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by sokoloff 1959 days ago
That depends on what you see as the purpose of the visa requirements. If the purpose is to support economic prospects for American citizens and current residents (which seems like a completely valid purpose of government), then putting hurdles to ensure the job opening was “shopped” to qualified existing authorized workers seems pretty reasonable.

(I should clarify that I’m fully in favor of immigration programs that serve to increase the density of highly qualified individuals in the US and to fill positions which would otherwise go vacant. If as a small side-effect, those programs depress wages via increased supply, that’s still an excellent trade for the population. I am not in favor of visa programs substantially/primarily aimed at decreasing wages.)

1 comments

Increased supply of labor depresses wages ceteris paribus.

That is why George W Bush and older generation Republicans always supported legal AND illegal immigration. Their constituents were the businesss that thrived and made more profits from a cheaper laborforce.

The Democrats were historically hostile to immigration because their base was the working class. Now that Wall Street and Big Business has gone Democratic since Bill Clinton and the New Democrats there will be more supply of labor and thus lower wages ceteris paribus.

> ceteris paribus

Today I learned another useful latin expression.