Opinion
By Jeff Childers
9/20/25
Good morning, C&C, it’s Saturday! Your Weekend Edition Roundup includes: Trump smashes the immigration system and builds a new one without needing a single thing from Congress; his first executive order fixes long-broken H-1B visa problem with the stroke of a pen; the second executive order begins the rollout of the President’s “Gold Card” immigration program, and it’s even better than we expected; weird signs in the skies over India; and ACIP committee slices and dices the covid shots, creating an iceberg of bad news for mRNA makers, and further restricting covid shots.
🌍 WORLD NEWS AND COMMENTARY 🌍
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Pundits called it “absolutely massive.” For certain, it was absolutely punishing. And the President did it right after all that hanging out with the tech bros and taking them to Windsor Castle to play Call of Duty with the King. But yesterday, Reuters ran a populist-pleasing story headlined, “Trump to impose $100,000 fee per year for H-1B visas, in blow to tech.”
H-1B visas are like cheat codes for America’s tech and innovation sectors, supposedly granting very skilled foreign professionals like software engineers, scientists, and med/sci researchers —usually from India (71%) or China (12%)— an early logon to the high-stakes game of U.S. industry. The special skilled-worker visa was originally intended to fill talent gaps where American expertise is scarce, such as friendly baristas at Starbucks. Just kidding; it was for rocket scientists and quantum math majors and stuff.
But critics began to notice that tech employers (and others) used the special visas to fill lots of less demanding jobs that Americans could handle, even with our scrolling addictions. But see, the foreigners were cheaper. And the rules let companies fire American workers in vast piles of pink slips while simultaneously hiring Indians instead.
It was the money, but it wasn’t just the money. Workers on H-1B’s are job-locked, since it is nearly impossible to swap employers once they get here. Plus they come without distractions like families or social lives, so they can work 20 hours a day for the same low price. Best of all, if they get fired, they get deported, which is a surprisingly intense incentive to work hard.
Thus, employers enjoyed cheaper and more loyal workers, artificially lower turnover, and higher, uh, enthusiasm for demanding job conditions. It would be ridiculous and inflammatory to call H-1B workers ‘slaves.’ Here at C&C, we maintain higher standards (allegedly).
But indentured servant fits.
🔥 Surprisingly, this unfortunate state of affairs generated some friction. Studies suggest that the widespread use of H-1Bs in the tech sector somehow discourages young Americans from careers in science and technology, and pressures Americans who soldier on anyway into accepting lower salaries, since Narendji will take it if you won’t.
The result was a standoff between the biggest tech companies in the country (and largest Democrat donors) and everybody sane. But, because of the money involved, nobody did anything.
Until yesterday. President Trump signed an executive order that radically changed the game, using the simplest of economic incentives. He jacked up the application fee new H-1Bs from $1,000 to $100,000— a hundred-fold increase. (The order automatically expires in one year, but may be extended.) During the signing ceremony, Commerce Secretary Lutnick stressed that the new $100,000 rate is intended to be an annual fee.
Trump’s order also requires Secretary Lutnick to ‘revise’ a schedule of minimum H-1B salaries, presumably to ensure skilled foreign workers are more expensive than Americans. The era of cheap immigrant labor is officially over.
Reactions were, as you might expect, decidedly mixed.
🔥 U.S. Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick advised employers to “train Americans. Stop bringing in people to take our jobs.” Representative Brandon Gill (R-Tx) smartly tweeted, “America is a nation, not a jobs program for foreign workers.” Before he was unalived by Democrats, Charlie Kirk said, “these visas are used to disenfranchise our workers and prioritize foreigners.” Governor DeSantis recently quipped, “these tech companies are laying off American workers and then importing H-1B visas. I think that’s a total scam.” So.
On the other hand, the Tech Bros, for whom this development is a worst-case scenario, were unamused. Deedy Das (* fake name alert), a prominent tech venture capitalist, warned, “If the U.S. ceases to attract the best talent, it drastically reduces its ability to innovate and grow the economy.” Far-left activist Neera Tanden sneered in wild hyperbole, “I am an Indian American who was born here, and it’s crystal clear that the Democratic Party sees me as American, and a large part of the base of the Republican Party does not. I hope Indian Americans remember this moment at the next election.”
It was a brilliant, elegant, simple move. When high-tech companies really do need rare, hard-to-find skills, like AI engineers, then paying the increased fee will be worth it. But it no longer makes sense to hire ordinary java programmers from overseas. In other words, Trump wrestled the out-of-whack incentives back to where they should be— something no other politician, Democrat or Republican, has been brave enough to do.
