You can hire whoever you want - in their nation of residence.
But domiciling them in your own country implies something else entirely, and it involves social considerations far beyond the capricious nature the contract you've offered them.
In which case, those social and civic considerations become paramount.
To help answer the question, because it's not an irresponsible argument at face value, assuming good faith:
Tech companies generally hire 'talent' not 'labour'. The people they need have specific skills and abilities, which are in short supply.
'Average Joes' are by definition not in the running for these mostly competitive opportunities.
If these companies could just hire average Joes they absolutely would.
That's not always the case - as local workers are sometimes displaced, and that could conceivably be seen an unfair. H1B for Tata etc. does overlap in this area.
By and large, if we move issues of 'culture and identity' aside, the US benefits enormously from immigrants.
Not in all aspects, but mostly.
Elon Musk, Google founders, Jensen at Nvidia, 1/2 involved in Frontier AI are 'born outside of the US'.
Those companies would probably not exist without them.
Maybe another way to think about it that the Bay Area is a 'Special International Economic Zone' hosted by the US, which is where Global HQ of many International tech companies are domiciled.
Apart from their staff, usually well over > 50% of revenues come from abroad as well, making these truly international companies.
The US gets the great benefit of hosting these mostly international organizations.
Were this an issue of regular employment, there's be a stronger case, but this is a more specific thing.
Because the numbers are small enough, there is almost zero downside for US citizens, and the companies that are created end up employing more Americans than they would otherwise. That said - locals can be priced out of these economic centres like the Bay and NYC, and that is arguably unfair.
> By and large, if we move issues of 'culture and identity' aside, the US benefits enormously from immigrants.
Yeah, but issues of culture and identity are extremely important, so important that it's farcical to exclude them when evaluating to what degree the US benefits from immigrants or deciding what immigration policy ought to be.
> Because the numbers are small enough, there is almost zero downside for US citizens, and the companies that are created end up employing more Americans than they would otherwise. That said - locals can be priced out of these economic centres like the Bay and NYC, and that is arguably unfair.
I'm from the bay area as is my entire family; and locals getting priced out by immigrants who work for tech companies basically characterizes the demographic trajectory of my hometown.
It's not 'farcical' to move issues of identity aside because most people don't think there is anything whatsoever wrong with some degree of migration from other countries, and its pragmatically 'non issue'.
It only really becomes an uncomfortable issue around 'large scale undocumented migration' - but that's a whole other separate concern, it's not within the bounds of the law, and it's not related to tech at all.
If we remove that from the equation there is only a very, very narrow scope of 'Settler Nationalists' who could claim there's an issue if 'identity' - I'm being polite by allowing an escape valve there. Rates of regular immigration to the US are 'relatively' low on the aggregate.
But more crucially - the 'identity' issue is irrelevant at least from an economic perspective.
"I'm from the bay area as is my entire family; and locals getting priced out by immigrants" - yes, this is a reasonable and fair concern, but, on the aggregate it's 'next to nothing'.
So - yes, immigration will be felt acutely by some for sure - and that's unfair and it's a moral dilemma - but on the aggregate - 'High Tech Migrants' have zero effect on the landscape of US overall. It's a small cohort.
If we want to talk 'ludicrous' - it's this ridiculously ignorant idea that somehow tech is an American phenom - it's not. It's international.
Bay Area + Tech is nothing without immigrants.
Would not exist a hugely notable tech hub.
Immigrants are a critical ingredient in everything important from founders to capital, to research, to 'filling out the ranks'.
It's not just jobs - it's entire classes of 'essential ingredients' without which - the recipe cannot work.
And without that level of inernationalism, there is no >2/3 revenues from outside US either. It's a slightly separate, but related issue.
Without immigrants the Bay would be about like the 'Research Triangle' in N Carolina, not an gigantic powerhouse.
I want to hire who I want to hire. Don't tell me who I "should" hire, that is just another form of DEI.
