I like the Trump $100k H-1B fee as long as it does not apply to F-1 students in the USA, here’s why:
I came to the USA as an F-1 foreign student and got my Ph.D. in Electrical Engineering and worked in the Semiconductor field at Teradyne, Avanti (now Synopsys) and IBM, see the YouTube video above, Abby Joseph Cohen says Ph.D.s like me account for two-thirds of all working Ph.D.s in the USA. I have been a Patent Examiner at the USPTO in the field of Semiconductors almost 14 years now. I got my green card as an outstanding researcher (see below) so although I was on the H-1B , it was for a few days and labor-certification was not required. This was a law signed by President H. W. Bush (thank you!).
Before I tell you why I support the Trump $100k H-1B fee, let me tell you that there are Indian people spreading disinformation about which immigrants are important for the future of the USA.
In my opinion, everything that Professor Mukunda says in the video above, is complete bullshit. The immigrant Ph.D.s who are working in the USA are excellent researchers and innovators because of the education that they received in the USA (I got my Ph.D. at the University of Texas at Arlington, and my Bachelor’s degree from Osmania University in India). Indian Institute of Technology students are not that great, the IIT entrance exam is not an aptitude test, and IIT does not get the smartest students in India.
See the Wikipedia pages for Satya Nadella (CEO of Microsoft) and Sundar Pichai (CEO of Google), see that Nadella did not go to IIT whereas Pichai did go to IIT, and yet they are both excellent CEOs, the fact is:
If you are smart, then only your education in the USA matters !
I support the Trump $100k H-1B fee, if it is waived for F-1 students, because:
- The USA needs the smart immigrant Ph.D.s that just graduated from college, see the Abby Joseph Cohen video above, this is important for competing against China
- Immigrant Ph.D.s are force multipliers, for every new immigrant Ph.D. hired in the tech industry, several more jobs are created because of increased productivity and profit
- Large multinational companies typically offer immigrant Ph.D.s who just graduated higher wages and this drives average wages up, so it is good for the economy
- Having a $100k H-1B fee will help drive the “bodyshop” companies here in the US out of business and that is a good thing, because they are called bodyshops because they hire people for $35/hr on 1099 and then contract them to large companies for $150/hr and so the bodyshop middlemen who do absolutely no work are getting all the profit and the contract employee who does the work gets no benefits such as 401K or health insurance and they have to pay the payroll tax themselves because they are on 1099. Amazingly, some of these bodyshops are actually run by Indians who are here on H-1B.
- Right now many large companies don’t want to hire immigrants as full-time employees, so they hire contract labor from bodyshops so that they can cancel contracts whenever they want and they don’t have to provide any benefits to the contract employees. It is shameful that large companies are allowed to hire contractors from these bodyshops.
- For the above reasons, if Trump’s $100k H-1B fee can drive these bodyshops out of business, then the large companies will have to hire immigrant F-1 foreign students as full-time employees with full benefits and I think that would be great.
Hey President Trump, if you need just one reason to waive the $100k H-1B fee for international F-1 students, then just think:
giving green cards quickly to the smartest people from around the world who just graduated with a Ph.D. from an American university will surely Make America Great Again !