Give me your tired, your poor, your braceros

Having passed some of the harshest anti-immigrant legislation in the nation, Arizona legislators, faced with a mass exodus of essential workers and pressure from business interests, are talking about reversing their previous stance and now want to actively recruit immigrant workers to the state. But of course with some conditions …

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They want a guest worker program, limited to agricultural workers that "doesn't lead to citizenship, doesn't lead to permanent status, can't bring family with you, can't come here and have your babies, can't come here and be a burden on the taxpayer, come here, work, earn your wages, pay your taxes and go home when it's done" … Essentially, a return to a bracero style program of the past.

This, despite overwhelming evidence that current guest worker programs are a dismal failure, supplying nothing but misery for their participants while assuring profits for what become in essence government sanctioned plantations.

The failures of current guest worker programs are numerous and systemic as evidenced by this testimony by Mary Bauer, Director of the Immigration Justice Program at the Southern Poverty Law Center before the House Education and Labor Committee.

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But these abuses have not been limited to just agricultural workers or those from Mexico or South/Central America. Importation of modern day indentured servants has become a global industry.

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The answer to our failed immigration system is not to perpetuate and expand on failed policies, or return to exploitive and discriminatory practices of the past. Allowing workers to be treated as commodities, to be traded across borders at will to the lowest bidder, is no substitute for true reform of the system.

Anti-immigrant advocates like Russell Pearce, having had their plans blow in their face, now look for alternatives to prevent the severe economic consequences of their actions.

But allowing them to codify indentured servitude to placate angry business interests is not the answer. As they finally come to terms with the economic reality that immigrant workers are the backbone of their economy, let them now come to terms with the ramifications of that fact … the only answer is to reform the immigration system to respect and protect the human rights and dignity of all people. Anything less would be nothing more than a return to braceros.

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Immigration Reform: Shame on all of us for we have failed

Twenty-one years ago, at the height of his political power, Ronald Reagan moved through Congress the Immigration Reform and Control Act of 1986. It granted amnesty to the roughly 3mil undocumented immigrants and promised increased border security and stricter enforcement of employer sanctions. We now know that that law was not only highly flawed, but set the stage for today's current immigration debate.

Today as the Senate prepares to vote on the current immigration reform bill, we are once again at a crossroads. …and once again we are about to take a path that will most assuredly lead to problems of even greater scope and scale than were ever caused by IRCA.

But before going into detail as to how great a mistake we are about to make, we need take to look at just how we got to this place


The rumblings about immigration began long before the 2004 Presidential race. Prior to being thrust into reality by the events of September 2001, a newly elected President Bush had made "immigration reform", in the form of a greatly increased guest worker program, a cornerstone of his new administration's policy agenda.

Back-burnered by world events, the issue lay dormant for a few years as a growing current of anti-immigrant sentiment grew in the right-wing of the President's party. Shortly after salvaging the 2004 election with a combination of wedge issues and personal attacks, the Republicans went looking for a new wedge to divide the Democrats and bring out the party faithful. Newly appointed Democratic Chairman, Howard Dean, warned at that time that immigration would be the next great wedge.

With a highly unpopular war, record federal and trade deficits, wage stagnation, a growing health care crisis, and an under-funded and failing education system, only a wedge issue of epic proportions could save the Republicans from sure defeat in the next election cycle.

And so the "immigration crisis" was born.

To the Democrat's delight the wedge has blown up in the Republican's face and divided the party as never before. Exposing the fragility of the coalition first put together by Nixon's Southern Strategy and honed by Reagan with the inclusion of the Christian Right and Reagan Democrats, the immigration issue, fueled by nativist xenophobia on one side and corporate greed on the other, has cleaved the party down the middle.

But in so doing, it has now left the nation equally divided and put us in a position where one of the worst pieces of legislation ever written is about to leave the Senate.

But now it is no longer solely a Republican problem. Democrats, through their inability or unwillingness to stick to the liberal and progressive ideals on which the modern party was built, are now equally culpable in enacting legislation that will manage to not only virtually enslave millions of current and future immigrants in a system of second-class citizenry, but also attacks the very working Americans who have long been the backbone of the party.

The greatest failure of the Reagan legislation, contrary to popular opinion, was not its lack of enforcement and employer oversight, or an amnesty that sent a message of permissiveness to a world anxious to take advantage of our perceived weakness.

In the years following the legislation there was no great rush to the border by all those "waiting for the next amnesty." In fact, the numbers of undocumented immigrants remained stable at around 3.5 mil for nearly ten years, until the mid-nineties, when border crossing soared.

The same is true of border enforcement. In the 21 years since the bill was enacted the number of border patrol agents has increased from 3,243 in 1986 to 11, 106 today. Spending on border security has gone from $700 mil to $2,792 mil.

Additionally with the enactment of the Illegal Immigration Reform and Immigrant Responsibility Act of 1996 hundreds of miles of border walls and fences were built along the most heavily populated and traveled illegal entry routes, yet with all this added man-power and spending, the number of border apprehensions went down from 1,692,544 in 1986 to 1,188,977 currently, while the undocumented population soared to 12 mil.

This is because the true flaw in the Reagan legislation was that it never changed the fundamental dynamics of illegal immigration because in didn't make the needed and fundamental changes in the legal immigration system.

Reagan essentially asked for a "do-over" and got it without changing the rules of the game. There were no quota changes, no changes in the number green cards issued, no change in processing of paperwork, no changes in the path to citizenship for those qualified, no provisions made for any further immigration. Basically 3mil undocumented immigrants...many of them refugees from Reagan's Dirty Wars in Central America were made legal essentially over night ...then business was resumed as usual....without addressing why there were 3 mil undocumented immigrants here in the first place.

And we are about to repeat the same situation again. In fact, outside of the roughly 3mil green cards that will be used to alleviate the backlog that was caused by our current failed system...once it's been cleared up, there will be 200,000 less green cards available on a yearly basis then there are even today…. and we all know what that will lead to....in five years or ten...we'll be right back where we started.

Additionally, we will end up with 12 million people in the perpetual limbo of the Z visa system where they will pay continual fees to remain in legal status while never being able to convert to LPR status (green card holder) due to the constraints of a merit system intended to keep them on the margins of society while favoring the kind of high-skilled workers already stressing certain sectors of the native –born workforce through the various temporary worker programs already in place such as the H1-b visa program.

These perpetual Z workers will never become citizens, never fully join society, never have a voice in the political system, and never achieve the rights all workers deserve to organize and demand fair treatment due to the fact that their very ability to stay in the country will hinge upon their ability to remain employed. If they get fired …and are not re-employed within sixty days …they lose all rights and privileges. … no matter how long they've been here.

But, perhaps the most insidious aspect of this legislation is the new temporary worker program which will serve no purpose outside of supplying a perpetual supply of little more than indentured servants to a corporate system all too willing to exploit foreign workers to keep the wages of all workers artificially low.

These are only the most glaring faults of the legislation, but anyone whose read through it can attest to the hundreds of loopholes, infringements on basic rights and protections that will not only apply to immigrants but all US citizens, capitulations to business interests and lack of protections of workers both immigrant and native-born.

But who is to blame for this monstrosity?

It's easy to blame the politicians, the corporate boogiemen, the opposition party, DINOS, RINOS, the DLC, Bush, special interests, and lobbyists.

But the only ones we can really blame are ourselves. The liberals, the progressives, the left, the unions …. All of those who are supposed to be the conscience of the Democratic party.

WE had an opportunity, after twenty one years, to right a wrong, to fix a broken system, but instead we sat back either relishing the meltdown of the opposition party, or spent the time infighting.

As we have done so many times in the past, we have allowed our small differences to divide us. Those concerned with the human rights issues surrounding immigration reform fight with those advocating for H1-b visa reform. Those who favor guest worker programs as a path towards citizenship fight with those who oppose the plans on the grounds they are exploitive.

We have allowed those who first brought this issue to the forefront to frame the debate. We argue in the language of the Republican right and corporate wings. We argue in the language of Lou Dobbs, Tamar Jacoby, Tom Tancredo and George Bush. "Open Borders", "willing employers" "amnesty", "rule of law", "xenophobe" "anchor baby", "Mexican invasion", "English only", "Nation of immigrants", "Jobs Americans won't do"...this is how we have argued this debate….and shame on us for doing so.

These are their words … not ours. These terms were not part of the Democratic lexicon. They were spawned in the think tanks and PR firms of the Manhattan Institute and Frank Luntz.

We could have held firm to our values and beliefs as liberals and progressives.

• We could have focused on workers rights and workplace enforcement of labor laws.



• We could have focused on addressing the root causes of migration and demanded changes to trade agreements and foreign policy to guarantee a change of the conditions in sender nations.



