Bernie Sanders hits out at H-1B visa program for replacing American jobs with 'indentured servants'

"The main function of the H-1B visa program and other guest worker initiatives is not to hire 'the best and the brightest,' but rather to replace good-paying American jobs with low-wage indentured servants from abroad," Sanders wrote on X. "The cheaper the labor they hire, the more money the billionaires make."

That reopened a rift between those on the right over the program and whether it is being used to attract the best talent or being used by companies to bring in cheaper labor, primarily from India, who are tied to their job by the visa.

Sanders cited statistics to show that in 2022 and 2023, the top 30 corporations using the program laid off over 85,000 American workers, while hiring over 34,000 H-1B workers, and that 33% of new IT jobs are filled by foreign national guest workers. He also pointed to layoffs at Tesla, one of Musk's companies.

"If this program is really supposed to be about importing workers with highly advanced degrees in science and technology, why are H-1B guest workers being employed as dog trainers, massage therapists, cooks, and English teachers?" he said. "Can we really not find English teachers in America?"

"Bottom line. It should never be cheaper for a corporation to hire a guest worker from overseas than an American worker," he said.

Sanders said that the "economic elite and political establishments" promised in the 1990s that a loss of blue-collar jobs due to free trade agreements would be offset by more white-collar IT jobs.

"I have many H-1B visas on my properties. I've been a believer in H-1B. I have used it many times. It's a great program," he told the New York Post.