The Legal Immigration Debate Over Work Visas

Elon & Vivek piss off portions of MAGA - do they have a point or are they full of techbro shit?

We’re just over three weeks away from Trump taking office for round 2 and the immigration debate, which was one of the main points of contention during the 2024 election, is in full swing. But rather than the debate being about illegal immigration, over the last few days it has now focused on legal immigration. No doubt, both the legal and illegal forms of immigrations are royally FUBARed in this country - so they should both be looked at.

A portion of MAGA wants a full shutdown of all immigration, including the legal work visa kind, while another group is pushing for increasing legal immigration through H-1B and O-1 work visas (allowing skilled workers into the country).

Most H-1B work visas given in this country (there is a cap at 65,000 allowed annually) are petitioned by Tech companies bringing in foreign workers as computer programmers, developers, and IT professionals. Elon Musk and Vivek Ramaswamy, being a part of Trump’s team in their Dept of Govt. Efficiency roles, have recently weighed in on this issue due to their involvement in the tech world.

Elon triggered a good portion of MAGA world by saying that legal immigration should be expanded to bring in skilled workers to this country based on merit, and Vivek upset some even further by exposing how our culture values mediocrity instead of excellence. (is he wrong though?)

Does Elon have an incentive to push for continued use of H-1B visas because he owns tech related companies and uses them to find labor? Yeah, for sure. There’s likely some self-interest there - but he does have a point that we should continue allowing legal immigration as long as it’s based on merit. Expand the scope though? I may disagree on that point. But I don’t think it should be disbanded completely.

I figure if Tom Homan comes in and deports the 10+ million illegals - while we bring in 40-50,000 legal immigrants per year that are actually benefitting this country - I think we’ll be fine as long as we prioritize American citizens first. And if no American citizen willing or capable for the role can be found, then sure, look into the foreign talent pool.

ALTHOUGH, it goes to note that the current use of H-1B visas by large corporations is typically done to bring in cheap labor for unskilled jobs they could easily hire America for. Not all H-1B visas, but some of them. Just search examples from companies like Facebook and Disney over the last few years how they’ve fired their American workers and forced them to train their foreign replacements. The Biden Administration also used these work visas as “legal loopholes” to import more immigrations than they needed to - so the way H-1Bs are used and approved needs massive overhaul.

This was a great thread on Twitter from Nicole Shanahan detailing her experience in Silicon Valley around H-1B workers and companies who hired them, and she offers some solutions for how the overhaul could be done.

We need to stop giving large corporations incentives, subsidies, and free rein to hire foreign born workers to replace Americans. We are a nation build on legal, merit-based immigration, so I don’t think it should end - but we surely need to fix both the legal and illegal immigration happening in this country.

Another issue impacting this debate is what Vivek described that I linked above, our culture in America is promoting and valuing mediocrity far more than it should, which impacts the talent pool for hiring and ultimately how succesful we as a society are.

Why do we look at spoiling kids like it's a good thing? Why do parents feel bad having to discipline and say "no" to their children? Why isn't our youth pushed to challenge themselves and excel? Why do we accept so many distractions so easily - video games, partying, mindless sports, drugs, wasting their lives on insignificant shit. We live in the movie Idiocracy with a lot of dumb, fat, lazy people in this country, let’s be honest with ourselves here. Looking in the mirror is required if we want to correct course of this ship and get back on the path of American excellence.

Maybe we'd have a greater talent pool for hiring domestic American workers in STEM fields if we weren't made to be retarded and apathetic by our public school systems. Our society values comfort and dopamine happiness over personal growth from discomfort. That’s a large issue I’m not seeing discussed all that much in these online debated - how screwed up our public education is, along with how we’re raising our children. I’m quite passionate about how weak willed and spineless many parents these days are becoming, raising entitled brats by over-spoiling them.

I think we have two issues to solve here:

- Fix our legal immigration system by limiting the amount and scope of work Visas we allow to foreign born workers, and incentivize (or force) corporations in America to hire from local/national talent pools rather than internationally.

- Work on adjusting our cultural/societal values and the way we raise our children - pushing them for personal growth by becoming uncomfortable, bringing back proper discipline and instilling values of success rather than lazy, dopamine-ridden comfort.

And a third, really:

- Find a way to adjust the values of those in business to stop prioritizing their love of money over doing what’s right and moral.

The good thing is that this debate is happening on social media before Trump is inaugurated on January 20th and any policy changes are made.

It’s also pretty awesome that we have a social media app of free market ideas (X) where we can debate political issues like this. Never before have we been able to see CEOs, billionaires, politicians, and influentials people talk to each other in real time about important issues facing us all.

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