The H-1B skilled-worker program, bringing in talent or displacing Americans?
Elon Musk and Vivek Ramaswamy are championing the use of the H-1B skilled-worker visa programs to bring in talent. One argument they advanced is that we are competing against other countries in artificial intelligence development and in other technology arenas. To be able to compete with these other countries, one of the things we need to do is to bring in legal immigrants for skilled technology related professions. However, those who oppose this argument point to abuses of this program to bring in unskilled or mediocre skilled foreigners to do the jobs Americans are qualified to do.
From The Washington Post:
As Trump previews a hard-line immigration policy including militarized mass deportation of illegal immigrants, many in the tech industry are pushing him to expand legal immigration for high-skilled workers. Some argue the shift is necessary for the United States to remain competitive with China.
High-skilled immigration emerged as one of the top flash points between Trump and Silicon Valley during his first presidency. Although Trump at times acknowledged the need for American companies to recruit top talent, his administration limited the H-1B program. Stephen Miller, who helped craft some immigration policies during the first Trump administration, is returning to the White House as Trump’s deputy chief of staff for policy and homeland security adviser.
The online debate reverberated among Washington lawmakers, who have long pursued ways to improve the H-1B program. Rep. Ro Khanna, a Democrat who represents Silicon Valley, defended Krishnan and said he supported reforming the H-1B program.
“We should celebrate that immigrants like Elon Musk, Jensen Huang and Sriram Krishnan choose to come to the United States,” he told The Washington Post. “This has fueled our economic and technology preeminence. I am glad Sriram is being appointed.”
The restrictions of H-1B visas during Trump’s first term faced fierce opposition from major tech companies. During the pandemic, Trump temporarily froze H-1B visas in a move the administration said would help Americans experiencing job loss. That same year, the Trump administration also introduced new rules tightening eligibility for H-1B visas and requiring companies to offer higher salaries to people on the visas. A federal judge later rejected some of the rules, including the salary provision.
Additional Reading:
Verma, P. & Zakrewski, C. (2024, December 27). A MAGA ‘Civil War’ on X between Musk and the far right over H-1B visas. The Washington Post. Link.
Category: Economy, Science and Technology, Society
I have no real issue with LEGAL immigration for people that want to come here, become Americans, and work for a living. I am a little curious if the push for these type Visas are to get “qualified” workers or just a mass of people that are willing to work for less pay.
H-1B skilled-worker visa programs is supposed to bring in workers that companies cannot find an American worker, anywhere, and NOT just what the company wants to pay.
This. It’s a double edged sword. If it’s used to bring in skilled people you can’t get otherwise, fantastic. If it’s used to bring in skilled people who will do the job cheaper, not so good. Didn’t Disney pull some shit like that a few years back? Replaced most of their IT people with H-1B immigrants?
How about offering training to American people who want to learn the job. I’m sure there are plenty of people who may have the background but not been offered the opportunity to expand their skill sets. Start there first.
I’m good with that.
Not in this current crop of maladroits we have to deal with. They cannot handle the idea of having to work at all for the most part.
THIS. They want to come in at 8:30 and leave ay 4:00.
I work with a lot of young folks – in tech, I do see some come in at 9 and leave at 4. But then I see them doing work at midnight, on weekends, and everywhere in-between too.
We should judge people by modern standards; folks want, and can have, flexibility. If they get their work done, I don’t care if it’s at 9:05am from an office, or 3am from a ski lodge in the Alps.
There is or are plenty of training opportunities for folks to get that kind of education. Problem is, the idiots taking gender studies outnumber them drastically.
Yep, there is a vast number of colleges and universities, trade schools, and community colleges available throughout the US. There are even online classes and certifications available. Probably more and better resources than those H-1B visa applicants had to get their expertise.
The cases are legion where large American companies brought in H-1B visa emigrants to take jobs that were being performed by higher paid US citizens. Many in Silicon Valley found they were being tasked with training their Indian replacements to take over their jobs just before they were fired. It was a great cost saver for the companies doing so.
