Ask HN: Why are US tech workers so pro open borders?

[TorontoTheGood]

I am trying to understand why US tech workers seem to be so Libertarian on open border immigration policy, when it clearly does not benefit them (downward pressure on salaries, immigrant ethnic cronyism, etc). Where does this attitude come from?

[rewdy]

A few comments. I'm a software engineer and I am very _pro-immigration_. This view point seems to be held pretty consistently among my colleagues (although certainly not universally). I am not pro "open borders"; that's different. I'm not sure all the exact data behind the assumptions in the question, but I can comment on why I am in favor of immigration:

My experience working with a lot of international people (H-1B, etc) is just that in general the people I have worked with have been highly-motivated, hard working, and fantastic people to work with in general. Bringing more people like this into the country I think is just good for society and good for the culture. Any statistical disadvantage it may create for me (salary-related, job competition, etc) I am just not concerned about. I think these concerns tend to be overstated.

[TorontoTheGood]

Do you have bad experiences with US workers, since you implicitly contrast them with immigrant ones?

[therealpygon]

Is that what you got out of it? Seems like some bias might have been brought to the reading, since at no point did they “contrast” US workers from what I see. They simply stated they are pro-immigration because they view them as beneficial additions to the US workforce? So the better question is why did you feel the need to inject such an argument rather than receiving what was actually said?

[uberman]

Tech workers from what context? The majority of H-1B visas go to tech workers. There are large tech employers with teams in the USA that speak an East Asian language exclusively while in office in the USA. Teams that will not employ English only speakers.

Pichai came to the USA as a student and worked initially on an H-1B visa as did Musk. Musk once claimed he would "go to war" supporting this program though he may feel differently today.

Given that much of "big tech" is staffed and run by immigrants why would we not expect big tech to be pro open boarders at least as it relates to tech employment?

[TorontoTheGood]

That's not what I am asking. I want to know why US-born people in tech is/was so pro open border when it clearly does not benefit US labor. You don't get a lot of push-back from within tech against these hiring practices.

[xhkkffbf]

I think the answer is that it depends upon who is talking and how the question is asked. Many recognize that it helps the US to import great talent. But people also recognize the downward pressure on wages and the sometimes explicit racism that appears. It's not usual to hear stories of managers who only want to hire people with the same skin color.

So if you ask the question in general, you'll get some basic support. But if you ask, perhaps, about H1B abuse you'll find that people will often confirm that it occurs.

[franktankbank]

I used to have more open attitudes, probably mostly stemming from the idea that America should take in the best and the brightest and that was a big driver of Americas rise to power. I sort of see it more like a Trojan horse as used in the last 30 - 40 years.

[uberman]

30 and 40 years ago H-1b visa essentially represented a source of indentured servile class of employee. People with no rights and enough fear to keep their mouths shut. If your trojan horse reference relates to these people getting permanent status and job mobility and leadership positions then sure. I would agree. On the other hand there is no coordinated malice here. Just individuals who graduated from the exploited immigrant to the tech leader who now manages a team of their countrymen hoping for thier own trojan horse opportunity.

[franktankbank]

I'm not really sure how to clarify what I mean by Trojan horse. I think people respond to incentives so I don't really care how people take advantage of that. I do think that there is some shortsightedness on the part of the people that created the incentives. If not shortsightedness perhaps a cultural cynicism on one or the other side of the exchange.

[astro1234]

Immigration having downward pressure on salaries is a common and demonstrably false misconception. Immigration adds more members to the labor pool while also increasing demand. The two, in most major studies, cancel each other out.

"Immigrant ethnic cronyism" -- would you care to explain a bit more?

[leros]

I'm worried about off shoring. In the past few years I've consulted or been asked to consult at companies who are either off shoring or have offshored most of their engineering team to places like Ukraine. From what I've seen it's been successful. The engineers there are much cheaper, are just as competent, and work much harder, plus their communication in English is great.

[astro1234]

I don't have personal experience with this -- but if I were in the situation where my job was jeopardized by better price efficiencies, I don't know that I personally would have a problem with that. If Ukrainians can do my job just as well or better than I can and they can do it cheaper, I would be worried if my company didn't take advantage of that.

That's my own personal opinion. I can understand how e.g. local and/or temporary changes to wages would be far more concerning and devastating to jobs that are lower paying, but since the question is on tech jobs which are typically much higher paying, I think it's fair game for companies to make strategic decisions in the company's best interest (as long as it doesn't run afoul of laws or human rights). I would be happy for the folks that were able to participate in an economy.

