Trump goes full-on Ticketmaster – announces $100,000 surcharge for admission to USA . . .

Photo above - would you pay a $100,000 Ticketmaster surcharge to attend a Taylor Swift concert? How about for an H1B job visa?

This COULD have been a good idea. A program to encourage hiring more citizens instead of programmers from Pakistan and engineers from South Korea. We have a BUNCH of unemployed college grads in the USA, and a few of them have these sort of skills. But a $100,000 surcharge for an H1B visa is simply going to cause MORE illegal immigration. (see link below)

Hey, President Trump – don’t you read the newspapers? Your own administration just arrested nearly 500 workers from Korea, who were helping to build an $8 billion EV battery factory in Georgia. You had to “cut a deal” and they all went home, with no prosecution. Are we winning this?

I personally know at least 3 out of work/under employed programmers. They had the misfortune learning some computer language and then having SOMEONE ELSE invent a new one. Remember when JAVA was the go-to recommendation of every high school career counsellor?

My theory is that if you already know one (or 2, or 3) computer languages, you have demonstrated the aptitude to learn another. Or at least babysit an AI system while that thing writes the code. Putting these folks to work seems like a more realistic plan than when Obama promised to retrain all the West Virginia coal miners he put out of work to become coders.

Having US employers dangle jobs/visas in front of some kid from Karachi or Calcutta is a scam in itself. These guys are being vetted through remote work: low paid remote contract programming projects. The corporate IT department then skims the 10% best off the top, and offers them H1B visas, and an economy class ticket to Virginia or California. Only after these poor souls arrive do they realize that $35,000 a year is near starvation wages in those locations.

One of my previous employers is a perfect example of this scam. Corporations are required to post new job openings for current US employees to peruse, before handing out plane tickets to guys overseas. You know where MY company posted those openings? On a corkboard in a dead end hallway. This is really true. (“Nobody here applied after 30 days. Can we hire Vaikuntha Kamalaja now?”)

Even if these foreign trained programmers and engineers are prevented from sneaking into the USA, there are still going to be problems. Somebody just discovered an entire North Korean hacking brigade which was impersonating remote workers. They had stolen the identities of US citizens and began pilfering tech and corporate secrets the moment they were onboarded as remote contractors. Remote work and foreign contractors just make it easier for hackers to shut things down, like what evidently happened with US and European airline systems over the past couple of days.

I’m just sayin’ . . .

Trump administration to add $100,000 fee for H-1B visas