The H-1B visa debate has consumed the internet the last 24 hours. We dive into this in a very fair and analytical way. Should we have more people from foreign countries coming into our tech space? Do we have enough American labor here to fill those jobs? That and more.
00:00:44.000His spirit, his love of this country, he's done an amazing job building one of the most powerful youth organizations ever created, Turning Point USA. We will not embrace the ideas that have destroyed countries, destroyed lives, and we are going to fight for freedom on campuses across the country.
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00:02:25.000We have to make the arguments, connect with you, the audience, the best audience in talk radio and the best audience in all of broadcasting.
00:02:34.000Got to stay sharp or else you lose it.
00:02:35.000You don't work out your muscles atrophy.
00:02:38.000But I was wondering, hey, what are we going to talk about here?
00:02:40.000Are we going to kind of do a year in recap episode?
00:02:43.000Turns out we're going to do that Monday.
00:02:45.000Monday will be our last episode of this calendar year.
00:02:48.000And it turns out that our content was made for us the day after Christmas.
00:02:55.000Now, mind you, I had a wonderful day with my wife yesterday, Erica.
00:02:58.000We always do this the day after Christmas.
00:02:59.000We kind of go have breakfast together, plan out the entire year, talk about what went well in 2024, what's going to hopefully happen in 2025. Just a great day.
00:03:09.000We were overlooking the McDowell Mountains in Scottsdale, and my phone just starts lighting up.
00:03:18.000With some rhythm, and it turned into almost MAGA Chernobyl, some could say, where a very spirited discussion turned into a very nasty online dialogue about immigration and H-1B visas.
00:03:36.000The debate started on Sunday after Trump named venture capitalist Siriam Krishnan as his advisor on AI policy.
00:03:44.000Entrepreneur David Sachs noted in the response to Krishnan saying advocates for removing country-specific caps on green cards not lifting caps entirely.
00:03:56.000On Wednesday, the world's richest man who has benefited from the H1 program himself, Elon Musk, wrote in response on social media that in America, there are not enough super talented and super motivated engineers in the United States.
00:04:08.000Quote, the number of people who are super talented and super motivated in the United States is far too low.
00:04:22.000In another post, he wrote that, quote, Vivek Ramaswamy came out and wrote this very, very long tweet, a controversial tweet, where he said, quote, a reason the top tech companies often hire foreign-born and first-generation engineers over Native Americans, Native-born Americans, isn't because of an American IQ deficit.
00:04:47.000A key part of it comes down to culture.
00:04:49.000So now this internet firestorm ensued, where effectively the debate was around H-1B visas.
00:04:57.000Now, this is not something that I thought we'd be talking about on the 27th of December.
00:05:01.000However, just understand that this was seen 71 million times on Twitter.
00:05:11.000So an H-1B visa is a non-immigrant visa category in the United States that allows U.S. employers to temporarily employ foreign workers in specialized occupations.
00:05:22.000These occupations generally require a bachelor's degree or higher or some equivalent.
00:05:26.000It's used almost primarily in the tech space.
00:06:41.000Craig DeAngelo worked for Northeast Utilities, now called Eversource, and was one of 220 IT workers replaced by H-1B visa employees.
00:06:52.000DeAngelo says his replacement, a worker from India, told him he was making half DeAngelo's salary with no benefits.
00:07:00.000I didn't get laid off for lack of work.
00:07:05.000I got laid off because somebody cheaper could do my job.
00:07:10.000Now, in its ideal, the H-1B visa is used for people you can't find other Americans to do that job, that it's only for high, high tech, like people with PhDs.
00:07:19.000In reality, it's being used for entry-level accountants.
00:07:23.000It's being used for people that are at the entry level of the job ladder.
00:07:28.000This is another example of Cut 67 of how the H-1B visa has become inherently fraudulent against the American people.
00:07:38.000Play Cut 67. Leo Pereiro had just received high-performance reviews from Disney.
00:07:44.000When he was called into a personnel meeting, he expected a raise and a promotion.
00:07:51.000I was given the news that in 90 days my job was over and I had to train my replacement.
00:07:56.000Never in my life did I imagine, until this happened at Disney, that I could be sitting at my desk and somebody would be flown in from another country, sit at my same desk and chair and take over what I was doing.
00:08:11.000It was the most humiliating and demoralizing thing I've ever gone through in my life.
