Donald Trump stirred up controversy recently by claiming that certain manufacturing and engineering jobs could not be filled by Americans, that domestic workers are not skilled enough and we have to import foreigners.
That not only ignores the fact that the overwhelming majority of factory workers are Americans and the top five engineering schools worldwide are American, but also the importance of training American workers going forward rather than ignoring Americans to import cheaper workers. (Incidentally, 80% of H-1B visas are for entry- or junior-level jobs, and almost all of those visas go to workers from countries that try to steal or are dependent on our technology.)
The great slave-turned-educator Booker T. Washington knew better. And in fact, if we adopted Washington’s educational model, we wouldn’t have to worry anymore about American students’ scores or skills, because they would be learning manual labor and trade skills in school alongside a high-quality classical education.
🚨 BREAKING: Will Cain RIPS H-1B scam, says "70% of H-1B visa holders come from INDIA."
— Eric Daugherty (@EricLDaugh) November 12, 2025
"Another 10-15% from China. 80% of H-1B approvals are for ENTRY and JUNIOR-level jobs!"
"That's a little hard to stomach when we hear we're not talented or skilled enough, when you consider… pic.twitter.com/l0ErjAYIb5
In a speech at the Atlanta Exposition in 1895, Washington counseled against importing too many immigrants to take jobs that thousands of unemployed black Americans could fill. He was trying to urge white people in the racist and Democrat-run South to hire American workers before they jumped straight to shipping in new workers. “To those of the white race who look to the incoming of those of foreign birth and strange tongue and habits for the prosperity of the South, were I permitted I would repeat what I say to my own race, ‘Cast down your bucket where you are,’” he said.
He added, “Cast down your bucket among these people who have, without strikes and labour wars, tilled your fields, cleared your forests, builded your railroads and cities, and brought forth treasures from the bowels of the earth, and helped make possible this magnificent representation of the progress of the South.”
President Ulysses S. Grant, a great champion of civil rights, had a similar attitude when it came to the mass importation of Chinese workers. As he explained to Chinese royals, it was not at all that he was opposed to the immigration of the Chinese, but that he was opposed to abusive human trafficking of large numbers of poor Chinese to America and other nations for exploitative and underpaid labor — another form of slavery. Does that scenario sound familiar?
For most of U.S. history, a majority of American workers received training in apprenticeships or on the job. It used to be common for schools to teach practical skills alongside academic subjects, a model Booker T. Washington perfected at his Tuskegee Institute, which produced bricklayers, seamstresses, and carpenters alongside doctors, teachers, and preachers.
Related: 80 Percent of H-1B Visas Are for Entry or Junior-Level Jobs, Journo Says
Washington’s advice to his fellow black Americans is just as applicable now to white Americans and Asians: “No race can prosper till it learns that there is as much dignity in tilling a field as in writing a poem. It is at the bottom of life we must begin, and not at the top. Nor should we permit our grievances to overshadow our opportunities.” Nor should we accept the rhetoric from politicians and business leaders that we are incapable of filling our own jobs or transforming our education system and culture. Just as we cannot allow grievances to overshadow our opportunities, we cannot allow the greed of businessmen and the talking points of politicians to overshadow our own reason and observation.
We don’t need H-1B visas. To American businesses: Cast down your bucket among the workers you already have.