To me it would be unethical to create artificial barriers to lock humans out of opportunities just so I could keep an effectively inflated salary (since this assumes that the true value of the labor is actually lower than what I'm being paid).

[leros]

I'm not entirely against it either. I want everyone everywhere to have the best opportunities. I'm ok with things adjusting a little bit globally even if that means my own earnings go down a bit.

It is interesting though seeing US tech companies, making US level revenue streams, with their US owners making massive profits go from hiring highly paid Americans to hiring overseas people for 25% or less.

Not to be hyper-nationalistic or anything like that, but US tech workers used to get to take advantage of the wealth of the US tech industry. Obviously lots still to do, but many people are unemployed for a long time right now or taking jobs at lower pay. Meanwhile the US owners are making record profits. Feels like a part of the system isn't working anymore.

All that said, I also can't really justify hiring an American developer over an Eastern European developer in many cases. Not all, but many.

[toast0]

a) I'm the descendant of immigrants (half of my grandparents were born overseas and naturalized... my grandmother technically naturalized twice), and I can't justify it was fine for them to be here, but it's not fine for others to immigrate.

b) A lot of my circle of contacts are immigrants or descendants of recent immigrants. I can't justify it's fine for them to be here, but it's not fine for others to immigrate.

c) A large portion of the leaders of companies I've worked at are immigrants or descendants of recent immigrants. I can't justify it's fine for them to be here, but it's not fine for others to immigrate.

Following onto c, those people who immigrate here, and start companies that hire me have clearly benefited me.

I don't know how I really feel about open borders. I'm fine with reasonable policies limiting immigration. I think you'll find consensus that the current US policies on immigration are not reasonable, although there's definitely not consensus on in which direction the rules should change. I think the immigration categories are roughly ok, although there's clearly some gaming in E1; but I think the way numeric limitations work and how some categories have to wait 20 years for their priority date to come up could use some help.

Numeric limitations by country of origin doesn't feel equitable when countries have vastly different populations and land areas, it doesn't feel fair that Liechtenstein's whole population could immigrate through the numerically limited categories in 2 years, assuming sufficient slack in worldwide numbers, but most countries would take hundreds of years for their whole population to make it through the numerically limited categories.

[franktankbank]

Liechtenstein ain't going to swamp anything tho right? Very long paragraphs for a dumb conclusion.

[bjourne]

You need to present some evidence of your claims that US tech workers does not benefit from immigration. If you can't there is no point wasting time with you since you're then a "true believer".

[mrdependable]

People support things that sound like a good idea to them, or that have been sold as a good idea to them, especially if they think it won't negatively affect them. It's easy to be pro open borders when you can't see how it would negatively impact you.

You say it clearly does not benefit them, but the problem is that nothing is really clear or obvious about it. There are a lot of different puzzle pieces, history, and order of effects that need to be considered which most people don't.

[victorbjorklund]

You might as well ask why US tech workers are in favour of computer science education when it clearly does not benefit them that new people learn to code etc.

[TorontoTheGood]

That’s a whataboutism. The original question is why many US tech workers support open borders for tech labor when the supply increase primarily hits the wages and bargaining power of workers already here.

[victorbjorklund]

Nope it is not. It is an explanation for why you see it. You said you can’t understand why people are not trying to prevent new people over entering the tech labour market in US.

They simply see that the longterm gain for everyone is higher by having more people do high-value creating jobs vs the shortterm strategy of pulling up the ladder after yourself.

[fullstick]

I support open borders (yes open borders) because I support human rights. Migration is natural and human. Limiting migration limits people's ability to improve their circumstance. Closed borders also limit society's ability to benefit from migranta because they are stuck in an unproductive situation.

[fullstick]

Meant to reply to op

[fullstick]

I support open borders (yes open borders) because I support human rights. Migration is natural and human. Limiting migration limits people's ability to improve their circumstance. Closed borders also limit society's ability to benefit from migranta because they are stuck in an unproductive situation.

[badpun]

How many people do think would move into the US within the next couple of years if the country opened its borders to everyone? I think it's somewhere between a hundred million and a billion people. There are billions of people on Earth for whom having a crappy job in the US is a dream scenario compare to their current circumstances. Many of them would move if they could. Hell, millions of people are already literally walking through Central America jungles and deserts to live in the US illegally - that shows you how attractive it is, even if at risk of being deported at any moment.

