There’s a talking point making the rounds in Republican circles that the Democrats and the administration secretly want the effort to pass immigration reform to fail so that they can go to the Latino community and point their fingers at the GOP and get an even greater share of the Latino vote. I think it’s an inaccurate talking point. I think the Democrats would like to get immigration reform done and then go to the Latino community and take credit for it. It’s true that either outcome is likely to help the Democrats, but it’s not the Dems’ fault that the Republicans are in a no-win situation.
Another shiny object that has hypnotized the right is yesterday’s Washington Examiner piece by David Drucker in which he “reports” that Speaker Boehner will not hold a vote on immigration reform unless the majority of Republicans in the House support it. If this were true, immigration reform could be given its burial rites today.
House Speaker John Boehner is not going to bring a comprehensive immigration-reform plan to the floor if a majority of Republicans don’t support it, sources familiar with his plans said.
“No way in hell,” is how several described the chances of the speaker acting on such a proposal without a majority of his majority behind him.
Once again, I will discuss how a bill becomes a law. No bill can become a law unless and until both the House and Senate approve it with completely identical language. When the president signs a bill and makes it into a law, he only signs one bill. He does not sign a Senate version or a House version. He signs a bill that both have agreed to.
The Senate looks like it will probably pass a bill. It is less clear that the House will pass a bill. However, if they do, the House bill will look nothing like the Senate bill. It’s likely that the Senate will pass one big comprehensive bill, while it’s possible that the House will pass several small, non-comprehensive bills.
So, let’s game this out.
To get a law we need to go through the following steps:
1. The Senate passes a bill.
2. The House passes a bill.
3. The Senate votes to assign conferees to negotiate with the House.
4. The House votes to assign conferees to negotiate with the Senate.
5. The Conference Committee crafts a negotiated bill.
6. The Senate passes the Conference Report.
7. The House passes the Conference Report.
8. Congress sends the bill to the president
9. The president signs the bill.
When House aides say that there is no way in hell that Boehner will allow a vote that the majority of his conference doesn’t support, they are talking about Step 2, above. They are not necessarily talking about Step 4, above. And they are not talking about Step 7 at all.
The key to understanding this process is that the majority of the Republicans in the House will never agree to a bill that the majority of the Democrats or the administration can support. That is baked in the cake, and it’s the biggest obstacle to passing immigration reform. If there were not a way around that problem, there would be no point in working on the issue in the first place.
Boehner could acknowledge this openly up front and seek a comprehensive bill at Step 2 that relies on mainly Democrats to pass. But he doesn’t need to do that and it would antagonize his caucus. So, he will pass something that most Democrats oppose and then move to Step 4, the assignment of conferees to negotiate with the Senate. In the Conference Committee, the goal will be to craft something that the president can sign. If they can’t do that, then the effort will fail. However, in crafting something the president can sign, they will be jettisoning most of the House bill and thereby losing the support of the majority of House Republicans.
When the Conference Committee completes its work, it will go back to the House and Senate for votes on final passage. It is only at this point that Boehner will have to allow a vote on a bill that the majority of his caucus does not support. This is literally the only conceivable way that the legislation can pass. And it’s completely possible that this process could cost Boehner his speakership.
However, we can imagine how nasty that process would be. A large part of the reason that there is momentum to pass something in the Senate is because the Senate Republicans understand that they need to stop looking hostile to the Latino community if they want to retake control. If they succeed in passing something only to see the House Republicans remove their leader over it, the whole effort will have been a waste. Democrats will get all the credit for reform and the GOP will look more hostile than ever.
In any case, if the Senate Republican leadership didn’t think that Boehner would enter into conference and ultimately allow a vote on a bill that a minority of his majority supports, they wouldn’t be sticking their necks out now. But, in the short term, Boehner is going to imply that he won’t do it. And, in the short term, he will be telling the truth.
One way they obscure the issue is by talking about immigration reform “failing,” as if it’s some naturally occurring process.
Of course, our news reporting does kind of facilitate that. The House Republicans could demand that Nancy Pelosi commit ritual suicide as a condition for bringing immigration reform to a vote, and our press would merely report that talks “broke down” when she refused.
