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Jan. 5, 2025 19:33-20:00 - CSPAN

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Washington Journal David Bier

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kimberly adams

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unidentified		presidential election.
		And on January 20th, tune in for our live all-day coverage of the presidential inauguration as Donald Trump takes the oath of office, becoming the 47th president of the United States.
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kimberly adams ▲ ● ▼		Welcome back.
		We are joined now by David Beer, who is the Immigration Studies Director at the Cato Institute.
		Welcome to Washington Journal.
unidentified		Thanks for having me on.
kimberly adams ▲ ● ▼		Thank you so much for joining us.
		But before we get into our conversation, a caller in the previous hour was asking about the Social Security Fairness Act, and I did want to follow up.
		We had said that that was going to be signed tomorrow.
		It actually looks like that the Social Security Fairness Act is going to be signed later today at about 4 o'clock Eastern is what we're seeing on the schedule and we will be covering that live on C-SPAN.
		So just following up from a previous point from the previous hour, but we are here with you to talk about immigration and in particular, H-1B visas, which have been in the news quite a bit because of some disputes within the Republican Party over what to do about this program.
		What is an H-1B visa?
unidentified		An H-1B visa is a guest worker visa, a temporary legal form of status that allows skilled foreign workers to work legally in the United States temporarily.
		It's initially valid for a period of three years.
		It could be renewed once, but if you're sponsored for a green card or permanent resident status in the United States, you can extend it indefinitely until you are able to obtain a green card through the green card process.
		So that's really the main gateway for skilled foreign workers to get a foot in the door into the U.S. labor market and start their careers in the United States.
kimberly adams ▲ ● ▼		How does somebody qualify for one of these visas and how long does that process take to actually get it?
unidentified		Yeah, so the qualifications are you have to have a bachelor's degree in a specialty field.
		You have to be paid the prevailing wage for your area and your occupation and your skill level.
		In the United States, in the United States, right.
		And then the employer has to pay $15,000 in legal fees either to the government or to attorneys to file the application on your behalf.
		And then if you look at it, there's a cap.
		So there's 85,000 visas that are made available mainly to for-profit companies.
		And those companies have to enter a lottery each year, at least since for the last decade, there's been a lottery since the demand exceeded that 85,000 number.
		Even before the start of the fiscal year, the demand exceeded, and so much so that now only about 20% of the applicants actually receive a H-1B visa through the lottery.
kimberly adams ▲ ● ▼		And these are people who are qualified and enter the process.
kimberly adams ▲ ● ▼		Now then, what kinds of immigrants and nationalities and industries here in the United States rely on this program?
unidentified		Yeah, so if you look at the nationalities of the people who are applying, it's about 56% are Indians, people from India.
		Then you have Chinese, about 14%.
		That's about 70%.
		Then all the other nationalities are a much smaller percentage.
		About 30% of the total are other countries.
		If you look at the industries and occupations that they're doing, it's about 80% computer, math, and engineering.
		That's what these workers are overwhelmingly doing in the United States.
		So that's where you're going to see the biggest focus of employment and discussion about what their effects are on the labor market.
kimberly adams ▲ ● ▼		And just for a bit more information about these visas, that there are, you mentioned 85,000 of those visas.
		65,000 of those are just sort of the regular ones with those qualifications with another 20,000 limited to applicants with graduate degrees.
		So you're talking about pretty highly skilled workers here.
unidentified		Yeah, absolutely.
		So if you look at their qualifications, overall, about 70% end up with a master's degree.
		So 20,000 are guaranteed to have a master's degree.
		The rest are, you know, it's like 50-50 have a master's versus not.
		Because if you have a master's degree, you're really increasing your odds of winning the lottery and getting through the process by going on and getting higher education.
		And many of the people who come start out as international students at U.S. universities.
		A majority of the people who get the H-1B visa are actually already in the United States and have graduated from a U.S. university and are seeking to stay on for the company that hired them out of grad school.
		And so that's sort of the process that we see many foreign students go through.
		And if they can't win the lottery, then many of them go back to school, get a master's.
		It enables them to stay in the United States and then get a few more chances to win the lottery and hopefully stay in the United States long term.
kimberly adams ▲ ● ▼		Is there a path to citizenship involved with the H-1B visa?
unidentified		Well, there is an envisioned process by which H-1B visas can adjust to permanent resident status or a green card.
		Companies have to sponsor the worker.
		So they're sponsored to be on the H-1B visa and then they're sponsored again to get a green card.
		And that's a very costly and expensive process for employers to go through as well.
		So if you look at it, only about half of the H-1B visas, H-1B workers end up getting sponsored for a green card.
		And then, you know, like I said, they can continue on in their H-1B status indefinitely until they're able to obtain a green card under the green card process.
		And if you look at the green card process, it is highly restrictive.
		So you have about 140,000 visas made available to employer-sponsored immigrants of all types.
		So it's not just people on H-1B, it's people outside the U.S., it's people on other statuses, it's international students who are adjusting, all go through this 140,000 number, but half of those 140,000 go to spouses and minor children of the workers themselves.
