Immigration by the Numbers
NumbersUSA has a really good video called Immigration by the Numbers that gives a very good sizing perspective of the impact of our current immigration rates in this country. I highly recommend it.
This blog is dedicated to exposing: 1) Corporate abuse/misuse of non-immigrant visas (B-1, H-1B, L-1, etc) 2) Discrimination against American workers in favor of hiring cheap foreign labor 3) The corruption and backscratching that occurs between corporate lobbyists/industry associations and Federal legislators.
NumbersUSA has a really good video called Immigration by the Numbers that gives a very good sizing perspective of the impact of our current immigration rates in this country. I highly recommend it.
Posted by RebornIndependent at 6:24 PM 1 comments
Labels: immigration
Gene Nelson has an interesting article on jobs and foreign workers.
Posted by RebornIndependent at 6:17 PM 0 comments
Labels: immigration, jobs, visa
Rob Sanchez over at Job Destruction just mailed out this newsletter. Not only is cheap labor good for companies, its absolutely fabulous for workers. Therefore we really should be bringing in billions of workers and let the riches flow!
"There is no job that is America's God-given right anymore."
Carly Fiorina, CEO of Hewlett-Packard (HP). January 7, 2004
In March of this year the National Foundation for American Policy (NFAP) concluded that every H-1B that comes into the USA creates seven jobs for Americans. Not long after that Bill Gates testified before Congress with a slightly more modest estimate that every H-1B creates four jobs for Americans.
McCain just topped both them -- he said that every H-1B creates ten jobs for Americans!
Even assuming McCain, Bill Gates, and the NFAP were right, why can't the same number of jobs be created by hiring an American instead? Hiring a U.S.
worker should create at least as many jobs as an H-1B -- plus one more.
McCain said that the Department of Labor should determine how many H-1Bs are to be issued instead of having a yearly cap. Bad idea! McCain would probably appoint his campaign chairwoman Carly Fiorina to replace Secretary of Labor Elain Chao. BLECH!
Posted by RebornIndependent at 8:58 AM 0 comments
Labels: immigration, jobs, visa, worker
Here is one of Norm Matloff's great articles:
As I reported here in June, the Programmers Guild filed a lawsuit against the federal government, seeking an injunction against the Dept.
of Homeland Security decision to extend the Optional Practical Training component of the F-1 student visa. Though the legislative intent of OPT was to give foreign students a chance to acquire practical work experience before returning to their home countries, in recent years the international students have used OPT as a holding pattern while waiting for an H-1B visa. The DHS decided to extend OPT eligibility from the 12 months specified in the statute to 20 months, in order to give the students more chance to become H-1Bs. PG objected that this would bring harm to its members, and that DHS had exceeded its authority. See http://heather.cs.ucdavis.edu/Archive/OPTLawsuit.txt
The judge in the case has now rejected PG's request for an injunction, primarily on the grounds that PG lacks legal standing to sue. This of course is always the easy way out for a judge, as it allows them to avoid addressing serious fundamental issues, in this case the issue of the adverse impact the H-1B program has on American workers. But the judge really went through contortions to rule on the basis of standing, in my view.
In her nine-page written opinion, Judge Hochberg claims that PG "seeks relief that no more directly benefits Plaintiffs than it does the public at large." In other words, the judge is asserting that the H-1B program, about 40% of whose participants work as programmers, doesn't affect U.S. programmers any more than it affects, say, American insurance agents, whose profession is not open to H-1Bs. This is absurd.
Even more absurd is the judge's statement that "even if there was a nexus between Plaintiffs' injury and DHS action, the injury still is not `irreparable' to qualify for injunctive relief because it is economic harm compensable in damages." This is downright bizarre. The judge cites case law in support of her statement, yet that case in question involved a worker who had been fired. The court in that instance refused to grant the worker's request for injunction against his discharge, on the grounds that the worker could sue his employer for monetary damages. Obviously, that is not the situation here, as members of the PG cannot sue DHS for monetary damages, nor can they sue employers of H-1Bs, as H-1B law does not require employers to give hiring priority to Americans. I'm sure some of them wish they could sue this judge.
