5 ms·

I think the point is that they are contributing to the US, and were the best option for their employer, and are supporting their communities, etc. All things t

I think the point is that they are contributing to the US, and were the best option for their employer, and are supporting their communities, etc. All things that we should be supporting if we are indeed wishing our nation to prosper. A plurality of Americans don’t pay federal income taxes, so we’re essentially turning away someone who is building up our country.

ipaddr 5mo ago
Someone else would have taken that job maybe for a higher salary.
- bonsai_spool 5mo ago
  At a certain point, there aren't enough Americans for these jobs. So the choice is to let other nations absorb these skilled laborers, or simply hire the best people. It's funny how we forget about meritocracy as soon as the median American is threatened.
  - rjbwork 5mo ago
    >It's funny how we forget about meritocracy as soon as the median American is threatened. What meritocracy? This is a myth pushed to justify a kind of "just world" interpretation of our social ills. Nepotism is increasing, social mobility decreasing. To believe in meritocracy in the face of this is to deny reality.
  - pixelatedindex 5mo ago
    > At a certain point, there aren't enough Americans for these jobs Is that really true? I’m sure in some fields where you need rare experts I believe it. For the average engineer who is just another cog in the wheel of big corp, I highly doubt it.
    - bonsai_spool 5mo ago
      > Is that really true? I’m sure in some fields where you need rare experts I believe it. For the average engineer who is just another cog in the wheel of big corp, I highly doubt it. Have you ever hired someone before? Did you decide to take the best person you found or did you pick an American?
      - pixelatedindex 5mo ago
        > Have you ever hired someone before? Did you decide to take the best person you found or did you pick an American? Many times. Sometimes we don’t offer sponsorships so we hired who didn’t need one. Other times not. During the interview process where they’re from isn’t the matter at hand. Either way, there’s no shortage of good candidates - solely American / GC or not. Though let’s be honest - there is a question behind the question, isn’t there? Why don’t you just ask that instead?
        bonsai_spool 5mo ago
        > Though let’s be honest - there is a question behind the question, isn’t there? Why don’t you just ask that instead? You answered it - you picked the best person, who sometimes was not American.
        pixelatedindex 5mo ago
        That doesn’t directly prove that there aren’t enough Americans who can do the job. Sometimes yeah, the non American is better like in photolithography. Generally though, the foreign candidate is not so much better that hiring an American would have lowered the bar. Sometimes it also comes down to leveling - I’ve had to down level people due to budget concerns. Americans can hold out for that better job, but the other cannot so companies take advantage of that. My point is that it’s not a skill issue, it’s a wage + location issue. Foreigners will find that their wage is better than what they can earn at home, so they can undercut that citizens who’s held out for a better opportunity.
        5mo ago
  - jaharios 5mo ago
    So we should strive to maximize companies profits over the citizens?
  - ipaddr 5mo ago
    With AI taking a percentage of jobs there will be enough people to fill those positions and more. Why bring in workers when productivity is taking away positions.
    - bonsai_spool 5mo ago
      > With AI taking a percentage of jobs there will be enough people to fill those positions and more. Why bring in workers when productivity is taking away positions. Have you ever hired someone before?
      - ipaddr 5mo ago
        AI is forecasted to remove 30% of white collar jobs in the next few years. People are not hiring now. Do you work in hr?
        bonsai_spool 5mo ago
        > Have you ever hired someone before? You didn't answer!
        ipaddr 5mo ago
        Not in hr or own small company with 3 workers
- dnnddidiej 5mo ago
  But then they gave up a tax paying job and thus the net effect is zero. Looking holistically the person leaving the US (or lets say 100 people to make it easier to see the point) means 1 to 30 less startups and so maybe an entire company or more not being started. That is less revenue for US. What most people from the "they steal our jobs" mentality (not saying that is you, but this a seperate point) don't get is productive people create jobs by being a customer of many businesses.
  - ipaddr 5mo ago
    Then someone lower got a better job and someone out of work ends up in a job.
    - bonsai_spool 5mo ago
      There are not enough qualified people in any particular country for all the possible new technologies that could be deployed. You're not likely to hire your plumber to program a webapp. That doesn't mean your plumber isn't qualified—just that people looking for webapps want to hire workers who know how to make them.
      - throwaway85825 5mo ago
        Writing web apps is not the most skilled of jobs. Despite what some egos would have tou believe.
      - ipaddr 5mo ago
        So many computer science grads can't find work many have left the field. I don't think we will run out of workers. There is the other side plenty of workers successful at programming language could be trained to fill any gap. That's what happened in the 50s and 60s..
        rtgfhyuj 5mo ago
        lol cs grads can’t do this work
- light_hue_1 5mo ago
  Or it would have moved overseas forever. I can already on the ground see the effect of the Trump policies. So many tech jobs that would have been in the US are being lost. And companies are learning how to be effective with overseas teams.
- qaq 5mo ago
  You do realize every major tech company has offices in EU and in India. You make it hard here they will hire more there
  - lmz 5mo ago
    [flagged]
    - aweiher 5mo ago
      Just so this doesn't go unanswered: That is a far-right conspiracy theory for which there is absolutely no evidence.
