this post was submitted on 29 Jan 2026
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It's a little more complex than this. Wage suppression does occur but only at the very bottom strata of employment, specifically those producing use-values that are directly consumed within the country where the labour is performed. Employment in industries producing globalised/exported commodities tend not to see wage suppression and often sees an opposite effect as the higher concentration of highly-qualified labour attracts more investment. All this is to say that the overall effect doesn't tell the whole story, and different sections of the bourgeois may have differing reasons for supporting/opposing immigration.
dude, HB-1 visas lower wages in the tech sector, and there is a reason big tech corpos are so desperate to increase how many there are, so they can bring immigrant programmers to the USA and pay them 50K a year instead of a 150K a year a American programmer might get. They can also exploit them to work 80hour weeks or more because the visa is dependent on the companies sponsorship.
It's also a reason the AMA doesn't let foreign doctors practice in America w/o a crazy certification process that takes years to go through. They know it would lower physicians wages if doctors for eastern Europe could immigrate here and would glad to work for 80K.
Nobody likes to talk about these things because they are politically incorrect. Bring them up and people will tell you you're being an asshole.
Immigration is a complex problem at all bands of the economic spectrum. On the rich end, countries have national programs to actively court rich people to become citizens and expedite the process... because they want their money and assets in country. And on the flip side, nobody wants poor people because they are economic burdens who often use a lot of public resources.
Correct, but this more a case of qualifications chasing investment rather than vice-versa. It's not the kind of immigration that tends to get 'debated' in terms of how much of it should be allowed, though the H1Bs were kind of in the news cycle a few months ago.
I live in a big tech city and it's a very hot topic here on both sides. A lot of HB-1 visa holders are basically ghettoized in their companies and socially from the 'tech bro' workers who are from upper middle class white/asian families. They do a lot of the same work, but their wage differential is like a factor of 2-4x for the same job.
But true that it's not a big deal nationally, which seems to mostly focus on latin american emigration of uneducated low wage laborers.
That's fair. I didn't realise how socially divisive the H1Bs were, though it makes sense now that you mention it.
one of my friends rents out his spare bedroom to hb-1 holders and people flip out at him for it. he's just a nice guy looking to give someone a leg up in this shitty world. and the people who shit on him the most are the ones who got houses paid for by their parents.