Another Brick in the Wall

«The Trump administration said on Friday it would ask companies to pay $100,000 per year for H-1B worker visas, prompting some big tech companies to warn visa holders to stay in the U.S. or quickly return.

The change could deal a big blow to the technology sector that relies heavily on skilled workers from India and China.

"If you're going to train somebody, you're going to train one of the recent graduates from one of the great universities across our land," said Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick. Train Americans. Stop bringing in people to take our jobs."

Trump's threat to crack down on H-1B visas has become a major flashpoint with the tech industry, which contributed millions of dollars to his presidential campaign.»

(Reuters)

The ability to attract foreign talent has long been a key success factor for American companies and universities, so this measure has the potential to harm the American economy by exacerbating the expulsion of illegal immigrants who will no longer do jobs that Americans are unwilling or unable to do.

This measure, while purporting to defend American graduates, is also likely futile because there is no record of unemployment among talented American graduates. Therefore, if anything, this measure will result in jobs being reserved for mediocre American graduates.

Furthermore, while likely welcomed by the nativist MAGA faction, it will be frowned upon by the techno-archs, and will be another potential source of conflict within Donald Trump's support base. Remember that his supporters include highly successful immigrants such as Sergey Brin (Russia), Patrick Soon-Shiong (South Africa), Peter Thiel (Germany), and Elon Musk (South Africa).