A Texas government crackdown on H-1B visa program abuses is triggering an economic tragedy in the northern part of the state, a leading dominant media news outlet lamented: a jarring downturn in the luxury home market in Big Tech-fueled Dallas.
“For almost a decade, South Asians have been the driving force behind this region’s building boom, one of the biggest in the US during the [coronavirus] pandemic,” Bloomberg News related in a tone-deaf June 3 feature article focused on a tony, fenced-in section of the nation far removed from the reality most Americans inhabit in today’s harsh economic climate.
H-1B Luxury Bonanza
“[South Asians] once accounted for 70% of sales at Schneider’s Tradition Homes. But in the past year they’ve dropped below 30%. [The] family-owned company has a backlog of 125 luxury properties under construction,” the news service wrote with palpable concern.
This luxury boom was driven largely by foreigners from India, Bloomberg wrote:
“Since 2018 the Dallas-Fort Worth metro area has attracted more corporate headquarters relocations than anywhere else in the US, according to real estate company CBRE Group Inc., with manufacturing and tech firms leading the way.
“The influx drew thousands of software engineers and other Indian-born workers to the federal H-1B program, which provides temporary visas for professionals with corporate sponsors. For the most recently available four-year period, ended Sept. 30, 2024, the government granted almost 32,000 new H-1B approvals in the Dallas area, topping Silicon Valley, Seattle, San Francisco and Washington, DC, and trailing only the New York City metro area.”
The article observed that new subdivisions spreading north through the suburbs of Prosper, Frisco and, most of all, Celina, have seen huge population surges attributed to foreign visa holders. All this exciting economic expansion is now threatened, Bloomberg wanted you to know.
A “we need Indians to fill the luxury home developments Americans can’t afford” take is certainly an interesting approach to convincing US citizens of the dire need for foreign workers imported via the H-1B program ostensibly to keep the nation afloat. Naturally, nowhere in the article was it mentioned that endemic visa fraud apparently paved the way for much of this sketchy growth.
‘Ghost Offices’ in North Texas
“In light of recent reports of abuse in the federal H-1B visa program, and amid the federal government’s ongoing review of that program to ensure American jobs are going to American workers, I am directing all state agencies to immediately freeze new H-1B visa petitions,” Texas Republican Gov. Greg Abbott announced in a January directive that also applied to the state university system.
On April 30, Attorney General Ken Paxton’s office took legal steps against nearly 30 North Texas businesses “as part of an ongoing investigation into suspected fraud and abuse of the H-1B visa program.” There is nothing benign about the allegations. “Reports indicate that several of these entities have operated so-called ‘ghost offices’ as a scheme in which businesses falsely represent active operations in order to sponsor foreign workers,” a news release from Paxton declared.
“In 2023, around three-quarters of the 400,000 or so approved H-1B applications were for workers from India, according to Pew Research Center,” The New York Times recounted in February. “That same year, Dallas-Fort Worth ranked fourth among metropolitan areas for approved H-1B applications. Many of these visa holders work as software programmers and computer engineers.”
Local Neighborhoods Overrun by the Influx
The Times reported that, in 2000, (east) Indian Americans accounted for 2% percent of the total population of Frisco but, today, they make up one-third of the city’s residents. How do we explain local unease with such rapid demographic transformation and the profound social and cultural changes it brings in its immediate wake? If you’re the leading big-box daily newspaper in North Texas, that’s easy: racial hatred drummed up by online “influencers.”
“A relentless campaign, waged largely by influencers, has placed Frisco at the center of a bitter national debate over identity and immigration, community and belonging,” The Morning News detailed on April 23. “City Council meetings, once devoted to navigating budget and zoning issues, have transformed into a sort of stage, where speakers warn of an ‘Indian takeover’ and unleash racist tirades that later find audiences on platforms such as X.”
It’s the Somalian playbook in Minnesota, and it’s being applied to H-1B abuse in Texas. We can’t let the racists win. Think of the luxury home developers!
‘The Shift Has Knocked Down Home Prices’
“But the momentum is quickly reversing. Indian buyers are disappearing from the market as federal and state governments tighten H-1B restrictions and many of the tech companies that employed the new arrivals fire workers in favor of artificial intelligence,” Bloomberg mournfully observed. “Prices in the Collin County suburbs north of Dallas in February dropped almost 9% from a year earlier, compared with a decline of 4% in the metro area as a whole, according to data from brokerage Redfin.”
And just why is this a problem for Americans? It leads to “slowed population expansion [that’s a bad thing?] and risks eroding the tax base needed to fund schools and roads,” the news service asserted.
And, amazingly, one overarching reason is accentuated. “The shift has knocked down home prices,” Bloomberg exclaimed. The conclusion to the piece is more disarmingly honest.
“South Asians have become the most important first-time buyer group for [home] builders, says Alex Barron, an analyst at Housing Research Center LLC in El Paso, Texas,” the closing paragraph read. “’Who is there to replace them?’ he asks.”
Native-born young American adults who have seen the quintessential dream of one day owning a home fade further out of reach can be excused for offering a bitter reply to the question.
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