It depresses me that you have to write the following:
“Once again, I will discuss how a bill becomes a law. No bill can become a law unless and until both the House and Senate approve it with completely identical language. When the president signs a bill and makes it into a law, he only signs one bill. He does not sign a Senate version or a House version. He signs a bill that both have agreed to.”
Can we please have mandatory civics classes in high school?
I would like the voters to punish them for not getting this done. I don’t have a lot of faith in the media’s ability to tell this story however.
Government classes are mandatory, at least in Michigan. But, I can teach a simple concept to high school students, let’s say putting a book title in italics instead of quotation marks, 100 times. I can remind them before every piece of writing they do, many will still not get it.
Government teachers can demonstrate, lecture, have group assignments until they are blue in the face. If students are stoned, or thinking about their next tweet, or hungry, or anesthetized by whatever chaos rules their world – they won’t learn it.
I’m always astounded at the ignorance of people who have even taken college classes in these subjects. I know someone like that who was convinced the federal government controlled and funded all schools directly. Not a conspiracy, mind you, he just thought that was how it worked – that we had a national school system.
He really had no idea that a huge percentage of state and local taxes go to fund schools. I asked him what he thought state taxes were for, and he said “roads.” Which, ironically, probably get more federal funding than most schools (in our state, federal funding of schools is about 12%; in some poor southern states, the number is closer to 18%).
How on earth could this person make a rational decision at the ballot box about any state or federal tax issue with so little knowledge? Boggles the mind.
The same people think that foreign aid is a massive part of the federal budget, as in “They could balance the budget if only they would cut all that foreign aid”. Some think that foreign aid is the largest part of the federal budget. I think they must get their ideas from Hannity or O’Reilly.
We do: Civics in 7th grade, and US government in 12th. That’s how it is in VA and it’s my understanding most states follow that template.
Illinois too, except 8th and 12th grade, along with Constitution (Illinois and Federal) tests that must be passed for graduation from Middle School and High School.
What I believe will happen if Immigration Reform does not pass, due to Republican obstructionist.
1)Republicans in the house will concede the 2016 Presidential Election the day, the Republicans fail to pass Immigration Reform.
2)Joe Biden or Hillary Clinton should start working on their Presidential acceptance speech.
From January 31, 2013 the Republicans were always planning to blame President Obama:
/www.salon.com/2013/01/30/gop_prepares_to_blame_obama_for_immigration_deal_collapse
Huckleberry already let the cat out of the bag that a bill must pass. Now is the time to push this bill significantly to the left: fewer visas, lower time period to pathway, and gay couples thrown into the mix, or at least one of the three.
The H1-B Visas are a line in the sand. And, yes, I’m prepared to eat a lot of sand.
Absolutely, along with the green cards. The bill is a devastating attack on American workers, and is absolutely unacceptable. I am continually shocked that Democrats think that this absolute piece of shit is good.
I believe the Dems do want a bill.
The GOP doesn’t…but, they don’t wanna be blame for it failing- which will be the truth.
Definitely – as Boo says, they GOP is in a lose-lose situation here. This is an easy one for dems.
This is an easy one for dems.
Which is what makes it so dangerous and scary. Dems in Congress often turn the “easy ones” into unnecessary and unforced politic disasters.
An ‘easy one for Dems’?
An ‘easy one’ if you don’t want jobs for American students, but do want millions of jobs for Indians and Chinese.
Easy if you want more mid-career American STEM workers fired in favor of cheap-ass scabs from China and India.
This bill sucks totally.
There’s a talking point making the rounds in Republican circles that the Democrats and the administration secretly want the effort to pass immigration reform to fail so that they can go to the Latino community and point their fingers at the GOP and get an even greater share of the Latino vote.
This is the pro-immigration-reform Republicans’ answer to the claim “Democrats only want immigration reform to pass in order to win the votes of Latinos.”
You know, Diaz-Balart could be right.
Maybe Nancy Pelosi is the only one standing up against a bad deal that the immigration negotiators are willing to make with the Republicans.
