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Bill to Eliminate H-1B Visa Program Introduced in Congress

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Re: Bill to Eliminate H-1B Visa Program Introduced in Congress

#151

Post by happytoexplain »

SpicyLemonZest wrote: post #57
TMWNN wrote: post #35

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> It looks like the next Andrej Karpathy (born in Czechoslovakia, educated in Canada) will be taking their talents somewhere besides the US in the future. Karpathy, with a Stanford PhD, would not have received or needed an H-1B. This, like the new $100K fee, is about shutting down the Indian body shops that consume the vast majority of "tech" H-1Bs.

There's so many Americans who have this intuition you're expressing, that there must be some good immigration system for responsible people who obviously ought to be allowed to stay in the country. The reason there isn't is that immigration reform deals have been sabotaged for decades by the people who are feeding you this disinformation. To emphasize, the person who told you this information knew it was false, lied…

>you must not trust anything they tell you going forwards

I respect the rest of your comment and have no reason to disbelieve you factually. But this comes off as propaganda. It's a hateful assumption about a person and a conversation you have no idea of. You shouldn't say this to strangers if you're trying to convince them of something.

Re: Bill to Eliminate H-1B Visa Program Introduced in Congress

#152

Post by CalRobert »

happytoexplain wrote: post #147
CalRobert wrote: post #42

Earlier quoted context omitted.

When I was a kid in the US people told me "you can do anything! Anyone can be president! Just set your mind to it!" Now as someone raising kids in Europe the general sentiment is "The system is rigged, don't even try, anyone with nice things got it through avarice or corruption, nothing ever changes" (to be fair, I've lived in only two European countries, but this seems to be a common sentiment that varies primarily…

That's a valid emotion. Unfortunately, the sentiment you prefer doesn't exist any more. Essentially nobody but the most wealthy and politically elevated have said that for years. And I don't think what I'm saying is pessimistic - I think it's pretty common knowledge.

You’re probably right.

I miss optimism.

Re: Bill to Eliminate H-1B Visa Program Introduced in Congress

#153

Post by palmotea »

whyenot wrote: post #41

If skilled workers can't come here , then the businesses who need them will just open up satellite shops there . Not an opinion on H-1B, just an observation.

> If skilled workers can't come here, then the businesses who need them will just open up satellite shops there. Not an opinion on H-1B, just an observation.

They're already doing that, because if the workers stay there, the businesses can pay them much, much less than if they bring them here on an H1-B. And it seems like that's much more common now, since the pandemic further normalized remote work.

Re: Bill to Eliminate H-1B Visa Program Introduced in Congress

#154

Post by JeremyNT »

ffsm8 wrote: post #121
Espressosaurus wrote: post #18

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's worse: we're actively ejecting the global brain drain that has been to our benefit since the post-WW2 era. I know several people on various visas that are making plans to leave after having gotten PHDs here. Still more have naturalized and are making contingencies for exiting. Immigrants found close to half of the fortune 500 businesses, and start something like 20% of our new businesses each year. For those mot…

I'm from Germany, and from an outsiders perspective I can only say that your argument wouldn't convince me. I looked into the h1b for myself before, and I'm pretty sure I wouldn't be able to start my own successful business while on it. You're aware that there will continue to be immigration without the h1b visa, right? That's just a common way big corporations use to import cheap labor, at least that's what I looked…

> You're aware that there will continue to be immigration without the h1b visa, right? That's just a common way big corporations use to import cheap labor, at least that's what I looked like to me - because id be fully at the mercy of the company I'd be unable to really negotiate my contracts etc

I believe the parent is referring to the knock-on effects of all the other immigration enforcement actions.

I largely agree with you about h1b specifically but this move doesn't exist in isolation. It's increasingly clear that the US is determined to make life hard on immigrants in general (or at least harder) and this is just another data point.

Re: Bill to Eliminate H-1B Visa Program Introduced in Congress

#155

Post by palmotea »

hippo22 wrote: post #63
happytoexplain wrote: post #53

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's nuts - but I can only speak with anecdotes. The Americans around me are desperate to pull absolutely any lever that will slow the death of the American dream, and at this point even the "light" version of the dream is dying (work hard, be smart and a little lucky, spend on an education in a strong field, get a family and small property). Stats and experts be damned - that's what desperation is. In the specific c…

It's not "normal competition" to be displaced by immigrants in your own country. Allowing that is simply allowing the capitalist class to assault and weaken the labor class.

