H-1B Visa Issue Explodes Into Raging Debate on Social Media

"Will Donald Trump side with Silicon Valley and push for H-1B visas? Or will he do his best to protect American workers from abuse of the visa system?"

The Christmas holiday presented Americans with an unlikely and unfamiliar controversy: The H-1B visa program.

DOGE advisers Vivek Ramaswamy and Elon Musk kicked off the explosive debate with posts that triggered backlash from a large number of MAGA allies.

Additional commentary by RFK Junior’s running mate Nicole Shanahan and Georgia firebrand Marjorie Taylor Greene has kept the issue on the front burner.

Even Laura Loomer and the MAGA faithful got caught up in the crossfire.

Here's a breakdown of the controversy, the arguments, and the facts about the H-1B visa program.

First, a quick overview. The H-1B is a “temporary (nonimmigrant) visa category that allows employers to petition for highly educated foreign professionals to work in ‘specialty occupations’ that require at least a bachelor’s degree or the equivalent,” as described by the American Immigration Council.

“Jobs in fields such as mathematics, engineering, technology, and medical sciences often qualify. Typically, the initial duration of an H-1B visa classification is three years, which may be extended for a maximum of six years,” the AIC adds.

Before an employer can file a petition with USCIS, the employer must take steps to ensure that hiring the foreign worker will not harm U.S. workers.

• Employers first must attest, on a labor condition application (LCA) certified by the Department of Labor (DOL), that employment of the H-1B worker will not adversely affect the wages and working conditions of similarly employed U.S. workers.

• Employers must also provide existing workers with notice of their intention to hire an H-1B worker.

DOGE co-chair Vivek Ramaswamy recently kicked the hornet’s nest with a viral post that blamed American culture as part of the reason for the widespread use of the H-1B visa system.

The reason top tech companies often hire foreign-born & first-generation engineers over “native” Americans isn’t because of an innate American IQ deficit (a lazy & wrong explanation). A key part of it comes down to the c-word: culture. Tough questions demand tough answers & if we’re really serious about fixing the problem, we have to confront the TRUTH:

Our American culture has venerated mediocrity over excellence for way too long (at least since the 90s and likely longer). That doesn’t start in college, it starts YOUNG.

A culture that celebrates the prom queen over the math olympiad champ, or the jock over the valedictorian, will not produce the best engineers.

A culture that venerates Cory from “Boy Meets World,” or Zach & Slater over Screech in “Saved by the Bell,” or ‘Stefan’ over Steve Urkel in “Family Matters,” will not produce the best engineers.

(Fact: I know *multiple* sets of immigrant parents in the 90s who actively limited how much their kids could watch those TV shows precisely because they promoted mediocrity…and their kids went on to become wildly successful STEM graduates).

More movies like Whiplash, fewer reruns of “Friends.” More math tutoring, fewer sleepovers. More weekend science competitions, fewer Saturday morning cartoons. More books, less TV. More creating, less “chillin.” More extracurriculars, less “hanging out at the mall.”

Most normal American parents look skeptically at “those kinds of parents.” More normal American kids view such “those kinds of kids” with scorn. If you grow up aspiring to normalcy, normalcy is what you will achieve.

Now close your eyes & visualize which families you knew in the 90s (or even now) who raise their kids according to one model versus the other. Be brutally honest.

“Normalcy” doesn’t cut it in a hyper-competitive global market for technical talent. And if we pretend like it does, we’ll have our asses handed to us by China.

This can be our Sputnik moment. We’ve awaken from slumber before & we can do it again. Trump’s election hopefully marks the beginning of a new golden era in America, but only if our culture fully wakes up. A culture that once again prioritizes achievement over normalcy; excellence over mediocrity; nerdiness over conformity; hard work over laziness.

That’s the work we have cut out for us, rather than wallowing in victimhood & just wishing (or legislating) alternative hiring practices into existence. I’m confident we can do it.

This viral post about the once-obscure H-1B visa topic drew a massive 87 million views as of publication.

The reception wasn’t all positive: MAGA supporters fired back at Ramaswamy.

“Do I really need to start listing American inventors and what the world wouldn’t have without us?” the pundit Catturd remarked.

The Woodstock generation managed to build out aerospace, the one before went to the moon, America was doing great,” Mike Cernovich said. “Underlying your post is that we were all living in squalor until being rescued by H-1B’s. Then why did everyone want to come here?”

“Turns out the ‘waste’ that DOGE wanted to cut from America was Americans,” Auron McIntyre quipped.

Some pointed out that Ramaswamy had used the H-1B visa program 29 times when he ran a business, and then vowed to end the program if elected president.

This is from a Politico article in 2023 that stated Ramaswamy’s view that the H-1B visa program was like “indentured servitude”:

GOP candidate Vivek Ramaswamy has vowed to “gut” the system for H-1B temporary worker visas if he wins the White House.

It’s the very system he’s used in the past to hire high-skilled foreign workers for the pharma company that built much of his wealth.

From 2018 through 2023, U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services approved 29 applications for Ramaswamy’s former company, Roivant Sciences, to hire employees under H-1B visas, which allow U.S. companies to employ foreign workers in tech and other specialized jobs.

Yet, the H-1B system is “bad for everyone involved,” Ramaswamy told POLITICO.

“The lottery system needs to be replaced by actual meritocratic admission. It’s a form of indentured servitude that only accrues to the benefit of the company that sponsored an H-1B immigrant. I’ll gut it,” he said in a statement, adding that the U.S. needs to eliminate chain-based migration.

“The people who come as family members are not the meritocratic immigrants who make skills-based contributions to this country.”

Fellow DOGE leader Elon Musk attempted to clarify the position of the group.

Maybe this is a helpful clarification: I am referring to bringing in via legal immigration the top ~0.1% of engineering talent as being essential for America to keep winning.

This is like bringing in the Jokic’s or Wemby’s of the world to help your whole team (which is mostly Americans!) win the NBA.

Thinking of America as a pro sports team that has been winning for a long time and wants to keep winning is the right mental construct.

The statistics, however, do not back up that this is what is going on. A 2024 American Immigration Council article cited USCIS numbers to give a picture of H-1B visas.

Here are the total H-1B recipients for recent fiscal years.

Statistics further show that the great majority of H-1B visa recipients hail from two large nations that compete with the United States: India and China.

Indians constitute nearly 75% of all H-1B visa recipients, while China is nearly 12%. No other nation has more than one percent of H-1B visas.

The overwhelming number of H-1B visa recipients work in technical fields.

But here’s the kicker: There’s a major difference between the median pay of workers in the tech field versus H-1 B visa holders.

There is also a big difference between the Trump administration and other presidential administration is that H-1B visa denials went up drastically on his watch.

Donald Trump himself has shown a high degree of skepticism towards the H-1B visa program.

Trump said in 2016: “I remain totally committed to eliminating rampant, widespread H-1B abuse and ending outrageous practices..."

“I will end forever the use of the H-1B as a cheap labor program, and institute an absolute requirement to hire American workers first for every visa and immigration program,” he added. “No exceptions.”

Now, it looks like the first major rift between DOGE and the MAGA faithful has taken place in the wake of an invigorating Trump election victory.

Will Donald Trump side with Silicon Valley and push for H-1B visas? Or will he do his best to protect American workers from abuse of the visa system?

The American people may have to wait until January 20, 2025 to find out.