If you’re a foreigner and you want to come to America on a work visa, a popular method is to get an H1B visa. However, Donald Trump has seen that some companies are abusing this program and decided to punish everyone because, well, if you say the Immigration Ban, he’s into that sorta thing. Punishing everyone because, frankly, he doesn’t know what he’s doing.
That said, there are companies that are frequently bringing people into the United States via the H1B work visa program whose sole job description is to create transitions of U.S. jobs to other countries. In other words, they spend all day figuring out ways to outsource jobs back to the country they came from. To be more clear, they come here through our program that allows them to come here and then they take our jobs away. So, these outsourcing companies are clearly not good. Some are Tata Consulting, Cognizant, and Infosys. Infosys is wonderful. I was shocked to find out they are behaving in this manner. However, it does need to stop. The picking away at America until it is weak enough to be controlled is so abusive when what we do to other countries might be considered control but our sole purpose is to encourage those countries to give all that control to everyone in the country.
Trump has an initiative called “Buy American — Hire American.” You can imagine what it means. Pretty clear. This was an executive order written to direct his administration to figure out ways to fix the problem, and there are many solutions that think tanks, congresspeople, and others have proposed.
Lottery System
Trump says he thinks it’s totally unfair to have a lottery system and that maybe it should be based on merit. So that’s his suggestion. I don’t necessary agree because there’s not a whole lot you can do to judge the merits of each individual person, especially because visas are given to the employer who submits an application with sparse information. Even if there were tons of details, what would you do to say that the 352nd applicant’s merits are higher than the 353rd?
Doubling the Minimum Salary
This might be okay in some ways. Pragmatically, it works for now because American companies operated in America pay a higher salary than foreign companies in America, preventing those foreign companies from offering jobs that qualify. That wouldn’t fit the business model of hiring way under the average salary and then sending those employees back to India, where many of them come from, including at Tata, Cognizant, and Infosys. This may also prevent American companies from paying H1B visa holders much less than American employees, leads to a discriminatory pay gap that is wholly intolerable, if you ask me. So this could be a decent one. The problem comes when there’s a braindrain, but I honestly think, if we’re given the opportunity, American wants to work. I don’t believe the idea spread by foreigners and many in America that Americans are lazy and stupid and don’t want to lift a finger.
Allocating 20% of Visas to Small Companies and Startups
This seems to be one that isn’t necessarily mutually exclusive from the others. Also, I think it could be worth it. This may solve part of the braindrain problem if done in concert with doubling the minimum salary. Since it would be helping startups, it would encourage incubators. Since it would be helping small companies, however, it could be allowing foreign companies with less than 50 people to have more than 50% of their employees be H1B visa holders. Only companies over 50 must stay under 50%. Ultimately, small-business is defined by number of employees and not number of assets, which means there’s a strong possibility of firms having more than 50% H1B visa holders for companies that control a very large portion of their industry. This could occur in financial services, especially, or the field of FinTech, which is becoming quite popular. App developers could also be quite small but earn tons of money. Therefore, I’m not sure this is the best, but it’s only 20% and in conjunction with another change, it would certainly be a step in the right direction.
Removing Per-Country Caps
This seems like an asinine idea, which of course means Trump is going to do it. He’s an idiot. Let’s be clear about that. Large countries are already dominating the visa program, including India, China, and others. Removing the caps will only make it worse. This will only allow these countries to have an even higher percentage of the total visas. Furthermore, removing per-country caps will reduce the number of industries that utilize the program, reducing growth in these industries, because certain countries focus mostly one or a couple industries, mainly IT. Furthermore, I don’t see how this would help the outsourcing problem. Overall, I’d rate this idea either an F if I’m sure I know what I’m talking about or at most a C if I’ve literally never studied anything about anything. It solves nothing.
Give Preference To Students Graduating From U.S. Universities
Not to save the most incalculable for last, but the efficacy of this one, I think, is quite hard to determine. What giving preference entirely means isn’t easy to determine, but this it the least of it. For one thing, it would be hard to determine how successful this program would be until the first round of new freshman after the program changes graduate from U.S. universities.
First of all, universities have a lot of influence on the number of international students that enter their programs. They can reduce tuition, help students find more scholarships, and otherwise find savings for students that may be less willing to study in the United States due to a lesser chance of getting a visa to stay and work. That will offset the number of international students that could have been lost due to this preference.