[fullstick]

If they can travel that far with so few resources, surely they have some good ideas and can get things done - why do we want to discourage that? If people can come freely, they can leave freely too.

[bad_username]

Suicidal empathy...

[fullstick]

If you don't like it you can leave (if we had open borders haha)

[guywithahat]

I'm not sure they always are. Certainly employers/managers are pro-US tech workers because it gives them access to lower-cost talent, and many H1B's/immigrants are supportive of it because they want more people like them. This is a common complaint of Indian H1B's and something I've experienced myself, where, especially before the H1B fee, they would only seriously consider other Indians/people of their nationality.

If you go into the midwest though there's more animosity about being replaced by lower-wage foreign talent. In my experience when US-born engineers support immigration strongly it seems to be a holdout from their college years, and not something they picked up since starting their career.

[bbwbsb]

Surely what benefits someone is downstream of their preferences (including moral preferences) and not of some objective measure of what other people might like?

[ferguess_k]

I guess getting H-1Bs with relatively equal compensation (but maybe worse work habits) is still a lot better than getting jobs offshored to somewhere that has 1/3 of the costs.

[TorontoTheGood]

That answer does not make sense. Why would companies offshore if not having access to immigrant labour receiving the same pay as US labour?

[beAbU]

Most of them are from the other side of the border alredy.

[cruano]

Because it is the reason the US is a tech hub in the first place ?

No immigration means no concentration of talent, which means companies would just move to a country that allows that (e.g. Ireland) and they'll take their high-paying jobs with them.

[brodouevencode]

This implies the immigration came before the technology, which is not what happened.

[TheCoelacanth]

I don't think you can plausibly claim that the US was a leader in technology until the 20th century, which is long after the US started having enormous amounts of immigration.

[TorontoTheGood]

Silicon Valley industry grew big before major tech immigrant inflows. Also, you're assuming that US people can't do the jobs of visa people.

[jfyi]

We're talking early boom? Like WW2 era? It was more industrial. If we are defining tech worker as a person that worked at a factory for technology, I am pretty sure there is a history of immigration there too.

I don't think we could cleanly say either way though, it would come down to nitpicking the definition of "tech worker". I have no real interest in that, and will grant you could look at it either way.

[brodouevencode]

Until recently (~20 years) IT was generally libertarian on all fronts.

[OkayPhysicist]

I'd put the shift even later than that. 2015 maybe. I think 2008 redirected a lot of people who would have gone into "Business" in the abstract towards tech, eroding the prior engineering culture, and then it took a few years for that crowd to establish themselves as a relevant voice in the community.

Looking back, the reaction to Aaron Shwartz's death in 2013 was, IMO, indicative of the older culture. It definitely felt like a minority viewpoint by the time Covid rolled around. So, somewhere in there.

[jdw64]

Beyond the saying that US is a nation of immigrants, as an Asian, it's clear that the more open the US IT industry becomes, the more advantageous it is for the US.

I live in Korea, so my perspective differs a bit from people here. I've worked with clients in Korea, China, and Japan, and I've also collaborated with Americans.

To be precise, this is a classic core-periphery model problem in macroeconomics. People often say that open source is open to everyone, but if you're not a native English speaker, participation is difficult. That's the first barrier. It's hard for products of lower quality than open source to become commercialized, right?

And that's where the problem begins. US big tech companies use open source and global platforms to extract free labor and data from peripheral developers around the world, building exclusive profit models.

It's open in form, but in practice, participation is stratified.

They control the infrastructure and standards of the 'open source ecosystem,' and developers in third-world countries, including Korea, end up working as subcontractors that conform to those standards. They become digital tenant farmers.

Of course, the tenant farmers also benefit. It's just that the structure of the benefits is asymmetric compared to the landlords

The tenant farmers (developers from countries other than the US) work hard on the land provided by the landlord (US open source frameworks and platforms), but the landlord reaps all the final harvest.

To learn how to use US infrastructure, people in other countries introduce certifications and other gatekeeping mechanisms. In other words, the entire industry is dependent on US technology. Ecosystem capture is the US strategy.

Google released Android and Kubernetes, and Meta released React, precisely to control the ecosystem standards. It's the most efficient strategy.

So it requires more cognitive overhead. And because of that openness, sovereign programming or machine-native programming never emerged, leading to a complete cultural dependency—which also makes it easier to manage.

