From H-1B to OPT, MAGA hardliners want every foreign worker off the menu

The TOI correspondent from Washington: Amid taunts of TACO (Trump Always Chickens Out) MAGA hardliners fumed about being let down by the White House walk-back on enhanced H1b visa fee, complained that Trump had chosen big tech over American workers, and demanded a more stringent reading of the order to keep out foreign workers they say are taking away American jobs .

"Well this ruined my day. It should apply to renewals. And it should apply to transfers. And it should apply to ones that leave and return. Because if they leave and return so much - why aren't they just employed remotely? Why do they need a visa?" one anti-HIB critic fumed after the White House clarification.

Chuffed with success, albeit partial, in constraining H1B visas, some pro-MAGA tech activists are now taking aim at OPT programs, which allow foreign graduates to stay on in the US for training after they graduate, and L1 visas, which allow multinational companies to transfer certain qualified employees from a foreign office to a related office in the US. In the line of fire are global corporations like Microsoft and Google, both incidentally led by Indian-Americans, who are being accused of being “globalists” who are not serving American interests.

“If the Trump administration truly wants to help American tech workers and STEM graduates , it needs to end the OPT program , which was created entirely through regulation. Otherwise, it isn’t serious about fixing this issue,” a US tech workers lobby group complained, asserting that companies like Google and Microsoft won’t be affected by the Trump proclamation because they source their foreign workers through L-1 visas or from those who arrived on student visas.

The sharp uptick in MAGA nativism is alarming some and amusing others who see it as a sign of the US losing its mojo. “The people behind Maga are people who are not optimistic about the future of the United States. Maga is strongest where American technological development is weakest… where America is least competitive,” David Frum, a former speechwriter for George W Bush said in one tv interview, calling the MAGA outlook “domestic bigotry that crimps your ability to be great in the world.”