Also, it should be clear that the number of international students and the number of Americans are related to one another. There are a limited number of spots on a roster, and when the number of international students goes down, the number of Americans is likely to go up. However, given the cost savings that can be found and the ability to market to international students in a way that will encourage them to take that additional risk, including offering degree programs that start in their home country for a couple years and then finish in the United States and earn a U.S. degree, among many other options, it’s clear that international students will likely keep coming.
The result is that international students will still make up the same percentage of the total student population. So what’s the problem with this? We’re emphasizing “Hire American” to get more American workers, but we’re not graduating more American workers. International competitiveness is worse because more of those international students are going back to their home countries or another country. Also, while unemployment may drop because there’s a greater chance Americans will find a job if you sway preference away from the few students who can’t get U.S. degrees even by going to a U.S. universities totally abroad or through some other option perhaps not even yet created, the number of jobs that need to be filled is still a goal that we won’t be able to meet.
In other words, the unemployment may go down, but the number of people actually able to do certain jobs, whether they find a job or not, is the same because we aren’t regulating the percentage of students that can be international students. For example, at my alma mater, George Washington, the Masters of Accountancy program’s international student population is majority Chinese. Whether they stay in the United States or not, there are very few Americans in the program. So, if the Chinese people leave, there aren’t more jobs Americans from that program can fill because Americans weren’t in the program to begin with. Also, the MBA program seems to have students from and send students to Cognizant quite often, with Tata a close second. Therefore, I think it’s better to look at the issue from an earlier point in time, before they even apply to be a student here, not just after graduation.
There’s something to be said about doing this in conjunction with the doubling the minimum salary. It’s possible this could hold down the proportion of the student population who are international students because universities unfortunately focus so much of the admissions process on whether the student will get a job because it affects the universities’ ratings. If they’re not going to be able to get a job, then universities may not admit them. If H1B visas are only allowed if a company pays double what they pay now, then recruiting at universities that have a high international student ratio will go down. Companies will tell universities who they are looking for. If the cost of the H1B program per applicant isn’t reduced and the salary is increased, companies may actually start to “hire American.” If that affects admissions, then there may be a higher ratio of American students in the classroom.
Overall, I think this could work, but there’d have to be a close eye on how universities respond and regulations to guide them down a path that doesn’t completely wipe out what these changes to the H1B program are trying to induce. Doing this while also doubling the minimum salary, therefore, seems like the only way to know today whether this particular change will actually work in the future.
So, what do I think Trump will do?
I think he’ll remove per-country caps, allocate some percentage of visas to small business and startups, and also increase the minimum salary but by much less than double. Regarding the last one, it’s possible he’d keep it at double and provide huge tax breaks for companies that comply with his demands.
This may be okay. We may get more American jobs, but we really need to keep an eye on the universities. If not, it could score political points and be yet another policy determined to be a failure only after that determination can’t limit the powers of the people who would benefit from people thinking the program is so great. In other words, politicians can use this in a reelection campaign for at least one additional term. Trump could, too, but he can’t be reelected. He just can’t. We said that about his chances the first time, but at this point, c’mon.
So what should we do?
Well, if you’re a university, don’t mess with what’s going on. If you’re a university, don’t invoke various money-centric duties that ‘require’ you to do ‘what’s best for the university.’ Get with the program. Help your country. Stop being selfish.
What can the average citizen do? You can call your Congressperson to demand that the data on the success of these changes to the H1B program be made public and often. We need to see whether it’s working. We need to know before the elections in 2018 whether the campaigns being run based on the idea of this program being successful actually have the data to back it up. Congress has the power to demand periodic updates on the success of the program, and the American people have the power to tell our representatives to demand that so that we can make an informed decision on 2018.
So call your Congressperson. Tell them you want to see the data on whether these changes are actually going to help give jobs to Americans, reduce unemployment and underemployment, and actually fill the jobs that need to be filled to continue moving our economy forward. Focus on that last one in particular. If you think you can get them to listen, talk to them about the universities, as well. That’s where I think this issue lies.
Keep working hard. This is not something simply to protest. We need to actively manage this one as citizens and follow up often. If we’re allowed to see the numbers, it’ll be easy to know if it’s working.
Stay strong. We can do this. Force your representatives to give us the data on this one early and often.