• We could have worked to change the quota system to ensure that it reflected our true labor needs as opposed to those imposed by corporate interests.



• We could have demanded that all new immigrants were guaranteed the same worker protections and rights afforded all workers to end the exploitive practices that lower wages for all.



• We could have ended all the exploitive guest worker programs that lower standards for all workers.



• We could have fixed the legal immigration system so that it worked for all Americans and those wishing to become Americans.

But instead we dropped the ball. We allowed ourselves to lose sight of our core beliefs and got caught up in a Republican cat fight.

We could have led on this issue - instead we followed. And now we will reap what we have sown.

To those who sat back and watched the Republican melt-down in glee, I say shame on you.

To those who allowed themselves to be blinded by the faux populism of the Republican right, I say shame on you.

To those whose rigid adherence to humanitarian concerns allowed them to lose sight of the bigger picture, I say shame on you.

To liberals, progressives and Democrats, I say shame on us…shame on us all.

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AFL-CIO leader speaks out on immigration reform

AFL-CIO President, John J Sweeney spoke out Tuesday in the LA Times on immigration reform and proposals to initiate a new guest worker program. In a joint editorial with Pablo Alvarado, executive director of the National Day Laborer Organizing Network, Sweeney voiced his opposition to guest worker programs such as those favored by President Bush and instead believes that any immigrant admitted to work in the US should be put on an immediate track towards permanent residency or citizenship.

He went on to say that foreign workers should enjoy the same rights and protections as US workers, including the right to unionize and to collective bargaining. "Labor laws must protect all workers, regardless of immigration status. If we leave undocumented workers without any real way to enforce labor laws, as our laws do now, we are feeding employers' hunger for more and more exploitable workers, relegating them to second-class status. That hurts all workers."

Guest Workers: A Worn-Out Labor Idea
Such programs are bad for immigrants and hurt U.S. workers as well.
By John J. Sweeney and Pablo Alvarado

CORPORATE America has made an expanded guest worker program the cornerstone of its preferred brand of immigration reform, and no wonder: It will assure a steady flow of cheap labor from essentially indentured workers too afraid of being deported to protest substandard wages, chiseled benefits and unsafe working conditions.

Such a system will create a disenfranchised underclass of workers. That is not only morally indefensible, it is economically nonsensical. We've had plenty of bad experiences with such shortsighted answers to a complicated problem.

The notorious bracero program all but enslaved immigrant agricultural and railroad workers in the years after World War II. Today we have H-2A and H-2B visa programs to remind us that "temporary" immigration employment models rest on a faulty foundation.

The H-2 programs bring in agricultural and other seasonal workers to pick crops, do construction and work in the seafood industry, among other jobs. Workers typically borrow large amounts of money to pay travel expenses, fees and sometimes bribes to recruiters. That means that before they even begin to work, they are indebted. They leave their families at home, and they are essentially "bound" to employers who can send them home on a whim and who do not have to prove a need to hire them in the first place.

According to a new study published by the Southern Poverty Law Center, it is not unusual for a Guatemalan worker to pay more than $2,500 in fees to obtain a seasonal guest worker position, about a year's worth of income in Guatemala. And Thai workers have been known to pay as much as $10,000 for the chance to harvest crops in the orchards of the Pacific Northwest. Interest rates on the loans are sometimes as high as 20% a month. Homes and vehicles are required collateral. Handcuffed by their debt, the "guests" are forced to remain and work for employers even when their pay and working conditions are second-rate, hazardous or abusive. Hungry children inevitably checkmate protest.

Technically, these programs include some legal protections, but in reality, those protections exist mostly on paper. Government enforcement is almost nonexistent. Private attorneys refuse to take cases. And guest workers, especially the poorest, the least educated and those with the least English, end up with no choice but to put their heads down and toil, innocently undermining employment standards for all U.S. workers in the process.

This doesn't mean that there is no solution to the immigration crisis or no good way to deal with workers and families who will want to come — and who we will need to come — to the United States to work.

In 1997, the U.S. Commission on Immigration Reform validated our belief that a "properly regulated system of permanent admissions serves the national interest" and warned that another temporary-worker program would be a "grievous mistake." This means that everyone who is admitted to work must immediately be on a track toward permanent residency or citizenship.

Yes, employers who can prove that they tried and failed to find U.S. workers should be able to hire foreign workers. But no, they shouldn't be able to bring them in under abusive conditions that have a negative effect on the wages and working conditions of other workers.

Yes, we should have caps set to limit the number of employment-based visas issued each year. But no, they should not be determined, as the H-2 quotas are now, by political compromise or industry lobbying. The number of employment-based visas should be set each year by the Department of Labor based on macro-economic indicators that establish the needs of particular industries.

Employers should not be allowed to recruit abroad, a practice that invites bribes, exorbitant fees and potential abuse. Instead, employers should be required to hire from applications filed by workers in their home countries through a computerized job bank.

Foreign workers should enjoy the same rights and protections as U.S. workers, including freedom to form unions and bargain for a better life. Labor laws must protect all workers, regardless of immigration status. If we leave undocumented workers without any real way to enforce labor laws, as our laws do now, we are feeding employers' hunger for more and more exploitable workers, relegating them to second-class status. That hurts all workers.

Scholars have long recognized that the genius of U.S. immigration policy throughout our history has been the opportunity afforded to immigrants for full membership in society. That is the solid foundation on which a morally and economically sound policy can be built, and it is the foundation we are working together to build.
LA Times

Related:
AFL-CIO Blog


tags: immigration, AFO-CIO , John J Sweeney, Guest worker

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More evidence of dysfunctional immigration policy

While most Americans spent this past weekend relaxing and enjoying the first days of spring, in the personnel offices of Microsoft, and Infosys and in countless immigration attorney's offices across the country, the yearly frenzy of the H-1b work-visa filing deadline was fast approaching. Many, like San Francisco attorney Gali Schaham Gordon, spent Saturday putting the final touches on the up to 50 pages of forms sometimes required for each applicant.

By the end of the Monday deadline, representatives of the USCIS said the agency had received a record 150,000 applications for the 65,000 visas available for the 2008 federal fiscal year.

Since the yearly cap was hit in one day, immigration officials announced they would accept all the applications filed Monday and Tuesday and place them in a computer-generated lottery to determine who will receive the visas, which are reserved for architects, engineers, computer programmers and other high -skilled workers.

The visa program, which claims to insure that the "best and brightest" from around the world have an opportunity to work in America and eventually become citizens, was reduced in less than 24 hours to a random lottery.

Herein lies an example of the underlying dysfunctional nature of the current immigration system.

Programs, which at face value look totally rational and in fact beneficial, turn out, due to incompetence, abuse, and a lack of true regulation and oversight, to be ineffectual to the point of being detrimental to both the immigrants and the American people.

Started in 1990, the H1b visa program was supposed to allow those with special skills, higher education, and technical expertise to enter the country legally to work and eventually receive permanent residency and citizenship. It was touted as the best way to assure that a future Einstein would not be turned away at the border. This is particularly true in the case of those foreign students who make up half of the graduates of US universities with degrees in engineering and mathematics.

But what has happened in the years since it's inception has nearly insured that the truly "best and brightest" would in fact be turned away, or at best be placed in an immigration limbo of endless paperwork, long waits and lotteries. Utilizing a first-come first-served system to issue the visas, last years quota ran out in eight weeks… this year…it took less than a day.

In the meantime, an ever increasing number of corporations use the program, and it's lack regulation and oversight, to pad their workforce with temporary workers earning lower wages with little or no legal recourse. Despite claims of portability and competitive wages, many H-1b holders are locked into jobs that pay below market standards with little chance of mobility to find other employment. They are in essence "owed" by those who sponsor them since changing employers forces those trying to get green cards to start the whole process over again with a new sponsor, a process that can take years of paperwork and bureaucratic red tape.

Yet some businesses love the program. Bill Gates regularly makes pilgrimages to Washington to lobby for increased guest-workers for Microsoft even though about one-third of his 46,000 U.S.-based employees have work visas or are former H1b holders who are now legal permanent residents with green cards, according to company spokeswoman Ginny Terzano. Other tech companies are estimated to use guest workers to fill nearly half their employment needs. Since both the H-1b visas, and the employment based green cards that result from them, are limited each year by quotas, the companies that over-utilize them in effect hold a monopoly over the immigration system.

Surely the intent of the program was not to concentrate larger and larger numbers of temporary workers in an ever-decreasing pool of employers. We have no idea yet how many of the 150,000 applications that flooded the USCIS offices on Monday came from Infosys Technologies, Microsoft and Deloitte & Touche, three of the largest users of H-1Bs according to the Department of Labor's office of foreign labor certification, but it's safe to assume they were once again well represented.

