Why The H-1B Visa Racket Should Be Abolished, Not Reformed

Billionaire businessman Marc Cuban insists that the H-1B visa racket is a feature of the vaunted American free market. This is nonsense on stilts. It can't go unchallenged.

Another billionaire, our president, has ordered that the H-1B program be reformed. This, too, is disappointing. You'll see why.

First, let's correct Mr. Cuban: America has not a free economy, but a mixed-economy. State and markets are intertwined. Trade, including trade in labor, is not free; it's regulated to the hilt. If anything, the labyrinth of work visas is an example of a fascistic government-business cartel in operation.

The H-1B permit, in particular, is part of that state-sponsored visa system. The primary H-1B hogs—Infosys (and another eight, sister Indian firms), Microsoft, and Intel—import labor with what are grants of government privilege. Duly, the corporations that hog H-1Bs act like incorrigibly corrupt rent seekers. Not only do they get to replace the American worker, but they get to do so at his expense.

Globally, a series of sordid liaisons ensures that American workers are left high and dry. Through the programs of the International Trade Administration, the Export-Import Bank, the Overseas Private Investment Corporation, the International Monetary Fund, and other oink-operations, the taxpaying American worker is forced to subsidize and underwrite the investment risks of the very corporations that have given him the boot.

Domestically, the fascistic partnership with the State amounts to a subsidy to business at the expense of the taxpayer. See, corporations in our democratic welfare state externalize their employment costs onto the taxpayers.

So while public property is property funded by taxpayers through expropriated taxes; belongs to taxpayers; is to be managed for their benefit—at least one million additional immigrants a year, including recipients of the H-1B visa, are allowed the free use of taxpayer-supported infrastructure and amenities. Every new arrival avails himself of public works such as roads, hospitals, parks, libraries, schools, and welfare.

Does this epitomize the classical liberal idea of laissez faire?

Moreover, chain migration or family unification means every H-1B visa recruit is a ticket for an entire tribe. The initial entrant—the meal ticket—will pay his way. The honor system not being an especially strong value in the Third World, the rest of the clan will be America's problem. More often than not, chain-migration entrants become wards of the American taxpayer.

Spreading like gravy over a tablecloth, this rapid, inorganic population growth is detrimental to all ecosystems: natural, social and political.

Take Seattle and its surrounding counties. Between April 2015 and 2016, the area was inundated with “86,320 new residents, marking it the region’s biggest population gains this century. Fueled in large part by the technology industry, an average of 236 people is moving to the Seattle area each day,” reported Geekwire.com. (Reporters for our local fish-wrapper—in my case, parrot-cage liner—have discharged their journalistic duties by inviting readers to "share" their traffic-jam stories.)

Never as dumb as the local reporters, the likes of Bill Gates, Steve Ballmer, Mark Zuckerberg and Marc Cuban are certainly as detached.

Barricaded in their obscenely lavish compounds—from the comfort of their monster mansions—these social engineers don't experience the "environmental impacts of rapid urban expansion”; the destruction of verdant open spaces and farmland; the decrease in the quality of the water we drink and air we breathe, the increase in traffic and traffic accidents, air pollution, the cellblock-like housing erected to accommodate their imported I.T. workers and extended families, the delicate bouquet of amped up waste management and associated seepages.

For locals, this lamentable state means an inability to afford homes in a market in which property prices have been artificially inflated. Young couples lineup to view tiny apartments. They dream of that picket fence no more. (And our "stupid leaders," to quote the president before he joined leadership, wonder why birthrates are so low!)

In a true free market, absent the protectionist state, corporate employers would be accountable to the community, and would be wary of the strife and lowered productivity brought about by a multiethnic and multi-linguistic workforce. All the more so when a foreign workforce moves into residential areas almost overnight as has happened in Seattle and its surrounds.

Alas, since the high-tech traitors can externalize their employment costs on to the community; because corporations are subsidized at every turn by their victims—they need not bring in the best.

Cuban thinks they do. High tech needs to be able to "search the world for the best applicants," he burbled to Fox News host Tucker Carlson.

Yet more cr-p.

Why doesn't the president know that the H-1B visa category is not a special visa for highly skilled individuals, but goes mostly to average workers? "Indian business-process outsourcing companies, which predominantly provide technology support to corporate back offices," by the Economist's accounting .

Overall, the work done by the H1-B intake does not require independent judgment, critical reasoning or higher-order thinking. "Average workers; ordinary talent doing ordinary work," attest the experts who've been studying this intake for years. The master's degree is the exception within the H1-B visa category.

More significant: THERE IS a visa category that is reserved exclusively for individuals with extraordinary abilities and achievement. I know, because the principal sponsor in our family received this visa. I first wrote about the visa that doesn't displace ordinary Americans in ... 2008:

It's the O-1 visa.

"Extraordinary ability in the fields of science, education, business or athletics," states the Department of Homeland Security, "means a level of expertise indicating that the person is one of the small percentage who has risen to the very top of the field of endeavor."

Most significant: There is no cap on the number of O-1 visa entrants allowed. Access to this limited pool of talent is unlimited.

My point vis-à-vis the O-1 visa is this: The H-1B hogs are forever claiming that they are desperate for talent. In reality, they have unlimited access to individuals with unique abilities through the open-ended O-1 visa program.

There is no limit to the number of geniuses American companies can import.

Theoretically, the H-1B program could be completely abolished and all needed Einsteins imported through the O-1 program. (Why, even future first ladies would stand a chance under the business category of the O-1A visa, as a wealth-generating supermodel could certainly qualify.)

