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I needed some time to clarify this in my mind, but here's a few more words... the entire debate is a distraction. It's a time-tested, well-worn, same-as-it-ever-was, hand-waving, smoke in mirrors attempt to get conservatives to take their eye off the ball.
One of, if not the biggest, issues that got Trump elected was the mass migration of humanity across the Mexico border that ballooned under Biden. Millions are estimated to have crossed in the past few years hoovering up all kinds of services and national goodwill. Conservatives point at gangs taking over apartment complexes and many (poor) liberal voters point at cities that take their resources and give them to migrants. The problem -- broadly understood -- is an open border and a flood of people.
The solution -- broadly understood -- is closing the border and sending all the people back. The reality is this can't be done, at least not in a meaningful way and not much more than is already happening. It's safe to assume that half or more of these people are already in the wind. The people who will be sent back first are the ones we can get our hands on. It is precisely the same argument I'd give libs/progressives about the gun debate: you cannot stuff that particular genie back in the bottle, but if you were going to try you'd go after all the guns you knew about first.
So, who's up first? How about some of those 85K Visa holders! We know where they all are and we already know they follow the rules and will do what we tell them. You want to show bigly action on sending back migrants but most are dispersed -- or worse, dangerous? Send the easy ones back first! DUH. Get those numbers up! We didn't need them anyway! They were just doing the garbage programming work that no one really cares about. Boring entry level stuff like, updating warehousing services for Wallgreens, or front-end development for Door Dash, or using PuTTy to monitor Python scripts and shell services on data farms --the crap jobs we should be giving to the 820k STEM college grads. It's an easy win.
But Musk says, "hang on, we kinda need these guys, there's more of those jobs than you realize!" Now the in-fighting begins. Keep your eye on the ball: the Indian guys aren't the problem anyone actually wants fixed. The H1-B visa people are not stealing American jobs or warping American culture. They slot in precisely where we want immigrants to our immigrant nation to slot in -- legally, usefully and competitively. America consumes these people like Popeye eats Spinach. This isn't Britain or Germany. This is still the world's strongest economy and it's ravenous.
Are H1-B visas a real problem? Maybe. Are they the actual problem we're trying to fix? Nope. It's a trompe l'oeil. A token gesture. A ruse. A Hail-Mary on the first play. It's the brazen hope that we don't notice that the people-flood isn't actually receding and a million illegal immigrants aren't getting forcibly repatriated. It's not what people actually voted for. It's a distraction. And if I had to choose a side (which i don't) I'd side with Musk. We need these folks to do the (digital) shit work--same as always.
***Yes, I'm making a prediction: wholesale deportation won't happen. My prediction is that the growth rate of deported aliens will not exceed 20% of what it already is. According to Reuters and others, there were almost 3 million border interactions last year with around 270k deported. I predict that number will not exceed 350k for at least the first two years of Trump's presidency. I have 85% confidence in this prediction. I think we're already sending back as many as we can and the debate over H1-B's is an attempt to goose the numbers.
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