Immigrant Rights are Labor Rights – Tech Workers and H-1B Visas

In the weeks preceding Trump’s inauguration, the right-wing coalition supporting him entered into a fractious debate over skilled immigrant workers. On one side stood tech executives who value immigrant labor as a means to increase profits and productivity. On the other were pure reactionary white supremacist nativists stoking fears about minority workers taking “our American jobs”. Neither side was savory, and nowhere were the voices of tech workers, and especially immigrant tech workers, represented. As a first response, Tech Workers Coalition (TWC) assembled a panel of workers who were or had been on H-1B visas, to represent our experiences and views. We wanted to give voice to those at the heart of the debate, and also develop a strategy and message on how and why we must respond as part of an international working class.

We felt this was especially urgent for two reasons. First, there are fake, astroturfed far-right organizations (such as “U.S. Tech Workers”) that claim to speak for tech workers, but are in reality just propped up and run by anti-immigrant forces with no discernible constituency of actual tech workers. Second, even people who are looked to as progressive voices who advocate for workers, such as Bernie Sanders, have given credence to nativist protectionism as somehow “anti-corporate”. In a similar vein, the UAW recently put out a statement supporting tariffs.

The H-1B visa is a dual-intent, guestworker visa granted to foreign nationals hired by U.S. employers to work in a specialty occupation. More than half of H-1B visa holders work in the tech industry. Dual intent means that it is one of the few visas that can lead to a green card and citizenship. However, there are many hurdles involved in actually making it to that point. Typically, in order to get to the stage of receiving an employer-sponsored green card, a worker has to complete 6 years on the H-1B, going through a renewal process at the 3 year mark. At any point over these 6 years, the worker’s position can be terminated by the company, destroying the prospect of reaching the green card stage, unless the worker can find a new employer willing to hire and sponsor them within 60 days of the termination. With mass layoffs continuing for years in tech, securing a new job prospect with visa or green card benefits in 60 days is close to impossible.

Since assuming office, the Trump administration has embarked on all-sided attacks – federal workers and services, immigration and border controls, tariff threats, renewed trade-war with China, threatening to annex Greenland and perhaps Canada, destroying workers rights, declaring intent to seize Gaza, and so forth. The H-1B debate, barely a month old, seems a lifetime ago. But, not only will it return, it also gets to the heart of many issues we face in our organizing more generally – how the bosses and politicians will sow division among workers, and how to build solidarity in the face of that. The overarching theme of the panel was that indeed the bosses seek to specially exploit and drive down conditions for workers through their mistreatment of H-1B workers – however the answer is not to turn on one another, but organize together. We answer with more solidarity, not less.

Indeed, the panel opened with a “big picture” discussion of why and how migration into the U.S. became so significant. The U.S. involvement in the destabilization of the global south through coups, wars, and sanctions drives down conditions throughout the world, creating a pool of migrants who find their movement restricted even as capital flows freely. One worker described: “So while migration is a consequence of capitalism, what we are experiencing is a scapegoating of immigrants. The response should be that we need to see ourselves as an international working class, regardless of citizenship or country of origin.” They contrasted high CEO salaries and corporate profits to the blame placed on exploited immigrant workers for conditions in the U.S. economy. “If all of the immigrants were gone tomorrow, it wouldn’t mean higher wages or better healthcare… the working class struggle has to be international because the capitalist system is global.”

A running theme that emerged was the complex relationship immigrant workers had to the visa system – at once giving them opportunities to work and develop a life in a new country, but at the same time with the employer-sponsored nature of H-1Bs subjecting them to intense indentured-servitude like control of their employers. One worker described: “Before I had the language or the political education to understand the immigration system, I was experiencing how much control my employer had over me… I realized staying in the U.S. was a matter of staying at the job – I felt stuck.” Another described waiting for more than four months between jobs because they had to wait for the visa to transfer. There were descriptions of lies and deceptions from employers – refusals to sponsor promised green cards, layoffs halfway through green card processes, forcing them to start over again and again.

Not only is switching employers difficult for H-1B workers, but also even the act of switching job titles – any shift at all requires changing the green card application, and processing fees on top. Workers who had been involved in unionizing efforts described the double fear they felt – illegal retaliation from an employer could force them to leave the country, with justice coming years later, if ever.

One worker who unionized with the New York Times Tech Guild described: “The whole immigration process sometimes makes me feel like I’m a second class citizen. You pay taxes, but can’t say how the money is used. You feel scared to speak up if your employer or sponsor is doing something wrong. But also, there’s a weird duality… because I also feel very grateful for the corporate overlords for giving this to me, and at the same time, they can easily decide one day to just take it away. That’s what pushed me to start organizing and connecting with my fellow workers: at the end of the day, they will be there for you, not the employers that signed a piece of paper.”

Another worker described how empowering it was when they began to unionize in the nonprofit where they worked: “Even before you have a contract, which takes a while to negotiate, you become no longer an at-will employee. You can’t be fired for no reason – and this matters to H-1Bs where the stakes are higher. Once you have a union, you negotiate discipline at the bargaining table – it can’t be arbitrary. And the same with layoffs, even before the first contract… and with a contract, you can negotiate for more. The things that benefit H-1B workers benefit all workers.” They shared a Labor Notes article with further suggestions for contract language codifying immigrant worker protections.

