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So many people here are celebrating this order due to its supposed abstract benefits but are somehow unaware of the its cruelty. So many visa holders in this co

So many people here are celebrating this order due to its supposed abstract benefits but are somehow unaware of the its cruelty. So many visa holders in this country will be unable to leave and enter the country for the foreseeable future. If they have sick parents abroad they will not be able to visit them or, in the most tragic circumstances, say goodbye in person. It won't matter whether someone is a world-class researcher with extremely niche skills or database administrator using commodity technology. They will live in anxiety, fear and uncertainty. One wonders how many proponents of these measures would be willing to uproot their lives and leave the place they call home at a moment's notice. Life is about get a lot worse for hundreds of thousands of hard-working, highly-educated immigrants and there are comparatively few who will shed a tear for them.

koolba 6y ago
> So many people here are celebrating this order due to its supposed abstract benefits but are somehow unaware of the its cruelty. To be blunt, a nation's citizens and permanent residents' rights to economic prosperity outweigh any temporary worker's right to continued employment. Yes it may be viewed as cruel in the individual case, but the point of these visas are not to provide a vehicle for those workers to come live in the USA. They're meant to fill a need for companies that cannot find qualified workers. In a country facing a staggering unemployment rate, continued job losses, and possible long term recession, it'd be malfeasance on the part of any public official to magnify the problem by allowing more workers to enter and compete against its own permanent residents. It's not pretty. It's reality.
- michaelmrose 6y ago
  I think this is called the single lump of labor fallacy where there is a fixed number of jobs to compete for and by allowing immigrants to come in and take some of them the citizens are collectively poorer for it. In actuality additional workers demand lots of things themselves that create net jobs. If more people within the carrying capacity of the environment/structures decreased economic prosperity every country in the world would be looking to shrink their birthrate as much as possible so that the decreasing population could have an increasingly large share of the fixed prosperity. We know of course that the reverse is true.
  - pbhjpbhj 6y ago
    Counterpoint - [in Western countries] those who have any chance to promote population restriction are "the 1%" and don't care provided the population can be controlled enough to keep working for them. We've had a massive energy boom in the C20th, and grown fat from it, and now realise that's not sustainable for the planet. We can't continue that growth. Robotisation will continue the current trend of increasing the wealth gap. And we don't have the energy or resources to just buy our way out of it by making more and more junk to sell (as per C20th). Yes more immigration, or more pay for immigrants, increases demand from them for "middle class" luxuries (and reduces the ability of the native population in general to pay; but doesn't reduce the desire, and debt fills that gap), but we need to take the limitations of the planet in to account and realise resources aren't as infinite as they seemed - that means it has to be treated as zero sum, and indeed with restrictions on energy/resources that debt won't be there to cover things. On top of this the ability for the Western nations to control others, and live better off their labour, seems to be finally ending. IMO if we in the West want to maintain our current standards of living we'll need to entirely curtail population growth. Redistribution is going to hit hard, except for the robot owners who will get richer. Regular Westerners (the 99%), to my view, will have a taste of living in a World where others have the wealth, and we don't have resources (skilled labour in particular) to bargain with - the elite won't need most of us. Heavy immigration can be a foretaste of that. Skilled immigrants allow the elite to bypass negotiation with their own populations (that might lead to democratisation of roboticisation benefits) whilst simultaneously leaving home countries devoid of skills and ripe for exploitation, not by nations but by the Capitalists. /rant
    - michaelmrose 6y ago
      >the elite won't need most of us Whereas we don't need ANY of them and can vote away their wealth and their power. If needed we could lop off their heads but we won't need to as its far easier and more defensible to lop off their wealth.
- freehunter 6y ago
  Why do these programs always seem to target the worker, but not the employer? Enforcement of illegal immigration always seems to have the immigrants arrested and deported, but what about the people who hired the illegal workers? H-1B visa holders get blamed for "competing against permanent residents" but where's the blame for companies who hire H-1B workers over American citizens? We live in a capitalist economy which follows pretty simple supply and demand curves. Where there is a demand (cheap labor) there will always be a supply (even if it's the black market). Arresting sex workers doesn't stop people from hiring them, and arresting drug users doesn't stop the dealers. Immigrants don't come to the US because it's fun or easy, there come here because there are companies willing to hire them, legally or not. So if there are too many H-1B holders competing with Americans, why not make it harder for companies to hire them over an equally qualified American, or punish the company for abusing the visa system just to get cheaper labor? Same with illegal immigration, why not fine or shut down businesses that hire illegal immigrants? You say it's not pretty it's just reality and I accept that reality... but it's also needlessly cruel to punish job seekers and not the companies who are enticing them to come here.
  - javagram 6y ago