      - lmz 5mo ago
        Importing people from countries with higher fertility rates into a country that gives citizenship based on birth location. What else could be the result?
- ozgrakkurt 5mo ago
  It is questionable if US has the education system or people capital to support all the science based sectors it has IMO. Immigrants doing a very large portion of tech work can't be just because they get paid less
  - hunterpayne 5mo ago
    "Immigrants doing a very large portion of tech work can't be just because they get paid less" It is solely about that. Remember, immigrants didn't really play a role in the US tech industry for half of its existence and didn't play a major role until a decade ago. This is despite the fact that US colleges openly and actively discriminate against US citizens for grad school spots for 2 or 3 decades now.
    - dukeyukey 5mo ago
      > and didn't play a major role until a decade ago Sergey Brin? Paul Graham? Elon Musk?
    - mlnj 5mo ago
      >US colleges openly and actively discriminate against US citizens for grad school spots for 2 or 3 decades now. Isn't this just because foreign students pay more than citizens? Isn't this just capitalism and the free market efficiently allocating resources? Something about 'having the cake and eating it too'.
      - jakeydus 5mo ago
        Not just that, universities (especially smaller research universities) love having grad students whose research is paid for. China, Saudi Arabia, Brazil (less so now than in the past), Qatar, and others have all had programs for years where they paid the tuition and research costs of students at universities. Why would the university not pick that over a local kid who the university has to pay for out of their own coffers?
        5mo ago
- bubblethink 5mo ago
  Humans tend not to be fungible.
- konschubert 5mo ago
  More likely there would have been one less job. There isn't a "lump of labour" that gets distributed in the economy. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lump_of_labour_fallacy https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lump_of_labour_fallacy
parineum 5mo ago
> So we’re essentially turning away someone who is building up our country. They're not being turned away. There's a requirement to be in the country for 5 years with a green card before citizenship. It seems to me that they are just upset that they have to follow the rules which aren't hurting them at all.
- bonsai_spool 5mo ago
  > They're not being turned away. They are actually in fact being told to return to their country before completing a process that previously - legally! - could be done in the US. That = being turned away > There's a requirement to be in the country for 5 years with a green card before citizenship. That is absolutely irrelevant to the discussion at hand. Until next week, or whenever the current system is again upended haphazardly. > It seems to me that they are just upset that they have to follow the rules which aren't hurting them at all. It seems to me that they were all following the rules. The rules are now being capriciously changed with sly marketing words to confuse everyone.
- harimau777 5mo ago
  > which aren't hearting them at all. They are effectively being ruled by a system that they have no say in. That's incompatible with America's democratic values. Of course it's reasonable that we don't allow non-citizens the vote; the problem as I see it is that if someone has worked here for 25 years for all intents and purposes they are a citizen, the government just doesn't formally recognize the reality of their situation.
  - junofan 5mo ago
    I strongly disagree. That person retains the option of returning to their origin country and having a say there.
- zaptheimpaler 5mo ago
  This is so confusing. What does GC -> citizenship have to do with this? The rules work fine now because they apply for the change of status and keep on working until its accepted and leave if not. This new rule means they have to leave the country they are living and working in for anywhere from 1 month to 2 years, probably losing their job and majorly disrupting their lives for seemingly no reason at all. People who have lived in the US for a decade with a job, mortgage, family and children randomly need to leave to years, and what does that accomplish for anyone? If the govt. wanted to deport them, they could do it at any moment. The govt. can process their change of status paperwork exactly the same whether they're in or out of the country. So what is the point of any of this?
morpheuskafka 5mo ago
> A plurality of Americans don’t pay federal income taxes What does a plurality even mean here? This is a binary question, so plurality and majority are the same thing. And I don't think it is factually correct that the majority of Americans do not pay income taxes.
- bonsai_spool 5mo ago
  I apologize on the wording, but this is an easy thing for you to Google! https://taxfoundation.org/data/all/federal/latest-federal-income-tax-data-2025/ https://taxfoundation.org/data/all/federal/latest-federal-in... I didn't look hard but that's the first thing I found. Famously, Mitt Romney complained that 47% of Americans don't contribute to federal income tax revenue, which is what I was thinking of.
  - matwood 5mo ago
    Side note...I hate this stat because it makes it sound like the rich are paying their share of taxes. The reality is that people who make large w2 income pay a large part of federal taxes, and while they would be considered rich they are not the ultra-rich we see in the news every day.
    - bonsai_spool 5mo ago
      > .I hate this stat because it makes it sound like the rich are paying their share of taxes Yes! I agree, I don't mean to sound like I support the status quo. In this particular case, I wanted to clarify that green card-holding immigrants carry a disproportionate amount of tax burden (but that is not to support the current state of things).
      - matwood 5mo ago
        I didn't mean to imply you did support the status quo. And you're right about GC holders as they tend to make good money and fall into the worst spot tax wise - having a large w2 income.

