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United States Businesses

Trump Defends Foreign Worker Visas 368

President-elect Donald Trump has defended the H-1B visa program for skilled foreign workers. "I've always liked the visas. I have many H-1B visas on my properties... It's a great program," Trump told The New York Post.

His comments follow recent support for the program from Elon Musk and Vivek Ramaswamy. The H-1B program allows 85,000 skilled workers to immigrate annually, including 20,000 spots for those with U.S. advanced degrees. Trump's businesses have received approval to hire over 2,100 foreign workers since 2008, with about 70 positions through H-1B visas, mostly over a decade ago.

Trump Defends Foreign Worker Visas

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  • Profit (Score:5, Insightful)

    by fluffernutter ( 1411889 ) on Monday December 30, 2024 @04:17AM (#65049461)
    So I guess Trump only dislikes foreigners when they aren't profitable for him. Such a blatant example of the problem with having Trump as president. Helping him is first. Helping Musk is second. Helping everyone else is last.
    • Re:Profit (Score:4, Insightful)

      by 2TecTom ( 311314 ) on Monday December 30, 2024 @04:31AM (#65049485) Homepage Journal

      we the people get the governments we deserve, therefore we irresponsible, selfish, and unethical people get irresponsible, selfish and unethical governments

      greed will be our undoing, this is the inevitable result of classism and corruption

      • Re:Profit (Score:5, Insightful)

        by jd ( 1658 ) <imipak&yahoo,com> on Monday December 30, 2024 @07:56AM (#65049795) Homepage Journal

        Absolutely true. We choose those who reflect us. The politicians are the reflection of the voters.

        • by shanen ( 462549 ) on Monday December 30, 2024 @12:43PM (#65050693) Homepage Journal

          But y'all are saying that almost like it's some sort of accident. The essential paradox that is destroying (or that destroyed?) America is that the winners of the lotteries learned how to use a bit of their winnings to bribe the cheapest politicians to rig the games in their favor. Too many voters have been trained too poorly as far as reason and reality are concerned.

          Perhaps the most significant front was the attack on reason itself? At least that's how I interpret what happened to public education in America starting a long time ago, but most strongly escalated in the '80s by one super-hypocrite named William Bennett. (Apparently still alive, and last I heard he was still singing in praise of the orange puppet.)

          We can't get there from here? No, we really didn't want to go there and now it's too late to avoid the impact.

      • For some reason we always blame people that work for a living. Doesn't matter what it is it's always our fault.

        There are entire systems designed to prevent millions and millions of people from voting. None of these yahoos would be in power without those systems.

        America focuses too much on individuals and individual actions. I guess it's easier to get a grasp on than the systems that control our lives. Also it's really unpleasant to think about those systems.
        • by cob666 ( 656740 ) on Monday December 30, 2024 @09:08AM (#65049981)
          Of COURSE it's the fault of the people that actually voted for trump, that he's the incoming president, again. The simple fact that so many people who know that trump is a lying psychopath still voted for him because they kind of agree with one thing that he said, while ignoring everything else that HE SAID he was going to do, confirms that belief. Anyone that says they didn't really think that trump was going to try and sink the whole ship from day one was either not even listening to him or are even more ignorant or stupid than he is. And yes, trump is STUPID. Sure, he might have graduated from college and he might have some (it pains me to say this) actual knowledge of some subjects, anyone who rabidly insists that they 'know more than anyone' about any subject under the sun and constantly asserting that they can do anyone's job better than trained professionals, is an idiot.
          • Re: (Score:3, Insightful)

            by cmdr_klarg ( 629569 )

            Stupid? Nah, the Florida Orange Man isn't stupid. He is a sociopathic asshole narcissist convicted felon con man whose actions and speech was constantly sane-washed by right wing media. Couple that with the constant drumbeat of how horrible the Democrats are from that same RW media and you have a recipe for millions of low-information voters consistently voting against their own interests.

