Visa Program Controversy: A Social Issue

The controversy over the H-1B Visa program erupted after the appointment of Chennai-born venture capitalist Sriram Krishnan as Trump’s top artificial intelligence (AI) advisor. The H-1B visa program was introduced in the twentieth century as an employment providing visas to foreign workers, especially in the STEM fields. Indians and Chinese have been the two largest beneficiaries of this visa program. The American government introduced this visa to attract global talent to contribute to the economic growth of the USA. According to Watts (2001), the H-1B Visa program opened the US information technology labour market to temporary, skilled immigrant labour. However, the immigrant worker was bound to a specific employer for the duration of the visa. The government has also increased the visa cap with time to allow more foreign workers to come to America. This has impacted the domestic labour market.

The negative impact of this visa program is that it has extensively benefitted the employer at the expense of immigrant and domestic workers. The H-1B visa program is a system of labour supply to the American market. The initial rules that had bound the worker to a single firm demonstrate how capitalism led to the alienation of the worker from the work itself. With time rules have changed and there is no such compulsion to complete the duration of work. Rules have become flexible but the exploitation in the production process remains the same be it intellectual work or physical work. Foreign workers employed at low and middle levels in a technical field in Silicon Valley, USA. Information technology demands educated and skilled labour. Brain power is the key source in the information society. The strength of the American IT sector lies in the skilled manpower who are not just talented but also work for them at a lower pay scale (Varma & Rogers, 2004). To get domestic workers to work at a lower salary than the decided scale by the government is impossible therefore, these firms rely on foreign labour from countries such as India and China.  

The increase in visa cap over time by the government led to a negative impact on the employment opportunities for the natives that have attracted anti-immigration voices. The visa program became controversial because it completely favoured the capitalist class over the workers. Foreign workers even being skilled are paid less which has depressed wages and displaced work opportunities for domestic labour. The role of the state is also crucial in this controversy as the recently elected president of the USA, Donald Trump, during his election campaign proposed the ‘Buy America and Hire America’ exclusive order, but now his voice has softened over this decision. At the same time he still keeps on talking about the ‘America-First Policy’ and his decision of back up from USAID and WHO are defended based on the America-First Policy itself but when it comes to the labour market state tries to make a balance between the owner and the workers while ends up favouring the owner and gives rise to the conflict between capital and labour. Another issue that can be raised is how globalization has brought new opportunities but has also remained a major cause of labour exploitation.

Capital-Labour Conflict: A Sociological Issue

The discipline of sociology always tries to provide a theoretical framework for any social issue to differentiate it from common sense. Similarly, the H-1B visa controversy in the USA that deals with migration, globalization, employment, and labour exploitation is a social issue. In this section, I will analyse this social issue as a sociological issue. The resistance against the H-1B visa is a clear depiction of the conflict between capital and labour. The theory that explains the framework of this social issue is that of one of the prominent classical sociological thinkers Karl Marx. Marxian ideology reflects on the brutality of the capitalist mode of production. In his book, ‘Capital’ vol. 1, Marx writes about the process of production of capital. The theoretical framework of the Marxian approach can help us to understand contemporary capitalism and political controversies such as the H-1B Visa.

Marx argues that wealth in the societies where capitalist mode of production prevails presents an immense accumulation of commodities. Any commodity has both use-value and exchange-value. In capitalism, use-value i.e. utility of the product produced is a consequence of the qualitative aspect of the labour power that goes into making the product i.e. skill. The exchange value of the commodity expresses something equal. It is a mode of expression. It deals with the quantitative aspect of labour power i.e. time taken, and labour power spent for the making of the product. So in both the use-value and exchange-value of the product which makes it a commodity, labour plays a major role. Labour time is socially necessary to produce an article under the normal conditions of production and with an average degree of skill. Similarly, contemporary agents of capitalism such as production units and the corporate sector use the physical and intellectual labour power of the workers. Moving ahead, the major argument of Marx lies in labour exploitation where the product is the outcome of the social labour of the workers.  Yet the workers have right over neither the means of production nor the end product, which are in turn owned by the capitalist. Workers are paid mere wages that are too bare minimum with which they can only ensure two meals a day and nothing more (Marx, 1974). In today’s world of Information Technology where intellect is the real labour power, the relation of the skilled worker with the means of production and the service produced with the use of their knowledge remains what Marx has described. Both labour and product remain alienated from each other.

