The cheap labor policy widens wealth gaps, reduces high tech investment, increases state and local tax burdens, hurts kids’ schools and college education, pushes Americans away from high tech careers, and sidelines millions of marginalized Americans, including many who are now struggling with fentanyl addictions.
The Spending Bill Potentially Doubles the Number of H-2B Workers
The controversial spending bill released this morning has a number of serious immigration-related issues. My colleagues have discussed its shortcomings on Twitter and in blog posts. Its authors released the 1,169-page bill online at 3 a.m., and some lawmakers had not even seen the bill before noon.
Adding to the confusion, there are at least two different versions floating around online. A version released by the Appropriations Committee is missing ten pages that are in the version released later by the Rules Committee. What's in those ten pages?
A huge increase in guest-workers. The current text would allow companies to import thousands of additional H-2B (non-agricultural low-skilled) workers by allowing the Secretary of Homeland Security to increase the statutory cap. In years past, Congress allocated 15,000 additional visa spots to the Secretary. This version is a bit different.
Buried late in the bill on page 1,161 lies Division H: Title 1, Sec. 105. The text describes the proposed cap increase:
The Secretary of Homeland Security… may increase the total number of aliens who may receive a visa . . . by not more than the highest number of H-2B nonimmigrants who participated in the H-2B returning worker program in any fiscal year in which returning workers were exempt from such numerical limitation. [Emphasis added.]
The language is deliberately confusing, but offers an alarming proposal by way of the "returning worker" exemption The Congressional Research Service describes the returning worker exemption as "exempting from the cap returning H-2B workers who had been counted against the cap in any one of the three prior fiscal years." Congress passed worker exemptions for fiscal years 2005, 2006, 2007, and 2016. The highest number of these exemptions was 69,320 in FY 2007. This bill does not revive the returning worker exemption, but uses those numbers as a benchmark by which to establish an addition to the cap limit – in this case, 69,320.
This bill allows the DHS secretary to increase the cap by "no more" than the highest number of historical exempt returning workers. This would potentially more than double the current number of permitted H-2B workers. Secretary Nielsen will have the authority to add up to 69,320 spots to the cap of 65,000, for a potential total of more than 135,000.
H-2B guest workers depress the wages of low-skilled and low-educated Americans. These Americans are often those who need a job the most. Doubling the number of H-2B laborers is a far cry from President Trump's promise to protect American workers. Instead, this provision betrays them.
FACT CHECKING THE “FACT CHECKERS" ON ILLEGAL ALIENS
“Outing” Orwellian fake news.
February 15, 2019
On Monday, February 11th I was a guest on a radio show, “The Americhicks” on radio station KLZ to discuss a Feb 4, 2019 CBS News article, The facts on immigration: What you need to know in 2019- CBSN fact-check on immigration.
The CBS article ostensibly responded to nine questions about immigration raised by President Trump. I was asked to weigh in about the honesty and accuracy of the “Facts” published by CBS to discredit what the President had said.
I reviewed the article during the weekend that preceded that show and found that falsehoods permeated this supposed “fact-check on immigration.”
Unfortunately this sort of deceptive “reporting” is all too common.
By understanding how to unravel the tapestry of lies contained in this article will provide a methodology that can be brought to bear to critically analyze all supposed “news” articles.
To begin with, the late criminal defense attorney Johnnie Cochran remarked at the O.J. trial, “If you can’t trust the messenger, you cannot trust the message.”
Voltaire wisely said, “You should judge a man’s intelligence by the questions he asked.” The trick is to devise the incisive questions that provide you with the insight you need to determine whether the material you are reviewing is honest or propaganda.
The CBS News article quoted a number of organizations that provided the supposed “Facts” that were used to counter what President Trump said. The first issue is to find out who these sources (messengers) are. It is particularly helpful to find the organization’s website online and review its mission statement. It may be posted under “About” or “About Us” at the top of the website.
