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Trump to impose $100k fee for H-1B worker visas, White House says

(www.reuters.com)
1245 points mriguy | 1 comments | 19 Sep 25 19:59 UTC | HN request time: 0.226s | source
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roughly ◴[19 Sep 25 20:40 UTC] No.45306289[source]▶
I think there’s plenty of interesting debates to be had about immigration policy and its effects on the labor market, but one thing worth noting here is that the primary problem that damn near every other country on earth has isn’t immigration, it’s brain drain.

A core strategic strength of the US over the last century has been that everyone with any talent wants to come here to work, and by and large we’ve let them do so. You can argue how well that’s worked out for us - having worked with a great many extremely talented H1bs in an industry largely built by immigrants, I’d consider it pretty positive - but it damn sure hasn’t worked out well for the countries those talented folks came from.

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davidw ◴[19 Sep 25 21:01 UTC] No.45306532[source]▶
As always, so much zero-sum thinking in all these discussions.

Often, the person may not have been as productive, happy, or well compensated in their own country.

Also, over time, some of those people make money in the US and take that, their knowledge and skills and go back home to share there. Everyone is better off.

I was discussing this elsewhere, and dug up something I wrote 11 years ago, and I think I'm still pretty happy with it:

https://journal.dedasys.com/2014/12/29/people-places-and-job...

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ericmay ◴[19 Sep 25 21:05 UTC] No.45306591[source]▶
> Also, over time, some of those people make money in the US and take that, their knowledge and skills and go back home to share there. Everyone is better off.

How are Americans better off in this scenario?

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Wilduck ◴[19 Sep 25 21:39 UTC] No.45306974[source]▶
A few ways:

1. An American company benefited from their labor

2. American consumers benefited from the goods / services they contributed to providing

3. American citizens benefited from the services provided by the taxes they pay

4. Other American businesses benefited from their patronage

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1. varispeed ◴[19 Sep 25 21:59 UTC] No.45307210[source]▶
You are missing alternative costs of the fact that more people compete for the same resources, Americans get much lower ROI for their education, it hollows domestic expertise. Companies become dependent on foreign workers. Local jobs pay less, people have less money to pay for products and services.

Short term - shareholders win, long term - everyone loses except the country of origin, where they can bring the knowledge back and develop their economy.

It's like outsourcing, just the foreign workers are onshore.