The Culture War - Tim Pool - Should America END The H1-B Visa Program？ MAGA SPLITS Over H1-B

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00:00:30.000 Hey, everybody.

00:00:40.880 So, sparks were flying on X last week

00:00:43.340 between Elon Musk and the MAGA base over H-1B visas.

00:00:47.200 The debate also divided Trump's officials.

00:00:49.780 We had Elon and Vivek versus Stephen Miller and Steve Bannon.

00:00:53.800 Everyone seemed to be weighing in.

00:00:55.880 Really hot topic.

00:00:57.340 We had people, even Bernie, saying Bernie's right

00:01:00.320 with his comments on the H-1B nightmare yesterday.

00:01:04.220 So, today, I'm filling in for Tim.

00:01:06.580 He's not here, but he will be here next week.

00:01:08.680 We brought in a panel of experts to go over everything H-1B.

00:01:13.900 So, we should probably just jump into the big debate.

00:01:17.320 So, I'll go around the room, and everybody can introduce yourself.

00:01:19.900 David?

00:01:21.300 I'm David Beer, Director of Immigration Studies at the Cato Institute.

00:01:24.940 The Cato Institute is a nonpartisan public policy research organization

00:01:29.720 in Washington, D.C.

00:01:31.780 And for the last 40 years, or almost 50 years now, we've been producing original research

00:01:38.980 on immigration and many other topics.

00:01:41.840 And most of the people who work there are libertarians, including myself.

00:01:47.200 I'm Daniel DiMartino, and I'm a fellow at the Manhattan Institute focused on immigration.

00:01:52.540 And so, I do research on that.

00:01:54.440 I'm finished on my Ph.D. in economics at Columbia University, and I run an organization called

00:01:59.440 The Dissident Project, where we send immigrants who escaped tyrannical countries to speak at

00:02:03.500 high schools, tell our stories, and educate children here about really the amazing thing

00:02:09.100 that America is and how blessed we are to live here.

00:02:11.780 And I'm Caroline Downey.

00:02:13.220 I'm a staff writer at National Review, the flagship conservative magazine in America,

00:02:18.900 Influence Still Going Strong.

00:02:20.340 And we host a whole number of op-eds and interesting scholarly articles and have for many decades

00:02:26.880 on the immigration issue from experts like Mark Krikorian at the Center for Immigration

00:02:31.960 Studies, Peter Skerry.

00:02:33.660 He's a professor at Boston College who I actually had at Boston College when I did a political

00:02:38.720 science and economics double major.

00:02:41.860 And yeah, thrilled to be here.

00:02:43.660 Happy to have you.

00:02:44.500 And I'm Brian Kachanek.

00:02:45.480 I'm the guest services lead here at Timcast, former Air Force, former defense contractor.

00:02:49.780 I worked alongside H-1B visa holders before in the defense contracting industry.

00:02:55.880 And I'm just here to gain some insight on what people view or how people view H-1B visa holders

00:03:03.060 and if there is a way forward to potentially reform the application system, things of that

00:03:10.160 nature.

00:03:10.520 So I'm looking forward to this conversation.

00:03:12.500 We have a great panel here to discuss that.

00:03:14.520 And we got Callum pushing the buttons.

00:03:16.180 Yep.

00:03:16.440 I'm in the corner here.

00:03:18.160 It's good to have Brian on.

00:03:19.320 I'm interested.

00:03:20.440 It should be a fun conversation, especially because it's in the news right now.

00:03:24.220 So let's get started.

00:03:25.280 Yeah, really hot.

00:03:25.800 All right.

00:03:26.060 So Trump's kind of finding himself at a crossroads right now.

00:03:28.920 We have him.

00:03:29.820 You know, he had to build a coalition basically to get elected.

00:03:32.620 But, you know, a new Rasmussen poll says about 60 percent of voters don't want H-1B workers.

00:03:39.900 So first of all, I don't think that most people even really know what H-1B workers are or what

00:03:46.860 the process is like.

00:03:47.860 So why don't we jump into exactly what that is, what type of visas there are for workers,

00:03:53.000 if they're specialty workers or not, and kind of go from there.

00:03:56.100 Does anybody want to kick us off?

00:03:58.320 Sure.

00:03:58.560 Well, the H-1B visa is just one of the many visas that the U.S. government has for people

00:04:04.380 who are abroad, who want to come here to work specifically.

00:04:07.380 In order to get an H-1B, you need an employer to file an application on the behalf of the

00:04:11.380 immigrant.

00:04:13.220 It's a multi-department process.

00:04:15.520 You need like an application with the Department of Labor.

00:04:17.440 After that's approved, you need an application with USCIS.

00:04:20.460 If you're a for-profit company, this is most of the U.S. sector, you need to go through a

00:04:24.840 lottery.

00:04:25.680 There's only 85,000 of these visas, unless you're a cap-exempt organization, we can talk

00:04:30.880 about that.

00:04:32.780 And anyway, so because there's so much more demand and supply for these individuals, usually

00:04:38.240 there's like a 20% selection rate, meaning 80% just don't get it.

00:04:43.360 And you need a college degree to get this visa.

00:04:45.880 You need to at least affirm that you're paying a wage that is similar to those of employees

00:04:52.760 doing the same job with the same experience in that field.

00:04:58.380 And anyway, this is the main really visa in which people can come to the U.S. for work

00:05:04.320 purposes and then become permanent residents.

00:05:07.800 It's a dual intent visa, meaning you're allowed to do that.

00:05:11.080 And it's a visa in which many important people have come, but also a visa that's been abused

00:05:15.840 through third-party organizations that we can talk about.

00:05:18.920 Certainly being abused.

00:05:20.320 But there's, so 70, I think it's 73 to 75% all come from India, right?

00:05:26.720 And about 12% come from China, if I have that correct.

00:05:30.720 I can say something about that.

00:05:32.520 It's 73% of the current visa holders are from India, but actually of the new visas is only

00:05:38.400 50.

00:05:39.180 And the reason is that Indians cannot adjust to a green card.

00:05:42.880 So they all remain on H-1Bs while the Europeans, the Africans, the Latin Americans all leave the

00:05:48.640 H-1Bs.

00:05:49.140 Right, because as soon as you have your H-1B, do you have to wait the three years?

00:05:56.680 Or I'm pretty sure that you have to wait the three years and then you can apply for your

00:06:00.020 green card.

00:06:00.280 No, you can apply just while you're here, right?

00:06:02.100 Well, you can't initiate it yourself.

00:06:03.900 Your employer has to initiate the process for you to even start.

00:06:09.140 Correct.

00:06:09.440 So it's not really your option.

00:06:11.920 It's kind of their option for when they want to do it.

00:06:14.560 And even if they do start it right away, the process to go through the green card process

00:06:19.200 is going to take probably about three years for them to get through it.

00:06:23.940 So even though it's a three year and then you can renew it once, you're stuck in that

00:06:29.180 scenario of at least three years of being on the H-1B once you get here, regardless.

00:06:34.940 So the big problem is that Americans are saying, well, this hurts American workers.

00:06:42.660 The people that are coming in on these H-1B visas, they're getting paid lower wages and

00:06:47.980 it's competing for American jobs and that it's not the best and the brightest, that it's being

00:06:53.620 abused.

00:06:54.680 So I guess what we really want to know is what are the merits of this?

00:06:58.900 Is that true?

00:07:00.600 Are they competing for American jobs?

00:07:02.660 And how do we solve this dilemma that the people clearly on X are saying?

00:07:08.080 Well, I don't think it's just that group, right?

00:07:10.720 I mean, you have the, I would call them the Stone Age conservatives who want to make everything

00:07:15.720 themselves and because that's what we did in the Stone Age or because they don't understand

00:07:20.620 economics.

00:07:22.060 But you also have this other group, I would call them the Snowflake conservatives, who are

00:07:26.700 just offended at the idea of ethnic and religious and cultural diversity in the United States.

00:07:31.440 So I think there are more than just-

00:07:33.060 I don't think that's a big part of it.

00:07:34.460 I want to push back on that.

00:07:35.420 I mean, I get that all the time.

00:07:37.540 I get that all the time on X and Twitter.

00:07:40.500 You get that from the left, but that's not how those people actually are.

00:07:43.800 I do think it's a fallacy to just call these people racist and bigots.

00:07:47.980 Oh, whoa, whoa, whoa.

00:07:48.740 I didn't say they were racist and bigots.

00:07:50.260 I just said they were offended by the presence of people who have ethnic and religious and cultural.

00:07:56.340 You know, this is what they are saying.

00:08:00.000 They're saying, I don't want foreign cultures in my culture.

00:08:03.100 That's what they are.

00:08:04.300 But that's not the whole debate.

00:08:06.200 I mean, I do agree that that's part of what happened on Twitter.

00:08:09.640 And like you can see like there's organizations like Hindus for America First, where Republican

00:08:14.340 organizations were very concerned about this.

00:08:16.520 But I do think that the main concern from average people is that, you know, it's an economic concern.

00:08:26.520 And you see that, you know, we have polling at the Manhattan Institute.

00:08:29.160 I don't disagree that it's the main concern, but the thing that touched this whole debate

00:08:33.160 off was a Trump, was a Trump appointee, right, who was Indian.

00:08:39.160 And so that's what launched this whole thing.

00:08:41.520 So the idea that it's purely about policy disagreements or economics even is, I just don't believe

00:08:51.200 that it's totally about those things.

00:08:53.440 But I do think, so there's those two groups, but then you have the American First market

00:08:57.640 conservatives like Daniel, like Musk and Vivek, who want to see the United States be the most

00:09:03.580 economically prosperous and vibrant place on planet Earth, who want to bring people here

00:09:10.020 who are going to contribute in a significant way.

00:09:13.060 But I think they're outnumbered, and they feel that they are outnumbered.

00:09:16.320 So they're constantly making concessions to these other groups.

00:09:20.500 And you see it with Elon initially starting out saying, really bold, I will go to my grave

00:09:25.260 defending this.

00:09:26.380 And then he dials it way back and says, well, I really only want the 0.01% of the people who

00:09:33.980 are coming.

00:09:34.520 So they constantly feel like they have to make concessions to these other groups.

00:09:37.520 But I don't think they should be making concessions.

00:09:39.940 They are right on the economics and on the cultural issues.

00:09:46.980 And these groups have proven themselves that they will never be satisfied.

00:09:50.620 If you look at the U.S. skilled legal immigration system, it is the most restrictive in the world.

00:09:58.940 We're rejecting over 70% of the applicants for H-1B visas.

00:10:03.340 If you look at the share of the green card backlog that gets a green card every year, it's only

00:10:08.580 about 10% of those are even accepted.

00:10:11.840 So we already have an insanely restrictive legal immigration system.

00:10:17.680 So I don't think Musk and Vivek should be conceding anything.

00:10:21.840 They should be defending the system and focusing on expanding it.

00:10:24.540 So you think the system is fine how it is?

00:10:26.680 Well, I just want to say the reason why Elon Musk...

00:10:28.740 No, I think it's terribly restrictive.

00:10:30.820 I think that is the main problem.

00:10:33.120 The reason why Elon Musk backtracked under pressure wasn't because he wanted to make

00:10:38.900 a concession to the traditional right wing.

00:10:42.380 I think it was because he realized that, oh, the connotation of H-1B historically is that

00:10:47.420 it brings in the Einsteins, the geniuses into these various fields when in fact it does

00:10:52.880 not.

00:10:53.320 Often it's mediocre, ordinary talent that we already have here in the United States.

00:10:58.860 And these, of course, companies like Tesla and SpaceX have been built off the backs of

00:11:04.580 those low-skilled immigrants, but those are not geniuses.

00:11:08.760 And I think legal immigration in this country, one of the worst cliches in Republican politics

00:11:14.300 is that legal immigration is bad.

00:11:16.660 Legal immigration is by default good.

00:11:19.140 That's just not true.

00:11:20.240 And the mandate of Trump this election was obviously to curtail illegal immigration, but

00:11:25.900 also immigration generally, because I think many Americans and obviously a large majority

00:11:30.400 of Americans in this country do think after the four years of border anarchy and with the

00:11:36.360 legal immigration system, which has many flaws and is prone to exploitation, we need a

00:11:40.700 reset on that.

00:11:42.540 And that's not because they're harboring racial animus toward these groups.

00:11:46.520 It's because America first populism just says we want to prioritize the people that are

00:11:52.780 native here, who's multiple generations that are in this country that built it.

00:11:59.720 That's their legacy.

00:12:02.020 And so I do think it's kind of a misnomer about the motives of the people who are advocating

00:12:08.780 for illegal immigration, either reduction or just a reanalysis of it.

00:12:16.280 And the other thing I'll say is that there was a study in the Center for Immigration Studies

00:12:21.260 that showed that foreign educated workers tend to be less skilled than their American counterparts,

00:12:28.320 which raises the question.

00:12:29.440 Like educated abroad.

00:12:30.480 Yes, and the study was based on test results on computational ability, literacy, as well

00:12:39.400 as, you know, like just a third category, I think, of comprehension.

00:12:43.080 And it showed that across the board, foreign educated, you know, immigrants, as well as U.S.

00:12:49.660 educated immigrants underperformed the Americans, which, you know, begs the question, if we're

00:12:55.640 looking at these people as highly skilled, should we be?

00:12:59.560 Because when you compare them to Americans who have similar educational attainment, they're

00:13:06.060 underperforming.

00:13:07.340 Okay, so what I will say here is that I do agree that this cliche of legal good, illegal

00:13:13.620 bad is a bad distinction.

00:13:15.340 I think what, you know, the real reason or the real debate should be what kind of immigration

00:13:20.800 policy do you want?

00:13:21.820 But I do find it concerning that we're focusing on a population of immigrants who is English

00:13:29.220 speaking, makes on average over $118,000 a year, has no crime.

00:13:36.860 I mean, can anybody name a crime from somebody who had an H-1B, an H-1B visa that brought Melania

00:13:42.040 Trump, Elon Musk, Jensen Huang, important CEOs and founders.

00:13:46.960 This is a program with problems that we can solve very easily, by the way.

00:13:52.500 But when we have a population of, say, parents of U.S. citizens that come here on green cards,

00:13:57.700 150,000, not 85,000, 150,000 who come here in their 50s, work 10 years as, say, low-wage

00:14:05.020 jobs, then collect Social Security and Medicare that is bankrupting this country.

00:14:09.400 And yet we're focusing on a population that is tiny, that is relatively higher skilled.

00:14:14.580 You know, I think we should call this a day and just say, you know, we just are going

00:14:19.480 to pick the highest wage offers of the H-1B visa.

00:14:23.260 We're not going to pick all these Indian tech outsourcing firms that exploit these Indians

00:14:27.640 in India.

00:14:28.300 And they tell them, you know, you have to pay me a fee in order to get you on the lottery.

00:14:32.280 And that's what they do.

00:14:33.540 That's what they do.

00:14:34.140 And the lottery is what makes it prone to abuse.

00:14:36.480 That's right.

00:14:36.760 The fact that it's just this pool and we're going to pluck out of this pool rather than

00:14:39.920 allow employers to compete for the highest salary.

00:14:43.040 Isn't that a way to determine whether these people are, in fact, brilliant is by letting

00:14:48.020 the employers compete.

00:14:48.940 And Trump proposed that in 2020.

00:14:50.500 And the Biden administration promptly undid that, which tells you a lot about the Biden

00:14:55.120 administration.

00:14:55.860 We shouldn't have a lottery because we shouldn't have a cap on these workers.

00:14:59.280 I mean, the idea that we should be limiting people who have job offers of $100,000.

00:15:05.240 I mean, it's, it's, they don't also, if you, yes, there's a spectrum of people here, but

00:15:09.780 even a single person who's making above average income in the United States is contributing

00:15:15.360 significantly to the prosperity of the country.

00:15:17.880 It's far too restrictive.

00:15:20.000 And you can see that in the lottery.

00:15:22.140 The lottery is, you know, I mean, obviously you're picking people randomly.

00:15:25.480 We should just be letting these people come in and contribute to our country.

00:15:29.580 We're basically turning away every year, at least $150 billion a year.

00:15:34.120 And, and the, the idea that the, the government is going to know who's going to be the next

00:15:39.140 great person.

00:15:40.080 I mean, you look at the number of CEOs who've risen up through the ranks, who were just that

00:15:45.520 ordinary, they were just the ordinary H-1B, the ordinary international student.

00:15:50.140 I mean, Musk was the ordinary international student, except he overstayed his visa and violated

00:15:55.840 the rules of immigration law in order to start his business.

00:16:00.280 But the idea that the government is going to know, oh, this person's going to be the

00:16:05.440 next, uh, important founder of the next great company is just ludicrous.

00:16:10.340 And Elon Musk would have passed that academic proficiency test that I mentioned.

00:16:13.600 He would have knocked that out of the park.

00:16:15.000 I mean, who cares about some standardized test?

00:16:17.360 Look at what the market is saying.

00:16:18.720 Well, it does matter though.

00:16:19.940 It does matter.

00:16:20.620 No, it doesn't.

00:16:21.120 It really doesn't.

00:16:21.840 If you just allowed anybody to come to the United States, you have a billion people show up

00:16:24.880 at the door and half of the world, I mean, we're talking about the H-1B visa, the H-1B

00:16:29.500 visa.

00:16:29.840 Wait, you're also talking about, I'm going to jump in here.

00:16:31.880 David, half of the world would prefer to be an Uber driver on welfare in the United States

00:16:35.240 than living in their country.

00:16:36.560 Hold on one second.

00:16:37.720 I mean, wait, wait, you, you still have to realize that there are different, so there's

00:16:41.840 different wage categories for how many years of experience.

00:16:44.280 And the first category is zero to zero to like what, two years experience.

00:16:49.320 And they can make from, I think it's 39,000 to 50,000, something like that, right?

00:16:53.320 Or 60,000, 39 to 59.9 is what, what the first year for zero to two, zero to two years experience.

00:16:59.880 We're talking, and there's that they, that they need to pay these people on these H-1Bs.

00:17:04.040 So you're talking about, we have kids coming out of college and they're, they're freaking

00:17:08.060 out because they can't get jobs and they're taking these horrible entry-level positions and,

00:17:12.500 but they can't get these entry-level positions because they're going to people who are supposed

00:17:15.900 to be what, like skilled workers.

00:17:17.940 I mean, it's just not true.

00:17:20.160 I mean, the number of software-

00:17:22.340 Why should we take anybody, if they're supposed to be highly skilled, why are we taking anybody

00:17:26.140 with zero to two years experience anyway?

00:17:28.020 Entry-level accountants from abroad.

00:17:29.520 Well, I will challenge that, but from another perspective from the right, and I would say

00:17:34.500 is you, first, what kind of person do you care about, right?

00:17:38.900 When we think about the economics of immigration, who are physicians competing to?

00:17:43.240 Even an entry-level physician.

00:17:44.340 An entry-level physician is not competing with a construction worker or an office worker.

00:17:49.740 I have problems with that too, though.

00:17:50.820 The physicians, my mom used to train people at Jefferson and they would, they would prioritize

00:17:55.220 these foreign students over-

00:17:56.240 Sure, but those physicians are not competing with construction workers.

00:17:59.400 And what happens if you have, say, 10,000 more physicians in the United States?

00:18:04.060 Yes, they're going to compete with American physicians.

00:18:06.820 They will certainly reduce their, their salaries.

00:18:09.640 But they are going to demand services from construction workers, from stores, from apartments.

00:18:16.420 They're going to raise the wages.

00:18:17.840 Yes.

00:18:18.300 They're going to raise the wages of the working class and depress the ones of physicians.

