Posted on 11/28/2016 1:25:25 PM PST by Javeth
I was having a conversation on the weekend with a politically mixed crowd, and an interesting conclusion emerged:
1. EVERYBODY in the room--Republican, Democrat, Independent-- hated the H1B and L1 guest worker (cheap labor) visa programs and agreed that they've become incredibly corrupt and abused by the likes of Disney, Facebook, the Chamber of Commerce and other crony capitalists and politicians, and had to go. Even many of the Dems, some of whom (gag) had voted for Hillary, harshly criticized Obama for his negligence on H1B enforcement and were so fed up that they'd vote for Trump in 2020 if he put a freeze on the use of cheap labor from India to kick Americans out of jobs and push down wages, which hurts both young techs and computer programmers (who can't get entry-level jobs) and experienced workers who are "put out to pasture".. This is a political winner for Trump and the GOP, and if he starts his presidency by puttong a moratorium on the H1B and L1, he'll burnish his economically populist credentials just as he's done by killing the TPP, boosting jobs and wages and earning the loyalty of the American heartland, regardless of party. Whatever happens with the economy (and the Fed and Obama have done their best to postpone an inevitable recession and dump it on Trump's lap), the people will know he's on their side, not the globalist plutocrats, and the increased jobs and wages will make sure that Americans can't be "put out to pasture" as expendable nuisances by the globalist crony capitalists anymore. It's the best bulwark to ensure reelection in 2020.
2. Policy-wise, this is one of those areas where President Trump can have an immediate effect because crony capitalists like Robert Iger at Disney ARE ALREADY FLOUTING THE LAW, so Trump's team need not go through the mess of passing new laws--just enforce what's already there. The H1B is explicitly supposed to be used only when Americans cannot be tapped to fill the job, and Disney clearly violated this policy. The same with SoCal Edison, same with Zuckerberg at Facebook, Microsoft, Goldman Sachs, Chase and the health insurers who routinely replace Americans with cheap Indian labor. Obviously there are Americans to do these jobs, so the law on H1B is being nakedly violated, with Obama (and George W. Bush and Bill Clinton for that matter) doing nothing to enforce it. This is an easy call and very practical--no new laws, just enforce what's there. President Trump also has the power to demand that employers pay higher fees for bringing in H1B and L1 workers, provide detailed evidence on qualifications, make sure the wages are equal to those of Americans and impose harsh fines for every infraction by American and Indian companies for the violations they've already committed. (Obviously, if there are really no Americans available to do a job, then the globalists should have no trouble paying all the extra fees to hire that Indian "expert" with all the multiple--and likely BS--degrees on his fake resume.) No new laws even needed.
3. The violators of the law like Robert Iger at Disney, Bill Gates and Mark Zuckerberg, plus the Indian outsourcing companies like Infosys and Tata need to suffer harsh consequences (including criminal penalties) and need to be made an example of-- just like the Wall Street crooks who crashed the economy in 2008, and which the corrupt Obama refused to prosecute. This would do even more to burnish Trump's populist credentials with the people. To get a sense of how egregious the globalists' abuses are: http://www.mercurynews.com/2016/09/06/emmons-when-walt-disney-co-replaces-americans-with-h1b-workers-its-a-small-world-for-sure/ Disney, SoCal Edison, EmblemHealth and other banks and health insurers not only use the H1B to kick Americans out of jobs, but also have the nerve to force the laid off Americans to train their foreign replacements. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TCbFEgFajGU The infamous video of Lawrence Liebowitz speaking at the firm Cohen and Grigsby about how to exploit legal technicalities in the H1B so companies don't have to hire Americans--including putting out fake job ads and wasting American workers' time and energy on job applications that the companies have no intention of bringing in Americans' for. Guys like Liebowitz and the corrupt companies who use him should be fined and jailed.
Again, this is smart policy and good for the American economy and workers, but it's also smart politics. Everyone I've talked to, of all ages and political backgrounds, hates these guest worker visas with a passion.
Other areas of immigration law also need more enforcement and changes to the law--the hard truth is that legal immigration numbers have to be sharply reduced, or the demographic changes (including in states like Florida, Texas and Arizona) will soon make it impossible for conservatives to win high office again, and our gun rights and other Constitutional rights will soon disappear from the demographic tsunami. At that point it's all over-- our rights can't be protected at the ballot box, and revolution and partition become the only alternative. Therefore a general moratorium on mass immigration is also urgent. But Trump will have to deal with the corrupt resistance of not only Dems but also pro-amnesty Senate RINOs like Marco Rubio, John McCain, Lindsey Graham, Jeff Flake, Bob Corker, Susan Collins, Orrin Hatch, Roger Wicker and Lamar Alexander (how in the world were these RINO traitor idiots not ousted in the primaries and Cantorized?) will put up every obstacle they can to Trump's attempts to change immigration law, block amnesty and reduce legal immigration numbers to prevent a demographic transformation of the USA from mass immigration and the end of the US as a Constitutional republic. They're committed globalists.
But on the H1B and L1 visa and their mass abuse, Trump already has the law and public policy on his side. He can take instant action, freeze these visas and take swift action against the crony capitalists and Chamber of Commerce who've been abusing these visas from Day One, and have a major beneficial effect on Americans and our economy. In the process, he'll secure his path for reelection from the first week of taking office.
tl;dr
H1B visa people steal technology. We need containment on foreign workers her on work visas from industries of vital national interest.