In Vermont Bernie and the gang sold EB-5 visas to CHINA for a $500.000 investment in Vermont. We still have people in jail for it,
It can be both, obviously.
The tech companies definitely abuse the system to bring in cheap labor who are largely beholden to their employer.
And anyone who says the foreign-born talent is leaps and bounds better than American folks in tech is simply lying – there are good people everywhere… and bad people everywhere. I’ve been on interviews where a foreign candidate with a great looking resume was answering every question we had by reading a response to said question from ChatGPT.
If HR is fooled by seeing tons of foreign-born applicants claiming 20+ years of experience with a technology that’s existed for 10 years, that’s not because Americans are behind, it’s because that HR department is full of idiots, or complicit in a drive to lower personnel costs at all costs, including taking jobs from Americans.
Let’s definitely bring in exceptional people, but let’s also not claim there are none here.
It makes one wonder why all the big name tech people are making their way to maralago. It sounds like both elon and ramaswamy are both for the H1B visas and would like to see them continued.
According to surveys, the majority of US citizens do not want more H-1B visa emigrants. We should be training our own citizens to do these jobs, not importing more third-worlders. Once they are here, they tend to chain migrate the rest of their families, including parents and grandparents who end up on Social Security SSI disability benefits.
There’s no mystery. They suck up to whoever has power. Contrary to Democrat propaganda, big business gives money to, and gets favors from, Democrats as well as Republicans, and always has.
It’s not just “tech” companies. Drive by any construction site and listen to the language spoken. Or all the landscaping & lawn maintenance people. Or the staff of many restaurants.
The language spoken on residential construction sites is almost exclusively Spanish. I had a client many years ago who had a framing business building residential houses. He went bust because he could not afford to compete with the framers using illegals from south of the border. On every job, they underbid him because he used legal workers and had to pay for workers compensation and payroll taxes. Whereas his competitors were paying cash under the table to their workers, in addition to lower wages.
but, but but… Illegal immigrants make our nation better!!
Yep, progressivism is a mental disorder..
I know a house painter who did very good work who lost at least one job to folks who spoke English as a second language. He worked by himself, but he was underbid by a contractor who used four or five workers.
Having worked a bit of construction myself, the replacement of Americans, white and black, by Hispanics seems to be a relatively recent phenomenon.
I seriously doubt those workers are on any kind of visa, let alone H-1B.
Phil Monkress of All Points Logistics is all in for this visa program. For the last ten years he has had no luck in finding American workers willing to go on to military blogs and attack anyone questioning his claims of being a US Navy SEAL.
And Phil Monkress (CEO of All-Points Logistics) can steal from them and get away with it all the while culturally appropriating their identity.
Hmmm. I would have thought that Elon and Vivek would have their plates overflowing with the work to make the GOVERNMENT more efficient, not Silicon Valley.
The answer is simple; cut the federal work force and let the private sector hire all those skilled workers. Win-win.
Yeah, but are those soon-to-be ex-Government “workers’ even hirable in the private sector? Many have heads chock full of laziness and DEI.
Oh,I’m sure they are “hirable”; they will have great resumes and references. The question is are they “keepable”.
In my area, most of the farm labour is by Mexicans and Jamaicans. Has been for decades.
If it weren’t for them, the produce would rot before it makes it to the market. Not that we don’t have our own people who could be doing this job, they are too lazy/addicted.
At least the local fat chicks get lovin from the Jamaicans. Heifers that I wouldn’t touch with Lars’s angry lil dong
And expanding the shallow end of the gene pool.. another reason to oppose illegal immigration.
That gene pool didn’t have a deep end to begin with!
May as well piss in the gene pool too
Elon Musk gets called out, deletes the account criticizing him, then deletes all the posts showing the evidence:
You’re gonna have to bring more proof than that, laddie.
