Musk vs. H-1B Visa Debate Misses a Glaring Issue; the Program is a Scam to Benefit Chieftains of Corporate America

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Many Industries are Involved

The debate about H-1B is not confined to a single industry – it’s about Big Tech, Big Ag, Tourism and Hospitality, Transportation (airlines, trucking), Media & Sports entertainment (yes, the NFL and MLB have their own special visa classes and their own special treatment by DHS and State) ,and many many others.

They all want special visas to import cheap and indentured/compliant foreign labor.

Even the roofing industry is seeking its own special visa class.

All of these special classes are expanded over time, which is flooding the native, equally qualified, American worker with foreign workers, for no reason other than labor savings for employers.

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Many are Opposed to the Program

Teamsters Union President Sean O’Brien says the H-1B visa program:

1) “displaces” Americans from those jobs (an American gets fired and replaced by an H-1B), or

2) prevents Americans from being hired for those jobs.

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Both of which act as a discouragement of the American worker, while encouraging chieftains of corporations to exploit foreign workers.

https://www.breitbart.com/politics/2025/01/04/teamsters-president-h...

Sone want to:

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1. Eliminate H-1B visas as number one priority of DOGE
2. Immediately deport ALL H-1B visa holders
3. Hire American citizens to fill the now vacant H-1B Jobs

4. Convene tech companies for discussion on reparations for American workers who had their futures stolen

The Upshot

Native American are not becoming graduates in science, technology, engineering and mathematics, STEM. in sufficient numbers of high and superior quality.

But high-tech industries need tens of thousands of high  and superior quality STEM people.

In essence, the H-!B program is a poaching program.

It usurps the STEM graduates of other countries, such as India, China, etc.

If US society is attractive and safe to live in, these foreign STEM graduates will come to the US.

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Free-riding on the educational prowess, discipline, institutions, and outlays of other societies works only as long as the STEM receiving society is much more attractive or, at least, manages to appear so.

That attractiveness is, however, exactly what the US is losing. 

A country reduced to an un-”free” market dominated by oligarchs, who buy elections for presidents is not a magnet.

Neither is a place where “whiteness” persists to be important.

At the same time, other countries are becoming more and more attractive.

Do you really want to be stuck with American schools, when you could have Indian ones?

The ante-diluvian New York subway instead of the modern Moscow Metro?

The American almost-steam-age railway network instead of China’s high-speed trains? 

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According to Rachel Marsden

H-1B is inherently racist and anti-meritocratic – and I should know, a columnist, political strategist, and host of independently produced talk-shows in French and English.

The H-1B visa program is a bad deal for everyone.

And the online civil war between Elon Musk and Trump’s MAGA supporters is missing the point.

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All the drama recently started when a user of Musk’s X platform suggested that the supporters of US President-elect Donald Trump basically consist of tech bros insisting on the need for lesser-paid, foreign, “skilled workers” on one hand, and those insisting on keeping American jobs for Americans on the other.

Musk said he was in favor of “bringing in via legal immigration the top ~0.1% of engineering talent as being essential for America to keep winning,” and told critics to “go f**k yourself in the face,” referring to them as “subtards.”

Musk's top 0.1% and vulgarities show a lack of judgement and maturity

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As a migrant from South Africa, via Canada, he’s ultimately a beneficiary of H-1B himself, he explained.
And hey, look at all the good that he’s done. 

And “those in the Republican Party who are hateful, unrepentant racists” opposing his position on the issue are “contemptible fools.”

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H-1B is Racist

This is why it needs to go, and not be jacked up even further to increase the number of worker permits, as Trump’s new artificial intelligence policy adviser, Sriram Krishnan, has proposed.

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As a Canadian citizen who was hired to co-host a nightly, nationally broadcast, TV news show in New York City, my then employer had to petition the US government for my work permission.

If I was taking a well-paying job away from an American, then they had to make a good case for it.
I was told,  the permit with the easiest qualifications to achieve, by a landslide, was the H-1B “skilled worker” visa.

Basically, all you needed was a college degree, or some relevant experience, and a statement from the employer that it’s what the job required. And that’s it.
Not exactly the high-quality, top 0.1% of workers Musk was talking about

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You can’t tell me that Canadians are any less educated than Indians, or any less interested in working in the US.

They just don’t have Big Tech handling their applications and flooding US immigration with requests for overwhelmingly Indian nationals the instant the quota renews every year, and guaranteeing that a single deserving person on their own – the very definition of a minority – won’t have the slightest hope of even being considered.

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H-1B is effectively a modern slavery program, reserved almost exclusively for workers from the developing world.

It’s not that the US salaries that they are paid are particularly low.

In fact, stats show , their average US pay is over $100,000/y.

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H-1B visa is tied to the employer

If you want to change, another employer has to file to sponsor you.

And you probably have to wait until the cap is renewed again the following year.

This means it can be used to pressure the foreign worker to tolerate conditions, or requests, that an American worker likely wouldn’t put up with.

It’s not hard to see the $appeal for guys like Musk, who would love to have everyone sleep on the floor at the office, like a giant slumber party, to speed up solutions of the kinks in production processes

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H-1B Program Should be Shut Down

How many immigration bureaucrats are employed by federal and state governments to administer the program?

That cost should be charged to the employers as annual user fees.

Any job must first be offered to a US worker, before it is offered to an H-1B worker, at the same pay.

All this bureaucratic complication is not necessary 

It would be better to shut down the program

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H-1B program Sets in Motion Supply Chains in Foreign Countries, not in the US

Mexican migrants in the US sent $63.3 billion in remittances to Mecico in 2023, up 7.6% from 2022

H-1B migrants in the US likely send tens of $billions of remittances to their home countries each year.

It is much better to hire US workers, because they spend their incomes in the US, which promotes MAGA

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This required “a level of expertise indicating that you are one of the small percentage, 0.1%, who have arisen to the very top of the field,” as defined by US immigration services. 

With this one, you can easily switch employer sponsorships, or even have your agent arrange that role, preventing you from being tied to any one opportunity, or contract, or employer

There was no quota to worry about, and the applications are made on a rolling, case-by-case basis – not rammed through en masse by tech bros effectively favoring one particular nationality in a move that can only be described as systemic racism.

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The O-1 category is what really brings in the best talent that, according to guys like Musk, America needs to compete on the global playing field.

So, why don’t they encourage foreign recruits to apply under that category?

Clearly, because most wouldn’t qualify as legitimately being at the top of their game. They would have to:

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1) show proof of things like public recognition or authorship,

2) several letters of reference from peers highlighting their significant contributions to the field, and

3) participation on industry panels.

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These are not the people Silicon Valley is actually importing, as Musk pretends.

If Musk is so worried about racist views being expressed in debate about the merits of  H-1B, then why is he ignoring:

1) its chronic marginalizing/discriminating of non-Indians,

2) the program's lack of flexibility for the mostly Indian nationals?

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Trump’s MAGA supporters have essentially just picked up on the visible iceberg created by an immigration initiative that has long been exploited by chieftains of corporate America, who are attempting to dress up inherently racist selection as meritocracy.