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H1Bs now require a $100k payment per year (I believe, seeing some remarks saying it might be per visa) to the government due to Donald Trump executive order, plus if you are currently overseas and hold a H1B you need to pay $100k effective immediately on your next entry into the USA if you are not within the country by the 20th of September.
As a foreign non-Lawyer I don't know how effective this is going to be/liable to be immediately derailed in the courts, but I do think it's a positive step towards ensuring skilled immigration is used for the genuinely effective instead of ye olde 'I can import a foreigner who I have more power over at a 10% discount rate to domestic workers'. I'm also deeply skeptical of the 'productivity' of the vast majority of tech H1B hires and wish them the best of luck in attempting to offshore the competencies required to make AI-powered Grindr for Daily Fantasy Sports
Thank god. The H1-B system is well-known to be an absolute cesspit of corruption and fraud. The original purpose was for US businesses to selectively fill positions that there was a shortage of US talent for, but it's been heavily gamed by Indian diploma mills. Even the idea of a "labor shortage" doesn't really make sense when since it's not like the market would have never cleared, it was more an issue of the right pay/benefits. Indians were much more willing to put up with crappy conditions and lower pay, which made the field worse for everyone, and that's before talking about the blatant nepotism they'd often engage in.
Here's hoping the rule will actually stick, but given Trump's previous track record, I'm kind of doubtful. There's a high chance the courts either shred this outright, or at least significantly water it down.
If people's true objection to H-1B workers is that they allow employers to get away with shitty employment practices and bad working conditions then the correct way to fix that is to lobby for the government to end at will employment and introduce unfair dismissal/working standards directive regulations etc. like we have here in Europe. That will go a much longer way and be more legally secure long term for ensuring better rights for American workers.
In reality the true reasons why people don't want H-1B are those that (still) can't be talked about in polite society and so we all get put through this charade instead.
I'm not entirely opposed to the things you advocate for, but for me this is more of an object-level issue. I really don't want to have to have to compete against a billion Indians, especially when the field has relatively high unemployment at the moment.
Sure, that's a valid way to feel, but do you equally accept the arguments of liberal elites who want to exclude US citizen conservatives from being able to compete for elite jobs for the same reason, especially when elite overproduction means their children now have to work harder than they themselves had to for these sorts of positions?
Your culture provides no reciprocity, you advocate for competition because where you come from has nothing to offer us. You appeal to the spirit of competition in order to manipulate us into allowing you into our society. I just don't want to live with you; I don't want you in my neighborhood. I don't want to compete with you- I don't want my children to compete with you. I just don't want you around. You only care about competition because you only get upside from that arrangement, you have nothing at stake. I have my neighborhood at stake, and much more than that from the prospect of allowing millions of Indians to live with me "because competition."
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"I really don't want to have to have to compete against a billion Indians" isn't an argument, it's an expression of a preference.
@TheAntipopulist might have some kind of political principle behind his statement, but if he does, he hasn't expressed it. He's just expressed a preference to face less competition from Indians. As for me, personally, I just want to face less economic competition from people in general, it doesn't matter to me whether they're US citizens or foreigners.
Fair enough, that's actually defensible. I wouldn't agree with it but at least it is a logical reason.
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No, because citizenship actually means something. Which means that, in spite of the countless issues I have with our black underclass, I prioritize them over illegal Mexicans competing for their same jobs.
Citizenship means nothing to me. I just want to have less economic competition, whether it's from other US citizens or from foreigners.
You really ought to try to have some feeling of fellowship with your fellow citizens. At a minimum, pretending that citizenship means nothing is a big part of what allowed the woke madness (especially in regards to immigration) to take hold in the first place. But this (surprisingly coherent) video from Sam Hyde might help convince you for other reasons: https://youtube.com/watch?v=YvcUQI6gAaI?si=yIqiiZSn1C4nAos9
I don't see any reason to have a feeling of fellowship with my fellow citizens, specifically, as opposed to having a feeling of fellowship with groups defined in other ways. But I do see that in certain situations, it is best for society in general to at least pretend to have a feeling of citizenship.
So I think you do have a point about the woke madness.
For me one of the interesting things about immigration is that, I think that for the most part, neither wokes nor right-wingers have any real principles about it.
If most people illegally crossing the US border were white conservative Christians, the wokes would be demanding to build a border wall and the right-wingers would be setting up sanctuary cities.
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