The first source quoted in the CBS article was the Center For Migration Studies. Here is how its mission statement (under “About” on its website) begins:
The Center for Migration Studies of New York (CMS) is a think tank and an educational institute devoted to the study of international migration, to the promotion of understanding between immigrants and receiving communities, and to public policies that safeguard the dignity and rights of migrants, refugees and newcomers.
Simply stated, this organization is not an objective think tank but a biased advocacy group that seeks to increase the numbers of aliens admitted into the United States and is determined to quash any objections about the influx of aliens irrespective of how they enter the United States.
The CBS article used information provided by CMS to answer the question: How do most unauthorized immigrants enter the United States?
The answer provided in the CBS article was described as a “Fact”
Fact: Two-thirds of the recent unauthorized immigrant population entered the U.S. on valid visas, then stayed in the country after that visa expired.
This supposed “Fact” was provided to oppose the construction of the border wall, claiming that since so many aliens don’t run our borders, we don’t need to build the wall.
In reality, the actual number of illegal aliens in the United States is unknown. Therefore it is impossible to determine what percentage of illegal aliens entered the U.S. by evading the inspections process at ports of entry vs the number of aliens who violate their visas.
Recently Harvard and MIT conducted studies that showed that although it has been estimated by many organizations that there are about 11 million illegal aliens, the number, according to the university studies may be double that number or even higher.
For more information about this issue, check out my recent article: Twice As Many Illegal Aliens In US According To MIT.
Additionally, on February 8, 2019 ABC News reported: Border arrests up 85 percent over same period last year: US Customs and Border Protection.
In fact, on February 11th I participated in a discussion on Fox & Friends First about the latest statistics provided by CBP.
Fox News posted the video under the title, A new report reveals the problem at the border is only getting worse: Retired INS agent Michael Cutler weighs in on the crisis at the southern border.
No matter what the actual statistics are, given the huge number of illegal aliens present in the United States and the now routine onslaught of a human tsunami in the form of an endless succession of “caravans” of illegal aliens flowing northward from Central America to the United States, the percentage of illegal aliens who enter the U.S. without inspection is certainly great enough to be considered a true crisis that poses a threat to national security and public safety that must be effectively dealt with.
This brings us to the second question in the CBS News article, the actual number of illegal aliens who are present in the United States.
The sources quoted by CBS in response to this question were the Pew Research Center and the Migration Policy Institute. Both organizations have historically attempted to downplay the magnitude of the immigration crisis.
In point of fact, Doris Meissner, the Commissioner of the INS (Immigration and Naturalization Service) under the Clinton administration, joined the Migration Policy Institute about a year after it was formed as a senior fellow. Meissner, as INS commissioner, was responsible for implementing a massive naturalization program known as CUSA (Citizenship USA) that sought to naturalize as many new citizens as possible and resorted to shortcuts including approving applications for citizenship before fingerprint records were consolidated with the immigration files. Under CUSA approximately 1.1 million aliens were naturalized and because of the extreme shortcuts and threats of extreme discipline against INS District Directors if quotas were not met, concerned employees of the INS contacted the Office of the Inspector General.
The eye-opening OIG report about the allegations of malfeasance of this program was published and is well worth reading.
INS Commissioner Meissner had an adversarial relationship with the special agents of the INS and was hostile towards immigration law enforcement justice.
On May 4, 1999 the House Immigration Subcommittee conducted a hearing on the Designations Of Temporary Protected Status And Fraud In Prior Amnesty Programs.
John F. Shaw, the former Assistant Commissioner for Investigations, Immigration and Naturalization Service, testified at that hearing. His testimony about his frustrations with Doris Meissner provides insight into her hostility to immigration law enforcement.
Here is an excerpt from his testimony:
In its determined efforts to establish control of the border by tightening security on the perimeter, Congress has seemingly ignored the critical, complementary roles and responsibilities of Interior Enforcement . . . and these fall mainly on the shoulders of Investigations.I believe that the concept of Interior Enforcement, supported by a well articulated strategy document, ought to be as familiar in the nomenclature of immigration enforcement as the concept, or term, Border Control. Although, I must admit that even in-house at INS, the Commissioner has said that Interior Enforcement is a term of usage invented by Investigations and devoid of meaning.