ipaddr 5mo ago

Someone else would have taken that job maybe for a higher salary.

bonsai_spool 5mo ago
At a certain point, there aren't enough Americans for these jobs. So the choice is to let other nations absorb these skilled laborers, or simply hire the best people. It's funny how we forget about meritocracy as soon as the median American is threatened.
- rjbwork 5mo ago
  >It's funny how we forget about meritocracy as soon as the median American is threatened. What meritocracy? This is a myth pushed to justify a kind of "just world" interpretation of our social ills. Nepotism is increasing, social mobility decreasing. To believe in meritocracy in the face of this is to deny reality.
- pixelatedindex 5mo ago
  > At a certain point, there aren't enough Americans for these jobs Is that really true? I’m sure in some fields where you need rare experts I believe it. For the average engineer who is just another cog in the wheel of big corp, I highly doubt it.
  - bonsai_spool 5mo ago
    > Is that really true? I’m sure in some fields where you need rare experts I believe it. For the average engineer who is just another cog in the wheel of big corp, I highly doubt it. Have you ever hired someone before? Did you decide to take the best person you found or did you pick an American?
    - pixelatedindex 5mo ago
      > Have you ever hired someone before? Did you decide to take the best person you found or did you pick an American? Many times. Sometimes we don’t offer sponsorships so we hired who didn’t need one. Other times not. During the interview process where they’re from isn’t the matter at hand. Either way, there’s no shortage of good candidates - solely American / GC or not. Though let’s be honest - there is a question behind the question, isn’t there? Why don’t you just ask that instead?
      - bonsai_spool 5mo ago
        > Though let’s be honest - there is a question behind the question, isn’t there? Why don’t you just ask that instead? You answered it - you picked the best person, who sometimes was not American.
        pixelatedindex 5mo ago
        That doesn’t directly prove that there aren’t enough Americans who can do the job. Sometimes yeah, the non American is better like in photolithography. Generally though, the foreign candidate is not so much better that hiring an American would have lowered the bar. Sometimes it also comes down to leveling - I’ve had to down level people due to budget concerns. Americans can hold out for that better job, but the other cannot so companies take advantage of that. My point is that it’s not a skill issue, it’s a wage + location issue. Foreigners will find that their wage is better than what they can earn at home, so they can undercut that citizens who’s held out for a better opportunity.
        5mo ago
- jaharios 5mo ago
  So we should strive to maximize companies profits over the citizens?
- ipaddr 5mo ago
  With AI taking a percentage of jobs there will be enough people to fill those positions and more. Why bring in workers when productivity is taking away positions.
  - bonsai_spool 5mo ago
    > With AI taking a percentage of jobs there will be enough people to fill those positions and more. Why bring in workers when productivity is taking away positions. Have you ever hired someone before?
    - ipaddr 5mo ago
      AI is forecasted to remove 30% of white collar jobs in the next few years. People are not hiring now. Do you work in hr?
      - bonsai_spool 5mo ago
        > Have you ever hired someone before? You didn't answer!
        ipaddr 5mo ago
        Not in hr or own small company with 3 workers
dnnddidiej 5mo ago
