Speaking on the Senate floor Jan. 15 afternoon, Sen. Bernie Sanders, I-Vermont, proposed sweeping changes to the H-1B visa program via an amendment to the Laken-Riley Act.
Sanders criticized the H-1B program, which offers 85,000 temporary work visas to highly-skilled workers from abroad. About 70% of the H-1B workforce hails from India, and roughly 12% come from China.
“Multi-billionaires in the high-tech industry claim that the H-1B federal guest worker program is vital to our economy because of the scarcity of highly skilled engineers and other technology workers in the United States. In my view, they are dead wrong,” stated Sanders on the Senate floor.
Cheap Labor
“The main function of the H-1B program is not to hire ‘the best and the brightest,’ but rather to replace good-paying American jobs with hundreds of thousands of lower-paid guest workers from abroad who are often treated as indentured servants. The cheaper it is to hire guest workers, the more money the multi-billionaire owners of large corporations make,” he said.
The senator cited data from the Economic Policy Institute, which determined that the top 30 H-1B employers hired 34,000 new H-1B workers in 2022 and laid off at least 85,000 workers in 2022 and early 2023. EPI’s reporting was based on data from layoffs.fyi, which notes that it largely uses anecdotal data to compile its findings.
Sanders also claimed that H-1B workers are paid less than their US counterparts, and are essentially shackled to the employer who sponsored their H-1B.
MAGA Feud
The H-1B visa program has caused a feud in President-elect Donald Trump’s inner circle with former Trump advisor and podcaster Steve Bannon vociferously opposing the program, and Tesla founder Elon Musk vowing to keep the program going. In his remarks on the Senate floor, Sanders claimed that Musk had hired accountants from abroad using the H-1B program, and paid them as little as $58,000 per year.
The Laken-Riley Act was passed by the House last week, and scheduled for a vote in the Senate Jan. 17. Sander’s amendments to the bill would:
- Double the fee companies must pay to hire guest workers. Sanders said the resulting revenue of $370 million could be used to support scholarships for US college students entering STEM fields
- Require corporations to substantially increase wages for the jobs they need before being allowed to hire H-1B guest workers, and raise the prevailing wage for the H-1B program to at least the median local wage
- Make H-1B visas portable, and give guest workers the ability to easily change jobs
False Claims
Kalpana Peddibhotla, executive director of the South Asian American Justice Collaborative, refuted Sanders’ claims in an interview with Ethnic Media Services, and noted that people on the H-1B visa program were highly-skilled workers, vital to the US economy.
“There’s perception that even people with an associate’s degree can get into an H-1B. That’s a mischaracterization. You have to have a bachelor’s or the equivalent of a US bachelor’s degree,” said Peddibhotla, who has practiced immigration law for over 20 years. Prospective employers must be able to prove that the degree from abroad is equal to or exceeds the equivalent of a US degree in the same field.
Peddibhotla also refuted Sanders’ and the MAGA movement’s claim of “cheap workers” from abroad undercutting the wages of American workers. “The majority of H-1B workers are not only paid the median prevailing wage, but they’re paid above that wage compared to US workers.”
Competitive Wages
“We can see the labor condition applications filed with the Department of Labor, and those show the actual wages being paid. By and large, H-1B workers are paid a fairly substantial wage,” she said, citing a CATO Institute study that determined H-1B wages are in the top 10% of all US salaries.
The H-1B program is administered through US Citizenship and Immigration Services. Peddibhotla stated there is broad oversight of the program, via USCIS, to ensure employers are in step with the provisions of the H-1B program.
SAAJCO, a civil rights organization, has expressed concern about Sanders’ use of the phrase indentured servants for workers tied to the employer who sponsored their H-1B application. “There’s a colonial history behind that language,” said Peddibhotla.
Tech Workers Are Needed
She noted that “portability” of the H-1B visa – the ability to move from one company to another – already exists. “Workers just have to find another company willing to sponsor them.”
“This isn’t difficult. Tech workers are some of the most sought-after people in the US labor force,” said Peddibhotla.
Trump
She said it was unclear as to whether incoming President Donald Trump would gut the H-1B program, noting the dispute on both sides of his inner circle. “What I saw under his 1st administration was that he handicapped the program through how it was administered. He delayed the processing of applications. Employers lost time in trying to onboard employees. As a result, some of those workers, we lost them altogether in competition with Canada.”
“So we lost a level of competitiveness,” said Peddibhotla.
