Coffee Talk — Episode 2. A conversion on the Trump…
By: Coffee Talk
Tags: Immigration, Trump Administration, H1b, Work Visa, Conversations

Pour-Over Discussion

👨🏻‍💻 — American Guy 👩🏻‍💻 — Korean Girl

👨🏻‍💻: Hi Everyone, this is Coffee Talk Episode 2. We’re an interracial couple, an American White guy, and a South Korean girl living together in New York City. We are hearing that the Trump administration is trying to restrict visa programs like H1B for skilled workers.

👩🏻‍💻: Yes, I heard a rumor that Trump is considering changing Immigration laws: suspending a number of employment visas including the H1-B, and significantly raising the qualifications for H1-B visas in view of the massive unemployment in America due to the COVID-19 Virus pandemic according to the media report. What do you think about that White Guy?

As an international student who holds a master’s degree and has a tech job in NYC, I’ve been through a lot. It was challenging to study in the US to finish the grad program by paying high tuition and taxes, and after graduation, It was extremely challenging to get a job, and after that, I had to work harder to get the STEP OPT approval and finally H1B visa.

Fact: International students/workers pay high tuition, taxes that contribute to the US economy and technology. (International students typically pay full tuition, boosting revenues for schools. They also spend heavily on housing and other goods. The continued growth in international students coming to the U.S. for higher education had a significant positive economic impact on the United States. International students contributed $45 billion to the U.S. economy in 2018, according to the U.S. Department of Commerce.

👩🏻‍💻: For one, it’s shocking and frustrating to hear that he is even considering this. This will be more of a negative impact than a positive impact after the Covid-19 because they are trying to revive the economy and all the technology sectors rely on foreign talents. Even I have all these friends who have Ph.D. Degrees in data science. I don’t think they can be replaced so easily. I hope those talents are valued as brilliant human resources, not cheap labor.

👨🏻‍💻: Oh, I agree, I think banning H1B visa is an extremely short-sighted policy, that’s just focused on the November election to get more votes from his advocates. This will damage the U.S economy that’s boosted by a lot of tech companies and small businesses.

👩🏻‍💻: Who would want to come to study in the US if there is no job opportunity after education?

The cost and barrier to entry are too high to be in the US vs. motivation to break the barrier for one’s dream when there are plenty of other opportunities in the world.

I paid a quarter-million dollars for the grad school tuition, and thankfully got a decent job in the city, but I had to prove my ability to become a full-time employee, and getting the H1B visa sponsored by the company was extremely challenging and a complicated process. — KG

👨🏻‍💻: First true. Second, this is not an interview but a conversation so you don’t have to talk like a robot haha. Yes, it’s silly since the whole country is based on immigration for one so why are you trying to limit it. Donald man your grandfather was an immigrant (my mom-side grandparents too) so stop just, please.

👩🏻‍💻: (Giggling). I’m serious about this issue as an international worker.

👩🏻‍💻: I’m not opposed to the thinking that Americans should get better job opportunities within the US which is a nationalistic perspective, but the world has changed, and I don’t think to ban foreign workers/immigrants will help revive the economy after the COVID-19 crisis. Fixing the education system within the US will be first to move forward to the future, not looking back to the past.

👨🏻‍💻: Have you ever seen the movie Thor Rangnork. There is an amazing trailer for it.

👩🏻‍💻: I’ve only seen the trailer, how does it relate to this matter? Do you wanna watch it today?

👨🏻‍💻: Will do, more importantly, one of the big thesis of the movie are these two perspectives of being obsessed with the past, Hela the goddess of death, played by the real-life goddess Cate Blanchett and Thor. On one hand, you have Thor who at first is limited stuck on the past because of his hammer (spoilers) but is about moving forward. He feels limited by the expectations of the past but when thor does move forward and accepts the current situation, moving past losing Mjölnir, Thor then grows so much stronger and unleashes the lightning. Hela (gender-bent Trump) is the only one in the movie who is OBSESSED with uncovering the past and return things to what they previously were. Does anyone else here “Make Asgard Great Again”? She well gets exploded with the rest of the planet. Then moving forward again Asgard was able to grow again and continue to grow now in Marvel’s Ireland, they are happy and content.

👨🏻‍💻: Weirdly that is a microcosm of the situation now, Donald Trump is doing the same looking to and obsessed with the past. You have to look forward. You can learn from the past but you can’t keep it like that. His whole campaign was that idea too, it’s about the past that was better, “Make America Great Again”.

👩🏻‍💻: Yea like to when? The 1950’s or before Obama or something?

👨🏻‍💻: He actually never specified that btw so that hysterical and not gonna get into that one...

