The great H-1B Visa war?

Musk says he will go to war over H1B visas, and some see it ending his association with Trump

There is a debate going on right now between Elon Musk and some of the hardcore right (such as Laura Loomer) over the H1B visas. To be fair, Vivek Ramaswamy has also weighed in on the same debate and on the same side as Musk, so it might not just be Musk against the far right of the MAGA world here.

Moreover, I am not sure that Musk is actually arguing with quite as many people as some on the left would like. Laura Loomer is an internet personality who loves to push things to the extreme. Elon Musk is the richest man in the world. The issue is really one of extreme versus some common sense and yet I believe there is a point to be made on both sides if either side would listen.

According to Musk and Ramaswamy, the United States is no longer producing the best of the best when it comes to high tech engineers. Musk argues that for US companies to flourish, that they need to recruit the best talent worldwide rather than just the best US talent. He compares it to the NBA where rosters are filled with players from all over the world, rather than just US players. He says running a business is no different if you want to compete in a global economy. Ramaswamy has taken it a bit further by arguing that the declining US school system and our culture of placing athletes and prom queens ahead of the STEM and honor roll students is cause for alarm for US workers in the global economy.

All that being argued, there are companies out there who are simply using the Visa program to replace American mid-level engineers with lower paid foreign workers. This would be the Loomer argument. Her argument would be that most companies are not hiring the visa workers them because they cannot find Americans to do the job, but rather they are hiring them to reduce payroll. No doubt she is at least half right here.

The problem comes from both sides not acknowledging that the other argument makes valid points. Moreover, there is actually a need for both arguments moving forward. We probably need foreign engineers to fill positions that are currently not being filled, and yet we need to figure out how to stop companies from simply using the visa programs to find cheaper labor. There seems to be some form of common-sense legislation that could be put in place. For instance, perhaps a law that would require foreign workers on the visa program to be paid the same amount of salary that the current American workers are making. I believe such a thing has been suggested in the past, but as far as I am aware, nothing has ever come of it.

Ultimately, I doubt this will undo the Trump/Musk partnership here. It might make a small portion of the MAGA army upset with Musk and it may bother them if Trump does not fully take their side. But I would guess that most of the Trump voters will listen to what Trump ultimately has to say. As of this morning, he seems to be siding with Musk in principle, even suggesting that he has used it for many of his businesses. I am sure he will be pressed further, but there does not appear to be much of a chasm at this point

On the flip side, even as I write this, some of what has been said by Musk and Ramaswamy has been rolled back a bit. But at the same time, they hit a nerve, and it might be true that the nerve in question needed a hit or two. Americans are not really keeping up when it comes to education. We have people graduating from High School barely able to read and write. Our higher education is more worried about indoctrination than teaching skills. Perhaps America is not designed to be a feeding ground to big tech and never will be or even should be. But on the flip side, if we are going to promote the "balanced" concept of both work and play into our culture and continue to allow our education system to fail us, then we cannot complain when corporations decide to choose people who come from a culture that places work and education first.