.
A LONG HAUL
Meanwhile, most legal experts say that while some tweaks and minor tinkering can be done to the existing H1B process, effecting radical change would require a lengthy legal process with plenty of opposition in the form of challenges in courtrooms. Even changing the cap on the visa apparently will have to go through a Congressional approval process.
While that may be so, it is still probably an excruciating waiting game for Indian IT.
Mary edmonia lewis was a trailblazer who shattered racial barriers as the first professionalAfrican Americansculptor in the mid-1800s, becoming famous for her 1,408kg marble sculpture, The Death of Cleopatra.
In honouring Lewis on Wednesday, Google paid tribute to her artistic legacy and her effort to forge a path "for women and artists of colour".
"Today, we celebrate her and what she stands for - self-expression through art, even in the face of [adversity]," the Google citation reads.
National Freedom Day
February 1 is also observed in the US as National Freedom Day. On this day in 1865,President Abraham Lincoln submitted the 13th amendment - which called for abolition of slavery - to the state legislatures.
Born around July 1844, in New York, her father was of African Haitian origin and her mother of African American and Native American descent.
Lewis and her older half-brother, Samuel, were orphaned at a young age and raised by their maternal aunts, who lived near Niagara Falls, in northern New York state.
According to a Montana newspaper, Samuel started working as a barber at age 12, allowing him to support his sister. He would later become a respected barbershop entrepreneur in Bozeman, Montana.
At the age of 15, Lewis enrolled at Oberlin College, a private liberal arts school in the US state of Ohio. The year was 1859, and Oberlin was one of the very few institutions to admit women and people of colour at a time when slavery was still legal. It was at Oberlin where she began her arts studies.
In 1862, she was accused of poisoning two classmates. Lewis was subsequently badly beaten by anti-abolitionist vigilantes and arrested. She was later acquitted, but the incident prevented her from completing her degree.
Shortly after, she left Ohio and headed east, arriving in Boston in 1864 to pursue a career as a sculptor.
Working in a field that was at the time dominated by white men, she was repeatedly rejected by instructors, until she met Edward A Brackett, a sculptor whose clients included some well-known advocates for the abolition of slavery.
Lewis earned her name in Boston with her many works paying homage to abolitionists and heroes of the Civil War. Abolitionist publications also noticed her work, featuring her in magazines and newspapers.
Her local success and popularity in Boston made possible her decision to move to Rome, and it was in the Italian capital that she became a highly respected artist. There, she focused on naturalism and themes relating to African American and Native American issues, achieving both financial and critical acclaim.
But it was her Cleopatra sculpture for which she became most well-known. It was featured at the 1876 Centennial Expo in the US city of Philadelphia and is now part of the collection of the Smithsonian American Art Museum.
Black History Month
She was also commissioned in 1877 to work on a portrait of US President Ulysses S Grant.
Among her other works is the 1867 Forever Freemarble sculpture commemorating the ratification of the 13th Amendment. Ratified by sufficient state legislatures in December of that year, the amendment abolished slavery in the United States.
The National Freedom Day is the forerunner of Black History Month (BHM), which was conceived by a Harvard-trained historian in 1925.
In 1976, President Gerald R Ford urged Americans to "seize the opportunity to honour the too-often neglected accomplishments of black Americans in every area of endeavor throughout our history". Since then, every American president has officially proclaimed February as BHM.
Despite achieving phenomenal success, she remained rooted to her Native culture.
"There is nothing so beautiful as the free forest. To catch a fish when you are hungry, cut the boughs of a tree, make a fire to roast it, and eat it in the open air, is the greatest of all luxuries. I would not stay a week pent up in cities, if it were not for my passion for art," Edmonia Lewis, quoted in "Letter From L Maria Child," National Anti-Slavery Standard, February 27, 1864.
February 1, 2017, 8:04 AM| President Trump"s nominee for education secretary, betsy devos, is one step closer to confirmation, as the Senate education committee narrowly voted to support her. But now DeVos, who"s been criticized for her performance at the confirmation hearing and qualifications, is facing accusations that she plagiarized. Margaret Spellings, president of University of North Carolina and former education secretary under President George W. Bush, joins "CBS This Morning" to discuss some challenges the nominee may face if confirmed.
Lecrae - Fanatic w/lyrics SpaceXs most recently-launched Falcon 9 rocket, landed on a barge off the California coast. Image: SpaceX/Flickr
Following a successful Falcon 9 launch-and-barge-landing in California this month, SpaceX is now looking to get back in the swing of regular flight. But while the companys next two flights seem fairly routine on the surface, theyre going to be historic in one very important aspect.
Two upcoming SpaceX launchesa commercial satellite on January 30th, and a commercial resupply mission to the International Space Station in Februarywill depart from the historic Launch Complex 39A (LC-39A) at Kennedy Space Center. It marks the first use of the pad that sent humans to the Moon since the Space Shuttle era, and the first rockets to fly from Kennedy, period, in over five years. Since the Shuttle program was mothballed in 2011, all rockets launches off Space Coast have flown from the adjacent Cape Canaveral Air Force Station.
