Why can’t Americans do these jobs?
Americans can't compete with that.
Being fired means you lose healthcare and much needed benefits and of course a paycheck and all of that stuff, right? If you're going to take this wildly cynical approach you should at least do a more proper comparison....
If I lose my job I have unemployment insurance, cobra benefits, personal savings, and I don’t require another employer to sponsor my visa. If I lose my job the most likely outcome is I find another one after searching a few months.
If someone on an H1B visa loses their job the most likely outcome is they are forced to leave the country.
The reason I wrote this comment is because the OP itself decided it was warranted with this cynical comment to suggest Americans don't work hard because oh if they get fired well they just find another job but the H1B visa holder gets gasp deported. But this itself diminishes the stresses and experience of those who don't find that other job, or don't find that replacement tech job, or any other devastating affects that someone experiences from job loss. Yea you might have a few months of COBRA benefits, but then what? You might not even have any savings because of some emergency that occurred. What's worse, being deported after a couple of months or becoming homeless in America? What if you're deported to Australia or Japan? Why are you or others assuming a happy ending for someone laid off in America but assuming the worst case scenario for an H1B visa holder and then comparing the two in that way?
Unless Americans does not want this type of job, which actually validates your cynical interpretation of OP's comment. Meanwhile a lot of illegal immigrants are happily driving for Uber and plenty more will be if they can do it legally.
Why can't the H1B visa holder also just be deported and drive for Uber in their home country full-time until the market recovers?
> Meanwhile a lot of illegal immigrants are happily driving for Uber and plenty more will be if they can do it legally.
As a capitalist I'm all in favor of driving wages for workers to as close to 0 as possible. If Uber is $1 for me instead of $15 that's great. I don't think our unions or blue-collar workforce are in favor of that though.
I think there's some law that lets you stay on health insurance for a few months at least, and you can save up as a countermeasure to the loss of the paycheck. Bad as it is it's not comparable to getting deported after a couple of months.
Yes, but often you will have to pay the full cost in order to do so, which will be difficult for many people after having lost their source of income..
Having said that, I’m not sure banning H1Bs or immigrants in general is going to help American workers. Take tech for instance. Many tech leaders are immigrants. If they hasn’t taken in the Jensen Huang’s, Sergei Brin’s, Sundar Pichai, etc… the companies they lead and jobs they created would be elsewhere. It’s amazing how immigrants have shaped the US tech scene:
https://www.forbes.com/sites/stuartanderson/2026/06/03/immig...
Second, when you ban immigrants/H1B, companies get around the ban by outsourcing to foreign countries.
https://www.forbes.com/sites/stuartanderson/2017/06/10/if-yo...
I know an awful lot of skilled people that live in the US, pay high taxes, and for whose lives have been thrown into disarray by backwards, anti-immigration policy like this illegal $100k fee, but it's just the beginning of the ways that anti-immigration policy is being used to make the US far weaker, just in order for pyrrhic harm to immigrants. I'm pissed about it.
If they already live in the US, they're not applying for an H1B.
H1B renewals are also common, and happen within the US.
Yes, because the citizens of a country (through their elected representatives) have absolute control over who they choose to allow into their country. Even blocking a brilliant surgeon or inventor, if they so choose. There is no moral right to come to America (or any other country).
Do you find the argument "I have the right to make any decision I want therefor it justifies bad decisions" convincing? I sure don't.
How is it a bad decision that will hurt the US? Can you make that argument on its merits? No one doubts that there isn't that one genius here or there
Last year, right here on HN I saw a headline where the "powers that be" wanted to increase Canada's population to 100 million (they currently sit at 30ish million). Is that a good decision for Canada? Where the fertility rate is so low population is shrinking? Like, do they need another 65 million people? Are there 65 million jobs going undone in Canada right now? Jobs that desperately need doing? The plan's the same for the United States, even if no one was careless enough to blare a similar headline from trumpets.
This actually highlights two dumb things about the USA: prejudice against immigrants, and unwillingness to fund education.
The matter is a little more complicated than that, because Alaska also has some of the nation's most stringent licensure requirements with no alternative routes for high-demand low-supply subject area teachers. You could probably relax those artificial barriers to employment and get more Alaskans teaching without raising the salary as much as if you kept the licensure requirements. You could also promise student debt relief for teachers who serve in rural areas for a certain length of time.
It already exists its called PSLF
Alaska is already one of the top states for educator pay, and as you know how US government has continioualy failed to solve problems by throwing more money at it, you know more money will simply cause more general inflation and will never solve it.
US already spends more for education with worse results
"The United States spent $15,500 per FTE student at the elementary/secondary level, which was 38 percent higher than the average of OECD countries3 reporting data ($11,300). The United States had the fifth highest expenditures per FTE student at the elementary/secondary level in 2019 after Luxembourg, Norway ($18,000), and Austria and the Republic of Korea ($15,900 each)."
Source: https://nces.ed.gov/programs/coe/indicator/cmd/education-exp...
You could offer me twice what I make as a software engineer and I wouldn’t take the job.
https://www.newsweek.com/h1b-job-ads-green-cards-targeted-im...
it is a goodwill compliance, not malicious. You are again just being racist and uneducated about the subject and reasons for that requirement
Second, the local newspaper requirement is created by the Dept of Labor itself, specifically to protect local workers in the area where Labor Market Test is being done!!!
It is not malicious compliance by firms, it is goodwill compliance by firms, to whatever DOL requires them to do. Dont like it? ask your DOL why.
Third, paper ads create audit trail that DOL wants, they dont recognize e-boards like linkedin/indeed as their audit trail is considered "soft"
There are much simpler mechanisms to making that would make the enforcement mechanism more effective without destroying the economy, like prioritizing them by salary instead of randomly.
You could also just have a more proactive government which punishes businesses for abusing the visa category.
"Immigrants taking good jobs" isn't an immigrant problem, it's a big-business problem
The Trump admin already did that too:
https://www.uscis.gov/newsroom/news-releases/dhs-changes-pro...