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Comment by CyberRabbi | Hacker News Reader

Hi Peter,

What type of effect has the proliferation of immigrant worker programs created by the federal government in recent decades, such as H1B, had on the natural born American worker? Generally positive or negative?

Thank you

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Not an expert, but I was one of those immigrants who took work away from the natural born workers. My understanding is that economists mostly agree that immigration, especially of skilled workers, is generally beneficial to the economy of a country, but perhaps not so beneficial to the local workers who would prefer wages to become inflated due to constrained labor supply. My personal experience was that I got to pay significant US taxes which would otherwise have been paid to another country, then I founded US-based companies that hired natural born employees. Now that I've been a US citizen for 12 years, so I feel that H1-B entrants are reducing my earning potential? Nope. I'd more concerned about smart engineers living in other countries where the cost of living is much lower, who can work remotely, sometimes competing with me for the same work, although to be clear I'm really not concerned about those folks either -- it is hard enough to find good developers in one country that typically one has to expand the net worldwide.

Did you immigrate from China or India?

You're getting downvoted because this isn't something that Peter is claiming to be an expert in. He's an attorney, not an economist.

I would expect an immigration attorney to be generally well-versed in immigration in all facets. I’m a Rust developer but I generally keep up with all topical software engineering issues.

it depends. In my opinion, each case/ impact is individual while some cases might impact negatively the native american [ in reservation? born in US? or to which extent native?], others might impact them in a positive way

The existence of individual cases does not negate the fact that a systemic effect exists. What is that systemic effect?

there is certain good in diversity which comes from immigrants from different locations altogether with skills and natural resources it was a factor that allowed US to build the most powerful economy in the world. However, times change. I remember from lessons of History in the Univesity that every civilization has phases: Establishing, Prosperity, Decay. It is obvious that average impact at each of the three phases might be different. Also it might be that in the North and in the South the impact is opposite.

Are you an American politician or a practicing immigration attorney?

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