#h1-b visas

[tomorrowusa]

Elon Musk REALLY IS sounding more like a James Bond villain. Seriously.

We all know that Musk is a mega-rich narcissistic megalomaniac who is promoting his own version of eugenics and has a goal of colonizing Mars. That's pretty weird by itself. But now he is actually using the sort of language we'd hear from some nefarious nemesis of 007.

The Independent reports that Musk recently posted this...

"Take a big step back and F*** YOURSELF in the face. I will go to war on this issue the likes of which you cannot comprehend."

That's over the top even for a James Bond villain.

Musk wasn't aiming that comment at some "lib" he was trying to own, but at MAGA immigration hardliners. There is apparently a MAGA civil war over the use of H1-B work visas. Who knew that Musk was pro-immigration? (Oh wait, he's an immigrant who is a citizen of three countries.)

Trump ally and werewolf lookalike Steve Bannon called Musk a "toddler" – which is probably the way many of us would describe his idol Donald Trump.

Read the full article from The Independent.

Steve Bannon mocks ‘toddler’ Elon Musk after he tells X user to ‘f*** yourself’ over visa bust-up

[ivovynckier]

Is this the hole for the H-1B visas?

[euginemicah]

Elon Musk vows 'war' over H-1B visas in rift with Trump supporters

WEST PALM BEACH, FLORIDA —  Elon Musk, the billionaire CEO of Tesla and SpaceX, vowed to go to “war” to defend the H-1B visa program for foreign tech workers late Friday amid a dispute between President-elect Donald Trump’s longtime supporters and his most recently acquired backers from the tech industry. In a post on social media platform X, Musk said, “The reason I’m in America along with so…

[journeyjottings]

H-1B visa holders who moved to Canada on special work permits can now sponsor dependents

The Canadian government introduced a new work permit program for H-1B visa holders from the United States, effective July 16, 2023. The permit allows current H-1B visa holders to work in Canada and potentially pursue permanent residency based on their qualifications.

Immigration, Refugees, and Citizenship Canada (IRCC) has allocated a special stream for 10,000 US H-1B visa holders, aiming to provide them with more secure and long-term prospects compared to the United States. The work permit was met with an extraordinary amount of interest; in just the first day, the 10,000 available permits were taken.

In March 2024, Canada announced that it would be processing a number of H-1B visa holders who applied for the pilot project before the deadline but were not granted work permits due to the declared cap.

Dependents of H-1B visa holders can also now benefit from this initiative. Work permit holders can sponsor dependents for work, study or visit in Canada.

Who can apply

To qualify, you must be the spouse, common-law partner or dependent child of an H-1B visa holder applicant

currently live in the US. If you’re not eligible to come to Canada under this policy, you may qualify as a family member of a highly skilled worker .

Applications for open work permits for dependents must be submitted by September 27, 2024, while there is no deadline for visitor or student applications.

Family members of H-1B visa holder applicants who’ve already applied may be eligible to apply for any of the following:

temporary resident visa (TRV)

study permit

open work permit

How to Apply for a TRV or Study Permit as a Family Member of an H-1B Applicant

If you are a family member of an H-1B visa holder who has already applied for a Canadian work permit, you can apply for a Temporary Resident Visa (TRV) or study permit through the IRCC Portal.

Steps to Apply for a Visitor Visa (TRV) or Study Permit

1. Access the IRCC Portal: Begin your application by accessing the IRCC Portal.

Follow General Application Steps: For a visitor visa, follow the standard procedures outlined by IRCC. For a study permit, adhere to the general guidelines provided by IRCC.

Answer Key Question: During the application process, you will encounter a question that helps IRCC confirm your status as a family member of an H-1B visa applicant who has already applied. It is crucial to answer this question exactly as instructed. Failing to answer this question correctly may lead to delays or refusal of your application. Ensure all information provided is accurate and complete. This helps IRCC verify your connection to the H-1B applicant. Incorrect or incomplete applications can result in delays or refusal. Pay close attention to all instructions and double-check your responses.