The CBS article also made much of how the majority of drugs are seized at ports of entry and therefore more needs to be done to prevent smuggling through ports of entry and not be concerned about the amount of drugs that are smuggled across the border between ports of entry.
The fact is that we don’t know what we don’t know. Obviously, DEA has no way of knowing the total amount of narcotics that is successfully smuggled between ports of entry. There is no shortage of heroin in the United States and therefore with all of the seizures made by CBP at ports of entry, huge quantities are still getting into the U.S. Clearly open borders must be considered as a serious threat to the integrity of our efforts to interdict smuggled drugs as well as smuggled aliens.
The article additionally asks the absurd question, “Is asylum a form of illegal immigration?”
The article then provides the assertion:
Fact: No. "If you are eligible for asylum you may be permitted to remain in the United States.” Source: U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS)
Of course, while filing for any immigration benefit does not constitute “illegal immigration”, lying on such applications and therefore committing fraud is a felony.
The issue of asylum fraud was, in fact, the focus of a November 21, 2013 Washington Times news report, “Mexican drug cartels exploit asylum system by claiming ‘credible fear.’”
That article was predicated on two House Judiciary Committee hearings: Asylum Abuse: Is it Overwhelming our Borders? and Asylum Fraud: Abusing America’s Compassion?
The CBS article ignored that the majority of applications filed by aliens from Central America are denied and that immigration fraud was a key concern of the 9/11 Commission. That was the predication for my article, Immigration Fraud: Lies That Kill-9/11 Commission identified immigration fraud as a key embedding tactic of terrorists.
The CBS article claimed that the majority of aliens who applied for asylum attended their hearings. They did not, however, divulge how many aliens whose applications were denied subsequently absconded and failed to depart from the United States.
The CBS article also asked (and answered):
Do illegal immigrants commit more violent crimes than legal residents?Fact: Studies say that undocumented immigrants are less likely to commit violent crimes than American-born citizens.Source: The Cato Institute and The University of Wisconsin.
My article, Illegal Immigration And Crime: The stunning numbers the Left cannot refute includes this excerpt:
President Trump’s Executive Order on Enhancing Public Safety in the Interior of the United States requires the Department of Justice (DOJ) and the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) to collect relevant data and provide quarterly reports on data collection efforts. On Dec. 18, 2017, DOJ and DHS released the FY 2017 4th Quarter Alien Incarceration Report, complying with this order. The report found that more than one-in-five of all persons in Bureau of Prisons custody were foreign born, and that 94 percent of confirmed aliens in custody were unlawfully present.
Here is an excerpt from the press release that provides some quick statistics and a paragraph that addresses the lack of information about aliens in city and state facilities.
A total of 58,766 known or suspected aliens were in DOJ custody at the end of FY 2017, including 39,455 persons in BOP custody and 19,311 in USMS custody. Of this total, 37,557 people had been confirmed by U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) to be aliens (i.e., non-citizens and non-nationals), while 21,209 foreign-born people were still under investigation by ICE to determine alienage and/or removability.Among the 37,557 confirmed aliens, 35,334 people (94 percent) were unlawfully present. These numbers include a 92 percent unlawful rate among 24,476 confirmed aliens in BOP custody and a 97 percent unlawful rate among 13,081 confirmed aliens in USMS custodyThis report does not include data on the foreign-born or alien populations in state prisons and local jails because state and local facilities do not routinely provide DHS or DOJ with comprehensive information about their inmates and detainees—which account for approximately 90 percent of the total U.S. incarcerated population.
The rest of the material in the CBS News article can be similarly discredited, proving that, as John Adams famously observed, “Facts are stubborn things.”
Wealth concentration increases in US and globally
The latest research on wealth inequality by University of California economics professor Gabriel Zucman underscores one of the key social and economic trends since the global financial crisis of 2008. Those at the very top of society, who benefited directly from the orgy of speculation that led to the crash, have seen their wealth accumulate at an even faster rate, while the mass of the population has suffered a major decline.
