Trump sides with Musk on support for H-1B visas for foreign tech workers

I am not sure what's this "American attitude" you mention here nor which scale you are using to say that you are somewhat higher on that scale vs "most" American.

Been here for about 8 years, live in a bunch of places in the world. For me the most striking thing about the US as always been the sheer diversity of thoughts and perspectives. That and also the fact that somehow most American think they have the magical ability to know what is american and what is not.

> I consider myself a nationalist.

And a lot of american are not.

> First and foremost, I strongly believe that elected representatives should represent the best interests of their citizens and ONLY their citizens.

To a degree and with some limitation. Should we allow american companies to do morally/ecologically dubious things overseas just because we get some tax revenue ?

> The best interest of potential future citizens is not something they should even give a thought to.

So... the interest of children of american's shouldn't matter ?

> That's the question that should be asked when admitting an immigrant: "Is this person a net benefit to the citizens of this country I was elected to represent?"

The issue is of course in defining what is a "net" benefit. For some, the cultural exchange, the moral obligation to asylum seekers or relative to people already here does count like a net benefit.

It is also important to note that this view of immigration as something that should be provably beneficial is pretty recent. The wave of european (italian, irish etc...) did migrate in mass to the US without any obvious/forseeable benefit... But all in all it turned out well.

> First, it absolutely must cost more to bring in an immigrant to do a job than to hire an American. Under no situation should it be allowed to depress wages. If a citizen costs X, it should cost like 1.5x or some value like that to import the talent you need if you genuinely can't find the talent you need domestically.

Agree.

> Second, the visa should belong the the person being brought to the US. A company can sponsor them and maybe get exclusive access for some short period of time like the first year or so, but after that, the person should not have their visa tied to the employer that sponsored them. If they get a good perf review after their first year on the job, they absolutely should get an extension to stay another N years like 3 to 5, but at this point they are totally free to work for any other company with zero risk of losing their visa status if they choose not to continue working for the employer that sponsored them. If that employer wants to keep them, they'll have to pay the premium to keep them and treat them well. No immigrant should ever feel like an indentured servant.

Agree

> Third, scrutiny should be applied to all companies involved in using the H1-B program as a visa mill and to co-ethnic nepotism.

You absolutely need to make sure that companies aren't "selling" the visas. For example, someone in country X should not be able to pay or perform a favor for a company in the US to get a visa. A genuine need needs to be demonstrated and we need to make sure there is no quid pro quo.

Co-ethnic nepotism is another big one. Executives and managers should not be able to sponsor H1-Bs from their country of origin or from their religious group. If the CEO of a company is from country X and manager of the team is from country Y, then the H1-B visa cannot be filled by someone from either country X or Y. There are 195 countries in the world. Removing the United States, country X and country Y, still leaves 192 other countries from which to find talent.

The h1-b should be merit based. However people tend to know other people from the same general background, so it might be hard to distinguish between nepotism and that. I do agree with the general sentiment, any system will be abused by bad actors, we need checks to make sure those don't happen.

> Lastly, we need to focus on assimilation. I have citizenship from three countries myself and I choose to live in the US because I value US culture (or at least what it was 10 to 15 years ago).

> If I wanted to live and work in the other countries in which I could legally work, I'd move to those countries. I don't want that. I want to live and work in the US because I value US culture. If you disproportionately bring in immigrants from particular countries, you turn the US into those other countries for better and for worse. This happens both at the national level and at the local level. I don't want it at either.

> In fact, when you disproportionately bring in people from country X into a specific locality, you make it harder for those folks to assimilate. This allows the formation of ethnic/cultural enclaves. This should not happen. You should have a mix of folks from multiple countries in a place so they actually co-mingle and assimilate to become Americans. Not hyphenated Americans, but bonafide Americans that adopt America as the home and the country in which they pride themselves.

> Completely disregarding assimilation is going to kill the Golden Goose that Elon Musk values. He can build SpaceX here in American but not in country X or country Y. However, if we culturally turn the US into country X or country Y or just kill the current culture we have now with an indiscriminate immigration policy, then he won't be able to keep building SpaceX in the US in the way he has in the past. He may be able to fix the regulatory hurdles to getting to Mars with DOGE, but he won't be able to fix the culture of the country if we don't prevent the negative aspects of the change in culture. America today is already a much lower trust culture than when I moved here 29 years ago and the continued loss of trust threatens being able to get anything done together as Americans. Coethnic nepotism within a firm, for example, absolutely hurts the ability for that firm to fulfill on its mission as different enclaves within the firm fight with one another for a bigger piece of the pie instead of working together to grow the size of the pie.

Well you did warn us that you were a nationalist. So we can't be too surprise. I strongly suspect that alot people disagree what most of whhat you are saying here. But more importantly we do not need to solve/agree on those cultural problem to address the issue with H1-B

> Basically, I want to Make American a High Trust Culture Again. This has nothing to do with race or ethnicity. It's culture and it requires assimilation and a common identity.

America was never a "high trust culture".

> Our motto is e pluribus unum, not e pluribus pluribus.

It's interesting that you seem to read the exact opposite of what "e pluribus unum". It's a celebration of differences... The belief that unity doesn't require uniformity or common identity. That hyphenated Americans can live together without having to drop the hyphen. In fact, that's another thing that very "american" and different from European. The concept that out of the many can emerge the one and that both can coexist...

I strongly suspect that you are mixing culture and values...

Your view of America is limited by your experience of it in the past 8 years. I assure you, it was very very different even just 20 years ago. America pre-social media was a very very different place. We now have at least one (Gen Z), if not two full generations (younger Millenials) of Americans that have grown up with all of their experiences mediated in some form or another in a relatively international post social media landscape.

> And a lot of american are not.

Believe it or not, this is a pretty recent phenomena. It's only been since the late 90s as best. Hyphenated Americans is about 36 years old. It started with African-American" in about 1989 and didn't spread to others until at least another decade. Go check Google's ngram viewer for "African-American" and see for yourself.

Even much of the divisive language we have now is like 15 years old: https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/10.1177/08944393211031452

A lot of this language coincided with Occupy Wall Street because the powers that be had a vested interest in diverting attention away from a discussion of class in America.

I'm a nationalist because I remember back when America largely had a singular identity and it was highly socially unusual to split up into all these sub identities. It still isn't the case for much of small town America and what coastal elites consider flyover country.

> But all in all it turned out well.

Only because of the Johnson-Reed Immigration Act that allowed a single cohesive identity to form over like 40 years. The history of America is actually pretty messy.

> America was never a "high trust culture".

Absolutely not true. It was much much higher trust when I first moved here in 1986 (which is 39 years ago, not 29 years ago. I did my math wrong in my comment and just now realized it).

> It's interesting that you seem to read the exact opposite of what "e pluribus unum". It's a celebration of differences...

This is not at all what it was three decades ago and further back until the origin of the country's founding. It was a celebration of finding commonality despite differences. What you're describing is a complete retcon of what it historically has meant since it was first used on the great seal in 1776.

Go watch American classic movies and TV shows from the founding of Hollywood until about 1990. Much of it was highly representative of American culture I experienced in the earlier years when I first moved here. Much much much higher trust than today.