I have no problem with foreign labor growing our economy in ways that the local labor cannot; I have a problem with systematically disempowering that labor to make it more attractive than equally capable domestic labor, because it cannot negotiate or advocate for itself effectively.
An H1B program that addresses these power dynamics and stops undermining the rights of worker will reach equilibrium and show what American workers can do and what should be hired for externally.
This issue is about capital vs labor, don’t miss the forest for the trees.
Disempowered workers is the whole point of the H1B program. Also, what is the point of importing all this labor to replace a local labor pool when we have a global internet, zoom, GitHub, basically free international calls, etc. If works needs to be done on site, why not move the company to India or whoever the labor is needed so it’s not so disruptive to families and workers?
I think your second point answers your first: it is better for the US to import talent than to export companies, so if that’s the choice then these programs are no-brainers.
But what I fear is the belief that it is better to have a poorly educated populace plus imported talent than it is to have a well educated populace. That seems to be the real policy issue here and it’s kind of terrifying.
For real. Elon should just open up a large Bangalore office. He would have no shortage of the best and brightest (Tesla is highly regarded in India, right?) and that would help give him more leverage to reduce pricing there, and given how many Indians I see driving Teslas in USA, BMW/Mercedes/audi there would have good reasons to worry.
I’m not anti H1B at all, I more think it’s a shame how limited they are to just tech. Please oh please bring us more doctors. Our stupid arbitrary caps on annual doctors produced is part of the healthcare cost problem. Even if we dropped that, we’ve already brainwashed ourselves to believe med school is a 6+ figure expense
H1b visas are not limited to tech, doctors and other professions can use them too. In fact, it's easier to get an H1B as a doctor, since many hospitals are non-profit, so the number of such H1B visas is not numerically limited
That's an under-regarded source for a lot of odd business behavior. I would guess that directors (managers of managers) and up derive most of their job satisfaction from being obeyed, yet it's hardly mentioned.
Then by all means have a good chunk of the compensation packages directed to the non-citizens go towards massive checks for the citizens that (as loosely defined to include the widest possible group) the fraud and abuse of the program since it was popularized.
If you want the best and brightest, it shouldn’t be a problem to pay for the damages towards citizens.
100% agree. And I’m not sure what the fix should be… does fixing the power dynamics of the H1B accelerate the offshoring of knowledge workers? Certainly, my PE-owned employer is a MASSIVE proponent of offshore “centers of excellence” and the majority of our hiring is in Bangalore IN or Puebla MX. Cheaper and easier than H1B, I assume.
I think we should zoom out a level. Why is the H1B so well tailored to bringing in underpaid foreign labor and making them powerless in the employment relationship? It’s because large business interests have captured government.
It’s the same reason the government never really cracks down on illegal immigration. Illegal immigration could be cut by an order of magnitude by strictly enforcing the laws against employing them. This is never done, or even proposed. Why? Because large business interests benefit from the way things are. The purpose of the system isn’t to prevent illegal immigration, it’s to provide a underclass of cheap, powerless labor.
Until this government capture is reversed, we’ll never have rules that are beneficial for the average American or the average immigrant, except possibly by accident.
In a free market, businesses are supposed to use regulations to their advantage. If the regulations don't achieve their goals, legislators are supposed to change them. The latter part often doesn't happen in the US. Not because the Congress is captured by business interests, but because it's dysfunctional.
And the society as a whole is somehow unwilling to admit that the US needs large-scale immigration to function. Just like almost every other developed country. At the high end, every developed country is a net importer of talent in industries where it's above the average (relative to the size of its economy). And at the low end, there are essential jobs that are inherently too bad for most citizens and too demanding for most of those who can't find better jobs.
The best practice these days is making temporary work permits industry-specific. If there is labor shortage in an industry, just let in anyone with the skills and no obvious red flags. And if there is labor surplus, only let actual talent in. If an immigrant loses their job, they can try to find another in the same industry without excess bureaucracy. And then give a straightforward path to permanent residency for those who have been in the country for N years without causing too much trouble.
Illegal immigrants largely work in fields such as agriculture, construction, and maintenance. The pay is inherently low, because the fields are labor-intensive the outputs are expected to be affordable to most citizens. Many jobs are seasonal, and many require you to live near the worksite (instead of with your family). Most are physically demanding and require a good work ethic. Once a country gets rich enough, it usually discovers that citizens who can't find better jobs often don't have what it takes to do these jobs.
> It’s because large business interests have captured government
On the other hand the 1965 Hart-Celler Act started the importation of asians under the guise of abolishing "racist" policies that restricted immigration and mostly let in people from the west. Frankly it should have never been passed and the country and labor market would be MUCH better off.