00:18:23.060 And, you know, maybe that's a good trade-off.

00:18:25.240 But no, when you have medical schools, when you have medical schools saying, okay, we only,

00:18:29.000 like Jefferson just had, right?

00:18:30.400 You won't, we only admit this many anesthesia students say, right?

00:18:33.320 And so you look at their grades.

00:18:35.420 We have a girl from Penn.

00:18:36.500 She has a 4.0.

00:18:37.500 She's doing great.

00:18:38.640 She doesn't get in, but the people from Iran were prioritized, right?

00:18:43.080 Well, you know that people who are really being prioritized are the DEI stuff.

00:18:46.260 Okay, so that's true.

00:18:48.360 But so these people are coming over on specialty visas to even be here to study like that, right?

00:18:54.020 And so now that person who could have, you know, been at Jefferson now has to go to maybe

00:18:58.540 a lesser one and it affects, you know, where, where they get placed.

00:19:02.380 This is a bigger problem.

00:19:03.820 Like we limit the number of residencies, like, you know, the American Medical Association

00:19:07.600 lobbies to keep physicians' salaries high.

00:19:10.000 Well, practically many of the H-1B recipients are programmers, like cheap, basic programmers.

00:19:16.220 Okay, so that's the STEM field.

00:19:18.360 Why would, why would we recruit for the STEM field if we don't have a shortage is what the

00:19:22.900 advocates of H-1B will say.

00:19:24.580 Do we have a shortage of STEM workers in America unequivocally?

00:19:28.480 No, there is no evidence that we have a shortage of STEM workers in America.

00:19:32.360 In 2022, there were, I think it was 17 million STEM graduates.

00:19:37.700 So that means American people who graduated.

00:19:40.000 This is complicated because like you're comparing like somebody with a BA in biology as a STEM

00:19:44.480 graduate with somebody with a PhD in computer science.

00:19:47.420 Like they're both STEM graduates.

00:19:48.400 And we have to realize, I'm going to push back there a little bit too, in that we are

00:19:51.360 what, 36th in the world for STEM majors.

00:19:55.760 Like that's where we rank, like as far as output and quality, we rank that low.

00:20:01.680 I think we're 16th in math, right?

00:20:03.920 So we, it's not like our students are prioritizing, our students are prioritizing things like, I

00:20:09.920 think psychology has moved up to the fifth best major.

00:20:12.660 So there is that issue that.

00:20:14.780 America produces great lawyers.

00:20:16.020 Yeah.

00:20:16.460 Well, listen, Vivek was pushing back on culture and I kind of have to give it to him.

00:20:20.460 Like there are the tiger moms and there are the people that prioritize this.

00:20:23.500 And maybe our parents do need to wake up and really start, you know, forcing your kids to

00:20:27.880 actually do their homework.

00:20:28.780 Like that comedian's like math is hard.

00:20:30.460 You know, I want to die for my country, that thing.

00:20:32.760 But like, yeah.

00:20:33.280 I also think there's an indictment of academia embedded in that.

00:20:35.820 I used to cover a lot of education for national review.

00:20:37.820 And I know that's not what this conversation is about, but look, like if you're adding

00:20:41.680 DEI as a fundamental building block of like the medical, the medical training in America,

00:20:48.520 yeah, you're, you're going to have a diminished quality of medicine and medical trainees and

00:20:54.640 graduates.

00:20:55.080 So it's not necessarily the student's fault, engineers too.

00:20:58.600 And you're right that we're not exactly, you know, the rank the highest when it comes to

00:21:02.880 this.

00:21:03.280 And by the way, there are hundreds of counties in this country that have no primary care physician.

00:21:07.820 And so do we say, is it okay to stop a foreign physician who graduated abroad to come and

00:21:14.340 save lives in rural America?

00:21:16.140 I think it would be a great thing to allow those people to save lives.

00:21:18.580 Yeah, but that's, but they won't go there either.

00:21:20.760 Actually, we have a program specifically to require them to go there.

00:21:24.740 The problem is though, is that insurance companies and the way that the insurance companies put

00:21:29.480 their claws into the people in the medical field really like hamper how successful they

00:21:34.440 can be.

00:21:35.280 I know because my whole family's in medicine.

00:21:36.800 I'm the only one that's out on that.

00:21:38.560 But so yes and no.

00:21:40.020 I mean, we have shortages of dermatologists.

00:21:41.900 The VA can't even get a single dermatologist to actually go work for them.

00:21:45.500 But that, that's also because of how their pay scheme and what, how they pay.

00:21:49.720 Anything that's overly regulated is going to do bad.

00:21:51.900 I do see your point.

00:21:52.980 I see your point.

00:21:53.640 So I have a, my family has a small cabin in like a very rural town in Maine that literally

00:21:59.300 has one major doctor on the peninsula.

00:22:02.060 And he happens to be from the Philippines and his family.

00:22:04.640 They're very, very close to me.

00:22:06.000 And, you know, growing up in this town, I've noticed how the whole town is dependent on

00:22:10.700 this doctor because I mean, frankly, who wants to be a doctor in rural Maine?

00:22:15.160 Very few, very few people.

00:22:17.440 There's a huge brain drain out of that state all the time.

00:22:20.660 And I've seen the impact of, of, you know, his, his work and service and in a place like

00:22:25.640 that.

00:22:26.080 We can have more people like that and not have like programmers making 50K a year that

00:22:30.460 are working for hire through third party companies.

00:22:32.860 You know, I think that that's kind of like the solution.

00:22:34.960 Graphic designers should look like.

00:22:36.720 It was, I think Patrick, but David was one of the people that was speaking out the most

00:22:39.920 about it.

00:22:40.200 And then when they went and pulled up the H1B records for him, he's got a graphic designer

00:22:45.040 making about 45,000.

00:22:46.380 I was like, I know so many graphic designers right now that are lining up for jobs that

00:22:51.600 are, can't wait to get them.

00:22:53.300 And so what are we doing hiring graphic designers for, to do thumbnails for Patrick McDavid?

00:22:59.140 The vast majority of H1Bs are in computer jobs, software developing employment has doubled

00:23:06.420 in the last 10 years.

00:23:07.660 This doubled, like that's an insane rate of growth.

00:23:11.540 There's been no decline in wages.

00:23:13.640 If you look at the wages of the workers who were there 10 years ago, they're, they have

00:23:18.940 increased dramatically.

00:23:20.640 You have, yes, lots of new people coming into the field.

00:23:23.420 So they're coming in at the entry level wage, but there's no evidence that they're, they're

00:23:27.940 harming anyone.

00:23:28.540 The basic idea, right?

00:23:30.540 Getting back to the basic economics, what is the H1B in this context?

00:23:34.400 It is unlicensed to work and a restrictive licensing regime hurts everyone except the special

00:23:40.700 interest being protected.

00:23:41.860 And Daniel's right.

00:23:42.880 Who is the special interest being protected here?

00:23:45.720 It's the top 10% of wage earners in the United States.

00:23:49.680 That's who we're talking about inflating the wages.

00:23:51.980 Well, no one's just talking about 50K a year.

00:23:53.880 Well, I mean, that's a spectrum.

00:23:55.200 The average really, I mean, the average of this is $118,000 a year.

00:24:00.980 That's the median, which means half make less.

00:24:03.440 So I understand, I understand that, but the average matters or the median matters in this

00:24:09.400 context.

00:24:09.760 Because if you got rid of the entire program, then you're, you're lowering the wages for

00:24:13.500 all those.

00:24:13.820 Is that the average for the H1B visa applicants or is that how much they're making on average?

00:24:18.880 That's how much the, the, the median person makes the averages, you know.

00:24:22.820 Which by the way, it means like, if you look at the data, if you just do did wage ranking

00:24:28.240 because of the percentage that gets selected, the minimum salary that would end up being

00:24:33.620 selected is over 120K.

00:24:35.580 That would be the minimum.

00:24:36.840 The average would be well over 200K.

00:24:39.020 Yeah.

00:24:39.200 So this is about a trade-off, David, because we cannot just let in everybody with a job

00:24:43.720 offer.

00:24:44.000 You could absolutely uncap H1B.

00:24:46.420 We didn't have to, we had 190,000.

00:24:48.480 The reason why it's gotten so insane in terms of the lottery is because we've had these restrictions

00:24:54.060 in place, severe restrictions in the place for the last 20 years.

00:24:58.480 In 1999, we had a cap of 190,000.

00:25:01.700 So we didn't have this, this big backlog in these problems in terms of getting the visas.

00:25:07.120 So we could have a much more expansive.

00:25:09.720 You know how many applications there were, right?

00:25:11.420 There were like over 500,000.

00:25:13.540 So you think that it would be like, okay to just 500,000 more every year?

00:25:17.400 No, no, it wouldn't work like that because the reason why we've created this huge backlog

00:25:22.080 of the number of people who are trying to get it is because of the restrictions we've

00:25:26.160 had for the last decade.

00:25:27.260 So if we didn't have those restrictions, we would have not-

00:25:32.000 I mean, I think that there would actually be cultural consequences.

00:25:35.280 I do think that there would be political consequences.

00:25:37.720 I do think that you would have people competing with like medium level jobs that wouldn't be

00:25:42.640 the, you know, super high skilled.

00:25:44.700 You know, I'm super in favor of the high skilled part, but I don't think that it would be okay

00:25:49.540 to let in, you know, half a million programmers making $50,000 a year into the United States.

00:25:55.180 Yeah.

00:25:55.340 And most Americans who voted for Trump would agree that like, we're all for brain draining

00:26:00.000 the rest of the world.

00:26:01.040 Right.

00:26:01.260 Bring in the prodigies.

00:26:02.460 But when it comes to the middle denominator, no, we have no interest in that because as

00:26:08.360 I was mentioning, we have 17 million STEM graduates.

00:26:11.120 Yes, it's diverse range of majors, only 8 million STEM jobs filled.

00:26:16.480 That means we have all these extra employees that have STEM degrees and disciplines who could

00:26:22.760 be reactivated and reengaged.

00:26:24.320 The question is, why haven't they been?

00:26:25.760 I would argue it's because wages and STEM have stagnated.

00:26:29.520 Why have they stagnated?

00:26:30.880 Because of the influx of H-1B applicants and recipients.

00:26:36.280 There's no incentive to raise their compensation, benefits and salaries when they can just get

00:26:41.840 cheaper labor abroad.

00:26:43.680 That's not why they've stagnated.

00:26:45.260 They've stagnated because there's been this huge infusion of new people entering the fields.

00:26:49.780 That's, it's like my public school down the street.

00:26:54.600 The average height of the student fell when they increased the number of classes.

00:26:58.940 You won't believe why.

00:27:00.260 It wasn't because the public school teachers were chopping the kids' feet off.

00:27:04.660 It was because they added an elementary school onto the building.

00:27:07.820 The same thing is happening with the wage distribution in these fields that have, as I mentioned, doubled

00:27:13.340 in employment.

00:27:13.580 More people are graduating college.

00:27:14.720 So more people are graduating college and going into these fields, which is a sign that

00:27:18.980 the system is working.

00:27:20.440 We are, the wages are encouraging people to go into these fields.

00:27:23.660 For every foreign increase in foreign employment and software development, there's been two Americans

00:27:29.540 drawn in to software development.

00:27:31.540 But I do think, David, that you're ignoring that there is a trade-off.

00:27:35.680 And, you know, certainly when you have more people of a specific skill level, you are going

00:27:40.080 to, in the long run, depress the wages of that skill level.

00:27:42.480 But you are going to increase the wages of other skills levels.

00:27:44.980 So when you say, you know, we don't need more STEM graduates, like, I think you're right.

00:27:49.160 You would increase the average wage of, like, the STEM workforce in the U.S., native-born.

00:27:53.900 But you would decrease the real incomes of people who are not in STEM.

00:27:57.500 And I would rather help Americans who are not in college than Americans who went to college.

00:28:03.080 Who, by the way, it's actually a political issue.

00:28:06.160 Like, why are, like, Republicans complaining about, you know, harming Silicon Valley liberal

00:28:14.220 woke people?

00:28:16.020 Because their children want jobs.

00:28:18.960 Because they've been, like, blue-collar, working hard.

00:28:21.660 They've saved their money.

00:28:22.580 They send their kids to college.

00:28:24.380 And then their kids are coming out.

00:28:25.700 And they can't find jobs.

00:28:26.940 And they're crying in their cars on TikTok saying, I can't afford to live.

00:28:30.680 And so they're like, hey, this is harming my family.

00:28:34.300 No matter which way you look at it, it's harming their family.

00:28:36.620 And they don't want it.

00:28:37.480 There is real displacement.

00:28:38.640 There have been other studies that show for every, you know, H-1B recipient that comes into

00:28:42.760 a company that displaces two American workers.

00:28:45.140 So, I mean, there's plenty of studies for every, you know, counter-study, blah, blah, blah.

00:28:49.020 But what I'll say, I have something else.

00:28:51.080 What about the national security counterpoint?

00:28:53.340 So, all right, a lot of these recipients come from China and India.

00:28:56.120 Do we really want our STEM workforce, which is the highest foreign-born percentage I think

00:29:02.600 it's ever been?

00:29:03.700 It's like 29% foreign-born in STEM.

00:29:06.600 Do we really want our STEM feel dependent on foreign labor?

00:29:10.760 As we enter this new era of geopolitics with China as an adversary, especially, I mean, that's

00:29:19.100 a genuine question.

00:29:19.640 Yeah.

00:29:19.660 No, I mean, I think it's a good concern.

00:29:22.600 What I'll say, you know, China, different issue than India.

00:29:25.160 Sure.

00:29:26.640 But I will say that-

00:29:27.940 Is it, though?

00:29:28.140 Because aren't they kind of-

00:29:29.300 Yeah, aren't they kind of like-

00:29:30.940 No, no, it's not.

00:29:31.840 I mean, the CCP wants to destroy the United States.

00:29:34.240 The Indian government doesn't want to destroy the United States.

00:29:36.360 Like, it's fundamentally different.

00:29:37.920 You'd be surprised.

00:29:39.020 I'm just saying they have been making a turn, from what I've heard.

00:29:41.980 India has been making a turn to China, given some of America's policies.

00:29:46.660 I mean, isn't Modi, like, best friends with Trump anyway?

00:29:49.840 For now, for now, yeah.

00:29:50.860 I would definitely say, for national defense, I'm highly suspect about anybody who lives

00:30:00.180 outside the United States working for defense contractors, because they are privy to a lot

00:30:05.380 of compartmentalized information that, you know, if does get out or get sold back to China-

00:30:11.100 Don't you need to be a U.S. citizen to work?

00:30:12.620 Yeah, but what they do-

00:30:14.400 There are other things to get around that, right?

00:30:16.460 For right now, what they're saying is, like, we have these big companies, and they make the

00:30:19.580 software.

00:30:19.820 I think one of the largest companies that does H-1B recipients, it has to do with the

00:30:26.080 people who do the cloud, Azure, or whatever it is.

00:30:28.280 And so-

00:30:28.920 The what?

00:30:29.300 The cloud?

00:30:29.800 Yeah.

00:30:30.120 Azure.

00:30:30.460 Azure.

00:30:30.780 Microsoft.

00:30:31.340 Microsoft, right.

00:30:32.240 So they're one of the biggest H-1B employers.

00:30:37.100 And what they do, though, they have a lot of contracts with the U.S. government.

00:30:40.500 What they do, though, is they compartmentalize it, right?

00:30:42.460 So they'll start building parts of the code and the code, and then they hand it off, and

00:30:46.800 then it gets specialized through our Department of Defense.

00:30:51.100 However, if you're building the original base to the code, then you know how to get around

00:30:55.780 it, too.

00:30:56.620 Not saying that that happens as much, because, like I said, our own team of U.S. citizens

00:31:02.820 in the Department of Defense really works with it themselves, but still, they're building

00:31:08.020 the foundation for that code.

00:31:09.640 The Trump Defense Department in 2020 wrote a report about this, and they said that the

00:31:16.120 lack of STEM talent in the United States, specifically with computers, is a direct threat to the self-determination

00:31:23.300 of the United States, because if you cannot control the future of artificial intelligence

00:31:29.420 and these other technologies and technological growth, then you are beholden to whoever is

00:31:35.380 developing that.

00:31:36.120 China is graduating right now twice as many STEM PhDs, specifically in computer science

00:31:43.080 fields, than the United States is.

00:31:46.020 That is, I mean, a direct threat to our geopolitics.

00:31:50.540 So, of course, it's a benefit to the United States to, look, we don't need to hire them

00:31:55.400 directly in the U.S. government.

00:31:57.020 We can just free up a lot of the people who are in the private sector right now who are U.S.

00:32:01.000 citizens to be attracted to these government jobs where they need to be working on the type

00:32:07.140 of defense projects that we need them in.

00:32:09.620 So, having a larger labor force in this is absolutely a benefit to our national security,

00:32:16.340 even the Trump Defense Department.

00:32:17.800 Though I will also say there is a lack of vetting that is enough, and I'll give you one story.

00:32:22.800 So, I had one Chinese student one time asking me, like, for advice to get, like, a job or

00:32:29.220 something.

00:32:29.620 She sent me her resume and wanted to meet up, and I see the resume.

00:32:34.580 What was the top experience thing?

00:32:36.960 Organizer for the Chinese Communist Party.

00:32:38.980 Are you kidding me?

00:32:40.000 I'm not going to help an organization.

00:32:41.900 Like, and this, she volunteered the information, and I'm just thinking, what is the State Department

00:32:47.380 doing when they're granting visas that you do, somebody who, proud, proud to be an organizer

00:32:53.680 for the CCP.

00:32:54.760 So, I do think, you know, I don't want communists, I don't want adversaries, but I do think that

00:32:59.820 the brain drain is a trade-off.

00:33:01.260 So, yes, you do risk something with that.

00:33:03.540 U.S. citizens are also bribed to give information to foreign countries, by the way.

00:33:06.720 This isn't just like an immigration problem.

00:33:08.820 This happens all the time with Americans, but there is a trade-off because you do not

00:33:14.580 want to be dependent on China for chips.

00:33:16.580 You don't even want to be dependent on Taiwan for chips, right?

00:33:19.200 And this whole issue that we have foreign policy is because we can't build it here.

00:33:23.380 Well, part of that's their neon, too.

00:33:24.880 I mean, Ukraine and Taiwan are the biggest producers of neon, so.

00:33:28.760 No, but Taiwan has TSMC.

00:33:31.300 We import all our high-quality chips from Taiwan.

00:33:34.660 And, you know, the solution that the Biden administration did was, let's just give

00:33:38.680 hundreds of billions to these companies with DEI conditions, by the way, and all these

00:33:43.900 stupid things.

00:33:44.880 And then they can't even open because they don't have the Taiwanese high-skilled workers.

00:33:50.440 Well, we should let them in, brain drain those countries, and then we will actually be

00:33:54.900 independent.

00:33:55.800 But you're right.

00:33:56.280 I'm not just so sure I trust the government to screen these applicants.

00:33:59.920 I really don't.

00:34:01.880 I mean, I think—

00:34:02.800 But then we can't even trust them to screen the Americans who are also sold out.

00:34:05.940 That's true, too.

00:34:06.860 That's true, too.

00:34:07.420 But at least, you know, at least they're supposed to be here, right?

00:34:10.060 Like, that's part of the problems that we're seeing.

00:34:12.500 And I see that debate with immigration all the time is that they'll say, okay, well,

00:34:16.660 you know, the immigrants that are coming over here, they don't commit that much crime.

