Why the MAGA Fight Over H-1B Visas Is Crossing Party Lines: Critics from the left and the right say Big Tech companies are exploiting the visa system for high-skilled workers to reduce labor costs and boost profits
Posted by WildestDreams_
Why the MAGA Fight Over H-1B Visas Is Crossing Party Lines: Critics from the left and the right say Big Tech companies are exploiting the visa system for high-skilled workers to reduce labor costs and boost profits
Posted by WildestDreams_
4 Comments
Non-paywalled link:
https://archive.is/2025.01.07-011032/https://www.newyorker.com/news/the-financial-page/why-the-maga-fight-over-h-1b-visas-is-crossing-party-lines
[Called it.](https://www.reddit.com/r/neoliberal/comments/1hpmg8n/nearly_half_of_gop_voters_want_military_to_put/m4imui0/) This is one of those perfect red meat media storm political issues. A very easy to identify outsider group, and a logically simple (even if logically incorrect) way to demonstrate how the outsiders are harming the insiders.
Left complaining about 85k H1B visas while also being okay about allowing 1 million undocumented migrants is peak irony
I understand right wingers hate for migration because they are racists but the so called left opposition is very peculiar
I’m not sure why people keep hammering on the point about H-1Bs being flawed when the tech crowd has also talked about fixing green card caps and etc
Also in case we get any salty tech bros moaning about cheap labor, keep in mind that most economic literature finds that H-1Bs have a neutral to positive impact on US salaries (except one by Bound, Khanna and Morales which found that salaries for natives would have been higher by 2.6 to 5.1%). Even that study, though, pointed out that H-1Bs benefitted consumers and boosted profits. The latter should especially be kept in mind as native tech bros get paid in stocks too
TLDR: business friendly policies are good. stupid regulations on hiring and rent seeking by special interest groups is how you get euro levels of stagnation