The effects of organizing described by panelists weren’t just in legal and contractual protections gained, but the transformation of their whole relationship to work and their coworkers: “You can have all these rights, but if the power dynamic stays the same you can’t enforce them. When you have a union, you become less scared to speak up.” No longer do individuals have to be brave and outspoken to push back alone – with an organization they can act together in solidarity. “It’s really hard to unionize, that’s why I talk about it a lot.”

At this workplace, somewhat uniquely, the organizing campaign developed directly out of immigrant visa issues – one worker faced a delay on their green card papers from the employer. Other workers, fearing the same, began to talk about how to collectively respond. From that single issue, other conversations developed about being overworked and underpaid, moving to issues that affected all workers, not just visa-holders. “It just grew from there to doing a union drive, after a lot of conversations.”

Another important theme throughout the discussion was how isolating it is to have visa issues and feeling unable or ashamed to discuss them with coworkers – and how transformative it can be to open that conversation. One worker described how their union drive organized an immigration teach-in to educate their American born coworkers, and how they related to the process of learning to care about issues that don’t seem to be yours alone: “I try, the same way, to urge myself to care about issues that don’t seem connected to me. Like hotel workers strikes. It’s amazing how your friends will reflexively side with the ruling class. Oh, that strike will be so inconvenient for me. You can start to talk to them about it, to think that the labor fight is my fight too.”

These barriers to solidarity occur not just between workers of different national backgrounds, or industries, but within immigrant communities as well. One worker described how many racist and anti-immigrant comments they read in Chinese social media: “In all immigrant communities, we are often very into competition and meritocracy. We’re all scrambling for limited visas, which pushes this competitive mindset…. If we’re not standing together, we cannot fight for something better.”

The final portion of the discussion went in-depth into the recent eight-day strike of the New York Times Tech Guild in November 2024, and how organizing to beat the bosses required a labor movement firmly fighting for immigrant workers. The Guild represents over 600 tech workers at the New York Times, and its strike was the first major tech-specific strike in the U.S. It resulted in the first contract for the union, which began organizing in 2018 – underlining that labor organizing, while well worth it, takes time to develop. After over two years of bargaining, and facing a hostile employer who gave ridiculous counter-offers and delay after delay, the bargaining committee organized a strike authorization vote for a strike during election week – when traffic to the Times site would be at its highest. She described how “we quickly realized there was a group of people vulnerable to retaliation – those on visas, and especially employer-sponsored visas.”

She went on: “The main thing we needed to lean on was the power of solidarity. We would highlight that immigrant workers, visa workers, have the same workers rights – to go on strike, to unionize.” But for immigrant workers, when these rights are violated, the consequences are more dangerous: “… for workers on visas … these processes for righting these wrongs take forever, and immigrant workers don’t have forever. The most important thing was that workers were willing, immigrant and citizen, to stand together in the face of relation. Our numbers were the thing that protected us.”

During the organizing campaign, they had a public letter from the organizing committee with dozens of names – all promising to stop work or take action if any member was retaliated against. They used it with hesitating coworkers to show them who had their back. “To see a principal engineer would walk out for me, an associate engineer who came from community college, made a difference … made me want to put my name out there too.” They also held special meetings for workers on visas to answer questions and address legal risks – giving a space to learn rights and answer hard questions together.

The solidarity and outreach worked – it ensured that H-1B workers were not cowed by the bosses, and stood shoulder-to-shoulder with other, less vulnerable, workers as they embarked on their strike. “Especially given the oncoming political climate, it’s more important than ever to stand with your coworkers because those are the people that will protect you and stand with you. The most surefire thing that you have at your back is one of your coworkers. That is what I have kept in mind as we went through the union and strike. Obviously, when I went on strike, it made me nervous. If I got fired, given the state of things, I didn’t know if I was going to find another job. I’m in the 4th year… I’m on the H-1B extension, so it would be over for me. There was a lot of tension, but how am I going to look at myself in the mirror and not stand up for my coworkers when they would stand up for me? A strike is a sacrifice. Everyday feels like a risk when you’re on a visa. If I’m going to risk it all, I’m going to risk it all for people who would do the same for me.”

As the panel came to a close, one speaker emphasized that the issue of immigrant labor is not primarily H-1B workers. The majority of immigrant workers are under visas that are not dual-intent and offer no path to citizenship, or lack papers altogether. We need to bear that in mind and fight for them as well. Another concluded with advice to start with just a single conversation, and open up about issues and challenges. Building on that, another noted : “… when you do that, the problems people think are individual are not. The problems you think are unique to your team are on other teams. The problems you think are specific to your company happen across companies. You start to see things differently. In our case, everyone thought it was just them. Changing that can build solidarity. It starts to break down walls.”

Finally, as the moderator of the panel noted, when the H-1B debate re-emerges into the national spotlight, we should bear in mind not only how we respond as individual workers, but what political demands we can raise to counter the anti-immigrant political demands of the right. Since they make the populist claim that their issue with H-1Bs is how they empower employers against workers – then we should demand that the visas be changed to be better for workers, not restricted. For example – extending the grace period after job loss from 60 days to a full year, putting all immigrant visas (including agricultural) on a path to citizenship, removing the requirement of continued employer-sponsorship from the visas once granted. One simple act discussed could simply be to extend the registry date. This is the date such that if any U.S. resident, regardless of status, has resided in the U.S. since, they may apply for legal permanent resident status. The current registry date was set in 1986 to 1972. Advancing it as a one-time act would be a huge win for immigrant and workers rights in the U.S., and setting a precedent or law to advance it continuously even more so.