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The proposed immigration reform bill likely has a camouflaged payload (Thanks to Jon Walker).
http://fdlaction.firedoglake.com/2013/01/28/bipartisan-group-of-senators-agree-to-rough-outline-for-immigration-reform/
“It would reform the legal immigration system to do things encourage more high skilled workers.” These are the H-1B visas which take good middle class jobs away from those US citizens who studied hard to graduate in science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM). One of the bipartisan senators that proposed raising the cap on H-1B visas five-fold was on the committee that wrote the omnibus compromise bill.
http://thehill.com/blogs/hillicon-valley/technology/279227-bipartisan-group-of-senators-to-introduce-high-skilled-immigration-bill
It’s similar to the half-billion dollar payload camouflaged in the fiscal cliff deal.
http://news.firedoglake.com/2013/01/28/amgen-subsidy-in-fiscal-cliff-deal-under-fire/
Most news organizations present the H-1B issue as offering citizenship to the best-of-the-best students who are all going to start companies that will employ lots of US citizens. They contrast by showing US STEM graduates as lacking ambition and lacking recent skills. It’s not true and never was. It’s a fiction by Microsoft, Google, Intel and other high-tech companies that want cheap labor in coercive conditions. H-1B visas also help promote age discrimination. There is no shortage of US STEM graduates and they have good skills. References for further information include: Norman Matloff at UC-Davis, Peter Cappelli at the Wharton Business School U-Penn, Hedrick Smith’s 2012 book “Who Stole the American Dream?”, and Paula Stephan’s 2012 book “How Economics Shapes Science”.
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Deflation of STEM salaries and continuation of cheap agricultural labor. And impunity for employers who violate immigration laws to run sweatshops and peonage operations. That’s the payload.
A mass amnesty will be good for Mexicans and employers who want the cheaper labor, bad for working Americans or those seeking work. As for STEM, the folks at CIS already concluded at one point that foreign PhDs in fellowship programs in America drive wages down in that category by about 10 percent. High tech executives are greedy just like other business executives. They want cheaper labor and they don’t want to have to bother with retraining people. Easier and cheaper to bring in a bunch of Indians and Pakistanis to do it instead. Farmers whine about not being able to get Americans to do work they need done, but how much of that is exaggeration? Do they even try to get Americans to work for them? That is doubtful. Mass amnesty makes some liberals feel good because it really does help some Mexicans, but it also hurts Americans, including U.S. born Hispanics and blacks, even more than whites. That’s apparent from the unemployment reports.
For a revealing look at the STEM issue, check out this link and its embedded links:
http://cis.org/edwards/stem-sham