Source: THE ECONOMIC TIMES

[azspot]

It's all fun and game to watch MAGA at war, we deserve the holiday cheer. But voters don't care about intricacies of H1-B visas; we must talk MAGA's about impact on lives & livelihoods. Ridiculing Trump et al for their incompetence, highlighting their crimes & engendering revulsion for their agenda.

Anat Shenker-Osorio

[poipoipoi-2016]

Here's an H1B visa stat for you: Last year, the top 30 H-1B visa employers laid off 84,556 people at the same time as they sought 34,414 new H1-B foreign workers. This includes firms such as Tesla.

[eternal-echoes]

I don’t even disagree with the criticism of the expansion of the H1-B visa thing but it’s a sad state of affairs that some conservatives are more mad about that than Trump compromising on abortion.

It’s evidence how the culture of death has infiltrated the party that’s meant to be pro-family.

[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).

[aspiringbelle]

Trump's war on immigration has left millions of job vacancies (many of which companies won't fill), and soured many immigrants about living in the USA. Other countries are stepping in to take advantage of it. Will Biden change anything? Will Congress?

@allthecanadianpolitics

(As an aside, one person in here is from my hometown.)

[unaffiliatedpangolin]

H1-B visa is a way to import third worlders and place them in positions that rightfully belong to Americans.

It also denies opportunities for Americans to gain the skills and experience for those positions. Why spend time educating, training, and building up an American when you can just import a foreigner?

[lostsemicolon]

The only reason Trump is talking about invading Canada or renaming the Gulf of Mexico is because he got caught out by his sudden unexpected H1-B visa support as soon as Musk voiced support for it giving credence to the idea that Musk is in the driver's seat and has Trump by the balls.

He's jingling keys for the media and they're stupid enough to fall for it.

[beardedmrbean]

He took his own type of shot.

Comedian Roy Wood Jr. took a jab at former CNN host Don Lemon while he appeared on the network’s annual New Year’s Eve show with Anderson Cooper and Andy Cohen in Times Square.

An ecstatic Cohen offered drinks to his guests but Wood refused to participate in CNN’s once-banned celebration.

“Does anybody want a shot,” Cohen asked as he held up a bottle of tequila.

Wood’s “Have I Got News For You” co-stars Michael Ian Black and Amber Ruffin accepted the offer while Wood subtly joked about Lemon’s firing.

“No I don’t,” Wood said. “The last black man to drink on this network got fired.”

Wood said he would “stick with water for now,” as he needs “stability.”

The “Watch What Happens Live” host awkwardly ignored the offhand comment by changing the topic and Cooper removed his glasses and wiped his face — all while Wood smirked at his joke.

Wood’s swipe at the former cable news host comes after Lemon was fired from the network in 2023.

The comedian used Lemon’s firing as the target of a joke during the 2023 White House Correspondents’ Dinner, saying the ousted CNN host was kicked out because “Lemon can’t even accurately report a story about Don Lemon.”

The two men later made amends on “The Don Lemon Show.”

Lemon was known to get rowdy during his appearances on the network’s end-of-the-year show.

In 2016, an inebriated Lemon got his ear pierced live on air after the ball dropped in Midtown.

In 2021, the now-58-year-old declared himself a “grown-a– man” who was “able to share my point of view on television and it freaks people out and you know what.”

Former CNN CEO Chris Licht pulled the plug on on-air talents getting boozy on air following Lemon’s antics — outside of Cooper and Cohen.

Lemon’s highly publicized ouster came as a surprise to the anchor, who blasted the network for not telling him of the firing, instead relying on his agent to break the news.

“I was informed this morning by my agent that I have been terminated by CNN. I am stunned after 17 years at CNN I would have thought that someone in management would have the decency to tell me directly,” Lemon wrote at the time.

Lemon now hosts “The Don Lemon Show,” which is posted to social media, but has still gotten into hot water over his remarks.

The 58-year-old went on an expletive-laden rant Monday over the MAGA world flare-up over H1-B visas for specialty workers.

“Oh my gosh, I love this. Now you’re finding out, you dumb f–king idiots. Now you’re just figuring this s–t out. You’re so f–king stupid, and you deserve it. And you f–king deserve it because you’re so dumb,” Lemon sneered.