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ICE has conducted its largest ever raid targeting... Korean automotive workers at a Georgia Hyundai factory?
We don't have all the details, but from what I can glean most of the Koreans were in the country on B1 buisiness visas, which allows the visa holder to attend business meetings and conduct training, but does not allow for "labor". The factory involved is brand new, having opened less than a year ago, which would explain why they needed so many Koreans (Hyundai is a Korean company) to get operations off the ground.
One defense of these kind of raids is that it doesn't do America any good to have foreign companies build factories in the US if they are going to staff those factories with an imported workforce instead of Americans, but it is far from clear that was happening here. I don't doubt that many of these B1 visaholders were "working the line" and as such technically violating the terms of their visas, but that's how foreign investment works. If you build a brand new specialized factory in an area that doesn't have factories of that kind, the local workforce will inherently be inexperienced and unsuitable for the facility. You can't teach people how to run the factory without, well, running the factory.
The big question is what this means for foreign investment in the United States. If you were in charge of a foreign manufacturing corporarion, would you want to build a facility in the United States if there is a good chance your own employees would be arrested for running the company's facilities?
Hyundai Raid Rattles a Hot Spot of Growth in Georgia
The result was demographic replacement.
What am I missing here is let's assume they want to import a lot of Koreans and put them to work in a factory. Maybe Americans are dumb and can't work or something. I'm not saying it's true but let's assume every reason you can think of is actually true. Why couldn't they make all those workers legal? With all the fanfare about the project it's certain they could make all the papers in order if they wanted to. ICE couldn't do a thing if you have legal workers with proper documentation. I can see only one reason: illegals are cheaper and easier to control. They wanted easier exploitable workers. If that's true, they need to be punished for this, very hard. If they are feeling "betrayed" by the fact they can't violate the laws of the country they're doing business in, maybe some hard and painful reality check is due.
If they are here legally (and working legally), what is the problem with scrutiny? No scrutiny could have done anything to them, if their status is in order, ICE could check it a thousand times and still couldn't do anything.
Work visas (H-1B and H-2B) are capped. They would be competing with every other company in the country that wants to bring in foreign workers.
Good. That's how it should be. And given how much hype was about that project, they probably would have not much trouble carving out some quota for this - it's several hundreds people, compared to Big Tech companies who get thousands and tens of thousands of slots. They could even make a special allocation, it's Biden admin after all, it's not like they'd say no to anyone. They just din't bother to because why bother if the law is dead anyway and anything goes.
Why? Let's say the US has X amount of specialized talent and thus they can only do Y amount of productivity with in a year. If companies in (or investing in) our country are so productive and there's enough market demand that they want to do >Y creation, then why is it good to cap them artificially?
Now I know, the general response is "because those jobs should go to the locals!" but the thing is, talented local people already have jobs. If they're hard working and capable, then they're mostly already doing their part in achieving Y (or doing something else in another industry) because companies want them.
As any hiring manager knows nowadays, the job pool is mostly incompetents, liars, lazies, addicts, or otherwise unwanted because of a serious flaw. It's the same way that dating apps like Tinder are mostly used by the unpleasant and unwanted, the good ones are already picked through. Of course just like the apps there's often some amount of pickings but they're limited and get scooped up quick of course and we're still overall limited to Y production.
Now maybe that's what we as a society want, jobs programs for the lazy drug addicted idiots being put in roles above their worth, and we're willing to sacrifice efficiency in key industries for it. And maybe it's worth it if we put hard limits on economic growth and only allow Y production no matter how much market demand exists.
But that's a discussion with some hard tradeoffs is it not?
Because importing foreign workers in massive amounts have costs. Assimilation capacity is not infinite. And breaking assimilation processes - and the host culture - has societal costs that everybody is going to pay. Cultures have value, and breaking them has costs. Immigration is not quantity-neutral. One immigrant is not going to cause any significant strain on the system and in general case will contribute to the society and increase general welfare. One million of immigrants, brought synchronously into the country are going to cost non-linearly more, and may cause profound changes in the society, which may not be for the better. That's why you need an "artificial" cap - it's only artificial if you don't consider externalities. The process is not linear and not neutral towards time scales - it's like I asked you to drink 100 gallons of water. If it's over a year, you probably would be healthier for that. If you try to do it all at once, you will die. It's the same water, but not the same rate.
I am not sure that's actually true. Even for the market I have the most experience with - computer programming - looking for a job, if you aren't ok with shitty job that pays peanuts, it is a very frustrating and nerve-racking experience. Having to answer the question "why should we pay you X if we can hire a cheap foreigner for X/2" does not make it any easier. And in my experience, getting cold-hired by a company that does mass outsourcing, without knowing somebody on the inside, is next to impossible now. In most cases, they won't even bother to talk to you. Even if you know you are much better worker, the people who make hiring decisions just don't care. They tell the public they have massive shortage of talent and need thousands of H1Bs, but try to send them your resume, and they won't even bother to read it, it goes straight to the reject pile. Sorry, I don't believe it anymore, I think it's a con. H1Bs are just cheaper and easier to handle, that's all. I can only imagine how much worse it is in places where prices are the only thing you can compete on.
You're saying it as if any of the key industries have a slightest idea about how to measure efficiency. I know for a fact in my industry, nobody has a faintest clue how to do it. It's either "if we hit the deadline - which has been invented arbitrarily based on what some marketer promised to some analyst bigwig because they had one too many cocktails while golfing - then we are golden" or "we're making money? Cool! Let's make even more money!". There's no some "efficiency" science behind it and nobody has a slightest idea how to make it. It's all done by the seat of one's pants, and people that by either luck or talent can pull stuff out of their asses that is better than other get billions and people that are unlucky don't, and that's how it goes. Let's not pretend we have some science behind it, nobody does.
Yes, but not in a way you present it. It's not uniform, as I mentioned. Accepting a small amount of immigrants is almost always going to be net positive, especially if selected by any sane criteria (skin color is definitely not one of the best, but even that could work up to a limit). With increased quantity, costs raise non-linearly and the tradeoffs become more and more hard. There is a wide area where the net is still positive, but this area is not infinite. Eventually it comes to a point where a select few players reap all the benefits and the rest pays massive, sometimes society-breaking externalities. It's not uncommon - a lot of modern politics is based on emphasizing benefits for select few and covering up externalities for the rest - this is one of the prominent examples.
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