Lessee, Xavier Barata, Luis Gutierrez, Zoe Lofgren, and John Yarmuth.
Zoe Lofgren helped impeach Richard Nixon, and taught a course at her former law school on immigration law. I don’t know who any of those other people are.
Luis Gutierrez is a hack from Chicago.
An open-borders hack, who is the Representative from Guadalahara, not Chicago. He is not working for the interests of the American people.
Oh, I hope so.
A Latino “hack from Chicago” seems very unlikely to sell out on immigration.
He already has sold out American interests. His only constituancy is his Hispanic one. He should be tried for treason.
The ethnic remark really makes this comment special.
Anyway, we get it. Point made.
Honestly, you fucking hypocrit, you make the same ethnic slur. So really fuck you.
No, but i’m not surprised you can’t tell the difference.
Hey, we both used the slur “Latino!”
You must be so terribly confused.
While I don’t use ‘hispanic,’ I would not go so far as to call it a slur. There is a Hispanic Caucus in Congress. Lighten up.
It’s a joke; obviously “Latino” isn’t a slur.
I’m laughing at this idiot because he can’t tell why his comment is offensive, or any different from mine.
You don’t know Luis. He would sell out his grandmother.
Actually, he just sells out anyone who is not hispanic. He is a bigot and a racist turd who helps out his people only and does nothing for anyone who is not of hispanic background.
He sells out Hispanics too.
You know, if you’re going to accuse Luis Gutierrez of being a bigot and a racist on my blog, I’d like to see some link to anything approaching that kind of behavior. Otherwise, I object.
Zoe Lofgren is a scum-bag immigration whore who makes money by depriving Americans of jobs. She is, like most immigration lawyers, a scummy economic traitor.
“Racist” for the Latino and “whore” for the woman.
You’re so awesome. I want so very much to be on your side.
Could you cut the name calling and come up with some information to back up your supposed points?
There is absolutely nothing, not a single page, in this bill which helps unemployed Americans get jobs. It is going to increase competition in the job market. It is going to increase illegals coming across the border. Of course, the AZ border is now hardened. So, they just come across in TX. Once the current crop of 3 million illegals is legalized, more illegals will come. And, you are correct, I do not believe the crap about 11 million. Most of the illegals today are visa overstays. And the Feds will not try to find those. Another scummy deal.
Agree about the jobs. The STEM (I hate that acronym) provisions will make it much harder to get jobs and will accelerate the decline of American technological leadership. Not sure about the low level jobs. I find persuasive the argument that by covering these shadow workers with minimum wage and collective bargaining laws, the average wage will rise.
I do believe that the number is at least 12 million. And that you are right about the Visa overstays.
Regarding Joe’s claim of racism against you, I do think you are skirting the line with some of your remarks. For those who are worried about race, I say relax. There will be internarriage. And a hard working Mexican son in law beats some burned out lily white stoner. In my case, I only have male grandsons to marry off and I think a nice Mexican granddaughter by marriage would be a good thing. I hope she can cook some fine Mexican food for her new Poppy. Mexicans are so much more respectful of gray hair than Americans.
My cousin was married to a hispanic guy. They are certainly hispanic, and mexican at that. I don’t give a crap about their heritage. That’s not the point. They are legal, not illegal – father is/was legal, they are citizens. I am concerned about visas and job theft. And so I reject your comment about my comments. What my concerns are is those who take jobs that they are not entitled to .
I neglected to indicate that there were 3 kids from this marriage, and those are my relatives. The hispanic / mexican guy is no longer married to my cousin. They are my relatives, although I’ve only met them 1 or 2 times. The marriage was not successful, for reasons that I am only dimly aware of.
One of the most important guys in the anti-H-1B fight is married to a Chinese woman, has lived in China and speaks Mandarin. He opposes H-1Bs because they are wrong for Americans. That is why I oppose them.
My grandmother was born in Budapest, along with all her siblings. My grandfather was born in Serbia, near Novi Sad. They were both German, however, and so I have strong ethnic roots myself. Like ALL of my relatives, I support LEGAL immigration and oppose ILLEGAL immigration. You will find many immigrants DO NOT SUPPORT illegals.
