The Reality of Skilled-Worker Programs

Parsing Immigration Policy

In this week’s episode of Parsing Immigration Policy, Dr. Ron Hira, Associate Professor of Public Policy at Howard University, joins guest host Steve Camarota, the Center’s Director of Research, to discuss the flaws in the U.S. guest worker programs and the myths of a STEM labor shortage.
Hira refutes the idea that guest worker programs are justified under the assumption that there is a shortage of STEM workers. He states, “There is no evidence to support that there is a generalized shortage of STEM workers.” Both Hira and Camarota highlight that wages in STEM fields have been stagnant or declining, indicating no shortage.
The discussion then moves to the exploitation within guest worker programs. Hira explains, “Guest workers are underpaid, exploited, and threatened, which harms U.S. workers competing with them.” He points out that the Department of Labor sets lower minimum wages for H-1B workers and that the OPT program makes foreign workers cheaper by exempting them from payroll taxes, distorting the labor market.
Hira concludes, “There is clarity on what should be done, the question is whether you get an executive branch that will do anything about it.”
Highlights:

• Skills-based immigration is tilted towards temporary workers, not permanent workers.
• Many of these visa programs, H-1B in particular, are justified under the pretense that there is a shortage of STEM workers in the U.S. However, no evidence supports this claim.
• One of the long-term trends across the American economy has been that an ever-larger share of productivity gains has gone to firms – or to those who own capital – rather than workers.
• Guest-workers have fewer rights than American citizens and are thus subject to exploitation.
• The foreign-worker program called Optional Practical Training (OPT) exempts participants (recent graduates still here on student visas) and their employers from the payroll tax, making them 15.3 percent cheaper to hire than U.S. born students and laborers.
• H-1B is often sold as being for the “best and brightest” foreign nationals. However, applicants are selected randomly via a lottery, ensuring the selection of a large number of the mediocre and ordinary.

Host
Steven Camarota is the Director of Research at the Center for Immigration Studies.
Guest
Dr. Ron Hira is an Associate Professor of Public Policy at Howard University.
Related
New evidence of widespread wage theft in the H-1B visa program
H1-B Visa Program: Myths and Needed Reforms
DOL Is Considering Allowing More Employers to Circumvent Protections for American Workers
Legal and Illegal Immigration: Understanding U.S. High-Skilled Immigration
Intro Montage
Voices in the opening montage:

• Sen. Barack Obama at a 2005 press conference.
• Sen. John McCain in a 2010 election ad.
• President Lyndon Johnson, upon signing the 1965 Immigration Act.
• Booker T. Washington, reading in 1908 from his 1895 Atlanta Exposition speech.
• Laraine Newman as a "Conehead" on SNL in 1977.
• Hillary Clinton in a 2003 radio interview.
• Cesar Chavez in a 1974 interview.
• House Speaker Nancy Pelosi speaking to reporters in 2019.
• Prof. George Borjas in a 2016 C-SPAN appearance.
• Sen. Jeff Sessions in 2008 comments on the Senate floor.
• Charlton Heston in "Planet of the Apes".