This trend is most apparent in the United States but is revealed in the data for other countries included in research published by Zucman last month. According to his analysis, the top 1 percent in the US now owns about 40 percent of total household wealth, increasing its share by at least 10 percentage points since 1989. Over the same period “the share of wealth owned by the bottom 90 percent has collapsed in similar proportions.”
The acceleration is even more marked in the highest income levels. The share of wealth owned by the top 0.00025 percent (roughly the 400 richest Americans, according to Forbes Magazine data), rose from 1 percent in the early 1980s to over 3 percent in recent years. A similar tripling of wealth is seen in the top 0.01 percent.
The trend is reflected globally. The proportion of wealth held by the top 1 percent in China, Europe and the US combined has increased from 28 percent in 1980 to around 33 percent today.
As documented in previous studies by Zucman, Thomas Piketty and Emmanuel Saez, wealth concentration in the US has followed a U-shape during the past century. The share of the top 0.1 percent peaked at close to 25 percent in 1929, fell sharply with the onset of the Great Depression in the 1930s and continued to decline into the late 1940s, then stabilised in the 1950s and 1960s. It reached its lowest point in the 1970s, before rising to close to 20 percent in recent years to “levels last seen in the Roaring Twenties.”
This pattern follows the broad curve of economic developments and the class struggle. The 1930s fall in wealth concentration was the outcome of both the financial crisis and the impact of the New Deal measures introduced by President Franklin Roosevelt in order, as he acknowledged, to avert social revolution in the US.
During the 1950s and 1960s and the development of the post-war economic boom, when it was said that a “rising tide lifts all boats,” wealth concentration remained relatively stable. The ongoing increase in wealth concentration since the 1980s is the outcome of two interconnected factors: the rise of financialisation in the US economy, and consequent changes in the accumulation of profit, coupled with the decades-long organised suppression of the class struggle by the trade union bureaucracy.
One of the indicators of the role of finance in boosting the wealth of the ultra-wealthy is that in 1980 the top 0.01 of interest earners had 2.6 percent of all taxable interest, whereas by 2012 this had increased ten-fold to 27.3 percent.
Zucman’s paper details the increase in global wealth inequality. In the US, China and Europe combined, the top 10 percent owns more than 70 percent of the total wealth, the bottom 50 percent less than 2 percent and the middle 40 percent less than 30 percent.
The higher up the income scale, the faster the rate of wealth accumulation. In the US, Europe and China, from 1987 to 2017 the average wealth of the top 1 percent rose by 3.5 percent per year, the top 0.1 percent by 4.4 percent per year, and the top 0.01 percent by 5.6 percent per year.
The trend has been most marked in Russia, following the privatisation of state assets as a result of the dissolution of the Soviet Union by the Stalinist regime. “In Russia, wealth concentration boomed after the transition to capitalism, and inequality appears to be extremely high, on a par or even higher than in the United States,” the report notes.
A parallel development can be seen in the restoration of capitalism in China. In both countries “the available evidence suggests a high increase in wealth inequality over the last two decades.” The top 1 percent wealth share has almost doubled, rising in China from just over 15 percent in 1995 to 30 percent in 2015 and in Russia from below 22 percent to around 43 percent.
Zucman notes that as wealth inequality increases, it is becoming more difficult to measure, because of the development of a “large offshore wealth management industry” that makes some forms of wealth, particularly financial portfolios, harder to track.
The problem is revealed in the widely varying estimates of how much wealth is held offshore. Zucman has calculated that 8 percent of the world’s individual wealth—the equivalent of 10 percent of global gross domestic product or $5.6 trillion—was held offshore on the eve of the global financial crisis in 2007. He cites other analyses that put the figure much higher. According to one study, the global rich held around $12 trillion of the wealth in tax havens in 2007, with another putting the figure at between $21 and $32 trillion.