Norm
Posted by RebornIndependent at 8:57 AM 0 comments
Here is an interesting NYTimes article...
The world economy has become so integrated that shoppers find relatively few T-shirts and sneakers in Wal-Mart and Target carrying a “Made in the U.S.A.” label. But globalization may be losing some of the inexorable economic power it had for much of the past quarter-century, even as it faces fresh challenges as a political ideology.
Cheap oil, the lubricant of quick, inexpensive transportation links across the world, may not return anytime soon, upsetting the logic of diffuse global supply chains that treat geography as a footnote in the pursuit of lower wages. Rising concern about global warming, the reaction against lost jobs in rich countries, worries about food safety and security, and the collapse of world trade talks in Geneva last week also signal that political and environmental concerns may make the calculus of globalization far more complex.
Posted by RebornIndependent at 8:38 AM 0 comments
Labels: globalization
This blog is dedicated to fighting the offshoring of jobs to other countries and the outsourcing of jobs to non-immigrant visa holders (those non-citizen, non-resident workers who come here primarily to get a job).
You would think that workers here, who pay a heavy price in lost jobs and depressed wages, would be very interested in this topic. Some might monitor email lists or groups, occasionally adding their 2-cents. Others might become full blown activists, say starting blogs, websites, or even joining groups.
The sad truth is that there is only about a 5% response rate to solicitations. That is, if I send out an email or flyer or whatever, talking about this issue, less than 5% will respond. That pitiful amount is further fractured among the spectrum of participation.
Why isn't this 50%? Does anyone care about their future (or their childrens')?
Posted by RebornIndependent at 9:47 AM 0 comments
Labels: future, immigration, visa
I'm back from vacation and rarin' to go. Anyone miss me? ;-)
Posted by RebornIndependent at 9:43 AM 0 comments
December 15, 2006:
Engineers stole trade secretsSAN JOSE - Two engineers were moments away from boarding a flight to China when they were singled out for what appeared to be a routine customs inspection. They didn't know FBI agents were waiting nearby, ready to examine their luggage.
The contents, investigators said, were startling: Thousands of pages of trade secrets stolen from four Silicon Valley companies, including microchip blueprints and other closely guarded documents, many marked "Proprietary" or "Confidential" or both. The men were arrested and their homes raided.
Documents seized there allegedly revealed a plot to smuggle trade secrets to China to start a microprocessor company backed by Chinese government entities.
Fei Ye, 40, a U.S. citizen from China, and Ming Zhong, 39, a permanent U.S. resident from China, pleaded guilty this week to the rare charge of economic espionage to benefit a foreign nation. Legal experts said Friday that the convictions - the first of their kind - were crucial victories for federal prosecutors.
November 2, 2006:
United States has the best democracy money can buy!
...Whether the Democrats or Republicans take control of the House and Senate, corporate America has just bought a license to outsource more middle-class jobs to cheap foreign labor markets, to continue unabated so-called free trade and the destruction of more manufacturing jobs, and most likely to promote amnesty for the 12 million to 20 million illegal aliens living in this country.
Immigration And Usurpation: Elites, Power, And The People's Will
by Fredo Arias-King
Foreign Alums cope with visa troubles (from the Yale Daily News):
H-1B's
for Sale: Free training! Guaranteed job placement! Caveat: You MUST be a foreign
student that has recently graduated from an American University to qualify for
this special offer. (I didn't think that the "best and brightest" needed to be
trained - DUMB ME: I guess I was wrong...)
September 23, 2006 - Dallas-area businessman found guilty of wire and mail fraud in connection with scheme to defraud Indian H-1B workers.
United States Attorney Richard Roper announced that former Dallas area resident
Suman K. Varanasi was found guilty on Monday, September 18, 2006, of mail fraud
and wire fraud following a trial before the Honorable Jane J. Boyle, United
States District Judge. Specifically, Varanasi was found guilty of six
counts of mail fraud and six counts of wire fraud, and faces a maximum statutory
sentence on each count of twenty years, a $250,000 fine, and restitution.
