GOP’s H-1B Visa Clash: A Distraction by ‘Billionaire Robber Barons’, Claim Progressives

Last Saturday, progressive voices discussed an ongoing conflict among Republican President-elect Donald Trump’s wealthy tech sector supporters and his extreme right-wing MAGA base concerning the H-1B guest worker visa. They argue that both supporters and critics of the program within the right-wing are diverting attention from the real danger to workers: the billionaire executives who exploit both American and foreign workers.

“Billionaires want you focused on a culture war while they secure victories in the class war,” Warren Gunnels, a senior adviser to U.S. Senator Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.), stated on Friday evening.

Gunnels made these remarks following a declaration from Tesla CEO Elon Musk, who contributed $277 million to Trump’s campaign, promising to fight to preserve the H-1B visa. This program allows temporary visas for highly skilled foreign professionals in fields like technology, medicine, and engineering.

Companies in Silicon Valley, including Musk’s Tesla, which secured 724 H-1B visas this year, are major users of the program. Musk, a naturalized U.S. citizen originally from South Africa, has personally benefited from this visa program. Despite his general stance against immigration, Musk has expressed his commitment to defending the H-1B visa, especially after far-right figure Laura Loomer attacked Sriram Krishnan, Trump’s newly appointed senior policy adviser on artificial intelligence, for his past support of easing the entry of skilled foreign workers into the U.S. Loomer argued that such policies contradicted Trump’s anti-immigration promises, which included extensive deportation plans.

On Saturday, Trump voiced his agreement with Musk, noting, “I’m a believer in H-1B,” despite having attempted to restrict the program during his presidency. “I have many H-1B visas at my properties. I’ve used it extensively. It’s a great program,” Trump shared with The New York Post.

Labor rights activists have voiced concerns about the potential for exploitation faced by workers who migrate to the U.S. under H-1B visas.

According to a report last year by the Economic Policy Institute (EPI), H-1B visas have been misused by companies not to address real shortages in skilled labor but to degrade the wages and working conditions of U.S. workers. The report highlighted that in 2022 and 2023, major users of the program were companies that had laid off thousands of employees.

“The dominant firms in the program use an outsourcing business model that exploits these visas by paying migrant workers below market wages and outsourcing American jobs,” stated Daniel Costa, EPI’s director of immigration law and policy research, and Ron Hira, a professor and expert on job offshoring from Howard University.

On the social media platform X, Hira noted on Friday that “employers prefer guest workers because they have lesser rights and reduced bargaining power.”

“The U.S. Department of Labor has set the H-1B minimum wages well below the market rates,” Hira continued. “Employers can and do pay H-1B workers much less than the market rate. While H-1B workers can switch employers, their options and mobility in the job market are significantly restricted. Many describe their employment status as ‘indentured servitude,’ as they are effectively tied to their employer who controls the visa, thus exerting immense power over their wages and working conditions.”

In 2023, Hira and Costa urged the Biden administration to seal the “outsourcing loophole” in the H-1B program by compelling companies hiring visa holders to submit labor condition applications and ensuring these workers are paid fair wages, to foster fair treatment across all workers.

Gunnels recalled how, nearly two decades ago when Sanders first entered Congress, he proposed an amendment to increase the fees companies must pay to employ H-1B guest workers, using these funds to sponsor scholarships for Americans studying science, engineering, and math. Although the amendment passed with a vote of 59-35, it was not enacted into law.

Earlier this month, Musk played a role in defeating a bipartisan budget deal that included a similar measure, Gunnels mentioned.

Last week, Musk argued that the H-1B visa program is essential due to a “permanent shortage of top-notch engineering talent” in the U.S. Meanwhile, billionaire entrepreneur Vivek Ramaswamy, appointed by Trump to head his proposed Department of Government Efficiency alongside Musk, lamented that U.S. culture has “long celebrated mediocrity over excellence,” and encouraged a future with “more math tutoring and fewer sleepovers, more weekend science competitions, and fewer Saturday morning cartoons.”

Krystal Ball, co-host of the online news show “Breaking Points,” pointed out that the conflict between Trump’s MAGA supporters and his big tech allies perpetuates two misleading narratives.

“Trumpism promotes the falsehood that your struggles are due to immigrants and trans individuals,” Ball stated. “Elon and Vivek propagate the classic GOP falsehood that if you’re struggling, it’s your own fault. The truth is, if you’re struggling, it’s likely because of billionaire moguls like Trump, Elon, and Vivek, who manipulate the system to their advantage at the expense of ordinary people.”

Former Ohio state Senator Nina Turner commented that the issue lies with American corporations, not workers, having a “culture problem.”

Turner expressed, “This narrative that American workers aren’t ‘motivated’ and have a ‘culture problem’ is quite revealing, coming from billionaire CEOs. What does ‘motivated’ mean to them? It appears to mean the threat of deportation.”

Contrasting the GOP’s recent narratives, Gunnels emphasized, “The issue isn’t the H-1B guest worker from India or the farmworker from Guatemala; it’s the oligarchs who became billionaires by exploiting workers, suppressing wages, and outsourcing jobs overseas.”