In a segment on War Room with Steve Bannon, political commentator Mark Mitchell claimed that each senior H‑1B developer at tech firms such as Apple represents “the economic equivalent of 10 illegal aliens.” He also complained about why the Trump administration did not deport them immediately. Mitchell said that Silicon Valley tech firms rely heavily on immigrant labour for cheap labour and avoid American workers. “We are talking $60,000, $70,000 a year for roles that pay American engineers $150,000 or more. And get this: half the time, they make the American worker train their replacement before getting the boot. It is not innovation; it is exploitation,” Mitchell said.The remarks come amid recent data indicating that foreign-born professionals hold roughly 66 per cent of Silicon Valley’s tech jobs. Of those, 23 per cent are Indian nationals and 18 per cent are Chinese, according to a 2025 industry index. Mitchell claimed that Silicon Valley’s workforce is 2/3 foreign-born, with buildings, such as Walmarts having 85-95 per cent Indian nationals. Meanwhile, H‑1B holders account for only 0.3 to 0.4 per cent of America’s overall workforce of 163 million. MAGA conservatives contend that H‑1B entries are deployed as loopholes, enabling large corporations to swap out older, more expensive American engineers for cheaper overseas tech talent. It is called the “golden pathways” for H1-B holders and is considered against the America First agenda. Mitchell said that there is a “bottomless well” of third-world engineers who make it difficult for an average American family to lead an affordable life, because they can easily “replace them.”In support of his argument, Mitchell made a controversial comparison: an H‑1B developer earning around $90,000 a year is equivalent to importing ten undocumented workers each earning $9 an hour. He meant that companies are getting skilled workers for a price that he argues could be comparable to paying multiple low-wage workers.
