Introduction
Immigration reporting tends to rely heavily on stories — stories about illegal immigrant families looking to be reunited, about TPS recipients facing potential deportation, or about legal immigrants working their way toward citizenship. One type of story that receives far less attention from the media, despite its prevalence, is from victims of foreign guest labor — American mothers, fathers, and breadwinners who lost their livelihoods to cheaper foreign replacements and outsourcing.
Big corporations and their lobbyists will often claim that there is a "shortage" of American STEM workers that necessitates an ever-growing number of "high-skill" visas, such as H-1B, L-1, and H4 EAD. This is absolutely false.
In fact, only about a third of natives with college degrees in STEM fields actually hold STEM jobs, meaning there are millions of Americans who could be recruited prior to turning to foreigners.1 Foreign-educated immigrants are also less-skilled than U.S. degree holders when it comes to tests on numeracy, literacy, and computer operations.2 Foreign-educated immigrants with a college or advanced degree perform at about the level of Americans with only a high school diploma, according to test scores.
Congress has established that, each year, 65,000 H-1B visas will be made available for workers with bachelor's degrees, plus 20,000 more for those with master's degrees or higher. Certain groups, such as universities and research organizations, are exempt from these caps. In addition to H-1B, there are also L-1 visas for foreigners with managerial or specialized knowledge (no cap), H4 EAD work authorizations for H-1B spouses (no cap), and the Optional Practical Training program, which subsidizes employers who hire F-1 foreign students who graduate from college in America instead of hiring Americans. There are over one million international students in the United States.
Key takeaways:
There is no shortage of qualified American STEM workers — most Americans with STEM degrees work in other industries, and American graduates outperform foreign-educated immigrants when tested on a range of skills.
The H-1B program has transformed over time from a means to supplement the American tech workforce to a means of cheaply replacing it.
Americans who are replaced by H-1B guestworkers are often forced to train their replacements or risk losing their severance.
Foreign STEM workers often come from sham universities abroad — particularly in India — and have far fewer specialized skills than they claim.
President Trump and members of Congress ought to meet with laid off American STEM workers in order to hear their stories.
https://cis.org/Report/Untold-Stories-American-Workers-Replaced-H1B-Visa-ProgramI can see what Trump is trying to sell. This for that. Sure the college graduate immigrants shouldn't need welfare. At least you would think not. But are we really willing to sell our children out to foreign labor? What is always missing is the part about the great Americans that want to start businesses. What about great Americans who are talented?
