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by anticonformist 2180 days ago
Since I'm disagreeing with the majority here: I have nothing but love and respect for people of all countries. I also happen to disagree with the groupthink on the H1B for reasons that have nothing to do with being bigoted.

1. The H1B is unethical because it intentionally brain-drains countries.

Why is it good for the U.S. to take the most educated (and wealthy) foreigners from their countries? Doesn't this hurt these countries?

2. The H1B is unethical because it advantages large corporations and rich immigrants over small businesses and locals.

Small companies can't generally hire using H1B, so they lose out on the scam. The immigrants are disproportionately the wealthiest people from their countries. By buying expensive educations, their parents are buying them access to the U.S. Rich corporations helping rich people by exploiting others.

3. The H1B is unethical because companies commit fraud using it without consequence.

It's an open secret in the tech world that the H1B (and other visas) are being used to lower costs (through lower salaries, increasing supply, and coerced retention) and not to hire for roles that could not otherwise be filled by locals. This is fraud and yet there is little to no enforcement.

99% of the H1B jobs could all be filled locally. It would just drive up costs for large corporations like Google, Facebook, Microsoft, and Tesla.

2 comments

> 99% of the H1B jobs could all be filled locally

that’s a bold claim. do you have a any sources to back that up?

also, just because someone that is only interested in the financial aspect does a bootcamp, does not mean that they can immediately ramp up and do the work someone else has a formal education in and has been doing for 10 years. that’s not how life works.

while you make some good points, your intent seems to be "america first", which often veils less egalitarian aims (not implying that of you specifically however).

i'd rather advocate "innovation first", and the "america first" part will follow, but without the discriminatory baggage.

personally, i think we should abolish h1b's in favor of wider, streamlined immigration. bring all the innovators here, up and down the income spectrum. open labor markets and let them work to sort out value and allocation, rather than restricting them through political means and effectively only allowing large companies to take advantage of the arbitrage of all that.

that would actually make america great again.