Indians slam MAGA 'war' over H-1B skilled-worker visas as 'racist' | Hacker News Reader

Indians slam MAGA 'war' over H-1B skilled-worker visas as 'racist'

washingtonpost.com

5 pointsrawgabbit5 comments

I feel that both perspectives can be correct here before we introduce a race component.

Does the US labor market need to import more labor?

Absolutely. For our economy to grow we need more as we are not breeding fast enough. Without immigrants we face falling into a lost generation like Japan.

Do tech/consultancies exploit the H1-b program to bring in cheap labor?

Absolutely. While relatively well paid, H1-b workers can be acquired for as little as $60k per year (not including legal fees). While there is a "prevailing wage" clause, every large shop knows how to classify interns correctly to get past this. I personally know of shops that now have such a high percentage of Indian H1-b holders than English is no longer the working language. The case now exists East Asian talent is needed as none of the tech leads speak fluent English. Product managers are needed who are polyglots with the ability to translate.

With respect to a racial component, I don't really see it. From a MAGA perspective, many seem to be anti-immigrant plain and simple without regard to race. Even Musk gets called out for being "that guy from South Africa". What I do see though is Tech-Barons being the champions of East Asian talent at least, though some like Musk are otherwise fairly anti-immigrant.

While I have used the term "anti-immigrant" here, I feel that others might have used "pro-American". Feel free to swap them if that aligns with your world view.

I think I take a slightly different view, which is that H1-B use is a combination attempt to depress wages, and age discrimination, which is related to depressing wages. https://heather.cs.ucdavis.edu/h1b10min.html

Seen through that lens the dichotomy you present may be better reframed as:

Do we need to import labor?

Yes, in the case of jobs that Americans don't want to do. Most of this doesn't fall under the H1-B program however, it's generally menial or agricultural labor. Plenty of people would jump at the chance to take an H1-B visa holder's job, just not at the wages offered to a new hire who's stay in the country depends on their employment, and who is under 30.

I'm sure there IS a racial component for some, especially in the "MAGA" sphere, because racists are going to make everything about race. That doesn't change the underlying concern about these visas however, and I'm really tired of "racism" being the kneejerk reflex of any criticized group.

"The Russians shouldn't invade Ukraine" is met with "You are racist against Russians."

"China shouldn't invade Taiwan" is met with "You are racist against Chinese people."

"Arabs shouldn't own slaves and treat women like property" is met with "You are racist against Arabs" and so on.

As an diverse american working in tech, the only people I've received openly racist comments from has been indians. This especially applies to women in the office.

I've known more women in tech who have quit because of abject abuse and/or unprofessional conduct from indians in the org or specifically indian managers.

Don't get me started on the caste scuffles that occurred while I was working at amazon...

There’s seems to be constant conflict between, one must be able to criticize a concept (H1b visa’s) even if that concept is commonly associated with a specific group, and the fact that many people who see that a specific group associated with a concept they don’t like will bleed over there animosity for the concept to the group.

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