Like many of the articles I showed you, he's changed his stance over the course of his campaign, often talking out of both sides of his mouth. Most politicians do this, but it creates uncertainty, especially given his unpredictability.
Show me the source of him changing his stance on legal(!) immigration. Specifically his changed position that would affect current H1-B holders. We don't want to put other ppl's words ( like of all these numerous commentators ) in his mouth, don't we?
Oh no, he's accusing me of being gay. What's next, is he going to claim I'm left handed as well. What is this 1995 high school or something? Luckily Silicon Valley is one of the few places that effectively has an intelligence test required before you can live there, so it's refreshingly free of most asshats like this. Generally any in the area are forced by housing prices and their lack of earning ability to live in the East Bay and commute over to do the unskilled labor jobs like serving the geeks in restaurants and building their multi-million dollar houses. Anyway, you're right, nothing to see in Silicon Valley, no one wants to live there, just stay in Lower Alabama or Louisiana, whichever one you currently reside in and we'll all wave at you when we fly over.
Have you ever tried to hire a developer in SF/Seattle/Boston/NY/DC? Why don't you give it a try and get back to me on how there's plenty of underemployed software developers desperate for jobs and the big mean corporations just won't hire them. If you know of any, please PM me. Seriously, I'm always looking for software developers and have a very difficult time hiring them despite paying well in an interesting, profitable company. I could just be a jackass who's hard to get along with, but I've never had anyone I did hire leave and all my fellow CEOs complain about the same thing. It's surprising that a technical PhD like you would make a statement like that which just isn't supported by the data.
Again, the articles I showed you states where he talked out of both sides of his mouth. And remember this discussion is about Silicon Valley's fears which have not been addressed by Trump yet. Silicon Valley (like all industries) needs new workers to replace old workers and fuel growth. The tech industry is concerned they won't get that. Current h1b holders are concerned that the policy will shift against them, again in the earlier articles. Btw - h1b visas have to be renewed. So if they eliminate the program, eventually all those guys have to go back. I know people who didn't get his h1b renewed. He had to go back to Hong Kong. He was a derivatives trader and now his income trickle's down in Hong Kong instead of NYC.
Boston too. And it's not just high tech. I run a low tech manufacturing firm and I can't find mechanical engineers (which a trade school diploma would be good enough). Unemployment for engineers in the northeast is < 1%.
What $$$ are you offering them? That's a pretty big part that's missing from your post. I see lots of Bay Area startups complaining about how they can't hire anyone despite "paying well" but when pressed it turns out their idea of paying well is pretty piss-poor. I proctor about two interviews a week, so I know there's always plenty looking for work. I never said they were "desperate for jobs", like you claimed I did.
Generally around $150K in the N Virginia area where that is significantly more than in SF. When I was in SF it was around $200K. We're talking straight developers here, either right out of undergrad or a couple years out for stuff that isn't rocket science by any means. If that is piss-poor pay for a software developer, and it may well be, then it indicates a scarcity given average pay in other professions. Even if it's a reasonable salary, it indicates a scarcity. If there isn't a scarcity, then there would be plenty of out of work software developers just like there are plenty of out of work people in most other professions, but in fact there aren't. How much do you make, since you're asking for numbers? And how does that compare to PhDs in other fields where there aren't scarcities? Again as a PhD I'm surprised that you're committing the logical fallacy of "I work in a big tech company and HR delivers me 2 interviewees a week, therefore there's no shortage of U.S. based software developers and any such claim is "just the usual garbage of corps not wanting to shell out for domestic talent."
I want you to provide me with a pointer to him personally stating something else from what we know from his official links. You can't. Yes, H1B just like any other visa expires. Only citizenship has no expiration. Their visas might or might not be extended. New people will be hired. Nothing to worry about. Maybe they will have to pay higher salaries and hire more Americans, but that's fine. Any way it's beneficial for American citizens.
I'll note that you're committing a similar fallacy -- neither of us have provided any data. So let's take a look at the data. From 2013, 32% of computer science graduates are not employed in the field, due to lack of available jobs. http://www.bls.gov/opub/mlr/2015/article/stem-crisis-or-stem-surplus-yes-and-yes.htm. That being said, it looks like wages have been rising since then from every article I can find. So maybe you're right and there is something to this idea of a tech shortage. Maybe it's time for me to negotiate another raise while I'm at it given the shortage (though I'm pretty comfortable with my pay given that I live in upstate NY, more money is always welcome). That amount you quoted isn't so terrible for SF when I was there a couple years ago (I'm not familiar with Virginia), though you won't be able to compete against Google and Facebook with it. But if you want tech talent you will be competing with Google and Facebook. Where the shortage is really felt is government jobs. When I was still in school, people from the NSA and DHS and whatnot would come try to recruit people for cybersecurity jobs. They'd pretty much get laughed at the moment they left, because the pay was so horrible compared to the private sector. There's 50k CS grads a year from US colleges/universities. That number might be rising. I know my undergrad institution has gone from a graduating class of three to sixteen. People are at least responding to the incentives of money. I'd like to add a note though that this conversation is only applicable to the computer science part of STEM. Every other area, especially in science, has seen flat wages and higher than average unemployment. I'll be happy to see H1B abuse get cut down. Other areas have been horrible here. Everyone knows about Infosys, but it sucks for ce/ee. Intel used H1Bs to drive wages down immensely for those jobs.