But then they gave up a tax paying job and thus the net effect is zero. Looking holistically the person leaving the US (or lets say 100 people to make it easier to see the point) means 1 to 30 less startups and so maybe an entire company or more not being started. That is less revenue for US. What most people from the "they steal our jobs" mentality (not saying that is you, but this a seperate point) don't get is productive people create jobs by being a customer of many businesses.
- ipaddr 5mo ago
  Then someone lower got a better job and someone out of work ends up in a job.
  - bonsai_spool 5mo ago
    There are not enough qualified people in any particular country for all the possible new technologies that could be deployed. You're not likely to hire your plumber to program a webapp. That doesn't mean your plumber isn't qualified—just that people looking for webapps want to hire workers who know how to make them.
    - throwaway85825 5mo ago
      Writing web apps is not the most skilled of jobs. Despite what some egos would have tou believe.
    - ipaddr 5mo ago
      So many computer science grads can't find work many have left the field. I don't think we will run out of workers. There is the other side plenty of workers successful at programming language could be trained to fill any gap. That's what happened in the 50s and 60s..
      - rtgfhyuj 5mo ago
        lol cs grads can’t do this work
light_hue_1 5mo ago
Or it would have moved overseas forever. I can already on the ground see the effect of the Trump policies. So many tech jobs that would have been in the US are being lost. And companies are learning how to be effective with overseas teams.
qaq 5mo ago
You do realize every major tech company has offices in EU and in India. You make it hard here they will hire more there
- lmz 5mo ago
  [flagged]
  - aweiher 5mo ago
    Just so this doesn't go unanswered: That is a far-right conspiracy theory for which there is absolutely no evidence.
    - lmz 5mo ago
      Importing people from countries with higher fertility rates into a country that gives citizenship based on birth location. What else could be the result?
ozgrakkurt 5mo ago
It is questionable if US has the education system or people capital to support all the science based sectors it has IMO. Immigrants doing a very large portion of tech work can't be just because they get paid less
- hunterpayne 5mo ago
  "Immigrants doing a very large portion of tech work can't be just because they get paid less" It is solely about that. Remember, immigrants didn't really play a role in the US tech industry for half of its existence and didn't play a major role until a decade ago. This is despite the fact that US colleges openly and actively discriminate against US citizens for grad school spots for 2 or 3 decades now.
  - dukeyukey 5mo ago
    > and didn't play a major role until a decade ago Sergey Brin? Paul Graham? Elon Musk?
  - mlnj 5mo ago
    >US colleges openly and actively discriminate against US citizens for grad school spots for 2 or 3 decades now. Isn't this just because foreign students pay more than citizens? Isn't this just capitalism and the free market efficiently allocating resources? Something about 'having the cake and eating it too'.
    - jakeydus 5mo ago
      Not just that, universities (especially smaller research universities) love having grad students whose research is paid for. China, Saudi Arabia, Brazil (less so now than in the past), Qatar, and others have all had programs for years where they paid the tuition and research costs of students at universities. Why would the university not pick that over a local kid who the university has to pay for out of their own coffers?
      - 5mo ago
bubblethink 5mo ago
Humans tend not to be fungible.
konschubert 5mo ago
More likely there would have been one less job. There isn't a "lump of labour" that gets distributed in the economy. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lump_of_labour_fallacy https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lump_of_labour_fallacy

