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Comment by rayiner | Hacker News Reader

Why are you looking at the law from the viewpoint of the foreign worker? Obviously what they want is a quick and easy path to citizenship. But they don’t get a vote.

The question is what was the intention of the H1B program when the law was enacted by duly elected legislators? It was never sold to the public as a path to permanent residency. It certainly wasn’t sold to the public as a system where each H1B granted would lead to citizenship, followed by bringing several family members with them through uncapped family reunification visas.

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No, the question really is what is best for the country. Making it easier for bright, hard working people to naturalize as US citizens has been proven for centuries to be great for our country. As others have pointed out, the original intent is not relevant. The current program grew out of a need for more outstanding citizens to grow our economy and help drive innovation. These sorts of slow changes of intent and effect grow out of pragmatic needs. The current administration has suddenly decided decades of precedent and practical needs must be reversed simply to accommodate an odd hatred of anyone who doesn't fit their perverted idea of "American." It is hate born out of a bizarre fear of "foreign," despite the fact that almost all of us came from somewhere else at some point in the past and that has been the key to US strength, leadership, and growth.

It was for billionaires to suppress white collar workers’ wages.

Can't answer for others, but I look at this law from the viewpoint of foreign workers, cause I am a foreigner worker. In Canada. Decided to absolutely never immigrate to the US due to the US blatant rise in xenophobia.

And the US has proven me correct over and over again in that assessment. Will watch with great pleasure the brain drain your country will face, and I honestly hope your economy will completely collapse.

> I honestly hope your economy will completely collapse.

The U.S. passed restrictive immigration laws in 1921. The foreign born population dropped to under 5% by 1970 (compared to 15% today). The decade on either side of that was a golden age for Silicon Valley.

For the record, Sergey Brin, Elon Musk, Peter Thiel, Patrick and John Collison, and Jerry Yang are foreign-born. Probably more would not have been here if their parents had not been allowed to immigrate. Now that you mention it, I would trade a few of them away, but I doubt the market would like to erase their work.

The first three we would be better off without, don’t recognize the last three. Not sure you are really selling your point.

I don't have a particular love for any of them, but the point was they generated billions in value for the valley in what some consider a golden age.

Google at least, I think people would say there was a period of near-universally believing it was a good thing, and an immigrant was a co-founder.

It definitely shaped our society. And if you think it's for the worse, might that suggest college-educated Anglo-adapting immigrants are more dangerous to us than the ones right-wingers are telling us to focus on?

Sergey Brin recently said having to pay taxes on his 280 billion to the state took him in and where he built his business was akin to the horrors of boleshivsm that his family fled from.

That is your “good” immigrant. He is the right winger.

The original point was only that a Silicon Valley "golden age" can coexist with immigration. Admittedly it could be a better argument if it holistically made a recommendation, but at least as a starting point it tries to refute that idea.

It can but not under the current system. People are far less likely to support social safety nets in a high immigration society. There just isn’t the social cohesion and trust necessary.

OK, then why has there always been the ability to adjust your immigration status for someone like an H1B since 1952, and and why was it expanded in the 90's to allow categories - like overstayed visits - pay a fee and apply to convert without leaving? It was an acknowledgement that millions of people are already embedded in U.S. families and labor markets, and Congress preferred a penalty-fee legalization path over forcing departure because that was in the best interest of the country. It's that last part that Trump ignores.

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