		So it's actually really an effective cap of about 70,000, which is less than the H-1B issues annually.
		So you end up with a big backlog.
		through this process.
		About 1.5 million immigrants are waiting for employer-sponsored green cards right now in the backlog purely because of the cap.
		So the cap is too low compared to the demand.
		So you end up with this big backlog.
		It's not all nationalities being treated equally within the green card queue.
		So I mentioned that Indians are by far the most common recipients of the H-1B visa.
		Over half of the applicants are Indian applicants.
		But if you look at how the green card process works, only 7% can go to any single nationality.
		So what ends up happening is Indians are 50% of the applicants.
		They only get 7% of the green cards, and they end up being 90% of the people waiting in the backlog.
		And so that's why you see so many Indian residents, Indian H-1B holders in the United States renewing and being a focus of the conversation, not just because they're such a high percentage of the total applicants, but because they're stuck in the H-1B status really indefinitely.
		If you look at right now, we are processing people who applied for their green card in 2012 if they're from India.
		Other countries, it's 2023.
		And so that is a huge disparity between what the process looks like if you're from India versus all other countries because of this country cap situation.
		And so looking forward, we're processing people who applied in 2012, but there's this huge 1.4 million person backlog that has developed since then, mainly from India.
		And if you look forward, we're going to have about a century wait for new Indian applicants.
		So basically, if you're from India, you're applying for a green card today, you're likely never to get a green card, you know, through, unless there's some reform to the process.
kimberly adams ▲ ● ▼		So one of the reasons this is in the news recently is because of discussions happening amongst members of the Republican Party as well as new advisors to President-elect Donald Trump.
		I'll point to a post here from Elon Musk who says, the reason I'm in America along with so many critical people who built SpaceX, Tesla, and hundreds of other companies that made America strong is because of H-1B.
		Can you talk about why Musk finds himself kind of opposed to some other Republicans on this issue?
unidentified		Well, if you look at his story, right, he came initially as an international student, then he started a company and went on to H-1B.
unidentified		There's a little bit of a gap in his status there that the Washington Post has reported on.
kimberly adams ▲ ● ▼		Keep saying the Post reported that he overstayed his visa.
unidentified		Right.
		Well, he didn't actually go to school.
		He just started a company, which isn't really what he was supposed to be doing.
		And so then he was able to then get onto an H-1B once he had started his company and the company then sponsored him for the visa.
		So that's his process that he went through and many other founders of companies.
		If you look at 55% of the billion-dollar startups in the United States were founded by immigrants.
		And if you look at artificial intelligence companies, 65% of those companies were started by founders.
		And when he's talking about critical positions, CEOs, other import CTOs, chief technology officers, these positions overwhelmingly filled by immigrants, skilled immigrant workers, 80% of these billion-dollar startups had at least one immigrant in one of these positions within their company.
		So extremely important to the growth of these types of companies in the United States.
kimberly adams ▲ ● ▼		And why are some Republicans opposed to this program?
unidentified		Well, really, it's because of the messaging that they see from the America First MAGA movement in the United States about, well, we have to put U.S. workers first and that the only policy should be that Americans do all of the jobs in the economy and that any job that goes to a foreign worker then takes away from a job for an American worker.
		And that's not really how it works.
		You know, it's not just that they're founding companies, which are obviously employing huge numbers of Americans through that process.
		But also, if a worker comes in, they create value for the country.
		They produce something of value.
		And then they spend their earnings in the United States.
		And that creates jobs for Americans in other positions in other areas.
		And even if you look within the tech fields that have been so inundated with H-1Bs, if you look at the jobs that U.S. workers are doing, they tend to move up into management positions while they're managing the H-1B labor force that's coming in in more of the entry-level jobs in that industry.
kimberly adams ▲ ● ▼		Well, we are going to be taking your questions about the H-1B visa program and high-skill immigration.
		Our number for Democrats, 202-748-8,000.
		Republicans, 202-748-8001.
		And Independents at 202-748-8002.
		In addition to some Republican pushback against the H-1B visa program, there's also some on, I shouldn't say across the aisle, but from Independent Senator Bernie Sanders, who said on X, Elon Musk is wrong.
		The main function of the H-1B visa program is not to hire, quote, the best and the brightest, but rather to replace good paying American jobs with low-wage indentured servants from abroad.
		The cheaper labor they hire, the more money the billionaires make.
		Your thoughts on that assessment?
unidentified		Yeah, so they're not indentured.
		You know, they are obviously highly paid workers.
		If you look at their median income for an H1B or median wage for an H-1B worker is about $120,000 a year.
		So this is about the 90th percentile for all U.S. workers, meaning they're higher paid than about 90% of workers in the United States.
		And so it's inaccurate to call them low wage.
		If the purpose of the H-1B visa was to cut labor costs and replace American workers, you would see the H-1B requests increase when unemployment goes up.
		We see the opposite.
		H-1B requests go down when unemployment increases.