Bush Sr sealed the deal by bringing in the H1B. Between the Bushes, Clintons and Obamas we've been systematically screwed over and debased.
In retrospect, Pat Buchanan and Ross Perot were spot-on correct about practically everything.
> make it mandatory for H1-B visa holders who came to the US directly (i.e., didn't go to college here) to leave the US within 5 years.
This kinda already exists. H1-B is is 3 years and can be extended to 6, but after that you can only get an extension for specific reasons (such as pending naturalization actions like a green card.)
> enforce equal pay: "if you hire an H1-B, you should pay them the same amount as you would a domestic worker."
That's how it's 'supposed' to work, that said I think that's part of why we see 'junior' software engineering roles wanting a decade of experience (since the H1-B will take the lower title/pay.)
> allow H1-B visa holders to move between jobs; don't tie it to one company.
IMO this is a big one and contributes a lot to H1-Bs getting abused by employers.
I think H1Bs should not even be required to hold a job at all. The offer they initially receive from the "sponsoring" company is useful to prove high skill. At that point, they get a fixed amount of time in the US and if companies (whether original or other US companies) want them to work, they have to convince them to work with pay, benefits, working conditions, etc. This would put H1Bs on a closer to level playing field with US talent - there would no longer be a bargaining power advantage to hiring from India over Missouri.
> allow H1-B visa holders to move between jobs; don't tie it to one company.
I'm not super familiar with the rules, but there is a way to transfer to a new company, and IIUC, that's not part of the cap, and I think you're allowed to start at the new company while the application is pending rather than needing to wait for it to be processed.
I don't know if this is current, but I had heard that pending permanent residency applications would reset if you switched companies. That's a huge deal if your birth country has a long backlog on greencards because of the per country limit.
Simpler solution. Any company that wants to sponsor H1B must pay to the IRS an annual tax equivalent to 150% of the worker’s salary. When the temporary visa expires, if the company can prove the worker left the US and is now in his country of origin, the IRS will return half of the tax it collected.
The easiest way to put a cap on it is to assign a cost that is significant enough as a fund to be used as career-replacement (or career multiplying) salary, controlling for LCOL/HCOL variations.
Woefully out of date. We don't even politically understand the concept of freedom anymore. Hell, just look at how much of our jurisprudence is pinned on the "Interstate Commerce" clause, which somehow applies to purely Intrastate commerce.
Furthermore, the vaunted "freedom" provided nowadays is the freedom to die for refusal to accept the current yoke of the "captains of industry" who ran off with the reins of our legislative, executive, and judicial branches.
The United States is post any ideal expressed on that plaque, and too afraid of the people already here to even live up to it's founding ideals as written. The only way anyone wants to get anything done is to ship in people who ultimately won't suffer the consequences of the work they're doing, then weaponizing the output of that work against the group of people here who refused to enable them in the first place.
The US is not an open-borders free-for-all and even during the time period you're citing related to the random poem the immigration was relatively limited.
Everyone understood the necessity to properly assimilate foreigners, and therefore there were periods of moratoriums to preserve American culture.
Work makes the man. Compulsory general education and workers rights (to not work) has systemically disadvantaged native-born workers. That is understandable for back breaking labor were death is commonplace but it simply isn't justifiable for office work nor most construction and landscaping work.
OUR economy is not growing when there are millions of men who sit at home staring screens all day bumming off the government and their parents, many more million are in prison. Either cancel free money and food program, draft them for much needed infrastructure work or run them out of major cities to fend for themselves, trimming the fat.
I for one am fine with the most intelligent and driven workers coming into the country, they are the ones that make life worth living. I am not fine with lazy countrymen who think billionaires own them something.
H1B jobs should only be for way above average payed positions. You get the geniuses from other countries and keep the average domestic worker. But that would mean government working for its citizens not for the 1% so it will never be changed to something like that.
Yeah but O-1 requirements are very high and unnecessarily bureaucratic. Simply having the rule of H1B jobs needing to be way above average paid for the position fixes all the abuse problems. But considering the Tesla situation the abuse is probably a feature not a bug.
What a rage bait title and un nuanced article. First of all provides no clear evidence. Second of all these articles are making folks in H1B the enemies. What a shame.
The reality is that some folks on H1B are also the victims of the system. Rather than talking nuance about how it’s beneficial and how it’s abused and how to prevent abuse, it places workers against workers.
It’s hard to believe the title here. Getting an H1B approved is like an act of god these days. Besides, the approval process is so convoluted and there’s only so many approved for the year. So, I don’t think he can just “replace with H1B”. It’s not how the visa works.