00:34:20.300 Well, anything that they crime—any crime that they commit is crime that shouldn't have

00:34:24.120 been here in the first place.

00:34:25.460 I'm talking about illegal immigrants, right?

00:34:26.880 And they seem to forget that and, like, they cause nominal crime.

00:34:31.500 Well, it should be none.

00:34:32.740 They shouldn't be here.

00:34:34.180 So I don't know if the crime is, like, that great of an argument when it comes to this.

00:34:39.180 I don't think the people coming in that are making—

00:34:41.500 Well, and especially legal immigrants, absolutely.

00:34:44.000 They're not trying to get in trouble.

00:34:45.340 I can't even find an anecdote of an H-1B immigrant who committed like a—

00:34:50.040 I'm sure there's—

00:34:50.880 I'm sure there is.

00:34:51.860 I'm sure there is.

00:34:52.460 But the fact that we haven't even seen—

00:34:53.260 Well, they're often in white collar.

00:34:53.920 It's the white collar world that they're occupying.

00:34:56.120 So I'm sure the crimes would be like—

00:34:58.220 White collar crime.

00:34:58.940 Right.

00:34:59.380 Or something that has to do with surveillance or intelligence.

00:35:02.740 Tax evasion.

00:35:03.280 Yeah.

00:35:03.500 It's not going to be a migrant, like, gang attack in New York City.

00:35:08.060 It's going to be of a different nature.

00:35:09.240 Also, these people are exploited, right?

00:35:11.020 So back to, you know, for those who want these people to come in mass, right?

00:35:16.160 Aren't these people exploited through, you know, these companies that will do mass—what do they—they bring all—they'll go to India and they'll say, hey, we're going to get you contracts.

00:35:27.540 I'll contract you out.

00:35:28.780 We'll sponsor your H-1B.

00:35:30.440 Then they—

00:35:31.020 That's my question.

00:35:31.980 What are they called?

00:35:32.600 Body shops, right?

00:35:33.680 Body—you've never heard of body shops?

00:35:36.000 I mean, I hear that as a derogatory term.

00:35:38.900 No.

00:35:39.080 Not as something that—

00:35:40.360 No, but the Indian contracting firms that charge Indians in India to get into the lottery.

00:35:44.920 They get them here.

00:35:45.680 They get paid, say, 50K a year.

00:35:47.540 So can I just—

00:35:48.940 I'm sorry.

00:35:49.340 Can I just ask, like, what exactly is the process for an H-1B visa holder to get to the United States and start working for a company?

00:35:56.720 Because—and what part of that process needs to be reformed?

00:36:01.780 Yes.

00:36:02.140 So first step, the company needs to want to have somebody, right?

00:36:06.000 And they apply with the Department of Labor for what's called a labor conditions application.

00:36:10.700 They have to certify that they're paying the prevailing wage for the occupation, the experience, all of that.

00:36:18.080 After that's approved, that's usually quick, they apply with USCIS.

00:36:23.600 Even though—and this is where the whole misinformation happened on Twitter.

00:36:27.380 Everybody was using the LCAs, the labor and applications.

00:36:31.860 When having an approved LCA doesn't mean you have an approved H-1B.

00:36:35.220 It just means you are approved to apply for an H-1B.

00:36:38.080 And then USCIS, the immigration agency, can approve or reject your application.

00:36:41.620 They say, no, this wage is too low.

00:36:43.340 Or this wage is not good.

00:36:45.420 The location is not approved.

00:36:47.460 Is there a background check?

00:36:49.020 Yeah.

00:36:49.520 There's biometrics and all.

00:36:50.980 Biometrics, too?

00:36:51.580 But this is so far without a visa yet.

00:36:53.600 Like, this is—the labor conditions is not for a specific person yet.

00:36:57.720 Then you do the actual application with immigration for the person.

00:37:01.280 If that's approved, and they're abroad, they go to a consulate.

00:37:04.760 If they're already here, say, an international student, that's very common, they just change status.

00:37:08.820 And they were already vetted before they came here as an international student.

00:37:11.820 Yeah.

00:37:11.980 So, even though I argued that the vetting process is not good enough for, like, China or whatever.

00:37:18.780 And then they can start working after that's approved if they get selected in the lottery.

00:37:23.680 And it's a lottery subject application.

00:37:26.100 Okay.

00:37:26.560 So, out of, like, 500,000 applicants, how many are—

00:37:29.440 85,000.

00:37:30.100 85,000.

00:37:30.780 Are selected.

00:37:31.500 Are selected.

00:37:32.140 But what's kind of tricky about that number is, like, right now I think we have around 500,000 people that are here on H-1B this year.

00:37:39.620 Like, they're given out.

00:37:40.780 Mm-hmm.

00:37:41.000 Because even though you have the 65,000 of high school graduates and then the 20,000 of master's degrees, that's what the new ones that get approved every year.

00:37:52.280 But remember, they can be here three to six years.

00:37:54.380 And then they're waiting for their green card.

00:37:56.480 And it doesn't count towards the cap, right?

00:37:58.580 So, like, if there—so the reason we have so many is because that's only for the new year, but every—but there's 500,000 because those people don't—like, the people that are getting theirs renewed doesn't count towards the cap of this new year.

00:38:13.320 So, right now there's about 500—and I think it's 580,000 people here on H-1B right now in this country, working in this country.

00:38:22.640 So, it's a half a million—a little over half a million.

00:38:24.300 Yeah, the problem with the green card stuff is that because it's taking so long to sponsor somebody for a permanent employment-based green card, what the companies are doing is that I'm just going to sponsor you for an H-1B, and I'm immediately beginning the green card process.

00:38:37.320 If the green card process didn't take three years, there would be half the number of H-1B applications.

00:38:43.220 It's really just a band-aid so that people can begin working before they get their green card.

00:38:47.300 You asked about reforms.

00:38:49.040 I think the most compelling proposals so far have been to get rid of the lottery and make it based on salary and what employers are willing to offer up.

00:38:57.680 That way, the best and the brightest, we have a greater chance of recruiting them rather than this giant pool where they're plucked at random, essentially.

00:39:06.460 Mark Krikorian laid out an interesting compromise in Compact magazine, which ideally would appease both factions of this conflict.

00:39:14.360 The tech right and moguls like Elon Musk and all of the other Silicon Valley people, and then the MAGA, populace, which is to end a good chunk of the chain migration that we have, which is essentially, you know, if your relative is here, that makes it easy for their relatives to come over into the United States, as well as visa lotteries, which is different from what I understand.

00:39:37.600 It's a diversity visa lottery.

00:39:38.960 It's literally called diversity.

00:39:40.220 We have been dying immigration for decades, and people weren't thinking about that.

00:39:43.820 Right, right.

00:39:44.840 So we have that, and he's proposing that we cut into that as well and replace a number of those spots with high-skilled immigrants.

00:39:55.580 So that way, we reduce the overall level of legal immigration while increasing the skill level of the immigrants that we are taking in.

00:40:03.640 Look, the biggest problem with the H-1B is how restrictive it is for the worker.

00:40:07.580 So when they get here, it's very bureaucratic for them to be able to go to another job.

00:40:13.960 They can.

00:40:14.860 Many of them do change jobs, but it's very bureaucratic and limits their options.

00:40:19.520 So what that does in the free market, you should be directed to the highest productivity use of your time.

00:40:24.940 Whatever you think is going to be the most productive use of your activity, you should be directed to that by the wage in the market.

00:40:33.340 But that doesn't happen as well as it could in the H-1B world because of the restrictions, the fact that every employer, in order to hire you, has to go through this government bureaucracy every time and pay $15,000 a pop to be able to hire you.

00:40:49.100 It really limits the options and the availability.

00:40:52.760 It also prevents you from going out and starting your own company, which is a very important contribution.

00:40:59.200 So if we really wanted to change the H-1B, we'd free the H-1B population who's here by giving them green cards, ideally.

00:41:06.500 But if not, just to say, look, you can work however you want, whatever company you want, start your own business.

00:41:13.120 That would unleash their productive capacities more than any other reform.

00:41:19.380 And look, coming up with these different schemes to limit it further and really only take this top slice of people, I mean, that's turning away hundreds of billions of dollars in economic growth and benefit to U.S. consumers and benefit to everyone who's not making over $100,000 a year.

00:41:38.940 So it's a it's a real blow to the economy and the government doesn't know who's going to become the next CEO of Microsoft or Google or Twitter number of people.

00:41:48.560 I just think like why not?

00:41:50.320 Why can we not let in an unlimited number of college graduates in STEM who are going to make $100,000 a year?

00:41:57.080 But that's not what you're saying.

00:41:58.500 Yes, it is.

00:41:59.200 You're saying that uncap the H-1B visa in which half of the people make less than $100,000 a year.

00:42:03.540 OK, they would.

00:42:04.380 That's their starting salary.

00:42:05.640 That's their starting salary.

00:42:06.700 Over the course of their career, they will be making a lot more than that.

00:42:10.140 You mentioned productivity.

00:42:11.440 There was a study that found that for the firms that won the H-1B visa lottery, their innovation and productivity was marginally increased.

00:42:21.260 So it's not actually leading to this, you know, uncharted, you know, like economic prowess for the companies that get these H-1B recipients.

00:42:29.920 It's really insignificant statistically.

00:42:32.820 So, I mean, maybe at the large scale, sure, GDP will increase.

00:42:37.200 But I just...

00:42:37.820 I mean, if you're able to increase innovation by 1% a year, like that compounds and that's huge.

00:42:42.160 I want to touch on something that you just said real quick.

00:42:44.240 And you said that it was hard for H-1B visa holders to like start their own business or do something like that.

00:42:49.500 You had Patrick Bette David the other day arguing that or saying that statistically 50 billion dollar startups.

00:42:58.040 Yes.

00:42:58.320 The people that have the most billion dollar startups, 55% are foreign born, right?

00:43:03.700 And so, but they're not coming over on the H-1B.

00:43:06.000 They are.

00:43:06.740 They are.

00:43:07.080 They start their careers.

00:43:07.800 Well, you just said it was difficult.

00:43:09.040 It's almost impossible for them to start a business, right?

00:43:11.340 That's what you said.

00:43:12.020 They do it after they transition out of H-1B.

00:43:13.600 After they get off the H-1B.

00:43:14.920 But there's also...

00:43:15.840 It's important for that.

00:43:16.240 That's what I'm talking about.

00:43:17.060 The H-1B is too restrictive.

00:43:18.520 We should be accelerating their ability to start...

00:43:22.060 Aren't they on, though, the investor visas, right?

00:43:26.000 Because there are foreign investor visas.

00:43:28.500 I believe it's what...

00:43:29.980 The EB-5.

00:43:31.720 Right.

00:43:32.040 There's also the treaty trader, the e-visas.

00:43:34.100 Which, by the way, the EB-5 is limited, which I think it's kind of silly, right?

00:43:38.160 Why do you limit to 9,000 people a year the number of multimillionaire investors who create at least 10 jobs?

00:43:44.000 I agree.

00:43:44.360 I think that qualifies as Einstein category.

00:43:46.480 Same with O-1.

00:43:47.620 Those are...

00:43:48.320 Right?

00:43:48.720 I know some people personally that are on O-1, and I'm like, we're not that extraordinary.

00:43:53.600 The issue with the O-1, and this is why I prefer the wage ranking on the H-1B, the issue with the O-1 is that you're asking the government to determine what's extraordinary.

00:44:01.580 And that sometimes leads to rejecting good applications and approving bad applications, right?

00:44:06.680 It's government officials.

00:44:07.780 Too subjective to bureaucrats.

00:44:08.840 It's very subjective.

00:44:09.780 It's good to have that option.

00:44:10.820 Can we privatize that?

00:44:11.980 Can we privatize the selection of applicants?

00:44:16.080 You kind of do already.

00:44:17.700 One of the criterias for the O-1 is national or international acclaim.

00:44:22.740 So you have to have a name out there.

00:44:25.080 So you kind of have to go out there and, like, get your name placed in publications and try to do interviews.

00:44:32.020 Yeah, there's a lot of writers that don't write for publications.

00:44:34.840 And it's all kind of...

00:44:35.980 I mean, it's...

00:44:36.560 Interesting.

00:44:36.860 You know, when you talk about, you know, kind of scammy things, it's like, I mean, okay, that's whatever.

00:44:43.040 That's not, like, the wage is an objective thing.

00:44:46.100 That is how much you are producing.

00:44:48.520 But it's not perfect because if you're making a bet on yourself, if you go into a startup and they give you 10% equity because you think this is going to be the next great product or innovation,

00:44:58.740 then, you know, the fact that you have a low wage doesn't mean anything.

00:45:02.740 That doesn't tell you, really, from your perspective, you're betting on yourself.

00:45:08.000 You're betting on that company to then become something very huge in the market that will make up for the fact that you have a low starting wage.

00:45:15.480 So the wage ranking isn't perfect, but it's certainly better than kind of looking at whether your name got in the newspaper or something like that.

00:45:23.620 I don't know.

00:45:25.420 I just feel like, I just feel like people aren't going to be happy with extra immigrants coming over here and taking what they see as their jobs.

00:45:35.240 I just don't ever see the MAGA base being okay with that.

00:45:38.740 And so how is Trump going to square that?

00:45:40.220 When he went back and said, he said he limited in 2016, 2020, and he said, you know, it takes jobs from Americans and it drives their wages down and we don't want it.

00:45:52.440 And now he's like, oh, I use it all the time.

00:45:55.120 But he limited it in the middle of the pandemic when unemployment was the highest it's been since the Great Depression.

00:46:03.100 So, I mean, like I am, you know, I'm not a like Trump defender on this, but I mean, you got to have some context around this.

00:46:11.360 In 2019, in his State of the Union address, he said, I want to have the highest legal immigration, merit-based legal immigration ever.

00:46:19.220 He's been all over the place on it.

00:46:20.440 So he is all over the place, but he's not like consistently opposed to immigration, though I think his advisors and a lot of people in his circle consistently are and kind of push him in that direction more than his natural instincts would go.

00:46:36.460 I wanted to read to you from the Manhattan Institute polling that we did in 2023 during the Republican primary.

00:46:42.920 Sorry, this was only of likely Republican primary voters in Iowa, in New Hampshire, in South Carolina, and in Nevada.

00:46:50.320 And we asked them about immigration, about legal, high-skilled immigration specifically.

00:46:54.380 And we asked them, would you make it easier, not change it, or harder for immigrants who are professionals with advanced degrees in science, math, technology, and engineering to come to the U.S.?

00:47:05.920 What do they mean by advanced degrees? Let's be clear.

00:47:08.580 Is it just—

00:47:09.040 Master's is fine.

00:47:10.240 Okay, fine.

00:47:10.780 Yeah.

00:47:12.440 43% said easier.

00:47:14.140 Only 10% said harder.

00:47:16.220 41% said no change.

00:47:17.900 That is the most restrictionist, right, subset of the population.

00:47:22.920 Among the overall population of Americans, or all Republicans, is well over 70% want to make it easier for people who have advanced degrees in STEM to come to the U.S.

00:47:32.280 So I think it's an easy sell.

00:47:33.980 The hard sell is that we have over 2 million people coming illegally to the United States every year through the border.

00:47:40.320 You have half a million people coming here through chain migration who have very little English proficiency.

00:47:46.960 And that should be the conversation on immigration, not unlimited the high-skilled part, I think.

00:47:51.300 I think those respondents, though, are under the impression that these are truly exceptional candidates.

00:47:56.600 And as I already stated, the foreign-educated immigrants—

00:48:00.720 Well, they're just professionals with—

00:48:02.540 With advanced degrees from abroad.

00:48:04.460 Sure.

00:48:05.040 Is that what you're saying?

00:48:05.980 They're just professionals with master's degrees and PhDs, right?

00:48:08.940 Okay.

00:48:09.300 Well, they're lesser skilled in a number of—

00:48:11.860 Than who?

00:48:13.060 Than the average American?

00:48:14.000 Certainly not.

00:48:14.680 I mean, that's what the data shows.

00:48:16.760 No, they're lesser skilled, you're saying, than people with the same degree who are born in the States.

00:48:21.300 Which makes all the sense, because English is not a native language.

00:48:24.000 No, it was adjusted for English literacy.

00:48:27.740 Even adjusted for the language barrier, they are still less skilled.

00:48:31.580 Sure, but if they're more skilled than the average person, they're still increasing the average skill of the U.S., right?

00:48:37.020 You're comparing STEM graduates of U.S. universities to STEM graduates who had their graduation abroad.

00:48:47.540 Right.

00:48:47.760 So you're not comparing just to the average American.

00:48:50.940 The average American doesn't even go to college.

00:48:54.280 The average American doesn't even go to college.

00:48:56.580 I'm saying of equal educational attainment adjusted for the English language barrier, they are less skilled.

00:49:02.880 By the way, remember, the U.S. graduates are also children of immigrants, many of whom are children of high-skilled immigrants.

00:49:08.280 I think I saw something about the math olympiads or, like, one of these high school competitions, like, half of the winners are the children of H-1B visa holders.

00:49:15.420 Because remember, who are these high-skilled immigrants?

00:49:19.240 Their marriage rate is super high.

00:49:21.540 They have no children out of wedlock.

00:49:23.780 They are highly educated.

00:49:25.620 And the result is that their children born in America are like superstars.

00:49:29.220 And that's also a piece of this puzzle that we're not talking enough.

00:49:32.880 What is the long-term impact of having a population that has very conservative cultural values, right, in marriage, in education, in pushing people to succeed?

00:49:43.560 I think that's a good thing.

00:49:45.420 I understand that point, but if we're going to talk about culture, a key indicator of assimilation is, I believe, is it intermarriage?

00:49:54.680 Intermarriage, yes.

00:49:55.720 Okay, so I think that's dropping, actually, among Indians.

00:49:59.740 I can explain.

00:50:00.820 Yeah, you're absolutely right.

00:50:02.120 It is dropping among Asians in general.

00:50:04.780 And that is because Asians, you know, until recently were a very tiny percent of the population.

00:50:08.960 So it was hard to marry among Asians because it was hard to find people of your same ethnic background.

00:50:15.940 Now it's easier.

00:50:16.920 So mechanically, it's falling.

00:50:18.640 But she's saying it's dropping, meaning they're not doing that anymore, right?

00:50:21.380 Right, right.

00:50:21.940 They're not doing it.

00:50:22.720 And I'm saying that's expected because the share of Asians of America is growing.

00:50:26.340 In absolute terms, there is more intermarriage.

00:50:29.220 It's in relative.

00:50:30.700 It's in relative.

00:50:31.140 They're still marrying outside of their race more than the average person, especially people with advanced degrees.

00:50:36.920 I'm not sure specifically about the Indians.

00:50:38.720 I just mean Asians in general.

00:50:40.360 Indians do have a good, I mean, they have like a what, a one, some people say it, put it at one.

00:50:44.160 Some people put it at a 6% divorce rate where white Americans are at 15.

00:50:49.240 African Americans are about in the 30s, 35, 36% divorce rate.

00:50:53.780 And that really has an impact on how kids perform in school, where they go to college, all of those things.

00:51:00.140 I mean, there is some cultural aspects that need to be concerned.

00:51:03.920 But before we get there, I want to go back to, you know, we have these big firms and you constantly see like big layoffs and big layoffs of American workers.

00:51:13.420 And then you see, maybe it's anecdotally, but like I don't have the statistics on hand.

00:51:18.200 But I always hear, you know, we have been replaced by lower wage tech workers from India.

00:51:24.940 I mean, in Texas, it was a really big problem.

00:51:27.180 They would call the congressman's office constantly and complain about this.