            Never mind the fact that 2/3rds of the electorate treat politics as a team sport (voting for whoever has an R or a D a

            • by cob666 ( 656740 )
              I like that, 'sane-washed'. I'm going to use that as it perfectly describes how the media supports trump.
            • Re: (Score:3, Insightful)

              There's two things that Democrats really should have done, which they did not and probably fucked them:

              1. Ignoring "right-wing media" completely, hoping that the complicit corporate "mainstream" New York Times, Washington Post, etc. would bail them out. NYT and WaPo did just as much sanewashing of Trump as anyone else, because their corporate overlords demanded it, and got it. These are the same corporate overlords now paying tribute to Trump via bullshit lawsuit settlements and "inaugural committee dona

          • by drinkypoo ( 153816 ) <drink@hyperlogos.org> on Monday December 30, 2024 @10:12AM (#65050189) Homepage Journal

            Of COURSE it's the fault of the people that actually voted for trump

            The people who stayed home pretending that we don't have a first past the post voting system share the blame.

            The people who don't revolt against our oligarchic system of government share the blame for allowing this situation to persist, it allowed him to become president.

            The people who buy products from the corporations who buy our political figures share the blame, they funded this.

            The people who voted for Trump deserve the most blame per capita, but there's ample blame to go around. Government doesn't work when The People take their hands off of the controls.

          • I'd actually blame some liberals, the ones driving teslas. Cal may have voted at the ballot box for Kamala, but with their wallet, it was all Musk, I mean Trump. There was never any doubt about how TX, CA, or any other numerous states would vote. But musk put his fat thumb on PA, MI, and a few other swing states. 300M worth of fat finger. And where did that 300M come from? Liberals buying teslas.
        • Re: (Score:3, Insightful)

          by 2TecTom ( 311314 )

          Left versus right is just divide and conquer while all our political parties are owned and controlled by upper class influences based on campaign contributions and political lobbying. It doesn't matter who we really vote for the government and our economic system are classist and corrupt anyways. Complicit and unethical people are easily lead and mislead.

      • by cob666 ( 656740 )

        we the people get the governments we deserve...

        Or more accurately; we the people get the government that the smallest majority voted for.

    • Re: (Score:3, Informative)

      by thinush ( 6673550 )
      Youre are thinking about illegal immigrants. H1B visa's are not for illegal immigrants.
      • by dfghjk ( 711126 )

        LOL the entire conversation is about whether they should be legal. If course they're immigrants. We're living in an Idiocracy.

      • But people took that to mean he would stop immigrants from competing for wages. Instead it sounds like he intends to change all illegal immigrants into h-1bs.
      • Re:Profit (Score:5, Insightful)

        by MightyMartian ( 840721 ) on Monday December 30, 2024 @08:39AM (#65049887) Journal

        Oh fuck me! For years this place has been populated by people making racist remarks about H1Bs and pretty much tarring them with exactly the same brush they're tarring illegal immigrants. So fuck off with the "H1Bs are like so totally different man", when you know goddamned well that American anti-immigrant sentiment extended to beneficiaries of this program as well.

      • Re:Profit (Score:5, Insightful)

        by supremebob ( 574732 ) <themejunky@gOOOe ... inus threevowels> on Monday December 30, 2024 @01:53PM (#65050897) Journal

        The H1-B visas were supposed to be for unique, highly skilled positions that were difficult to fill with the available US talent pool. What's really happening is that the big tech companies are using them to bring in cheap foreign labor that's willing to work for 30% less than the equivalent US employee.

        IBM was notorious for this... posting jobs for "Senior" system administrators with 10+ years experience in the New York area and only offering $60,000 a year for the position. No sane person who lived in the New York area would apply for those jobs, but that was fine for IBM because they had dozens of H1-B applicants lined up and ready to apply once they "couldn't fill" those roles. Judging from the people we actually got, it seems like most of them fibbed about their 10 years of experience, too.

    • by echo123 ( 1266692 ) on Monday December 30, 2024 @04:41AM (#65049507)

      It seems kinda odd Trump can't get American locals to work for him, cheap. I'm surprised he hasn't convinced MAGA to pay him to work at his 'resort' properties. So he hires temporary immigrant workers every 'season' at Maga-Lardo [washingtonpost.com].

