E-mail your congressmen, find it here, now and tell them that you will never vote for them again if they do not authorize the E-Verify Bill for another five years. Not the temporary six month extension they are trying to slip through Congress that will effectively put the issue off till after the election.
E-Verify works and is one of the few programs our government does that actually protects American Jobs. Please act now. Numbers can change things, make yours count.
Theresa Blackwell penned a very good article in the St. Petersburg Times on the commitment by the powers at Nielsen to do everything possible to cut payroll. The controversy justifiably received national attention on the Lou Dobbs Show who emphasized the H-1B Visa abuse. Nielsen while putting Americans out of work is replacing the positions with H-1B Visa holders from India.
I’ve consistently written about H-1B Visa abuse and how companies, tech companies and our universities in particular, have shamelessly imported staff where there should have been more than a sufficient supply of qualified Americans to fill the positions. The only motive for the push to hire foreign staff would be to cap salary ranges.
From Ms. Blackwell’s article:
“Just four days ago, Nielsen gave up $3.1-million in future incentives for creating new jobs in Oldsmar, saying the controversy over the government money had become a distraction for employees and a source of conflict with the city.”
As I wrote about before in, How Fortune 500 Companies Can Save $58 Billion a Year -- Just Send 1.5 Million More Jobs Overseas, and Trade Deficit and Exporting American Jobs.
Bussness Week has been publishing a series of articles (list at bottom of page) on immigration reform that is now before Congress. There has not been a better time to get real Visa reform accpmplished than now. Our Senators and Representatives need to demonstate that they are producing results on this front.
The problem is that our H-1B visas and L visas are being misused, with the result being lost American jobs. As an example; an employer will hire foreign IT workers after marketing the position, with a $35k annual salary, to IT workers that would normally start the same job at $65k. After not being able to find a qualified worker at the lower rate they can then qualify for a H-1B visa worker.
The L visa allows companies to bring foreign workers into the U.S., as a transfer, either replacing a American or for training to eventually replace U.S. when they go back to their original country.
What Senators Durbin and Grassley are looking into is the use of these visas by companies that are also laying off American workers. Most of the companies that are participating in “loopholing” the current visa law state that they need to do this to stay competitive. Do we really believe that Microsoft, IBM, Citigroup, Freightliner, Hersey or Washington Mutual wouldn’t find a way to be competitive if they didn’t send hundreds of thousands of jobs overseas. It is just a way to improve the bottom line. Everyone of these companies became who-they-are as American companies, with American workers.
BusinessWeek articles:
Salesman in Chief, January 24, 2007
Work Visas May Work Against the U.S., February 8, 2007
Fresh Ideas for the Immigration Debate, February 27, 2007
Gates to Senate: More Visas, March 8, 2007
Crackdown on Indian Outsourcing Firms, May 15, 2007
A 'Troubled' Immigration Reform Proposal, May 18, 2007
India Links Visa Flap with Doha Talks, May 18, 2007
Table: "Who Gets Temp Work Visas". May 18, 2007
U.S.-India Trade at Risk?, May 25, 2007
Immigration Fight: Tech vs. Tech, May 25, 2007
More Heat for Indian Outsourcers, June 27, 2007
Ed Morrissey, on his Captain’s Quarters blog, quotes Independence Day speeches by Ronald Reagan and Abraham Lincoln. Take just a moment to remember that our fathers and their fathers spent their lives building a better life for all of us. Contemporary opinions seem to forget that and advocate that we will all be better off by sending our jobs overseas.
Michelle Malkin has a good post concerning something that affects all of us; assimilating the millions of immigrants that want to stay in America.
From a Pew Hispanic Center study titled Construction Jobs Expand for Latinos Despite Slump in Housing Market and written about in an UPI article.
While comprising nearly 14% of the overall population, Hispanics have captured 36.7% of the entire job growth in 2006. This is not meant to disparage Hispanics, but it further illustrates that the job creation that is being bragged about is at the lower end of the wage scale.
The focus of the article is that 2 out of 3 new construction jobs are being filled by Latinos. Considering the downturn in construction, the prospect for non-Latinos in construction does not look good.
I’m against this kind of national ID. The idea of a national ID first surfaced after 911 and was pushed as a national ID for immigrants I felt that the government would not resist the temptation to apply the system to all people in the United States. I guess I was right, damn.
The Real ID Act of 2005 passed totally under my radar till I came across this AP article by Leslie Miller: States Challenge Nat'l Driver's License. According to Ms. Miller:
“A revolt against a national driver's license, begun in Maine last month, is quickly spreading to other states.”
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia:
1) Establishing national standards for state-issued driver's licenses and non-driver's identification cards;
2) Waiving laws that interfere with construction of physical barriers at the borders;
3) Updating and tightening the laws on application for asylum and deportation of aliens for terrorist activity;
4) Introducing rules covering "delivery bonds" (rather like bail bonds, but for aliens that have been released pending hearings);
5) Funding some reports and pilot projects related to border security; and
6) Changing visa limits for temporary workers, nurses, and Australians.