This is important for Kennedy, space historian Roger Launius, the former associate director for the Smithsonian Air and Space Museum, told Gizmodo. [Kennedy] has been spaceport USA throughout the space age, more than 60 years now. The fact that youve got a company [putting] money into rehabbing an existing facility means youve got work for the foreseeable future.
Built in the 1960s as part of President Kennedys Moonshot program, LC-39A is legendary among rocket buffs. It was the site of 12 Saturn V rocket launches during the Apollo era, including the Apollo 11 mission which sent Neil Armstrong, Buzz Aldrin, and Michael Collins to the Moon. After the Apollo program, LC-39A became the de facto launch pad for the Space Shuttle era. A full 80 Shuttle missions departing the Earth from this single piece of beachfront real estate between the early 1980s and the summer of 2011.
Combining the history of 39A with SpaceX is a perfect storm of joy for rocket fans.
When the Shuttle program was finally shuttered, LC-39A and Kennedy Space Center at large grew quiet for a few years. But in 2014, NASA granted SpaceX a 20-year exclusive lease to the pad, under an agreement that the rocket company would take over pad operation and maintenance costs. Since then, SpaceX has been busy refurbishing LC-39A for the Falcon 9 rocket and the larger, not-yet-revealed Falcon Heavy model.
Aerial view of LC-39A and LC-39B at Kennedy Space Center. Image: Josh Stevens/NASA Earth Observatory/USGS
Originally, SpaceX intended to use LC-39A primarily for crewed launches to the International Space Station, which are expected to start flying in 2018. But when a Falcon 9 rocket exploded just down the road last September, destroying a chunk of Cape Canaverals Space Launch Complex 40, plans to re-open Kennedy for spaceflights both crewed and uncrewed were accelerated.
Both pads are capable of supporting Falcon 9 and Falcon Heavy launches, SpaceX told SpaceNews.com last September, speaking of LC-39A and the companys launch site at Vandenberg Air Force Base in California. We are confident the two launch pads can support our return to flight and fulfill our upcoming manifest needs.
There are some key differences between how LC-39A was used in the past and how it will be used in 2017. Previously, the Shuttle was mated to its rocket boosters and external fuel tanks at the Vehicle Assembly Building a few miles away; it was then rolled down the road aboard a Crawler Transporter and loaded onto the launchpad. Now, SpaceX rockets will be processed at a new Horizontal Processing Facility constructed adjacent to 39A. The pad itself has been physically modified to accommodate Falcon 9 and Falcon Heavy rockets, although SpaceX declined to comment on the technical details of the renovations.
Birds eye view of SpaceXs Horizontal Processing Facility adjacent to Pad 39A at Kennedy Space Center. Image: NASA
If youve got a building that has been a warehouse, and you want to turn it into a restaurant, you have to make modifications, Roger Launius said. This is an order of magnitude more sophisticated than that analogy, but nonetheless, its the same sort of thing.
Are space buffs worried that LC-39A, a priceless legacy of the Moonshot era, will lose some of its historic character as it gets upgraded to accommodate modern rockets? Not exactly. According to Chris Bergin, managing editor for NASASpaceflight, the revival of a LC-39A is being greeted with unadulterated glee by most folks in the spaceflight community.
Seeing a famous old pad come back to life will be a huge positive for those who feel were now over the post-Shuttle retirement hill and looking to the future again, he told Gizmodo. Also, its SpaceX, they arewithout questionthe rock stars of space flight these days. Combining the history of 39A with SpaceX is a perfect storm of joy for rocket fans.
Correction: An earlier version of this post mis-identified the website that Chris Bergin is managing editor for. The text has been updated.
Liverpool vs Chelsea 1-1 All Goals & Extended Highlights Premier League 31/01/2017 HD Crystal Palace created more space between themselves and the relegation zone with a deserved 2-0 win over Bournemouth. Crystal Palace created more space between themselves and the relegation zone with a deserved 2-0 win over Bournemouth. Sam Allardyce has no gripes with his team"s showing against Bournemouth, and blasts the January transfer window.
Crystal Palace boss Sam Allardyce believes having games on transfer deadline day is a huge distraction for players and managers.
The comments came after the Eagles" 2-0 victory over Bournemouth at the Vitality Stadium, with Allardyce securing three points for the first time since joining the club, but the ex-England manager was less than happy with how the fixtures had fallen.
Palace announced the signing of Luka Milivojevic on a three-and-a-half year deal after the final whistle but Allardyce had no idea what deals had been done during the game.
He said: "I think the hard bit is the distraction. I had a player asking me if he was up for sale so that is what you get when you get this G*d-forsaken window.
"You get players being told information which is not true. Sometimes it has some validity in it but sometimes when you have a big game like we did and a player asks this, that shows just how bad this window is and just how bad it is putting a game on the same day.
"Our job is hard enough but to make it even harder than it already is, I really don"t accept.
