Hire Americans first before importing more immigrant workers. When America reaches full employment (which we are a long way from as of this comment), feel free to tap other countries. If you are in US public office, and advocating for or fighting for more immigration while American workers are desperate for work, you should be run out of office, at a minimum. Your duty is to the citizens you represent, not corporations, not foreign workers, and certainly not a small population of the wealthy who receive the gains from increased shareholder value from imported immigrant workers.
That doesn’t seem right. You would just not have any immigrants at all, because full employment is not possible, and many companies will move elsewhere or shutdown if they cannot get the right talent here. And then people will wonder why there are so few employers. Running a business is already very difficult and risky. It just wouldn’t be worth it for many employers.
Also the reality is that a lot of American workers are simply not employable in the industry they want to be in. It’s not a question of cost - H1B visa workers are paid slightly more on average. The most important American companies - like big tech - pay immigrant workers the same as anyone else.
And to be honest I don’t think training is an issue. For example there are thousands of unemployed engineers who have a degree - but still aren’t fundamentally skilled enough for most companies to want to hire them. Many of those people are blaming immigrants for their unemployment but I don’t think they’re correct.
I do agree that it’s ideal to support the current residents. But I just don’t think it’s realistic to see every single one of them employed in the best jobs. Maybe the best we can do is improve our investments in education?
We are at full employment. The federal reserve estimates the natural rate of unemployment at being between 3.8 and 4.5 percent. Currently, unemployment is 4.4%
We are not, based on corporations laying off workers to reset wages downward, offshoring to India and LATAM, and it taking 6-12 months for workers to find jobs. Large US companies are making every effort to disempower workers, and they should be provided no advantages in acquiring talent when it exists domestically.
EDIT: @SilverElfin: I remain supportive of the idea of issuing O-1 visas to exceptional talent, if exceptional ability and achievement can be proven in an objective manner. A degree or credential does not make one exceptional (imho).
Labor reallocation occurs even during periods of full employment. Companies lose market share to rivals, businesses decide to spend money on capital expenditures that automate away existing roles, etc. If your goal is to stop immigration until layoffs cease to exist, you’re essentially calling for a permanent moratorium.
I am calling for a temporary moratorium for issuing new worker visas based on the current economic macro and existing immigrant worker base in the US companies can pick from, yes. I support the current $100k H-1B fee, in perpetuity. The domestic workforce exists, it is a choice to not pick from the domestic labor pool. Choices have consequences.
The domestic workforce exists, but the skilled workers are employed already. There is unemployment in America at low skill levels where companies don’t want to hire those workers at any price. It isn’t a viable choice if you are an employer and have spent time hiring. Most companies are definitely willing if it was a choice.
Please prove this assertion with citations. There is robust evidence skilled workers are underemployed or unemployed for substantial periods of time. If you cannot prove this assertion, please do not assert it as fact.
I don’t think there are good studies on this. What’s the robust evidence you’re referring to? Does it use good definitions for “skilled”? Does it prove that specific unemployed workers would have been employed by the specific employers who hired an immigrant?
I've always respected your writing, but will have to disagree.
The first line of your 'about me' section says: "Always Systems Thinking". However, I don't believe you are thinking in terms of systems here. You are thinking in a single-loop fashion, by treating immigration as a one-way input (i.e. more workers -> fewer jobs for Americans) and as the gate for a massively multi-input system.
You said we should wait for full employment first. The issue with that logic is that full employment isn't a finish line you reach and then "unlock" other labor sources. Even a hot economy has frictional unemployment, skills mismatch, geographic mismatch, and people moving between jobs. Using full employment as a policy trigger sounds clean but doesn't map to how labor markets actually function. Empirically, the US is not a long way away from full employment: we're at 4.4% unemployment (or were, as of September 2025) and JOLTS showed 7.7 job openings in October. That's a cooled market, but not mass desperation across the board.
Jobs are not a fixed pie either. In a closed, fixed-input model (which is what underlies your thinking), adding foreign workers could mechanically reduce citizens' chances. But real economies are endogenous: Immigrants aren't just labor supply; they are also demand. They pay rent, they buy groceries, they need childcare, cars, you name it. That demand supports additional hiring. In addition, immigration can relieve bottleneck in sectors such as healthcare (which is suffering greatly at the moment, especially in rural areas), construction, logistics, agriculture, elder care, and so on. This is why high-quality syntheses generally find small aggregate impacts on native employment and wages, not the large scale negative effects the "hire Americans first" framing implies.
A major National Academies consensus report [1] concluded that the long-run impact of hiring immigrants on wages and employment of native-born workers overall is very small, if not non-existent. And any negative impacts are most likely from prior immigrants or native-born high school dropouts. The report found that immigration as a whole has a positive impact on long-run economic growth. Many meta-analyses [2][3] have found similar results.
The solution is not to restrict foreign workers, but to protect wages and working conditions by strictly enforcing labor standards and preventing exploitative hiring (across both the foreign and native labor forces), and to use targeted immigration that addresses genuine bottlenecks. Using a single unemployment threshold is not logical because labor markets are segmented and dynamic.
Appreciate the kind words. I respect the disagreement, I simply feel we are out of better options at this point in the timeline and cycle. It is not the best option, it is the least worst option when there are few options.
> The solution is not to restrict foreign workers, but to protect wages and working conditions by strictly enforcing labor standards and preventing exploitative hiring (across both the foreign and native labor forces), and to use targeted immigration that addresses genuine bottlenecks. Using a single unemployment threshold is not logical because labor markets are segmented and dynamic.