      U.S. Citizen and Immigration Services’ guidelines allow U.S. employers to hire short-term, non-permanent foreign workers if “there are not enough U.S. workers who are able, willing, qualified and available to do the temporary work.” Foreign nationals from 87 countries are eligible to apply for these jobs via the federal government’s H-2B visa program. Businesses must petition the Department of Labor for permission to hire these workers, listing the number of vacancies they are looking to fill.

      Mar-A-Lago Sought 380 Foreign Workers During Time Trump Had Access To Classified Documents [forbes.com]

      Mar-a-Lago relies on foreign nationals to work as servers, cooks and housekeepers. In 2016, the club sought 65 foreign workers. The figure has increased every year since, with the exception of 2020, when the club shut down in the early days of the pandemic and furloughed more than 150 employees. Last winter, Mar-a-Lago sought out 91 foreign workers, according to records filed with the Department of Labor.

      The requirements listed on the job orders do not seem particularly strict. For example, the qualifications to be a housekeeper during the 2021 to 2022 season included three months of verifiable housekeeping experience and a drug and background check. The position also required the ability to communicate in English, maintain flexible hours and move 25 pounds. It paid $11.70 an hour.

    • by dfghjk ( 711126 )

      Quite the epiphany.

      And no, this isn't about Trump, he creates nothing so has no need for H1B. It's a bone.

    • Visa workers generally follow the rules and are easy to deport when the time comes. Why wouldn't you prefer them? The main issue are corporations abusing visa rules to undercut American wages.

      Trump doesn't seem to use the H1B program all that much, though.

    • So I guess Trump only dislikes foreigners when they aren't profitable for him.

      He doesn't hire [cnn.com] Americans to work at his failing properties, only foreigners [forbes.com]. In fact, as the first article indicates, he does the bare minimum to allow Americans to apply for any open positions, then refuses to hire any that do apply.

      It's almost as if he's replacing Americans with foreigners.

    • So I guess Trump only dislikes foreigners when they aren't profitable for him.

      Trump says what gets him elected. Do you really think he is against abortion? He used to be a democrat until it was more convenient to convert.

  • by crobarcro ( 6247454 ) on Monday December 30, 2024 @04:28AM (#65049481)
    Trump's been voted in now and no longer needs his MAGA morons.
    • Re: (Score:3, Insightful)

      by gtall ( 79522 )

      Well, he stills needs the Trad-Maggots as his brownshirts to threaten all the enemies only he sees.

      He's stuck, really. He's been selling off the government agency headships to the TechBro-Maggots and those in the Billionaires Club, all for juicy kickbacks to his "companies".

      The TechBro-Maggots argue that they bought el Bunko fair and square and that got him elected. So he must listen to them. The Trad-Maggots argue it is their xenophobia that that got him elected. So he must listen to them.

      When in doubt abo

    • Oh that would be gold if he just dumped them on the spot. But I doubt he would do that. He is going to wrap it all in typical Trump speak. But he better starts saying more than "it is great". MAGAs are hungry. You better feed them occasionally or they bite.
  • Just for the Record (Score:5, Informative)

    by gtall ( 79522 ) on Monday December 30, 2024 @04:34AM (#65049489)

    From: https://www.nytimes.com/2024/1... [nytimes.com] (but the facts can be acquired elsewhere):

    Both the H-1B and H-2 programs are overseen by the Department of Labor, which imposes different rules for each. The skilled worker program currently has a cap of 65,000 per year, a number that technology companies have pushed to increase.

    H-2B visas, which are for nonagricultural unskilled labor, are capped at 66,000, while H-2A visas, for agricultural workers, have no caps, but are limited to certain sectors of the industry.

    From 2003 to 2017, Mr. Trump’s companies were approved for more than 1,000 H-2 visas for jobs like cooks, housekeepers and waiters at his properties, including Mar-a-Lago in Palm Beach, Fla., and the Trump National Golf Club in Jupiter, Fla., Labor Department data show. In each instance, the companies had to attest that there were no American citizens who could perform those jobs.
    His companies continued to hire H-2 workers during his first presidential term, posting applications for visas for 78 housekeepers, cooks and food servers at Mar-a-Lago in mid-2018, for example.

