The GOP candidate pledges to get rid of a the system he calls “indentured servitude.”
GOP candidate Vivek Ramaswamy has vowed to “gut” the system for H-1B temporary worker visas if he wins the White House.
It’s the very system he’s used in the past to hire high-skilled foreign workers for the pharma company that built much of his wealth.
From 2018 through 2023, U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services approved 29 applications for Ramaswamy’s former company, Roivant Sciences, to hire employees under H-1B visas, which allow U.S. companies to employ foreign workers in tech and other specialized jobs.
Yet, the H-1B system is “bad for everyone involved,” Ramaswamy told POLITICO.
“The lottery system needs to be replaced by actual meritocratic admission. It’s a form of indentured servitude that only accrues to the benefit of the company that sponsored an H-1B immigrant. I’ll gut it,” he said in a statement, adding that the U.S. needs to eliminate chain-based migration.
“The people who come as family members are not the meritocratic immigrants who make skills-based contributions to this country.”
Ramaswamy stepped down as chief executive officer of Roivant in February 2021, but remained the chair of the company’s board of directors until February this year when he announced his presidential campaign. As of March 31, the company and its subsidiaries had 904 full-time employees, including 825 in the U.S., according to its SEC filings.
When asked about the mismatch in the GOP presidential hopeful’s policy stance and his past business practices, press secretary Tricia McLaughlin said the role of a policymaker “is to do what’s right for a country overall: the system is broken and needs to be fixed.”
“Vivek believes that regulations overseeing the U.S. energy sector are badly broken, but he still uses water and electricity,” she said in a statement. “This is the same.”
Ramaswamy, who is himself the child of immigrants, has captured headlines for his restrictionist immigration policy agenda.
While not new to the GOP playbook, his rhetoric has at times gone farther than the other candidates, as he calls for lottery-based visas, such as the H-1B worker visas, to be replaced with “meritocratic” admission. He’s also said he’d use military force to secure the border, and that he would deport U.S.-born children of undocumented immigrants.
H-1B visas are highly sought after, and the demand for these workers continues to increase: For fiscal year 2021, U.S. businesses submitted 780,884 applications for just 85,000 available slots, jumping by more than 60 percent.
Ramaswamy acknowledged his own experience with immigration during his opening remarks at the first GOP debate in Milwaukee.
“My parents came to this country with no money 40 years ago,” he said. “I have gone on to found multi billion-dollar companies.”
Ramaswamy’s stance on H-1B visas is reminiscent of the 2016 Trump campaign, when then-candidate Donald Trump, who has also hired a number of foreign workers under H-1B visas for his businesses, took a hardline stance on these foreign workers before later softening his rhetoric.
As president, Trump temporarily suspended new work visas and blocked hundreds of thousands of foreign workers from U.S. employment, as part of his sweeping effort to limit the number of immigrants coming into the United States.
He’s not 100% wrong about the H1B being indentured servitude. By many accounts, the only employees Twitter was able to retain were those here on H1B, which doesn’t allow them to change employers without renewing their visa status. A good friend of mine was stuck in a bad employment situation because she was here on H1B. Employers definitely exploit that visa status, pretending that paying the visa processing fees gives them the right to abuse the employee.
But heaven forbid we just reform it to give the H1B visa holder greater employment rights and more freedom to switch jobs easily. Never forget that “meritocracy” is always code for rich. Those who can afford the best schools, the best tutors, who have the best social connections to achieve in their careers. A “meritocratic” system absolutely would not be more fair.
Sure, a good buddy of mine was in a similar situation. Most of the team abandoned ship as we saw the company dying but he was stuck because changing jobs, even with a sponsor, reset the immigration clock. This is the guy of guy we want: highly skilled and valuable, wants the American way of life, a solid and valuable citizen, if we just let him become one…. And yeah they had a couple children born here, but what do you do? If some asshat company decides to deport him for wanting to get paid like the rest of us, it’s not like he could leave his kids behind, def puts them being citizens by birth