Well, Silicon Valley, the most powerful group of business lobbyists in the world, is now pushing the Trump administration to roll back its executive order on guest workers. They say their concern is diversity. It’s obviously nonsense so what’s the real motivation. We’ll tell you after the break.
Last week we told you about an executive order the President signed blocking new guest worker visas temporarily. This was, of course, in response to the mass unemployment among Americans because of coronavirus. It is a very smart thing to do, a much needed thing to do, one of the best things this President has done.
But we warned you at the time that it would only work if it wasn’t gutted, if it wasn’t watered down. That turned out to be prescient because many people, including some unfortunately inside the administration, would like to do just that.
The President’s order includes a requirement that within 30 days the Secretary of Homeland Security suggests changes to it. Already we are being told that tech companies and their allies in the White House are trying to use this 30 day review period as a way to fatally weaken the order and fill it with loopholes and exemptions. Keep in mind the tech industry is the single most aggressively left-wing part of the American business community. By far this push is being led by the country’s wealthiest tech companies‒—Apple, Google, Amazon, etc. ‒—and it’s not hard to figure out why.
All these companies are happy to lecture you about how America is irredeemably racist. Every day of the week they tell you that. They crow about diversity. Apple’s CEO Tim Cook, of course, is leading the way as always. A week ago when the President’s order came out, Tim Cook tweeted this: quote,
“Like Apple, this nation of immigrants has always found strength in our diversity, and hope in the enduring promise of the American dream. … Deeply disappointed by this proclamation.”
Talk about a non-sequitur. And, of course, it’s more than that: it’s a lie. Tim Cook is not protecting the American Dream in any sense. If he was, he’d want to protect America’s fading middle class but he’s doing the opposite.
The vast majority of H-1B guest worker visas are awarded to a single country: India. That’s not diversity: one country. At this moment in Silicon Valley, 47 percent of all workers were born in foreign countries.
So pausing the H-1B program for even six months will free up tens of thousands of jobs for Americans of all backgrounds. You know those STEM classes your kids are taking, you know the college you’re paying so they can work in the tech field? They’re not going to get those jobs because they’ll be taken by foreign nationals. This might allow them a chance.
So Apple isn’t fighting for diversity. They’re doing exactly what they appear to be doing: they’re trying to keep wages down and keep their workers compliant by importing labor from abroad.
This isn’t about diversity. It’s about exploitation. It always is, and the administration should not fall for it.
