Offshoring and H1B visas, the oft nebulous concepts where our anti-immigrant-taking-American-jobs in speeches government then turns around and hands the good-paying jobs to foreigners, kind of sort of makes some folks’ radar. But honestly, most of the time foreign ‘replacement’ workers only ping if it’s you getting hosed or someone you know or love.
In our case, it was the youngest brother being cut loose after twenty-five years when Wells Fargo (as he says, ‘Spearheaded by a chap from Ireland and his boss, who is from the UK. Kinda throws some extra salt on the wound‘) dumped all their American investment/wealth management advisors so they could offshore to CHEAP CHEAP CHEAP centers in India and the Philippines.
Here at home, the H1B debacle is most prevalent in the tech industry, but we’ve seen it happen right here in Pensacola. A Singapore firm, ST Engineering, opened a second facility at Pensacola Airport (its first is in Mobile), loaded to the gills with taxpayer dollars and promises of big-buck American jobs. While hiring Americans for company jobs that paid subpar industry salaries for the positions (everyone began to believe that was a strategy in itself to satisfy the handout requirements), H1B visa recipients began appearing in the city. Only no one had really been aware of the number the company had brought in until the summer of 2024, when they unceremoniously dumped a bunch of them and told them they had to go home.
Chilean aircraft mechanics at ST Engineering’s Pensacola and Mobile, Alabama, offices say dozens of workers were laid off without warning after being recruited and moving their families to the U.S.
Workers say they were recruited to work in the U.S. for at least three years on H-1B visas, but in May, as their first-year visa renewal came up, they were told they were being “suspended” from work.
“They say that they cannot let you get into work because your visa or your I-94 is expired, and they are going to fix it,” Victor Ramos said. “But at the same time, they say that they’re going to pay you for only two weeks, and after that, it’s up to you. You can go back to Chile if you want to wait there, or you can stay (in the U.S.) waiting, but you can choose the best for your family.”
Ramos was a quality control inspector for ST Engineering at its VT MAE facility in Mobile, Alabama, and was among four former ST Engineering workers the News Journal interviewed on Tuesday.
And I wasn’t kidding about the subsidies handed to the company to locate here.
…ST Engineering’s operations in Pensacola have been heavily supported with economic subsidies of $210 million from taxpayer dollars and the company will have 1,700 workers when the campus is complete. The city of Pensacola is building the ST Engineering campus using a combination of local, state, and federal funds. Construction on Hangar No. 3 began off Tippin Avenue in June. ST Engineering’s operations in Mobile, known as VT MAE, have also received economic development support from the state of Alabama.
It has been an ongoing saga, involving both the company and the County Commissioners, and locals who want to know what we got for our citizens with our money. In January, ST got another extension until 2028 to build a hangar they’d agreed to with more job promises. So who knows?
This was probably many people in Pensacola’s first introduction to the ins and outs of H1Bs
The latest controversy about them on a national stage is making bigger waves because it involves a company more people are emotionally invested in, so they’ve noticed and are asking angry questions.
Yeah, it’s Microsoft, right?
But it’s in their Xbox division. Gamers, man – they know what’s going on in a company.
The H-1B visa program is a disaster!@XBOX just laid off 3,200 U.S. workers and is replacing them with foreigners holding H-1B visas.
This is the definition of civilizational suicide and it needs to stop. Immediately.
Time to end all these programs: OPT, STEM-OPT, and H-1B. pic.twitter.com/qVswoJ1c1S
— Rep. Riley M. Moore (@RepRileyMoore) July 9, 2026
And they do not like this at all – especially when you wonder how many of them are looking for work as they read this.
A popular U.S.-based gaming brand owned by Microsoft is facing fury after mass employee layoffs occurred in the wake of the company being approved for thousands of foreign worker visas.
Microsoft announced that it will lay off 4,800 people total and 1,600 from the corporation’s XBOX division, which makes and sells the dominant video game console.
So, you have all these people being laid off?
But they have to STILL HIRE FOREIGNERS?
…Meanwhile, Microsoft has been approved this year to hire from foreign countries 2,273 employer-sponsored, non-immigrant workers under what is known as the H-1B visa program, according to data from U.S. Citizen and Immigration Services (USCIS).
Hold on, dawg – that isn’t gonna fly.
…”A great way to fix this is to throw anyone doing this in prison,” said one user on X. “Fire Americans to replace with thousands of visa workers? Straight to jail, and assets seized. This story has been told countless times. Fire American staff and hire foreigners. Over and over.“
Naturally, the Microsoft CEO is whinging that the business isn’t ‘healthy.’
…”Our business today is not healthy,” said a memo from Sharma, according to The Associated Press. “We are operating at margins that are 3-10x lower than comparable platform and publishing businesses.“
Sharma added that her strategy is to “reset” XBOX.
I guess it’s impossible to ‘reset’ with the healthy help she has?
Please, 900 lb brain tech lady CEO – ‘splain yourself.
Microsoft is under growing pressure to account for its H-1B visa requests after announced another round of layoffs this week, affecting around 9,000 employees across its global headcount.
The latest round of layoffs, hitting roughly 4 percent of the tech giant’s workforce, comes after two other waves in May and June, affecting another 8,000 in total. The company has laid off nearly 16,000 people in total this year, out of a 228,000-strong global employee base.
In the weeks that followed those layoff announcements, claims began circulated on X that the company had also applied for upwards of 6,000 high-skilled work visas, or H-1Bs, since October, the start of the current fiscal year. While that number could not be independently confirmed, during the last fiscal year, Microsoft applied for 9,491 H-1B visas. All were approved.
“In some sense, there’s nothing strange here,” Steven Camarota, director of research at the Center for Immigration Studies, told Newsweek. “You have a situation where the advocacy or use of guest worker programs is entirely always disconnected from the actual behavior of businesses.
“The actual data we have never supports the idea that we are terribly short of workers in the way that the business community says.”
And our government needs to stop approving all of these. That would be a start.
Some are speculating that is precisely what the government needs – enough screaming from Americans to overcome the pressures from business. Perhaps that’s why they’ve stuck J.D. out in front of what is ostensibly a fraud investigation, but could be used as an excuse for a general pullback of immense proportions if there is enough hue and cry from the public.
JD Vance @VP launches a review of the #H1B program.
It is a small step — but it opens the door for more debate & anger over the visa-worker disaster.
Reformist politicians WANT voter anger to offset the ubiquitous pressure from donors & investors. https://t.co/NOX1RkAKoT— Neil Munro (@NeilMunroDC) July 9, 2026
As radio host Tara Servatius says…
…College educated Americans ages 20-24 have a 7.1% unemployment rate. Eighty percent of the jobs the h1b visa folks are taking are entry level white collar jobs…
…and yet? You see this constantly.
The H1B visa program must abolished. https://t.co/ZEZx9sIfXi
— Hon. Vickie Paladino (@VickieforNYC) July 10, 2026
It’s got to stop.
But it won’t until more people know and start agitating.
Editor’s Note: We voted for mass deportations, not mass amnesty. Help us continue to fight back against those trying to go against the will of the American people.
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