    > So if there are too many H-1B holders competing with Americans, why not make it harder for companies to hire them over an equally qualified America This is literally what the H-1B visa program does, it makes companies jump through hoops to hire someone from overseas. The path of least resistance is definitely hiring a citizen where they don’t need to worry about getting a visa.
    - freehunter 6y ago
      Then how is the H-1B visa system a problem? It it's working as intended and making it harder to hire someone from overseas, where is the problem?
- baddox 6y ago
  How does preventing a legal employee from visiting home and returning to the US help anyone who happened to be born in the US? It serves absolutely no purpose except to be cruel and to satisfy people in this country who enjoy cruelty towards immigrants.
  - gruez 6y ago
    >How does preventing a legal employee from visiting home and returning to the US help anyone who happened to be born in the US From a pure economics view: it does because it constrains the supply of labor. Sure, many (most?) people would probably stay and not not go back, but there's always going to be a few who do go back. That constrains the labor supply, which in theory will raise the price of labor for everyone still here, mostly natives.
    - baddox 6y ago
      Sure, it “constrains the labor supply” by making people choose their livelihood over visiting their family. I think that very obviously qualifies as cruelty.
      - gruez 6y ago
        >I think that very obviously qualifies as cruelty. Whether or not it's cruel is orthogonal to whether it helps native workers. Summarily executing all visa holders is also cruel, but would probably also help native workers by constraining supply.
    - harshalizee 6y ago
      That makes no sense at all. A employee visits his home country on vacation, now information to return causes problem for both the individual and the employer, especially if that person is in a critical role and now unable to do their job.
      - gruez 6y ago
        >That makes no sense at all. A employee visits his home country on vacation, now information to return Well technically it was announced in advance, so they could conceivably fly back and avoid the restrictions. >causes problem for both the individual and the employer, especially if that person is in a critical role and now unable to do their job. I imagine that's what the exemptions are for. Also, if your goal is to reduce the amount of foreign workers, I'd imagine that "shock" of someone leaving is going to be present regardless of how it's implemented.
- fzeroracer 6y ago
  Oh come on. Part of the reason why we're facing these job losses and high unemployment rate is because our administration fucked up hard managing the coronavirus and now they're looking for easy wins and scapegoats so people can blame the big bad other rather than the people responsible. The fact that you're defending their cruelty because of the economy (that they fucked up!) is immensely disappointing.
  - 2ion 6y ago
    Oh come on. You have to deal with negotiating a future first before lamenting the past. It is the privilege of a nation's people that the government is enacting harsh measures in their (alleged) favour, and so be it; they have recourse to reprimand their leaders. I am sick and tired of the whataboutism that calls every single persons feelings into consideration wherever they are on this sad planet when whatever happens. That stance has never ever been the basis nor the reality of real power on the nation state level. Realism is real, you ought to try and deal with it.
    - fzeroracer 6y ago
      Where's the whataboutism in talking about how an executive order is going to affect people it is directly targeted against? Are you saying they should not be taken into account? I can't tell what your actual argument is beyond trying to make your own feelings into some sort of rationalist argument. It seems you're trying to use 'realism' in place of an actual argument.
- diegof79 6y ago
  I know this is a politically sensitive topic, so full disclaimer: I live outside the US but I work (and worked) for a company whose headquarters are in the US. So I know people in different visa situations. I see this type of measure as something that has a xenophobic base. The economic problem can be approached by applying sanctions to companies that use visas for cheap labor, not to the immigrants. But that type of action will be seen from a part of the US society as anti-capitalist because it attacks companies and businesses. So a big chunk of the society prefers the xenophobic idea of blaming the immigrants because they "steal" the job positions, but very little is said about the companies that abuse from cheap labor to be competitive.
- hintymad 6y ago
  I don't know. What would happen if we apply the same line of logic to undocumented residents? Should the X-word be waiting for you?
akhilcacharya 6y ago
> but are somehow unaware of the its cruelty Maybe not all, but I think many of them are. The "cruelty is the point" to quote Adam Serwer.
vkat 6y ago
> They will live in anxiety, fear and uncertainty. This. All my adult life(15 years) I have worked and lived here and my parents are old and you never know what can happen with current pandemic. Being from India the green card wait is over 11 years and increasing so I keep waiting. There needs to be a distinction between legit employers and ones who abuse the system.
pascalxus 6y ago
I agree, this aspect absolutely sucks. I really feel, the people that have already been here for a long time should be eligible for citizenship to give them stability. But, for the long term, this country really needs to start preventing "new" immigrants from coming because the US can't house enough people. Enough housing is not allowed to be built, so it doesn't make sense to keep having an expanding population in that type of situation.
president 6y ago
Tell that to the majority of displaced American workers who lost their jobs and whose lives spiraled into homelessness and drug addiction because their jobs and dignity were lost to imported labor.