And how about the politics! Not only was the move perfectly aligned with “America First,” and not only did it defy doomscrollers who’ve long yapped about President Trump being sold out to his tech bro buddies (including Elon), but —if young people are paying attention— President Trump just secured the youth vote for Republicans forever.
Think of how far we have come, so quickly. Before Democrats’ polycule-marriage to pandemic-era vaccine-or-terminate policies, Democrats retained the narrative mantle as the defenders of unions and workers, successfully painting Republicans as the evil, pro-corporation party. But in just four short years, nobody credible considers Democrats to be pro-worker anymore.
Democrats are anti-worker and pro-immigrant (preferably illegal).
Now, the public correctly recognizes Republicans as the real champions of rank-and-file American workers, which elevates Americans over illegal immigrants. President Trump’s political courage to solve the H-1B problem cemented that position for the GOP in concrete.
That was only the first half of Trump’s immigration broadside.
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They said it will “dramatically reshape the nation’s immigration system.” Yesterday, CBS ran a story headlined, “Trump unveils “Gold Card” fast-track visas for $1 million.” Hilariously, Trump even made a website that looks just like a credit card site, optimistically headed “unlock life in America.” The new program is historic; it might be the most meaningful, productive, and simplest immigration reform in a generation. And it works without changing any laws.
CLIP: President Trump signs the Gold Card Program—“everyone’s going to be happy” (1:40).
It is uncontroversial that, for most of our adult lives, our carefully crafted immigration system has most resembled a pool of hot sewage. It was known for invisible border enforcement, mystifying rules, and painfully long wait times for legal applicants, who face a DMV line stretching back to the Carter Administration that can be seen from space.
Yesterday, Trump signed an executive order initiating “Phase One” of his long-teased “immigration gold card.” It was genius. I can’t wait to see what the next phase looks like.
The bottom line is that the new ‘Gold Card program’ offers a fast-tracked green card for anyone with a spare $1–2 million laying around that can be gifted to the U.S. government. Thus, it lets financially stable immigrants (who are most likely to invest in or contribute to the economy) jump to the front of the application queue with expedited review and visa processing.
President Trump explained: “The main thing is we’re going to have great people coming in and they’re going to be paying.”
In other words, instead of taxpayers funding the expedited importation of Haitians who can’t even drive, never mind speak English, we will now let foreign entrepreneurs and investors fund their expedited entry to America. Not only that, but the “Corporate Card” lets employers pay $2 million for fast-tracking green cards for workers (with an ‘annual maintenance fee’).
So, while H1Bs got just very expensive, on the other hand employers can now also speed-run getting green cards for truly critical workers— but they must pay $2 million for the privilege. It even makes sense for unique jobs like AI engineers and chip designers. But employers will now have more incentive to bring foreign workers here to train Americans, rather than just replace the whole department with cheaper Indian nationals.
It’s not a rubber stamp. The order emphasized that applicants who “buy” (via gift) expedited processing must still satisfy all standard background vetting and applicable immigration law. The Gold Card only provides a fast pass to the front of the reviewing line. That’s how Trump was able to do it without Congress. Since he directs the executive agency that reviews visa applications, he controls the review order.
In other words, Trump is selling bureaucratic efficiency— a brand-new product no one else had ever even thought to commoditize.
Because of that (plus the requirement of a gift instead of a payment), inconceivably, not a single new law was needed. President Trump just used the tools at his disposal. He saw opportunity where everyone else saw a hopelessly tangled snarl of red tape.
In that sense, it wasn’t immigration reform —not precisely— it was more executive judo. This is the latest brilliant idea from the Trump Administration that, in hindsight, seems so painfully obvious it makes you wonder why nobody ever thought of it before.
The higher-priced $5 million “gold card” that Trump teased earlier this year still exists in concept, but it has been upgraded to a “Platinum Card.” The platinum path leads to citizenship, not just to a green card; but apparently that program will require Congress. So for now, the website only invites Platinum Card applicants to join the waiting list. Please queue up behind this velvet rope.
Without any help from lawmakers, and with a liberal dash of humor, President Trump just delivered immigration reform that finally makes sense: instead of paying to import pet-gobbling poverty, we’re importing prosperity— and getting paid to do it.
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Since we’ve been speaking of India, this sky-watching story might interest some of you. Yesterday, the Times of India ran a surprising story headlined, “Mystery in skies: Fiery streaks dazzle Delhi-NCR residents, spark buzz; watch video.”
