Ramaswamy wants to end the H-1B visa program he used 29 times
Ramaswamy wants to end the H-1B visa program he used 29 times
The GOP candidate pledges to get rid of a the system he calls “indentured servitude.”
The GOP candidate pledges to get rid of a the system he calls “indentured servitude.”
GOP candidate Vivek Ramaswamy has vowed to “gut” the system for H-1B temporary worker visas if he wins the White House.
It’s the very system he’s used in the past to hire high-skilled foreign workers for the pharma company that built much of his wealth.
From 2018 through 2023, U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services approved 29 applications for Ramaswamy’s former company, Roivant Sciences, to hire employees under H-1B visas, which allow U.S. companies to employ foreign workers in tech and other specialized jobs.
Yet, the H-1B system is “bad for everyone involved,” Ramaswamy told POLITICO.
“The lottery system needs to be replaced by actual meritocratic admission. It’s a form of indentured servitude that only accrues to the benefit of the company that sponsored an H-1B immigrant. I’ll gut it,” he said in a statement, adding that the U.S. needs to eliminate chain-based migration.
“The people who come as family members are not the meritocratic immigrants who make skills-based contributions to this country.”
Ramaswamy stepped down as chief executive officer of Roivant in February 2021, but remained the chair of the company’s board of directors until February this year when he announced his presidential campaign. As of March 31, the company and its subsidiaries had 904 full-time employees, including 825 in the U.S., according to its SEC filings.
When asked about the mismatch in the GOP presidential hopeful’s policy stance and his past business practices, press secretary Tricia McLaughlin said the role of a policymaker “is to do what’s right for a country overall: the system is broken and needs to be fixed.”
“Vivek believes that regulations overseeing the U.S. energy sector are badly broken, but he still uses water and electricity,” she said in a statement. “This is the same.”
Ramaswamy, who is himself the child of immigrants, has captured headlines for his restrictionist immigration policy agenda.
While not new to the GOP playbook, his rhetoric has at times gone farther than the other candidates, as he calls for lottery-based visas, such as the H-1B worker visas, to be replaced with “meritocratic” admission. He’s also said he’d use military force to secure the border, and that he would deport U.S.-born children of undocumented immigrants.
H-1B visas are highly sought after, and the demand for these workers continues to increase: For fiscal year 2021, U.S. businesses submitted 780,884 applications for just 85,000 available slots, jumping by more than 60 percent.
Ramaswamy acknowledged his own experience with immigration during his opening remarks at the first GOP debate in Milwaukee.
“My parents came to this country with no money 40 years ago,” he said. “I have gone on to found multi billion-dollar companies.”
Ramaswamy’s stance on H-1B visas is reminiscent of the 2016 Trump campaign, when then-candidate Donald Trump, who has also hired a number of foreign workers under H-1B visas for his businesses, took a hardline stance on these foreign workers before later softening his rhetoric.
As president, Trump temporarily suspended new work visas and blocked hundreds of thousands of foreign workers from U.S. employment, as part of his sweeping effort to limit the number of immigrants coming into the United States.
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The H1B visa is abused by companies to pay garbage wages and not hire local employees. It needs a safety net. If they can’t find someone local and need to fill that position with overseas work, so be it. But put a higher minimum wage on it. $25/hr minimum on foreign workers would get Americans jobs very quickly. And for the companies not abusing the visas and needing highly skilled labor, well $25/hr isn’t much and they’re already probably making more.
$25/hr (about $50k/yr) is nothing for the kind of professional/software jobs typical of H1Bs.
This is nowhere near enough, plus I don’t see how that wage could be argued for “high skilled @ people. Ok, maybe I also live in a bubble in a high cost of living area with a well paying tech job, but many of these people can be paid much more than that, while still being seriously underpaid wage slaves
This is a minimum on the visa, not on skilled workers. The argument is that very skilled workers already make more than that. But I’ve worked in restaurants that rely on H1B waitstaff and they pay them $4-$5/hr. These are the places this would target. They’ll go straight back to hiring waitstaff at minimum wage vs hiring foreign at $25/hr. Ya minimum wage sucks, but it’s better than being jobless.
Whereas skilled labor, especially tech jobs, those people are already making six digits. They’ll already clear the bar for $25/hr. So nothing will change for them and it won’t upset major labor markets that don’t abuse the system.
To be clear, those waitstaff are not H1-B. There are many categories of work visas and H1B is for professionals and specialists
But I still disagree with the second premise. Yes these people are making good money, often reaching well into six digits, but if they’re making significantly less than a citizen doing the same work, is that really fair? And if they’re afraid to complain because if they lose their job, they get deported, isn’t that abusive? It can be equally bad for the citizen as well: companies are supposed to certify that h1b holders are specialists not available locally, but if they’re really just trying to under-pay workers, it can drive locals out of jobs or help drive pay down for locals
The rule should be that they have to pay ABOVE local going rate. Some percentage, like say, 25% above. It should be something of a last resort - hey, we couldn't find anyone locally, really, we had to source this remotely.
At the same time, though, we should be finding ways to bump up numbers of those that want to come here to work and have full citizenship, and without being held to the whims of companies looking to treat workers like garbage and suppress salaries.