Now you understand my disappointment. In his April 18 Executive Order, President Trump promised to merely reform a program that needs abolishing. That is, if "Hire American" means anything to anybody anymore.

Dream on.

Politicians aren’t going to abolish any such thing or change it willingly or by the vote of the steeple. They like things just the way they are:

Confused
Controlled by special interests that fund their campaigns
Their privilidged status for life
No term limits
A process mired in secrecy and contorted rules
They like cheap illegal labor because their benefactors like it
They like a monster tax code so they can favor friends and punish enemies just like their handlers tell them to do.

The situation is as hopeless today as it was in 1938 when Jimmy Stewrart made “Mr. Smith Goes to Washington” A decent man can’t survive to fight. The system is totally corrupt.

For the final years of my engineering career I watched my friends being replaced by Indian engineers who did my friend’s jobs over the internet. Yes there is a visa racket bringing cheaper engineers in to take American’s jobs. But it is no longer necessary to even bring them here.

One of my designer buddy’s last job was to train his replacements via the internet to take his job. That extended him another six weeks and then he too was laid off. I asked him about the quality of the Indian engineering work and he said, “well, they do things differently but it is definitely first rate.”

From the company perspective, why have an engineer in America earing $105,000 per year when you can have one just as good earing $30,000? Also, the low buck guy can’t sue you for any one of a dozen legalisms created by our government Big Brother.

I agree H-1B should be abolished, because workers on temporary visas are worth more to a company than workers locally hired. O-1 is a very restricted category.

H-1B itself, with the Trump reforms, should become an immigrant visa (i.e., Green Card) instead of a temporary worker visa. H-1B workers should be able to transfer jobs or quit in a huff if they don't like the working conditions, without being kicked out of the country. Social assistance, however, should not be provided until a number of working years have elapsed - until then, only a free ticket home for the rare tech worker who falls into indigence.

H-1B's allow for anchor babies only, they don't let you bring in relatives except under the 6-month tourist visa.

Ilana is exactly right as usual.

The cross eyed Indian Infosys guy knows it too. He thinks Indians have an entitlement to be here - damn all the British, French, German, Polish, Czech, Slovak, Austrian and especially Russian and Ukrainian comp sci people who could be H1-Bs.

No. Just Indians. Cuz they’re brown, which instantly makes them victims of the Evil Americans, and thus must be allowed to overrun the nicer parts of the U.S.

Redmond, Washington now looks like Mumbai if you judge by the people wandering the streets. Real gratitude from that SOB who used taxpayer money to get rich, right? And then put that famous “American” Satya Nadella in charge.

End H1B. Ilana is right: the people brought in are largely hacks: not only are they cheap, they are simply some other Indians buddy: the result of ethnic networking. Most are mediocre and talentless. You could hire all you need from the community colleges of America. Which is where most programmers used to come from.

Although I personally, have been displaced by H-1Bs (THREE of them on my last job!) I disagree.

We legitimately do need some of these people.

The solution is not to eliminate the H-1B, but to recognize that when a company absolutely needs a premium employee, they must pay a premium price for that crucial talent. The system Japan uses is such an imported crucial employee gets 25% more than their Japanese coworkers.

Everyone recognizes that this employee is not displacing a Japanese employee, and is providing the company with skill they can aspire to learn.

By contrast American employees recognize that the H-1B "prevailing wage" is set by cheap foreign labor, and further resent being required to train their substandard replacements.

While the O-1 program is a viable option for the rare world class contributors (I work with one), the H-1B program can be fixed by fair wages for the still needed and more abundant well above-average talent.

Truly a sore subject in not just the IT industry, but in engineering. Take Boeing in Seattle as an example, as well as the Carolinas and Florida. Experienced high quality US engineers are being replaced with less qualified H1B applicants from India, and Europe. US Engineers are forced to train their replacements or face immediate discharge. They underbid our rates, regardless of the cost of living. Many times H1B Engineers will live 4 or more to an apartment. But that is not the worst part, they do not integrate, they refuse to speak english except to supervisors, are not team players, and cannot or will not take orders from team leaders unless forced by supervisors. They make many mistakes, refuse to be corrected, and eventually their work has to be redone, under the auspices of saving money, they throw unskilled workers at a problem only to have skilled workers redo their work. As in all situations, there are exceptions. I have worked with fine foreign workers, very skilled. But they are the minority. And I agree the impact on the cities is devastating. Large influx of families coming with these workers, never intend to leave, they create little Indias, little china’s, which become areas where US citizens are not welcome, and some become violent. Muslims are also doing the same thing,and they tend to be very violent. They are not the peace loving people they portend to be on the Television screen. You are not welcome or tolerated in their world outside the TV and the work area. They are nasty and mean. The blacks and mexicans fight each other. The Muslims fight with both of them, and will kill and disappear and let it be thought of as a black on black crime which does not get investigate like a white on black crime. Police are slow to respond in dangerous areas. Its a problem which is exaserbated by the H1B visa program. Which, should have been used sparingly for Hi-Tech personnel in highly specialized fields where there were no US qualified personnel, and those possibilities were exhausted before even considering an H1B applicant, and no family would be allowed to enter the US during the assignment period. Now we have record unemployment for skilled US Engineers, no longer reported as unemployed is the Underemployed. Those who no longer can collect unemployment benefits, but still cannot find work. Or the 50 and over skilled employees being supplemented by H1B younger workers (unskilled). The truly unemployed is far larger that the unemployment numbers, and this is one of the many factors. The Brain Drain of skilled US workers is on the march to reduce the US lead on Technologically skilled workers, leading to state of the art design and manufacturing in the United States IMO.

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