Regardless of H1Bs who received better grades, I don't think US workers should have to compete with 1 billion+ other global workers for their jobs. Citizens make the rules via governance, not corporations. You can hire someone good enough domestically vs the best globally to import. US corporations simply want the cheapest labor possible at the best possible price, which is where policy steps in. If it impairs your profits or perhaps even makes the business untenable, them the breaks.
At current US unemployment rates, no new H1B visas should be issued and existing visas should not be renewed based on criteria. If you're exceptional, prove it on an O-1 visa.
> I don't think US workers should have to compete with 1 billion+ other global workers for their jobs.
They already do though. Do you own any items made in other countries? If so, you’re competing with other workers already. It seems weird to focus on immigrants workers in America versus citizens in America while importation is allowed at all. I find all of this also very much in conflict with HN’s anti tariff attitude.
The US has been there, done that, and got the t-shirt. The result of trying to wall out competition is not going to be jobs for Americans. The result will be what happened to the American automotive industry, the American electronics industry, etc. They could not deliver competitive products at competitive prices and the various "Buy American" advertising campaigns were ignored by American consumers. Your Nintendo Switch, your Samsung SSDs and smartphones, your Hynix RAM, your Toyota cars, etc. are all proof of that. And it's much, much easier to for a competitor to create a new developer job opening overseas than construct a physical factory.
This doesn't holds water as an argument against labor protectionism, since we can point to China as a contemporary example with the opposite result. Much of the US's industrial base wasn't destroyed by consumer choice, but was intentionally moved abroad for geopolitical reasons. It wasn't even simply about implementing an economic power structure the US could use to extend its influence. The Asian Tigers were built up to facilitate more powerful "strategic partners", a South Korea poorer than Gambia wouldn't be a very useful friend. That Samsung SSD is the product of a need for strategic power balancing in East Asia. The consumer doesn't matter nearly as much as you think they do when policy is the primary agent that shapes cost, often intentionally through second order effects like infrastructural design.
The best jobs are with large corporations with offices all over the world. Workers from all over the world are competing with each other, regardless of the Kafkaesque state of American immigrant policy.
(if you're a company with no US nexus or presence, and no access to the market, your hiring practices are up to your local jurisdiction; if you want access to the US market, you can hire in the US, I find this to be very reasonable)
The Instacart thing is just bluster. If they tried to file any lawsuit against these guys it's be an easy SLAPP (Strategic Lawsuit Against Public Participation) defense, which is a way to quickly throw out lawsuits in most states where corporations or others are trying to quell free speech.
I assume they would try to venue-shop for somewhere Anti-SLAPP protections are much weaker. Maryland and Virginia look particularly bad, for example (but IANAL).
>I really hope that it fails on freedom of expression grounds.
I really hope Congress acts to make Instacart's tactics felonious with harsh penalties that ruin the company so thoroughly that it terrifies the stock market to stop investing in companies with similar HR policies. Furthermore, if the HR employees who are responsible or even in the loop could be prosecuted and ruined, this would be good too.
The government has the power to allow corporations to incorporate and to continue to operate, but if these same corporations are harmful to our country's citizens then government also has both the power and responsibility to make it impossible for these corporations to continue to exist. There is no fundamental human right involved. Corporations exist at the sufferance of people, not the other way around.
This misses the point bigly. We can go ahead and use low-friction global best-candidate techniques as soon as we are all incorporeal ghosts in the digital world who don't physically live in any one country. Until then, we must protect our citizens (where "we" means everybody, not just the US).
Yeah, I think people mistake country and geographic area. The US is the 300+ million people that build and apply systems and institutions within an area, not the area itself. Coming to the conclusion that people here are interchangeable with people anywhere else and should constantly have to earn their place is fundamentally divorced from reality.
Regardless of H1Bs who received better grades, I don't think US workers should have to compete with 1 billion+ other global workers for their jobs. Citizens make the rules via governance, not corporations. You can hire someone good enough domestically vs the best globally to import. US corporations simply want the cheapest labor possible at the best possible price, which is where policy steps in. If it impairs your profits or perhaps even makes the business untenable, them the breaks.
