Even Legal Immigration Has Consequences

On Tuesday, Hot Air posted an article about some employee changes in big tech.

The article reports:

Another sort of talking out-of-one-side-of-the-mouth while doing something entirely different example today.

We’ve been keeping abreast of the lay-offs in the tech sector here as part of our watching the Biden economy teeter and totter precipitously, and there has been quite an adjustment in those overall numbers since last fall.

…The employees that are retained are dealing with a vastly rejiggered cultural landscape as far as the perks, expectations, work from home, and general employment indulgences that were an ingrained part of their jobs for decades. Suck it up and tighten that belt if you want to stay.

In one example of shifting business practices in “subdued” times, Microsoft is still paying people, but they’ve announced they won’t be handing out annual raises this year.

Heartbreaking? Oh, those poor companies are struggling. Wait. Not so fast.

The article continues:

Based on data the government just put out, it seems Google, Meta, Zoom – shoot, they all went on a hiring spree last month for visa recipients. It’s a schweet workaround for tech firms, big and small.

The top 30 H-1B employers hired more than 34,000 new H-1B workers in 2022 and laid off 85,000 employees

The article concludes:

Of course, if you’re already a visa worker and included in the lay-offs, you’re screwed. You have 60 days to find a new gig or you’re supposed to leave/be deported.

Rather a kick-in-the-teeth for the American techs they could have rehired who might well have been willing to work for less as their severances packages eroded or were already gone, if they got one.

And that’s how the visa game is played, ladies and germs.

This is how our government subsidizes corporations while giving Americans a raw deal. The practice of laying off Americans and employing foreign workers needs to end. We encourage our children in STEM studies then undercut them in their search for jobs. That is not a good business model.

 

A Financial Reason For Tech Companies To Support Joe Biden

Breitbart posted an article today about tech companies that are supporting Joe Biden for President. Their reasons won’t give the average American any reason to support them.

The article reports:

Tech industry elites have endorsed Democrat presidential candidate Joe Biden, citing their opposition to President Trump’s efforts to prioritize Americans for high-paying tech jobs in the United States.

Twenty-four winners of the Turing Award, considered the Nobel Peace Prize for computer science, have endorsed Biden on the premise that the former vice president will allow the tech industry to import more foreign workers, specifically those on H-1B visas, to fill coveted U.S. jobs.

These companies simply do not want to pay American workers the salaries that Americans earn. When I went looking to see how much the executives listed in the article were being paid, I couldn’t find exact numbers for the companies mentioned. I did discover that six of the top ten tech company executives make over $100,000,000 a year. Much of that money is paid in stock and options awards, but that is still an awful lot of money. It seems to me that the companies would be willing to pay a fair salary to American workers rather than to import foreign workers to do jobs that Americans can do.

The article includes the following:

“Information technology is thoroughly globalized. Academic computer science departments attract talented students, many of whom immigrate and become American inventors and captains of industry,” the executives and industry insiders wrote in their endorsement of Biden:

We celebrate open source projects, the lifeblood of our field, as exemplars of international collaboration. Computer Science is at its best when its learnings and discoveries are shared freely in the spirit of progress. These core values helped make America a leader in information technology, so vital in this Information Age. Joe Biden and Kamala Harris listen to experts before setting public policy, essential when science and technology may help with many problems facing our nation today. As American computer scientists and as US citizens, we enthusiastically endorse Joe Biden for President and Kamala Harris for Vice President. [Emphasis added]

The article concludes:

Since mass unemployment hit the U.S., spurred by the Chinese coronavirus crisis, Trump signed an executive order halting a number of visa programs including the H-1B visa. Likewise, the Trump administration is eyeing H-1B visa reforms that would more effectively weed out the business model of outsourcing that has allowed American workers to be replaced by foreign H-1B visa workers.

In August, billion dollar tech corporations such as Amazon, Apple, Facebook, and Twitter signed onto a U.S. Chamber of Commerce lawsuit against Trump’s executive order — arguing that they have a right to import foreign workers to fill U.S. jobs.

Unlike Trump, Biden has promised to increase the number of foreign H-1B visa workers that tech corporations will be able to import every year. The practice is a boon to tech executives.