koolba 6y ago

> So many people here are celebrating this order due to its supposed abstract benefits but are somehow unaware of the its cruelty. To be blunt, a nation's citizens and permanent residents' rights to economic prosperity outweigh any temporary worker's right to continued employment. Yes it may be viewed as cruel in the individual case, but the point of these visas are not to provide a vehicle for those workers to come live in the USA. They're meant to fill a need for companies that cannot find qualified workers. In a country facing a staggering unemployment rate, continued job losses, and possible long term recession, it'd be malfeasance on the part of any public official to magnify the problem by allowing more workers to enter and compete against its own permanent residents. It's not pretty. It's reality.

michaelmrose 6y ago
I think this is called the single lump of labor fallacy where there is a fixed number of jobs to compete for and by allowing immigrants to come in and take some of them the citizens are collectively poorer for it. In actuality additional workers demand lots of things themselves that create net jobs. If more people within the carrying capacity of the environment/structures decreased economic prosperity every country in the world would be looking to shrink their birthrate as much as possible so that the decreasing population could have an increasingly large share of the fixed prosperity. We know of course that the reverse is true.
- pbhjpbhj 6y ago
  Counterpoint - [in Western countries] those who have any chance to promote population restriction are "the 1%" and don't care provided the population can be controlled enough to keep working for them. We've had a massive energy boom in the C20th, and grown fat from it, and now realise that's not sustainable for the planet. We can't continue that growth. Robotisation will continue the current trend of increasing the wealth gap. And we don't have the energy or resources to just buy our way out of it by making more and more junk to sell (as per C20th). Yes more immigration, or more pay for immigrants, increases demand from them for "middle class" luxuries (and reduces the ability of the native population in general to pay; but doesn't reduce the desire, and debt fills that gap), but we need to take the limitations of the planet in to account and realise resources aren't as infinite as they seemed - that means it has to be treated as zero sum, and indeed with restrictions on energy/resources that debt won't be there to cover things. On top of this the ability for the Western nations to control others, and live better off their labour, seems to be finally ending. IMO if we in the West want to maintain our current standards of living we'll need to entirely curtail population growth. Redistribution is going to hit hard, except for the robot owners who will get richer. Regular Westerners (the 99%), to my view, will have a taste of living in a World where others have the wealth, and we don't have resources (skilled labour in particular) to bargain with - the elite won't need most of us. Heavy immigration can be a foretaste of that. Skilled immigrants allow the elite to bypass negotiation with their own populations (that might lead to democratisation of roboticisation benefits) whilst simultaneously leaving home countries devoid of skills and ripe for exploitation, not by nations but by the Capitalists. /rant
  - michaelmrose 6y ago
    >the elite won't need most of us Whereas we don't need ANY of them and can vote away their wealth and their power. If needed we could lop off their heads but we won't need to as its far easier and more defensible to lop off their wealth.
freehunter 6y ago
Why do these programs always seem to target the worker, but not the employer? Enforcement of illegal immigration always seems to have the immigrants arrested and deported, but what about the people who hired the illegal workers? H-1B visa holders get blamed for "competing against permanent residents" but where's the blame for companies who hire H-1B workers over American citizens? We live in a capitalist economy which follows pretty simple supply and demand curves. Where there is a demand (cheap labor) there will always be a supply (even if it's the black market). Arresting sex workers doesn't stop people from hiring them, and arresting drug users doesn't stop the dealers. Immigrants don't come to the US because it's fun or easy, there come here because there are companies willing to hire them, legally or not. So if there are too many H-1B holders competing with Americans, why not make it harder for companies to hire them over an equally qualified American, or punish the company for abusing the visa system just to get cheaper labor? Same with illegal immigration, why not fine or shut down businesses that hire illegal immigrants? You say it's not pretty it's just reality and I accept that reality... but it's also needlessly cruel to punish job seekers and not the companies who are enticing them to come here.
- javagram 6y ago
  > So if there are too many H-1B holders competing with Americans, why not make it harder for companies to hire them over an equally qualified America This is literally what the H-1B visa program does, it makes companies jump through hoops to hire someone from overseas. The path of least resistance is definitely hiring a citizen where they don’t need to worry about getting a visa.
  - freehunter 6y ago
    Then how is the H-1B visa system a problem? It it's working as intended and making it harder to hire someone from overseas, where is the problem?