Besides the inherent inequity in the program for the immigrants who rely on H-1b visas to live and work in the country, opponents of the program claim that abuses of the system have allowed corporate sponsors to eliminate older, high-paid US workers to be replaced by cheaper foreign labor. Similarly, smaller US companies see the program as not meeting their needs due to its inefficient implementation.

The current H1-B quota is 65,000, but a series of exemptions make that a soft number. In 2005, the most recent year for which data are available, the U.S. approved 116,927 H1-B visas.

By law, such temporary work permits are normally issued to persons who hold at least a bachelor's degree. Government data show roughly half of people holding H1-Bs meet that minimum. The other half have master's degrees or better, although high school dropouts with vital experience can qualify -- which happened in 2003 when 117 fashion models won H1-B visas.

H1-B work permits run on a fiscal year that begins Oct. 1. Immigration officials say Monday is the soonest they'll accept applications, and employers fear that if they don't file their applications as soon as possible, this first-come, first- served system will exhaust its quota quickly.

…snip…

A similar rush last year forced Seth Sternberg, chief executive of Meebo, to delay some hiring plans. Meebo, a Mountain View developer of a Web site for instant messaging from anywhere, had hoped to add two foreign programmers to its 15-person staff last year. On May 27, the startup filed the paperwork to hire the two people, one from the United Kingdom and the other from Italy. But it turned out that last year's quota had been exhausted the day before Meebo's requests arrived.

"We'll have those applications ready to go day one," Sternberg said last week. He plans to resubmit the visa requests to hire those two same code warriors starting this October

Such frustrations have made an overhaul of the H1-B system a top priority of high-tech leaders.
…snip…

But H1-B critics -- led by older American-born programmers and their academic allies -- say even if U.S. high-tech firms need employees from overseas to stay competitive, the program is flawed in a way that leads to the loss of jobs through outsourcing.

…snip…

… those opposed to lifting the H1-B cap say the present program gives employers all the tools they need to absorb the highly skilled foreign graduates that tech officials talk about, and complain -- with justification -- that the so-called cap of 65,000 is a fiction.

A November report from U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services puts the basic quota of H1-Bs at 65,000. But the law also says the first 20,000 H1-B applications filed for any masters' degree candidate or higher do not count against that quota. So that gets the number to 85,000. The report adds that "petitions for new H1-B employment are exempt" for foreigners hired to work at universities, nonprofit research institutions or governmental laboratories, and that would push the cap above 85,000.

According to the report, the United States approved 103,584 H1-B visas in fiscal year 2002; 105,314 in 2003; 130,497 in 2004; and 116, 927 in 2005.

"It sure looks like they're issuing a hell of a lot more visas than they ought to be," said John Miano, an attorney and H1-B critic from New Jersey.

If hiring the best and brightest is the goal, Miano said, the data show that the current program misses the mark because it awards most H1-B visas to people with bachelor's degrees (45 percent in the most recent year, down from 49 percent the prior year) who come from low-wage countries (India tops at 44.4 percent, China second at 9.2 percent).

Sacramento software engineer Kim Berry, president of the Programmers Guild -- which he describes as "disproportionately over age 40 and disproportionately underemployed" -- said it's tough for U.S. tech workers to see jobs going to H1-Bs.

San Francisco Chronicle

The recently introduced "Security Through Regularized Immigration and a Vibrant Economy (STRIVE) Act", the House bill, sponsored by Reps. Luis V. Gutierrez (D-Ill.) and Jeff Flake (R-Ariz.), includes a provision to lift the cap on H-1b visas to 115,000 as part of a comprehensive overhaul of immigration law. But without any real improvements in regulation and enforcement of the program, the STRIVE Act as currently written would only exacerbate an already bad situation.

Both the H-1b program and its companion, the H-2A agricultural guest worker program, have thus far been dismal failures. The same should be expected of the proposed H-2C guest worker program that would allow for 400,000 unskilled and non-specialty workers to enter the country.

The fatal flaw in all these temporary work programs is a glaring lack of regulation, government oversight, enforcement of labor laws and safety regulations, accountability and administration. Thus far the programs already instituted have been abused and misused by employers to the detriment of both immigrant and US workers.

On Monday, as USCIS sorted through an avalanche of H-1b applications, in Washington, Senators Richard Durbin and Chuck Grassley introduced the "H-1B and L -1 Visa Fraud and Abuse Prevention Act of 2007", a bipartisan effort to address the problems of the guest worker program.

The 32-page Senate bill would impose a host of additional obligations on employers. They would be required to pledge that they made a "good faith" effort to hire an American before taking on an H-1B worker and that the foreigner was not displacing a prospective U.S. worker.

Employers would also have to advertise job openings for 30 days on the Department of Labor's Web site before making H-1B visa applications, and they would be prohibited from advertising positions only to H-1B holders.

In addition, companies with 50 or more workers would not be allowed to employ more than half of their staff through H-1B visas.

In an attempt to discourage employers from hiring foreigners at lower wages than their American counterparts would command, employers would have to pay all H-1B workers the "prevailing wage," as calculated by a different method that raises the minimum to a higher level than it currently stands.

The proposal also aims to beef up the Department of Labor's authority to investigate abuses, giving the department the power to conduct random audits on employers, to review applications for "clear indicators of fraud," and to hire 200 additional employees to administer, oversee and enforce the H-1B program.

Grassley described the bill as aimed at "closing loopholes that employers have exploited by requiring them to be more transparent about their hiring and...ensuring more oversight of these visa programs to reduce fraud and abuse."
Cnet.com

Although a step in the right direction, Senators Durbin and Grassley's proposal still falls short of the kind of real protections needed if any guest worker program is to work. Its worker protections, requirements to qualify for guest workers, and protections of US workers still leave much to be desired.

If in fact we must accept the idea that immigrant workers must be "tried out" on a temporary basis before they are allowed to join the workforce permanently in order to put together a political coalition willing to address immigration reform in any meaningful way, then we must demand that it be done correctly. The protections afforded by the Durbin bill are a good starting point…but far more needs to be done.

Enforcement of ALL labor laws MUST go beyond 200 inspectors looking for guest worker violations.

Any company applying for as little as one guest worker should be required to meet and/or exceed all labor, occupation safety, and workplace regulations.

Just as many businesses must have yearly licensing and inspections by agencies such as the health department or other regulatory bodies, any business employing guest workers should be required to undergo periodic inspection and licensing by the DOL, OSHA, and all other pertinent labor regulatory agencies in order to continue utilizing the program. Those who do not comply should not only face the penalties already in place for workplace violations but have additional harsh penalties placed upon them in regards to guest worker abuse.

Enforcement of labor standards must be the cornerstone on which any sort of guest worker program is accepted.

If we must accept compromises in order to intact meaningful immigration reform, then those compromises must be made by ALL concerned. To ask workers, both immigrant and native-born to accept guest worker programs without true oversight and regulation, while business is allowed to continue as usual should be deemed unacceptable.

If in fact, businesses need these workers on a temporary basis to fill labor needs as they claim, they should be more than willing to assure that they are doing so within the guidelines of new tough, but fair, regulation. If they oppose such regulation and oversight it can only be because they wish to exploit both US and immigrant workers. … It's as simple as that.

Related:
Demand for H-1B visas exceeds limit, San Jose Mercury News

U.S. reaches 2008 cap for skilled-worker visa petitions in single day, Seattle Times

U.S. Companies Race to Fill Quota of Coveted Technology Worker Visas, Washington Post

Statement by AFL-CIO President John J. Sweeney on the Introduction of the H-1B and L-1 Visa Fraud and Abuse Prevention Act


Senate bill gives Americans preference for tech jobs, Cnet.com

Tech firms scramble for visas, San Francisco Chronicle

Overveiw of STRIVE Act, Migra Matters

Southern Poverty Law Center finds guest worker program close to slavery, Migra Matters

tags: immigration, STRIVE Act , H1b visa, guest workers, h2a visa, H.R.1645

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Southern Poverty Law Center finds guest worker program close to slavery

There is no more divisive issue for advocates of progressive immigration reform than the policy of temporary guest workers. As a cornerstone the President's proposed immigration policy, it's been viewed with intense suspicion by many on the left. Some immigration rights advocates, such as Cecilia Muñoz, head of National Council of La Raza see Bush's guest worker program as the best hope to allow future immigrants to enter the country legally and eventually be put on a path to citizenship. Other's see it as dangerous policy, ripe with opportunities for abuse.

