GOP Activist: Suspend All Work Visas Until U.S. Graduates Get Jobs

college graduates AP PhotoSeth Wenig
AP Photo/Seth Wenig
Neil Munro

GOP and Democrat politicians can win massive support from millions of young graduates by just opposing the inflow of foreign visa workers into the good jobs that American graduates need to pay their college debts, says Charlie Kirk, founder of Turning Point USA.

“You’ve got 5 million kids that are scheduled to graduate, with no ceremony, in the next three to four weeks [and] they’re going to be entering the worst job market in American history,” he said in an April 9 tweet:

You want to win the youth vote? Suspend all visas. That’s right: Every single visa so every single one of those college kids can get a job.

Foreign nationals should not be getting the jobs that our college kids went into debt to go get. Every single one of those kids should be given preference and precedence over some foreign national that might be able to take advantage of our visa process, and that’s why I called for a total and complete moratorium on all visas till we get to pre-pandemic unemployment levels, and even after that, we should pass the RAISE Act by Sen. Tom Cotton which cuts our visas dramatically.

Turning Point USA has built many groups on many U.S. campuses, where many students are rising up against their universities’ growing and profitable participation in the visa worker economy. The wave of activism has gained strength as the coronavirus crash has destroyed 2020 job opportunities for many soon-to-be graduates.

Nationwide, Congress’s many visa programs keep roughly 1.5 million foreign nationals in a variety of jobs — including many of the start jobs that U.S. graduates need to get job experience in business and healthcare, engineering and math, fashion and design, and software and science.

This population of visa workers includes roughly one million Indians and roughly 270,000 Chinese graduates.

Many of the foreign workers are delivered in compliant blocs by Indian-run staffing companies to many complacent business executives and progressive H.R. managers who prefer not to hire free-speaking American professionals via individual interviews.

Many Americans are denied jobs by foreign hiring managers who expect secret cash kickbacks from often-unqualified fellow nationals, while U.S. managers and civil rights officials look away.

Many foreign workers get hired because U.S. managers know they will work in exchange for the government-funded deferred bonus of green cards and citizenship, while American candidates must be paid in dollars that reduce profit margins.

U.S. innovation declines as American professionals get isolated and replaced by ethnic coalitions of visa workers who are helping each extract as much money as they can before returning home.

This underground economy is made possible by Congress, corporations, and the establishment media, all of which ignore the routine violation of workplace laws, including the anti-discrimination laws that are designed to give Americans fairness in hiring.

Kirk’s tweet comes amid the coronavirus crash, which is pressuring many of the visa workers to leave as they lose their jobs and work permits.

However,  the companies that hire and deliver the visa workers for American jobs are fighting back against the pressure. For example, the U.S.-Indian NASSCOM business group is lobbying the Department of Labor to allow easier visa extensions and changes.

So far, President Donald Trump has not weighed into the visa worker fight — even though he slammed the H-1B visa program when he ran for president. In March 2016, after much zigzagging, Trump declared:

The H-1B program is neither high-skilled nor immigration: these are temporary foreign workers, imported from abroad, for the explicit purpose of substituting for American workers at lower pay. I remain totally committed to eliminating rampant, widespread H-1B abuse and ending outrageous practices such as those that occurred at Disney in Florida when Americans were forced to train their foreign replacements. I will end forever the use of the H-1B as a cheap labor program, and institute an absolute requirement to hire American workers for every visa and immigration program. No exceptions.

But Trump has done little to curb the visa worker programs, so far.

In April, companies nominated 270,000 foreign workers for 85,000 H-1B work permits that are awarded by the Department of Homeland Security and will become active in October.

Typically, Trump zigzags his way towards his political goals, amid constant pressure from voters who want higher wages and business executives who gain from cheap visa workers.

A growing number of graduate groups are standing up to demand that Trump act in their favor, after decades of their shrinking participation in the nation’s technology, healthcare, and professional sectors.

These graduates include Fiona, a Florida-based American computer expert.

She earned two college degrees in the early 2000s after she left the real estate industry amid the 2007 collapse, she told Breibart News March 19.

Since then, she has worked a series of contract jobs, most recently at a seven-month stint at an insurance company run by an imported workforce of H-1B workers from India. She said her job ended when she was forced out by Indian managers, in part, because of her excellent performance reviews. She is in her 50s, has been unemployed for several months, and fears recruiters will blackball her if she speaks on the record.

She told Breitbart News, “I’m not eligible for unemployment. So I have lived off my savings, and I’m living with my son. I’m still applying for jobs, but they’re very few and far between. I can’t relocate again because when they cut my contract job, I had to cut my lease off early, so now, my credit is bad. My lease history is bad. I can’t go and take the risks that I did before. I was getting ready to go and look for a minimum wage job until this coronavirus came here, you know. Come next month; you know what? I can’t pay my bills because I’ve gone for like eight months on my savings.”

“To be honest with you, I have given up on American companies,” she added.

“I have given up on being able to be hired by America because I’m American, and Americans don’t matter. And I’m sorry I’m going to get a little bit emotional here. … Americans don’t matter. I hear politicians, you know, saying, “Okay, you know what? We’re going to open our borders, and you can have free health…I don’t have health insurance. You know, Americans don’t matter. All that matters is foreign workers. All that matters is if the foreign individuals…I mean, it’s like we don’t matter. America doesn’t matter.”

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