This means that the existing studies on wealth concentration, which Zucman and others have carried out using self-reported survey and tax return data, are inadequate to grasp its real extent.
“Because the wealthy have access to many opportunities for tax avoidance and tax evasion— and because the available evidence suggests that the tax planning industry has grown since the 1980s as it became globalized—traditional data sources may underestimate inequality,” Zucman states.
Zucman is well aware of the political consequences of the rise in social inequality that he and others have documented. He notes that “for the rich, wealth begets power” and wealth concentration “may help explain the lack of redistributive responses to the rise of inequality observed since the 1980s.”
Zucman’s latest findings will no doubt be used by Democratic presidential hopefuls such as Elizabeth Warren and the newly-elected Democratic Socialists of America Congress member Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez as they seek to give the Democratic Party a “left” face by calling for increased taxes on the wealthy.
But the data produced by Zucman and others refute the assertion that social inequality can or will be rectified by legislative changes. This is because the concentration of wealth—though aided and abetted by successive administrations, both Democrat and Republican—in the final analysis is rooted in vast changes in the very structure of American and global capitalism, arising from its deepening historical crisis.
In other words, it is the outcome of a process of capital accumulation, based on financialisation, that has institutionalised the siphoning of wealth up the income scale.
This cannot be overcome through appeals to the financial oligarchy to change course but only by a frontal assault against its rule, that is, the development of a mass struggle for socialism by the American and international working class. The conditions for this fight are emerging as a result of the resurgence of the class struggle being driven forward by the consequences of deepening social inequality. The aim of Warren, Ocasio-Cortez et al, is try to divert this movement and bring it under the wing of the Democratic Party.
“Our entire crony capitalist system, Democrat and Republican alike, has become a kleptocracy approaching par with third-world hell-holes. This is the way a great country is raided by its elite.” ---- Karen McQuillan AMERICAN THINKER
WHO BUT THE RICH WANT AMNESTY and WIDER OPEN BORDERS?
Well, the Globalist Democrat Party, Mexico, the U.S. Chamber of Commerce and employers of illegals!
"Johnson tried to push the 213 “Gang of Eight” amnesty through the House during 2014. If it had passed, the amnesty would have shifted more wealth from ordinary Americans to investors, according to the Congressional Budget Office."
The cheap labor policy widens wealth gaps, reduces high tech investment, increases state and local tax burdens, hurts kids’ schools and college education, pushes Americans away from high tech careers, and sidelines at least five million marginalized Americans and their families, including many who are now struggling with fentanyl addictions.
WALL STREET PLUNDERS FOR WIDER OPEN BORDERS FOR CHEAPER LABOR… Both parties are complicit partners in this crime that has destroyed the American middle-class.
The establishment’s economic policy of using legal and illegal migration to boost economic growth shifts enormous wealth from young employees towards older investors by flooding the market with cheap white collar and blue collar foreign labor.
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That annual flood of roughly one million legal immigrants — as well as visa workers and illegal immigrants — spikes profits and Wall Street values by shrinking salaries for 150 million blue-collar and white-collar employees and especially wages for the four million young Americans who join the labor force each year.
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The cheap labor policy widens wealth gaps, reduces high tech investment, increases state and local tax burdens, hurts kids’ schools and college education, pushes Americans away from high tech careers, and sidelines millions of marginalized Americans, including many who are now struggling with fentanyl addictions.
Tech Elites, Donor Class Unite with GOP/Dems to Outsource White-Collar American Jobs
Silicon Valley’s business elites and donor-class billionaires are uniting with elected Republicans and Democrats to ensure that white-collar, middle-class American jobs are swiftly outsourced to mostly Indian and Chinese nationals.
A plan known as the Fairness for High-Skilled Immigrants Act, introduced in the Senate by Sens. Mike Lee (R-UT) and Kamala Harris (D-CA), as well as Reps. Zoe Lofgren (D-CA) and Ken Buck (R-CO), would eliminate the U.S. country caps in the legal immigration system and would fast-track outsourcing of white-collar American jobs to mostly Indian and Chinese nationals imported to the country by businesses, outsourcing firms, and multinational corporations.
