Definition and scope
The H-1B visa is a temporary visa that allows foreign workers to come to the United States if they have a college degree in a specialized occupation. Daniel Di Martino, speaking on The Bob Zadek Show, described it as “the visa that allows foreign workers to come here if they have a college degree in a specialized occupation,” and noted that there are “only 85,000 of those every year.” He emphasized that it is a temporary visa and not a green card, and that no legal immigrant can collect welfare. Daniel Di Martino on Immigration (2021)
Alex Nowrasteh, in an earlier episode, described H-1B holders as “high-skilled specialty workers” and said that under American law his think tank in Washington, D.C., could hire a numerically unlimited number of them. He said he competes with higher-skilled workers from around the world to keep his job, and that he has colleagues who came on these visas from Argentina, Costa Rica, Eastern Europe, South Africa, and India. Immigration Myth-Busting - Redux (2020)
The labor market argument
Bob Zadek argued that the notion of “my job” is a fallacy: no one owns a job, and a worker has a job only because an employer concluded that worker was the best person at the rate paid. He said that the moment someone else can do the same work for a lower wage, the worker loses the job, and that nobody is entitled to be paid more than they are worth. Immigration Myth-Busting - Redux (2020)
Nowrasteh agreed and applied the point to himself. He said he works at a non-profit think tank in Washington, D.C., and that his employer can hire an unlimited number of H-1B workers to do his job, so he is competing with higher-skilled workers worldwide. He said this competition has made his institute more productive and himself a more productive worker, and that he would not oppose hiring someone who can do the job better. Immigration Myth-Busting - Redux (2020)
Zadek added that if wages fall because of immigration, that is an increase in economic well-being for a large majority of Americans because products cost less, and that it is hard to find a victim of immigration. He compared the dislocation to labor-saving devices, saying labor-saving is a nice way of saying somebody gets fired, and that no American would want to criminalize innovation because it eliminates jobs. Immigration Myth-Busting - Redux (2020)
Di Martino took a different view of the government’s role. He said he views it as the job of the U.S. government to admit people who will be a net benefit to Americans and to take care especially of lower-income Americans, and he conceded the possibility that some immigrants could be a net burden if they make low income and collect benefits. He said the goal is to accept people who will never depend on the government, who are net taxpayers, and who create jobs, innovate, and give new products. Daniel Di Martino on Immigration (2021)
Skill complementarity and wages
Di Martino argued that immigrants from highly skilled professions do not take away American jobs, and that the H-1B has been maligned by anti-immigrant advocates. He rejected the argument that companies bring in call-center workers, saying American companies do not need call centers in America to hire Indians because they open call centers in India and call from there. He also said that as remote work grows, companies may hire coders from India without bringing them to America, which would mean those workers pay taxes to the Indian government rather than the United States. Daniel Di Martino on Immigration (2021)
He described high-skilled immigration as a “free lunch” because of entrepreneurship, innovation, and what he called “skill complementarity.” He said immigrants with college degrees, when physically together, run into each other and exchange ideas, a positive externality, and he linked this to agglomeration and to why people live in cities. Daniel Di Martino on Immigration (2021)
On wages, Di Martino said the immigrants in question are mostly master’s and PhD holders rather than bachelor’s degree holders, and that they do not lower the wages of college graduates. He said the wages of blue-collar workers go up from high-skilled immigration because more doctors, financial analysts, and coders living in the country means more demand for plumbers and construction workers, not more supply. He said the college premium from getting a degree actually goes down, making trades and trade school more profitable. Daniel Di Martino on Immigration (2021)
Caps, relocation, and national security
Di Martino cited a paper by Dr. Britta Glennon, an economist at the University of Pennsylvania, that studied restrictions on H-1B visas. He said that when America changed the H-1B cap from time to time, economists could study the effect on firms that used to hire H-1B workers and could not anymore, and that those firms decided to relocate, most of them to Canada, China, and a few other countries, especially Canada. He said that if a firm cannot hire the workers it needs in Toronto, it may as well have an office there, and he noted that Canada has a lower corporate tax rate than the United States. He said Canada and other countries are stealing America’s lunch by making it easier to hire international high-skilled entrepreneurs. Daniel Di Martino on Immigration (2021)
Zadek asked about the effect on China and other countries whose political systems are seen as adverse to ours, and about exporting information through PhD graduates who cannot stay. Di Martino said approximately half of foreign PhDs in America do not stay because of immigration rules, that most of them are from China, and that they go back to China. He called China America’s number one adversary and enemy and a despicable human rights violator, and said it is ridiculous for the biggest threat to the United States to have smart people educated and paid for by American institutions. He said the best answer is to admit as many smart Chinese people as possible, vet them well, and make sure they stay, and he compared this to what the United States did with Germany in World War II. Daniel Di Martino on Immigration (2021)
Nurses and employer-sponsored immigration
In a later episode, David Bier said there is no work visa that enables nurses to enter right away, and that nurses are not eligible for the H-1B visa. He said nurses are only eligible if they get a green card right away, which is a great disincentive for employers to sponsor people because the process is costly and the nurse can leave immediately after being hired. He said some hospitals still go through the process even though the nurse could leave right away. Who’s to Blame for the Opioid Crisis? (2022)
Bier also said the United States has the same number of green cards for employer-sponsored immigrants that it had in 1990, over 30 years ago, and that the same cap covers everyone from geniuses to physicians. He said the United States has half as many physicians per capita as most developed countries, which he attributed to outdated immigration laws and to licensure laws at the state level. He said the healthcare workforce issues on immigration should be easy for Congress to address, and that the need runs from physicians all the way down to home health aides. Who’s to Blame for the Opioid Crisis? (2022)
Zadek characterized Bier’s proposals on doctors, nurses, and guest workers as having no victims, and said that while widespread immigration reform is unattainable, taking the shots one at a time and going for the low-hanging fruit is easy to obtain. Who’s to Blame for the Opioid Crisis? (2022)
Across episodes
The topic appears in three episodes. In the 2020 episode, Nowrasteh and Zadek argue the labor-market case against the idea of “my job” and against the claim that immigration lowers wages. In the 2021 episode, Di Martino supplies the policy detail — the 85,000 cap, the temporary status, the Glennon paper on relocation, and the argument from skill complementarity — while conceding that government should screen for net benefit. In the 2022 episode, Bier shifts the frame to employer-sponsored immigration generally, noting that nurses cannot use the H-1B and that the employer-sponsored green card cap has not changed since 1990. The excerpts show a development from principle to policy detail to adjacent program design, with no guest contradicting another on the H-1B itself.
What the sources do not cover
The excerpts do not state the statute or agency that created the H-1B visa, the year it was established, or the mechanics of the cap and lottery. They do not give the wage levels, occupations, or countries of origin of H-1B holders beyond the examples named, and they do not present the arguments of H-1B critics in their own words. The excerpts also do not state whether any of the proposed changes — raising the cap, exempting nurses, or creating a new visa — were introduced as legislation or acted upon.