Selling Our Birthright

The Case Against ‘High Skill’ Immigration

The American people deserve the first fruits of America’s wealth and prosperity. America First means putting Americans first. Foreigners need to get to the back of the line. The benefits they receive from our successes ought to be tertiary. 

America is not a nation of immigrants but a nation of citizens. The best and the brightest are already here. Campaigning for more immigration, of any sort, now when Americans are struggling to purchase houses, buy groceries, and pay their bills, is simply a non-starter. 

Americans should not be forced to compete with the world to have a good middle class life. They should not have to work 80 hour weeks just to “make it.” They certainly should not be insulted, as Vivek Ramaswamy did, for encouraging their kids to live a normal life, play sports, and have friends. 

The simple truth is this: America does not need more immigration. It certainly does not need “high skill” migrants. The flood of blue collar workers from the third world since the 1970s has done enormous damage to America’s culture—cutting wages, driving up housing prices, and bringing crime: without Mexican immigration there  would not be Mexican drug gangs in America.

This was bad enough, but so-called high skill immigration is, in many ways, even worse. In the past two decades, in particular, we have imported an entire class of foreigners who believe that their talents and “success” give them a right to rule over the people that welcomed them in. 

The damage to American wages and the standard of living is no longer restricted to the poor and the lower middle class. “High skill” immigration is now cutting into the opportunities of living of college-educated Americans. 

The argument that America has a shortage of talented workers is obviously false. One does not need studies to demonstrate the point, one needs only experience. America, in point of fact, actually has a labor glut. 

We know this because everyone assumes, as a matter of course, that American workers should train themselves at their own expense in high tech STEM fields. American students every year take out billions of dollars in loans to become electrical engineers, computer programmers, and aerospace technicians. 

If America truly had a job shortage—if big tech companies really believed they were leaving billions of dollars on the table due to a lack of skilled workers—then they would be scouring American high schools for top tier talent, they would be offering those students full-ride scholarships and job offers out of high school in order to acquire an edge in the marketplace.

The labor market is a market like any other. When a good (labor) is scarce and in demand then the price of that good (wages) goes up. This is not happening. From 1979 until 2024 productivity of American workers has increased by 81% but hourly pay and benefits have only increased by 30%. Prior to 1960, wages and productivity tracked nearly exactly.

This disjuncture in wages and productivity is a result of a worker glut. Since the 1965 Hart-Cellar Act dramatically opened America’s borders to the third world, a flood of foreigners have been available to help big American corporations keep the price of labor low. 

As of 2015, some 72 million individuals in America could trace their presence in America to Hart-Cellar. As of 2024, that number is closer to 100 million. America, in the last 60 years, has undergone a massive demographic change that was intentionally designed to transform the ethnic and political makeup of the country.   

That population boom was also designed to keep the price of labor down. It is for this reason that the stock market has grown 1,379% (inflation adjusted) since 1990. Instead of value from productivity flowing into the hands of all Americans, it has concentrated among the super wealthy. 

When I suggested to Elon Musk on X that if he wanted to find workers he ought to try paying them more, the world’s richest man (worth $400 billion) simply laughed at me.

My point remains valid, however. Much of America, including where I lived in Michigan, has been hit hard by outsourcing and immigration (both legal and illegal). The factories in town have largely been abandoned and local tax revenues are simply not enough to maintain existing infrastructure. 

There is a lot of untapped human capital in these places. The “forgotten America” has a lot to offer. These places were once wealthy and thriving. You can see it in the craftsmanship of old homes and the rusted hulks of once mighty rail stations and factories. 

Instead of going to Mumbai and Calcutta to poach “high skill” immigrants—many of whom are simply gaming the system—big American firms should be establishing inroads in their own country!

Pro-immigration defenders argue that the flood of third world workers is good for the country and native-born Americans because these foreigners build companies and add value. They conflate success stories like Elon Musk, Igor Sikorsky, and Werner von Braun with the pool of millions of grifters who come to America to grift. 

What makes America exception is Americans. Musk built Tesla and SpaceX in America and not India for a reason. American cultural norms, institutions, and habits are the “secret sauce” that makes this country such a great place to live and invest. 

In a word, if foreign migrants were so brilliant on their own merits then they wouldn’t need to come to America to have their talents blossom. Nor is it enough to point to foreigners as CEOs and business founders as the epitome of genius. Lots of businesses in modern America are simply not that impressive. Making a new app that allows someone to send naked photos more easily is not the same as inventing powered flight or perfecting the automobile.  

In many ways, technological progress has dramatically slowed. Americans 30 years ago had cars, air conditioning, refrigerators, and telephones. There have been some improvements in these technologies, yes, but this is easily overstated. The leap from an iPhone 4 to an iPhone 13 is less impressive than the jump from the horse and buggy to the gasoline-powered car. 

The America of the late 19^th and early 20^th century was far more innovative, powerful, and wealthy relative to its time than the one in which we live now. There is no doubt it was more spiritually healthy. The optimism and dynamism of that relative golden age are no longer found in our time. 

America did not become great because of third world labor. We did not become a mighty power by chasing the “grind” and worshipping money. America became great because of the character and toughness of its founding stock. Cheap land, high wages, and constant opportunity were the ingredients to our high birth rate and phenomenal financial and economic power. 

To get back to that national greatness we need to cut off the flow of cheap labor and grifter migrants. Americans are the best and brightest. We shouldn’t be afraid to say so. 

This piece originally published at American Greatness on January 5, 2025.