As the debate over H1Bs heats up, I’ll weigh in with my two cents. As a Border Patrol Agent, I didn’t run into too many of these visas. When we were doing transportation checks at buses and airports was usually the only time we would see them, not on the banks of the Rio Grande.
The CBP Officers who work at ports of entry were much more expert on these visas since they see them on a daily basis. It seemed to me like the H-1B visa holders we did run into were always trying to change their status to get Green Cards. This happened over and over again. Once they get that Green Cards, they are no longer counted as an H1B, so, it makes the program look like there are fewer of them than there actually are. Also, due to spouses getting H1Bs too, the whole family can come to America. Once here, drop an anchor baby and wait for the free bag of goodies to start coming.
American Renaissance had a recent good article by an Indian detailing how horrible India is: India: It’s Worse Than You Think, December 20, 2024. Americans in general seem to romanticize the foreigner and don’t realize that the immigrant brings their dysfunction with them.
I can remember investigating one Indian restaurant owner who forced another Indian migrant to pay him rent because the second Indian had a food stand on the public sidewalk in front of his restaurant. It was totally illegal (the restaurant owner didn’t own the sidewalk), but it was enforced like a Mafia boss would do.
Another time, I remember talking to an Indian engineer who was working as a truck driver. He had come in on an H-1B to work at an automotive plant (GM, I think), but then left once he got his Green Card. I was a little shocked that he preferred working as a truck driver to being the engineer he was supposedly trained to do. However, I’ve come to find out that in a lot of foreign cultures owning your own business is placed in much higher esteem than working for someone else. So, this Indian was trying to start his own trucking company.
Thank God Vivek Ramaswamy didn’t get closer to the presidency than he did. He talked a good game, but did he actually believe in any of it? Vivek talked of gutting the H-1B visa while campaigning for President himself., but he has since reversed himself completely… Watching Great Britain from across the pond, it wasn’t a surprise that Rishi Sunak only wanted to reduce illegal immigration. He still wanted to continue replacement migration, but just do it legally.