Even amongst organize labor, which generally supports legalization of all current undocumented workers and other progressive reforms, there is a divide when it comes to guest workers. The Service Employees International Union (SEIU) has strongly advocated for a modified guest worker program, while the AFL-CIO opposes one.

The Southern Poverty Law Center now weights in on the debate with a report that examines the current H2 visa program which brought approximately 121,000 guestworkers into the United States in 2005. The report released this week called; "Close to Slavery" found widespread abuse and exploitation of the program.

Back in January, Andy Stern, head of the Service Employees International Union, sent a letter to Sen. Ted Kennedy, who is working to craft a new immigration reform bill for this legislative session, laying out his union's position on immigration reform and recommendations for any future guestworker program:

SEIU recognizes the need for new workers in the low-wage sector of our expanding economy. However, any new worker program must include worker protections including: portability of visas so that workers can change jobs, the right to join unions and have full labor rights, the right to bring their families with them, and the ability to self-petition for permanent residency and citizenship. SEIU

But according to the SPLC, without carefully written protections and strict enforcement of labor standards any new guest worker program will be ripe for the same kind of exploitation that's prevalent in the current system. Based on interviews with thousands of guestworkers, the report found a pattern or widespread exploitation, deplorable living conditions, and a system that amounts to little more than indentured servitude.

… the United States already has a guestworker program for unskilled laborers — one that is largely hidden from view because the workers are typically socially and geographically isolated. Before we expand this system in the name of immigration reform, we should carefully examine how it operates.

Under the current system, called the H-2 program, employers brought about 121,000 guestworkers into the United States in 2005 — approximately 32,000 for agricultural work and another 89,000 for jobs in forestry, seafood processing, landscaping, construction and other non-agricultural industries.

These workers, though, are not treated like "guests." Rather, they are systematically exploited and abused. Unlike U.S. citizens, guestworkers do not enjoy the most fundamental protection of a competitive labor market — the ability to change jobs if they are mistreated. Instead, they are bound to the employers who "import" them. If guestworkers complain about abuses, they face deportation, blacklisting or other retaliation.

Federal law and U.S. Department of Labor regulations provide some basic protections to H-2 guestworkers — but they exist mainly on paper. Government enforcement of their rights is almost non-existent. Private attorneys typically won't take up their cause.

Bound to a single employer and without access to legal resources, guestworkers are:

• routinely cheated out of wages


• forced to mortgage their futures to obtain low-wage, temporary jobs


• held virtually captive by employers or labor brokers who seize their documents


• forced to live in squalid conditions


• denied medical benefits for on-the-job injuries.

Close to Slavery; Guestworker Programs in the United States SPLC (HTML)

After carefully documenting the failures of the current guestworker program, the 48 page report goes on to list recommendations to make any future program more fair and effective.

As this report shows, the H-2 guestworker program is fundamentally flawed. Because guestworkers are tied to a single employer and have little or no ability to enforce their rights, they are routinely exploited. The guestworker program should not be expanded or used as a model for immigration reform. If this program is permitted to continue at all, it should be radically altered to address the vast disparity in power between guestworkers and their employers.

I. Federal laws and regulations protecting guestworkers from abuse must be strengthened:

• Guestworkers should be able to obtain visas that do not tie them to a specific employer. The current restriction denies guestworkers the most fundamental protection of a free labor market and is at the heart of many abuses they face.


• Congress should provide a process allowing guestworkers to gain permanent residency, with their families, over time. Large-scale, long-term guestworker programs that treat workers as short-term commodities are inconsistent with our society's core values of democracy and fairness.


• Employers should be required to bear all the costs of recruiting and transporting guestworkers to this country. Federal regulations should be consistent with the 11th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals decision in Arriaga v. Florida Pacific Farms. Requiring guestworkers to pay these fees encourages the over-recruitment of guestworkers and puts them in a position of debt peonage that leads to abuse.


• Entities acting as labor brokers for employers that actually use the guestworkers should not be allowed to obtain certification from the Department of Labor to bring them in. Allowing these middlemen to obtain certification shields the true employer from responsibility for the mistreatment of guestworkers.


• Congress should require the Department of Labor to promulgate labor regulations for H-2B workers that are comparable to the H-2A regulations. It is unconscionable that H-2B workers do not have even the minimal protections available to H-2A workers.


• Congress should require employers to pay at least the "adverse effect wage rate" in all guestworker programs to protect against the downward pressure on wages. Guestworker programs should not be a mechanism to drive wages down to the minimum wage.


• Congress should eliminate the barriers that prevent guestworkers from receiving workers' compensation benefits. Workers currently must navigate a bewildering state-by-state system that effectively blocks many injured workers from obtaining benefits.
• Guestworkers should be protected from discrimination on the same terms as workers hired in the United States. Permitting employers to "shop" for workers with certain characteristics outside of the United States is offensive to our system of justice and nondiscrimination.

II. Federal agency enforcement of guestworker protections must be strengthened:

• Congress should require that all employers report to the Department of Labor, at the conclusion of a guestworker's term of employment and under penalty of perjury, on their compliance with the terms of the law and the guestworker's contract. There currently is no mechanism allowing the government to ensure that employers comply with guestworker contracts.


• Employers using guestworkers should be required to post a bond that is at least sufficient in value to cover the workers' legal wages. A system should be created to permit workers to make claims against the bond. Guestworkers, who must return to their country when their visas expire, typically have no way of recovering earned wages that are not paid by employers.


• There should be a massive increase in funding for federal agency enforcement of guestworker protections. Guestworkers are the most vulnerable workers in this country, but there is scant government enforcement of their rights.


• The Department of Labor should be authorized to enforce all guestworker agreements. The DOL takes the position that it does not have legal authority to enforce H-2B guestworker contracts.


• The Department of Labor should create a streamlined process to deny guestworker applications from employers that have violated the rights of guestworkers. Employers who abuse guestworkers continue to be granted certification by the DOL to bring in new workers.

III. Congress must provide guestworkers with meaningful access to the courts:

• Congress should make all guestworkers eligible for federally funded legal services. H-2B workers are currently not eligible for legal aid services.


• Because of the unique challenges faced by guestworkers, the restriction on federally funded legal services that prohibits class action representation should be lifted.


• Congress should provide a civil cause of action and criminal penalties for employers or persons who confiscate or hold guestworker documents. This common tactic is designed to hold guestworkers hostage.


• Congress should provide a federal cause of action allowing all guestworkers to enforce their contracts.

These reforms are overdue. For too long, our country has benefited from the labor provided by guestworkers but has failed to provide a fair system that respects their human rights and upholds the most basic values of our democracy. The time has come for Congress to overhaul our shamefully abusive guestworker system.
Close To Slavery; Guestworker Programs in the United States SPLC (PDF)

This new report, along with its recommendations, will certainly add a new dimension to the debate over any new temporary guest worker proposal. By documenting and examining what has happened when, as President Bush likes to claim, "willing foreign workers (are matched) with willing American employers, when no Americans can be found to fill the jobs," the Southern Poverty Law Center has provided valuable insight into the problems and pitfalls of such programs.

tags: immigration, guest workers , H2 Visa, SPLC

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Judge rules Guatemalan immigrant must forfeit life savings

A Guatemalan immigrant who worked for ten years at various minimum wage jobs to saved $59,000, has been ordered by a US District Court in Broward County Florida to hand the bulk of those savings over to the government.

U.S. District Judge James Cohn ordered that Pedro Zapeta of Stuart Fla. would be returned only $10,000 of the $59,000 confiscated by Customs Agents as he attempted to board an airplane in September 2005.

The money was confiscated at the Fort Lauderdale-Hollywood International Airport when Zapeta didn't sign a declaration form before trying to board the plane. The 39-year-old Mayan, whose native language is Quiche, said that he was unaware of the requirement to disclose amounts greater than $10,000 and only wanted to return home to start a business with his savings.

"It is unconscionable for the government to take that money," said Robert Gershman, Mr. Zapeta's attorney. "They do it because they can. That's the only reason. It's just not right. He could have left with all $59,000 if he had signed the form."

Mr. Gershman believes that the dishwasher's immigration and social status worked against him: "If Mr. Zapeta were a professional man, or more intellectual, or more mainstream, there's no question that he would not have been treated this way."

Palm Beach Post Jan. 31, 2006

US Customs officials at first suspected that Zapeta might have been involved in drug related activities, but further investigation revealed him to be simply a hard working man wishing to return back to his country with his life savings.

Mr. Zapeta, 38, entered illegally 10 years ago and worked as a landscaper and for several Stuart restaurants, often holding two jobs at a time. He never earned much more than minimum wage but managed to save about $59,000. In September 2005, he stuffed the cash in a duffel bag, bought a plane ticket and set out to return to his homeland. He said he planned to use the cash to start a business. At Fort Lauderdale-Hollywood International Airport, Customs agents searched him and found the cash. They confiscated it and accused him of smuggling drug money.

