H1-B

Oh lordy, I’m opening myself up to all kinds of accusations of hypocrisy here.  But there is one aspect of Trump’s immigration reform that I do approve of – and that is his plan to change the H1-B visa process.  I have obvious personal experience with this, being that this is the visa I obtained to come back to the US and eventually obtained a green card from.  But, it is a flawed process.  It has meant that entire career paths, like mine, are impacted by a massive influx of Chinese and Indian workers – some of whom are very dubiously qualified.  And it has also meant that these people immigrate to the US with lower salary expectations, seriously impacting my (and “qualified Americans”) earning potential.  They’ve talked about changing the process so that visas for senior, higher-paying jobs will be given priority and granted first – which seems sensible.  I think worker skill-set still has to also be taken into account – so that people who are appropriately qualified and skilled, like I was, are able to apply and obtain a visa for jobs which there are no qualified Americans for.  Fundamentally, it also has to be up to the American education system to produce homegrown people that can fulfill these jobs rather than rely on foreign labor.  When entire groups of IT workers are fired and replaced by lower-salaried Indian-immigrant workers, then the process is being abused and needs fixing.