Bernie Sanders Wades Into MAGA Civil War to Trash Elon Musk
www.thedailybeast.com
The veteran senator said Musk is “wrong” about the visa debate causing chaos in Trumpworld.

Summary

Senator Bernie Sanders criticized Elon Musk over his support for the H-1B visa program, calling it a tool for corporations to replace good-paying American jobs with lower-wage foreign labor.

Sanders cited data showing U.S. companies laid off 85,000 American workers between 2022 and 2023 while hiring 34,000 H-1B visa holders, arguing this undermines U.S. competitiveness.

Musk, who credits the visa program for his success, defended it, stating he’s ready to “go to war” over the issue.

The debate has divided MAGA conservatives, exposing rifts within Trump’s coalition.

  • peoplebeproblems@midwest.socialEnglish
    3·
    2 days ago

    I’ll copy the same response I gave below. Essentially, the H1-B program is intended for that. That is not how it is being used.

    You aren’t wrong on that part. That’s what the H1-B program is designed for. In practice, corporations have exploited the intent of it and instead used it to select very narrowly trained software developers, it workers, and technicians instead of Ph. ds, inventors of specific techniques, or experts with rare and niche technology.

    Out of 30 or so I have worked with, I have only worked with one true expert. He was an optics dude who knew specific techniques for using TI DLP to create 3 dimensional images on a transparent plane (I think it was just acrylic). In what I could observe, it was not obvious that he was being exploited, and if I remember right, he was compensated to the limits of the visa, and only brought back on his terms.

    • iopq@lemmy.world
      23·
      2 days ago

      My dad came on a H1B and he was very well paid when he got his green card. I’d say that makes him an expert sys admin

      • peoplebeproblems@midwest.socialEnglish
        4·
        2 days ago

        I’m not going to argue he wasn’t an expert. The program is designed for them. The problem isnt people like him. In fact, the problem isn’t any of the workers I’ve worked with either.

        The problem is that outsourcing staffing agencies use the H1-B visa to hire out to bigger companies looking for a cheap fast way to get things working.

        By law, the employer sponsoring an H1-B holder has to pay competitive wages for the work they will do. The staffing agencies do that by paying the people they bring in pretty low and similar wages. Of course, the agencies pocket the difference from the contract and what they are actually paying these workers. In practice, even those wages are lower than what an FTE should get paid.

        It has a compounding effect on people who are permanent residents or citizens: it’s an effective way to suppress wages artificially for a lot of these jobs. And of course, many of these H1-B holders get the boot right at the end of 4 or 5 years because then things get dicey about sponsoring them for permanent residence, and that is when costs start really going up.

        We really don’t need to expand the H1-B cap, and it is in desperate need of stricter regulation.

        The reason this topic is one that “sounds” like one that “both the left and right” agree on is that it’s for entirely different reasons. The right comes at it from the racist “they took r jerbs” aspect, and the left comes at it from the anti-capitalistic exploitation aspect.

        You don’t have to look further than who advocates for expanding the H1-B program.

      • Fades@lemmy.world
        3·
        2 days ago

        You’ve just exposed your bias lmao. Thank god you daddy gave you an anecdote so you can totally speak with confidence about shit you don’t understand.

        Those of us that ACTUALLY work with H1Bs…. We see what’s happening.

        I’m glad your daddy wasn’t used and abused but that is NOT a common experience. Go ask the twit H1Bs that were forced to stick around for Elon’s takeover. Read the thoughts and feelings of devs who escaped that shit show. It’s not rare, Sanders is right H1B visas are horribly abused for cheap controllable labor.

        H1B visas are SUPPOSED to be for jobs that no American can actually fill. Anything else IS ABUSE of the system and damaging to the American economy, not to mention unfair to the actual H1B workers.

        • iopq@lemmy.world
          1·
          2 days ago

          Yeah, I’m biased because I would be getting bombed in my apartment right now if we couldn’t immigrate

          I work with h1bs, I’m in tech. There are incredibly sharp people who come on this visa