CLIP: Weird meteor shower baffles experts and dazzles Indians (0:23).
Experts weren’t sure what it was. Untracked meteors? ‘Space debris’? But they still stressed that, whatever it was, was “not uncommon.” Okay. For residents, the event was “fleeting yet unforgettable.” One South Delhi skywatcher said, “It lasted only seconds. I’ve never seen anything like it.”
What would we do without experts? One wonders what exactly the experts meant by “not uncommon.” Maybe they’re thinking in galactic time scales.
Anyway, What do you think this dazzling display was? Aliens? Revelation’s “stars falling to Earth?” Was it the wreckage of the H-1B program, or maybe H-1B workers fleeing back to the subcontinent to avoid a $100,000 invoice? Was it Joe Biden’s brain, returning at last from outer space?
Tell me your theory in the comments.
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The new ACIP Committee has been delicately chipping away at the mRNA guidelines with archeological tools. Yesterday, they fired up the jackhammer. The Wall Street Journal ran the story under the intentionally confusing headline, “COVID-19 vaccine recommendations dropped by panel, shots won’t require a prescription.”
The news was that the CDC’s vaccine committee (called ACIP) met again yesterday for its second full day. They ultimately voted to further limit the covid mRNA shots, this time adding a requirement for “shared clinical decision-making” before anyone under 65 or not in a ‘high-risk’ group can get the shots. They nearly voted to require a prescription, it was so close, but that vote failed by a small margin.
Corporate media and its pet experts were alarmed, worried, fretful, and terrified, squawking things like this is the end, nobody’s following the science, and so forth and so on.
But, apart from that, the meeting was a bloodbath for the jabs. In the clip above, Pfizer and Moderna declined to respond to a direct question from a committee member. Even worse, they were forced to sit through a several lengthy presentations by the newly formed “Vaccine Working Group” about all the growing questions and problems over the jabs.
“Beyond antibody changes,” one presenter began, “the vaccinations have also been linked to long-lasting shifts in cytokine profiles, with elevated inflammatory cytokine persistence for months. These immune alterations may contribute to an increased risk of recurrent infection in some individuals.”
That was just the first bullet point.
The Workgroup continued through problem after problem, discussing biodistribution (it spreads all over the body, including into the brain), frameshifting (it creates random ‘nonsense’ proteins), and implausibly high levels of DNA contamination, including parts of a monkey virus (SV40), especially in the Pfizer shot.
💉 Even more astonishing, following the meeting, the CDC itself tweeted a very critical comment from Dr. Malone, questioning how the drugmakers can even tell the shots work.
What Dr. Malone meant is that there is no agreed-upon measurement —like a specific antibody level— that reliably predicts whether a person “is protected” from covid, either in terms of bare infection or severe disease.
Absent “consensus” on even what proves protection exists, how can the drugmakers claim the shots produce protection? Stop saying that.
Malone was pointing out that pharma’s claims of efficacy were only based on large-group statistical conclusions, rather than any hard-science-based —i.e. measurable— biological effect. Whereas, most other vaccines do have established correlates of protection— meaning that there are well-defined, measurable biological markers (often specific antibody levels) that can reliably predict immunity.
Anyway, Malone had a solid point, and he made it well. But the more important development was that his point was then re-published by the official US government Twitter account for the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. And that wasn’t all. The CDC also published a whole string of clips, the most recent including a clip of Dr. Retsef Levi stating that, “Sub-clinical myocarditis can cause death. It’s proven. It’s not questionable. Nevertheless, we are not talking about this with patients, and we are not stating that risk.”
They are prying the Overton Window open, inch by inch, one post at a time.
You should see the crazed hysteria in the comments by the medical fetishists, who are mad as hornets that their beloved CDC is now being used to push all this anti-vaxx propaganda. Don’t actually read the comments. There’s no logic; the pro-vaxxers never try to rebut the claims on the merits; it’s just name-calling and non-sequiters.
Some may wonder why, with all these evident problems, the Committee didn’t just withdraw authorization from the shots altogether? The short version is, this problem didn’t develop in a day, and it won’t be fixed in a day. The Committee appears to be carefully building an unassailable scientific record before pulling the plug. Still, every time they get a whack at the Pfizer piñata, they hit it a little harder.
The clock is ticking, louder and louder.
Have a wonderful weekend! Coffee & Covid shall return on Monday morning, chipper, informative, and packed with essential news and all the extra commentary you’ve come to love.
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The views expressed in this commentary are those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the official position of Citizens Journal Florid