Mr. Zapeta has no criminal record, and the government had no evidence to support its drug charges. Prosecutors withdrew them late last year after The Post published a column on the case.

Six of Mr. Zapeta's former employers filed affidavits on his behalf, verifying his work record. Mr. Gershman has acknowledged from the outset that his client was wrong not to declare that he carried more than $10,000, as the law requires. But he rejects the government's assertion that it is entitled to keep all the money: "It is cruel and unusual punishment to take it all."

Palm Beach Post, January 29, 2006

The judge's six page ruling acknowledged that Mr Zapeta had earned the money legally and rejected prosecution claims that Zapeta had engaged in tax fraud.

The Court rejects the United States’ argument regarding tax evasion or other law violations allegedly committed by Claimant. As noted above, Claimant has not been charged with any crimes, and the evidence indicates that some taxes were in fact paid, when perhaps they did not need to be paid.

United States District Court Southern District of Florida case no.. 06-60573-CIV-COHN (PDF)

Yet, Judge Cohn found that Zapeta was still subject to the forfeiture due to his not properly claiming the money at the time.

The sole basis for forfeiture in this action is 31 U.S.C. § 5316(a)(1)(A), which requires a person to file a report when the person knowingly transports, or attempts to transport, monetary instruments of more than $10,000 at one time from a place in the United States to a place outside the United States.

Claimant did not file a report, but was found with $59,000 in currency packaged in a suitcase hidden in multiple envelopes and wrapped by rubber bands as he attempted to leave the United States.

At the final hearing, Claimant’s counsel proffered by agreement Claimant’s testimony, which previously had been submitted by deposition, that the currency was Claimant’s savings from having worked manual labor jobs in the United States for ten years. Claimant did not have legal work status, and therefore did not use the banking system, but simply saved his money in a sack wherever he was living. As stated above, the United States has no evidence that Claimant has been involved in illegal activity.

A violation of Section 5316 may be prosecuting by either criminal proceedings or civil proceedings. In this case, the United States chose to only invoke a civil forfeiture proceeding. In a such a case, “any property involved in a violation of section . . . 5316 . . . and any property traceable to any such violation or conspiracy may be seized and forfeited to the United States in accordance with the procedures governing civil forfeitures. . . .” 31 U.S.C. § 5317(c)(2).

…snip…

In determining an appropriate forfeiture amount, the Court concludes that Section 5317 gives a court in a civil forfeiture proceeding for violations of Section 5316 the discretion to forfeit less than the total amount seized by using the term “may be seized and forfeited to the United States.” 31 U.S.C. § 5317(c)(2) (emphasis added).
Under the facts in this case, an appropriate forfeiture amount is $49,000, leaving the Claimant with the $10,000 that he could have transported without filing a report.3 As noted in Dean, it is not illegal to transport $10,000 or less in currency.

United States District Court Southern District of Florida case no.. 06-60573-CIV-COHN (PDF)

Zapeta's Attorney argued that the judgement was excessive since he would have faced the possibility of only a $5000 maximum fine had the judge decided to treat the matter as a criminal rather than civil case.

Mr. Zapeta is currently subject to deportation and removal. An Immigration judge has ruled that since he was already in the process of self-deporting at the time of the incident, he could remain in the country for the purpose of contesting the forfeiture proceedings but must leave upon resolution of the matter.

The Palm Beach Post reports that Mr. Zapeta has no real option for appealing, and is likely to be deported soon.

As anti-immigration advocates argue for stricter enforcement of immigration laws in order to force the current population of undocumented migrants to "self-deport" through a policy of "attrition" that would make it harder for them to work and survive, it's ironic that Mr Zapeta, who was essentially following their suggestions and in the process of "self –deporting", ended up robbed of his life savings by the US government.

It is no small wonder that when the government makes promises about future immigration policy or guarantees fair treatment for future guest workers, they are often met with skepticism.

It will be interesting to see what happens if there is ever a program that asks the undocumented population to come forward and register in order to move forward with some sort of earned legalization process. In the Senate bill passed last year, a compromise was reached that required certian undocumented immigrants to return home before being able to legally re-enter the US. How could the government possibly sell that proposal to a population that sees what happens to those like Mr Zapeta?

Judge Cohn had an opportunity to demonstrate that fair play and compassion are a major component of American justice ... instead he sent just the opposite message.

UPDATE: 9/28/07

Eight month's from the first publication of this story in the local press, Pedro's story has finally been picked up by the national media. An expose on CNN has led to an outpouring of support from some circles, and the usual din of right-wing noise from the other.



But for Pedro ...it's just one more day in his continuing journey through the hell of a US ilegal system that offers little by way of justice, reason, or compassion.


tags: immigration, Pedro Zapeta , US District Court Fla, lost life savings

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Bush's Brain lets the cat out of the bag

One of the biggest debates among advocates of progressive immigration reform has been whether or not to embrace the idea of a temporary guest worker program. Some such as Cecilia Munoz, vice president for policy of the National Council of La Raza, argue that such a program is needed to provide future immigrants a legal path to entry. Others, myself included, see the program as an unnecessary component of any meaningful reform policy. We believe that it would eventually lead to the creation of permanent underclass of rotating workers who would never be able to fully reap the benefits of their labor or become full-fledged members of society.

The arguments are heated and varied. My opinion can be viewed here, here, and here for those interested, but that is not the point.

Yesterday at a Republican women's luncheon, Karl Rove finally said what those of us who oppose a guest worker program have suspected all along…. Bush and his elitist buddies advocate for a temporary worker program only because want a never ending supply of workers to do the kinds of jobs they view as menial and meaningless.

According to a congressman's wife who attended a Republican women's luncheon yesterday, Karl Rove explained the rationale behind the president's amnesty/open-borders proposal this way: "I don't want my 17-year-old son to have to pick tomatoes or make beds in Las Vegas."

National Review

While the rest of the National Review article is a mix of the usual right-wing malarkey about immigrants taking jobs from US workers and "there's no job Americans won't do", I have no reason to question the veracity of Rove's quote.

This administration and its friends have a long history of viewing those who do an honest days work as being somehow below them.

It's no small coincidence that Ann Richards said of Bush Sr., "He was born with a silver foot in his mouth."

Yet Americans turn a blind eye to the Bushites obvious elitist attitudes.

We know what the jokes about "my base" mean, and we recognize the true intent behind Barbara Bush's remarks that "so many of the (Katrina victims) … were underprivileged anyway, so this is working very well for them".

We have stood by idly as the administration shifts the burden of taxation from the wealthiest 1% of the nation and passes it on to working people. We watch as needed social programs go unfunded while the largest corporations in the nation make record profits while benefiting from the lowest tax rates ever paid.

Somehow when the administration assures us that they have only the best of intentions in regards to "matching willing workers in other countries, with willing employers here" we take them at their word. We rationalize away the enormous potential for abuse inherent in any guest worker program by saying that at least it will be better than it is now. But will it?

When crafted by those who view immigrants as nothing more than nameless, faceless servants who pick tomatoes, or make their beds, how can we expect any sort of fair and equitable plan? Will such people make sure that labor laws and workers rights are respected? Will they allow unions to organize and protect immigrant workers from abuse? Will they enforce workplace safety regulations and guarantee fair and equitable wages?

I think we know in our hearts the answer to these questions is no.

Rove only said in public what has been said in the private offices and drawing rooms of the Bush's and their ilk for ions. And it's time for those of us concerned with real immigration reform to face these facts. They are not our friends. They are not our allies. Their plans are not our plans. Their hopes and dreams are not our hopes and dreams.

We look at immigrants and see the future. A future full of hope and aspirations for a brighter tommorow ….. They look at immigrants and see menial laborers whose sole purpose is to serve them as maids or gardeners, dishwashers or tomato pickers. These two conflicting world views can never be reconciled.


tags: immigration, Karl Rove , guest workers, Bush

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Which Side Are You On?

The following article, by David Bacon, author of "Communities without Borders: Images and Voices from the World of Migration" was originally published at Truthout.org and has been reprinted with permission of the author.

Oakland, California - Of all the supporters of corporate immigration reform, Homeland Secretary Michael Chertoff is the most honest. The day of the notorious raids at the Swift and Company meatpacking plants, he told the media the raids would show Congress the need for "stronger border security, effective interior enforcement and a temporary-worker program." Bush wants, he said, "a program that would allow businesses that need foreign workers, because they can't otherwise satisfy their labor needs, to be able to get those workers in a regulated program."

