This year, my best Christmas present was a war over legal, high-skilled immigration on X. On December 23, Laura Loomer tweeted:
Deeply disturbing to see the appointment of Sriram Krishnan as Senior Policy Advisor for AI at the Office of Science and Technology Policy. . . . How will [we] control immigration in our country and promote America First innovation when Trump appointed this guy who wants to REMOVE all restrictions on green card caps in the United States so that foreign students (which makes up 78% of the employees in Silicon Valley) can come to the US and take jobs that should be given to American STEM students. . . . This is not America First policy.
Soon heavyweights like Elon Musk, David O. Sacks, and Vivek Ramalamadingdong weighed in on the side of Sriram. The sports team analogy was duly trotted out: America needs to compete against China, so we need to recruit the very best team members from around the world, by removing the country-caps on H-1B visas, the vast majority of which go to Indians. Winning against America’s global rivals is measured by GDP and corporate profits.
This is a totally disingenuous argument, because H-1B visas are not for recruiting the “best of the best.” We have a different visa for that: the O visa, which is a temporary non-immigrant worker visa for people of “extraordinary ability in the sciences, arts, education, business, or athletics,” including movies and television. About 38,000 of these visas were granted in 2023. If we had a complete ban on immigration and mass deportation of illegals, I would have no problem with O visas.
H-1B visas are very different. Companies seek these for entry-level positions. They have to prove that they can’t find Americans for the job. But this is obviously bogus, because in many cases, companies have fired existing American workers (mostly white), then brought in H-1Bs, mostly from India, to replace them. These H-1Bs work longer hours at lower wages. Many are incompetent. Many have fake degrees. But they cut costs, raise profits, and enrich management. The fact Indian recruiting firms fill companies with fellow Indians is not meritocracy in action. It is Hindu nepotism. Unsurprisingly, Sriram and Vivek are all for it.
The claim that Indian H-1B visas are about bringing in “the best and the brightest” is entirely fraudulent. It is entirely about lowering wages by hiring substandard, cut-rate, corporate coolies. Yet countless prominent and credentialed people, including Elon Musk and Vivek Ramitupyoursnout, will look you straight in the eye, give you a firm handshake, and repeat that lie over and over again. To borrow a line from Matt Parrott, it is as infuriating a shit test as being asked to pretend that Bruce Jenner is now a woman.