I am with you 100% on the H1-B’s. My maternal grandmother was born in Michaly (then Hungary, now in Romania) and worked in Budapest. She was also of a family auslander Germans. I also oppose illegal immigration and hate the term “undocumented”. I am aware that legal immigrants generally dislike illegals. I don’t know if the derogatory term “wetback” originated with legal immigrants, but I do know the term “wop” meaning ‘without papers’ did.
Much as I oppose illegality and support legality, I think we are faced with a fait accompli and have to make the best of it. I think you and I are like Fifth Century Romans discussing what to do about the Goths and Franks. Embrace them or oppose them; they are coming one way or another. But then, what I got from my revolutionary Italian ancestors is a hearty feeling of “don’t let the law stop you from doing what’s right”. Of course, the law in the Old Country was imposed by foreign landlords.
The term for the ethnic/cultural group of my mom’s family is “donau-schwaben” or “Danube-Schwaben”. They came from Kaiserlautern in SW Germany in about 1795 to S Hungary/N Serbia. My family all emigrated to the US between 1904-1922, partially due to religious differences (unlike most Germans, my great-great-grandfather was a Baptist colporteur or distributor of religious literature; since then, missionary work has occupied 20-30% of each generation). Of my relatives who remained in the Batchka (the name of the region of S Hungary/N Serbia), most were forcibly removed by the US and sent to DP camps after WWII. The US probably put more people in concentration camps than did the Nazis, although they were not extermination camps. But as late as 1961, some of my distant cousins were in DP camps in Germany/Austria. A crime against this ethnic group perpetrated by the US government.
For more about this:
Orderly and Humane: The Expulsion of the Germans after the Second World War.
By R.M. Douglas. New Haven: Yale University Press, 2012. 485 pp. $38.00.
I am sure that many of the donau-schwaben collaborated. Probably I had 3-4th cousins in the Waffen SS, and so there was probably a movement to exert payback on the Germans in the occupied territory. Certainly there was a huge anti-german sentiment in Yugoslavia. When we went to my grandfather’s village in 1960, we were not met with a friendly reception.
My family was Catholic, although my Grandfather was not very religious and my Grandmother became a Protestant in America. I very recently talked with a Hungarian-born car salesman who said that German-Hungarians were called “Sassa” (pronounced like sah-sah) by Magyar-Hungarians (which he pronounced something like Meyer but with odd nuances), probably a corruption 0f “Sachsen” (my idea), which ties into your family history. Don’t know nearly as much about my family as you do about yours. But that whole area, originally known as Pannonia, has been a cauldron of ethnic mixing for at least 1600 years. Apparently my Great-Grandparents were landowners who returned to Hungary in late 1941 to sell all their land and settle permanently in America. They were stuck over there by the declarations of war in December. Recall that Hungary was an ally (puppet state) of Germany and also declared war on the US. They disappeared in 1946. My best guess is that they were executed as Kulaks (with suspicious American ties) by the Communist government. All this was discovered by a distant cousin of mine in Louisiana, she is descended from one of my Grandmother’s sisters. Found her by Google and she had a webpage with what she had found by a professional genealogist. Never heard of them before. Ain’t the internet wonderful?
We have decent records of much of the immigration of my grandmother’s family. Last summer, in Budapest, I went to the church that my grandmother attended as a child in Budapest. Only 5 blocks from the Opera house, but I have no idea what the area was like in 1919. We have many pictures of my grandmother’s family. Next summer, I hope to travel to Sarajevo to see what will be done on the 100th year anniversary of the assassination of Franz Ferdinand. Supposedly, my grandfather, then 19, was in Sarajevo that day. He was a bricklayer’s apprentice (my mother says to a “turk”, but every muslim would have been called a turk back then; the Balkan wars of 1912 and 1913 had just pushed the Ottomans out of the Balkan penisula very shortly before).