Chertoff is hardly the only voice in DC using raids to justify guest worker programs. Cecilia Muñoz, head of National Council of La Raza (NCLR), is another. Those deported in December were among the millions of undocumented workers who came after Congress passed the last immigration amnesty in 1986. Since legislators at the time didn't consider people who would come in following years, "perhaps the most tragic consequences are the terrible human costs of workplace raids," she mourns. New guest worker programs will give future migrants legal status, she claims, and protect them from the migra.

The raids do cause terrible suffering. But Muñoz and other Washington insiders actually supported bills last year that mandate the same worksite enforcement Chertoff carries out today. More raids were a price they were willing to pay (or that others would pay) for the guest worker programs they wanted.

tags: immigration, guest workers , NCLR, immigration policy

Today, many Congressional leaders - Democrats and Republicans - want to allow corporations and contractors to recruit hundreds of thousands of workers a year outside of the US and put them to work here on temporary visas. Labor schemes like this have a long history. From 1942 to 1964, the bracero program recruited temporary immigrants. They were exploited, cheated, and deported if they tried to go on strike. Growers pitted them against workers already in the country to drive down wages. Cesar Chavez, Ernesto Galarza and Bert Corona all campaigned to get the program repealed.

Advocates of today's programs do everything they can to avoid association with the bitter "bracero" label. They used "guest worker" until that name also developed an ill repute. Now they prefer other euphemisms - "essential workers," or just "new workers."

We don't live in a magical world, however. You can't clean up an unpleasant reality by renaming it.

Current guest worker programs allow labor contractors to maintain blacklists of workers who work slowly or demand rights. Anyone who makes trouble doesn't get rehired to work in the US again. Public interest lawyers spend years in court, trying just to get back wages for cheated immigrants. The Department of Labor almost never decertifies a contractor for this abuse.

Guest workers labor under the employer's thumb. Standing up for a union or minimum wage is risky. Under current programs, and in the new Congressional proposals, if workers lose their jobs they must leave, making deportation a punishment for being unemployed. No one gets unemployment insurance, disability or workers' compensation payments. Companies save money and avoid bad publicity by sending injured workers back home, where healthcare is virtually unavailable.

But Muñoz and others argue that Congress can allow guest workers to go to court. Our legal system is such a poor protector of workers' rights today, however, that in 30 percent of all organizing drives, workers (both citizens and immigrants) are illegally fired, with virtually no remedies or penalties on employers. Arguing that lawyers can protect immigrants on temporary work visas is preposterous.

These problems aren't aberrations, curable with legal fine print.

By their nature, guest worker programs are low-wage schemes, intended to supply plentiful labor to corporate employers, at a price they want to pay. Companies don't recruit guest workers so they can pay them more, but to pay them less.

According to Rob Rosado, director of legislative affairs for the American Meat Institute, meatpackers want a guest worker program, but not a basic wage guarantee for those workers. "We don't want the government setting wages," he says. "The market determines wages."

Major Senate sponsors of guest worker bills don't believe the government should even set a minimum wage for anyone, immigrant or citizen. John McCain, John Cornyn, James Kyl, Larry Craig and Chuck Hegel all just voted for an amendment to repeal the federal minimum wage entirely. Making them responsible for guest worker wages is putting the fox in charge of the chickens.

And it's not just wages. The schemes create a second tier of workers with fewer rights and less job security. They have none of the social benefits US workers won in the New Deal - retirement, unemployment and disability insurance. Instead of including new immigrants in these and other social programs, giving them legal residence and rights, Congress would create a huge workforce without them. Corporations that have pushed for eliminating these standards for everyone would be halfway there.

That's why workers, unions and community organizations have opposed guest worker programs, but also why corporations want them. Starting in the late 1990s, companies organized a shadowy lobby group, the Essential Worker Immigration Coalition (EWIC) which today encompasses over 40 huge employer associations, including Wal-Mart, Marriott, Tyson Foods and the Association of Builders and Contractors. They recruited the Cato Institute to produce guest worker recommendations, which President Bush repeats almost word-for-word. The hard-right Manhattan Institute provides additional cover.

The corporate lobby made other inroads as well. John Gay, who heads the National Restaurant Association and EWIC, is now board chair of the National Immigration Forum, a major Washington player. NCLR's list of corporate sponsors includes Wal-Mart and 14 other multinationals. Even two unions, the Service Employees and UNITE HERE, supported the Senate guest worker compromise last year.

The question Congress is deciding isn't "what can stop immigration?" With over 180 million people in the world living outside their countries of origin, nothing can. Migration begins when people are displaced. In the countries that are the main sources of migration to the US, most migration is caused by economic dislocation - people can no longer survive as farmers or workers. Other migrants fled the wars that raged in Central America.

NAFTA, CAFTA, and US-sponsored economic reforms, along with US military intervention, uprooted millions of people, leaving them little option other than coming north. Corporations like Wal-Mart and Marriott wrote US trade policy to improve their investment opportunities abroad. Now they also want guest worker programs to channel people displaced by those policies into their US operations. Often those leaving home are among the most skilled and educated. Their departure makes it even harder for their countries to progress.

This flow of forced migration may not stop in the near future, but changing pro-corporate trade policies would reduce the pressure on people to leave home. Unsurprisingly, that's not on EWIC's agenda.

The real question Congress is deciding is the status of people once they're here. Other proposals, from outside the Beltway, would give immigrants far greater rights and much more equality than guest worker programs. Congress could, for instance,

Give permanent residence visas, or green cards, to people already here. Those visas don't require people to stay, but give them the chance to come and go - to work, study, or take care of family members in the US or in their home country. They can't be deported if they lose a job.

Expand the number of green cards available for new migrants, opening the door to legal immigration far enough to accommodate those now coming illegally. Most immigrants already come through family networks. Making family reunification easier would help them and strengthen communities.

Allow people to apply for green cards, in the future, after they've been here a few years. The US wouldn't develop the huge undocumented population it has today.

Stop the enforcement program that has led to thousands of deportations and firings, and a border so heavily militarized that migrants cross, and die, in the most dangerous areas.

Prohibit companies from recruiting outside the US. They can always hire immigrants with green cards here, and green card holders are in a much better position to demand rights and higher wages.

It's not likely that many corporations will support such a program. That's why those who claim to represent the interests of immigrants in Washington must choose whose side they're really on.

David Bacon is a California photojournalist who documents labor, migration and globalization. His book Communities Without Borders was just published by Cornell University/ILR Press.

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Making sense of Bush's SOTU message: reading between the lines

Last night, faced with an increasing lack of support for his policies both here and abroad, President Bush once again retread familiar ground in an attempt to reach out to a new Democratic Congress and an electorate weary of war and inaction on domestic issues.

Unable to present any meaningful plan for a change, Bush resorted to much of the rhetoric we've been hearing for the last few years in regards to the major issues of the day. With the exception of a vague proposal to give tax credits for health insurance, the speech was generally boilerplate Bush….with some extra pleading to stay the course in Iraq thrown in for good measure.

As far as immigration reform is concerned, which was touted to be a cornerstone of the speech in the early reporting, he offered nothing new to the discussion … except perhaps for some carefully crafted back-peddling.


tags: immigration, guest worker , Bush, SOTU

At first glance he appears to have hit upon his usual themes when it comes to comprehensive reform: border security, guest workers, and a plan to legalize the 11.5 million undocumented immigrants currently living and working in the country. But when read between the lines, Bush may be starting to set the stage for a compromise that will allow him to get his coveted guest worker program while still allowing those who oppose comprehensive reform to get much of what they want.

"Extending hope and opportunity in our country requires an immigration system worthy of America -- with laws that are fair and borders that are secure. When laws and borders are routinely violated, this harms the interests of our country. To secure our border, we're doubling the size of the Border Patrol, and funding new infrastructure and technology.

Yet even with all these steps, we cannot fully secure the border unless we take pressure off the border -- and that requires a temporary worker program. We should establish a legal and orderly path for foreign workers to enter our country to work on a temporary basis. As a result, they won't have to try to sneak in, and that will leave Border Agents free to chase down drug smugglers and criminals and terrorists. We'll enforce our immigration laws at the work site and give employers the tools to verify the legal status of their workers, so there's no excuse left for violating the law.

We need to uphold the great tradition of the melting pot that welcomes and assimilates new arrivals. We need to resolve the status of the illegal immigrants who are already in our country without animosity and without amnesty. Convictions run deep in this Capitol when it comes to immigration. Let us have a serious, civil, and conclusive debate, so that you can pass, and I can sign, comprehensive immigration reform into law."


link

Guest Workers

we cannot fully secure the border unless we take pressure off the border -- and that requires a temporary worker program

We've heard this many times before from Bush. He's been pushing for his guest worker plan since 2001.