00:51:31.040 We see it happen.

00:51:32.040 I think Tesla just laid off a whole bunch of people.

00:51:34.940 And now they're having more people come in.

00:51:36.700 Didn't Disney do the same thing?

00:51:37.980 Disney had a problem with it.

00:51:39.600 That was a scandal.

00:51:40.620 It was a famous case.

00:51:41.380 And so we're still seeing problems with this.

00:51:44.080 So I don't think that opening the cap to allow more of that to happen seems like a good idea at all.

00:51:50.800 If this was really about low wages and replacing American workers, you would see more H-1B requests when companies are cutting and laying off jobs.

00:52:01.380 In fact, you see the opposite.

00:52:03.740 H-1B requests go up when employment is increasing in these fields.

00:52:08.100 If you looked at during the recession, H-1B requests went way down.

00:52:12.100 We didn't even have a lottery during that time.

00:52:15.340 And again, it comes back up when the economy recovers and they're adding workers.

00:52:19.600 So you see U.S. employment and immigrant employment go up together.

00:52:24.320 Again, the idea that this is widespread and it's causing this unemployment is belied by the fact that you've doubled the number of software developers in 10 years.

00:52:34.040 Even in the last five years, we've seen an increase of almost 70% in software development employment.

00:52:41.420 There's been no increase in the unemployment rate among software developers.

00:52:46.020 So, yes, you can look at these different – I mean, Musk took over X, right, or Twitter, and he fired all these people who were doing useless DEI stuff and censors and all this stuff.

00:52:58.000 And, okay, so that happened, but that doesn't mean – and then those people got productive jobs elsewhere in the labor force, and that's a good thing.

00:53:07.980 So you can't just look at, oh, generically, the company laid off some people and they hired some other people.

00:53:14.560 That doesn't mean that there was replacement there.

00:53:17.420 The real replacement, I think, is happening is on hiring people abroad, right?

00:53:21.420 Like if you're going to really replace somebody, why would you bring them to the U.S., pay $15,000 for the sponsorship of an H-1B on average between government fees and lawyers?

00:53:29.760 That's what it costs for a large company when you can just have a programming shop in India.

00:53:35.120 It's a remote work, really.

00:53:36.880 I mean, okay, so then – but the same thing.

00:53:39.120 There's graphic designers everywhere.

00:53:40.480 Why – then why did Patrick Bat-David go through all those hoops to do that and pay that extra money for somebody to make his thumbnails just now?

00:53:49.360 Why did he do that?

00:53:49.740 Maybe he really liked that person.

00:53:51.180 Yeah, it could be that they really liked the specific person.

00:53:52.500 Or they really enjoy having someone tied to them and the conditions of the job that you have to – or the conditions of staying in the country that you have to have that job.

00:54:01.760 I mean, wouldn't you be able to pay somebody less in India?

00:54:04.360 That happens.

00:54:04.940 And so, like, we're in the era of streaming, and it's huge for Twitch streamers to just go to Fiverr.

00:54:09.340 Oh, yeah.

00:54:09.660 And they pay $5 to get all the graphics for their channels.

00:54:13.740 Like, they'll pay some guy that's in Thailand or Vietnam, always foreign, and they'll say, hey, I want this, I want this.

00:54:19.760 My podcast is about sports, so I need this theme, these colors.

00:54:24.040 And it's cheap.

00:54:24.980 It's dollars.

00:54:26.220 It's not a salary of a graphic designer.

00:54:27.900 That's right.

00:54:28.520 So, my main concern is when it becomes possible for really smart people to work from anywhere, why would they choose America, right?

00:54:39.420 Because think about it.

00:54:40.280 You can go to Dubai.

00:54:41.220 There's zero income tax.

00:54:42.580 It's safe, safer than the United States.

00:54:44.960 Yep.

00:54:45.540 You have great infrastructure, great services.

00:54:48.400 Yes, it's not a democracy.

00:54:49.420 I understand.

00:54:49.960 You're still going to want the people who want freedom in the United States.

00:54:53.100 But what about the billionaires and the people who invest in the next big startup and the next innovation?

00:54:59.480 They're going to want to go to other countries where they can do these things.

00:55:02.120 So, we should want the smart people as long as they want to be here, here.

00:55:06.580 Okay.

00:55:06.840 So, this is what the MAGA base will say.

00:55:08.880 At the risk of what?

00:55:09.880 At the risk of losing our culture?

00:55:12.120 That's right.

00:55:12.880 At the risk of losing all the traditions and things that we have here.

00:55:18.120 And it's not about brown skin.

00:55:19.420 I didn't say brown skin.

00:55:20.740 I just think we started this podcast off by saying that that wasn't a factor.

00:55:26.220 I do think it is an important factor.

00:55:29.080 Well, it's cultural.

00:55:30.120 It's not just.

00:55:31.280 Yeah, it's cultural.

00:55:32.300 Cohesion.

00:55:33.080 It's cultural and ethnic.

00:55:34.720 And it's more than, you know.

00:55:36.820 And I think that those people, it's not going to be easy to please them.

00:55:41.860 I agree with that.

00:55:42.620 But I think they are a minority.

00:55:44.740 They're definitely a minority of the country.

00:55:46.780 I think that the America First market conservatives like Daniel are a majority of the Republican Party.

00:55:52.760 They want to see economic growth.

00:55:54.760 They want to see the United States be the strongest and most economically prosperous country in the world.

00:55:59.280 And if you look at the research that's been done on this, the H-1B restrictions are encouraging offshoring to other countries.

00:56:06.920 And you're reducing investment in the United States.

00:56:10.120 You're reducing the number of major companies who are created here and built here.

00:56:14.340 You're increasing the amount of competitors who are getting startups in China and India and Canada.

00:56:23.200 And that's a bad thing for the United States.

00:56:24.560 Yeah, but the cultural part is important.

00:56:26.220 We should want the United States to be the most, the hub of innovation.

00:56:30.940 We're not an economic zone.

00:56:32.200 Yeah, yeah.

00:56:32.620 We're a country.

00:56:33.520 Especially because it is a contribution.

00:56:34.800 What does that mean?

00:56:36.180 What does that mean?

00:56:36.680 We're a country with customs and a credo and traditions and a language, you know?

00:56:42.600 We're all these things.

00:56:44.020 Yes, we are.

00:56:44.680 We are not a mere GDP generation.

00:56:47.040 That's right.

00:56:47.060 An assimilation.

00:56:47.920 An assimilation is not a United States.

00:56:49.860 I mean, my brother just went to Dubai and he was like, it's dystopian over there.

00:56:54.980 So, I mean, listen, we're not Dubai.

00:56:57.260 We're not Dubai and we're not going to be Dubai because we have great tradition in assimilation.

00:57:01.220 You should read Daniel's excellent report about assimilation that shows that assimilation is happening as rapidly or more rapidly than in the past.

00:57:11.780 So, the idea that the United States culture is not attractive to the people who come here is wrong.

00:57:18.500 Our cultural supremacy is built on the fact that it is attractive to people around.

00:57:25.120 It is, but at the current numbers.

00:57:25.680 Yeah, but our current numbers are tiny.

00:57:29.040 I mean, if you compare to the early 20th century, we had legal immigration rates three to four times what they were.

00:57:35.020 And they were all people.

00:57:35.960 They were not professionals.

00:57:37.320 They were not people.

00:57:38.920 They were not.

00:57:39.240 Huh?

00:57:39.520 You also had three times the birth rates, you know.

00:57:41.460 Sure.

00:57:42.520 And who were the births?

00:57:43.500 Talk to the computer scientists.

00:57:45.480 Who were the births?

00:57:46.200 Who were the births, too?

00:57:47.360 They were disproportionately to the second generation, the immigrants were having the kids.

00:57:53.120 The culture is important, you know, and I think there are ways.

00:57:57.360 The culture is not threatened.

00:57:58.740 The United States is the best culture in the world.

00:58:02.200 And you could reduce that threat.

00:58:03.720 I mean, you see it now with what happened on the college campuses with Hamas, right?

00:58:07.360 And that is both homegrown and foreign grown.

00:58:09.980 And how do you limit that, right?

00:58:12.040 How do you limit people who actually work for the CCP coming to the United States?

00:58:15.780 I see American leftists as a serious threat.

00:58:20.720 It's a problem.

00:58:22.100 They're the ones who are leading this Marxist, you know, takeover of our universities.

00:58:27.300 I completely agree with that.

00:58:29.020 I don't see it as, you know, the idea that that is homegrown or foreign grown is inaccurate.

00:58:34.640 I think it's both.

00:58:35.460 But, you know, I think it's important to have a filter.

00:58:37.740 And that's how you actually protect the culture.

00:58:40.180 You do have a stronger filter than you do today.

00:58:41.860 Why do you think it's both?

00:58:43.320 You can go back almost 40 years, but way before we had any major, to the 70s, the Marxists

00:58:50.440 had already taken over significant portions of academia.

00:58:54.280 And it's only continued since then.

00:58:55.700 I'm not saying that it's not.

00:58:56.620 The idea that getting rid of immigration is going to restore America to its traditional

00:59:01.300 founding principles is not accurate.

00:59:01.940 David, this is so homegrown that, you know, I visit high schools speaking against socialism.

00:59:06.160 I went to one high school in North Carolina last year, and I saw a picture of Che Guevara

00:59:10.440 in the classroom.

00:59:11.280 It was the Spanish classroom, and it was the only Spanish teacher who was like a white

00:59:15.720 guy born in the United States, not the immigrants from Latin America.

00:59:20.200 And he had the picture of Che Guevara.

00:59:22.920 And so the indoctrination is happening.

00:59:24.880 I see it even in my school among the PhD students.

00:59:28.440 It's the foreign ones that are less woke than the American-born ones.

00:59:31.520 Absolutely.

00:59:31.900 Because woke ideology is here, and it's being exported out of the United States, I would

00:59:36.340 say.

00:59:36.380 But I think Trump said he wanted to get rid of the kids who were protesting in the streets

00:59:40.380 against Israel because they were on foreign visas.

00:59:42.800 Some of them.

00:59:43.220 Some of them.

00:59:43.860 Yeah.

00:59:44.080 But I mean, listen, I agree that it's homegrown.

00:59:46.060 I'll be the first to admit that academia has been captured from within, not from outside.

00:59:51.160 Like, it's not like there was a foreign plant a long time ago.

00:59:55.060 But I think that just comes from, honestly, the decadence that America has experienced.

00:59:59.320 And I think it's been led down these slippery slopes to these ideologies.

01:00:03.920 And if you can get rid of a communist, why wouldn't you?

01:00:06.920 Yeah.

01:00:07.060 You know, like, if you can, those are the ones you can get rid of.

01:00:10.280 So why wouldn't you?

01:00:11.060 Well, I still believe in free speech.

01:00:13.000 And I don't think we should just round up all the communists in the country and put

01:00:16.820 them in cages.

01:00:16.940 Sounds pretty good to me.

01:00:17.920 I mean, I don't know.

01:00:19.140 I'm from Venezuela, man.

01:00:20.520 Yeah, no.

01:00:21.040 But they serve a useful idiot function in our society of being easy to ridicule.

01:00:27.080 But, I mean, look, the idea, again, that our culture is going to lose embraces the idea

01:00:35.380 that our culture doesn't have vitality, that it isn't able to defend itself.

01:00:41.120 And that's wrong.

01:00:42.100 I think, as you mentioned, I think immigrants are actually helping in this respect if, you

01:00:48.580 know, what Daniel is saying about these people who have direct experience with communism, they

01:00:53.200 know it doesn't work.

01:00:54.820 Yeah.

01:00:55.180 I do think, though, Vivek's critique was particularly inflammatory because he's basically saying

01:01:01.580 that the bedrock, I think, of American society, as, you know, like Tocqueville said, there's

01:01:08.120 this flourishing component of American society, these little platoons and kind of mediating

01:01:14.740 institutions, whether it's churches or clubs after school, and there's the jocks and there's

01:01:20.060 the prom queens.

01:01:21.220 I mean, I'm just kind of extrapolating from what I think Tocqueville would have admired about

01:01:24.440 our culture, but I do think he would have looked at it fondly.

01:01:27.980 Like, wow, that's kind of really cool about America.

01:01:30.640 To disparage them as being, like, low productive agents of an economic zone is just ridiculous.

01:01:38.100 And I think most Americans would reject that wholeheartedly and say, oh, my bad.

01:01:42.160 I'm not a decathlon star.

01:01:44.160 Well, okay, so what?

01:01:45.480 Like, but maybe I'm doing something else.

01:01:47.300 Maybe I'm in speech and debate.

01:01:48.760 Maybe I'm the quarterback who then works for NASA.

01:01:51.960 I don't know.

01:01:53.060 No, I completely agree.

01:01:54.060 I completely agree with that.

01:01:55.840 I think the idea, the great thing about the United States is that we can do whatever.

01:02:00.060 If we want to be a psychology major and, you know, focus on football, I mean, we can do

01:02:06.580 those things.

01:02:07.280 It's a luxury.

01:02:08.080 And the fact that we have these immigrants who want to come here and do extremely difficult

01:02:14.160 jobs, whether at the low end or at the high end, that's a great thing for our country that

01:02:18.620 Americans benefit from, that we can do a lot more things and not more.

01:02:25.120 We can do a lot more things than we could otherwise because of immigrants being here.

01:02:29.020 There's a cost to every benefit, right?

01:02:30.920 So there are still some costs.

01:02:32.260 Yeah, the companies pay them.

01:02:33.820 That's the cost.

01:02:34.420 It's internalized.

01:02:35.700 It's just a testimony from friends and family who are computer scientists.

01:02:38.580 Some of them graduated from tech schools and they have problems with what's going on.

01:02:44.560 Okay.

01:02:44.820 They have, because listen, if you have to train, like if you have to hold the hand of someone

01:02:49.840 who came here from abroad to train them, that's going to foster resentment in a native

01:02:54.220 born STEM worker.

01:02:55.600 I can understand that.

01:02:56.460 Say like, oh, let me walk you through the job that you were paid for.

01:03:00.180 What?

01:03:00.980 Like, I mean, that's crazy, you know?

01:03:02.720 Well, but that's, that's the easy thing, right?

01:03:04.560 If we just agree on doing the wage ranking and picking up the best people, you wouldn't

01:03:08.340 have to train anybody like that.

01:03:09.980 Sure.

01:03:10.300 You get rid of the resentment.

01:03:11.280 But I do agree that there's a trade-off.

01:03:13.400 I mean, I'm the biggest, you know, support of America and what America stands for.

01:03:17.520 I think this is the best country in the world for many reasons, not because it's the richest.

01:03:22.000 Yes, it's one of the richest, but it's because of what it was founded on.

01:03:25.600 It's the culture.

01:03:26.900 So that's why I think that Vivek's criticism was a little misplaced, even though he did

01:03:32.560 have a good point in that marriage rates have fallen.

01:03:35.180 The academic quality has fallen.

01:03:37.480 The family has broken apart and that has destroyed education for children.

01:03:41.660 There is communist indoctrination.

01:03:43.140 All of these things are true and we have to fight that.

01:03:45.380 But I do think that immigration, uncontrolled and not properly done, can present a threat.

01:03:54.120 And we saw that over the Biden administration, not because of the H-1B visa program, but because

01:03:59.320 of the illegal border crossing.

01:04:00.460 I do think the emotional reaction from the MAGA base was a little confusing because here

01:04:05.400 all this time, I'm thinking of the paradigm of the culture's broken.

01:04:08.680 It's degenerate and we hate it and the culture's messed up.

01:04:12.200 I think Vivek is right.

01:04:12.720 I said he, I didn't think he said anything wrong.

01:04:14.740 I have no problem with what he said.

01:04:16.540 I have more problems with something like what you would say that we can just have unfettered

01:04:20.420 immigration, especially because I actually have a soft spot for H-2B workers, right?

01:04:25.120 We have these seasonal employees, right?

01:04:26.600 And everybody's these low wage workers.

01:04:28.860 And so I've known doing immigration casework back in my old congressional days, I would help

01:04:35.220 these people get these H-2Bs and we would have seasonal landscapers and things like that.

01:04:40.320 They'd want to help put Christmas lights up or mow your lawns in the summer.

01:04:43.200 And they would put out ads, literally ads for $30 an hour.

01:04:48.460 And we couldn't get anybody to fill them or they'd show up for one day and need to dig

01:04:52.760 a ditch and quit.

01:04:53.860 We see that even with the postal service, right?

01:04:56.220 The postal service is having a very hard time retaining employees because nobody wants to

01:04:59.380 walk around carrying a heavy bag.

01:05:00.860 We're kind of entitled, right?

01:05:02.300 So if you take, you know, the people that are coming in on the H-2B and some of these businesses,

01:05:08.020 they, because that's capped, can't keep their businesses afloat.

01:05:11.460 I had several in Pennsylvania that were really at the brink because they didn't get any,

01:05:16.100 they didn't get the lottery of keeping their business afloat.

01:05:19.740 So now you're talking about unfettered H-1B, right?

01:05:23.840 And these higher skilled, I would say middle skilled, middle skilled workers.

01:05:28.520 And then you have these low skilled workers, right?

01:05:31.020 That are coming to really do the jobs that we're paying people to sit at home that they

01:05:35.580 could do them.

01:05:36.140 Like we're paying people on welfare that are able-bodied men to actually go out and do the

01:05:40.960 jobs.

01:05:42.300 The Americans don't want to, Americans don't want to work hard.

01:05:46.680 And that's what I've seen.

01:05:47.840 Like, and I hate to say it because I see a lot, I mean, yes, like there are people, I'm

01:05:52.180 not saying all, but there are definitely people, they don't want to dig ditches.

01:05:55.720 They don't want to be out in the blazing sun cutting down trees.

01:05:58.600 Not a lot of them do.

01:05:59.560 They certainly don't want to be carrying around heavy mailbags because the U.S.

01:06:03.300 Postal Service is clearly having a shortfall in hiring and retaining employees.

01:06:09.000 So if you want, now people are making the argument they want the lower skilled workers

01:06:13.900 to come and keep everything going.

01:06:15.520 And now you want all the medium and higher skilled workers to come over and do that.

01:06:19.440 What are we going to have left for Americans?

01:06:21.780 Well, it's not a replacement thing.

01:06:24.480 Like just the economy grows when there's more people in general, right?

01:06:27.380 Because there's more businesses.

01:06:28.560 There's not a fixed number of jobs.

01:06:29.600 You pull this up, pull up Gavin Waxes, I just put it up there.

01:06:32.660 But these people are constantly in everybody's DM saying, I graduated from university with

01:06:37.320 a 4.0 master's degree in cybersecurity in 2020.

01:06:40.220 I can't get a job, not even an entry level job.

01:06:43.100 Been middle-aged, white, homosexual, male.

01:06:45.920 Heterosexual.

01:06:46.580 Heterosexual, sorry.

01:06:48.340 But you know what I'm saying, but you know, we're flooded.

01:06:51.520 If he was, then he would have gotten the D.I.

01:06:53.240 Oh, so true.

01:06:54.080 But the whole point is, is that, you know, there are people that are inundated with,

01:06:59.600 messages like this and complaining about these things.

01:07:01.440 No, I think we're mixing up the D.I. stuff with the immigration stuff, and that's a problem,

01:07:05.780 right?

01:07:06.320 Remember, I mean, the Asians are the group that's been discriminated against, too, in

01:07:10.300 D.I.

01:07:10.740 It's not in favor.

01:07:11.980 But only in colleges, not in employment.

01:07:14.440 In employment, too.

