Dear {name}:

On September 15, I was alerted to a New York Times (NYT) article titled "The Newest Face of Long-Term Unemployment? The College-Educated," authored by Noam Scheiber, a reporter who focuses on white-collar workers. The premise of the article was that long-term unemployment is increasingly affecting college-educated workers, who now make up about one-third of the jobless. He posited that this phenomenon was driven by automation, AI, and reduced demand for skilled positions.

What was missing from his article was the impact employment visa and employment authorization programs like the H-1B visa and STEM Optional Practical Training (OPT) were having on both our recent college graduates and white-collar professional workers in general. Having written a Substack on just this topic a couple months before, I called him out on the social media platform X. To Noam's credit, he didn't get mad – he got curious, and we agreed to talk.

I was apprehensive because the NYT has not been treating individuals and groups in the immigration restrictionist movement very well. Much of the past reporting has been biased not only against us, but very much in favor of anyone wanting to come to the U.S. For instance, stories lamenting that Indian students and workers still in India might not get the chance to come to America—and take American jobs.

After our initial 90-minute conversation on a Sunday afternoon, I began to think this time might be different. Noam seemed genuinely interested in what I had to say about the negative consequences of today's legal immigration system and how someone who was a well-known Progressive in the early 2000s could arrive at this position. He later interviewed subject matter experts like attorney John Miano, Mark Krikorian, and Professor Ron Hira, as well as a dozen activists who were displaced by H-1B visa holders.

When the article dropped last Friday, I was pleasantly surprised to see it portrayed me and our movement's work in a positive light. Many on our side of the immigration debate were gobsmacked that the Times would have published such an article. Professor Norman Matloff exclaimed on X: "Absolutely shocking article. Not shocking for content, which is accurate, but shocking the NYT would run it."

The 658 comments on the article were largely favorable, and ones like this substantiated our claims: "My son, who dislikes everything about Trump and his regime, was not displeased when Trump announced his $100K fee for H-1B visas. My son, a UCLA-trained software engineer with twenty years experience in Silicon Valley, was laid off a year ago and is still looking for work..."

Perhaps this shift is a harbinger of a realignment of sorts. In DC, there is a growing appetite for employment visa reform, and President Trump's September 19 Proclamation titled "Restriction on Entry of Certain Nonimmigrant Workers" could very well be the permission Congress needs to tackle this issue.

Onward,

Kevin Lynn

Executive Director, Institute for Sound Public Policy

Founder, U.S. Tech Workers