It might be copium, but I wonder which of them actually understand extremes to which the H-1B program has been abused. On paper, the concept seems "reasonable."

Elon and Vivek almost certainly know the reality. Trump, I'm not sure about. He's a real estate and finance guy. His awareness of the tech industry is all going to be second-hand. But at the same time, I can see him as "anything to make a buck as long as it's legal." If his focus on border control is primarily driven by an emotional response to a literal invasion, he might have no objections to a flood of foreigners if they're invited.

Doesn't matter if you're basing it on "law and order" or ethnic nationalism, everyone can agree on deporting illegals. But when you move to legal immigration, those groups don't agree anymore. I kind of wish they'd just freeze things like H1-B at current levels, investigate fraud, and focus all their effort on the issues where they have a united front. Four years isn't that long of a time and if the admin spreads itself too thin, I worry it won't make enough progress. It's triage. Stop the spurting artery first. Worry about the broken bones after.

H-1B sucks, but the main reason it was forced into the public discussion in the first place is so that the media could use it to muddy the waters by mixing illegal and legal immigration topics as a D&C strategy.

tl;dr: I recognize the current discussion around H-1B as a distraction to interfere with making any progress on border security.

It might be copium, but I wonder which of them actually understand extremes to which the H1-B program has been abused. On paper, the concept seems "reasonable."

Elon and Vivek almost certainly know the reality. Trump, I'm not sure about. He's a real estate and finance guy. His awareness of the tech industry is all going to be second-hand. But at the same time, I can see him as "anything to make a buck as long as it's legal." If his focus on border control is primarily driven by an emotional response to a literal invasion, he might have no objections to a flood of foreigners if they're invited.

Doesn't matter if you're basing it on "law and order" or ethnic nationalism, everyone can agree on deporting illegals. But when you move to legal immigration, those groups don't agree anymore. I kind of wish they'd just freeze things like H1-B at current levels, investigate fraud, and focus all their effort on the issues where they have a united front. Four years isn't that long of a time and if the admin spreads itself too thin, I worry it won't make enough progress. It's triage. Stop the spurting artery first. Worry about the broken bones after.

H1-B sucks, but the main reason it was forced into the public discussion in the first place is so that the media could use it to muddy the waters by mixing illegal and legal immigration topics as a D&C strategy.