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I Lost My Job to a Foreign Worker Brought Into the U.S. to Replace Me

A personal and pissed-off story about the 4–1B program Elon Musk and Steve Bannon are fighting about

Katharine Valentino
The Polis

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Elon Musk and Steve Bannon by DonkeyHotey on Flickr (CC BY-SA 2.0 license)

It was the morning of July 21, 1992. I had just arrived at work. Coffee in hand, I opened my work email to find this from my employer, IBM:

Subject: Notice Regarding Position Transition
To: Katharine Valentino

This memo is to inform you that, due to business needs, your position as IT Specialist / Intranet Web Content Master supporting Nissan North America will transition to a new employee who will be sponsored under the H-1B visa program, effective June 22, 1992. You will remain at your present assignment and location, performing all current duties and responsibilities and training the new employee. Termination of your employment will be on September 21, 1992.

The next day, there he was with his own coffee in hand — my replacement.

He was a polite man, as wild-eyed at his sudden transition from 90-degree monsoons in India to my too-chilly air-conditioned cubicle in California as I was at the thought of teaching someone how to do my job.

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