01:07:14.820 No, we're talking about, but you guys are kind of confusing Asians.

01:07:17.820 When you say that, Asians, it's like Chinese, Asians, like Korean, right?

01:07:24.020 Like you're not talking about Indians.

01:07:25.480 They're not the, Indians actually were being admitted to college.

01:07:29.580 It was more like the Chinese.

01:07:31.440 You can read my colleague, Renu Mukherjee at the Manhattan Institute.

01:07:35.400 Indians are heavily discriminated against both in college and employment.

01:07:38.300 That's part of the D.I.

01:07:39.040 Because they're very successful.

01:07:41.320 You know, it's the most, one of the most successful ethnic groups, much more than Chinese

01:07:44.520 in the U.S.

01:07:45.200 No, successful per their salary once they graduate.

01:07:48.460 But we're talking about their technical skills when they're being admitted into colleges.

01:07:52.720 That's what we were talking about.

01:07:53.520 No, what I'm saying is that because of their success, they're discriminated against in

01:07:56.860 the D.I.

01:07:57.440 ideology.

01:07:58.400 Yeah, but not in colleges.

01:07:59.840 In colleges, but those, they were talking about Asian Americans.

01:08:01.660 I would argue they are.

01:08:02.860 I would argue they are.

01:08:03.880 That's not what like the Harvard lawsuits and all were talking about.

01:08:06.420 Yes, yes, they were.

01:08:07.400 It included Indians.

01:08:08.000 I'm pretty sure it was China.

01:08:09.480 It's Chinese, too.

01:08:10.680 Mainly China.

01:08:11.260 Yeah, but it also includes Indians.

01:08:13.100 It's all Asian groups, except I think the Vietnamese for some reason, that they're like given D.I.

01:08:17.480 preference.

01:08:18.140 They had a very specific ethnic D.I.

01:08:20.700 structure.

01:08:21.240 Very specific, yeah.

01:08:22.720 But the point is, you know, I think we are mixing up stories that obviously this is all

01:08:26.660 unverified, but we're mixing up stories.

01:08:28.680 I mean, people aren't taking time out of their day to go DM people about their woes.

01:08:31.600 Well, I don't know anything about this DM.

01:08:33.280 I'm just saying.

01:08:33.900 We don't even know who the person is.

01:08:34.560 But there's multiple of these.

01:08:35.860 You can find them anyway.

01:08:36.520 Like this could just be a D.I.

01:08:38.220 story, right?

01:08:39.540 And I think that that's a terrible thing.

01:08:41.400 I think I'm very glad that Trump is going to come in and Harmeet Dillon is going to persecute

01:08:45.300 all these colleges and all these employers that discriminate based on race, sex, and everything.

01:08:50.120 And they should.

01:08:53.080 But if anything, legally, Americans have a legal preference to get the job over the foreign

01:08:58.740 workers.

01:08:59.880 And if they find that they have been screwed, they can go and sue and they can go and report

01:09:06.400 this.

01:09:07.000 So my question, when you...

01:09:08.000 No, no, you can report for free to the Department of Labor.

01:09:10.800 Yeah, you can.

01:09:11.780 But you need somebody to pursue it.

01:09:13.920 Like when you have...

01:09:16.000 What?

01:09:16.420 That's a...

01:09:17.000 I forget what it is.

01:09:17.900 It's a right to sue letter, right?

01:09:19.980 So you have to like go to the Department of Labor.

01:09:22.420 Then you have to say that you have a claim.

01:09:24.240 An EEOC, I believe, right?

01:09:25.600 Yeah.

01:09:25.740 Okay, so you have the EEOC, then you get the right to sue letter, and then you take that

01:09:29.620 right to sue letter, and you have to get an attorney to go sue anybody, and that costs

01:09:33.140 money.

01:09:33.940 And so...

01:09:34.500 And a lot of times, those are just blanketly done.

01:09:37.560 You can even ask for a right to sue without a full evaluation after 30 days.

01:09:42.020 Anyway, I know I've been through the process.

01:09:44.040 But my point is, is that like, you know, you have to have money in order to sue people for

01:09:49.940 what you think is, you know, some...

01:09:52.500 But this is why we need to get rid of all these Indian shops that are just outsourcing

01:09:57.260 work for the tech companies at low wages, right?

01:09:59.800 Like, these are the people who are actually competing unfairly.

01:10:03.980 These are the people who are actually being exploited.

01:10:06.000 These are the people who are really taking also a spot in the visa from somebody who is

01:10:10.060 much more highly paid, right?

01:10:12.540 And so if you did that, you wouldn't have any of these stories, because you would just

01:10:16.340 have people making $200K, $150K, $500K coming to work in really highly

01:10:22.400 specialized fields where you really need them, right?

01:10:24.740 But to get back to your question, right?

01:10:26.560 I mean, what are the jobs that Americans are going to do?

01:10:28.800 They're going to do all the jobs in the middle, right?

01:10:30.860 And that's what we're seeing already with the immigration that has happened.

01:10:34.520 But these are the jobs.

01:10:35.300 H-1B is jobs in the middle.

01:10:36.980 No.

01:10:37.460 Some of it.

01:10:38.260 Practically.

01:10:38.660 The median income of an H-1B worker is in the 90th percentile.

01:10:42.980 These are not the just...

01:10:46.000 Does it account for where they live?

01:10:47.700 Yes.

01:10:47.960 That account for...

01:10:48.980 No.

01:10:49.540 No.

01:10:49.860 So the median...

01:10:50.460 This is an issue.

01:10:52.080 Most of the H-1B visa holders are in urban areas, and that's the median job, which is

01:10:57.840 why when...

01:10:58.500 San Francisco, of course, is going to be a lot higher salary than West Virginia.

01:11:01.420 So this is why when I think of we should do a wage ranking, it shouldn't just be a pure

01:11:06.320 based on wages.

01:11:07.120 It should be adjusted by age and location.

01:11:09.460 Otherwise, all the visas are going to go to...

01:11:11.620 It's inflated.

01:11:12.600 Artificially inflated.

01:11:13.680 That's right.

01:11:14.500 It's inflated by cost of living.

01:11:15.880 Right.

01:11:16.080 So yes, that's...

01:11:17.260 But I mean, the basic point, right, is that you have people who come in to the country.

01:11:22.100 It doesn't matter whether they're immigrants or not.

01:11:25.760 When you have people who enter the labor force, they increase for demand for jobs elsewhere

01:11:30.880 in the economy.

01:11:31.480 So an increase in the population or an increase in the labor force does not reduce the number

01:11:35.920 of jobs available or increase employment.

01:11:37.820 That's why we've had 100 million person increase in the labor force over the last century.

01:11:42.960 That has not resulted in mass unemployment and people just eating out of their hands.

01:11:48.920 We've actually seen an increase in our living standards over the last 100 years.

01:11:52.760 For how long?

01:11:53.560 Because we're automating.

01:11:54.720 They're here to automate stuff, right?

01:11:55.840 They're here to make AI and to do computer programming and to make jobs that will replace

01:12:01.020 people.

01:12:01.480 That is a good thing because it increases the productivity of workers.

01:12:04.180 But I do agree that the automation is going to be a good thing and we can have a discussion.

01:12:07.500 But you're still going to displace those workers, though, right?

01:12:09.600 But think about it.

01:12:10.180 When we invented the car, we displaced all the horse riders.

01:12:13.860 Yes.

01:12:14.480 And we did destroy that whole industry.

01:12:16.800 It was obliterated, the horse industry.

01:12:18.100 It's kind of like...

01:12:18.940 No, but it's kind of like when you have...

01:12:21.060 You raise the minimum wage to $15 an hour over in Seattle and now everywhere, every McDonald's

01:12:28.300 should go into everything, has automated absolutely everything.

01:12:31.300 And so then you have those 16 to 20-year-olds that would normally be a part of the workforce

01:12:36.500 and contributing.

01:12:37.800 Now they're mooching off mom and dad, still on their parents' health insurance, not getting

01:12:41.620 those jobs at McDonald's, not doing those things.

01:12:43.620 So it is putting people out of work.

01:12:44.960 Well, it's different because the minimum wage is a government thing to destroy an industry.

01:12:48.800 Yeah, I'm just saying in general.

01:12:50.300 But this is productivity-driven.

01:12:50.760 But I'm just saying that they took it out, right?

01:12:53.000 They did that because they don't want to pay those prices, which is going to happen eventually

01:12:57.380 if the automation becomes cheap enough.

01:12:59.400 They're going to have all of these automated tellers everywhere you go.

01:13:02.740 And then who makes the automated tellers, right?

01:13:05.220 China.

01:13:06.300 Well, that's a different issue, but you know...

01:13:08.000 But that is the issue.

01:13:09.700 No, our manufacturing is overseas.

01:13:11.800 And so it's going to be, who's going to manufacture all these goods?

01:13:14.160 And then, no, we're a service economy.

01:13:16.600 What are we going to be doing as a service?

01:13:18.020 If that was true, Lisa, then why is the unemployment rate lower?

01:13:20.980 Or why is the unemployment rate lower and the employment rate of prime age people higher

01:13:26.240 today than it was 100 years ago when there was less technology and less people?

01:13:30.000 Wait, say this again?

01:13:30.860 The unemployment rate is lower today than it was 100 years ago when there were less people

01:13:35.460 and less technology.

01:13:36.980 But because we've expanded, like we have other things to do, right?

01:13:40.480 Exactly.

01:13:40.940 So that's exactly what the innovation creates.

01:13:43.280 It makes us a richer.

01:13:44.080 Not always, though.

01:13:44.600 Well, you could think of a theoretical case where that's not always, but I do think that

01:13:50.340 innovation in general does.

01:13:52.860 There's also more people.

01:13:53.960 Think about, say, self-driving trucks.

01:13:56.240 I think there was a really cool debate between Ben Shapiro and Tucker Carlson on the self-driving

01:14:00.060 trucks.

01:14:00.340 Oh, I remember that.

01:14:00.840 Tucker is against them and Ben Shapiro is for them.

01:14:02.980 It's a little spooky.

01:14:03.860 I'm squirrelly for them because we have trouble finding truck drivers to drive trucks.

01:14:08.720 Imagine if you could get trucks to drive 24-7.

01:14:12.000 It would be so much cheaper to buy everything.

01:14:13.900 So you buy more things, you will make more books, you will make more apples, you will

01:14:17.960 make more of everything else, and then you will have your jobs in the truck.

01:14:20.400 But we're not making them.

01:14:21.800 That's the thing.

01:14:22.380 We are exporting them, right?

01:14:23.800 Like, that's being made.

01:14:25.460 In some things, but not in everything.

01:14:27.340 Because imagine we're importing more things from China, right?

01:14:30.360 Well, China is a bad case because China is an enemy, but from Canada, right?

01:14:35.220 That means Canada will receive more dollars, right?

01:14:39.240 More U.S. dollars because we're paying them in dollars.

01:14:42.080 What are they going to do with those U.S. dollars?

01:14:44.660 They're just going to pocket them?

01:14:45.700 No, they're going to buy things from America.

01:14:48.060 And so that's how international trade...

01:14:49.500 We're talking about jobs.

01:14:50.800 Yes.

01:14:51.200 Right?

01:14:51.640 But our Americans aren't going there to get the jobs to go do the manufacturing jobs.

01:14:55.360 Why don't we look at what actually has happened, right?

01:14:57.640 We've seen a huge increase in Americans going into health care, into education, into all

01:15:03.540 these other service sector jobs, which are actually paying better than and growing faster

01:15:08.980 than a lot of the manufacturing jobs that have gone away.

01:15:12.320 That's even problematic.

01:15:13.360 So, I mean, why is it problematic?

01:15:15.440 Because they're going up in psychology.

01:15:17.360 Everybody's mentally ill.

01:15:18.860 Is that the problem?

01:15:19.840 We're doing a podcast.

01:15:21.060 Like, this is a job that didn't exist 50 years ago.

01:15:23.380 Absolutely.

01:15:24.100 But what I'm saying, like, he's talking about things going up.

01:15:26.560 I was like, psychology's going up, right?

01:15:28.260 Like, we have more mentally ill people in the U.S. than ever.

01:15:31.440 Yeah, that's for a bad reason.

01:15:31.720 And you know what?

01:15:32.440 People need to...

01:15:33.480 I hate to say this, but...

01:15:34.380 Because of technology.

01:15:35.360 But, like, social media, I don't know.

01:15:37.340 The automation is problematic in another way.

01:15:39.100 Like, people used to do things with their hands and feel some type of...

01:15:43.720 You know, I don't know if you guys know this, but back when they were making, like,

01:15:46.160 the Betty Crocker cake stuff...

01:15:48.060 No, just listen.

01:15:48.860 When they were making the Betty Crocker cake stuff, right?

01:15:51.240 Women didn't want to buy it because they didn't feel like they were really making a cake.

01:15:54.600 So, they made...

01:15:55.900 They got an egg...

01:15:56.860 They were like, if you add an egg to this and you actually manually break it yourself,

01:16:00.580 these women will psychologically feel like they're baking cakes.

01:16:03.620 It's, like, true.

01:16:04.320 That's what they did, right?

01:16:05.340 It's wild.

01:16:05.940 It's true.

01:16:06.660 Well, a lot of people are not feeling satisfaction because they're not physically doing labor.

01:16:13.580 Even if you tinker with something, right?

01:16:15.140 There's some satisfaction out of that.

01:16:17.860 These certain...

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01:17:14.720 Service jobs or no jobs or whatever are making people mentally unwell.

01:17:20.520 And then you have-

01:17:21.820 How do you measure the health of a country?

01:17:23.500 How do you measure the health of a country?

01:17:25.080 Is it gross domestic product or is it kind of some inexplicable hidden factors?

01:17:30.300 I mean, GDP correlates with almost every positive outcome you can possibly think of.

01:17:34.580 No, they're doing happiness studies now that are saying that they don't correlate.

01:17:37.320 But the idea that people on the assembly line had better jobs and felt more satisfied,

01:17:45.820 it's just, I mean, you look at the complaints about capitalism 100 years ago or even 50 years ago,

01:17:51.480 there was like all this soul-draining drudgery of the assembly line.

01:17:55.900 There were people that loved them.

01:17:57.040 They were advocating for their kids to go work there too because their kids weren't allowed to work there.

01:18:00.720 Yes, they were in England.

01:18:02.060 Their kids were not allowed to work at factories and they were furious about it.

01:18:06.480 And there were protests and marches to get their kids working in the factories.

01:18:09.940 I thought we did a one-time labor.

01:18:12.320 I thought we did a one-time labor.

01:18:13.840 I don't know.

01:18:14.260 I think children should work.

01:18:14.940 Have you heard of the touch grass thing?

01:18:16.680 Why is it like a chronically online slogan to say touch grass if we didn't desperately need to touch grass?

01:18:22.860 I agree.

01:18:23.360 I agree.

01:18:23.660 As a culture.

01:18:24.620 I mean, the fact that we're glued to our screens.

01:18:25.880 I just don't think the way to touch grass is to make people work at McDonald's, you know?

01:18:29.800 Honestly, I think it would be a great thing.

01:18:31.300 Maybe we should force unemployed teenagers to do that.

01:18:34.060 I think that's a different question.

01:18:35.120 It's a very formative, entry-level role.

01:18:37.500 I was a waitress.

01:18:38.480 I worked in college.

01:18:39.220 And let me tell you, it's great.

01:18:40.300 But that's service sector.

01:18:41.600 That's not.

01:18:42.060 Yes.

01:18:42.460 But the idea that those jobs that connect us personally in education, in health care, nursing, home health care, all of these jobs that have been created, they are connecting us interpersonally.

01:18:56.560 I think that's a great thing.

01:18:58.120 That's better than being a drone on an assembly line.

01:19:02.420 We've obviously innovated our way out of that problem for the most part.

01:19:07.160 That's a great thing for the country.

01:19:08.520 I don't think that, you know, whatever's good for our soul is going to be going back to that and taking away the opportunities that have been created to do this interpersonal service sector.

01:19:19.120 I mean, I do think doing things with their hands is good for our soul.

01:19:21.860 It's constructive.

01:19:22.500 But the question is what things, right?

01:19:24.360 And it doesn't necessarily have to be a manufacturing judge.

01:19:26.640 Nurses do things with their hands, too.

01:19:29.500 It's not.

01:19:30.100 You mentioned interpersonal.

01:19:32.100 If this is bearing such great interpersonal fruits, why is the country experiencing record levels of loneliness?

01:19:38.060 Why are young people reporting so much depression and anxiety?

01:19:41.460 Like, why is there a mental health crisis?

01:19:43.960 They're drinking psychology.

01:19:45.140 Everybody has a therapist.

01:19:46.560 I'm sorry.

01:19:47.020 I don't think all these people need therapy.

01:19:48.740 Of course they don't need therapy.

01:19:50.440 Therapy is a problem to a solution.

01:19:54.020 They just need something to do.

01:19:55.840 Yeah.

01:19:56.600 Yeah.

01:19:56.880 I mean, I don't think those issues are a result of increase in prosperity.

01:20:01.800 I think those issues are mainly a result of breakdowns in family life.

01:20:07.180 Actually, it is.

01:20:07.520 In fact, you know what we say in the rest of the world.

01:20:09.920 It's first world problems.

01:20:11.580 It's because you are wealthy enough to be concerned about those things.

01:20:13.420 We don't have adversity.

01:20:14.600 As a country, we live in immense decadence and prosperity.

01:20:17.980 We do not face adversity.

01:20:19.900 And it's interesting.

01:20:20.760 I went to the MI gala where Douglas Murray was the keynote speaker.

01:20:24.400 It was great.

01:20:24.620 It was incredible.

01:20:26.080 And it was just this case study about how he went to Israel in the aftermath of October

01:20:29.820 7th and the war and how the young people there shocked him because just like here, our young

01:20:34.820 people are dismissed as, oh, you good for nothing.

01:20:37.640 You know, you're addicted to your screens and, you know, you don't care about contributing

01:20:41.400 to society.

01:20:42.320 And there it's the same, you know, the same reputation that young people had.

01:20:45.620 And he was amazed at how they sprung into action when Israel was facing existential crisis.

01:20:51.000 When the country was under attack from all sides, the young people wowed everyone with

01:20:56.620 what they were, what they were capable of as, as well as how much patriotism suddenly

01:21:01.600 was sparked within them.

01:21:02.760 Israel is a different case, but I think America, the culture, and I don't know if it's really

01:21:07.320 what Vivek was saying, but there's something deeply suppressed about our culture.

01:21:11.920 We haven't experienced like this, like fraternal love of like our citizens and for each other

01:21:19.660 because, and work because of what is in our, our national identity, I think is unknown actually

01:21:26.100 at this point.

01:21:27.180 And it used to be quite clear.

01:21:29.280 And frankly, I think it was those big crises, international wars, especially World War II

01:21:35.180 that almost activated this, this sense of understanding of who we are as a people.

01:21:40.380 And we are, we don't.

01:21:42.280 I want to say something about Israel and bring it back to the immigration stuff, because Israel

01:21:46.560 is an amazing case on the whole immigration situation.

01:21:50.260 I think I read on, on, on X that somebody said, why doesn't Israel need tech workers

01:21:54.780 from abroad to be in a powerhouse?

01:21:56.700 Actually, they do.

01:21:57.580 First, they have an amazingly liberal high skilled visa program where the only requirement

01:22:01.820 is that you make over twice the average salary of an Israeli and get sponsored by a tech

01:22:07.080 company.

01:22:07.500 Um, and then second, yeah, Israel, you know, maybe doesn't count as foreign workers, but

01:22:13.360 you can do a lijai if you're Jewish abroad.