I strongly agree. But that is not on offer at the moment, only restricting immigration. It is a suboptimal mechanism, but still a mechanism available. If what you propose becomes possible, certainly, I would have a different policy opinion based on system inputs and probable outcomes. Systems thinking. I am an aggressive supporter of worker rights and labor protections, having seen first hand what corporations will do to workers (with workers having zero recourse), and I am willing to support substantial economic impairment to the US economy or individual corporations if that is required.
We do not need an underclass or immigrant labor to do the work you enumerate (healthcare, construction, agriculture, childcare); we need living wages and strong worker protections for domestic workers first. There is no shortage of labor, only companies and a nation unwilling to pay living wages and provide reasonable working conditions, and that should be forced to change by any means necessary. If, in the short term, a component of that is constraining the immigration pipeline (to reduce labor supply), I support that if it is the only mechanism available.
Can I be pro worker and pro immigrant? I can be, under the assumption of prioritizing domestic workers first (as a nation state should, that is its job, to protect its citizens), then immigrant workers with the same wage and working condition protections, up to the jobs available in the economy (+- to account for dynamics). Economic growth gains go primarily to the top 10% of the US by wealth, who hold 93% of US equities, so I do not value economic growth as a KPI to optimize for.
>> I am willing to support substantial economic impairment to the US economy
Okay, but people who hold these types of sentiments are usually financially secure and/or have relatively strong job prospects. You do realize, I hope, that the type of economic downturn that would result from a complete cessation of immigrant labor would greatly hurt the very people whose interests you want to protect and improve.
I realize that nothing will change until something breaks, and that the status quo is unsustainable. I believe this aligns in some amount with populist sentiment in the US. It's an unfortunate game of chicken because capitalists gonna capitalist until they run out of options. No one gives up power willingly, right? You can only put fear in or control people who have something to lose.
>> It's an unfortunate game of chicken because capitalists gonna capitalist until they run out of options.
If your argument is that when immigration is restricted, capitalists will run out of options and will have to raise wages and improve conditions, I'd say that is simply wrong, for which there are several reasons.
First, they can off-shore, like they have been doing for decades. Second, if labor becomes tight, companies accelerate automation and workflow restructuring - which destroys jobs rather than improving conditions for remaining workers. Third, when labor is scarce, large firms typically consolidate, which lowers the competitive pressure to raise wages, since monopsonies and oligopolies neutralize the bargaining power gains of a tight labor market. And lastly, capital does not need to keep growing headcount: if labor is too expensive, firms simply grow more slowly, invest less and try to extract more from existing workers - which is the opposite of working condition improvements we all want.
Fundamentally, the reality is that capitalists will never run out of options, unless capitalism itself is abolished and wealth and property are confiscated. The reason for this is simple: under capitalism, capital is structurally mobile, whereas labor is structurally immobile. This creates a massive power asymmetry. Capital can always reconfigure itself to avoid rising labor costs. Restricting immigration does not force capital to yield. Only changing the rules of capital-labor power does. And you cannot do that by relying only on one lever (immigration). Not only is that the weakest lever, but also, you need a complete restructuring of society, including the way the economy is organized and how the government works across all levels.
I'm generally supportive of the populist sentiment, but the desired outcomes will only be possible with prolonged effort that will likely span decades. Gimmicks like $100k fees for H1-B visas will be massively counterproductive, as they ultimately harm, not help, the people whose interests need to be protected.
>Your duty is to the citizens you represent, not corporations, not foreign workers, and certainly not a small population of the wealthy who receive the gains from increased shareholder value from imported immigrant workers.
We're a capitalist society, "the business of America is business" as Reagan said. The first duty of a capitalist government is to the capitalist class and corporate sector. Preferring less expensive foreign labor with fewer rights over domestic is simply practicing good capitalism. Until Americans are willing to work sweatshop hours for sweatshop wages without even the meager labor rights and social safety net they have, they simply aren't worth the investment.
If you want socialism just say you want socialism.
I appreciate the honest capitalist-as-government take here because of how grisly a view it is in a pure form - essentially the claim is that government is neither for nor by the governed and it should only be used as a tool to further the interests dictated by the capital holders.
Personally I dont think this is anywhere near right or ideal - letting the movement of capital in free (as in speech not free as in beer) markets dictate what is produced by the economy at large has nothing to do with if a government should enact the will of its people or protect them. One is how and why governments exist (ie, democracy vs monarchy vs theocracy, etc) and one is how to plan an economy (capitalism vs various versions of a planned economy).
tl;dr - where government derives its power isn't the same as how an economy should decide what to make. Conflating the two is a way to hand-wave away a lot of harm done by unchecked greed.
> A recent survey by the Cato Institute and YouGov paints a troubling picture: 62 percent of Americans aged 18–29 say they hold a “favorable view” of socialism, and 34 percent say the same of communism.
Big fan of socialism, so I'm in good company at the moment. Are we a capitalist society? TBD based on the death rate (~2M of the 55+ population die every year in the US, ~5k/day; 31% of US wealth is held by those 70+), and if these values mentioned above stick as these folks age. I admit its hard to predict outcomes of electorate turnover over time, but we're directionally headed in the right direction imho.
60% of Americans cannot meet their basic needs on their income, half a million Americans go bankrupt every year from medical debt, and ~750k are homeless as of this comment; I'm of the opinion capitalism has failed and change is required, but I understand other opinions will differ based on some combination of lack of data, lived experience, mental models, etc.
