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Immigration has always been America’s favorite political hot potato. Toss it to Trump, and you get chants of “Build the wall to keep the illegals out” and “They are eating the dogs; they are eating the cats.” Toss it to Bernie and AOC, and you’re serenaded with calls for no deportation for illegals, a path to citizenship, and free tax-sponsored healthcare for the undocumented.
Despite their apparently opposite worldviews of American nationalism and European progressivism, both the MAGA hats and the Bernie bro hoodies agree on one thing: keep skilled immigrants out. You know, the ones who obey the law by applying for high-skilled job-based visas through the H1B program.

Let’s start with MAGA. The intellectual underpinnings of core Trumpism were articulated by a man named Steve Bannon, the high priest of the MAGA movement, and then implemented by Stephen Miller in the first Trump administration. They consist of a core belief that America is a white, Judea-Christian country and that illegal immigration is a globalist plot to fundamentally change the nature of America and, through it, its politics. But while the public-facing bluster has been on illegal entry into the US, Bannon and Miller’s main target has always been legal immigration through the H1B program. Bannon has long advocated for eliminating the H1B program, deporting existing H1B workers and for reparations to American workers.

Now, you’d think the progressive left would be the cavalry here, riding in to celebrate diversity and a different vision of America. Not quite. Progressives may not bash legal immigrants with the kind of open hatred that is the signature of Bannon, but their policies reveal a similar dislike for H1B immigrants. In fact, Bernie Sanders says pretty much the same thing that Bannon does about the H1B program: that it is a capitalist scheme hatched by evil Silicon Valley billionaires to exploit cheap foreign labor and displace American workers.

Sounds at least solidly protectionist, right?  Except for one glaring contradiction: progressives are totally fine with welcoming undocumented immigrants—15 million of them every year. Compare that to the measly 65,000 H1Bs allowed annually. If the concern is about job competition, don’t undocumented immigrants take jobs, too?