Exactly, I posted this quote elsewhere, but it's relevant here too:

https://www.nytimes.com/2026/01/06/opinion/trump-presidentia...:

> Instead of comparing what is happening under Trump with the situations in Hungary, Turkey and Russia, Goldstone argued that conditions in the United States are,

>> ironically, more like what happened in Venezuela, where after a century of reasonably prosperous democratic government, decades of elite self-serving neglect of popular welfare led to the election of Hugo Chávez with a mandate to get rid of the old elites and create a populist dictatorship.

>> I find that decades-long trends in the U.S. — stagnating wages for non-college-educated males, sharply declining social mobility, fierce political polarization among the elites and a government sinking deeper and deeper into debt — are earmarks of countries heading into revolutionary upheaval.

>> Just as the French monarchy, despite being the richest and archetypal monarchy, collapsed in the late 18th century because of popular immiseration, elite conflicts and state debts, so the U.S. today, despite being the richest and archetypal democratic republic, is seeing its institutions come under attack today for a similar set of conditions.

This is 100% the result of capitalist class overreach. They're fine with fucking over other people, but oh my how they whine when their interests are threatened. If they don't want to drive the country into the ground, they need to stop being so greedy. At the very minimum, the have-nots will eventually make sure they can no longer stay aloof from the pain, even if that means everyone is a little more worse off.

Re: Bill to Eliminate H-1B Visa Program Introduced in Congress

#156

Post by Muromec »

seanmcdirmid wrote: post #51
leptons wrote: post #29

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Your take only applies to recent developments. For the entirety of the H visa program, it has brought in very valuable talent, which stayed here to generate incredible wealth for the country. "onlyfans" is a recent thing. The kickbacks are a relatively new thing. Sure immigration is broken, but that's what happens when the government is intent on breaking the country.

Onlyfans is a recent thing, but the First Lady had an EB-1 Einstein visa when she was posing for…interesting photos.

You mistyped Epstein visa

Re: Bill to Eliminate H-1B Visa Program Introduced in Congress

#158

Post by palmotea »

Muromec wrote: post #102
RealityVoid wrote: post #92

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Nah, these are all just taking points to be used when it's convenient, discarded when it's not. You can't expect internal consistency.

Yeah, having to compete with institutional capital for house ownership here is fine, but them having to compete with people from a country where they speak foreign languages is not fair. The duality of libertarian thinking.

> Yeah, having to compete with institutional capital for house ownership here is fine, but them having to compete with people from a country where they speak foreign languages is not fair. The duality of libertarian thinking.

Any libertarian that's not extremely wealthy is stupid and was duped by propaganda.

Also there's an important difference between "institutional capital buying houses" and immigration: the former is all invisible lawyers in the background (you'd have no idea without investigative journalism), and the latter can be much more palpable to your average guy on the street. IMHO, an extremely important parts of how present-day elites maintain power in our current capitalist system is how they use diffuse responsibility and misdirection to deal with threats to their interest.

Re: Bill to Eliminate H-1B Visa Program Introduced in Congress

#159

Post by SilverElfin »

ffsm8 wrote: post #121
Espressosaurus wrote: post #18

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's worse: we're actively ejecting the global brain drain that has been to our benefit since the post-WW2 era. I know several people on various visas that are making plans to leave after having gotten PHDs here. Still more have naturalized and are making contingencies for exiting. Immigrants found close to half of the fortune 500 businesses, and start something like 20% of our new businesses each year. For those mot…

I'm from Germany, and from an outsiders perspective I can only say that your argument wouldn't convince me. I looked into the h1b for myself before, and I'm pretty sure I wouldn't be able to start my own successful business while on it. You're aware that there will continue to be immigration without the h1b visa, right? That's just a common way big corporations use to import cheap labor, at least that's what I looked…

> That's just a common way big corporations use to import cheap labor

In the case of H1B, they’re paid slightly more on average. It’s myth that they’re cheaper. Usually they’re a lot more expensive given the costs of dealing with the immigration process

> I suspect overall net negative, because often the h1b visa recipients will transfer their money back to their home country, which makes this into a net-negative again

Why is this a problem? So what if someone transfers money back home - that’s their money that they’re free to do what they want with. Most people are okay buying imported products and also don’t support exit taxes in other situations, so why single out immigrants?

Re: Bill to Eliminate H-1B Visa Program Introduced in Congress

#160

Post by SilverElfin »

palmotea wrote: post #145

Literally who cares? Most bills that are introduced go nowhere, and this one was introduced by a congresswoman who recently resigned (Marjorie Taylor Greene). But what Congress really needs to do is introduce an onerous tax on offshore labor, that's a much worse problem.

> But what Congress really needs to do is introduce an onerous tax on offshore labor, that's a much worse problem.

This is called a tariff and is the same as raising taxes on every American.

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