00:08:16.000The biggest companies who hate us the most, that have smeared us, slandered us, and transed our kids, are the ones that are pushing for more foreign labor into the top levels of our corporations and our entry levels.
00:08:31.000Now, I want to be very clear about where we stand on this.
00:08:33.000We are opposed to the mass importations of H-1B visas to the United States.
00:08:40.000The H-1B visa program is heavily abused by these major multi-trillion dollar companies and software firms generally to bring in workers at lower wages than they would have to pay Americans.
00:08:52.000Another reason companies use them is that H-1B visas, like I say, is indentured servitude.
00:09:23.000We could also change our system, but right now, America lets in 55,000 immigrants a year through the diversity lottery.
00:09:30.000Imagine if we got rid of that, and instead of letting 10,000 people a year who score the highest on a difficult test of IQ plus English language proficiency with strict controls to prevent cheating and to keep out anybody with a criminal record, that would let in a lot of talented people who would make America a better country.
00:09:46.000America is a rich country that hundreds of millions of people want to move to.
00:09:50.000There's no excuse for not exploiting that to let in the only ones we want to let in the absolute most.
00:09:58.000This is a violation of our social contract.
00:10:29.000And the American people overwhelmingly voted for less immigration and the prioritization of the American children and the American worker, not the American oligarch.
00:10:42.000Folks, your halls are decked with holly and the sound of Andy Williams on the radio tells us to be of good cheer.
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00:12:17.000By the way, we are getting hundreds of emails about this, just like the floodgates are open, of people that have lost their jobs and they had to train their replacements.
00:12:26.000Mind you, this is not illegal immigration.
00:12:34.000This is voluntarily letting people in when our graduates, our children, and our people could otherwise do their jobs.
00:12:43.000And I want to also just extend the best possible platforming to those that are proponents of H-1B. I don't think people that are pushing for H-1Bs or people that were saying this these last couple days, like Elon, who I think is a hero, or Vivek, who's a dear friend, or David Sachs, they love this country.
00:13:03.000Their belief system, though, is this, is that we want to scoop up all the world's talent and bring it in.
00:13:10.000What could possibly be wrong with that?
00:13:13.000And of course, in practice, there's a lot wrong with it.
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00:17:59.000Joining us now is Jonathan Kieperman, founder of Passage Press, otherwise known as Lomez.
00:18:06.000He founded Passage Press, a book company, and was a professor at UC Irvine for 10 years and left because it's academia and obviously terrible.
00:18:15.000They tried to dox him and cancel him last year, which we don't take very kindly here in the Charlie Kirk Show, of which we try to give him the biggest possible platform imaginable.
00:18:24.000Mr. Lomez slash Jonathan, welcome to the program.
00:18:32.000I've been watching your show for a long time.
00:18:35.000I think you've done some amazing work helping to build this America First Trump coalition, and you deserve a lot of credit for what you've done.
00:18:42.000So this is great to be here and share this audience with you.
00:18:47.000So, Jonathan, you're incredibly smart, obviously a professor.
00:18:51.000I'd love to have you on just talk about what it was like being a professor at UC Irvine as a white male conservative in the English department.
00:18:59.000I'm sure that you were fighting for the classics while your counterparts were not.
00:19:04.000Jonathan, I want to talk to you about, because we were going to have Steve Salier on, but he was unavailable.
00:19:10.000This raging and spirited and passionate dialogue and conversation that has been happening on X the last day around H-1B visas, high tech, and mass migration.
00:19:22.000How should we think about this issue from an America First perspective?
00:19:26.000Yeah, so, you know, this is a very healthy debate and I'm glad we're having it.
00:19:30.000I've seen, you know, a lot of hot air on Twitter and certainly some feelings have gotten hurt and people have said some things that I'm sure they regret or wish they could take back.
00:19:38.000But it's good to get this all out in the open.
00:19:40.000You know, one thing we saw over the last six months to a year with Trump getting elected was bringing on these new coalition partners from Silicon Valley in the tech world.
00:19:52.000This includes the guys in the All In podcast.
00:19:55.000This includes Marc Andreessen, Peter Thiel, of course.
00:19:59.000And I think to some extent this new, you know, coalitional partner underestimated or didn't really understand the salience of immigration.
00:20:10.000An American first policy with regards to labor policy for the Trump coalition.
00:20:18.000And they got out over their skis a little bit over the weekend supporting H-1Bs.