I believed it only after reading the article an following the links. Of course, they can't replace all of them, just 10% of laid of workers (3% of all visas given out). And want's to remove government restrictions.
> It’s hard to believe the title here. Getting an H1B approved is like an act of god these days. Besides, the approval process is so convoluted and there’s only so many approved for the year. So, I don’t think he can just “replace with H1B”. It’s not how the visa works.
I suggest reading the actual report linked in the article. You don't need to change the amount of total visa numbers. Tesla has requested over 3% of the total allocation, around 2000 visas. These are typically decided by lottery but I imagine a friend in high places can make sure that lottery leans more your way then it originally would.
I think that’s a stretch. There’s several companies that participate in a lottery. Several large players. This is like claims that say “illegal immigrants are being given citizenship to vote”.
Above comment - changing visa numbers requires an act of Congress. So, no - no one can just give preferential treatment. Remember Trump isn’t president. He will be but Biden is still running the country.
Changing the total requires an act of Congress, but if you're cynical enough, the lottery system used to allocate from that total could be corrupted to accidentally favor Tesla.
He has the opposite, the executive branch hates him so much that they didn't invite Tesla to a government EV summit where Biden declared GM's CEO as the pioneer of EVs.
A government EV summit on converting from ICE production to EV production. Why would they invite Tesla to that? They don't have any legacy ICE production to convert.
Oh maybe because Tesla knows about how to produce EVs efficiently and what things cost? And he also owns the largest charging network and knows all about that too? I think you know better and you're just playing apologist for Biden now.
Not inviting Elon to an EV conference is like the least significant thing they did against him and his companies for political reasons. The list is so long now that I don't feel like trotting it out, because you're the type that won't appreciate it anyway.
Are we talking about the incoming administration? Why did the Trump administration elevate Elon's profile so much and allow the release of news which states that Elon will be head honcho for one of this most high-visible and important initiatives?
GOP reps have also shown a cooperative spirit by giving Elon backchannels to their ongoing negotiations.
The article doesn’t provide any evidence of the headline. How do we know they are “replacing” the laid off workers? Perhaps they are being hired for different roles.
The article linked inside of this one provides a bit more detail, but overall, you're correct, it's unclear if the roles hired for were the same as those fired. At the very least, the sheer volume of H1Bs requested during a mass layoffs isn't great optics.
""The reason I'm in America along with so many critical people who built SpaceX, Tesla and hundreds of other companies that made America strong is because of H1B," Musk wrote on X last week. "Take a big step back and F--- YOURSELF in the face. I will go to war on this issue the likes of which you cannot possibly comprehend.""
Who is he threatening.
"Electrek pointed out that Musk entered the U.S. on a student visa. Musk's brother later admitted that they were in the country illegally when their Zip2 startup company was launched."
- forbid companies from laying off H1B people for a number of years after hiring them
- allow H1B people to change jobs at will
- maintain the higher pay requirement
thus giving them even more power than American employees, disincentivizing replacement of Americans?
I would go further - create H1B Union… Big Tech - the main abuser of H1B program LOVES Unions. That solves all the problems, the Union will work to protect the workers, deal with salaries, lobby for allowing employees to change companies as well as provide smooth path to permanent residency
They are not looking for talent, they are looking for cheap labor.
The US overflowing with talent but they are not cheap, because the US is not cheap.
H1-B is just a pipeline to flood the US market with workers, at the end of the day, the only winners are the billionaires and millionaires.
There are major changes coming to H-1B. If I were dependent on it either as a worker or employer, I would start making contingency plans immediately. The Trump admin and its core constituency are most united on immigration issues, so the political will is there. Any nascent challenge to that will has been utterly crushed in my view as MAGA decisively won the past week's debate on X against the Musk/Vivek libertarian contingent. Beyond the emerging consensus on the Right though is how well anti H-1B messaging plays with the Left. And the existential H-1B threat to the white collar worker means that influential segment of society will be rooting for its downfall, some more loudly and more conspicuously than others.
Overall a perfect storm of political consensus and will. The cherry on top is the ease with which the program can be curtailed or limited. It's not like solving healthcare... All of this points to major immediate action.
Did they? Trump just recently made a couple of statements, siding with Musk on that issue. He has no other choice, as money comes from Elon, not from MAGA.
He also reversed his stance on EVs during his campaign, openly admitting that he had to due to Elon's contributions. So basically, Elon is the president now.
An H1B program that addresses these power dynamics and stops undermining the rights of worker will reach equilibrium and show what American workers can do and what should be hired for externally.
This issue is about capital vs labor, don’t miss the forest for the trees.