In the capitalist mode of production division of labour is a necessary condition for the production of commodities (Marx, 1974). The same product passes through various hands in the production process. In the IT sector, corporate firms, and production units use similar methods for the production of goods and services. Where a single software is prepared by the labour-power of more than one worker. In modern societies, work is also getting outsourced where certain parts of the product are produced in foreign countries to cut off the production cost and availability of cheap labourers.

Another major argument of Marx is that a commodity has a value in use, this use-value of the commodity satisfies the human need, which is a consequence of human labour. Labour makes the commodity. Labour that goes into the making of a product assumes a social form. This social form of labour is an outcome of the contribution of various workers who were involved in the manufacturing process. This gives rise to a social relationship between the labour and the product. It is this social character of the labour which gives rise to what Marx calls ‘Fetishism of Commodity’. Objects of utility become commodities because they are products of the labour of the private individuals or group of individuals who carry their work independently. The sum of all private individual’s labour forms an aggregate labour of society. Therefore, labour of the individual asserts itself as a part of labour of society. It is this social character of labour which converts the product into a social product. On the contrary, when the product enters the market, it is the market price of the commodity that matters and taken into account independent of the social relations and labour conditions involved in the production of that product. This means the social character of labour is expressed only by the objective character of the product. The labour that produces the product has no right over it, in the market the contribution of labour is not even given a mention, the only thing that matters is the price of the commodity. But the twist is even the price of commodities is decided by the cost of production that has to do with labour power (Marx, 1974).

If we try to put the theoretical framework of commodity fetishism into the social issue of the H-1B Visa controversy in the USA we will be able to make a sociological interpretation of the current political situation that in reality has to do with capital and labour conflict. Skilled workers from foreign countries such as India come to America under the H-1B Visa program to make money and in the hope of a better future in the developed nation. They sell their intellectual labour power to the American IT sectors. It is their brain power which is exhausted in delivering a technical service but because they are employed as a mere worker they have no right over the service or product they have produced. The production which is the outcome of their brain power, skill and knowledge has nothing to do with them because they are paid a fixed amount of salary for it. The product belongs to the capitalist who employs the workers. The product produced, for instance, software is developed by a group of software engineers who are employed in a firm. Then in such a situation, the software belongs not to the developers but to the capitalist under whom those engineers are employed. This software goes into the market at that time it becomes independent of the social character of the group of workers which has produced it but it is known only by its price in the market which will also be decided by the capitalist. This example clearly shows how commodity fetishism is still practised in modern technological societies as well.

The sociological analysis of the H-1B Visa controversy deals not only with the capital and labour conflict but also puts it in the context of globalization which remains a key player to give rise to this controversy. As the labour working in the USA firms is immigrated from outside the USA. They have been hired by the USA private companies and these are specialized workers in the fields of science, technology, engineering, and mathematics. Three major issues raised against this visa program are hiring foreign workers at a lower pay scale, domestic workers getting undermined in the employment opportunities, and dominance of the capitalist class over both the labouring classes. The capitalist class holds the control over means of production. Labour power which is brain power in the IT sector has been sold to the capitalist class.  The capitalist class exploits foreign labourers by not paying them to the level of domestic workers even when both work at an equal level. Due to cheap skilled labour available to the companies they hire them instead of domestic workers which creates conflict between the capitalist and the domestic workers class. Thus, the exploitation of skilled workers, fewer job opportunities left for domestic workers, and control of workers’ labour power (that gives rise to alienation) becomes a major reason for conflict between capital and labour in the context of the H-1B Visa controversy. The modern capitalist system continues to sideline the workers through commodity fetishism. The demand and supply chain of workers across the globe make the process of globalization a major contributor to the capitalist mode of production.

References:

Marx, K. (1974). Capital Vol.1. Moscow: Progress Publishers.

Singh, S. G. (2025, January 6). H-1B Visa Row: Why Trump, Musk, and MAGA Clash over India’s Favourite Visa. Business Standard. New Delhi.

Varma, R., & Rogers, E. M. (2004). Indian Cyber Workers in US. Economic and Political Weekly.39(52): 5645-5652.

Watts, J. R. (2001). The H-1B Visa: Free Market Solutions for Business and Labor. Population Research and Policy Review.20(1/2): 143-156.

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Geetika Matharu is pursuing a master’s degree in Sociology from the Department of Sociology at the Delhi School of Economics (DSE), University of Delhi.