Thread by @RonHira

Long 🧵for those interested in prospects for real H-1B visa reform

Once defending it with a threat of war, Trump advisors David Sacks and Elon Musk now publicly concede the H-1B guestworker program is “broken” and should be “overhauled”

This is the most common Washington play after the public petitions the government for a redress of its grievances. Make vague promises and then count on the public’s short attention span and news media’s facile interest until attention moves elsewhere.

It ensures real change never comes.

A few politicians, some earnest, will introduce legislation and sign executive orders, but ultimately, these efforts will never be passed or executed, as attention fades.

The upshot is that H1-B reform will only happen if people organize and place _massive_ and sustained pressure on politicians to change the system. The pressure must be massive because our political system is designed for stasis.

But more importantly, it must overcome the well-funded and uber-connected opposition to change. Influential people are handsomely profiting from the status quo. The H1B industrial complex extracts tens of billions $ of easy profits by exploiting all workers – visa holders and US

No innovation or hard work is necessary; it’s labor arbitrage. They will fight for their self-interest and self-preservation.
Reform efforts must be sustained because politicians are slow to act, and the opposition exploits this by running out the clock on reform.

It’s made harder because the visa industrial complex has tentacles in and control of all elite institutions—think tanks, government, universities (admin & profs), pundits, and corporate-funded media—and has deep deep pockets.

@BrodyMullinsDC Wolves of K Street book describes some of how interest-group capture works.

The reformers, on the other hand, have no organization and virtually no formal representation of their interests. They have no money. The countervailing force/interest is not organized.

So, what can be done?
Politicians won’t act unless forced. It’s simply not in their interest. Lobbyists control government posts and can direct money to campaigns for or against politicians. Politicians know they won’t be punished at the ballot box for inaction.

Inaction is the politician's safest bet.

Visa reformers need to organize, organize, organize. Seek out and collaborate with strange bedfellows. Cast a wide net by crossing ideological and party lines. There are “populists” across the ideological spectrum.

This issue isn’t divided by GOP v. Dem, right v. left, or identity issues.

Instead, it’s worker vs corporation, worker vs investor, populist vs elite, david vs goliath.

Look at the Congressional strange bedfellows who have teamed up to champion reform:

Sen Durbin (D-IL) & Grassley (R-IA), Sanders (I-VT) & Sessions (R-AL),
RepPascrell (D-NJ) & Brat (R-VA), Khanna (D-CA) & Gosar (R-AZ).

Get informed about the issues. The visa industrial complex has created a sophisticated misinformation machine. The players have been doing this for a long time and have a long-term strategy.

MOST policymakers and their staff are misinformed. MOST reporters are misinformed.

MOST academics are misinformed.
These are all by design and backed by money.

The X debate over the past few days is a promising example of how evidence can combat elite nonsense. Corporate elites and politicians repeatedly claimed that all H-1Bs are the “best and brightest.”

The public easily debunked these claims once they located evidence about the jobs and salaries of H-1B workers at tech firms. A simple step that most reporters never do.

Keep in mind that H-1B is only one of many visas being abused by employers, L-1A & L-1B, F-1/OPT, J-1, B1, TN, E-3, to name some. The apparent complexity of the program works to the advantage of the lobbyists and lawyers. But don’t be fooled. The principles are straightforward.

Guestworker visas should only be used to fill genuine shortages, and visa and US workers need rock-solid protections. None of these programs come close to meeting these basic minimum standards.

The X users could quickly and collectively break through the nonsense on the “best and brightest” claim, so there’s hope.

An optimist can look for parallels in how activists have fundamentally changed US trade policy against all odds. That happened because of the sustained pressure from organized interests coupled with assembling and communicating the evidence.

But it became a reality only when politicians saw it mattered at the ballot box.

We don’t have those conditions on work visas, at least not yet. What politicians and advisors say in public often deviates from what they think and how they ultimately act.

Shortly after the 2016 election, Mr. Trump laid out his Day One agenda in his first national address as president-elect by highlighting six priorities. One of those six was visa reform. Maybe eight years later, we will see reform. It will only happen if people make it so.

President-Elect Donald J. Trump Video Address on his Day-One Agenda on Nov 21, 2016

Eliminating visa abuse is one of six priorities on day one