Edit: in case readers assume I'm being racist in some way: I'm a Sri Lankan national.
On review, it looks and sounds pretty dog-whistley to me. Worse than I expected.
As a Sri Lankan national, you may be missing some of the nativist overtones. "Undeserving" in particular is a loaded term in American public political discourse.
For an especially pernicious application, see:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Welfare_queen
This is a meme that still resonates with many people in America. It still resonates with me, as an ugly example of the way misleading rhetoric get deployed to stigmatize an underrepresented political class. This term immediately evokes associations like these.
Also, the color scheme and typography: seems designed to evoke a not very enlightened response. Definitely not embracing the light and airy look-and-feel I generally associate with progressive tech community.
I'd say it's designed to draw your attention. And boy it did.
I can't tell if they are intentionally doing that for nefarious reasons. Imagine seeing a "Conservatives for repealing the 2nd amendment" ad. I would assume they have some ulterior motives there.
People can be against H1-B abuse and NOT be anti-immigration.
I was shocked at Sanders amount of success, because I had grown up believing that the US public would immediately discount any associating with the word "socialist" (even by those that actually had beliefs not far from socialist views, and even allowing that Sanders positions aren't actually 'socialist' as used in Europe).
I suspect "progressive" was embraced for such reasons, but given how much I've been wrong about most anything political on the past decade+, I'd love to have actual evidence.
I'm not a Sanders supporter, but just wanted to point out that one can be both pro-immigrant (wanting to increase general immigrant quotas) and against programs like H1B that are designed to suppress salaries in specific industries.
I agree "progressive" isn't the most useful re-use of the word, but I would emphatically call it anti-nativist (or rather, pro-globalist) these days, or just "leftist".
Political labels in general are ill-fitted to static definitions. People are always stealing terms, twisting others, for demagogic needs. "liberal", "conservative", "progressive", "leftist", and "alt-right" are all pretty terrible for anything but, uhh, cultural identification, and don't indicate much of anything about you politically.
If you're against the 1%, you should be against these neoliberal immigration policies.
This is why they were so terrified of Bernie Sanders. He got a lot of support from working class whites who have been trending Republican for decades. But a figure like Sanders would derail the agenda (immigration and all) that is keeping a never ending stream of Kennedys in power.
I don't know what the ideal "solution" is, though the authors of the ad seems to thinks it involves immigrants. :\
The 'better future' people many immigrate for includes higher standards of living for similar work. They are willing to work for less because they believe citizenship is worth something. That 'better future' only exists if the country maintains this inequality by ensuring that citizens are hired first where possible.
Issues of globalization, birthplace lottery, and wealth inequality aside; these policies are in your favor if you are an employee, immigrant or not. Conversely, these policies hurt the company's bottom line by preventing hiring of the most cost efficient labor.
The backlash against this message is weaponized political correctness and/or employees speaking out against their best interests.