Bernie Sanders believed that America needed a highly skilled, well-educated labour force. He said this would come about by hiring competent American workers and investing in education, not by importing cheap labour from overseas.
Vermont Senator Bernie Sanders has contributed to the bubbling cauldron of the H-1B visa debate by saying that Elon Musk only supports the visa program because it provides cheaper labour rather than more skilled workers.
He added, “The cheaper the labour they hire, the more money the billionaires make”. Sanders stated, “The fundamental goal of the H-1B visa program isn’t to provide an avenue to hire the best and brightest but to replace good-paying American jobs with indentured servants with low-wage earning ability abroad.
Musk countered that foreign labour is more highly skilled, but Sanders countered this argument by pointing out that Tesla laid off over 7,500 American workers while hiring thousands of H-1B guest workers. Sanders asked about the nature of these jobs and pointed out that Tesla was employing H-1B workers as associate accountants, mechanical engineers, and material planners for relatively low wages.
Since the past weeks, there has been a deep fissure in the MAGA club regarding the H-1B visa programme, with far-right political activist Laura Loomer and Trump’s one-time White House strategist Steve Bannon criticising the programme for not prioritising American workers.
Banon even said, “Don’t come up and go to the pulpit in your first week here and start lecturing people about how things will be. If you’re going to do that, we’re going to rip your face off.”