00:20:23.000And now, you know, you're seeing a lot of pushback from people on the right instructing them about why this is a bad idea, about how there are actually better workarounds than just Importing an infinite amount of H-1Bs from places around the world,
00:20:38.000primarily India but elsewhere too, that we can actually build out our own labor supply for high-tech, high-skilled jobs that doesn't require importing people at lower wages to do that for us.
00:21:36.000Our companies will not be able to complete the modern equivalent of the Manhattan Project when it comes to artificial intelligence.
00:21:45.000Therefore, for America to win, which you and I both want, for us to be able to win the AI arms race, which I imagine you and I both want, therefore, we must open up the H-1B visa process.
00:21:59.000Yeah, so it's a worthwhile argument to take seriously and I think it starts with a bit of disagreement over the premise and what it means for America to quote-unquote win.
00:22:10.000From an American first perspective, America winning means the flourishing of the American people inside of America.
00:22:20.000And that takes precedent over the people of the rest of the world.
00:22:24.000That doesn't mean we have to neglect or be hostile to the rest of the world, but America winning means American people flourishing.
00:22:32.000And the difference between Trump and the MAGA right and all that has come before, at least in my adult lifetime, is the priority on American people.
00:23:00.000The way we do that is by bringing in absolutely necessary world-class talent.
00:23:07.000I don't think there's anybody on the MAGA right who wants to prevent people like Elon Musk from coming into the country.
00:23:15.000People like, you know, Wernher von Braun, Einstein, John von Neumann.
00:23:20.000You know, the people from Operation Paperclip, the people who helped to get us to the moon, for example.
00:23:25.000We want to bring in that world-class talent.
00:23:28.000But there is a huge difference here between that world-class talent that can't be replaced by your average worker And then a guy working some entry-level job for $70,000, that can be an American job for Americans.
00:23:45.000So I think something that's happening here is this conflation between this extreme level of talent that Elon Musk and others, including people on the MAGA right, want to bring into the country, and then just the flood of, you know, replacement-level, mediocre talent, engineering talent, that can easily Be replaced and be done by American workers and we want to preserve those jobs for Americans.
00:24:30.000Is there untapped capacity amongst the American body politic to be able to accomplish some of these goals without having to go to Hyderabad?
00:24:42.000There is nothing the American people cannot out-compete the rest of the world on, given a truly level playing field for the American worker and for American talent to rise to the top.
00:24:56.000Something we've seen over the last decades with affirmative action, with disparate impact hiring, with the absolute degradation and breakdown of our higher ed system, with hiring practices, with caps on white men in management,
00:25:13.000white men on boards, We have actively suppressed our talent over the course of several decades, and all we need to do is take the knee off the neck of the white American worker and the American worker broadly, and we will see all the talent we need.
00:25:29.000Now, again, there may be some room to bring in other world-class talent from elsewhere, but the American people, if nothing else, have proven over the decades that we can do anything we set our mind to and anything we set our talent to.
00:25:48.000Try to explain to the tech world, if they're listening, why this is such a passionate issue for the MAGA base.
00:25:55.000I was put on a group text last night with a lot of the tech bros and some of the MAGA people, and the premise of the group text was, MAGA people, explain to us why you do not agree with us.
00:26:06.000Because this particular issue, I have to say, has some of the most fervent zeal I think you would agree with that, Jonathan, that if you are in favor of mass H-1B, you do not even understand the counterargument.
00:26:20.000And to their credit, they wanted to hear it.
00:26:23.000Number one, big tech has censored us and smeared us and treated us terribly.
00:26:28.000Why would we then accommodate their policy wishes to That also is against and contradictory to the core element of the ascendant political majority in this country.
00:26:40.000I mean, this entire world has been very hostile to us.
00:26:43.000Is there something you'd like to add that to explain the sentiment of the average Trump voter and how they view this to somebody who does not see it?
00:26:53.000A CEO of a multi-trillion dollar company.
00:26:56.000Yeah, and I have to say it's been very heartening the fact that these tech guys who put forward these H-1B positions want to hear what we have to say.
00:27:06.000They understand on some level that they don't get it and are willing to listen, and I give them a lot of credit for that.
00:27:12.000And I do actually trust that there's a lot of mutual interest here and that this coalition can stay together despite some disagreements over this H-1B question.
