STeve Bannon, one of the architects of Trumpism, is one of the most influential voices on the right. Bernie Sanders, the veteran U.S. senator from Vermont, is one of the leading figures on the progressive left. In these divided times, they found common ground.
As Donald Trump returns to the White House, a bitter debate over H-1B visas meant to bring skilled foreign workers to the United States unites his broad coalition with that of the Democratic Party. A subtle clue was revealed.
President Trump’s appointment of Indian-American venture capitalist Sriram Krishnan as an advisor on artificial intelligence was prompted in part by criticism of Krishnan’s views on anti-Indian racism and immigration. This caused a backlash from within his support base. This set the stage for a heated debate over the merits and pitfalls of the H-1B program.
Elon Musk, a close ally of the president-elect, has argued that visas are essential to hundreds of companies that are at the heart of American industry, while Bannon, Trump’s former chief strategist, has branded the -1B program a “complete and utter fraud”. ” Take away rights from American workers.
Trump supported Musk over Bannon and declared himself a “believer” in H-1B after using it “many times” in his own business. However, this battle is not over. Mr. Bannon has called for a “complete and utter elimination” of the program, and Mr. Musk has vowed to “go to war” to protect it.
Mr. Bannon, who remains highly influential in President Trump’s “Make America Great Again (Maga)” movement, received indirect support from Mr. Sanders, who published a lengthy critique of the current H-1B status last week. are.
“Elon Musk is wrong,” the senator wrote. “The primary role of the H-1B visa program is not to hire the ‘best and brightest,’ but rather to replace high-paying American jobs with low-paying foreign indentured workers.” The cheaper labor is, the more money millionaires make.”
Approximately 85,000 H-1B visas are issued each year. More than 500,000 people are authorized to work in the United States on H-1B visas. These are temporary, typically granted for three years, but holders can try to extend them or apply for a green card.
Tech giants are some of the biggest corporate beneficiaries, with companies with the most approved petitions last year including Amazon, IBM, Microsoft, Alphabet, owner of Google and YouTube, owner of Facebook, Instagram, and WhatsApp. It is said to include Meta Platforms. to the Foundation for American Policy. Amazon alone has approved 3,871 petitions.
Musk, the world’s richest man and a naturalized US citizen, was born in South Africa. He himself holds an H-1B visa, which is used by “so many key players” in his industrial empire, including electric car maker Tesla and rocket and satellite business SpaceX. He said there was.
Silicon Valley leaders have long argued that the system is essential to their businesses and beneficial to the broader economy. In a 2013 op-ed for The Washington Post, Facebook co-founder Mark Zuckerberg questioned why the US was issuing “very few H-1B visas” despite demand far exceeding supply. “Each of these jobs will create two or three more American jobs,” he said. Instead.”
But critics say this is a disadvantage to Americans because companies can hire workers from overseas and pay them lower wages. The left-leaning Economic Policy Institute (EPI) argued in a 2020 report that the program allowed employers to lower local wage levels.
“Companies have an incentive to take advantage of this program because they can control wages and they have a lot of control over their workers,” Daniel Costa, director of immigration law and policy research at EPI, told the Guardian. He argued that H-1B-related labor standards are “too lenient” and broader rules are “insufficient.”
Costa supports reforming the plan rather than scrapping it completely. “I agree there needs to be a way to hire skilled and talented people,” he said. “But that’s not how the program is being used at this point.”
In the world of politics, debates are often divided by political loyalties. But here we are immigrants. And this is President Trump’s America.
“His MAGA basis is against immigration, but he doesn’t define it beyond that,” said Larry Sabato, director of the Center for Politics at the University of Virginia. As a result, the coalition is divided on narrow and sensitive areas of the issue, in this case regarding H-1B visas.
“They have different interests. Bannon,[Trump’s incoming chief of staff]Stephen Miller and others just want illegal immigrants removed,” Sabato said. “But, of course, other people have financial interests as well. Elon Musk represents a large group of technology leaders and others.
“It’s clear this is going to lead to compromise. President Trump can’t afford to alienate his base. He can’t afford to alienate the richest man on earth and all of his allies.”
The lines in this discussion are blurred by the unstable protagonist. For example, a day after Musk threatened to “go to war” on issues such as H-1B, workers granted such visas made it “significantly more costly” for companies to hire overseas workers. He argued that minimum salary requirements for employees should be increased. . “It has become clear to me that this program is broken and in need of major reform,” he wrote.
Some Democrats are already considering how to use the fight to unite and universally satisfy the president-elect’s base. “Let’s turn immigration into an economic issue and bring it back to immigration,” veteran strategist James Carville wrote in the New York Times last week. These are the people who bring business to our country. ”
H-1B emerged as the first battle between the unusual consortium that pushed Trump back to power. It is unlikely to be the last.
Sabato pointed to President Trump’s plan to extend the multitrillion-dollar tax cuts that went into effect in 2018 and provided a big boost to large corporations and wealthy Americans. “There will be fights over this and that,” he said.
Trump’s proposal “needs to help the working class who are aligned with Trump,” Sabato added. “At the same time, he can’t alienate wealthy people.”