There are about 650,000 H-1B visa workers in the U.S. at any given moment. Americans are often laid off in the process and forced to train their foreign replacements, as highlighted by Breitbart News. More than 85,000 Americans annually potentially lose their jobs to foreign labor through the H-1B visa program.

Analysis conducted in 2018 discovered that 71 percent of tech workers in Silicon Valley, California, are foreign-born, while the tech industry in the San Francisco, Oakland, and Hayward area is made up of 50 percent foreign-born tech workers. Up to 99 percent of H-1B visa workers imported by the top eight outsourcing firms are from India.

It is becoming obvious that President Trump will protect American workers. Joe Biden has promised to increase the number of H-1B visas every year if he is elected. A Biden-Harris administration will not protect American workers–just as the Obama administration did not. The Democrat party is no longer the party of working people.

What Voting Base Is She Trying To Appeal To?

Yesterday Breitbart posted an article about a plank on Elizabeth Warren’s platform. Ms. Warren has decided that people who are here illegally should receive back pay for work they have done in the past.

The article reports:

Ensuring employers can’t exploit undocumented workers and drive down standards for all workers: The 2002 Supreme Court case Hoffman Plastic Compounds v. NLRB held that an undocumented worker could not receive the backpay he was owed from an employer who had violated the NLRA. That 5–4 ruling is wrong and denies millions of undocumented workers redress for illegal firings or other retaliatory conduct by an employer. The case encourages employers to hire undocumented immigrants and exploit them in numerous fields, including construction and manufacturing, which could lower wages for all workers. I will fight to amend the NLRA to end this form of exploitation and ensure that all workers are protected. [Emphasis added]

The article concludes:

Absent from Warren’s workers plan is a mandate and punishment for employers and businesses who hire illegal aliens over American citizens, as well as a reform to the H-1B visa program whereby Americans are readily replaced by foreign visa workers to increase profit margins for multinational corporations.

Warren has not endorsed mandatory E-Verify — a system that prevents businesses from hiring illegal aliens over Americans — though it would decrease foreign competition against Americans, especially those most vulnerable to competing against illegal aliens in the labor market.

In contrast to Warren is President Trump’s populist-nationalist “Buy American, Hire American” agenda, which has sought to increase interior immigration enforcement to tighten the labor market and delivered wage hikes for America’s blue-collar and working class. Unlike Warren, Trump’s latest national immigration plan includes a nationwide mandate of E-Verify to prevent Americans from being forced to compete for jobs against illegal aliens.

Today, there are at least eight million illegal aliens holding American jobs in the U.S. economy that would have otherwise gone to American workers and legal immigrants. In most cases, these illegal workers obtain fraudulent work authorization documents or steal American citizens’ identities in order to take jobs.

The Democrats have become a party that favors people who are here illegally over American workers. Because Americans are supposedly the only people with voting rights, I would love to know what Ms. Warren feels she is accomplishing with this policy idea.

What Did He Say?

I will admit that I am confused. Do we need to grant visas to foreign tech workers or do we not? Last Thursday, The Daily Caller posted an article that totally confused me as to what Donald Trump‘s stand on the issue was.

The article reports:

Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump inexplicably changed his position on the H-1B visa program in Thursday’s Fox News debate, saying Silicon Valley actually does need to import tech workers for jobs instead of hiring Americans.

“We need highly skilled people in this country,” Trump told Megyn Kelly in the debate, when she questioned him about statements he’s made that contradict the policy of reducing access to the visas outlined on his website. “I changed my mind,” he added.

I guess my question is, “Why aren’t American schools and colleges training enough tech workers?”

The article continues:

Disney, Southern California Edison and other companies have been in the spotlight recently after laying off scores or even hundreds of workers and in some cases forcing them to train their foreign replacements on H-1B visas. At the same time, big businesses continue to argue there is a shortage of high-skilled tech workers and are demanding an increased supply.

In his reversal, Trump signaled he now believes their argument, saying Silicon Valley needs “high-skilled” workers, and the country needs to bring in more high-skilled workers.