That means kick all the chinese nationals her as guests in the government funded technology labs.
I have long said to PROSECUTE the ENTIRE BOARD OF DIRECTORS in Every one of these Companies and put them ALL IN JAIL.
They make Policy, nobody else.
Which begs the question: How many board members and top executive a H1B's?
The ‘brain drain’ from India has long been completed.
Now they give degrees out witht 3 cereal box tops, I think.
I hae made a good careeer out of fixing cheap source code written by outsourced or H1B visa cheap programmers.
It's not at all clear that they're violating the letter of the law, as opposed to the law's alleged intent:
"H-1B Is Designed to Allow Employers to Replace Americans with Cheap Foreign Workers [...] H-1B Is Designed to Allow Employers to Pay Foreign Workers Extremely Low Wages" - Primer For Reporters Looking Into the H-1B Program, http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/3306445/posts
To prevent worker abuse, make visa workers punch time clocks and make employers pay by hour, $25/hour minimum.
Also make it possible for employee to switch to new employer if:
1. able to get $30/hour+
2. raise of $4/hour+
3. new employer pays older employer’s fees
Also let’s not pretend Americans can’t be found to do a job.
Require each visa holder to pay 30% minimum income tax and a $5,000 fee.
[Why not have fee? They are supposed to be premium people, so $5,000/each is small change.]
Require visa holder employers to pay a $5,000 fee too plus post $50,000 bond for each visa employee until employee surrenders his/her visa at a US embassy abroad.
“L-1 visas are available to employees of an international company with offices in both the United States and abroad. The visa allows such foreign workers to relocate to the corporation’s US office after having worked abroad for the company for at least one continuous year within the previous three prior to admission in the US. The US and non-US employers must be related in one of four ways: parent and subsidiary; branch and headquarters; sister companies owned by a mutual parent; or ‘affiliates’ owned by the same or people in approximately the same percentages.[2] The L-1 classification also enables a foreign company which does not yet have an affiliated U.S. office to send an employee to the United States to help establish one, with additional requirements.[3]
“Spouses of L-1 visa holders are allowed to work without restriction in the US (using an L-2 visa) once EAD is granted, and the L-1 visa may legally be used as a stepping stone to a green card under the doctrine of dual intent.”
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/L-1_visa
ooo! Oooo!! I know!
"None. Because THEIR jobs are too important to outsource!!". do I win?
:-) Actually, I'm sure that it's all well and good for them, until they need to get a password reset and "Steve" from India asks them to make sure their computer is plugged in, then "Go ahead and do the needful reboot".
Take a look at all of the scientific and technical papers coming out of “US” universities over the past few years.
The names of the authors read like a Beijing phone book.
Yep, these sorts of measures help to curb the BS and make sure that an H1B hire is brought in because there really is no replacement. This is how Europe and Asia do it— foreign workers cannot be paid anything less than native workers or have any restrictions on their freedom to look for jobs. Any employers who violate this are sent to prison. No exceptions. The Germans are especially tough on this, and even under Merkel with all her stupidity otherwise, the German middle class and tech industry has stayed intact thanks to the wisdom of her predecessors on it.
Which makes it all the more important to bring in and train American workers for those positions. Essentially our universities are training our competitors and giving away coveted and critical technology developed in America. It’s maddening to realize that stupid policies like the H1B and L1 are essentially giving away the USA’s technological dominance to China and India as their workers take our jobs and bring that knowledge back home— with Americans not only losing jobs, but US taxpayers also footing the bill to train them in US universities.
Agreed. Long prison terms for all these globalist traitors as well as the bankster-thieves who brought the economy down in 2008. They no longer have their get out of jail free cards thanks to their partner in crime and corruption Barack Obama.
That happens but we still have a lot of really good Indian talent who come here and end up starting or having key positions in our highest growth tech firms. Arguably they end up as major contributors to the briader wealth in the country—as opposed to the low-skill Latin immigrants who become drains on our coffers for generations.
People that came in on H-1B and became citizens hate it more than anyone else. The know it is a scam. They have kids too.
That happens, but H-1B is primarily about low-salary code drones.
But that is how a lot of those guys start out.
Exactly, this.
Far better that Americans be starting out in those positions and get the crucial start to build their careers and families, and start companies. Right now the H1B and L! are being used to displace American workers which makes it impossible to even get on the career ladder. No other country in the world is so stupid to disfavor their own workforce. Pleas about “building wealth” for the country in the abstract are meaningless when they don’t translate into higher wages and opportunities for Americans who built this country into a technological power in the first place. The USA had no H1B during the 50s, 60s, 70s and 80s when the real innovations were happening in the computer industry— that was almost all homegrown talent. The H1B has caused America to slit its own throat.
And I’d add that the lack of good starting position jobs for American graduates, and layoffs of older workers, are major contributors to the higher death rate and drastically falling birth rate of native born Americans in the past decade. Tech workers who’ve put years into their training can’t get jobs and pay off their student debt, so they can’t start families. It’s stealth genocide of the native-born American population in effect.
Yes, I’d be all in favor of replacing these corrupt, useless execs and lawyers with H1B hires. These morons whine about high American labor costs when they’re the ones driving up those costs, usually thanks to the cushy overpaid positions that Daddy or Mommy get them in the first place.
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.