Jesse Jackson’s Fight for American Tech Workers

Rev. Jesse Jackson, who passed away on February 17th at the age of 84, spent decades fighting for economic justice and equal opportunity for all Americans. In a 2014 interview with Fortune magazine, Jackson took aim at the H-1B visa program:

“We need to get rid of H1B workers. There are Americans who can do that work, and H1B workers are cheaper and undercut wages. We need more computer science scholarships.”

Great Solution Bills to Reform the H-1B Program

• Sen. Tom Cotton’s Visa Cap Enforcement Act (S. 2941) would to make the 65,000 annual H-1B cap a true cap by closing loopholes that allow hundreds of thousands of additional H-1B workers to fill American jobs.
• Rep. Greg Steube’s EXILE Act (H.R. 7451) would phase out most H-1B visas entirely.

Jackson’s campaign to reform Silicon Valley highlighted how minority Americans were being locked out of tech careers.

He criticized Silicon Valley for a “Magic Kingdom” mentality for bringing in H-1B workers instead of pursuing Americans – particularly women and minorities – who have the talent to do the jobs.

“They spend a lot of time in Washington lobbying to get more H-1B workers,” Jackson said.

“There has not been the same intensity of recruiting young African and young Latino Americans to be in the pipeline. . .We know that there is no talent deficit. There is an opportunity deficit.”

Jackson’s call for reform is more urgent today than ever.

America’s largest tech companies are laying off American workers by the tens of thousands while continuing to import foreign labor through the H-1B program.

A recent Harvard study found that H-1B workers earn 16% less than comparable American workers — confirming that the program exists to cut costs, not to fill genuine labor shortages. Meanwhile, American computer science graduates face 6.1% unemployment, higher than art history graduates, and recent college graduates face 41.8% underemployment — the highest level since 2020.