👩🏻‍💻: I understand the thinking behind American people needs to get a higher paying job. They have to reduce the unemployment rate for sure, I’m all for it. But that doesn’t mean effectively banning the US H1-B visa is the solution to that because it’s going to take a long time to reduce the people to have the same degree of all the foreign workers who have an H1-B visa. It’s already challenging to get an H1-B Visa and it’s not like every foreign worker can get an H1-B visa. They have to pass a lot of tests and processes and they’re making it harder and harder every year. In this situation enacting an executive order to suspend H1-B visas with others means all the technology companies would be hurt even more as well as making it even harder to recover,

👨🏻‍💻: And let's be honest here it is stupid plain and simple. This executive order has nothing to do with COVID-19.

👩🏻‍💻: Also, all the immigration groups coming to the country are spending a lot of the money here which is contributing and boosting the US economy on many levels. If all of these groups have no motivation to come here it’s going to be a much greater loss overall.

👨🏻‍💻: What’s coming about here is that the immigration policy that is being discussed has nothing to do with COVID-19 or helping American workers but is being used as an excuse. If you really want to move forward in our society you have to realize the world we are in with a major “minority” (sounds silly even saying it like that) more diverse country. That is just the facts, accept it. Make a policy to reflect that, not policy that reflects going back to the 1950s (which btw when you didn’t have twitter) but for 2020 and beyond.

👩🏻‍💻: Yes all the tech companies like Google, Apple, and Twitter are also the reason that people have the American dream to come here to work for these tech companies, like me. If that becomes impossible, why would people come to the US to get the US degree and education if there is no hope to get a job afterward? Also, those companies are already borderless global companies that have multiple headquarters all over the world.

👨🏻‍💻: Right, it’s a bit of a silly notion to consider otherwise. If we really want to go into the politics of it Biden is a bit similar as well wanting to go back to 2008 which is what he likes to talk about. You have to move forward with the times as well, that’s how you get voters and communities excited about the future! Why the “Hope” poster of his and speeches was so impactful. All of the communication was about moving forward learning from the past not trying to recreate it.

👩🏻‍💻: I’m just talking about it from the perspective of the international students who got a job in NYC and now with a high paying job but image if I had no entry point or the possibility of a job after graduation it would be extremely discouraging to students who decided to come to the US.

👨🏻‍💻: So to turn it back what she is talking about is the discussion to raise the H1-B status minimum wage to the highest bracket of Level 4. Which would mean to even apply for a visa as a software developer you’d need a minimum salary of $144,976 annual and up to $254,405 annually as a financial manager in New York. Don’t forget, most people who are applying for a visa are only a year or two out of college or graduate school!

👨🏻‍💻: Sooooo now every H1-B visa applicant needs to be CEO’s or again the HIGHEST possible wage bracket.

👩🏻‍💻: Seriously that was what he said a month ago but now he’s saying that now they’ll just be completely suspending visa applications for 180 days. It’s just stealing the dreams from the people… If they lose those talented people they could just go anywhere: back to their own country or anywhere. It’s not just the united states as the only place they can go too.

👩🏻‍💻: Can America go back to the top without all the help with foreign talent? Do you believe so?

👨🏻‍💻: On a certain level sure?? But there is so much of a cost in the short & long term that I don’t think you’re gonna be able to recover from it.

👩🏻‍💻: Yea, exactly and the country will lose it’s reputation too as a home for immigrants and one that offers jobs, dreams, and opportunities.

👨🏻‍💻: The country has only ever done better because of more open immigration policies. Although I will admit it has done a very shitty job of treating immigrants properly, there's a whole history about that.

👩🏻‍💻: It’s not just about the country providing jobs to foreign workers but it’s also including foreign workers providing economic growth to the country as well.

👨🏻‍💻: Not just that, they provide economic, cultural growth as well. We were watching the Anthony Bourdain show last night and how they talked about the growing Vietnamese influence in Texas! It's all of this stuff.

👩🏻‍💻: Yea!

👨🏻‍💻: Adding more people only ever increases the cultural value never decreases it.

👩🏻‍💻: Yea I totally agree and what about we talked about is the opportunity cost?

👨🏻‍💻: Oh yea, how you now making the opportunity cost to being apart of this country so high it’s impossible. Everyones gonna go to Canada or someplace :p

👩🏻‍💻: Yea I don’t see this helping the US economy after this COVID.

👨🏻‍💻: What it’s gonna do is the exact opposite. You’re only gonna make it harder.

👩🏻‍💻: The world has changed and there are plenty of opportunities you can go to other than the united states.

👨🏻‍💻: Yea Seoul was freaking amazing, still want to go to Paris too BTW.

👩🏻‍💻: I have a lot of my Korean friends who initially wanted to come to the US to get a job, but the entry point is getting too high so they chose alternatively to go to Australia, New Zealand, Canada…

👨🏻‍💻: Can we go to Australia, please??