You can hire whoever you want - in their nation of residence.
But domiciling them in your own country implies something else entirely, and it involves social considerations far beyond the capricious nature the contract you've offered them.
In which case, those social and civic considerations become paramount.
Immigration law isn't primarily about who you can hire, it's about who will be a voting citizen of what democratic polity.
[flagged]
To help answer the question, because it's not an irresponsible argument at face value, assuming good faith:
Tech companies generally hire 'talent' not 'labour'. The people they need have specific skills and abilities, which are in short supply.
'Average Joes' are by definition not in the running for these mostly competitive opportunities.
If these companies could just hire average Joes they absolutely would.
That's not always the case - as local workers are sometimes displaced, and that could conceivably be seen an unfair. H1B for Tata etc. does overlap in this area.
By and large, if we move issues of 'culture and identity' aside, the US benefits enormously from immigrants.
Not in all aspects, but mostly.
Elon Musk, Google founders, Jensen at Nvidia, 1/2 involved in Frontier AI are 'born outside of the US'.
Those companies would probably not exist without them.
Maybe another way to think about it that the Bay Area is a 'Special International Economic Zone' hosted by the US, which is where Global HQ of many International tech companies are domiciled.
Apart from their staff, usually well over > 50% of revenues come from abroad as well, making these truly international companies.
The US gets the great benefit of hosting these mostly international organizations.
Were this an issue of regular employment, there's be a stronger case, but this is a more specific thing.
Because the numbers are small enough, there is almost zero downside for US citizens, and the companies that are created end up employing more Americans than they would otherwise. That said - locals can be priced out of these economic centres like the Bay and NYC, and that is arguably unfair.
> By and large, if we move issues of 'culture and identity' aside, the US benefits enormously from immigrants.
Yeah, but issues of culture and identity are extremely important, so important that it's farcical to exclude them when evaluating to what degree the US benefits from immigrants or deciding what immigration policy ought to be.
> Because the numbers are small enough, there is almost zero downside for US citizens, and the companies that are created end up employing more Americans than they would otherwise. That said - locals can be priced out of these economic centres like the Bay and NYC, and that is arguably unfair.
I'm from the bay area as is my entire family; and locals getting priced out by immigrants who work for tech companies basically characterizes the demographic trajectory of my hometown.
It's not 'farcical' to move issues of identity aside because most people don't think there is anything whatsoever wrong with some degree of migration from other countries, and its pragmatically 'non issue'.
It only really becomes an uncomfortable issue around 'large scale undocumented migration' - but that's a whole other separate concern, it's not within the bounds of the law, and it's not related to tech at all.
If we remove that from the equation there is only a very, very narrow scope of 'Settler Nationalists' who could claim there's an issue if 'identity' - I'm being polite by allowing an escape valve there. Rates of regular immigration to the US are 'relatively' low on the aggregate.
But more crucially - the 'identity' issue is irrelevant at least from an economic perspective.
"I'm from the bay area as is my entire family; and locals getting priced out by immigrants" - yes, this is a reasonable and fair concern, but, on the aggregate it's 'next to nothing'.
So - yes, immigration will be felt acutely by some for sure - and that's unfair and it's a moral dilemma - but on the aggregate - 'High Tech Migrants' have zero effect on the landscape of US overall. It's a small cohort.
If we want to talk 'ludicrous' - it's this ridiculously ignorant idea that somehow tech is an American phenom - it's not. It's international.
Bay Area + Tech is nothing without immigrants.
Would not exist a hugely notable tech hub.
Immigrants are a critical ingredient in everything important from founders to capital, to research, to 'filling out the ranks'.
It's not just jobs - it's entire classes of 'essential ingredients' without which - the recipe cannot work.
And without that level of inernationalism, there is no >2/3 revenues from outside US either. It's a slightly separate, but related issue.
Without immigrants the Bay would be about like the 'Research Triangle' in N Carolina, not an gigantic powerhouse.