The Hill newspaper included a July 29 commentary on immigration policy by Al Cardenas – a former Florida GOP chair – representing a self-described bipartisan group calling itself “No Labels.” Cardenas claimed the organization had arrived at a consensus that could break the congressional deadlock on immigration reform.
Cardenas’s thumbnail description read much like the Gang of 8’s 2013 proposal that included amnesty for the illegal alien population and increases in immigrant and nonimmigrant visas. Cardenas cited in support of increasing visas, “…a recent Manpower survey found 32% of employers had difficulty filling job vacancies particularly in science, technology, engineering and math-focused (STEM) occupations.”
Should we trust employers’ views on whether there are enough workers applying for their job openings? We should keep in mind that there is a special advantage to employers who hire foreign workers on temporary visas. The employer gets a worker who hopes to eventually be sponsored for an immigrant visa. Studies have shown financial advantage to the employer in being able to hire a foreign worker because of their lower wage expectations..
But, it is not just the questionable motives of the employers that are suspect. Mr. Cardenas and his group should look at the objective criteria, i.e., the trend in wages offered for STEM workers. If there truly were a shortage of STEM workers, wages should be rising to attract more applicants. Instead wages – although attractive – have been flat for years, except in the petroleum sector. The law of supply and demand does not lie.
Because the source of their information is biased, their suggested consensus solution can’t be taken seriously. Even if No Labels dropped their advocacy of increased visas, their support for amnesty would still represent a destructive long-term policy for the nation regardless of how attractive it may appear to be in the short-term to politicians focused on attracting the Latino immigrant vote.
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On Thursday, August 4th at 9 pm Eastern time the Discovery Channel is having a show titled “Killing the Colorado”, about the drought in the west and what needs to be done. It looks interesting, but will they include immigration’s role in population growth and what a huge role this is playing in unsustainably using up fresh water supplies?
The Kennedys always recall rafting trips along the Colorado with Ted and Bobby and then talk about the condition of the river today. Of course, our population was 200 million back in the 60s, not the 320 million of today. And when critics said the immigration act of 1965 would lead to a million immigrants a year, Ted assured us it would not. But they still support the mass immigration that is leading to environmental ruin.
Leland the decision if tr he 1965 was by The Congress if that year……N all the people ….. stop beating already horse….by the way N=and in today’s time
…cone up to speed!!!!
What’s your problem? Teddy said during debate that “First our cities will not be flooded with a million immigrants annually”. That amount and more has happened. Maybe you’re a sheep, but some of us aren’t.
Cardenas simply makes it up in most of that article. There is no STEM worker shortage, in spite of business propaganda. The Census Bureau says that most American born workers with a STEM degree are not even working in one of those fields. If there were a “shortage” then companies all over this country, like Disney, would not be firing their workers and replacing them with H1B visa workers. Meanwhile the fired workers are forced to train their replacements if they want severance packages.
He also says that “Our baby boomer population is retiring and, consequently, our labor pool is shrinking and aging.” False. Boomers were born from 1946 to 1964. Only the first five years of boomers are eligible for full SS at 66. The majority are far from it, the youngest being only 52. And, in fact, the unemployment rate for those in their 50s who are looking for work is quite high, especially among women. We have a shortage of jobs, not workers.
Speaking of people making it up, Melania Trump got blasted by the media for her speech, which is fair game. But the worshipful attitude toward Michelle Obama ignores the fact that she has simply lied to prove a point. When she made her trip to Target in 2011, this was how she characterized it in Dec. 2014 after Ferguson, in an article in People magazine titled The Obamas How We Deal With Our Own Racist Experiences:
“I tell this story..I mean even as First Lady..during that wonderfully publicized trip I took to Target, not highly disguised, the only person who came up to me in the store was a woman who asked me to take something off a shelf. Because she didn’t see me as the First Lady, she saw me as someone who could help her.”
Pretty bad, huh? But it’s a lie. That “trip” was only “publicized” AFTER it happened, and as she admits, she was “disguised”. But don’t take anyone’s word but hers that she’s lying. Because she told a completely different story on Letterman in 2012:
“And the only thing she said..I reached up, cause she was short, and I reached up, pulled it down. That was my interaction. I felt so good.. SHE HAD NO IDEA WHO I WAS.”
So the story changes when it’s time to pour fuel on the racial fires. Don’t wonder why race huckster Al Sharpton has a standing invitation at the White House. As they say, birds of a feather flock together.
Leland nailed it. CArdenas is an open borders fraud. We take in too many immigrants already. The dems cannot win elections with Americans so they have replaced many with immigrants who favor dems 5 to 1.
Companies that insist that they need green card labor should be forced to pay an American to get trained to replace the green card worker and then sent home when the american has been fully trained to take over the position. This would prevent all these companies fro claiming that they can not find Americans to work the jobs they have and assure that green card workers would be here as little time as possible.
A Good Way for Trump to Attract Bernie Voters
College graduates are largely “uncounted” unemployed after graduation….the colleges charge outrageous tuition debts….the students are up to their neck in debt and like stuck at “flipping burger” jobs. The Progressive Colleges’ professionals have a job, teaching, but their students are according to Trump, “just a conduit”, run over by the “outsourcing truck”.
While Trump is making whistle blowing official duty for government workers…..make whistle blowing against our colleges part of the process to lower tuition too. Even Hillary is back stepping on degreed professional unemployment by stating in her speech that we should be teaching trades in high schools instead of importing H-1Bs erroneously for our professional STEM GLUT. Computer programming is a great opportunity for Millennials with just diplomas to get hired for on the job training colleges never did provide “per STEM”.
Perhaps Trump should give out “tax breaks” for hiring Americans with high school diplomas instead of hiring foreign H-1Bs with sub par skills in comparison, relating to culture acclimation necessary to work any professional or technical job in America. Hillary would HATE this solution…..its honest.