Laura Loomer is claiming he censored her account too:
https://www.newsweek.com/laura-loomer-sharpens-attack-elon-musk-2006961
Better yet, and I was skeptical of this one at first, Musk seems to have been caught using a sock puppet, as seen here:
https://tribune.com.pk/story/2518902/elon-musks-alleged-burner-account-adrian-dittman-exposed-after-using-it-to-defend-himself-on-x
My skepticism largely faded when the voice-altered sock-puppet was talking about ‘Elon’ and slipped up and used the first-person ‘me’.
It would be nice to know what the original subject of the discussion was. I like to make up my own mind rather than go along with accusations and innuendo. Of course, its a free country so you can believe whatever rumors and gossip you wish to.
Pretty hilarious how quickly we went from deporting all the illegals to importing more immigrants to steal American jobs and Trump isn’t even in office yet.
You do understand the difference between legal and illegal immigration, right?
Yea, I understand that both take away opportunities from people already in the country. Why spend more time and resources to educate and advance our own populace when you can just bring in desperate foreigners and overwork and underpay them?
You’re glossing over the gap in available trained people that exists until we can train up our own workforce. We’ve shot ourselves in the ass by producing consumers instead of producers. We need to spend the time and resources on educating and training the people we need. Too many people have been “educated” to depend on the government, to feel entitled to the things they desire, to not have to put in the work. There are many factors in play here.
I believe that, had our colleges and universities not been turned into leftist reeducation camps, and if these same institutions had focused on science and engineering instead of gender-bending, orange-man bad and lesbian dance theory, we wouldn’t be having this conversation.
Indubitably.
(“Hell yeah, honkey mofos!!)
h/t… Robin Williams in the 1983 classic The Survivors (also God bless Jerry Reed and Walter Mathau)
Looks like Trump sided with Elon on this one.
Elon keeps setting the agenda.
So MAGA has two daddies.
Very progressive of them. Is MAGA woke now?
Aren’t you on a working vacation with sniffy Joe waiting for his call … ” oh piss boy”?
Agreed, it doesn’t look good, but I’m willing to give it a couple days to see what shakes out.
Also, isn’t the Washington post on the same level as a grocery store tabloid one reads in the checkout line waiting for the line to move?
You can just admit you’re waiting for your new talking points to come out. And if the Washington Post is too woke a source for you, Trump posted his statement on his own social media platform that he owns. I suppose the wokies got to Truth Social as well.
As I said, I’m willing to give it a couple days to see what happens. In the meantime, I found this, and according to this, it’s Indian companies (dots, not feathers) bringing in a good majority of the people.
https://threadreaderapp.com/thread/1873174358535110953.html
“I downloaded five years of H-1B data…”
No fair! That guy uses actual data!
Work on your troll game. Amateur.
“Woke” is terminal and on life support. It’s one of the greatest frauds ever perpetrated. You’re right behind it. You may go now.
Sadly, rumors of the imminent death of “woke” are greatly exaggerated. To quote the late Jesus Christ, “The poor you shall always have with you”. That includes the poor of intellect.
Sobered up long enough to shitpost huh Lars? What’s your New Years resolution? To spend more time as a ” medic” and soros funded riots?
He’s very proud of his stupidity, thus he just HAS to showcase it for us here from time to time!
Major Moonbat, I’m just reminding you that there are only 21 shopping days left until the Inauguration, have yourself a TRUMP Day, MAGA all the way!!!
Our schools need to do better.
This is a skill question, not one of IQ, or of discipline. There is simply no greater tool capable of dominating the future than the American.
We are not a monolith. But a patchwork of different cultures whose edges blend in agreed upon ways.
Subtile and dynamic. Determined and recalcitrant.
Fuck everyone else. You come here, and you ain’t from here, you fucking gotta go.
Jingoistic? Fuckin’-a-right, doggy.