We will also go to Savino Selo (formerly Torshau/Torsha), my grandfather’s village. Other villages in the area, Feketisch/Fekitahagy and Kuchina, also were the locales in which family originated following the emigration there in 1795.
Awesome! Did you catch my post here? http://www.boomantribune.com/comments/2013/6/17/142447/400/44#44
I never understood if you supported legal immigration why you oppose green cards. Also in another post you said you opposed all immigration.
I did not say that. I support legal immigration at approx 1,000,000 persons per year. I don’t know if it needs to be that high, but legal immigration is just fine.
http://www.boomantribune.com/story/2013/1/31/13119/7785
That thread. As joe points out, your arguments amount to oppoosing immigration period.
Ah, I see. You confuse Joe’s incompetent, scurrilous and libelous incomprehesion with actual argumentation. Never read Joe under the misapprehension that you are reading coherent thought. He’s simply one rant away from total wackitude.
I will not attempt to explain Joe’s incoherence. Take it up with him.
Maybe if I’d called some women ‘whores’ it would count as an argument, and be less scurrilous?
lol
Zoe Lofgren is a scum-bag immigration whore who makes money by depriving Americans of jobs. She is, like most immigration lawyers, a scummy economic traitor.
You confuse Joe’s incompetent, scurrilous and libelous incomprehesion with actual argumentation. Never read Joe under the misapprehension that you are reading coherent thought. He’s simply one rant away from total wackitude.
I guess I’m just jealous I can’t rise to your level of “actual argumentation,” or express coherent thoughts like calling Lofgren a “whore.”
Please, tell me more about wacky rants.
This thread is so long that I’m not sure if you are addressing me or dataguy. If me, I never said that I opposed all immigration.
The engineering and software fields are suffering massive unemployment. Friends who used to bill at $40 to $60 an hour and getting sporadic work at $20 to $25. Young people no longer go into these fields because they know there are no jobs for Americans. I was soft-hearted and didn’t dissuade my grandson when he wanted to study computer science. Now he owes as much as I do on my house (at twice the interest rate) and has no hope of employment, although being deaf doesn’t help for finding a job,either. I should have threatened to beat his ass if he didn’t switch to accounting and finance, but I felt people should pursue their dream. It seems dreams are turning to nightmares in America.
The big corporations carry on a disinformation campaign about how they can’t find qualified applicants and really are looking overseas for the best and brightest (for $15 an hour and many hours off the books?). It is a lie to get cheap labor that can’t quit or seek another job lest they be deported. That’s how those visas work. You must work for your sponsor and only your sponsor or back to the third world you go.
This is why with an M.S. in Physics, lacking only a dissertation for the PhD and halfway toward an M.S. in Electrical Engineering, I am content to work as a Union grease monkey vacuuming machinery and changing parts for $28 an hour, paid overtime, 26 days vacation and a Civil Service pension. My usual lunch companion was formerly a store manager for several retailers and a large supermarket chain. Now he’s a custodian (janitor) mopping floors for $25 an hour under a set aside program for veterans. He’s a VietNam vet. The set aside was orginally intended for them. He gets less vacation and much less pension because he was hired after Reagan (with Tip O’Neill) “reformed” Civil Service, whereas I was grandfathered in because I was former CS with DoD leaving before Reagan. You know, like Obama wants to “reform” Social Security.
So yeah, I know exactly where dataguy is coming from and why he and I and my lunch friend are bitter. Like I said above, some dreams become nightmares.
P.S. When I was a kid I wanted to be a Mafia button man and have status. Instead I became a scientist and computer programmer. When I graduated High School two friends approached me and wanted me to join them in the burglary business, planning the jobs for them. I told them that I wanted to be a scientist. I blew it and made the wrong career choice. So I can empathize with the ghetto kids that become gangbangers. I know how they feel too.
Was addressing dataguy. But the tribune always benefits from longer posts so cheers.
Missed an edit. First sentence second paragraph. “
andare getting …”OK, great.
I actually have a pretty good job. I make excellent money, more than I ever have.