Yet his assertion that the only way to "take pressure off the border" is through the funneling of immigrants through a temporary worker program is disingenuous at best, and at times borders on an outright falsehood.

There are numerous ways to control the flow of migrant laborers to alleviate the pressure on the border. The most obvious being to greatly increase the number of greencards issued to unskilled workers in any given year. At present, only 5000 are issued annually, obviously not nearly enough given the fact that over half a million unskilled workers enter the country illegally each year and find work. Simply adding the 200,000 workers who would receive H2c guest-worker visas under the Bush plan to the number of employment based greencards already issued each year would go a long way towards "taking pressure" off the border.

It would of course mean that these workers would have the option to stay in the country without fear that they could be returned to their countries of origin after three or six years, something business interests are not to keen on as it would eliminate the possibility for a rotating pool of new, cheap labor.

In reasserting his call for a temporary guest-worker program, the President is correct to insist that any such program must serve the U.S. economy as well as our law enforcement and national security objectives. He is also correct, and must insist, that any such program be truly temporary: Participation must be for a limited period of time; workers must return home after that period ends; and those that attempt to stay must be permanently ineligible for other visa programs, permanent residency, or citizenship.

The Heritage Foundation

Additionally, although ignored by those on both sides of the issue in Washington, the real key to "taking pressure off the border" is to reformulate our trade and foreign policies with sender nations to attempt eliminate the conditions that foster massive economic migration.

A trade policy that truly protected workers rights both here and abroad and worked to attain better economic and living conditions for the vast majority of citizens in sender nations who live in abject poverty would do more stem the flow of migrants than any guest worker program ever would. A foreign policy that didn't facilitate political corruption or perpetuate a system of rule by a small minority of the economically elite would also help to alleviate the conditions that produce massive migrations from sender nations. Our policies of "working with our neighbors" need to go beyond ensuring friendly governments to American business and geo-political interests. We need to work to make these nations become capable of truly caring for their own people.

Assimilation

We need to uphold the great tradition of the melting pot that welcomes and assimilates new arrivals

Here Bush has tied immigration reform to assimilation.

While the term "assimilation" is commonly used to mean the absorption of foreigners into the greater society, it has come to represent vastly different things to different people. For many on the right, it is tied to policies such as "English only" laws which attempt to limit the rights of those who are not fluent in the language and marginalize them both politically and economically.

For others, it is more about the belief that immigration is a threat to America's "Western European Culture". They see diversity and multiculturalism putting their American way of life in jeopardy and fear increased immigration will dilute, and ultimately supplant what they see as "American Society." Assimilation for them is not so much a goal to be accomplished, but rather a yardstick by which to measure each different groups "desirability" to be included in the national mosaic.

This move by Bush could be construed as an opening gesture to both groups.

Certainly, the conservative Heritage Foundation believes Bush has now elevated assimilation to the forefront of the debate:

As in the past, patriotic assimilation is the key to the long-term success of any immigration policy. New citizens must be committed to America's civic principles, appreciate American history and culture, and share America's common language—and we should encourage immigrants to become citizens. The President is correct to elevate this element and must insist on its inclusion in any reform package.

Link

In the coming months it will be interesting to see just how much "assimilation" will be codified in any immigration reform legislation.

Amnesty

We need to resolve the status of the illegal immigrants who are already in our country without animosity and without amnesty

The meaning of this statement leaves an awful lot of room for interpretation.

Obviously, the safest bet is that Bush is just playing the same game of semantics that everyone has since the Republican House decided that anything short of loading nearly 12 million people on buses and dropping them off at the Mexican border was "amnesty." With the word no longer tied to any linguist reality, it is left to the user to determine what "amnesty" actually means. He could have been referring to his support for earned legalization and a path to citizenship ...or maybe not.

One must always remain cognizant of the fact that the plight of the 11.5 million has never been a top priority for those in certain business-friendly corners of the Republican Party. Their chief concern has always been guest workers. The Kyl -Cornyn bill with it's "ya'all just go home and we'll let some of ya come back in" was example of this philosophy. The three-tiered status classifications of the Hagel-Martinez compromise was another. The bottom line for many reformers in the big-business camp is that as long as new guest workers can be assured of entering the country, what happens to the twelve million is not really that important. They are replaceable.

This leads to the key question left after Bush's speech. What exactly does " without animosity and without amnesty" mean? The Republicans in the room certainly didn't know what to make of the statement, first silent, then applauding, then silent again. Is Bush simply playing a game of semantics or is he willing to forgo a truly humane and comprehensive plan for in order to achieve a political victory that assures a guest worker program.?

After supporting the other principles laid out in the President's speech, his friends at the Heritage Foundation certainly hope so:

The President is right to propose that the status of illegal immigrants currently in the United States should be resolved "without animosity and without amnesty." But any measure that would allow millions of illegal immigrants who have broken U.S. immigration laws to remain in the United States is, by definition, an amnesty.
…

Amnesty is troubling not only because it undercuts the rule of law and is unfair to those immigrants who respect our laws, but also because it would undermine efforts to control the nation's borders, decrease the illegal population, and discourage the employment of undocumented workers. As such, amnesty violates core principles of immigration policy.

As with all things Bush, one never knows what he really means. Between catch phrases, and framing points that often mean the polar opposite of what they appear to be saying, it's often hard to tell, but we will need to watch him and his Republican supporters carefully. What deals and compromises they will be willing to make to get what they truly want is yet unknown, but the best interests of workers, both native-born and immigrant, has never been one of their top priorities. This must always be kept in mind.

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Why a temporary worker program should be avoided

Recently, Cecilia Munoz, vice president for policy of the National Council of La Raza, wrote an essay outlining the the need to include a temporary worker program in any future immigration reform legislation. In "Temporary Workers Must Be Included", Ms. Munoz lays out a compelling case in support of her argument.

She warns that without a mechanism to allow for future immigration, any legislative effort would result in the same failed policies as the 1986 Immigration Reform and Control Act (IRCA).

Acknowledging the dismal history of past guest worker programs like the notorious bracero program, Munoz still believes that a properly administered program is the only way to ensure that we don't repeat the mistakes of 1986. She warns that we should not craft a similar policy to IRCA that "produced a legalization program and a stricter enforcement regime without recognizing that workers would continue to come" and resulted in "a sizable undocumented community, unprecedented levels of workplace injuries and a (hostile) political climate."

Munoz advises those in the immigration rights movement to accept the guest worker proposal put forward in last years Senate bill and use every opportunity to work to improve it by "strengthen(ing) the protections for immigrant workers and their co-workers in the U.S."

While making a coherent case, Munoz fails to answer the underlying question of any debate about guest workers. Why must any work visa program be "temporary" in nature in the first place?

tags: immigration, guest worker , NCLR, Cecilia Munoz

Munoz sums up her argument by saying:

If we pass a bill that does what IRCA did, combine a legalization program with stricter enforcement while failing to create a new, safe and legal path for new workers who might come in the future, we will have failed.

We will have failed because immigrant workers will continue to come, and too many will die in the Arizona desert. We will have failed because the continued migrant stream will signal to voters that immigration reform didn’t work, and public support for stricter, more outrageous enforcement efforts, including the curtailment of civil and human rights, will grow.

Instead, we must face the challenge of creating a worker visa program that shows that we have learned from the ugly history of the bracero program. We made a good start in last year’s Senate bill, which contained a program that allows workers to enter legally and safely, change jobs, complain against unscrupulous employers and petition for themselves to become U.S. citizens if they choose to remain in the United States.

Just as importantly, the program contained crucial wage protections for U.S. workers in industries where immigrants will be arriving, ensuring that immigrants’ wages do not undercut those of the existing workforce. There’ s more that we can do to strengthen the protections for immigrant workers and their co-workers in the U.S., and we must use every opportunity in this debate to win these indispensable protections.

But we must not allow ourselves to believe that legalization for those who are here is enough. We have a responsibility to those who will continue to come, and to the American workers who worry about the security of their jobs.

We must replace the undocumented migrant stream with a safe, legal, worker-friendly visa program. It’s essential to winning the battle over our broken immigration system, and to winning the larger war that this ugly debate has become.

Munoz is of course correct when she says that the stream of migrants will continue, (unless conditions in sender nations were to improve, but that’s a different discussion.)

She is also right when she states that we need to craft a safe, worker-friendly program to accommodate it.

But what necessitates that the program be a "temporary" worker program?

Most studies, be they demographic or economic, point to an ever increasing need for more young immigrant workers to join the county's labor pool in order for the nation to remain economically competitive in the coming century.

