#H1B Visas

[rejectingrepublicans]

[socialjusticeinamerica]

[justinspoliticalcorner]

Oliver Willis at Daily Kos:

Billionaire Trump donor Elon Musk and Trump’s travel partner and conservative activist Laura Loomer, who has embraced and promoted a host of racist notions, are in a public feud about immigration. The argument has received support on both sides, exposing another early division in the MAGA coalition.

The dispute began after Loomer complained on X about Donald Trump’s decision to name Sriram Krishnan adviser of AI in his upcoming administration. Loomer quoted a post in which Krishnan advocated for removing green card per-country caps for skilled immigrants.  “It’s alarming to see the number of career leftists who are now being appointed to serve in Trump’s admin when they share views that are in direct opposition to Trump’s America First agenda,” she said. Loomer, who has described herself as an “Islamophobe” who supports “pro-white nationalism,” went on to describe Krishnan and others like him as advocates for foreign students coming to the United States to “take jobs that should be given to American STEM students.”

Later, Musk argued in favor of providing more visas to tech workers while responding to an X user expressing sympathy with Loomer’s position. “The number of people who are super talented engineers AND super motivated in the USA is far too low,” he said.  Responding to another X user calling for a more restrictive visa policy, Musk said, “Your understanding of the situation is upside-down and backwards,” arguing that there is a “dire shortage of extremely talented and motivated engineers in America.” 

Vivek Ramaswamy, who Trump named co-chair of the Department of Government Efficiency along with Musk, chimed in to argue that “American culture has venerated mediocrity over excellence for way too long.” “A culture that celebrates the prom queen over the math olympiad champ, or the jock over the valedictorian, will not produce the best engineers,” he said. [...] After Loomer’s X account was reportedly suspended and her ability to recruit subscribers limited, she alleged that Musk made the changes in retaliation to her criticisms of Krishnan and Trump backers in the tech industry who support bringing in more immigrant workers.

[...] The feud has exposed a schism between two of the key groups of the Trump constituency: anti-immigrant racists and billionaire tech executives who seek to cut spending on social good while pushing tax cuts for the wealthy.

MAGA-on-MAGA violence between the Musk/Ramaswamy/Tech Bros faction and the Loomer faction has brewed over H1B Visas and immigration more generally.

See Also:

The Status Kuo: Just Don’t Come for MY Immigrants!

Pepperspectives: MAGA Infighting

[onenakedfarmer]

[muddypolitics]

Bernie weighs in on H1B visas.

[ivovynckier]

Regarding the H-1B visas, I was inclined to believe Elon Musk. Until I heard a vague rumor that such an immigrant might have eaten a pet in Springfield.

[kree8r0]

Why are GOP voters suddenly alarmed about the stances on H1-B workers?

This post is a response to a question posed in its complete format: “Why are GOP voters suddenly alarmed about Ramaswamy’s and Musk’s stances about H1-B workers compared to locally sourced ones? Weren’t they supporting them and voting knowing that these men would be involved in policy-making directly or indirectly?” None of their supporters were interested in the sausages their leaders intended…

[republicansaredomesticterrorists]

[silvermoon424]

Sometimes the only thing that keeps me going in this joke of a country is the schadenfreude Trump supporters keep supplying me with.

I like to think of myself as a kind person, and I can be empathetic to a fault sometimes. I would also be totally lying if I said I wasn't thoroughly enjoying seeing all the Trump voters who are finally starting to question whether or not their billionaire daddies Trump and Musk actually have their best interests at heart.

Like right now there's that debate going on about H1B visas; Elon Musk has openly and repeatedly stated his desire to exploit the labor of immigrants because it's so much cheaper than American labor. Trump seems to be backing him up. And everywhere I go Trumpers being like "wow, I had no idea Trump would sell American workers out!!! Very disappointed in him."

Literally how many times does this man have to hit you in the fucking face and spit in your mouth before you finally catch on that he doesn't care about you at all, lmao. I'm genuinely embarrassed for you that you keep putting up with this.

[asagi-asagiri]

The only reform H1B visas need are Permanent exclusion from applying to citizenship. That’s it. You don’t need caps on the numbers.

[republikkkanorcs]

[rejectingrepublicans]

Even less class than Trump.

[socialjusticeinamerica]

🖕🤡

[justinspoliticalcorner]

Noah Berlatsky at Public Notice:

Donald Trump hasn’t even been inaugurated yet, and his leading supporters are already tearing at each other’s throats like a pack of frothing and foul-smelling Klansmen over whether there are any good immigrants. “Take a big step back and F**K YOURSELF in the face,” Elon Musk tweeted Friday night in defense of immigrants who worked for him, in response to a Trump supporter with a more hardline view. The spectacle of billionaire Musk, techbro Vivek Ramaswamy, would-be Goebbels Steve Bannon, and gibbering Islamophobe and Trump-whisperer Laura Loomer all screaming and bellowing at each other is entertaining in a morbid way. Acrimony is inevitable in a coalition held together by bile, hatred, and racism. And if Democrats can get their act together, they may well be able to take advantage of MAGA dissension. At the same time, it’s important not to not over-interpret the intra-Trumper feud. Racism is a lie, which means it’s always incoherent — and racist coalitions often therefore end up fighting amongst themselves about who’s in the in group and who gets targeted by the regime. But historically, these arguments at the margins have often coexisted with massive human rights abuses. Ramaswamy and Bannon may disagree about the exact trajectory of MAGA. But they can still come together to hurt a lot of people — and that is exactly what they will try to do.

