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Gilgamech's avatar

The H1-B visa program is the modern equivalent of importing Chinese “coolie” labor into the US to build the railroads in the 1800s.

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John Hurley's avatar

"Put simply, the government embarked on an optimistic plan of social engineering to transform New Zealand into an 'Asian' country; unfortunately, it did a poor job of publicising its intent or rationale. Under the slogan that a global economy required global citizens, an ambitious plan was hatched to restructure society around an Asian axis. But these initiatives moved too quickly for most people, ignored the need to consult or convince people of the importance of any fundamental shift, and did little to monitor the impact of immigration on public perception (Heeringa 1996)."

A Quote from Metro Magazine. NZ.

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David's avatar

This is a thoughtful article that covers this topic well. You didn't mention the Dubai model. Something like 80% of the country is foreign. Indians make up a huge chunk of that foreign population. But the UAE does not give them a path to citizenship. It is extremely rare for a person to be granted UAE citizenship.

We could implement something similar. Make it much harder for someone to become a US citizen. Instead the current 5 year residency period, we can make it 10 years like Switzerland. And not only that. We can also require large payment a requirement for the citizenship application. Trump is selling "Gold cards" for $5M a piece. A lot of countries have citizenship by investment. By making $1M a requirement for ALL naturalization, we will have solved the problem of the Somalians, Haitians, and Guatemalans changing the politics of the country.

And this $1M entry would still allow people like the $10M AI engineer to become a US citizen.

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Mirakulous's avatar

You already have many millions with no path to citizenship. lol

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Kale Pang's avatar

I told my friend we should do this and he said "So you want to bring back slavery?"

How would you counter that rebuttal?

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David's avatar

The illegals that came to the US and are still trying to come here are doing so voluntarily. Nobody here is working as a slave involuntarily.

We should deport the illegals and offer legal immigrants a chance to come and work in the US. There would be no birth right citizenship. And if the immigrants pay more than $1M in taxes and live here for 10 years, they can apply for citizenship.

I highly recommend that you travel to Dubai or Doha and see the place for yourself. most taxi drivers are from India/Bangladesh/Pakistan. Most waitresses and servers are from Philippines. They are there to work and make money and then they go home. There's no democracy there. And they're not slaves.

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Realist's avatar

Thanks for an interesting article about a critical topic.

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All Mouth And Trousers's avatar

Excellent article. Britain has long been a place of refuge for the highly skilled refugee and we have benefitted greatly from them, it is mass migration of the low and medium skilled that has harmed the country so badly. There is also the issue of reliance on importation of foreign workers once you start. Britain went from a country that trained its own doctors and nurses in the 1960s to one where 20% of the NHS is now foreign born.

Your espionage section should include the "atom spies" of the 50s and 60s to show the danger of hiring those of a different ethnic origin in areas of national security. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Atomic_spies#Notable_suspected_spies

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Geran Kostecki's avatar

Some interesting points, but I think you're ignoring the geopolitical benefit of simply having more Americans - i don't know if this is properly encouraged, but ideally some of those workers will choose to stay, become above average citizens and have above average citizen kids. At the right rate, more (non spy) Americans is a good thing all on its own, as long as the natives see them as fellow Americans and not a threat.

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jed's avatar

You mean as long as they see *themselves* as fellow Americans and not a threat, right? Because, as seen above, they are actively pursuing the ascendance of their coethnics contra natives.

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Geran Kostecki's avatar

That's not what I meant, but yes, that's a good point too. In my experience I just see a lot more issues with the former than the latter. But as a native maybe there's some selection bias (immigrants who don't see themselves as American are less likely to talk to me)

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Kale Pang's avatar

My country isn't an economic zone. I don't measure how well things are going with a GDP metric.

This is what Oakland demographics looked like 50 years ago. This is what we lost.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QxIWDmmqZzY

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the long warred's avatar

No

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David Atkinson's avatar

Average immigrant is more loyal to the US than the typical progressive university graduate. I think non-dissudents coming from PRC, middle East or Russia could be an issue worth looking at. If you remove the immigrants who are literally spies, the equation might also look quite different.

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Tidewater Lord's avatar

Great idea, now all we need is the spies and immigrants to let us know which is which

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TLoBianco's avatar

Wonderful piece. I graduated in 1992 with a ChE degree from UI Champaign Urbana. Jobs were plentiful and American born engineers dominated. I had the fortune to start my career in semiconductor, it was glorious, Motorola, Intel, TI, Micron. We made great money and had unlimited upward mobility. Engineering majors were respected and I hoped one day my children could reap the same life

But…..as the graphs show, the early 90’s were the beginning of the madness. My ENTIRE career has been observing the birth of my replacements, bitterly, begrudgingly, crushingly. 35 years later and I’m a relic, there are essentially zero American engineers in tech (you know the ones whose family fought in WW1, WW2, Korea, Vietnam, the Persian Gulf, and for generations paid this country’s taxes and worked the many industries that built the place!)

I’ve lived first hand the destructive H1-B system and the total lack of American engineering grads everytime I opened a position. I watched the Indian networking, exclusive (not preferential) hiring of their blood, entire departments 100% Chinese, Korean, Indian, once one of them gets to hiring manager level. I’ve made countless friends from these groups but in the end loyalty to their own always trumps friendship with the American.

My own children and nephews despite immense talent in STEM steered clear of that dead end. Now degreed and employed everywhere but engineering.

This is reality in the trenches, precisely as the article details, the effects are complete and permanent on the American white males left on the outside looking in

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Geran Kostecki's avatar

It is crazy to me that we educate people from other countries and then push them out. I think there's a case to exclude non-dissidents from countries that don't like us, but on the other side we shouldn't work so hard to prevent people from staying once they're educated if they're interested in becoming citizens.

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Ariel's avatar

What masquerades as geopolitical mastery reveals itself as suicidal generosity: the host nation, in embracing millions, arms its rivals with the very weapons forged in its foundries.

Loyalty, that fragile illusion—immigrants bear no blank slates, but etched maps of homeland ambitions.

Historical victors whispered to experts: "Teach us, then depart"—today's fools proclaim: "Stay, multiply, and diffuse our secrets," inverting triumph into treason.

Absolute gains mean relative losses when ideas cross borders like traitors in the night. In zero-sum geopolitical contexts, brain drain's efficacy depends on maintaining capability differentials.

Mass immigration enables institutional dysfunctions, including occupational licensing barriers and affirmative action preferences, by masking domestic talent shortages and delaying necessary reforms in education, hiring, and diversity policies.

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Kale Pang's avatar

You think Elon/Vivek will read this?

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the long warred's avatar

Excellent article.

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the long warred's avatar

We 🇺🇸 have to gain control of our country first. Above all. The immigrants are walking blind into an utterly foreign country called America, unaware that we just came close to a Civil War. The immigrants are also seen as too close and possibly mercenary allies of a major faction , that has just been booted from power in part for practicing open borders.

Immigration by the way was an accelerating factor to the First Civil War 1861-1865.

No they are not by the way our super power, they can be very helpful in settled times.

As far as brains we don’t need smarter enemies on our soil.

There’s a lot more to life than money.

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Amanda's avatar

Another brilliant read about a pressing topic from Aporia. Thank you very much!

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Tidewater Lord's avatar

Amazing piece

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Luc Lelievre's avatar

To borrow another tough line from Liam Neeson in Taken: 'Don’t be that pessimistic…'

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