Are H-1B Visa Holders Taking American Jobs?

Musk Wants More - MAGA Wants Less - Never the Twain Shall Meet?

Jan 08, 2025

All through his candidacy, Trump was touting it was the illegal immigrants coming across the southern border that are taking American jobs. But in reality, those coming over the border are not doing the jobs Americans want - working in fields or in meat packing plants which have notoriously been exploiting immigrant child labor. No, Musk is concerned about getting enough “immigrants” to do his work at his technology companies, and he thinks Americans are too stupid to do it. Well after all, Musk, his money, and his billionaire band of thieves did hoodwink half of the American public to vote for a convicted felon, cheat, sexual abuser, and all things bad. That does give credence to their belief.

But it turns out, Musk wants these Visa Immigrants so he can make more money off them: pay them less than American workers - and of course, keep more profit for himself and his shareholders. Not surprisingly, MAGA folks who oppose “any” immigration are in a tizzy now, in opposition to the H-1B Visa worker immigration. And of all people, Steve Bannon is out front on that issue, opposing these immigrant visas. In fact,

Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) on Thursday had a rare moment of alignment with the MAGA movement when he blasted the H-1B visa program and argued that it is being used “not to hire ‘the best and the brightest,’ but rather to replace good-paying American jobs with low-wage indentured servants from abroad.”

What is an H-1B Program and How it Came to Be?

It is a visa designed for workers in skilled or specialty occupations. These visas are employer-sponsored to bring in “skilled” workers into the American workforce. This type of visa was introduced in Congress back in 1990, and signed into law by then president George H.W. Bush. At the time it was part of a bipartisan Immigration Act, the purpose of which was to “encourage the immigration of exceptionally talented people: engineers, scientists and educators.

How It Works: Then & Now

The H-1B visas are for three years, but they can be extended for an additional three years. But before 2007, the U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services (U.S.C.I.S.) allocated visas on a first-come, first-serve basis. Now if the cap is reached - which it now, always is - it switches to a lottery system. Notably the cap has been reached every year since 2013, and the number of applicants is most often four to five times greater than the number of visas that are available.

To be “specific” - the legal criteria underwriting these visas, is that they be reserved for occupations requiring “highly specialized knowledge” - such as engineering, science, education - much of it STEM.

However, the guidelines for eligibility as set by the U.S.C.I.S. indicates the requirement can be fulfilled by having a bachelor’s degree or equivalent. Notably, many applicants who are admitted have higher degrees—master’s or Ph.D.—but many do not. Surprisingly, despite the “highly specialized” criterion, just a little over a quarter of the visas are allotted to those with higher degrees.

How Does the Presence of H-1B holders Affect American Jobs?

There has been disagreement on the necessity of these visas as well as whether or not they are taking American jobs. But according to one professor studying the issue:

Ronil Hira, a political scientist at Howard University has been studying the H-1B program for more than two decades and writing about it at the Economic Policy Institute, a liberal think tank, and elsewhere. Hira has frequently testified before Congress about what he sees as the program’s tendency to depress wages, promote outsourcing, and pad the profits of tech companies. The political fractures exposed by the MAGA blowup weren’t surprising to him. “This isn’t really a left-right issue,” … “It’s a worker-corporations issue.”

Who Sponsors These H-1B Immigrants?

Even though any business operating in the United States can sponsor or hire someone who holds an H-1B visa, the successful applicants are predominantly sponsored by large tech companies.

In 2024, Amazon, Google, Meta, Microsoft, Apple, and I.B.M. were in the top ten, according to the Wall Street Journal. So were three Indian technology-consulting firms that operate in the United States—Infosys, Tata Consultancy Services, and HCL America—and one U.S.-owned equivalent, Cognizant. These consulting firms all facilitate outsourcing routine office work to low-cost contract workers here and overseas. In one notorious case reported in the New York Times in 2015, some tech workers at Disney in Florida were forced to train their replacements, who were supplied by HCL America.

What Say You American Workers?

Those American workers who know about these H-1B jobs, usually are not too happy, as were the Disney employees. As for Musk, who is advocating for these visas, Professor Hira quotes data from the Department of Labor, which indicates:

Tesla had more than fifteen hundred H-1B positions in 2024, with salaries ranging from under eighty thousand dollars to nearly three hundred thousand. (The median was a hundred and forty-five thousand.) “There’s always a shortage of the super-skilled workers—the top 0.1 per cent of them, which Musk talks about,” Hira said. “But most of the people getting H-1B visas are not these geniuses.”

Who Sets the Wages?

The Department of Labor sets minimum required wages for H-1B positions based on occupation, skill-level and geographic location. But according to Professor Hira:

[T]hese wages are too low and enable employers to compensate workers at below-market rates.

In his research back in 2020 in in conjunction with with Daniel Costa, the director of immigration-law and policy research at the Economic Policy Institute, they found that in the year prior, sixty per cent of H-1B positions certified to the Labor Department had wage levels below the local median wage for the occupation. “The fundamental flaw of the H-1B program is that it permits U.S. employers to legally underpay H-1B workers relative to U.S. workers in similar occupations in the same region,” both authors wrote in their research findings.

The authors reported:

[E]mployers can get away with misclassifying skill levels for H-1Bs jobs because of lax enforcement.

Beholden?

These researchers and others who have criticized the H-1B’s have argued that foreign workers whose employers assist them to get these visas are “beholden to the companies that sponsor them and have little ability to leave for another job.” Technically they could “quit” but if they do, they are required to find another position within sixty days at a firm that is willing to file a new visa petition on their behalf, and in a touch economy this can be difficult, as it costs thousands of dollars in legal fees that many companies may not wish to incur if business slows or takes a nosedive. And with that the threat of deportation always looming many immigrants take more flak and stay in these jobs without pay raises - as the consequence of speaking up or bucking the system would not be to their liking.

So to quote Bernie Sanders, who claims this is “servitude” - Professor Hira refers to these employees are “captured.” And now that US colleges are now pumping out more computer science grads with bachelor’s degrees - American grads should take priority over H1-B visa holders. According to Professor Hira, these American grads have more than doubled in the past fifteen years, leaving more “qualified” American workers who could fill many of these jobs. And this can’t be ignored in light of numerous across-the-board layoffs at tech companies between 2023 and 2024 around the country.

What Direction Will the US Follow?

So what will Trump do in light of Musk pushing for more of these visas? Trump has waivered over the years on this issue. But now with co-president Musk in place, only time will tell…and that time is right upon us beginning January 20, of this year.

Another Type of Visa

To learn about an Einstein Visa EB-1: Nicknamed the "Einstein Visa" which in theory is reserved for people who are highly acclaimed in their field - the government cites Pulitzer, Oscar, and Olympic winners as examples - as well as respected academic researchers and multinational executives. But now there is an addition to this once esteemed and coveted “Einstein” genius category - the “extraordinary talent” category evincing money and connections, and hence Melania Trump!

Notes:

https://www.newyorker.com/news/the-financial-page/why-the-maga-fight-over-h-1b-visas-is-crossing-party-lines

https://prospect.org/labor/2025-01-02-president-musk-american-workers-h1b-visas/

https://internationaloffice.berkeley.edu/h-1b_faqs#2

https://www.bbc.com/news/world-us-canada-43256318

https://www.aila.org/blog/a-little-about-that-einstein-visa

https://www.uscis.gov/working-in-the-united-states/permanent-workers/employment-based-immigration-first-preference-eb-1

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