For MAGA, all bigotry is not created equal

This week’s round of MAGA on MAGA violence was ignited by Loomer, who was most recently in the news for her oddly close relationship to Trump in the weeks following the Butler shooting. On December 23, Loomer attacked Sriram Krishnan, who Trump selected as an advisor on artificial intelligence, criticizing his support for H-1B visas. H-1Bs allow highly skilled workers to come to the US to work and are especially prevalent in tech, where they’re used by many Indian and Chinese engineers. Loomer tweeted that support for H-1Bs was “not America First policy."

Musk, CEO of twitter/X, Telsa, and SpaceX, has claimed to have worked in the US on an H1-B visa himself — though there is some dispute about that — and he pushed back hard against Loomer. “There is a permanent shortage of excellent engineering talent. It is the fundamental limiting factor in Silicon Valley," Musk tweeted on Christmas. Then Ramaswamy — co-leader with Musk of Trump’s much-hyped Department of Government Efficiency — poured fuel on the fire. He tweeted that tech companies need to hire foreign workers because “our American culture has venerated mediocrity over excellence.” He went on to sneer that America “celebrates the prom queen over the math olympiad champ” and suggested Americans who have trouble getting tech jobs are “wallowing in victimhood.” In short, Ramaswamy smeared all Americans, including Trump-supporting white Americans, as lazy and mediocre — tropes usually associated with anti-Black racism. Loomer, for her part, told Musk he had only supported Trump to “protect your buddy Xi JinPing [sic].” Far right pundit Ann Coulter jumped in, arguing that Musk and Ramaswamy only wanted foreign workers because they have few labor protections and are effectively “indentured servants.” (That’s a point progressive critics have made as well.) Musk responded by calling opponents of H-1Bs “contemptible fools” and “hateful, unrepentant racists.” He also appears to have demonetized the accounts of Loomer and other rightwing critics — prompting Bannon to call Musk a “toddler.” Finally, Trump returned from the golf course on Saturday and made a policy statement. Though he’s harshly criticized the H-1B program in the past, he reversed himself and said “it’s a great program.” So Musk seems to have won for now, though who knows what Trump will say next week.

Racism is stupid

Josh Marshall of Talking Points Memo pointed out that the MAGA spat is the inevitable outcome of “Trump’s deep-seated and extreme transactionalism.” Indeed, Trump has few real policy commitments beyond self-aggrandizement and revenge. Various people — Musk, Loomer, Bannon, RFK Jr., whoever — glommed onto Trump for fame or fortune or to advance their own agendas. Now they have to fight among themselves because Trump himself doesn’t really care enough to impose a vision, much less any kind of discipline.

[...]

It should be no surprise, then, that past racist regimes had similar debates about who to target and who to exempt. For instance, in 1933, when the Nazis issued legislation to exclude Jewish people from the civil service, President Hindenburg objected strongly. He declared that excluding “my old Front soldiers” who happened to be Jewish was “utter anathema to me.” He added, “if [Jewish soldiers] were worthy of being called up to fight and bleed for Germany, they ought also to be seen as worthy of remaining in their professions to serve the Fatherland.”

Hindenburg won that fight — Jewish veterans, including those with a father or son killed in action in World War I, were exempted from expulsion.

Hitler had a much more thoroughgoing investment in ideology than Trump, to put it mildly. But even he had to negotiate initially with members of his coalition. Hitler believed that all Jewish people were enemies of the state, but that notion didn’t jibe with Hindenburg’s lived experience. Racism was incoherent and unconvincing, which meant there was no real principled ground for absolute dictats. So someone with more power like Hindenburg could force Hitler to compromise.

MAGA-on-MAGA violence over H1-B Visas has spilled over into racist attacks by the same people who make racist attacks against people of color on the daily (looking at you, Vivek Ramaswamy and Elon Musk).

[onenakedfarmer]

Promises made, promises ... eh, what promises?

[squishyproductions]

For those who don't know, H1B is a specific type of visa that allows high skilled foreign workers to come and live in America to do the job in which they are skilled in.

This status is reliant on them keeping their job. Which means they'll accept less pay, more hours, and worse conditions because who wants to be deported? They're also far less likely to speak out or whistle blow. ;) Just in case anyone mistakes Elmo's stance as some sort of altruism. He depends on these people for cheap quiet labor.

But these are immigrants none the less and the xenophobic and racist fascists aren't about to make exceptions for them in their Great American Purge.

Several fascists, including Laura Loomer, who have been openly against H1B have had their accounts on Twitter attacked by Elmo with bans, shadow bans, blue check removal, and demonetization.

Which of course will be cheered by Elmo's dick riders in the same breathe that they laud him for Twitter being a haven of "free speech".