For years, conservatives have attacked diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI) in hiring as an assault on meritocracy. They insist DEI means “hiring someone just because they’re a woman or a minority,” when — they say — only talent should matter.
I’m not here to defend DEI policies nor do I think DEI is a good idea. But what’s striking about this argument is the baked-in assumption that merit operates in a vacuum — that the current system already delivers pure meritocracy, with white men simply happening to rise to the top through superior talent alone. It erases decades of structural advantages — from access to elite schools, to informal networks, to cultural bias in who is seen as “leadership material.”
But now, with new restrictions on the H-1B visa program, those same voices are effectively demanding that employers like me hire someone just because they are American citizens. That’s not meritocracy — it’s just DEI for American citizens.
The Global Talent Reality
H-1B visa holders aren’t second-tier candidates. By almost any objective metric, they are among the most qualified workers in the global market:
Over 70% hold advanced STEM degrees.
They file twice as many patents per capita as their U.S.-born peers.
They are disproportionately represented among startup founders and tech CEOs.
If we were truly committed to a level playing field, these workers would often win jobs outright. Instead, rules like a proposed $100,000 visa fee and rigid job-degree requirements make birthplace — not brilliance — the deciding factor.
The Selective Use of Meritocracy
The double standard is striking:
When DEI is criticized, conservatives say: “Identity shouldn’t matter, only skill.”
When immigrants compete and often win on skill, those same critics suddenly argue: “Identity should matter — American citizenship first.”
It’s not about merit. It’s about preserving privilege. Meritocracy becomes a slogan of convenience, applied selectively to exclude some groups while shielding others.
The Cost of Protectionism
This hypocrisy isn’t just rhetorical. It carries real economic and social costs:
Innovation slows when we shut out the best global talent.
Diversity shrinks when immigrant voices are excluded from labs, startups, and leadership pipelines.
Smaller firms suffer when high fees and red tape make sponsorship viable only for giant corporations, leaving early-stage innovators — often the most creative and inclusive — locked out.
Meanwhile, global competitors are more than happy to welcome the talent we reject. Each visa turned away is a gift to China, Europe, or India.
The Arbitrary Nature of This Protectionism
The restrictions become even more absurd when you consider what they don’t protect against. There are no tariffs on software developed overseas. No restrictions on contracting work to remote teams in Bangalore or Belgrade. A company can outsource an entire engineering project to foreign workers — as long as those workers stay in their home countries.
But bring that same talented engineer to American soil, where they’d pay American taxes, contribute to American communities, and potentially start American companies? Suddenly that’s a threat to American workers.
Worse, we’re incentivizing companies to get better at outsourcing. When visa sponsorship becomes expensive and bureaucratic, companies invest in remote work infrastructure, offshore management systems, and distributed team processes. We’re essentially training American businesses to depend less on American workers — the opposite of the stated goal.
This isn’t economic protection — it’s economic theater. We’re restricting the movement of people while allowing the free movement of the work itself. The result is the worst of both worlds: American companies still access global talent, but that talent contributes nothing to American communities, tax bases, or innovation ecosystems.
What About AI?
The selective concern for American workers becomes even more glaring when we consider artificial intelligence. AI systems are rapidly displacing jobs across industries — from customer service to legal research to software development itself. These systems require no visas, demand no wages, and contribute nothing to Social Security.
Yet should we tax AI usage to protect American workers? Should we restrict companies from deploying automation that eliminates entire job categories? If the genuine concern were worker displacement, we’d expect to see policies targeting the biggest actual threat to employment.
Instead, we get restrictions on foreign engineers who file patents, start companies, and hire American workers — while AI companies are celebrated for replacing human jobs with algorithms.
The Real Employment Challenge
Let’s be honest: maintaining full employment with a rising standard of living is one of the most complex challenges facing any modern economy. Technological change, global competition, and shifting market demands create genuine disruption for American workers. These concerns deserve serious policy responses.
But protectionism is not a solution. Restricting H-1B visas doesn’t create more high-skilled jobs — it just makes American companies less competitive and innovative. When we block talented immigrants, we don’t magically transform the existing workforce into world-class engineers and scientists overnight. We simply handicap our own companies in global markets.
Meanwhile, the policies that would actually help American workers — better education, job retraining programs, portable benefits, stronger safety nets — get less attention and funding than visa restrictions. It’s easier to blame foreigners than to invest in solutions.
The irony is that many H-1B workers end up creating more jobs than they take. They start companies, file patents, and build the innovations that drive entire industries. Blocking them doesn’t protect American workers — it reduces the economic opportunities available to everyone.
A Consistent Vision
If conservatives truly believed in meritocracy, they would welcome fair global competition. They’d say: may the best coder, scientist, or engineer win — regardless of nationality, gender, or race.
Instead, they weaponize meritocracy against women and minorities at home, then abandon it entirely to block foreign-born workers. The principle isn’t fairness; it’s protection for those already at the top of the pyramid.
H-1B restrictions solve nothing. They’re just bumper sticker politics — easy to rally around, impossible to defend on the merits. It’s similar to the fantasy that making Americans pay higher taxes through tariffs will bring back manufacturing jobs. The big visa fees make it sound like the president is being tough on job preservation, but it’s all for show.
When companies abuse the H-1B system by underpaying workers or displacing Americans, the solution isn’t fewer visas — it’s enforcing the laws that already prohibit these practices. The same politicians calling for visa restrictions rarely demand stricter enforcement of prevailing wage requirements or workplace verification rules. It’s the same pattern we see with I-9 employment verification: instead of enforcing existing immigration law, we get calls for new restrictions. It’s easier to grandstand about new policies than to do the hard work of enforcement.
As an employer in tech, I want to hire the best. Sometimes that’s a kid from Kansas, sometimes it’s a PhD from Bangalore. What I reject is being told to lower my standards in the name of preserving a privileged few.
We would not need the word “hypocrisy” if there was no use for it.