But I am EXTREMELY concerned about the wholesale import of cheap ass scab labor from some of the worst school systems in the world (china and India), in which cheating is not just a way of life but is expected, and in which very crappy work is done. The real reason Chinese are here – have 2 kids. The Indian government is desperately afraid of the millions of educated Indians. We are the escape valve from the demographic explosion as millions of men (remember sex selection abortion has resulted in 1.2 men for every 1.0 woman in the marrying age) are now educated. This is why the Indian government is desperate to retain the US as the back office.
The American IT worker is far better. More creative, more innovative, more clever. I have had to work with many chinese, and never are they able to do work alone – it’s lead them by the nose all the time. There was one who managed to figure stuff out, but at least 10 were never independent.
I have one Chinese friend still in the business, embedded programming. He is very good, but he’s also a PhD Physicist (US degree).
Regarding the law, you are, of course, correct. But by treaty with Britain, the new USA was supposed to stay East of the Appalachians, but almost immediately pioneers started going West into Kentucky and Tennessee. They abused the natives and broke the law. At some point the law becomes academic. You can’t stop a tidal bore. You can only hope to channel the flow so as to minimize damage. We are undergoing a tidal wave of immigration akin to that of a hundred years ago when my ancestors came here from Eastern and Southern Europe. Those immigrants too, undercut wages and once the restrictive immigration laws were passed, they evaded them by crossing the Canadian border and falsifying papers.
It’s happening and we are not going to stop it even by machine guns at the border. So the question is what are we going to do about controlling it?
Regarding racist tones in your remarks, I don’t really think you meant that, but just wanted to warn you that they don’t sound the way I’m sure you meant.
Basically. I read all this explanation last month somewhere else. It’s not exactly a mystery.
Anyhow, I also think that it would electorally better for the Democrats to seriously push immigration reform and have the Republicans make it completely fail. This would energize the existing voter block and those potentially who don’t vote. As well it would make the people who are pro-immigrant on the GOP side demoralized because well, once again they have to spend time and energy deluded themselves that their party isn’t just a bunch of stupid racists.
Conversely, if you pass the bill the issue is defused so the Dem supporters might not be as energized. So too, with this evidence that Republicans CAN give a tiny bit it opens the door to slightly making them more palatable. So too, any new arrivals would not really have a particular reason to be grateful to one party over another.
Now despite these drawbacks you want to pass an immigration reform bill because it’s good policy. And even if you try honestly and fail it’s good politics. So it’s a win-win for Dems but that talking point is completely wrong. It just shows how dumb and leaderless the GOP is because they are simply INCAPABLE of believing someone could pass a law because it’s good policy as opposed to something that is meant to hurt the opposition, or reward supporters.
Evil cannot understand good.
I think the Democrats would love to keep Blacks talking about immigration reform because it distracts us from thinking about the fact that they have done nothing about the double the national average Black unemployment rate. Isn’t it funny how we are so obsessed with everybody else’s problems except our own? There is an elaborate marketing plan for the Democrats to appeal to the Latino voter by catering to issues that matter to them, meanwhile our votes are entirely taken for granted. The GOP just ignores us all together. So I understand the ignorant, blind loyalty to the Dems, but damn, do we have to be so f–ing enthusiastic about it?
Many of us do not support this immigration disaster. There are many parts of the Democratic constituancy which are ACTIVELY INJURED by this bill.
Students are going to be badly damaged by the H-1B and green card expansions.
Anyone who is a lower-end worker is going to be devastated. While this is not all blacks, there are certainly many in that group who are black.
Older worker are going to be again badly attacked by the bill.
American STEM/IT have nothing in this bill but more unemployment.
There are NO AMERICANS who are helped by this bill.
I support immigration reform and believe sending 11 million back to Mexico or other parts of Latin America isn’t doable, even if we decided we wanted to.
However, it is clear that there is a lot of wheeling and dealing going on with special interests in the tech industry. Like every other business in this country, they want cheap labor. They’re also happy if somebody elsewhere paid for their education.
So, I understand where you’re coming from, but would have taken you more seriously if you’d not started out with name calling. Eventually you got around to stating your real reasons. Why not start there and leave the rest of diatribe out?