parineum 5mo ago

> So we’re essentially turning away someone who is building up our country. They're not being turned away. There's a requirement to be in the country for 5 years with a green card before citizenship. It seems to me that they are just upset that they have to follow the rules which aren't hurting them at all.

bonsai_spool 5mo ago
> They're not being turned away. They are actually in fact being told to return to their country before completing a process that previously - legally! - could be done in the US. That = being turned away > There's a requirement to be in the country for 5 years with a green card before citizenship. That is absolutely irrelevant to the discussion at hand. Until next week, or whenever the current system is again upended haphazardly. > It seems to me that they are just upset that they have to follow the rules which aren't hurting them at all. It seems to me that they were all following the rules. The rules are now being capriciously changed with sly marketing words to confuse everyone.
harimau777 5mo ago
> which aren't hearting them at all. They are effectively being ruled by a system that they have no say in. That's incompatible with America's democratic values. Of course it's reasonable that we don't allow non-citizens the vote; the problem as I see it is that if someone has worked here for 25 years for all intents and purposes they are a citizen, the government just doesn't formally recognize the reality of their situation.
- junofan 5mo ago
  I strongly disagree. That person retains the option of returning to their origin country and having a say there.
zaptheimpaler 5mo ago
This is so confusing. What does GC -> citizenship have to do with this? The rules work fine now because they apply for the change of status and keep on working until its accepted and leave if not. This new rule means they have to leave the country they are living and working in for anywhere from 1 month to 2 years, probably losing their job and majorly disrupting their lives for seemingly no reason at all. People who have lived in the US for a decade with a job, mortgage, family and children randomly need to leave to years, and what does that accomplish for anyone? If the govt. wanted to deport them, they could do it at any moment. The govt. can process their change of status paperwork exactly the same whether they're in or out of the country. So what is the point of any of this?

morpheuskafka 5mo ago

> A plurality of Americans don’t pay federal income taxes What does a plurality even mean here? This is a binary question, so plurality and majority are the same thing. And I don't think it is factually correct that the majority of Americans do not pay income taxes.

bonsai_spool 5mo ago
I apologize on the wording, but this is an easy thing for you to Google! https://taxfoundation.org/data/all/federal/latest-federal-income-tax-data-2025/ https://taxfoundation.org/data/all/federal/latest-federal-in... I didn't look hard but that's the first thing I found. Famously, Mitt Romney complained that 47% of Americans don't contribute to federal income tax revenue, which is what I was thinking of.
- matwood 5mo ago
  Side note...I hate this stat because it makes it sound like the rich are paying their share of taxes. The reality is that people who make large w2 income pay a large part of federal taxes, and while they would be considered rich they are not the ultra-rich we see in the news every day.
  - bonsai_spool 5mo ago
    > .I hate this stat because it makes it sound like the rich are paying their share of taxes Yes! I agree, I don't mean to sound like I support the status quo. In this particular case, I wanted to clarify that green card-holding immigrants carry a disproportionate amount of tax burden (but that is not to support the current state of things).
    - matwood 5mo ago
      I didn't mean to imply you did support the status quo. And you're right about GC holders as they tend to make good money and fall into the worst spot tax wise - having a large w2 income.