No. We need to instill a work ethic in our schools and improve our educational standards so that we create more high-skilled workers. This is possible. At one point we had the technical people to put a man on the moon. Classical education gave us those people–people with a work ethic who learned the technical skills needed. This is an education problem within the United States–it is not an immigration problem.

Aren’t We Tired Of These People Yet?

On Thursday, Townhall.com posted an article about speaking fees collected by Bill Clinton during the time that Hillary Clinton was Secretary of State. You have to hand it to Bill and Hillary, regardless of what in the world goes on in their marriage, they know how to wash each other’s hands financially. She had amazing profits on cattle futures while he was leading Arkansas, and he had amazing speaking fees while she was Secretary of State. Wow. What an incredible coincidence.

This is the chart from the article that tells it all?

Note the last sentence before the numbers. Company representatives say the speeches were unrelated to any lobbying efforts. Sure they were.

A recent Wall Street Journal article reports:

Mr. Clinton also had a large payday from Oracle Corp.: a total of $500,000 for two talks given or approved while Mrs. Clinton was secretary of state. He gave one in October 2012 as the company was urging the State Department to increase the number of skilled-worker visas being issued, lobbying reports show.

Oracle, Samsung Electronics Co. Ltd. and Microsoft Corp., whose co-founder Bill Gates has suggested eliminating the visa cap altogether, paid Mr. Clinton a total of more than $1.1 million for speeches during Mrs. Clinton’s tenure.

Mrs. Clinton has long supported increasing skilled-worker visas, known as H-1B visas, as did her husband when he was president. The issue has remained mired in the broader congressional debate about immigration.

In 2009, the Biotechnology Industry Organization lobbied the State Department to get diplomats to oppose rules against genetically modified foods. In December, Mrs. Clinton sent a cable to diplomats telling them to “pay particular attention” to countries considering biotech regulation and to push an “active biotech agenda” that would “protect the interests of U.S. farmers and exporters,” according to a copy released by WikiLeaks.

Five months later, the biotechnology group paid Mr. Clinton $175,000 to appear at its convention. After Mrs. Clinton left the State Department, she also spoke at the trade group’s convention, earning $335,000.

Seriously, haven’t we had enough of Clinton scandals? Do we really want to go through this with a President Clinton again?

Is This Really What We Had In Mind?

It really is time to take a good look at America’s immigration policies. We need to allow people to come to America, but we also need to protect American workers.

Yesterday Computer World posted an article entitled, “Southern California Edison IT workers ‘beyond furious’ over H-1B replacements.” What is this about?

The article reports:

Information technology workers at Southern California Edison (SCE) are being laid off and replaced by workers from India. Some employees are training their H-1B visa holding replacements, and many have already lost their jobs.

…The IT organization’s “transition effort” is expected to result in about 400 layoffs, with “another 100 or so employees leaving voluntarily,” SCE said in a statement. The “transition,” which began in August, will be completed by the end of March, the company said.

“They are bringing in people with a couple of years’ experience to replace us and then we have to train them,” said one longtime IT worker. “It’s demoralizing and in a way I kind of felt betrayed by the company.”

The article also illustrates one of the problems with crony capitalism:

Displaced IT workers have long protested and complained about the use of H-1B workers, but they are overshadowed by large tech companies that lead H-1B lobbying efforts in Washington. IT workers are also effectively silenced through severance agreements that include non-disparagement clauses and confidentiality provisions, as well as fears that public complaining may hurt re-employment prospects.

Replacing U.S. workers with H-1B workers violates the spirit if not the letter of the law. Hira (Ron Hira, a public policy professor at Howard University, and a researcher on offshore outsourcing) pointed out that as a part of the application process to obtain H-1B approval from the Labor Department, an employer is required to attest to the following: “Working Conditions: The employer attests that H-1B, H-1B1 or E-3 foreign workers in the named occupation will not adversely affect the working conditions of workers similarly employed.” This statement is in Form 9035CP of the LCA.

Further, Hira noted that the Labor Department states, “The Immigration and Nationality Act (INA) requires that the hiring of a foreign worker will not adversely affect the wages and working conditions of U.S. workers comparably employed.

This is just wrong. I also wonder if the company has to provide health insurance for the foreign workers it hires. Is this another result of ObamaCare?