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Comment by JumpCrisscross | Hacker News Reader

> the immigration system disproportionately hurts American software engineers and American tech

The immigration debate suffers from overgeneralisation. Illegal immigration is a different problem from legal immigration. And short-term skilled migrants are unlike long-term skilled immigrants. Short-term migrants, i.e. those with no intention of staying in the U.S. long-term, probably depress American wages. Skilled immigrants aiming for residency, and certain classes of unskilled illegal immigrants, appear to add net value.

(Exhibit A of our system's self-destructiveness are international students at American universities being refused residency on graduation.)

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I think there are differences.

However over the last 20 years, most immigration, of both kinds, have been about one thing: reduced labor costs.

At the risk of downvotes, I’m going to include something Steve Bannon said on MSNBC last night about legal immigration. He made this point that it makes no sense for America to keep letting the best and brightest of the world in / draining them from everywhere else. Why aren’t we refusing the really good immigrants if anything? Those are the people we want in their home countries setting up fair and stable systems. Having them here is, after a certain point, kind of greedy.

Also free trade was supposed to fix this by also requiring companies to adhere to strict safety and labor laws, which would make labor prices more even. It never happened.

> Why aren’t we refusing the really good immigrants if anything?

Steve Jobs' father was a Syrian immigrant [1]. It is doutbtful that Steve Jobs--or Elon Musk or Satya Nadella--would have been as successful in their original countries as they've been here. As a species, we all win from giving our best and brightest access to America's stable institutions and rich economy.

More to the point, I find it difficult to believe Steve Bannon suddenly cares about other countries. His line about the overabundance of brown-skinned executives in Silicon Valley is telling enough.

> However over the last 20 years, most immigration, of both kinds, have been about one thing: reduced labor costs.

You mean to increase them. Thats the only point of restricting immigration, to increase the salaries of a few, at the cost of the many.

> Exhibit A of our system's self-destructiveness are international students at American universities being refused residency on graduation.

You cannot categorically say that all international students are "highly skilled" or even "skilled". Some are, some aren't; and I'm saying this as an Indian citizen on H1B in the United States. There has to be some kind of vetting period instead of handing off a green card right after graduation. I bet if the tables were turned you won't see anywhere close to this kind of generosity.

Regarding Cisco (downvote me if you want) not a lot of people do "skilled" work; Cisco is a sales machine and does not care about engineering. Fixing bugs (and passing them off as features) from companies which were acquired, doing busy work, attending 2-3 hour meetings, middle management malaise with paper pushers, maintaning status quo (it's 2018 and they still use gcc 3.3) etc. is not what I would define as "skilled" engineering work. It's mediocrity and that's what they want to maintain.

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