You are very confused if you think this is a “tech industry” thing. This is a pervasive across-the-board attack on the employability of Americans. As the top jobs in the tech industry go to temporary workers, the top Americans work their way down the jobs chain. The effect is a permanent creep of job specifications upward, displacing many workers at the bottom of the skills chain.
The entire employment system is connected. The H-1B portion is only a small piece of a pervasive system of temporary visas. The J-1 system, which brings in au pairs, physicians (in rural areas, physicians are J-1s in many cases), lifeguards, and restaurant workers. 500,000 per year. 500,000. And employers pay NO SS, unemployment, or medicare taxes for these. That is, the US government runs a program which costs millions to administer, and which enables employers to circumvent US wage scales to bring in low-cost workers. In Massachusetts and PA, the J-1 was used to deprive low-wage workers of minimum wage jobs. Abuse of this program is widespread and rampant.
The B-1 visa is a “temporary visa” which brings in people for temporary jobs. However, it is pervasively used to circumvent the H-1B visa. Again, there is virtually no enforcement of standards or requirements.
The L-1 is another visa being used to circumvent H-1bs. L-1 are supposedly used to allow foreign employees to work here temporarily, but again, there is huge fraud.
When you add them all up, probably 1,000,000 – 1,500,000 jobs are diverted to these jobs yearly. And the point is that a temporary job which goes from one temporary worker to another is a permanent loss to the US worker.
But the notion that these are temporary workers and that makes it OK is idiotic. The workers are temporary, the jobs are PERMANENTLY made temporary, and that means that as the supply of workers expands, more jobs are taken out of the job situation for Americans.
My daughter knows 1000 kids on facebook. Of those, probably 10% have a good job 1 year out of college. What about them?
For those of you with children, you had better ask yourself the question: “Where will my children work?” and “Why is it that all Starbucks baristas have degrees from Brown?” and “Why is it that no companies offer training on anything anymore?”
I read the summary of the bill last night. Obviously, I am not going to read the actual bill except for elements that I want further clarification about.
On the STEM side of things, there is obviously a concern that Hatch has won an eventual tripling of visas.
But on the low-end scale, I think you are totally wrong. Basically, they are setting up a dual system that makes it almost impossible to hire an undocumented worker unless your business is in a few specified industries, primarily agriculture. Those workers will get “Blue” Cards. To be eligible for a Blue Card, you have to be an established agricultural worker.
On top of this, there is some serious border enforcement resources in the bill. It’s an absurd amount, and it will curtail border crossings substantially.
Some weird things could happen, like people with Blue Cards taking the jobs of people with Green Cards because they aren’t eligible for health care and don’t count as an official employee (for the under/over 50 employee calculation). But, overall, there will be fewer employers willing to risk hiring undocumented workers and there will be fewer undocumented workers coming into the country.
The wage levels for Blue Card holders will go up, which will lessen downward pressure on wages.
I think the bill will help on the bottom rungs but it will create pressure for people working in STEM.
But you have to at least admit that we heard all of this before NAFTA was forced on American workers. How did THAT turn out?
Ross Perot was not right. It was not a “giant sucking sound”. It was actually an “enormous sucking hurricane” as the jobs headed south, east, and out.
And what the H-1bs, L-1, J-1, O-1, B-1, F-1 and so forth are doing is bringing the “enormous sucking hurricane” of American worker replacement into this country. Not only are our jobs being sent abroad, the abroad are being welcomed here to steal our jobs. AND THE EMPLOYERS GET TAX BREAKS TO DO IT!! Can you FUCKING believe that!! Employers who hire foreign scabs to replace Americans GET FUCKING TAX BREAKS!!
Yeah I can believe it because this administration is bought and paid for just like the last one.
I agree and with 30 million unemployed Americans, many of them long term unemployed, why is legallizing more foreign cheap labor our priority? Obviously something has to be done about immigration but why pour all of our rresources into that instead of putting Americans back to work FIRST? I felt the same way when the Dems spent the first two years of BO’s administration focusing on Health care reform instead of jobs.