Hilarie Gamm: Green Card Bill Is ‘Anti-Diversity, Anti-Women, Anti-Minority, and Against the Middle Class’

H.R.1044, titled the “Fairness to High-Skilled Immigrants Act,” will “displace Americans” in the labor market in favor of “cheap foreign labor,” said Hilarie Gamm, author of Billions Lost: The American Tech Crisis and The Road Map to Change and co-founder of the American Workers Coalition, during a Thursday interview on SiriusXM’s Breitbart News Tonight with hosts Rebecca Mansour and Joel Pollak.

The House passed H.R.1044 on Wednesday, by a vote of 365 to 65. Its companion bill in the Senate, S.386, is also titled the “Fairness for High-Skilled Immigrants Act.” Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-KY) will decide whether to put S.386 up for a vote in the Senate.

Gamm said, “H.R.1044 is awful for our country in many, many ways. It seeks to eliminate the seven percent country cap, and what that means is that for the next decade, only those emigrating the United States lawfully from India and China will be allowed. That excludes 190 other countries across the globe from being able to send immigrants who are intelligent, educated, and capable to the United States.”

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Gamm added, “[If S.386 passes the Senate], folks doing cancer research, or potentially doctors from Argentina, or Venezuela, or Australia, would be unable to come to the U.S.”

“From a diversity perspective, it essentially ends diversity in immigration for the United States,” said Gamm of H.R.1044’s and S.386’s impacts if codified into law. “I think most of America prides itself in being a melting pot of lots of different cultures and immigrants from all over the world — best in breed from everywhere. And so I think it’s very unfair for all the citizens of all these other countries that would like to legally come to the United States and work, they’ll be excluded if something like H.R.1044 passes.”

H-1B visas are affecting more professions over time, explained Gamm, “Because India has been the country of choice for big tech for over 25 years to import cheap foreign labor into the United States to displace Americans — middle-class workers — who are working in all different kinds of jobs, not just technology. So what used to be just tech in H-1B, we now have physical therapists, accountants, auditors, and [and] teachers who are coming in on the H-1B, now.”

Gamm explained the ascendance of cottage industries revolving around the procurement of H-1B visas.

“There is a flood — a monopolization — of H-1Bs from a couple of companies and basically one country, so because of that, there is a 500,000 person backlog just from India,” stated Gamm. “So what happens — and it’s very distressing — is when I heard Senator Lee talk about S.386 on the Senate floor last week. He tried to present the case that, somehow, because China and India are big countries, that’s the reason that they’re not being treated fairly in terms of immigration to the U.S., and that’s absolutely untrue.”

Gamm went on: “The reality is this, we have five huge companies — Cognizance, for the last decade, has been the number one H-1B purveyor. We have companies that people associate as American companies like Deloitte, or Accenture, or IBM, and they’re bringing in thousands and thousands of H-1Bs in addition to sending loads of jobs outside the U.S. to countries like India, the Philippines, Costa Rica, in an outsourcing model. So what’s happening is, we’re basically culling out and hollowing out our American middle class, and we’re making it impossible for white-collar professionals to get ahead.”

H.R.1044 and S.386 amplify the displacement of Americans in the labor force via importation of “cheap foreign labor,” assessed Gamm.

“We have 85 million Americans who are of working age between the ages of 18 and 65 who are not working,” noted Gamm. “They’re completely out of the labor force. We have millions of Americans who could be working and are not working, and then we have loads of under-employed Americans, and they’re all being cut out of the labor market because of cheap foreign labor. Basically, H.R.1044 seeks to reward those huge companies like the Amazons, and the Google, and the Microsofts that continue to get all the H-1Bs every year.”

False narratives of the Trump administration’s increasing denials of H-1B visa applications are being promoted across the news media, said Gamm.

“One of the things that’s a big myth — there’s been a lot of media stories about this — [is] there being an increase in the number of denials [of H-1B applications]. When you look at the H-1B facts that come out of the USCIS information, you’ll see they’re [approved at a rate of] 98 percent. There are hardly any denials. If you look at companies like Amazon or Google — all the big tech companies — they’re at like 99 percent, so they’re still bringing in loads of H-1B labor.”

Some Freedom Caucus representatives are supporting H.R.1044, lamented Gamm.

“We had folks from the Freedom Caucus that believe in America First legislation who voted to pass H.R.1044,” highlighted Gamm “That, for us, is so distressing. We see Matt Gaetz, and Jim Jordan, and Randy Weber voting yea on H.R.1044, it’s just distressing because we’re hoping there are still some champions in Congress who want to put Americans first, and put American children first, and American workers first.”
Gamm continued, “Those who voted for [H.R. 1044] really voted for anti-diversity, anti-women, anti-minority, and against the middle class of America because if they vote for H.R.1044, they’re voting against American educated professionals.”

Gamm spoke of foreign lobbyists advocating for expansion of immigration to the U.S.

“There is a very strong foreign lobby organization who lobbied Congress every single day,” stated Gamm. “One of the things Trump campaigned on was an end to access and opportunity for foreigners to our Congress. They have no business siding with foreign interests and big tech to support S.386 in the Senate.

The status quo of immigration, not artificial intelligence, is the most acute threat to Americans’ jobs, estimated Gamm.

“Americans need to understand that this is their future,” determined Gamm. “Their children will not have jobs. There will be no point to going to college because there are not going to be any jobs left for Americans. I tell people all the time, I’ve been working in tech for 25 years, I know that all the big tech moguls want people to believe that it’s artificial intelligence that’s going to be taking people’s jobs. It’s not AI. It’s foreign cheap labor, either outside the U.S. or here in the U.S. under OPT, H4 EAD, H-1B, or L1. That’s what’s taking the jobs.”

Gamm went on, “It’s not AI. It’s foreign cheap labor. They don’t have to pay them benefits. They don’t have to give them raises. They work, 12-, 16-, 18-hour days, and they’re displacing American minorities, American women, American men, workers over the age of 40, and they’re really hurting the American workforce, and it affects American national security and our future as Americans.”

Ostensibly skilled foreigners given the authorization to work stateside are often less capable than Americans, explained Gamm.

“Studies have shown that American high school graduates who have a command of English and understand our laws, rules, legislation, and policies are better equipped to take the jobs that these H-1B workers are taking.”

Gamm warned, “Make no mistake, Americans are training their foreign replacements every single day. The people being hired for these jobs have no skills. Many times, they’re fraudulently representing their experience and their abilities, and the Americans that are experienced have to train their foreign replacements over and over and over again. It takes three or four foreign workers to do what one American worker did 20 years ago.”

Gam declared, “We’re killing our country with costs we don’t have to [bear] because, rather than using homegrown capable labor, we’re using foreign labor.”

Growing use of remote workforces should primarily benefit Americans, not foreigners, advised Gamm.

“The biggest problem I have with all of it is … everyone who wants to say, ‘We can’t find the labor,'” stated Gamm “Why is it that people who are living in depressed states like Connecticut, or Rhode Island, or Vermont, or people who are in Alaska, or the middle of the country, people who are in rural areas, why can’t they work remotely? We have all these companies allowing remote workers or remote workforces from the other side of the globe. Why can’t they hire Americans first to work remotely? Why can’t we give American moms or American caregivers who can work 20 or 30 hours a week while their kids are at school jobs working from home? Why do we have to give them to foreign workers?”

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