Corporate chieftains who will meet President Trump at the White House on Friday have expressed no fondness for his executive order on visas and refugees. Some have publicly objected, and are expected to complain about it at the meeting.
Maybe they are repelled by what they regard as an inhumane and discriminatory policy. Maybe they are engaged in nothing more than public relations posturing.
But their opposition to a pause in the flow of refugees to America is not a business concern, for U.S. industry’s interest in immigration is not about Syrian refugees, Iranian tourists, or Somali students. Business’s interest in visas is simply about wanting more foreign workers.
When the chief executives express this desire to import cheap labor, Trump should tell them to buzz off. Guest-worker visas are an abused, exploitative, big-government program aimed at driving down wages.
If Trump wants to fight for the forgotten man, he will rebuff requests to expand guest-worker programs. He will, rather, scrap the guest-worker program for low-skilled workers, and also totally overhaul the high-skilled guest-worker program.
Washington gives out 66,000 H-2B visas a year. These are for low-skilled workers, who can come for between a few months and three years. The visa holder is at the mercy of his employer. If he leaves his job, he must go home. He can bring his family to live with him in America, but his family members may not work.
This isn’t the free market. This is a government program helping employers exploit workers. When “you’re fired” means “you’re deported,” workplaces are rigged against labor. Checks that a real market puts on employers, that workers might leave for a better job, are absent in the H-2B world.
These visas aren’t about being a welcoming nation, a melting pot, or any of those nice things. These workers are often sent home after 3 years unless they elude the law and stick around illegally, living in the shadows.
The H-2B program is a precision tool whose mechanism is big government and whose purpose is to reduce wages for low-skilled workers. If we had full employment and a high participation rate in the labor force, the system might make sense. If economic and geographic mobility were higher, it would be less offensive to try to replace non-college natives with foreigners.
As the economy is now, however, the H-2B program rigs the game for big business against Joe Sixpack. Trump ought to break it to the visiting executives that H-2Bs will be dialed back or abolished.
The other big guest-worker program is the H-1B, for high-skilled guest workers. In theory, this program allows companies to fill skills gaps. One company needs a nuclear engineer. Another firm needs a programmer.
In practice, it hasn’t worked out this way. Indian outsourcing firms sweep up tens of thousands of these visas every year. The jobs to which they apply often require some training, but have nothing to do with importing rare skills or unique genius into America. Tech execs will call for more H-1Bs. Trump ought to implement the reform proposed by his aid Stephen Miller and hand out these visas to the highest wage-payers.
If executives believe in markets, they’ll see the wisdom in this. The most indispensible, most in-demand, most skilled foreign workers will command the highest salaries, and they’ll be the ones coming in. This will remove downward pressure on tech wages and put immigration policy to work serving American interests, which is what all of our government policies are supposed to do.