👩🏻‍💻: (HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA)

👨🏻‍💻: I’m just saying, I’m kinda for that.

👩🏻‍💻: I think the US will be losing out those candidates and talents to other countries if they suspend work visas.

👨🏻‍💻: I still think there is a lot of good here, it’s just their making it so hard. It’s not the right way to go about it personally. For whatever he is attempting to accomplish this is not the right way to make this country better off.

👩🏻‍💻: Yea it's like the world has changed but America is no longer the only country in the world with high technology. I think the reason people want to come and stay here has lots of land and resources. Inversely it makes people less likely to go out and see the world sometimes.

👨🏻‍💻: It does kinda leave you with the feeling “oh I’ve seen enough already, I don’t need to see the rest of the world.”

👩🏻‍💻: But in truth, the world has changed.

👨🏻‍💻: Do you know what the biggest joke is?

👩🏻‍💻: What?

👨🏻‍💻: It’s the land of opportunity but what they mean by that is it’s the land of a **** Ton of resources.

👩🏻‍💻: Yea exactly.

👨🏻‍💻: Resources help to provide that opportunity. And you need a perspective which saw the world and other countries help to give you.

👩🏻‍💻: Yea South Korean people are highly competitive and educated because we have a lack of natural resources and the land so they had to go out and see the rest of the world. They had to become more competitive to survive in this global economy. I feel the US people are getting a little behind is that they don’t feel the need to go out of the country even if the world has changed you don’t ever get to see that.

👨🏻‍💻: And it only knows the people in this country are really feeling that outside pressure. Trump’s perspective to deal with that competitive pressure isn’t to face it and become more competitive but to avoid it all together getting rid of the Visas, but what you really need to do is the exact opposite. You need to raise the education standard, you need to raise the people to compete on that level not trying to get rid of it completely because it’s not going to go away we live in a globalized world #You&Me.

👩🏻‍💻: Yeah exactly! Also if there is no competition between American workers and foreign workers the American workers wouldn’t need to grow their skills to match up with the global talent.

👩🏻‍💻: I saw a tweet from a white woman on Twitter saying “protecting American jobs is the right thing to do when unemployment is in the millions. Our kids can’t get into Ivy League colleges, can’t attend out of state STEM univ of their choice because it’s very expensive and is less likely to be hired when Ivy League OPT/H1N are cheaper.”

I think those prestigious schools are great because all the talents from the world come and study together, these schools offer students to learn diverse and broader perspectives by interacting with people from all around the globe. These schools will lose their competitiveness in the global world if they only accept Americans.

“Furthermore, more than half of startups with revenues of $1 billion or higher have immigrant founders or cofounders, according to a National Foundation for American Policy study. And immigrants or children of immigrants are responsible for founding or cofounding 45% of 2019’s Fortune 500 companies, per New American Economy.

International students, who make up over 5% of American university students with more than 1 million studying here, contributed about $45 billion to the U.S. economy in 2018, according to the Institute of International Education.”

Source: Fortune (https://fortune.com/2020/05/28/trump-h1b-optional-practical-training-immigration/)

👨🏻‍💻: Yup and there are articles on this called the “American Brain Drain” If you really want to look into it. The idea is that you are reducing the capabilities of the country at the cost of not raising the bar, increasing the overall capability of the county, and the people in it.

👩🏻‍💻: yea I think that’s a totally valid point. Even the people in my company many of the American members got laid off but I survived...I don’t know I was working hard and doing what I needed to do to get the H1-B visa and maintain my status. I had to work hard and I was the only one with a master's degree in my team as well. I had to do all the work to survive, we all have to try harder nowadays.

👨🏻‍💻: True, it’s a very good microcosm of the countrywide situation. Your goal should be about raising the standard of the people here to be competitive, not squeezing other people out. You’re not improving the overall health of the country by doing that.

👩🏻‍💻: Exactly…I understand that the US can have people losing their job against other more competitive foreign workers. I understand that thinking but I wish that wouldn’t be the case, but restricting work visas is not a solution to get American people to get a better job.

👨🏻‍💻: No you don’t need that. This isn’t affirmative action for white people guys.

👩🏻‍💻: Ha!

👩🏻‍💻: I had a talk with a recruiter friend that empathizes with my thinking, saying “it won’t do anything to help the economy at all if he suspends these visas, we already have such a shortage of workers it will only make it worse and some companies will have huge issues until those spots are filled which could take quite a while. In addition to the economy, he should be happy to have anyone want to come to America, learn, and stay here for work and contribute so much through their bright minds.”

I absolutely agree with and appreciate to hear the opinion from a human resource perspective.

👨🏻‍💻: Or if that what you are trying to do, let’s call it what it is…Alright, I think that’s a good talk and my Coffee is done.

See you soon — American Guy & Korean Girl