Varanasi is in federal custody and is scheduled to be sentenced by Judge Boyle
on December 14, 2006.
Varanasi, a citizen of India present in the United
States on a non-immigrant H1-B employment-based visa, founded Zenstra Solutions,
an placement service for IT professionals, in April 2003. Zenstra did
business at 14001 Dallas Parkway, Suite 1200, Dallas, Texas, through November
2004, when the business closed.
According to the evidence presented in court,
from October 2003 through November 2004, Varanasi executed a scheme to defraud
Indian IT professionals in the United States on H1-B employment-based visas by
offering to hire them for a permanent position with the company and, in exchange
for a fee, to file forms with the Department of Homeland Security Bureau of
Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS) that would enable them to obtain
lawful permanent residence
...
September
15, 2006 -
Washington,
DC—Secretary Chertoff told the Senate Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs
Committee in testimony on September 12, “We have also fully deployed our
biometric US-VISIT program…” Either he was misspeaking, misleading Congress, or
declaring the administration’s intent to leave a permanent loophole in the
program.
The fact is that the US-VISIT program for electronically collecting
information on all arriving and departing foreigners is not fully deployed.
Information on most foreigners entering from Canada and Mexico is still not
being collected, and the system is only capturing information on a miniscule
portion of departing foreigners. The significance of the enormous loophole that
remains is that the government cannot match entry and exit data to know who is
staying illegally in the United States. In addition, at present anyone of any
nationality who presents a Canadian drivers’ license or Border Crossing Card can
easily enter the country by land with no identity check or check against any
terrorist-watch database.
September 19, 2006 (VDARE)The good news: the Senate immigration bill will probably not be
H-1B is her No. 1 battle
SeptemberGeorge
Bush Brokers Deal deal to bring 15,000 Saudi Arabian students to the United
States
Reports, studies shatter myth that H-1B visa holders are paid same wages as U.S. citizensWASHINGTON (6 September 2006) -- U.S. industry spokespeople say repeatedly that
Programmer's Guild files lawsuits against H-1B employers
TheAugust
18, 2006 - A group representing IT workers has begun filing about 380 lawsuits
against U.S. companies who advertise, in violation of the U.S. law, that they
prefer to hire foreign workers with H-1B temporary work visas.
One of the canards H-1B supporters use is the claim that H-1B is not used to depress wages because the law requires employers to pay the prevailing wage. Yet, whenever the government releases salary figures for H-1B programmers they are significantly less then what Americans make. The following is a real example of how the system can be manipulated to pay H-1B workers significantly less than Americans...Part 2, from Norm Matloff:
Sun, 25 Jun 2006 ...As I've explained many times, the answer to the hearing's theme question, "Is the Labor Department doing enough to protect U.S. workers?" is that there is almost nothing that DOL can do. The law ITSELF is the problem, not lax enforcement. If the law were to allow drivers to go 80 mph in a residential neighborhood, you wouldn't blame the police for lax enforcement, would you? The law itself would be the problem, not the police. The official legal definition of the required _prevailing wage allows figureswhich are well below market levels. In other words, the organizers of the hearing are fundamentally incorrect in their implicit theme that the problems of the H-1B program are due mainly to lack of aggressive enforcement of the law. It is basically a loophole problem, not an enforcement problem. So when the GAO report presented at this hearing says that the law is being obeyed 99.7% of the time, that's an irrelevant statement, because the law is so riddled with loopholes that it is useless...
Dallas Morning News James M. O'Neill: Visa policies rob U.S. of a valuable labor source 06:03 AM CDT on Monday, August 7, 2006
Compete America - See this web page of links to "Editorials" that they have sponsored (planted) in newpapers across the U.S.
Public Citizen has a good web page that discusses Global Trade and Free Trade Agreements
More information about Trade Agreements can be found on the Texas Fair Trade Coalition site
WTO (World Trade Organization)
NAFTA (North American Free Trade Agreement)Why should Americans care about GATS? See GATSWatch for more information
Wikipedia article about NAFTA.
The TN visa was created under NAFTA.
CAFTA (Central America Free Trade Agreement)
FTAA (Free Trade Area of the Americas)