"I think there should be some sensibility about the way they pick the fixtures but yet again they will probably ignore us like they do all the time and just carry on in their own way."
He added: "[Milivojevic] is going to bring great ability in both feet, really good passer.
"He loves the sitting midfielder role and along with his ability, he will hopefully be as good as he can very quickly.
"There is no guarantee but I am looking forward to working with him."
second-half goals from Scott Dann and Christian Benteke were enough to secure the visitors the three points at the Vitality Stadium, with the result keeping them two points behind 17th-placed Swansea.
Sam Allardyce is not impressed with the Premier League schedule: "Our job is hard enough!"
Allardyce said: "I think that win has been a long time coming for me. I think our work and efforts on and off the field are what our recovery is all about about.
"We have been asking the players to listen to slight changes to try and perform better.
"The game plan was played well today by the players and we were clinical in front of goal. We won comfortably in the end."
Bournemouth have failed to win a game in January and conceded at least two goals in six of their last seven home league fixtures and manager Eddie Howe believes his side need a confidence boost.
He said: "I believe in the squad. We are going through a difficult period, confidence levels have been knocked, the only way to improve is to work hard on the training ground.
"We had a lot of possession and we didn"t do a lot with it. You could tell the confidence was knocked, there were lots of backwards passes, we need to build on it.
"The results have not been what we want, that is the reality, the players are human."
Isaiah Thomas Full Highlights 2017.01.30 vs Pistons - 41 Pts, 8 Ast, 24 Pts in 4th Quarter!
Of all the ridiculous offensive numbers that Boston Celtics All-Star point guard Isaiah Thomas has put up this season, there may be none more impressive than this: Thomas is averaging a league-best 34.2 points per game on the second night of back-to-backs.
In a league that"s trying desperately to cut down on the number of back-to-backs and game-heavy stretches, Thomas is the anti-DNP Rest movement. The 5-foot-9 guard saves some of his best basketball for when he"s had the least rest. What"s more, Thomas is averaging more than three points better than his nearest competitor (Russell Westbrook, 30.9) for scoring on the second nights of back-to-backs.
The only player in the last 20 years to average more points per game on the second nights of back-to-backs is one of Thomas" idols, Allen Iverson, who averaged 34.9 points during the 2004-05 season.
"I know the thing about back-to-backs, you just have to lock in a little bit more," said Thomas. "Its more mental than anything because youre tired. Youre obviously tired from playing the night before. I just try to stay locked in, try to take advantage of my opportunity, and make the plays my teammates need me to make."
Isaiah Thomas34.2Russell Westbrook30.9James Harden29.2LeBron James28.6DeMarcus Cousins28.5--via ESPN Stats and Info
The Celtics are 8-3 in the second game of back-to-backs this year thanks in large part to Thomas. In his last seven games on the tail end of back-to-backs, he"s averaging 39.1 points per game, which included a 52-point outburst against the Miami Heat in late December. Thomas set a franchise record by producing a 29-point fourth quarter that night.
That Miami game came at the end of an absolutely brutal December schedule that saw Boston fly halfway around the world as part of 15 flights in a road-heavy slate.
The Celtics had a more agreeable January in terms of road games but this month"s schedule featured four sets of back-to-backs, including one instance of the much-feared stretch of four games in five nights. Boston went 3-1 during that stretch, which culminated with an overtime victory in Milwaukee on Saturday.
Thomas scored 37 points while carrying the Celtics early in that Milwaukee game. Despite all his fourth-quarter heroics this season -- he leads the NBA by averaging 10 points per game in the fourth quarter -- even Thomas looked mortal while going scoreless over the final 9:33 of Saturday"s game. That his teammates were able to pick him up was an encouraging sign for Boston.
The Celtics play six more back-to-backs this season. Maybe coach Brad Stevens needs to start running Thomas through simulated games on offdays to ensure he"s at peak performance on game nights.
Thomas" splits by the amount of rest are uncanny. He plays more minutes, scores more points, and shoots more efficiently from the field with the least amount of rest. It"s likely a reflection of his teammates being tired as well but Thomas has routinely stepped up in those situations.
isaiah Thomas Based on Days RestRestGamePPGMINFG pct.3PT pct.0 days1134.235.750.644.41 days2027.232.845.036.22 days828.835.543.632.8Via NBA.com/stats
The Celtics play their 14th and final game of January on Monday night when they host the Detroit Pistons. Thomas is averaging 32.3 points per game this month and has an outside shot at making a run at Paul Pierce"s team record for points per game in a month (33.5 in February 2006).
Thomas would need to score 50 points in order to pass Pierce and, while that sounds unlikely, you can"t rule it out based on Thomas" exploits this season (though maybe it"d be more likely if Boston had played Sunday).
Thomas will, however, emerge as the best January scorer in franchise history. Larry Bird averaged a franchise-best 29.5 points per game during the 1987-88 season, according to ESPN Stats and Info, but Thomas could go scoreless and still finish ahead of Bird.
