It’s not something I’d like to argue over, necessarily. You’ve researched this far more than I have.

I work with some amazing tech people who have h1bs. I’m thrilled that they’ve had a chance to come here and make the $$$ they deserve. They’re good people. I’d really, really hate to lose them (not just because I’m a greedy capitalist. I actually care for them - they really don’t want to be sent back to India or China. They do great work).

I agree with the “indentured servant” part - it’s a scandal that it takes these people so long to get a green card. But they get paid as well as anyone else (at least where I work).

Your posts are great. I just don’t want to confuse “what’s good for the American worker” with “what’s good for the Kingdom”. I’m not saying that’s what you’re saying. I’ve enjoyed reading your posts but may have missed a few things.

Thanks for writing thoughtful, thought-provoking stuff.

P.S. I used to live in Southwest, Oh. Email me where you live if you want, I used to live in Eaton, just west of Dayton. I have to admit, I miss it.

I have gone into H-1b visas in other things I’ve written outside the blog, but let me note a few things:

1. Studies done by acknowledged experts in the field of employment have convincingly shown that the entire reason for creating the H-1b visa was a myth.

2. Educated and experienced American workers are displaced within their own country by laborers brought in by the American government. If that’s not a conflict of interest, I don’t know what is.

3. H-1b visaholders are literally indentured servants. Their visa is held by the company they work for. Leave the company for another and you risk losing the visa. This artificially depresses wages not only in these visaholders but in those who had to compete against them. That’s scandalous.

4. When the tech bubble burst, Senator Orrin Hatch was advocating for even more H-1b visas despite tens of thousands of American tech workers unemployed. Why?

5. No job in this country is safe if the definitions and restrictions on H-1b visas are expanded as lobbyists are advocating. We will see this visa extended to cover airline workers (scary in the age of 9/11) and even college professors. Wherever a business can replace a trained American worker with a foreign counterpart they will pay substantially less, they will if this visa’s restrictions are lessened. We are not prepared for what will happen if this occurs.

You may not consider this a travesty, but I certainly do, especially when our government is behind it and offers no recompense to its own citizens put out of work this way.