At current US unemployment rates, no new H1B visas should be issued and existing visas should not be renewed based on criteria. If you're exceptional, prove it on an O-1 visa.
H-1B Middlemen Bring Cheap Labor to Citi, Capital One - https://www.h1bsalaries.fyi/
> I don't think US workers should have to compete with 1 billion+ other global workers for their jobs.
They already do though. Do you own any items made in other countries? If so, you’re competing with other workers already. It seems weird to focus on immigrants workers in America versus citizens in America while importation is allowed at all. I find all of this also very much in conflict with HN’s anti tariff attitude.
The US has been there, done that, and got the t-shirt. The result of trying to wall out competition is not going to be jobs for Americans. The result will be what happened to the American automotive industry, the American electronics industry, etc. They could not deliver competitive products at competitive prices and the various "Buy American" advertising campaigns were ignored by American consumers. Your Nintendo Switch, your Samsung SSDs and smartphones, your Hynix RAM, your Toyota cars, etc. are all proof of that. And it's much, much easier to for a competitor to create a new developer job opening overseas than construct a physical factory.
This doesn't holds water as an argument against labor protectionism, since we can point to China as a contemporary example with the opposite result. Much of the US's industrial base wasn't destroyed by consumer choice, but was intentionally moved abroad for geopolitical reasons. It wasn't even simply about implementing an economic power structure the US could use to extend its influence. The Asian Tigers were built up to facilitate more powerful "strategic partners", a South Korea poorer than Gambia wouldn't be a very useful friend. That Samsung SSD is the product of a need for strategic power balancing in East Asia. The consumer doesn't matter nearly as much as you think they do when policy is the primary agent that shapes cost, often intentionally through second order effects like infrastructural design.
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If either way I'm homeless, I'd at least rather have a chance at having the job rather than have my own government work against me.
The best jobs are with large corporations with offices all over the world. Workers from all over the world are competing with each other, regardless of the Kafkaesque state of American immigrant policy.
Ohio senator introduces 25% tax on companies that outsource jobs overseas - https://www.moreno.senate.gov/wp-content/uploads/2025/09/The...
(if you're a company with no US nexus or presence, and no access to the market, your hiring practices are up to your local jurisdiction; if you want access to the US market, you can hire in the US, I find this to be very reasonable)
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> I don't think US workers should have to compete with 1 billion+ other global workers for their jobs
Why not?
Also friendly reminder 99.999% of US population is made of immigrants.
As of January 2025, the U.S. has an immigrant population of 53.3 million people, making up 15.8% of the total population.
https://www.pewresearch.org/short-reads/2025/08/21/key-findi...
https://usafacts.org/immigration/
Wrong.
The Instacart thing is just bluster. If they tried to file any lawsuit against these guys it's be an easy SLAPP (Strategic Lawsuit Against Public Participation) defense, which is a way to quickly throw out lawsuits in most states where corporations or others are trying to quell free speech.
I assume they would try to venue-shop for somewhere Anti-SLAPP protections are much weaker. Maryland and Virginia look particularly bad, for example (but IANAL).
>I really hope that it fails on freedom of expression grounds.
I really hope Congress acts to make Instacart's tactics felonious with harsh penalties that ruin the company so thoroughly that it terrifies the stock market to stop investing in companies with similar HR policies. Furthermore, if the HR employees who are responsible or even in the loop could be prosecuted and ruined, this would be good too.
The government has the power to allow corporations to incorporate and to continue to operate, but if these same corporations are harmful to our country's citizens then government also has both the power and responsibility to make it impossible for these corporations to continue to exist. There is no fundamental human right involved. Corporations exist at the sufferance of people, not the other way around.
This misses the point bigly. We can go ahead and use low-friction global best-candidate techniques as soon as we are all incorporeal ghosts in the digital world who don't physically live in any one country. Until then, we must protect our citizens (where "we" means everybody, not just the US).
Yeah, I think people mistake country and geographic area. The US is the 300+ million people that build and apply systems and institutions within an area, not the area itself. Coming to the conclusion that people here are interchangeable with people anywhere else and should constantly have to earn their place is fundamentally divorced from reality.