In fact, there are quite a few ways of thinking that feel natural to the Western programming industry that feel foreign to me

The more open it becomes, the more participants join, and the harder it becomes for non-native English speakers to keep up. China seems to be catching up with its 1.4 billion population, but looking at Gitee, they're still heavily dependent on the US.

It's free, but it's not free at all.

But is open borders really all that bad? My answer is no. Domination is inevitable anyway. It's just that domination through open borders is easier to gain consent from the dominated than through closed borders.

Participation in an open empire is better than submission to a closed one. It's just asymmetric.

As Gramsci said, domination comes from the consent of the dominated. In that sense, a refined form of domination like open borders, even if asymmetric, is acceptable enough

[Henchman21]

You are misinformed. You are seeing bias present in media and are accepting it as fact. You’re bringing your own preconceived biases to this question. You are not seeming to act in good faith.

[archagon]

Uh, what are you talking about?

I know almost no one who supports “open borders.”

[jfyi]

I am opposed to borders on a fundamental, ideological level. They are an expression of state violence prohibiting natural freedom of movement and trade.

I don't believe that is actually a commonly held capital "L" Libertarian belief though, and certainly would not associate myself with that party.

[AnimalMuppet]

Does Ukraine/Russia change your view at all? Russia would sure like freedom of movement and trade there.

But forget the military/self defense issues. Consider the word "jurisdiction". It literally means getting to say what the law is. Well, if you have a place where US law is in force, and another place where Chinese law is in force, you have to have a border, a place where the law switches from one to the other.

Or do you believe that there should be one universal law for the whole world? If so, whose?

Or do you believe that law enforcement is also state violence? Do you believe that the absence of any law would be less violent? And if so, what is your basis for believing that?

[Snoozus]

There could be a border, where the law and currency change. But people could still be free to cross that border.

I don't know what you mean with the russia/Ukraine thing, bringing a tank over the border would obviously be illegal in either legal system.

[AnimalMuppet]

How about bringing Little Green Men across the border? Isn't stopping that a good idea? Isn't that part of what (current-style) borders are for?

[jfyi]

I'm curious about this. Can you explain your viewpoint without asking questions?

Also, do you identify as a "Libertarian" or "paleo-libertarian"? I really think the difference should be more evident in conversations like this.

[AnimalMuppet]

I'm trying to clarify your position, not mine. No, I can't do that without asking questions.

What I identify with isn't the point. (I identify as neither, BTW.)

Little Green Men, in case you were unclear on what I meant there: So Russia sent a bunch of Russian military, without insignias on, into Ukraine, where they became a "secessionist" movement. But what they really were was a stealth invasion.

So, if you have no borders, how do you stop that? How do you stop armed thugs from somewhere hostile to you from coming over the border, as individuals, and destroying your country?

Or do you oppose the idea of countries? And if you do, then how do you get from where we are currently (as a world of countries, some with hostilities to other countries) to where you would like us to be?

If you want my position, I guess it's that your statement "I am opposed to borders on a fundamental, ideological level. They are an expression of state violence prohibiting natural freedom of movement and trade" may be fine in theory, but is fundamentally unworkable in the real world. I see some specific problems, reasons why I think it can't work. I'm trying to see if you have answers.

[jfyi]

I'm not sure you can use state violence as a counter to a complaint about state violence.

If your point is that we don't have easy solutions, yes I agree.

I'd also point out that the distinction I am making is state vs personal not violence vs non violence.

[7jjjjjjj]

>Or do you believe that law enforcement is also state violence?

...It obviously is? How is that even a question?

[AnimalMuppet]

Optimistically: Empathy. Care for all humans, not just for the ones in this country. It is not wrong to look at life in America, life in the third world, and think "wouldn't it be nice if everybody could have this instead of that?" (But cynically, I suspect that most of them aren't thinking through the second-order consequences of that.)

Cynically: Greed and cynicism. Greed first. The tech workers who wanted to come here have always been able to come, so open borders are not going to increase the supply of tech workers much. But it is going to increase the supply of low-level workers, which results in lower prices in a number of areas. That makes tech workers better off, because at least some of the stuff they buy is cheaper.

The cynicism part is cynicism about America. They see it as nothing special, as having no special character worth preserving, as either neutral or negative overall. So if mass immigration happens, and it changes the character of either politics or culture, who cares?