00:27:21.000And what I'd say is simply, from the time that Trump came down the escalator in 2016, when he announced his run initially, the thing he was running on was immigration.
00:27:32.000And it was preserving America and its inheritance and its largesse For the American people.
00:27:40.000That is what MAGA-ism at bottom is based on.
00:27:44.000It's based on preserving an America that we know and understand and is the greatest country in the world, preserving its country and preserving its people and its wealth for its people.
00:27:55.000What this H-1B issue does is cut directly against that fundamental position that gave rise to MAGA in the first place.
00:28:07.000Now, we can haggle over some of the details and how we negotiate around identifying talent.
00:28:13.000But what the tech right needs to understand is this coalition exists, MAGA exists, Trump exists.
00:28:20.000Because of this question over immigration, we fought for decades on this issue.
00:28:26.000We have finally won a resounding victory here in 2024, and we don't intend to relent On this issue now, just because these tech guys need a couple of engineers in their department.
00:28:39.000This is going to be something we fight on.
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00:30:22.000Jonathan, so I want to ask the other element of this, which makes it even more difficult, which is how foreigners are able to come to our universities and our schools.
00:30:33.000And so, in some ways, that is a step one to H-1B. So someone goes to Caltech from a foreign country, they get a bachelor's degree, and then they apply for an H-1B visa to stay here more permanently.
00:30:48.000And then, intentionally, unintentionally, then disenfranchises American workers.
00:30:53.000The UC system, for example, basically underwrites their bills with foreigners, and they charge a ton to foreigners.
00:31:00.000Explain to our audience our immigration policy when it comes to higher education, how that plays into the broader discussion.
00:31:05.000Yeah, this is such an important component to this because you're talking about the talent development pipeline here and ultimately what gets manifest at the level of hiring decisions is determined by that talent development pipeline that should be our higher education system.
00:31:22.000I worked in the UC system at UC Irvine and R1 University.
00:31:32.000Here's a few facts for the people listening.
00:31:34.000When I was there through 2012 to 2022, we had over 20% of our undergraduate population were foreign-born nationals.
00:31:48.000By the time I left in 2022, and anybody can go look this up, there were more foreign-born nationals at UC Irvine than there were white males, okay, or whites generally, okay?
00:32:02.000Now, there has been a massive displacement of the population that these universities are intended to serve by these foreign nationals.
00:32:13.000There's a bunch of complicated cultural and economic reasons why that's the case.
00:32:19.000These foreign nationals, for example, pay sometimes two, even three times much in terms of tuition than native-born students, and so the universities are incentivized to bring them in.
00:32:32.000But whatever the explanation, this obviously has to change.
00:32:38.000We need to recommit our higher ed institutions to developing our own native-born talent We're good to go.
00:33:08.000Years in which this talent development pipeline needs to be reconfigured.
00:33:15.000That doesn't mean we take a shortcut and instead just throw up our hands and say this can't be done.
00:33:21.000We're going to take in all these foreign H1Bs instead.
00:33:24.000Last point here, and again, I say this as a simpleton when it comes to these matters, but at least my operating assumption is that artificial intelligence allows us to be more efficient, allows us to get rid of duplicative work.
00:33:38.000Why is it that we're pushing for mass migration while we are seeing the integration of artificial intelligence technology?
00:33:46.000Those things seem incompatible with one another, actually.
00:33:49.000Yeah, I mean, we're told two competing things here.
00:33:52.000On the one hand, AI is going to make all of these low-skill tech engineering jobs obsolete.
00:34:00.000The computers are going to do it themselves.
00:34:02.000We're told that, but then on the other hand, we're told we need to bring in All of these H-1Bs to fill those low skill or modestly skilled engineering coding jobs.
00:34:16.000I'm not an AI. So I can't tell you how real this is, how much of this is just sort of a rhetorical window dressing in order to justify why we need to bring in this cheap labor.
00:34:29.000I'm willing to take these guys at their word But something doesn't add up here and they need to explain this.
00:34:35.000And I just want to end on this final point.
00:34:37.000This is not about bringing in better talent.
00:34:40.000This is about bringing in cheaper talent.
00:34:43.000And if we're going to have this conversation, I want us to be honest about that fact.
00:34:48.000Again, at least from my perspective, as we become more efficient, more automated, and more robotic, for better or for worse, that then would probably weaken the argument that we need to bring in tens of millions of people from the foreign lands.