Is immigration reform dead?
"No, immigration reform is going to happen," Rep. Kevin McCarthy (R-Calif.), the House Republican whip, told CBS's Bob Schieffer on "Face the Nation."
"But it's going to happen in a step-by-step method. And I will tell you, the president came out and supported that the other day." ...
...The current immigration system is "broken" and "needs to be fixed," McCarthy said on Sunday. "Forty-two percent of everyone that's here illegally came here legally," he said, a reference to people who overstayed their visas. "We need to fix this system."
President Obama has said "there's no reason why we can't get this done before the end of the year."
What's driving Amnesty? Here's a hint: it starts with the letter M and ends with the letter Y. And has cash in the middle.
After decades of political quietism during which Silicon Valley entrepreneurs expressed libertarian sentiments but mostly voted Democratic and funded Democratic candidates who shared their elite-class social and political views, Silicon Valley has finally mobilized—for immigration expansion. In April Mark Zuckerberg, with help from Yahoo CEO Marissa Mayer, LinkedIn cofounder Reid Hoffman, and venture capitalist John Doerr, launched FWD.us, a $25 million-and-counting lobbying group aimed at lawmakers in both political parties. FWD.us, unlike other pro-immigration groups, isn’t much interested in amnesty for illegal immigrants or easier border-crossing for lettuce-pickers. Its chief interest is in expanding the H-1B work visa program for “highly skilled” workers that’s mostly used by tech employers to hire temporary guest-workers from foreign countries, usually from East and South Asia….
...The anti-H-1B faction has a response to that: statistics. One of them, from an April 24 briefing paper produced by the liberal Economic Policy Institute, is that only one out of every two U.S. college graduates with a degree in engineering or computer and information science is hired into those fields, despite a doubling of the number of homegrown computer-science graduates between 1998 and 2004. Others argue that employers mostly don’t use H-1B workers to fill “best and brightest” jobs, but, rather, relatively low-paying routine programming positions, and that the most avid users of the visas are India-based outsourcing companies that use the visas to provide a few months of U.S. training for their employees, who then return to India.
Most damning of all is that, despite persistent claims of tech-worker shortages, programmer salaries overall have inched only slightly higher from what they were 20 years ago: from $60,000 a year to about $75,000 a year in 2012 dollars, according to the Economic Policy Institute. Engineers fare somewhat better: The average annual starting salary at top valley employers such as Google is about $100,000, with the median for experienced engineers at about $150,000...
Put simply, the oligarchs in Silicon Valley are spending millions lobbying Congress to import cheaper technology talent. They don't want to pay American wages, they want to pay Indian (or Chinese, or wherever) wages here in the states.
As for McCarthy, Cantor, Boehner, Karl Rove and the rest of the GOP Old Guard? They want some o' that Silicon Valley Cash!
Sen. Jeff Sessions (R-AL) is, as usual, on top of the imminent debacle:
Republican Sen. Jeff Sessions wants wealthy CEOs to butt out of immigration policy.
“America is not an oligarchy… A Republic must answer to the people,” Sessions said today, in a direct response to President Barack Obama’s latest effort to get wealthy California CEOs to increase their support for his unpopular push for increased immigration... “Congressional leaders must forcefully reject the notion, evidently accepted by the president, that a small cadre of CEOs can tailor the nation’s entire immigration policy to suit their narrow interests..."
...Obama has been working with top CEOs since summer to push the Senate’s immigration expansion that would welcome 30 million immigrants, plus millions of temporary guest workers, over the next decade...
The push is being supported by numerous billionaires, including New York Mayor Mike Bloomberg, Fox News’ Rupert Murdoch and Facebook’s Mark Zuckerberg... Since 2007, progressive and business groups have spent more than $1.5 billion on advocacy and lobbying to pass an immigration bill, despite massive unemployment, stalled salaries and negative polls. Other business groups have been pressured by the federal government and progressives to provide rhetorical support for the push.
So once again I ask Karl Rove:
Say, @KarlRove - next time you're on @FoxNews please show us on your whiteboard how the @GOP wins without the conservative base. Schmuck.
— Doug Ross (@directorblue) August 1, 2013I give thanks for many things in this great country, but the Republican crony capitalists ain't among them.
Unfortunately I can see their point. Sadly 13% or our population will not work, no way ,no how. The only jobs they'll consider are only govt jobs where they can't get fired and don't even have to show up
ReplyDeleteIt isn't about R vs D.
ReplyDeleteWith out the Hispanic vote, we are going no where.
ReplyDeleteWith the Hispanic vote we will go the wrong way.
DeleteAnon 5:40: wrong. See chart here
ReplyDeleteThis is part of the agenda to destroy the only place on earth where Freemen live.
ReplyDeleteFlood America with 10's of millions of natural born law breakers, who will vote for law breakers to represent them in destroying the rule of law, a horde of law breakers who will work for chump change for an entire class of law breakers who will break any law to rob and bleed America of every last buck and ounce of wealth possible.
Aside from the massive vote fraud and rigging undertaken to install a multitude of corrupt politicians to assure the above agenda is implemented, the travesty of consequences awaiting the millions of unmitigated fools and idiots who voted for this utopian nightmare of unbridled stupidity is a future full of the things nightmares are made of.
Remember, there are 10's of millions of good people who did not vote for this tyranny, did not vote for the crooks traitors and thieves foisting this tyranny upon them.
One day all you fools who voted for all this are going to regret what you made possible. And most of you may well end up dead for your stupidity.
And that is as it should be. Ignorant idiots who cause such misery and death should suffer for their sins against others.
Ignorance and self serving needs are no excuse for tyranny.
Those who refused to bend their knee to tyranny will never submit to such madness.
Newsflash Rep.McCarthy, you moron. Enforce the laws, close the borders and cut off the milk money.
ReplyDeleteJust like health "reform". Instead of tweaking what's broken, the hustlers push an entire reform package bloated with government and my tax money. A "Good for me, screw you" sign should be hung behind the speakers chair.
I am really, really sick of this crap.
Again,the Constitution is pushed to the side for power and wealth.
Jefferson, trust me, you are not the only one.
ReplyDeleteBut it still does not change the facts. We do NEED the Hispanic vote.
You ARE right about the power part.
You have been manipulated in your thinking.
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Let me put it to you this way;
The politics leading up to 9/11 and the FACT that people were beginning to forget, and under nafta left a certain part of our military infrastructure open to espionage from other countries , which was TO MUCH for some of us to bear.
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The loophole has been closed, and that's all you will get to know from me. Politics was the last resort. It was and still is effective.