The country caps were originally implemented to prevent any one country from monopolizing the legal immigration system. Eliminating the country caps would immediately fast-track up to 300,000 green cards, and eventually American citizenship, to primarily Indian nationals in the U.S. on the H-1B visa, so long as they agree to take high-paying, white-collar jobs from Americans.
In the process, not only would other foreign workers be crowded out from receiving employment-based green cards, but the elimination of the country caps would fast-track the outsourcing of high-paying American jobs that would otherwise go to U.S. graduates.
The plan is garnering support from Silicon Valley tech executives like Google’s Sundar Pichai and Microsoft executives to donor-class heavyweights like Amazon’s Jeff Bezos, the U.S. Chamber of Commerce, and the billionaire GOP mega-donor Koch brothers.
Amazon executives went as far as to post online their gratitude to Lee and Harris for introducing the white-collar outsourcing plan.
On Lee’s Senate website, he touted the support that the plan has from across the political spectrum, ranging from pro-outsourcing outfits like the Information Technology Industry Council to open-borders organizations like UnidosUS, formerly known as La Raza.
In 2017, when identical legislation was introduced, outsourcing firms like Cognizant — which is responsible for outsourcing thousands of American jobs to foreign workers — lobbied lawmakers to support the plan. Other multinational corporations like IBM, Oracle, Cisco, Intel, and Hewlett-Packard lobbied Congress to pass the legislation.
The Senate co-sponsors of the plan include a coalition of Republicans and Democrats:
- Sen. Roy Blunt (R-MO)
- Sen. Susan Collins (R-ME)
- Sen. Jim Moran (R-KS)
- Sen. Tom Carper (D-DE)
- Sen. Ron Wyden (D-OR)
- Sen. Maria Cantwell (D-WA)
- Sen. Cory Gardner (R-CO)
- Sen. Tom Cotton (R-AR)
- Sen. Tammy Baldwin (D-WI)
- Sen. Jeff Merkley (D-OR)
- Sen. Michael Bennet (D-CO)
- Sen. Kevin Cramer (R-ND)
- Sen. Krysten Sinema (D-AZ)
The plan is a boon to Silicon Valley billionaires, big business elites, and outsourcing firms, as it would enable them to readily import more lower-paid Indian and Chinese foreign workers to take American jobs, which would have otherwise gone to American citizens.
Last year, when a coalition of Republicans and Democrats attempted to pass the legislation, the pro-American, anti-outsourcing group U.S. Tech Workers said the plan would be “the most radical change to our immigration system in history.”
“Just as Indian outsourcing companies and a handful of big US tech companies have gamed the H1B visa system, so too are they now seeking to game the US green card distribution process, and smaller American startups are shut out of the process, unable to access work visas or green cards for potential employees … ” Marie Larson with U.S. Tech Workers wrote.
The Center for Immigration Studies Director of Policy Jessica Vaughan has explained in detail the impact of eliminating country caps in the U.S. legal immigration system:
Experts have said that should the country caps be eliminated, India would be able to monopolize the country’s legal immigration system for the next ten years. After that decade of an Indian-first legal immigration system, the legal immigration flow from India to the U.S. would likely stabilize to make up around 75 percent of all employment-based legal immigration.
Overall, four million young Americans enter the workforce every year, but their job opportunities are further diminished as there are roughly two new foreign workers for every four American workers who enter the workforce. These foreign workers are imported by businesses through visa programs like the H-1B, L-1, OPT, O-1, and J-1 visas, among others, to replace Americans in the workforce.
John Binder is a reporter for Breitbart News. Follow him on Twitter at @JxhnBinder.
Howard Schultz: Instead of Building a Wall, We Should Build Bridges to Allow Immigrants In
2:16
Tuesday during a CNN town hall broadcast, former Starbucks CEO Howard Schultz rejected the notion that the United States should build “walls,” adding that the country “should be building bridges and allow people in.”