baddox 6y ago
How does preventing a legal employee from visiting home and returning to the US help anyone who happened to be born in the US? It serves absolutely no purpose except to be cruel and to satisfy people in this country who enjoy cruelty towards immigrants.
- gruez 6y ago
  >How does preventing a legal employee from visiting home and returning to the US help anyone who happened to be born in the US From a pure economics view: it does because it constrains the supply of labor. Sure, many (most?) people would probably stay and not not go back, but there's always going to be a few who do go back. That constrains the labor supply, which in theory will raise the price of labor for everyone still here, mostly natives.
  - baddox 6y ago
    Sure, it “constrains the labor supply” by making people choose their livelihood over visiting their family. I think that very obviously qualifies as cruelty.
    - gruez 6y ago
      >I think that very obviously qualifies as cruelty. Whether or not it's cruel is orthogonal to whether it helps native workers. Summarily executing all visa holders is also cruel, but would probably also help native workers by constraining supply.
  - harshalizee 6y ago
    That makes no sense at all. A employee visits his home country on vacation, now information to return causes problem for both the individual and the employer, especially if that person is in a critical role and now unable to do their job.
    - gruez 6y ago
      >That makes no sense at all. A employee visits his home country on vacation, now information to return Well technically it was announced in advance, so they could conceivably fly back and avoid the restrictions. >causes problem for both the individual and the employer, especially if that person is in a critical role and now unable to do their job. I imagine that's what the exemptions are for. Also, if your goal is to reduce the amount of foreign workers, I'd imagine that "shock" of someone leaving is going to be present regardless of how it's implemented.
fzeroracer 6y ago
Oh come on. Part of the reason why we're facing these job losses and high unemployment rate is because our administration fucked up hard managing the coronavirus and now they're looking for easy wins and scapegoats so people can blame the big bad other rather than the people responsible. The fact that you're defending their cruelty because of the economy (that they fucked up!) is immensely disappointing.
- 2ion 6y ago
  Oh come on. You have to deal with negotiating a future first before lamenting the past. It is the privilege of a nation's people that the government is enacting harsh measures in their (alleged) favour, and so be it; they have recourse to reprimand their leaders. I am sick and tired of the whataboutism that calls every single persons feelings into consideration wherever they are on this sad planet when whatever happens. That stance has never ever been the basis nor the reality of real power on the nation state level. Realism is real, you ought to try and deal with it.
  - fzeroracer 6y ago
    Where's the whataboutism in talking about how an executive order is going to affect people it is directly targeted against? Are you saying they should not be taken into account? I can't tell what your actual argument is beyond trying to make your own feelings into some sort of rationalist argument. It seems you're trying to use 'realism' in place of an actual argument.
diegof79 6y ago
I know this is a politically sensitive topic, so full disclaimer: I live outside the US but I work (and worked) for a company whose headquarters are in the US. So I know people in different visa situations. I see this type of measure as something that has a xenophobic base. The economic problem can be approached by applying sanctions to companies that use visas for cheap labor, not to the immigrants. But that type of action will be seen from a part of the US society as anti-capitalist because it attacks companies and businesses. So a big chunk of the society prefers the xenophobic idea of blaming the immigrants because they "steal" the job positions, but very little is said about the companies that abuse from cheap labor to be competitive.
hintymad 6y ago
I don't know. What would happen if we apply the same line of logic to undocumented residents? Should the X-word be waiting for you?

akhilcacharya 6y ago

> but are somehow unaware of the its cruelty Maybe not all, but I think many of them are. The "cruelty is the point" to quote Adam Serwer.

vkat 6y ago

> They will live in anxiety, fear and uncertainty. This. All my adult life(15 years) I have worked and lived here and my parents are old and you never know what can happen with current pandemic. Being from India the green card wait is over 11 years and increasing so I keep waiting. There needs to be a distinction between legit employers and ones who abuse the system.

pascalxus 6y ago

I agree, this aspect absolutely sucks. I really feel, the people that have already been here for a long time should be eligible for citizenship to give them stability. But, for the long term, this country really needs to start preventing "new" immigrants from coming because the US can't house enough people. Enough housing is not allowed to be built, so it doesn't make sense to keep having an expanding population in that type of situation.

president 6y ago

Tell that to the majority of displaced American workers who lost their jobs and whose lives spiraled into homelessness and drug addiction because their jobs and dignity were lost to imported labor.