01:22:15.560 And in fact, after the, after the Soviet union fell, the population of Israel grew by like

01:22:20.740 20% from Soviet Jews who were very different culturally, uh, even in looks racially, you

01:22:28.080 could say, even though they're still Jewish from the previous Israeli populations.

01:22:32.320 The Russians were very similar.

01:22:33.740 Their cultural was similar.

01:22:34.920 Right.

01:22:35.240 That's true.

01:22:35.660 Or at least.

01:22:36.500 That makes a huge difference for the Malaysian purposes.

01:22:37.660 Or at least they were considered similar because they were not religious at all, unlike the previous

01:22:41.980 Jews who were there.

01:22:44.180 But H1B people are not Westerners.

01:22:45.700 Right.

01:22:46.300 So, but the point of this is Israel, you know, had extreme prosperity from really highly skilled

01:22:53.020 people.

01:22:53.520 They were very smart.

01:22:54.920 Um, they do have this creedal, you know, the, you know, it's the Jewish state, right?

01:22:59.140 It's the only developed nation in the world with above, above replacement fertility.

01:23:04.280 The, the fertility rate of Israelis is three children per woman.

01:23:07.800 It's the only one.

01:23:08.900 It's like a puzzle.

01:23:09.760 Like what, why isn't fertility going down in Israel?

01:23:12.040 And I think it's because of these values, right?

01:23:14.480 So you do need to, to, to have a revival of values in America.

01:23:18.480 And I don't think that's about immigration policy.

01:23:20.940 I think it's about education and it's about many other things.

01:23:23.740 There are many symptoms.

01:23:24.700 I mean, South Korea though, isn't that an economic powerhouse that is, has this dismal replacement

01:23:29.040 rate?

01:23:29.460 It's, and it's homogeneous, right?

01:23:31.100 It's like everybody's South Korean and.

01:23:32.940 Yeah.

01:23:33.060 But that civilization is going to die.

01:23:34.540 It is.

01:23:35.120 Straight up.

01:23:35.620 Japan too.

01:23:36.340 Yeah.

01:23:36.640 So, and they are, you know, innovators and it's.

01:23:39.840 And in fact, it becomes worse because now Japan doesn't have people to take care of

01:23:43.620 the elderly.

01:23:44.080 So now they have to bring in all these people from the Philippines to take care of them as

01:23:47.900 they die off.

01:23:48.800 That's brutal.

01:23:49.600 That's brutal.

01:23:50.800 Wow.

01:23:51.260 What were you going to say?

01:23:52.220 No, I just, I mean, you know, South Korea is not really a, I mean, they're, they're,

01:23:55.760 they're poor compared to the United States.

01:23:57.420 Most of the world is, is poor compared to the United States.

01:24:00.960 And, and a big reason why the United States is so wealthy and we have the resources to

01:24:06.200 address a lot of the problems that, that come up in, in the conversation here is because

01:24:11.680 of immigration and because of the people who've come, we would already, you know, talk about

01:24:16.980 decline.

01:24:17.520 We'd already be seeing population decline if we hadn't had immigration since 1965, which

01:24:23.740 a lot of people think would be a good thing.

01:24:25.280 I mean, I see this all the time.

01:24:26.460 We just should have banned all immigration over the last 50 years, which would have been

01:24:30.740 a terrible, disastrous thing for the United States as opposed to something that's a positive.

01:24:36.840 And you look at, you got to get back to fundamentals on some of this.

01:24:39.280 When you just are advocating, we shouldn't have population growth because it's going to

01:24:43.280 be bad.

01:24:43.920 New labor force entrance is going to make us poorer.

01:24:46.900 That's what's scary thing.

01:24:48.300 Once you start talking in those terms, then you adopt a lot of policies that would be bad for

01:24:53.300 population growth.

01:24:54.200 We'd actually advocate for more abortion, more restrictions on childbirth and not address

01:25:01.340 a lot of the crises that, you know, in child care and health care that we desperately need

01:25:06.200 to address.

01:25:07.140 So, but you want to uncap H-1B.

01:25:09.960 Do you want to have unfettered migration in general, no matter what?

01:25:15.160 Like, do you want anybody to come in anytime?

01:25:16.960 Like, how do you feel about all the people that were crossing the border legally?

01:25:19.480 Should we let them stay?

01:25:20.580 Like, how do you feel about that?

01:25:21.740 Because it seems to me that you just won't let every worker in.

01:25:24.440 Yeah.

01:25:24.580 I mean, I think that immigration should be presumptively legal to come to the United States.

01:25:30.680 There should be a presumption in favor of it.

01:25:32.440 If you come and you can show that you can support yourself and look, we should change our

01:25:36.340 welfare laws.

01:25:37.300 Like we shouldn't just have people who can come in and they can't support themselves and

01:25:41.000 they go on welfare.

01:25:41.860 We should restrict welfare for non-citizens.

01:25:44.500 And if you don't pay in sufficient amount, then you shouldn't get to naturalize and

01:25:48.820 get those benefits.

01:25:49.680 We can create, look, anyone I talk to about immigration can create a better system than

01:25:56.720 the one we have right now.

01:25:58.180 Look, illegal immigration, it's a result of the fact that, look, the H-1B visa, it's the

01:26:03.420 only year-round guest worker visa we have for year-round positions.

01:26:08.620 It's the only one.

01:26:09.820 So where are all the illegal immigrants going when they get here?

01:26:13.560 They're going to year-round jobs that are categorically prohibited from guest workers.

01:26:19.040 Like you talked about the H-2A and H-2B.

01:26:21.680 There's no guest worker visa for poultry processing, for livestock, dairies, construction.

01:26:29.740 All of these industries are completely prohibited.

01:26:32.480 Dairy workers have some of the H-2A.

01:26:37.200 They're not illegible, the dairy industry, because it's not seasonal.

01:26:40.720 There's a very small number.

01:26:42.460 They can kind of hack the system because of when dairy cows are born is seasonal, so they

01:26:50.180 can kind of hack the system a little bit.

01:26:52.660 But in general, the milk has to be collected regularly every day, so it's not a seasonal or

01:27:00.840 temporary job.

01:27:01.620 So it's categorically ineligible.

01:27:03.260 So you have 70% of the jobs, 75% of the jobs are categorically ineligible banned from guest

01:27:10.920 worker legal migration, and that produces the illegal immigration and chaos that we saw

01:27:16.780 over the last four years.

01:27:17.480 I actually think, David, even if you made it legal for companies to sponsor guest workers

01:27:22.780 in everything, I still think you would have massive numbers of people coming in illegally

01:27:26.860 without border security.

01:27:27.960 I mean, think about it.

01:27:31.920 The people at the border don't speak English.

01:27:36.040 They have a relatively low level of education.

01:27:38.240 They don't have actually a contact with employers here most.

01:27:40.960 In fact, this is the first time we have a border crisis where people all over the world

01:27:44.300 are coming.

01:27:44.820 It's not primarily Mexican or Central American anymore.

01:27:48.140 And it's people who have no previous connection, not even a family member here.

01:27:52.320 And so they're just showing up.

01:27:54.320 So they wouldn't have been sponsored by employers.

01:27:56.400 They would still show up.

01:27:57.600 Yeah, no, it would benefit.

01:28:00.580 I'm not saying it's a cure-all for every immigration problem, but it would be a significant benefit.

01:28:05.400 You understand in context that, look, 75% of the jobs were just saying the only way you

01:28:10.000 can fill these jobs with a foreign worker is illegally.

01:28:12.760 That is a significant problem for illegal immigration.

01:28:17.200 It makes it harder because you're turning-

01:28:18.480 I mean, what do you mean?

01:28:18.920 In agriculture?

01:28:19.180 If the companies-

01:28:20.540 In agriculture, they have the H-2A visa, and they still have massive numbers of illegal immigrants.

01:28:24.360 Not anymore.

01:28:26.200 Not anymore.

01:28:26.820 Not into seasonal agriculture.

01:28:28.220 Not anymore.

01:28:28.820 All of the increase in seasonal agricultural employment has come through the H-2A visa since

01:28:33.900 the H-2A expanded in the early 2000s.

01:28:36.020 So we have cured that problem.

01:28:38.760 That used to be the main form of illegal immigration was into seasonal agriculture.

01:28:43.500 No, we still have it, though.

01:28:44.560 We definitely still have it.

01:28:46.300 Well, we still have-

01:28:47.020 Pennsylvania, New Jersey, they're picking the blueberry farms down in Hamilton, New Jersey,

01:28:50.420 I'm telling you right now.

01:28:51.280 They stand outside Wawa's waiting to get picked up for day work every day.

01:28:55.140 Same thing in Florida.

01:28:55.920 Yeah.

01:28:56.220 I'm not saying that it doesn't-

01:28:57.540 I'm not saying it doesn't exist.

01:28:59.420 I'm saying that all of the increase in employment has come from the H-2A.

01:29:03.140 So we could see, yes, there are some illegal immigrants who come in, some die, some leave,

01:29:07.820 whatever.

01:29:08.080 There's a lot.

01:29:08.780 And there are.

01:29:09.400 And there are a lot.

01:29:10.240 There are a lot.

01:29:10.720 But I'm not saying it doesn't exist at all.

01:29:13.220 I'm saying that the H-2A has prevented that problem from getting worse.

01:29:16.680 I mean, you said solved first.

01:29:18.200 That's prevention from getting worse.

01:29:20.000 It's not the same thing as solved.

01:29:21.120 To solve it, you would have to ultimately legalize the population who are already here

01:29:27.820 illegally, which obviously people don't want to do.

01:29:30.100 How do you feel about violating your social culture, David?

01:29:32.340 I wanted to add one quick thing on the economics.

01:29:34.580 Doesn't all this contradict the ethos of free men, free soil, because these are labor subsidies?

01:29:41.300 Are companies entitled to foreign labor?

01:29:44.100 Because I think the plenary power of the Constitution grants, I believe, the government the authority

01:29:49.880 to regulate immigration.

01:29:51.440 And we're a sovereign nation.

01:29:53.240 Why do we think that these companies are entitled to foreign labor?

01:29:56.220 Well, it's not about entitled.

01:29:57.120 The question is what benefits the United States, right?

01:29:59.640 Yeah.

01:29:59.920 But I think it's like we're almost operating under this assumption of like, absolutely.

01:30:03.940 Like, yes, they should get access to these cheaper laborers.

01:30:08.220 It's when it's like, well, actually, you're operating within a country.

01:30:10.360 Well, but remember, I think that the problem is that we're treating immigrants as if they

01:30:14.760 were machines that are just workers.

01:30:16.240 But immigrants are people, right?

01:30:17.800 They're not just workers.

01:30:18.700 And because they're people, they also consume.

01:30:20.800 They also innovate, which is why the whole high-skilled immigration thing.

01:30:23.240 They also drain.

01:30:24.420 They also drain the system.

01:30:25.880 They get welfare.

01:30:27.060 Apple, free trading apples.

01:30:28.540 It's ready to that.

01:30:28.640 It's in the social safety net.

01:30:29.780 Not H-2A workers.

01:30:32.200 Well, we're talking about-

01:30:32.900 Sure, but they use the roads.

01:30:33.700 They need police services.

01:30:35.360 Yeah, I mean, this is very, very, very-

01:30:37.820 That's right.

01:30:38.240 Hospital, schools, all the other social safety net that's out there, there will be strain

01:30:42.140 and burden.

01:30:43.120 Yes.

01:30:43.260 Yeah.

01:30:43.540 So the point is people are not just workers.

01:30:47.020 They also get welfare, which is why the whole thing with high-skilled immigration is so good

01:30:50.120 because they actually are net taxpayers.

01:30:52.200 I have a whole story about the fiscal impact of immigrants.

01:30:54.220 In fact, even the average H-1B worker will reduce the deficit by over half a million dollars

01:31:00.360 over his lifetime.

01:31:01.640 Now, we could increase that to over a million dollars if we just did wage ranking, so that

01:31:05.840 would be better.

01:31:07.520 But on the culture part, I think the culture is important, David, because, you know, I'm

01:31:12.340 Catholic, right?

01:31:13.080 I think that if I lived in a country that was primarily Buddhist, Muslim, Hindu, I wouldn't

01:31:22.360 like it.

01:31:23.420 And I'm not saying that immigration is going to turn that into the United States.

01:31:26.460 I'm not even sure how I feel about this.

01:31:28.360 I'm really just asking a genuine question-

01:31:30.380 It's happening in the UK.

01:31:30.880 Out of my heart, because I do think Christianity is important, and I do think it is important

01:31:37.140 for America.

01:31:38.180 You look at what happened with Catholic immigration.

01:31:40.480 It's a great case study.

01:31:41.600 The late 19th century, you look at what the popes were putting out on freedom of religion,

01:31:47.160 democracy.

01:31:48.520 It was not good stuff.

01:31:50.360 And the people who were opposed to Catholic immigration had all the same arguments that

01:31:54.360 you hear about Islam and Hindus and whatever.

01:31:58.000 Non-Christian immigration today used the exact same arguments and had better, really better

01:32:05.240 ammunition because-

01:32:06.820 Would you feel comfortable living in a country that is not primarily Christian?

01:32:08.760 Of course.

01:32:09.580 You would?

01:32:10.200 Yeah.

01:32:10.720 Really?

01:32:11.120 I would.

01:32:11.720 Look, we're already headed there.

01:32:14.240 It's just going to be primarily atheist.

01:32:16.960 I'm concerned about that.

01:32:18.120 And I'm opposed to the secularization of society.

01:32:20.960 And look-

01:32:21.600 But we have a Judeo-Christian foundation.

01:32:23.500 We have a Christian-

01:32:24.100 And you have a duty to advocate for that.

01:32:26.300 You can advocate for that.

01:32:27.260 That's fine.

01:32:27.740 We have a Christian foundation.

01:32:29.200 The Judeo is at it on later.

01:32:30.540 Let's be fair.

01:32:30.980 We have a Christian foundation.

01:32:32.720 But that's besides the point.

01:32:34.800 The thing-

01:32:35.460 You don't-

01:32:36.560 Okay, keep going.

01:32:37.340 You talk, because I don't want to get off on a religious tangent here.

01:32:40.600 But-

01:32:40.700 All I'm going to say is, if you look at what happened with Catholic immigration, you had

01:32:45.840 all of these concerns that the Catholics are going to change us.

01:32:49.040 And they're going to transform our culture and turn us against freedom of religion and have

01:32:53.520 an oppressive indoctrination and have separate schools and they're going to, you know, never

01:32:58.840 America-

01:32:59.640 They do.

01:32:59.980 They do.

01:33:00.300 They do.

01:33:00.500 Well, the integralist movement is certainly gaining steam these days.

01:33:06.760 You're Catholic too, right?

01:33:07.960 I am Catholic and I hear a lot about, you know, Catholic nationalism.

01:33:11.220 And it ended up being a great thing for the country, not just for America, but also for

01:33:16.460 the world.

01:33:16.860 Because when you look at what happened with Vatican II and the adoption of religious liberty

01:33:21.420 as a core fundamental belief of Catholics now, it was directly tied to the American experiment.

01:33:28.740 They cited the American experiment.

01:33:30.120 And if you look at what, which Catholics actually wrote-

01:33:33.660 But we come from the same, we come from the same source.

01:33:36.080 It's different.

01:33:36.640 You're comparing different faiths.

01:33:38.040 What do you mean it's the same source?

01:33:40.020 Have you seen that-

01:33:41.200 I agree.

01:33:41.960 Yeah, Buddhism, it's like night and day.

01:33:43.620 We have the same Bible except for a couple of books.

01:33:45.860 Monotheism, for starters.

01:33:47.120 Yes, the starting place is different.

01:33:51.820 But the experience of the United States is our culture is so attractive to people that

01:34:00.180 we transform them.

01:34:01.900 They don't transform us.

01:34:03.460 That's the American experience.

01:34:04.440 That's not happening.

01:34:05.360 I think we're getting just a different flow from, say, Europe.

01:34:07.560 I mean, you're seeing this problem in Europe.

01:34:09.000 Now, thankfully, we're not having that same problem.

01:34:10.980 Because we just are in a different geographical location.

01:34:15.040 But look at what's happening in the United Kingdom.

01:34:18.160 Look at what's happening in Spain, in France.

01:34:21.280 Even in Ireland now.

01:34:22.360 This is a fundamentally different moral code.

01:34:24.880 We are importing a different moral code.

01:34:27.700 Even for people in America who claim they're atheists, they are still beneficiaries of a different

01:34:32.900 moral code.

01:34:33.420 Look, I'm just more optimistic than you.

01:34:36.080 And if you look at, you know, surveys of Muslims, obviously, this is mainly a Muslim conversation.

01:34:41.460 I don't know many people, maybe some other people are concerned about other faiths, but

01:34:45.580 mainly a Muslim conversation.

01:34:48.060 You look at surveys of Muslims.

01:34:49.860 They are becoming more socially tolerant and more socially liberal over the last-

01:34:54.960 Forty percent won't even tell.

01:34:56.820 Forty percent self-reported.

01:34:58.380 Forty percent of Muslims will not tell if there's an ISIS attack or a terrorist attack.

01:35:02.500 They will not report to authorities.

01:35:04.260 They believe in Sharia law.

01:35:06.040 Trump did have a lot of Muslim votes, though.

01:35:08.380 He had a lot of Muslims.

01:35:09.140 Absolutely.

01:35:09.700 Oh, I know.

01:35:10.580 Absolutely.

01:35:11.300 He did.

01:35:11.580 That was a very interesting development.

01:35:13.280 And I will say, I follow a lot of-

01:35:14.820 Because they're tired of the LGBT stuff.

01:35:15.880 I follow a lot-

01:35:16.400 Yes, which is-

01:35:17.060 Yes.

01:35:17.360 That is traditionalism, and I agree with that side of it.

01:35:20.340 They're against the DEI-

01:35:21.080 I prefer that over the leftist atheism.

01:35:23.140 Right.

01:35:23.620 They're against the DEI bureaucracy as well.

01:35:26.220 So, again, yes, there are going to be people who have views that we abhor, that we want

01:35:34.000 to oppose, but the trajectory of American history and American tradition is-

01:35:39.020 That we conquer.

01:35:40.060 Our culture wins.

01:35:41.280 And that is not true in Europe.

01:35:43.440 Europe does not have that experience that the United States does.

01:35:47.680 Our culture is better than theirs.

01:35:49.320 They get invaded by a culture-

01:35:50.840 Sure, until the left destroys it.

01:35:52.680 Look, Islam has been entrenched in Europe for-

01:35:57.100 You know what's the first thing they did when I went to college?

01:35:57.800 For centuries.

01:35:58.480 If not just centuries, a millennia.

01:36:00.040 A millennia.

01:36:00.260 They made me do a walk of privilege.

01:36:03.020 Where the first thing we did-

01:36:04.300 That's a religion.

01:36:05.140 This is a religion right here.

01:36:06.200 When we asked you an orientation.

01:36:07.580 Who did?

01:36:08.680 The university.

01:36:09.380 Muslims?

01:36:10.060 The orientation.

01:36:10.580 No, no, no.

01:36:11.300 Columbia.

01:36:12.060 But the point related to this is that because they're erasing American culture-

01:36:17.160 Sorry.

01:36:18.180 The assimilation-

01:36:18.660 I missed the transition.

01:36:20.620 Because they're erasing American culture, they are reducing the way to assimilate.

01:36:26.420 You're assimilating into something else.

01:36:28.300 Yeah.