Schultz said, “The question about immigration today, for me, is not a question about the wall, it’s not a question about ICE, it’s not even a question about the DREAMers and the 11 to 12 million people who are here unauthorized. It’s a question about humanity. Now, this is a perfect example of why I am here tonight. The vast majority of American people, and I’m talking about 75 percent or so, have been longing for, asking, and demanding an immigration bill that is sensible and that we pass. The Republicans on the far right want to do everything that they can, which I agree, in terms of securing the borders. That’s the right thing to do. The Democrats want to abolish ICE, more or less. The Republicans have put people, children, in cages and stripped mothers from babies. That is not humane. The DREAMers, in my view, in terms of the humanity of the country, should be allowed a pathway to citizenship. And the 11 million to 12 million unauthorized people who are here should get in line in a fair way, pay their back taxes, pay a fee, and bring them in.”
He added, “But the question of humanity is this; everyone in this room, 95 percent of all of us here, are here because our ancestors have come here as immigrants. We are a country of immigrants. The United States of America should not be building walls. We should be building bridges and allow people in. It is the foundation of our society. But we also should do everything we can, at the border, to secure the borders with the best technology available, which we have in this country, and not allow bad people in. But the politics on both sides, the far right and the far left, have used this as a weapon to politicize the situation. When the vast majority of all of Americans want an immigration bill that is sensible.”
Follow Pam Key on Twitter @pamkeyNEN
The plan is a boon to Silicon Valley billionaires, big business elites, and outsourcing firms, as they would be able to readily import more lower-paid Indian and Chinese foreign workers to take American jobs that would have otherwise gone to American citizens.
Billionaire Kochs Back GOP/Dem Plan to Outsource Middle Class American Jobs
4:45
The pro-mass immigration Koch brothers’ network of billionaire, donor class organizations is backing a Republican-Democrat coalition that would allow for the swift outsourcing of middle-class American jobs to mostly Indian nationals.
A plan known as the Fairness for High-Skilled Immigrants Act introduced in the Senate by Sen. Mike Lee (R-UT) and Sen. Kamala Harris (D-CA), as well as Rep. Zoe Lofgren (D-CA) and Rep. Ken Buck (R-CO), would eliminate the U.S. country caps in the legal immigration system that would fast track outsourcing of white-collar American jobs to mostly Indian and Chinese nationals imported to the country by businesses, outsourcing firms, and multinational corporations.
The country caps were originally implemented to prevent any one country from monopolizing the legal immigration system. Eliminating the country caps would immediately fast track up to 300,000 green cards, and eventually American citizenship, to primarily Indian nationals in the U.S. on the H-1B visa, so long as they agree to take high-paying white-collar jobs from Americans.
In the process, not only would other foreign workers be crowded out from receiving employment-based green cards, but the elimination of the country caps would fast track the outsourcing of high-paying American jobs that would otherwise go to U.S. graduates.
The Kochs’ Libre Initiative organization has announced their support for the mass middle-class outsourcing scheme, with the group’s president Daniel Garza saying in a statement:
We thank Senators Lee and Harris, as well as Representatives Lofgren and Buck, for introducing this commonsense, bipartisan legislation to eliminate an unfair policy that favors high-skilled workers from one nation over another. According to a recent estimate, workers from some countries will have to wait more than 150 years to obtain a green card, while others face no wait at all. This unfair system makes no sense, which is why there is such broad support in both the House and Senate to eliminate it. [Emphasis added]This is a good step towards positive reform of our immigration laws. Congress should consider bills like this, which will help deliver a more transparent, efficient, and navigable system that welcomes immigrants who will contribute to this country. We hope leaders will move promptly to debate and pass this worthwhile legislation. [Emphasis added]
There has been an enormous effort by Republicans and Democrats — including Sen. Kevin Cramer (R-ND), Sen. Tom Cotton (R-AR), Sen. Rob Portman (R-OH), Sen. Corey Gardner (R-CO) — to ram the plan through Congress with huge donor class support.
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