The article also says that numerous states have pending legislation against the Bill, once again another issue will end up in the courts.
I’ve said this before; I support a national workers ID number administered by the Social Security Administration. Every employer is required to have a Federal ID number before they may hire workers, this would be one for workers and a new number would be issued with every job change, this would do the same job while forcing compliance with the least amount of trouble and cost while protecting our identities. Of course the government doesn’t want clean, simple and effective. There’s no gain in that.
Why should they change just when the party is starting.
Last Thursday Ben Bernanke, the Federal Reserves chief, testified before the Senate Budget Committee. He painted a grim picture for our kids and grand kids if the Congress continues to ignore basic financial realities. He said: “We are experiencing what seems likely to be the calm before the storm,”
What he is referring to is the projected increase, the government faces, in the costs associated with the very soon to happen retirement of the baby boomers. He further states: “These rising entitlement programs will put enormous pressure on the federal budget in coming years,”
Currently Social Security, Medicare and Medicaid together totaled about 40% of federal expenditures, or about 8.5% of America's gross domestic product. In nine years that amount is projected to increase to almost 50% and in 24 years to 70% of the total federal budget.
These numbers aren't new and won't take anyone by surprise, our enlightened elected officials have been using them as political fodder for ever. There are just ignoring them as they seem to ignore any other issue that might constrict their ability to spend more of our tax dollars.
The other concern is that while the deficit grows to meet these financial requirements, the government will have to borrow more, by issuing more bonds, thus paying a larger portion of its budget in interest. (We all know that as demand increases, so does it’s cost.)
Bernanke also said: “Thus, a vicious cycle may develop, in which large deficits lead to rapid growth in debt and interest payments, which in turn adds to subsequent deficits,”
Betty Sparrow Doris has just became the Labor Secretary of New Mexico and plans to pull all the different departments, bureaucracies, programs and organizations that deal with persons who are unemployed, displaced, seeking a job or requiring workplace training together and put them under one roof.
It is a constant theme here that governments often refuse to consider the needs or ease of the people they serve. Instead we find various department or agencies actually fighting with each other and using unemployed or displaced worker as a pawn.
Dear Mr. Stallone:
First congrats on your new movie, I’ve enjoyed your work for years.
The reason for this correspondence is the statement you made in Mexico about the proposed border fence. Like you, I was proud that America had open and free borders, and the only reason I am pro-fence now is one of pragmatism.
We have had numerous immigration laws, both federal and state, and they have proven to be unenforceable. On the other side we have attempted several “amnesty” type programs allowing illegal aliens a way to stay here legally and provide a path to citizenship. These programs have met with the same success that our enforcement attempts have. And now we are at the point where both solutions are unmanageable. The last thing we need is more unenforceable law.
If you favor an amnesty or an enforcement type of solution, it just doesn’t matter, because both will fail without a secure border. Unfortunately, either approach would take an enormous bureaucracy and would still have a poor chance of success, but there would be no chance of success without a secure border.
The only other choice is to forget we have a border, what do you think the consequences of that would be.
Respectfully,
Robert J. Samuelson of Newsweek wrote an article: Rebalancing the Economy. In the article Mr. Samuelson questions the popular view among economists that the economy, in the United States, will have a soft landing in 2007. The most recent prognosis for 2007 is that growth, as measured by the GDP, will fall between 2.6% and 3.2%, interest rates will be within ½ point of where they are now and inflation will not be a factor.
Mr. Samuelson lists three items that could have a negative impact on fairly rosy predictions for 2007: 1.) Real estate, it’s the one wild card that everyone agrees on. 2.) Autos, some feel that there is pent up demand that will boost automotive sales this year, but few think that any upswing in auto buying will help American manufacturers. 3.) Trade deficit. Contrary to contemporary opinion that it just doesn’t matter, he considers the massive outpouring of US dollars as having the potential to destabilize the economy in several ways.
The above influences are real and can have broader and deeper effects on the economy than is discussed in the article, but the one factor that’s not covered is the outpouring of jobs. If something does cause us to slip into a recession, what sector will pull us out.
An article By Fernando Quintero of Rocky Mountain News reports that people are lining up at the Swift and Company human resources office and at the unemployment office in Greenly, Colorado. There seems to be a large demand for the jobs that were made available compliments of the Immigration and Customs Enforcement Agency.
So much for jobs that Americans won’t do.
CNN conducted this poll: http://www.cnn.com/2006/images/06/21/lou.dobbs.tonight.poll.results.pdf this past summer. Take it yourself and post your comments. It overwhelmingly shows the public wants increased enforcement but is split on an actual fence.
It also states that the public thinks that additional laws are required. As with gun control, I feel that there are sufficient laws, they just need to be enforced.
Leave your opinion.
