I suspect the timing of this (in the middle of massive anti-immigrant xenophobia) is not coincidental. Of course, sometimes people can manage to do the right thing for the "wrong" reasons.

This proposal, at least as described in the article, seems like a great idea. Such a minimum wage would improve (although not fully rectify) the abusive relationship between employers and H-1B workers, while at the same time protecting the interests of American workers by ensuring that their competitors will not be dreadfully underpaid.

Obviously this would be bad for a lot of corporations which currently abuse the program, which is why it will never pass.

I think the idea is that the min. wage is meant to be more prohibitive. People who are losing jobs to "cheaper H-1B" employees. This would benefit people who feel they are losing out to foreign labor as employees would rather pay a local $80k than an H-1B $110k when previously they could pay the H-1B 55k, putting the local out of the job.

E: I decided to open the article. My hunch was correct.

>"to prevent employers from using the program to replace hard-working American men and woman with cheaper foreign labor,"

My guess is that a high minimum wage would incentivize employers to hire citizens instead of new immigrants. There are plenty of anti-immigrant Republicans, as Donald Trump and his current base have illustrated.

Exactly. This panders to their anti-immigration base. If it were a serious proposition, then he would have at least tied the salary to some percentage of the median salary for the job being applied for.

That said, it's still weird because it'll likely piss off the large donors. I understand that he's trying to take some of Trump's base using Trump's tactics, but the only reason that Trump gets away with it is because he's financing his own campaign and couldn't care less about fundraising.

It's not strange, Cruz is literally "pandering" to tech employees, who would not want to see their jobs being replaced via H1B's. Back in the 2000's, this is exactly what happened to Motorola. H1B's made peanuts and replaced their American counterparts. This is incidentally what Mark Zuckerberg champions as well.

It's not "pandering" when it's a good idea.