Immigration Blog

Match #3 in Internal H-1B Squabble Goes to the Body Shops: Microsoft et al. Lose

By David North, July 8, 2013

The only joy — and it is a minor one — in the ongoing immigration policy conflict in Congress is to watch two sets of worker-exploiters battle each other over H-1B slots.

The most recent round between the Indian out-placement firms (or body shops) and the IT giants (Microsoft, Intel, IBM, et al.), also called product companies, was won by the former. Had it been a football game, the score would have been:

Placement firms: 35
Product firms: 0

That encounter was played out in the House Judiciary Committee. More on that later. Read more...

Double Standard in Obamacare Favors Illegals

By James R. Edwards Jr., July 8, 2013

The Obama administration is rushing to get its signature health law implemented — and it treats illegal aliens better than native-born Americans. Starting in 2014, key elements of Obamacare take effect, including the individual mandate to have health insurance or else pay a fine. Read more...

CEO's Bloated Pay Used to Increase Immigration, Depress Middle Class Incomes

By John Miano, July 8, 2013

Last week I read a number of articles documenting the rise in CEO pay, including this one at Slate.com.

The fact that other people are making money by itself does not concern me. But in combination with the decline in middle class income, we see a disturbing trend. When these CEOs use their bloated incomes to depress the wages of ordinary Americans, there is a real problem. Read more...

Bipartisan Immigration Conventional Wisdom: Caveat Emptor

By Stanley Renshon, July 7, 2013

Since Mitt Romney lost the 2012 presidential election, the dominant narrative among substantial segments of the GOP's "elite", aided by their "friends" in the Democratic Party and their allies, has been Hispanic panic. Read more...

Uncle Sam Unwittingly Helps Fund Immigration-Related Marriage Fraud

By David North, July 2, 2013

It's bad enough that USCIS is not as active as it should be in rooting out immigration-related marriage fraud. It is worse when the American military, albeit unwittingly, helps fund it, as a recent article in Military Times indicates.

All too often citizens — both civilians and members of the military — agree to loveless marriages with aliens so that the citizens get some money and the aliens get green cards. If the marriage is a sham, that's a violation of the federal law and if caught all concerned can go to jail and the alien is likely to be deported.

What I realized recently is that frequently it is not the alien who is paying for the lawless marriage, it is Uncle Sam, or more specifically our armed services. Read more...

President Obama's Big Bang Theory of Hispanic Reelection Support: Part 2

By Stanley Renshon, July 1, 2013

Richard Neustadt's classic analysis Presidential Power and the Modern Presidents: The Politics of Leadership from Roosevelt to Reagan emphasized that presidents, for all their advisors and supporters, ultimately must rely on themselves to accomplish their policy purposes. He called this need self-help and every successful president has made use of it.

In Neustadt's analysis, self-help is used to further the president's major policy preferences, not the president's primarily personal and political self-interest. Where the latter begins and the former ends, however, is not always easy to discern. And that is especially the case for presidents like Mr. Obama, who consider themselves to be great historical figures. Read more...

House Committee Votes to Admit More STEM Workers than the Supply of Them

By David North, July 1, 2013

The House of Representatives Judiciary Committee voted last week to admit more high-tech foreign workers in some categories than the annual supply of them.

In its eagerness to meet the wishes of the high tech industry — and steal jobs from qualified American workers — the Republican majority on the committee, with the single, commendable exception of Rep. Steve King (R-Iowa), voted to allow as many as 55,000 green cards to be issued annually to aliens with advanced science, technology, engineering, and math (STEM) degrees from American universities. Read more...

Castaneda Blasts Border Fence
Wants More Work Visas for Mexicans

By Jerry Kammer, June 30, 2013
Wants More Work Visas for Mexicans

In an interview broadcast Sunday on Univision's "Al Punto" program, former Mexican Foreign Minister Jorge Castaneda sharply criticized the just-passed U.S. Senate bill's provisions to lengthen the border fence and limit the number of temporary worker visas. His comments, together with those of Univision anchor Jorge Ramos, contradicted the claim by many advocates of the Senate bill that emigration from Mexico is declining rapidly. Read more...

President Obama's Big Bang Theory of Hispanic Reelection Support: Part 1

By Stanley Renshon, June 30, 2013

The president's reelection and historical legacy were hanging in the balance. Half measures wouldn't do and hadn't worked.

President Obama had tried to build his credibility by presenting himself as being serious on immigration enforcement in order to get Republican help on passing major immigration reform. But he undercut that effort by putting into place a series of executive actions that narrowed and limited immigration enforcement: Read more...

NY Times Photographer Grasps What NY Times Text Denies

By David North, June 28, 2013

Shown below is an older, unemployed American engineer (white hair, no jacket, apparently kneeling, perhaps pleading, on the outside of the circle) and a younger Asian, presumably a high-tech executive (dark hair, jacket, sitting at the table, presumably listening) at a Silicon Valley gathering. The photo, from today's New York Times, was taken by Noah Berger, and was used to illustrate an article headlined (in the paper version) "The Idled of Silicon Valley: A Bill Allowing More Foreign Workers Stirs a Tech Debate". It is on the first page of today's business section, page B1. Read more...