		So in 2009, 2010, there wasn't even a lottery to allocate the H-1B visas because demand went way down during the Great Recession.
		It increased again after that as unemployment went away and demand for workers increased.
		The other thing that you would see if it was all about low-wage workers is that the H-1Bs would be paid less than comparable U.S. workers.
		And we don't see that either.
		In fact, we see that they're generally paid more than comparable U.S. workers with the same level of education and experience in their fields.
		And the last thing that you would see is that they would be paid the exact mandatory minimum.
		So as I mentioned before, there's a mandatory minimum wage called the prevailing wage, which is based on U.S. worker wages.
		And if you look at what they're actually paying, they're paying higher wages than the mandatory minimum, which means that they're actually paying something based on what they negotiated, that the workers themselves agreed to, not just whatever the government mandated.
		So I don't see it as a replacement for, it's a compliment to American workers, and it increases the opportunities for Americans, both within tech and outside of tech.
		So if you're talking about the top 10% of earners, they're coming into these jobs, increasing employment at the high end, what are they doing?
		They're spending their incomes in the United States, and that is increasing employment and demand for workers in the rest of the economy.
		So all the 90% benefit by having more workers in that top 10% category.
kimberly adams ▲ ● ▼		So I see it as a benefit to U.S. workers, not something that's going to harm them or take jobs away from their Federation for American Immigration Reform, a group that is pretty close to White House incoming, incoming White House Deputy Chief of Staff Stephen Miller, who also had a pretty strong role in the first Trump administration, has this group, the Federation for American Immigration Reform, has proposed a series of reforms to the H-1B visa program.
		In particular, number one, prevent employers from paying H-1B visa workers less than Americans in the same roles, reward applicants who earned a master's degree or higher from an American university, require employers to demonstrate that they sought American workers and offered positions to qualified ones before turning to H-1B workers, which is something similar to the other visas for lower skilled workers.
		Implement more effective enforcement mechanisms and increased investigations, including random audits, and then that the H-1B guest worker program would be for temporary workers and should not be a pathway to citizenship.
		What do you think of some of those proposals?
unidentified		Well, overall, it's objectionable because it's all about increasing the restrictions on the visas.
		A lot of it is duplicative.
		I mentioned that there are already required to be paid the prevailing wage, which is based on what U.S. workers are paid for those same positions, controlling for skill and location and all the rest.
		So I don't see most of it as unnecessary.
		You already reward master's degree applicants from U.S. universities.
		Talked about that with the lottery.
		But the last one is the one that's the most dangerous proposal is making the H-1B purely permanent and essentially forcing out skilled workers after they come in and they've been working in the United States and contributing to companies and then they want to branch out, start a new business, go on with their lives and get promotions and move on to more productive positions.
		That would be extremely dangerous.
		We talked about all of the companies that have been formed and founded or they're playing a critical role as a CEO, a CTO in these different companies.
		That would be extremely dangerous to our U.S. economy if we adopted that proposal.
		A live look from the Carter Center in Atlanta, where the 39th U.S. President Jimmy Carter is lying in repose.
		He passed away on December 29th at age 100.
		The public will be allowed to pay their respects to him until Tuesday morning.
		Former President Carter will then be transferred to Washington, D.C., where he'll lie in state at the U.S. Capitol until Thursday morning.
		Live coverage here on C-SPAN.
		A live
		look from the Carter Center in Atlanta, where the 39th U.S. President, Jimmy Carter, is lying in Repose.
		He passed away on December 29th at age 100.
		The public will be allowed to pay their respects to him until Tuesday morning.
		Former President Carter will then be transferred to Washington, D.C., where he'll lie in state at the U.S. Capitol until Thursday morning.
		coverage here on C-SPAN.
		President Jimmy Carter, the 39th president of the United States and the nation's longest-lived leader, passed away last month at the age of 100.
		Join C-SPAN for live coverage of the state funeral.
		On Monday, the public will have the opportunity to pay their respects as President Carter lies in repose at the Carter Center.
		On Tuesday, his journey continues to Washington, D.C., where he'll lie in state at the U.S. Capitol Rotunda with a service attended by members of Congress.
		The public will again have the chance to honor him on Wednesday as his body remains in state at the U.S. Capitol.
		On Thursday, the national funeral service will take place at Washington National Cathedral, followed by his final resting ceremony at the Carter Family Home in Plains, Georgia.
		Watch C-SPAN's live coverage of the funeral services for former President Jimmy Carter on the C-SPAN networks, C-SPAN now, our free mobile video app, or online at c-SPAN.org.
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		Stay with C-SPAN this month for comprehensive, live, unfiltered coverage of the 119th Congress and the presidential inauguration, C-SPAN, Democracy Unfiltered.
		Next on C-SPAN's Q ⁇ A, Stuart Eisenstadt, former domestic policy advisor to President Carter and U.S. Ambassador to the European Union under President Clinton, talks about his career and new book, The Art of Diplomacy, then a UN Security Council meeting on recent reported attacks on Israel from the Iran-backed Houthi militant group in Yemen.
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