MAGA Fissures?: Debate Over Federal Foreign High-Skill Worker Visas

P. Gardner Goldsmith | December 30, 2024
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With Donald Trump’s newest allies, Elon Musk and Vivek Ramaswamy, on one side, and old allies such as Steven Bannon and Laura Loomer on the other, Trump’s wider support base seems fractured over a little-discussed “worker visa” issue that long has been simmering on the proverbial political stove.

Publications such as the Washington Post and Reuters have reported on the new debate, with Nandita Bose writing for Reuters:

“Elon Musk, the billionaire CEO of Tesla and SpaceX, vowed to go to ‘war’ to defend the H-1B visa program for foreign tech workers late on Friday amid a dispute between President-elect Donald Trump's longtime supporters and his most recently acquired backers from the tech industry. In a post on social media platform X, Musk said ‘The reason I'm in America along with so many critical people who built SpaceX, Tesla and hundreds of other companies that made America strong is because of H1B.’”

And if people might wonder about his conviction on the matter, Musk spelled it out, very well.

"’I will go to war on this issue the likes of which you cannot possibly comprehend,’ he added.

Musk, a naturalized U.S. citizen born in South Africa, has held an H-1B visa, and his electric-car company Tesla obtained 724 of the visas this year. H-1B visas are typically for three-year periods, though holders can extend them or apply for green cards.”

Which lays out the intensity of the matter and offers some context – but not all – to better understand the statutory facets of the H-1B.

“Musk's tweet was directed at Trump's supporters and immigration hardliners, who have increasingly pushed for the H-1B visa program to be scrapped amid a heated debate over immigration and the place of skilled immigrants and foreign workers brought into the country on work visas.”

Let’s think about that for a moment. This is a collectivist approach to freedom of association, to freedom of contract, and it actually sees many Americans who often claim to support freedom now openly espousing further political attacks and restrictions on the freedom of others to engage in peaceful commercial trade.

The recursive inversion is exemplified by Trump allies Bannon and Loomer, with Bannon’s position typifying the strange leap of logic and self-deception that easy political rhetoric often facilitates.

“On Friday, Steve Bannon, a longtime Trump confidante, critiqued ‘big tech oligarchs’ for supporting the H-1B program and cast immigration as a threat to Western civilization.”

It is curious to see Mr. Bannon raise a pseudo-flag for “Western civilization” while he decries the freedom of people to hire whom they want, while he advocates against more competition and available skillsets, and while he advocates in favor of more central government controls, in favor of politically determined restrictions and punishments. And it’s particularly frustrating to see him do so while claiming to decry “oligarchy.”

This example of a lack of realistic clarity is important, and is not isolated to Mr. Bannon. It is connected to major, fundamental, anti-constitutional and anti-economic protectionist sophistry, and one hopes this debate offers many people the chance to absorb key information and tuck it away for future reference.

Mr. Musk repeatedly has posted about the economic benefits of immigration. And, as long as the immigration is not artificially subsidized by government, his argument is both morally and economically irrefutable. But, even though I teach economics and political philosophy, it is insufficient to merely offer such a statement. It also is insufficient and unfair to roundly criticize Mr. Bannon or others who might agree with him without providing educational substantiation.

So, let’s begin with simple facts:

First, Bannon and those who want further restrictions against H-1B visas manifestly call for bigger government.

Second, H-1B visas are the result of anti-constitutional U.S. legislation that assumes the feds have a role in threatening people if they try to employ foreigners who visit the U.S. Such a so-called “power” doesn’t exist in the U.S. Constitution.

Third, for those who believe in freedom, attacking the H-1B visa program is hypocritical, anti-economic, and unethical. Let’s look at an example of this hypocrisy.

Years ago, I had a great conversation about immigration with a friend who worked in computer programming. During the stretch when our chat focused on blue-collar work, he enthusiastically agreed, offering, in essence: "Yeah! People should be able to hire whomever they want. Just like any other factor of production, businesses have to compete to keep prices low for consumers, so they should be able to get the best bang for their buck.”

Related: Biden Is Challenging Texas in the Supreme Court Over Illegal Immigration

But when I included high-tech "white-collar” workers as falling under the rules of that economic axiom, he suddenly, and without embarrassment, said, "Oh, no! Not in tech! Those guys will steal our jobs!"

Which offers us a look at the protectionist mindset, and an insight French economist Frederic Bastiat offered when he mentioned that it is disastrous for government to try to direct an economy through subsidies or blocks in any sector, because that government intervention stops people from buying what they prefer; it hampers their ability to get the best deal for their money, and sucks away what they might have saved, starving a potentially valuable business of capital it could receive to flourish the way it would if people were free to act on their own best interest.

Simply put, the consumer is the final employer, and it is not my friend’s place to tell someone else he cannot hire whom he wants. By having government do so, a “protectionist” retards the very economic progress that has allowed human living standards to grow. He blocks our ability to be free and express our preferences, and he assumes a power over his fellow man.

On the subject of “power,” some opponents of the H-1B visas argue that corporations will "exploit" those who are here on those visas. These critics claim that the "visa status" could give workers less leverage in negotiations. But the risk of being pushed out by a government change in the visa system is not driven by employers, it is driven by the government limits, and the risk of being replaced is no different than what any employee or business owner experiences when someone might want to change his buying behavior and hire someone else or patronize another business.

The key is whether the circumstances and conditions of employment are natural or arbitrarily manipulated by politics.

And, regardless of the protectionist attitudes many people might have, they do not have any right to engage in gangland aggression to tell others whom they can and cannot employ, just like they have no right to tell others whom they can join in conversation or playing a card game, just like they have no right to tell any of us what we might peacefully buy as consumers. If they want to use political "borders" and "distance" as part of their nativist calculus, how far will they allow someone to go to hire another before they forbid the employment? Is it alright to work with someone in another state? Another town?

Imagine a neighbor telling you, “We really, really, have to protect our town's workforce from those eeeevil skilled workers out there who might drive over and do something at your home! We should employ OUR pool of workers, and, though it restricts your freedom and might come at the expense of you saving money to utilize on something else you might want that could help your life, I’ve got a local government gang that is going to punish you if you DO hire someone from out of town…”

In other words, freedom of association is a principle, and people can sense it when the political rhetoric is burned away.

Finally, practically, for many of these H-1B workers, if enough pressure is applied to keep them out, employers can find ways to work with them via distance-electronic communications.

By advocating against the freedom of contract and association, protectionists engage in threats against peaceful people, nativists push prices up for consumers, and they restrict the competitive market process that normally produces higher quality at lower price.

This is an area where basic economics, the US Constitution, and ethics often get overlooked.

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