01:36:28.660 Which is why-

01:36:29.660 I mean, I don't think this is an argument to say we shouldn't have immigration or whatever

01:36:33.340 in any country.

01:36:34.340 It's an argument to say you need to select immigrants that are aligned with the cultural

01:36:39.860 values.

01:36:40.440 Then how come Gen Z voted majority for Trump?

01:36:44.820 They didn't.

01:36:45.400 Actually, women went for Kamala.

01:36:48.880 Seven percent more Gen Z women went for Trump.

01:36:51.400 Thanks for that correction.

01:36:52.860 Yeah.

01:36:53.020 Okay.

01:36:53.140 But obviously, you did much better despite all of these-

01:36:57.620 You did better with the men because they're not getting the jobs that we're talking about

01:37:00.200 that are being replaced by the immigrants.

01:37:01.720 Oh, come on.

01:37:02.300 Come on.

01:37:02.700 That's what's happening.

01:37:03.820 No, it's not.

01:37:04.620 It is absolutely not happening.

01:37:06.200 But the argument I'm making is not to prove it or anything.

01:37:09.320 It's simple to say, don't you think that it would be beneficial to select based on cultural

01:37:14.180 values too?

01:37:16.500 I don't trust the government to select based on cultural values.

01:37:19.820 If we had the Biden administration in charge of-

01:37:22.240 Well, this is a good point.

01:37:23.440 Of cultural whatever.

01:37:25.200 I agree with you.

01:37:26.040 No.

01:37:26.400 Like, bring me all the blue-haired people.

01:37:28.800 Did you know that on the biometrics form for immigrants now, they put in the hair color

01:37:33.780 options blue and pink?

01:37:35.040 No way.

01:37:35.820 I swear.

01:37:36.640 I saw it.

01:37:37.620 See, this does give me pause, and I understand your point here.

01:37:41.400 That being said, the argument that we do need to recruit based on alignment to our cultural

01:37:46.660 credo is important.

01:37:48.080 Blue and pink hair should be an automatic rejection.

01:37:50.520 Automatic rejection.

01:37:51.520 You have blue or pink hair, you're automatically rejected.

01:37:53.760 What form was it?

01:37:54.260 Honestly, wait.

01:37:54.860 Aren't there ways to test, though?

01:37:56.580 Like, just ways to test that.

01:37:58.440 And with this administration, maybe there's a way to codify what a good metric barometer

01:38:03.940 of patriotism and allegiance to our values is.

01:38:06.940 I don't know what that looks like, because I know the citizenship test is not, like, for

01:38:09.900 everybody, but...

01:38:10.900 Cap it at a certain level.

01:38:13.040 No pink or blue hair.

01:38:14.420 You've got to be under a certain BMI, right?

01:38:17.580 Because you're, you know, you have to be healthy under a certain BMI, and you have to, like...

01:38:22.140 You need to know our founding history, you need to know our American political thought,

01:38:25.500 the Declaration of Independence, the Constitution, you should know the articles.

01:38:28.120 The basic stuff, basic stuff.

01:38:29.820 I mean, pretty basic, but important in most...

01:38:32.400 No, for citizenship, at least.

01:38:33.560 For citizenship.

01:38:34.120 And I will fully admit that most Americans my age don't know squat about that stuff,

01:38:39.120 and that is tragic.

01:38:40.440 And that, once again, is an indictment of the public education system, which is a monopoly,

01:38:44.920 and we need to demolish the Department of Education, and then we need to...

01:38:49.580 Well, if we can't do that, we've got to sever its relationship, which is...

01:38:53.600 It's basically a cabal with the teachers' unions, and then we need to basically privatize

01:38:58.600 a lot of this, and school choice needs to be implemented across the land, and I do think

01:39:03.680 charter schools need to flourish, classical...

01:39:06.160 The classical education model...

01:39:07.260 That's what my kids are in.

01:39:07.920 Religious education.

01:39:08.880 That's my plan.

01:39:09.900 Religious education, the parochial schools, we need to make sure that these multiply and

01:39:13.920 are fruitful, and that the public education monopoly is...

01:39:18.440 I will say about immigrants and culture, at least because immigrants do tend to be more

01:39:23.000 religious than they need to be born, the children do tend to succeed much more, and I see that

01:39:29.000 very often in the schools that I travel to when I speak, and in the colleges with Young

01:39:33.560 America's Foundation that I speak through, and it's really moving, you know?

01:39:38.100 They're very inspired by their parents' stories.

01:39:39.900 That's kind of like what America has always been about, at least, how I've always perceived

01:39:43.920 it, and that's a special thing, right?

01:39:46.080 It's different from Europe.

01:39:47.420 It's different from other countries that are based on, you know, whatever, a people,

01:39:52.040 right?

01:39:53.140 But that requires maintaining the culture.

01:39:55.520 I think it also requires saying, you know, there is actually an upper limit of people that

01:39:59.620 you can bring in.

01:40:00.320 I don't think legally we're at that upper limit.

01:40:02.380 Certainly, illegally, it's a problem.

01:40:04.260 But within that limit, you would want to have the people who are more likely to be entrepreneurs,

01:40:09.780 who are likely to speak English, who are likely to not be on welfare and make more money, which

01:40:15.700 is why I think, yes, we can fix the H-1B visa issue very easily with just wage ranking, but

01:40:20.540 yeah, and we should redirect chain migration towards skills-based, right?

01:40:25.380 Yeah.

01:40:25.640 Which, by the way, the left will say, oh, that's unfair.

01:40:28.240 Actually, it's fairer because not everybody has a sibling living in America.

01:40:33.140 Yeah, right.

01:40:33.560 Everybody can actually get the skills to qualify through skills-based systems.

01:40:37.680 It's meritocracy.

01:40:38.160 It's meritocracy.

01:40:38.360 If you prove yourself, you can come here rather than, oh, my third cousin, we should get rid

01:40:42.820 of that.

01:40:43.120 Only keep it to the direct relatives, the mother, father, and the children.

01:40:46.100 They can, I think-

01:40:47.340 Even then, I don't know.

01:40:48.920 Yeah, I mean, again, I'm talking about a compromise.

01:40:51.500 Like, the tech right is a very real presence in the MAGA coalition.

01:40:54.600 If you really want to appease them, you know, you probably have to do something to the effect

01:40:59.080 of what Daniel just outlined.

01:41:00.240 No, but I think it's a good thing.

01:41:01.300 You need meritocracy in education.

01:41:03.700 You need meritocracy in employment.

01:41:05.840 You need meritocracy in immigration.

01:41:08.440 And demolish this whole DEI structure that's been built for decades.

01:41:11.960 Right.

01:41:12.100 That it's been built in immigration with a diversity lottery, all these lotteries, all

01:41:16.020 these things, right?

01:41:17.240 Caps per country.

01:41:18.520 Like, you select which countries, and it's, like, silly because you select also the bad

01:41:21.740 countries.

01:41:22.420 Yeah.

01:41:22.720 You're against the high-skilled ones.

01:41:24.940 And then also in education, also in employment, like, everything.

01:41:29.620 And bring in the geniuses, like Operation Paperclip did with, of course, there were some ethical

01:41:34.220 issues with the German scientists.

01:41:36.520 But, well, okay, I'm not saying, like, I'm not saying we bring in, uh, I'm not saying

01:41:41.160 we bring in ex-Nazis, but I'm saying that the truly most brilliant thinkers on this earth,

01:41:48.200 I think it'd be terrific if they came here.

01:41:50.280 Right, because you can't identify the people who are, like, young, right, before they do

01:41:55.740 that, which is why you need to adjust by age.

01:41:57.660 Think of Elon Musk.

01:41:58.660 A lot of people in this conversation were saying, well, we have the O visa.

01:42:01.600 Why do we need the H-1B?

01:42:02.940 Elon Musk would not have qualified for the O visa because he was just coming out of college.

01:42:07.680 He didn't have extraordinary achievements.

01:42:09.520 So you do need to give people a chance to prove themselves.

01:42:11.720 Well, wait.

01:42:12.140 You could adjust what extraordinary achievements mean.

01:42:15.360 What's his IQ?

01:42:15.820 You could do a test.

01:42:18.260 What's his IQ?

01:42:19.020 What's Elon Musk's IQ?

01:42:20.120 GPA, IQ.

01:42:21.100 You could do a test, yes.

01:42:22.120 A test.

01:42:23.320 There's plenty of things that you can do to rule that out.

01:42:26.820 You can suss someone out as gifted at a young age, I'm pretty sure.

01:42:30.280 That's right, but that's not what the current immigration system does.

01:42:32.640 So if you just got rid of, say, H-1B, even though it's imperfect, definitely needs to be

01:42:37.300 fixed, you would lose the only path for people like that.

01:42:40.920 I think that right now we have too many people in general that have come in because of

01:42:45.800 the way that the border was for a while.

01:42:47.680 So I don't understand why there can't be a temporary halt on everything until we sort

01:42:52.980 out.

01:42:53.300 A moratorium?

01:42:53.760 Yeah, like just a temporary one until we sort out who's already here, who out of those

01:42:59.220 people need to stay, who out of those people need to go.

01:43:01.720 And then once you figure that out and then assess the situation, okay, then we can start

01:43:07.120 talking about getting people in this country and basically what I tweeted out, saying like

01:43:13.440 stealing the best people from our adversaries or other countries to put us on top.

01:43:19.400 But it doesn't even need to take that long.

01:43:21.360 You do need a moratorium on like illegal immigration, but like, why would you stop, say, an American

01:43:28.320 who's marrying a foreign person from being able to...

01:43:30.920 Like you're talking about like the K or the I-130, right?

01:43:32.800 I'm not talking about that.

01:43:33.680 I'm talking about...

01:43:34.280 Okay, but that's like half of the, but that's like half of the illegal immigrant flow.

01:43:37.580 And some of that...

01:43:38.300 But that's mostly chain migration, isn't like...

01:43:40.200 No, no, no, like just the spouses and the children are half of the illegal.

01:43:43.720 And I don't even love, I don't even love a ton of that, you know, I'm not going to lie.

01:43:46.660 There's a lot of fraud, by the way.

01:43:47.920 There's a lot of, there's a lot of fraud there.

01:43:49.920 People marrying their sisters and their cousins and they say that they're not and it's very

01:43:54.380 strange.

01:43:54.900 Like a certain congresswoman from the Western state.

01:43:58.320 I had to help, I was trying to help somebody come here and they were, they were from Syria

01:44:01.040 at the time and there was only one road and they had to travel.

01:44:03.200 It was during the war and they had to travel to Lebanon to go to the consulate and USCIS lost

01:44:08.020 their case file.

01:44:09.160 It was a nightmare, right?

01:44:10.900 But they wound up lying about who they were.

01:44:13.700 And because we don't have consulates in these areas and we don't have people to actually vet

01:44:17.140 them and do the biometrics and really prove that this is like who they are and what they

01:44:22.400 say they're going to be, that's a big problem.

01:44:25.720 That needs, that needs a moratorium until, if we don't have consulates, like if, and people

01:44:30.980 to investigate, do background checks on these people and fully vet them, they can't come

01:44:34.960 here.

01:44:35.320 If we don't have a consulate...

01:44:36.100 I mean, you're talking about Daniel here because there's no consulate in Venezuela.

01:44:40.100 I mean, the idea that we're going to ban, we're going to ban, we're going to ban Americans

01:44:45.480 from marrying people who are born in other countries.

01:44:50.280 I mean, that is horrible.

01:44:52.660 That is a violation of American rights.

01:44:55.820 Our presumption...

01:44:57.220 Sorry.

01:44:57.780 The government actually needs a good reason to violate your rights.

01:45:01.320 I think that's a fundamental principle.

01:45:03.200 You are, yes, you have a right to marry whoever you want.

01:45:05.980 They go live in their country if you want to marry them.

01:45:07.760 No, that is not what American rights means.

01:45:09.600 100%.

01:45:09.760 That is crazy.

01:45:10.160 No, I do think that's pretty radical to just say that you...

01:45:13.700 You don't think that if we're getting...

01:45:16.520 Somebody's getting married on a K visa, right?

01:45:18.760 Or right, I-130, whatever we got going on.

01:45:21.400 But they're already here and they get married.

01:45:23.120 That's not always true.

01:45:24.280 We have people...

01:45:24.540 Do you think people do that for utility reasons?

01:45:26.340 Do people do that for utility reasons?

01:45:27.320 Yeah, but what if they're doing it for diabolical reasons, which they've done?

01:45:30.880 You said there's a lot of fraud in there, right?

01:45:32.400 I've had two Uber drivers already confess to me from the Dominican Republic that they

01:45:36.120 married just to get the green card.

01:45:37.860 And I'm like, why are you telling me this?

01:45:39.660 Wow.

01:45:40.040 Oh, it happens all the time.

01:45:41.680 And then...

01:45:42.320 But you have nefarious actors in these countries with no consulates where they can't...

01:45:46.160 Where it's very hard to back around the checks where all their names sound the same,

01:45:49.260 right?

01:45:49.440 Everybody has the same first name, very similar last names.

01:45:52.460 And you have to go in and try to see if they are who they stay there, if they don't have

01:45:56.740 any ties to crime.

01:45:57.580 And you're just saying that, yeah, like, no problem.

01:45:59.920 They don't have a consulate there.

01:46:00.680 We should just let them in because somebody wants to marry them.

01:46:02.760 Or somebody got $10,000 to marry them.

01:46:04.480 That's a security issue.

01:46:05.760 And I agree, there are security issues.

01:46:07.660 But just on, like, say, you know, we just need to stop to figure it out.

01:46:10.760 I don't think we should stop millionaires from creating jobs and innovators from doing

01:46:14.780 that to figure out the illegal border situation.

01:46:17.560 Like, you know...

01:46:17.900 You're talking about the EB-5s and stuff.

01:46:19.360 That's 9,000 people.

01:46:20.600 But even the H-1Bs, you know where they live.

01:46:22.620 You know how much money they make.

01:46:23.620 You know where they work.

01:46:24.680 Like, we know where these people are.

01:46:26.280 That's not an issue.

01:46:26.920 Most of them are already approved for green cards waiting for their visa because they're

01:46:30.440 from India.

01:46:31.600 So really, the issue is, how do you control the border?

01:46:34.540 And then after that, you take...

01:46:35.700 I agree.

01:46:36.260 Yeah.

01:46:36.900 And that's what David Sack said.

01:46:38.560 David Sack said, we can all agree that we need to just stop the flow illegally at the

01:46:42.960 border, and then we can look at legal immigration.

01:46:45.220 And the question of how to do that is important, right?

01:46:47.600 Like, you know, I think everybody's like, well, Trump is going to come in on the first

01:46:51.020 day.

01:46:51.280 He's going to close it.

01:46:52.060 Like, he's actually going to need a lot of money, which is why Republicans in Congress

01:46:55.460 are, like, working on, like, a reconciliation bill.

01:46:57.760 We need to appropriate money to detain people because it's like, oh, we're not going to

01:47:01.600 release them.

01:47:02.560 Like, we only have, what, 40,000 bets?

01:47:05.020 Less than 40,000.

01:47:05.960 Less than 40,000 bets.

01:47:07.200 That's half a month.

01:47:08.380 Less than half a month.

01:47:09.160 That's a week and a half of illegal border crossings.

01:47:11.340 Oh, my gosh.

01:47:13.060 We need to secure the border.

01:47:13.800 Yeah, well, I mean, look, the idea that you're going to end illegal immigration without a

01:47:18.980 fundamental change in the legal immigration system, it's just not, it's just fanciful

01:47:23.760 thinking.

01:47:24.140 I mean, you look at Trump's term in office.

01:47:26.840 He had a lot of illegal immigration that happened, despite, does anyone doubt that he was upset

01:47:32.480 about it, that he was highly focused on it throughout his entire term in office?

01:47:36.460 He left office in December of 2020 with apprehensions at the border that were the highest in 21 years.

01:47:44.100 So he didn't solve the problem.

01:47:47.240 Yes, it wasn't as bad as it was under Biden.

01:47:50.860 That's also because he got—

01:47:51.820 But that's not—but that is not the end-all, be-all.

01:47:55.380 We need to fundamentally change our legal immigration system as well.

01:47:59.260 He was hamstringed by his own people, though, right?

01:48:01.560 They were undermining him at every turn.

01:48:03.800 So he already got it under control with what limited resources and opportunities he had.

01:48:09.020 I mean, you're always going to have—

01:48:09.860 I will say, Obama, I think looking back at Obama's term, he was actually very good on

01:48:14.800 illegal immigration.

01:48:15.860 More deportations, I believe.

01:48:16.960 More deportations.

01:48:17.940 The average number of border crossings was lower in the second term of Obama than on Trump's

01:48:23.340 term, excluding—if you exclude COVID, you know?

01:48:25.980 So it's like, actually, you know, you can have, you know, better immigration policy even

01:48:32.280 under Democrats if they actually cared about it, which I didn't.

01:48:35.060 If they actually enforce the laws that are on the books and deport people that shouldn't

01:48:38.160 be here.

01:48:38.580 Which is very popular.

01:48:39.680 But then we'll have people like you saying they're here and they're contributing to the

01:48:42.740 GDP and maybe they should work, right?

01:48:45.080 I mean, you would let all the people that came here illegally stay, correct?

01:48:48.420 No, not if they had committed crimes and caused problems in our country.

01:48:51.620 We shouldn't have—law enforcement should be focused on people who threaten our lives

01:48:57.160 and our liberties and otherwise threaten our property.

01:49:01.180 People who are threats to the community should be the target of law enforcement.

01:49:05.180 When you say we're going to have the law enforcement going around doing the social micromanaging

01:49:10.800 of our population, they are not focused on the threats to the community.

01:49:17.340 So you should have law enforcement have that targeting, whether it's on immigration or just

01:49:24.460 regular police, they should be focused on excluding people who are threats to the community.

01:49:30.740 But now they have more to do, right?

01:49:31.980 These people are here illegally.

01:49:33.240 We have a police department that is supposed to be for X amount of number of citizens.

01:49:38.780 Okay, now you're flooding these people in.

01:49:41.340 It's increasing their demand on society for their schools, their police departments, right?

01:49:46.460 Now they're unvetted, they're coming with gangs, they're causing more problems.

01:49:51.800 And so now you have the regular criminals that we need to round up and take care of.

01:49:56.340 And then you have these extra people that are an additional burden.

01:49:59.940 Well, and by the time the feds and the police identify these people as potentially as dangerous

01:50:06.580 and causing crime, it's too late, I think, sometimes.

01:50:09.960 I remember in New York City, I was covering what was going on in the Upper West Side with the

01:50:13.860 migrant crisis, and it was like, here were the crimes that I just witnessed in broad daylight

01:50:18.440 and, you know, whether the city actually had the power to crack down on that is a whole

01:50:22.520 nother problem, the fecklessness of the Eric Adams regime.

01:50:25.760 But, I mean, racing illegally registered mopeds up and down Broadway the wrong way, you know,

01:50:31.940 like harassing elderly women who've lived in New York City for their entire lives, like

01:50:36.960 multiple generations, family, children, you know, public defecation, public urination,

01:50:43.360 obscenity, exposing themselves to people.

01:50:46.040 I mean, it was like a long list of things.

01:50:47.760 So we should focus on those people.

01:50:49.800 We should get them out.

01:50:50.740 The idea that there's all this slack.

01:50:52.760 Yes, well, the idea that there should be all this slack in the system, that law enforcement

01:50:58.240 just, they're not doing anything, they're just hanging out over here and they can just

01:51:01.800 go.

01:51:02.360 No, like 50% of murders go unsolved in this country.