    Currently Mr. Trump’s winery in Charlottesville, Va., is seeking 31 foreign vineyard farmworkers under the H-2A program, offering them $15.81 per hour.

    • There are 775,000 H1B visa holders in America. They are all basically guaranteed to get green cards too. The 65,000 is how many we bring in per year but we don't send them back every year. They're added to the running total.

      One of the things I keep hearing is that everything would be fine if we would just let the H1B's job hop. But in practice they can already do that. They just have to find another sponsor. Also companies do not want to fire H1B's. Look at Twitter they fired every single American and
  • In Australia, the large tech companies e.g Cisco offer Channel Partner discounts to MSPs, which have a certain number of Certified Cisco Engineers. Australian Universities and Technical Colleges do not really push Cisco certification as a must-have for students preferring to have their own degree/certificate programs. Now employees at Cisco TAC India, and other countries are trained on the job while they get paid to work at Cisco. They also get to sit their certification exams for free. Compare that to Univ
    • I can only comment on the lack of opportunities for those straight out of school. While I worked in London, I tried to push for some super junior hires. But unfortunately, we couldn't dedicate the time for training or mentoring.

      I figured we could train some university graduates who would love to land their first professional job.

      Me, I had to apply for dozens of jobs before landing my first one out of university. After that, I had close to a 100% success rate when applying for a new job. So seems to me that

  • by presearch ( 214913 ) on Monday December 30, 2024 @06:41AM (#65049671)

    The immigration angle has run its course, it worked, and got him elected.
    It was supposed to be over and done but Elon's dumb and talked.
    It's a distraction that Trump yeah, yeah, whatever-ed about.

    Trump's primary goal is locked-in access to the military.
    Then he can be king of the world, for a day.

    • For a day? He has been trying to erode democracy since his first presidency. It may be a long shot, but I give him 25% chance that we will be able to subvert the next election. Maybe by triggering a war involving China and Russia so that he can stay president under the guise of national defense. The thought is pretty scary.
  • by backslashdot ( 95548 ) on Monday December 30, 2024 @06:46AM (#65049681)

    Workers don't take jobs away they increase the amount of goods and services. If workers take away jobs, we should be asking people not have kids, because that creates more workers. I'm saying if the industry sector has an unemployment rate of say 4% or below for 2 years, we should be importing workers for that. IT is already one of the highest paying professions. Do we really need IT workers to be paid the same as brain surgeons? Sure if you're an IT worker you'd want that .. BUT if we did that .. that would affect US output. Less IT and software products and/or slower updates.

    • What good is it if America sells more goods and services if you neither get the reward from it in terms of higher wages, or cannot afford most of those goods and services yourself?
    • I'm saying if the industry sector has an unemployment rate of say 4% or below for 2 years, we should be importing workers for that.

      If a sector has low employment we should import workers? Isn't that backwards? Anyway, how are you measuring unemployment for an industry sector? Are you counting by people who used to be in a profession but aren't, and if so, how are you counting them — by some kind of poll that most of them aren't even seeing? Are you counting by how many jobs are unfilled when about half of IT job listings are fake and used only to collect data?

      We do not need to import more IT workers. We need for corporations to b

  • trump hired H-2B workers for cooks and servers at his golf clubs

  • There is no here in the U.S. that knows how to program? Or do they work cheaper?
    • Both. They are cheaper as it's cheaper to school. But also US does not have enough. There is an anti-science (anti-geek) cultural trend from elementary school up and also it's expensive to go through collage here, $30-50k/year in public universities (including living expenses in addition to tuition).


  • I foresee president Musk and his assitant Trump doing many great things to MAGA.

    So exciting to see racist white people use tech properly really.

    Can't wait until they chip them and get AI to throw the ones they dislike away - err I mean collect efficiency stats and remove low produtivity workers!
  • by nehumanuscrede ( 624750 ) on Monday December 30, 2024 @09:22PM (#65051905)

    Do try to remember that companies have been abusing the shit out of the H-1B system for decades.

    The blame can literally be placed at both Team Democrat and Team Republicans feet as neither of them
    have done absolutely anything to prevent the abuse of the system that is so rampant today.

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