01:51:05.320 And, you know, 70% of rapes go unsolved.

01:51:08.000 You know, if you look at property crimes, they basically don't even show up if you call.

01:51:11.320 Well, but that's not, that's a criminal justice issue.

01:51:12.960 The idea that we should be spending tens of billions of dollars on, on people who aren't

01:51:18.660 causing problems, who haven't committed crimes, that is diverting law enforcement away from

01:51:24.580 its job.

01:51:25.260 What is its job?

01:51:26.420 Its job is to defend our rights.

01:51:28.560 You can't say that to like Lake and Riley's parents or any of these other, or any of these

01:51:33.120 Let me tell you something about that case.

01:51:34.560 Let me tell you something about that case.

01:51:35.520 Not just her, but the other little girl.

01:51:36.800 This is really the apex of the failure of the Democrats on everything from criminal justice

01:51:44.320 to border security, to welfare.

01:51:49.340 Jose Barra, the guy who murdered Lake and Riley, Venezuelan too, by the way, Trendy Aragua

01:51:54.580 affiliated, the gang, he was committing a crime in New York City when he first arrived.

01:52:00.400 He was bussed for free to New York City from the border, which by the way-

01:52:03.920 By Texas.

01:52:04.580 Yep, sure.

01:52:05.540 You know.

01:52:05.720 Taxpayer dollars.

01:52:07.080 Yeah, it's a problem.

01:52:08.280 I actually don't support free bus.

01:52:10.300 It could use taxpayer dollars.

01:52:11.140 No credit cards, no transportation.

01:52:12.460 Just leave them hanging on the border.

01:52:13.760 Like, why should you pay for it?

01:52:15.860 Because then Texas has to deal with it, and they're tired of dealing with it when the

01:52:18.620 rest of the country is-

01:52:19.660 Yeah, I understand.

01:52:21.120 But, you know, well, but he was let in by Biden, right?

01:52:24.380 He was not a gotaway.

01:52:26.160 He was let in.

01:52:28.020 Somebody that you should have checked if he had gang affiliations, detained him as much

01:52:32.100 as you could.

01:52:33.000 But there's no consulates in Venezuela.

01:52:35.180 It's not because of the consulate.

01:52:37.020 It's about the tattoos, too.

01:52:38.800 True, true.

01:52:39.200 Like, all these gang members are tattooed.

01:52:40.900 And a lot of them don't have background information.

01:52:41.640 There was a woman who was a child sex trafficker.

01:52:44.740 Her nickname was La Barbie, the Barbie.

01:52:47.000 Mm-hmm.

01:52:47.680 You just had to see her to know that she shouldn't be in the United States.

01:52:50.520 Really?

01:52:51.020 We need some more discrimination.

01:52:52.360 More profiling.

01:52:53.100 All facial tattoos.

01:52:54.520 This woman looked like she was going to murder any of us at any point.

01:52:58.440 And they let her in.

01:52:59.760 She didn't sneak into the United States.

01:53:01.620 And so Jose Barra gets to New York, starts robbing.

01:53:05.140 Then he gets released because there's no bail.

01:53:07.400 And also, it's a sanctuary city, so they don't call ICE.

01:53:10.180 And then they give him a free flight, paid for by the New York City government, to Georgia,

01:53:15.840 where he goes and kills this girl.

01:53:17.860 Mm-hmm.

01:53:18.120 It's all these failures.

01:53:19.620 Yeah.

01:53:19.800 So, absolutely.

01:53:20.880 You should be focused on people committing crimes, including what New York City would

01:53:26.360 call a low-level offense.

01:53:27.900 So you don't support sanctuary cities?

01:53:29.500 No, absolutely not.

01:53:30.380 Oh, really?

01:53:30.760 I'm not so surprised.

01:53:31.400 No.

01:53:31.680 I mean, not as how they're interpreted.

01:53:34.780 I mean, if you commit a crime that harms someone else, you should absolutely be a target of

01:53:41.200 law enforcement.

01:53:42.100 The problem is-

01:53:42.940 Sanctuary cities, I believe, harbor, like, that allows that progressive city to harbor

01:53:46.820 any illegal aliens, like, regardless of whether they have a criminal record.

01:53:51.260 That's right.

01:53:51.660 So do you support that?

01:53:52.660 No, I just said I didn't.

01:53:53.720 No, the point I'm making is we have so many immigration agents.

01:53:59.060 There's really 5,000 that go out and actually try to arrest people in the streets that go out

01:54:04.460 looking for people.

01:54:05.660 That's the number of people.

01:54:07.200 So who are you going to go after?

01:54:08.840 Who do you want to target?

01:54:09.800 You want to target the people who committed violent crimes, who committed property crimes

01:54:14.880 as well.

01:54:15.340 I mean, anyone who's violated the rights of Americans should be the priority for law enforcement.

01:54:20.680 We shouldn't have them just going out, randomly grabbing people off the streets.

01:54:25.260 Like, what if they haven't yet, but they're prone to that?

01:54:27.260 What do you mean they're prone to that?

01:54:28.700 Illegal immigrants commit crimes at a lower per capita rate than the U.S.-born population

01:54:34.400 today?

01:54:34.700 Well, actually, David, you know that the main reason for that is because most crimes are

01:54:42.000 committed by people who commit a repeat crime, and because the illegals are deported, you

01:54:46.780 don't have as many repeat offenders.

01:54:48.680 So if you look at the first-time crime rate, it's actually higher for illegal immigrants.

01:54:51.860 I mean, that is not what the first-time crime rate is.

01:54:54.500 No, I mean, it is.

01:54:55.420 It's just a mechanical thing.

01:54:56.800 The Americans are not deported after they leave jail.

01:54:59.200 So they commit crimes again and again.

01:55:01.820 No, I mean, if you look at DACA recipients, they've been in the country the entire-

01:55:05.540 DACA recipients are not the average illegal immigrants.

01:55:07.660 Yeah, well, I mean-

01:55:08.300 They're college-educated.

01:55:09.160 But we actually have-

01:55:10.080 They're not, I mean, majority-

01:55:11.500 It's one of the conditions.

01:55:12.180 What about the dreamers?

01:55:12.860 No, you're talking about-

01:55:13.800 It's one of the conditions to be in DACA is that you-

01:55:15.420 Correct.

01:55:15.560 No, not-

01:55:16.100 You don't need to have graduated college to be in DACA.

01:55:18.420 It's one of the-

01:55:19.300 No, it's not.

01:55:20.020 To be part of the DACA problem.

01:55:21.380 No, all you have to do-

01:55:23.420 Or serve in the military, do something equivalent.

01:55:25.820 Yes.

01:55:26.060 No, all you have to do is be enrolled in high school or try to graduate a college.

01:55:33.240 I mean, try to graduate high school.

01:55:35.200 That's all you have to be.

01:55:36.040 You don't even have to have graduated high school and then be enrolled in college.

01:55:40.000 Yes.

01:55:40.120 Or pursuing college.

01:55:41.340 Yes.

01:55:41.920 No, you can be pursuing a degree in high school.

01:55:46.200 Oh, look that up.

01:55:46.700 I'm looking it up right now.

01:55:47.800 Yeah, we should look that up.

01:55:48.300 But anyway, there are numerous different data sources-

01:55:53.020 But we actually know how to target people who are prone to crime.

01:55:55.340 And it doesn't even matter.

01:55:56.380 Most of the crime in this country is committed by men who are young, who are high school dropouts.

01:56:01.420 Should we allow in people from countries that are known to be safe havens for terrorism?

01:56:06.280 No.

01:56:07.700 Even if they themselves, we don't know that they have any criminal background.

01:56:11.040 What about people from Iran who oppose the regime?

01:56:14.840 You have to demonstrate that.

01:56:16.020 Yes, of course.

01:56:16.700 You have to demonstrate that.

01:56:17.460 Look, these are more complicated questions that you look at specifically for the individual.

01:56:23.440 So someone who is born in Iran, they may have lived their entire life somewhere else.

01:56:28.020 So we have a long record of them.

01:56:31.380 It really depends on who this person is, how much we know about it.

01:56:34.700 We might know a lot about them from the DOD.

01:56:37.720 Maybe they've been working with the DOD.

01:56:39.340 So you have to have an individualized assessment of risk.

01:56:43.940 You should not be just saying, well, this person was born in Iran.

01:56:47.320 Therefore, every Iranian should be banned because we're the Iranian government.

01:56:51.500 But de facto, if we have no information on them, don't let them in.

01:56:55.240 Well, I mean, sure, if you don't have any information.

01:56:57.340 It depends.

01:56:58.320 And they need to be interviewed, you know?

01:57:00.220 But I do, I would never support something like a ban like that.

01:57:03.260 Because, I mean, think about it.

01:57:04.180 I have an organization like the Assistant Project.

01:57:05.880 All our speakers come from countries that are dictatorships.

01:57:08.820 Iran, Russia, North Korea, China, Cuba, Venezuela, Eritrea, Zimbabwe.

01:57:15.040 And these are really good people who come and educate Americans about the blessings of being an American, of the Constitution.

01:57:21.600 We need those perspectives, right?

01:57:24.020 But you need good vetting, right?

01:57:25.740 All of these speakers will also tell you, no, I don't want Russians who support Putin or Chinese who support the CCP.

01:57:31.380 Or even less like a North Korean who supports the regime.

01:57:35.440 I want to make your correction because, to be fair, so they have to be GED, high school, honorably discharged veteran.

01:57:44.700 They do not need to be in college.

01:57:46.600 And if they are, it allows them to go to college, but it does not guarantee access to federal aid.

01:57:52.700 They will have options for federal aid, but they don't have to.

01:57:55.640 So I just want to make sure we get that clear.

01:57:57.640 There are a number of different—

01:57:59.020 They're not high school dropouts.

01:57:59.860 It's important.

01:58:01.900 I mean, yeah, supposedly.

01:58:04.340 The National Longitudinal Youth Survey is really the best evidence for this because you can actually see the arrest rates for people over time.

01:58:18.120 And the first generation is the least likely to commit violence.

01:58:22.880 Of all immigrants.

01:58:23.940 Of all immigrants, sure.

01:58:25.240 But, like, I mean, it's disproportionately, you know, if you look at—you can look at it by education as well.

01:58:33.480 But, look, I mean, at the end of the day, what do we want law enforcement to be doing?

01:58:38.240 We want law enforcement to be targeting people who commit crimes.

01:58:42.820 The way to stop crimes—

01:58:44.240 The first crime that you commit is coming here illegally.

01:58:46.580 That's a crime.

01:58:46.940 That is a crime, and I don't think the solution is just to make all the illegals legal.

01:58:50.920 Like, I don't think that is a—

01:58:52.280 Well, what I will say about that is that, you know, I did a study about the fiscal impact of immigrants.

01:58:57.260 It's where David and I have many methodological disagreements, where the average illegal immigrant is expected to cost the government, have a net cost over their lifetime.

01:59:07.180 And so you can, you know, say, well, but deportation also has a cost, actually, tens of thousands of dollars.

01:59:13.740 So you have to balance that and think, who do you really—and also understand that just physically it's going to be impossible to do with everyone.

01:59:21.100 So how do you want to handle it?

01:59:22.300 Obviously, you want to deport the criminals.

01:59:24.460 I think you should want to deport then everybody else who doesn't pay up.

01:59:28.360 And then people should pay up to become legal, and it should be a very high fee.

01:59:32.640 And then that's how you really should solve it.

01:59:34.900 Also, if illegal aliens know that winter is coming with this next administration, maybe self-deportation is also an option.

01:59:40.240 Yeah, you need better employment verification system.

01:59:42.600 You know, E-Verify is actually very defective.

01:59:44.820 It's not good.

01:59:45.880 So when people say, we should just require E-Verify, actually, you need to fix E-Verify first so that it actually works.

01:59:51.580 That was instituted under IRCA, right, under the law, under Reagan.

01:59:55.780 But isn't E-Verify, like, very problematic?

01:59:59.480 Even U.S. citizens are marked, too, as illegal sometimes.

02:00:03.780 Guys, we've got, like, two minutes left here, so we clearly don't all agree.

02:00:09.700 Why don't we each give our closing thoughts about what you think that you would want, what we should do, how quickly it would take to fix it, if that's your situation, or if you're like me, and say no more.

02:00:21.980 Go ahead.

02:00:22.520 We'll start with you.

02:00:23.040 Yeah, so, I mean, the most important reform the government could do is expand legal immigration, particularly for skilled immigrants in this context.

02:00:32.940 I mean, we're turning away 70% of people.

02:00:36.920 And look, their median income is $118,000 a year.

02:00:41.080 This is an extraordinary blow to our economy.

02:00:44.140 You look at 55% of the billion-dollar startups in this country founded by foreign workers.

02:00:50.840 You know, this is a critical issue for the future of the United States.

02:00:55.380 If we decide that we're going to close our borders and keep out people who are going to invent the next great company, come up with artificial intelligence that allows us to compete with the Chinese,

02:01:07.680 if we prevent that from happening, it will be to the detriment of the United States.

02:01:13.700 Well, I would say that the U.S. immigration system is deeply flawed, and I would say that it needs to be rebalanced to focus much more on English ability,

02:01:24.280 to focus much more on skills, to focus much more on whether you're a welfare recipient or not, whether you align with American values.

02:01:31.140 You know, over a million green cards a year are granted to people to stay in the U.S. permanently,

02:01:35.980 and most of them really go to people who don't have enough English ability, who don't have skills, who just have a relative in the United States.

02:01:43.720 And you don't really need to increase legal immigration to fix that.

02:01:47.400 You just need to rebalance it and reduce low-skilled legal immigration.

02:01:51.560 And imagine what a better country this would be if you had so many more people.

02:01:56.880 The immigrants here spoke English.

02:01:58.940 They made money.

02:02:00.140 They were not on welfare.

02:02:01.680 Like, they did not commit crimes.

02:02:03.520 Because that's the immigration system that I think the average person wants.

02:02:07.100 The average person doesn't want to just, like, not let in everybody.

02:02:10.320 I mean, everybody loves what America is about, and everybody loves an immigrant who, you know, loves America, too.

02:02:17.480 And so I've loved America even before I came.

02:02:20.420 So that's what I think America stands for.

02:02:22.420 Just say H-1B, the program we know is abused by employers under the pretense that this is just for, you know, a shortage of STEM, and it's going to be temporary.

02:02:34.620 But as I said, we don't have a shortage of highly skilled workers in this country.

02:02:38.740 We just have them in this dormant state.

02:02:40.760 And I think we need to figure out how to activate those people and re-engage them so that they can take some of these jobs back.

02:02:49.140 And I think Mark Krikorian's proposal is compelling for both sides of this debate because it gets rid of some of the low-skilled immigration, which many on the MAGA, right, I would say the mandate is to probably reduce low-skilled immigration.

02:03:03.440 And that is to cut into the chain migration and then transferred over to high-skilled visas.

02:03:09.780 And I think part of that is we do want geniuses and Einsteins to come into this country, and I think very few would dispute that would be a net benefit.

02:03:17.720 But there needs to be a better process for figuring out whether they are, in fact, you know, exemplary candidates.

02:03:24.420 And just last thing I'll say is America is a sovereign nation.

02:03:26.880 We have every right to be selective in who we recruit to our shores.

02:03:30.740 And I think it should be the best and the brightest.

02:03:35.140 Wow.

02:03:36.020 What a great conversation today.

02:03:38.200 A lot of information was gathered here.

02:03:40.360 And first of all, I grew up overseas 18 years.

02:03:44.900 I finally came to the States back in 2010 after I joined the Air Force.

02:03:48.740 And so I've been pretty multicultural, you know, since my entire life.

02:03:53.360 So it wasn't really too much of a big change for me when I came to the United States, especially in this area.

02:03:58.360 What I will say is, obviously, there's some things that need to be ironed out in our immigration system.

02:04:05.200 You know, as of right now, my mom's been waiting about six and a half months to get her green card renewed.

02:04:11.880 So there's stuff like that that needs to get ironed, obviously.

02:04:15.260 So while I don't agree with just the blanket statement of or the blanket granting amnesty for all the illegal immigrants that are here in the United States, I don't know what kind of budgetary requirement that would, you know, require, really.

02:04:31.680 There does need to be something ironed out, especially with the people that are already here, whether that means deporting them, granting them amnesty.

02:04:43.300 I don't know.

02:04:44.080 I don't have all the answers.

02:04:45.280 You guys seem to have some answers.

02:04:46.800 So hopefully much higher people in higher places, hopefully, heed your warnings and advisements.

02:04:55.560 And hopefully we can come to a better understanding of how we can run our immigration system.

02:05:01.640 Thanks, Brian.

02:05:02.360 I'll just say the left rags on the right a lot for disagreeing, but that's how you get to the best possible outcome.

02:05:07.440 Absolutely.

02:05:07.520 It's conversations like this saying, no, your idea sucks.

02:05:09.940 This is better.

02:05:10.620 Okay, I see what you did there.

02:05:11.560 But what if we tweak it?

02:05:12.860 And it's conversations like this happening every day is how we get to having the best country.

02:05:17.340 And you guys can follow me at Kellen PDL.

02:05:19.240 Thanks.

02:05:19.800 Okay.

02:05:20.240 We can tell you.

02:05:21.220 We can tell everybody.

02:05:22.360 Go ahead and tell everybody real quick where to follow you, and then I'll close us out.

02:05:25.800 Writer National Review, just on the website, and Twitter, Caroline Downey underscore, I think.

02:05:31.540 That's what I can remember.

02:05:32.260 Yeah, yeah, it is.

02:05:33.620 I'm at Daniel D. Martino.

02:05:35.680 You can also look me up, just DanielDMartino.com, the Manhattan Institute Decision Project.

02:05:41.600 At David underscore J underscore beer.

02:05:44.740 And you can find all of our work at Cato.org, the Cato Institute website.

02:05:51.220 All right.

02:05:51.940 Oh, go ahead, Brian.

02:05:52.640 Yeah, no worries.

02:05:53.660 I'm at Helmsway1 on X, and obviously TimCast.com.

02:05:57.900 Please check out our website.

02:05:59.680 Yeah.

02:06:00.100 All right.

02:06:00.360 Well, everybody, thank you for coming.

02:06:01.660 We all know that I have more of the right-wing MAGA tendencies in me.

02:06:06.620 Let's go.

02:06:07.500 I will say that whatever policies that they do, obviously, everybody kind of agrees, well, other than you, that there needs to be reform or some changes made, even if you want to uncap it.

02:06:16.640 But that when the policymakers do it, they do it with the intent of what's going to benefit America and Americans first.

02:06:26.240 And that's really what the MAGA movement has been all about, whether that's economically or whether that's individually, culturally, financially.

02:06:33.460 Whatever way, we always should put American workers first.

02:06:36.700 So I want to thank everybody for coming out.

02:06:38.440 Guys, make sure you subscribe, like the channel.

02:06:42.280 All of that helps us.

02:06:43.880 Follow Tim.

02:06:44.840 You can follow him on X and also follow him, get him in the mornings.

02:06:49.160 10 o'clock, I think, is the show on his main channel.

02:06:51.740 Something like that.

02:06:52.400 You'll see Tim.

02:06:53.000 He does clips all day.

02:06:53.880 New show, 8 o'clock for IRL, and then Friday's back here every week at 10 a.m.

02:07:00.360 Tim will be here next week, and thanks for tuning in today, guys.

02:07:23.880 We'll see you next week.

The Culture War - Tim Pool - January 03, 2025

Should America END The H1-B Visa Program？ MAGA SPLITS Over H1-B

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