There are numerous ways to address the problem.

The simplest solution would be to just increase the number of workers allowed to enter legally in any given year to better reflect the nations true labor needs. This could be done by reworking the quota system to allow for more immigrants to receive Legal Permanent Resident status (greencards). If, as the current legislation states, 200,000 unskilled workers are required in the US labor pool and would qualify for H-2c temporary-worker status, then simply increase the cap on employment based greencards by that number. This would eliminate the need for costly new monitoring systems, cut down on processing delays, and simplify the system rather than further complicating it. All the same employer requirements, worker protections, and rights and restrictions in the Senate bill would still apply, except that the new workers would be greencard holders rather than "temporary workers."

The current system already has numerous "temporary" programs for different situations and circumstances. To create another class, on the grand scale proposed in the Senate legislation, seems to serve no purpose but to appease special interests and an extremely vocal and powerful minority of nativists.

The plan's main selling point seems to be that it would assure big business that they can continue to have a never ending supply of rotating temporary workers, while reassuring those concerned about the effects of increased immigration on what they see as "traditional American society" that these workers would not stay long enough to have any lasting "negative cultural effects."

Pragmatically, one must be cognizant of the power of the program as a political bargaining chip. Support for any form of comprehensive reform would wane without some concessions to business interests. This has led many immigration activists to look at the temporary guest worker program as a concession they are willing to make since at least it provides an eventual path to LPR status and green cards to large numbers of immigrants. Yet, upon careful consideration one must ask why is the program needed at all? It only leaves open a door to abuse and misuse of the system.

A quick look at the provisions of the temporary worker program passed in the Senates bill (S.2611) reveals one possible loophole that would allow businesses to exploit the program.

According to the legislation, an H-2c guest worker visa would be valid for a period of three years with the ability to extend it for an additional three. After accumulated four years of temporary status a worker would be allowed to petition for permanent status. What would prevent unscrupulous employers from terminating employees after the three-year period, before they were eligible to self-petition? Given the fact that a worker would have only 60 days to find new employment before their H-2c status was revoked it is quite possible that these workers would be forced to leave the program, and the country. Additionally, new employers might be hesitant to hire workers whose visa extensions were pending and prefer workers who had not already completed half of their visa term.

This is only one possible scenario of many that demonstrate the problems of any worker program that is temporary in nature.

What about the US citizen children born of H-2 visa holders? What is their status? Must they be returned to their parent's country of origin at the end of the six-year visa period?

Ms. Munoz rightfully points out that specific details can be worked on and hopefully changed through lobbying efforts. Yet what cannot be changed is the whole concept behind the program.

Outside of some specific instances, such as seasonal agricultural work, why would the government need to place arbitrary restrictions on the time immigrant workers were allowed to stay in the country. If the job market dictates that certain positions need to be filled with immigrant labor, are we to believe that those positions will no longer be available at the end of three or six years? That would have to be the case in order for any temporary program implemented to be logical. If the positions were to still exist, there would be no reason to send workers home.

Obviously, certain special interest favor a guest worker program because it has the potential to prevent workers from accumulating enough time on the job to get substantial pay increases, qualify for certain benefits, or organize effectively in unions. But we should not be so quick to capitulate to them in the name of political expediency.

Before signing on to support any temporary program, we should be looking at how best to allow those who wish to come here permanently do so. How we are to determine the levels of immigration going forward and how many workers are needed are questions that need to be addressed, but they should be looked at with an eye towards permanency.

Those who wish to come for short periods should of course be allowed to. Studies show that recent enforcement efforts have in fact prevented large numbers of people who in the past would have returned home after a brief period of work, from doing so. Accommodations for such individuals must be made in any reform legislation. But for the vast majority, the key to any comprehensive plan should be to allow needed workers to enter the country legally and permanently.

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Studies show immigrants driving force in tech growth

For the most part, the debate over immigration reform has centered on the influx of millions of low-skilled, economic migrants entering the country without documentation to take jobs in agriculture, construction and service industries.

Yet, behind the scenes, a controversy has been raging that does not deal with those who entered the country illegally, but rather with those who have entered through legal channels with visas issued for work. The debate over reform of the work visa program, and particularly H1b specialty visas, has been the most contentious of all. The H-1B visa program allows American companies and universities to hire foreign scientists, engineers, computer programmers and other high-skilled workers. In 2003, in response to the bursting tech bubble, the yearly cap on H1b visa was decreased from 195,000 to 65,000. Since then a war of words has raged between businesses who claim they must have access to the worlds brightest minds and professional organization and unions that feel the H1b system is too easily manipulated by corporate interests to the detriment of US workers.

A couple of new studies shed some light on this debate

tags: immigration, studies , H1b visa, tech workers

As with all things immigration related, there are arguments on both sides of this debate that are black and white … but as usual the truth lies in the area that is considerably more gray.

Do H1b workers lower the wages of native-born tech workers? Do US businesses need these workers for their special skills? Compelling arguments have been made on both sides of the issue. Just like the arguments over the economic benefits and costs of undocumented, low-skilled workers, the arguments for and against these highly educated, skilled workers cannot be viewed in a vacuum devoid of the complexities of long term economic and societal trends.

Two complementary studies have recently been released looking at one long term effect of immigration of high skilled workers. "American Made: The Impact of Immigrant Entrepreneurs and Professionals on U.S. Competitiveness", released last November by the National Venture Capital Association, looked at immigrant participation in launching venture capital backed business, and "America’s New Immigrant Entrepreneurs", released yesterday by Duke Universities Pratt School of Engineering and University of California, Berkeley, examined the role immigrants have played in engineering and technology company start-ups from 1995-2005. Both studies concluded that immigrants, and the H1b visas that allow them to work and live in the US, have played a major role in creating many of the companies and jobs that keep the tech industry running.

"America's New Immigrant Entrepreneurs'' found that nationwide, 25 percent of all tech and engineering start-ups have founders who are immigrants while "American Made: The Impact of Immigrant Entrepreneurs and Professionals on U.S. Competitiveness" found that 47 percent of venture-backed start-ups were started by foreign born entrepreneurs. These numbers are striking given the fact that the foreign-born represent only 11.7% of the total population.

The Duke study looks at two main aspects of immigrant contributions to the economy; companies started by immigrants and international patents issued to immigrant inventors.

What is clear is that immigrants have become a significant driving force in the creation of new businesses and intellectual property in the U.S. — and that their contributions have increased over the past decade.

Here are some characteristics of the engineering and technology companies started in the U.S. from 1995 to 2005.

• In 25.3% of these companies, at least one key founder was foreign-born. States with an above-average rate of immigrant-founded companies include California (39%), New Jersey (38%), Georgia (30%), and Massachusetts (29%). Below average states include Washington (11%), Ohio (14%), North Carolina (14%), and Texas (18%).


• Nationwide, these immigrant-founded companies produced $52 billion in sales and employed 450,000 workers in 2005.


• Indians have founded more engineering and technology companies in the US in the past decade than immigrants from the U.K., China, Taiwan and Japan combined. Of all immigrant-founded companies, 26% have Indian founders.


• Chinese (Mainland- and Taiwan-born) entrepreneurs are heavily concentrated in California, with 49% of Mainland Chinese and 81% of Taiwanese companies located there. Indian and U.K. entrepreneurs tend to be dispersed around the country, with Indians having sizable concentrations in California and New Jersey and the British in California and Georgia.


• The mix of immigrants varies by state. Hispanics constitute the dominant group in Florida, with immigrants from Cuba, Columbia, Brazil, Venezuela, and Guatemala founding 35% of the immigrant-founded companies. Israelis constitute the largest founding group in Massachusetts, with 17%. Indians dominate New Jersey, with 47% of all immigrant-founded startups.


• Almost 80% of immigrant-founded companies in the US were within just two industry fields: software and innovation/manufacturing-related services.


• Immigrants were least likely to start companies in the defense/aerospace and environmental industries. They were most highly represented as founders in the semiconductor, computer, communications, and software fields.

…
…based on an analysis of the World Intellectual Property Organization (WIPO) patent databases, that foreign nationals residing in the U.S. were named as inventors or co-inventors in 24.2% of international patent applications filed from the U.S. in 2006.

Over half (52.4%) of Silicon Valley startups had one or more immigrants as a key founder, compared with the California average of 38.8%.

"America’s New Immigrant Entrepreneurs"

Duke researchers started with a list of 28,766 companies founded in the U.S. in the last ten years classified as technology and engineering companies in Dun and Bradstreet's Million Dollar Database. The list contains U.S. companies with more than $1 million in sales, and 20 or more employees, and company branches with 50 or more employees. This database is commonly used by researchers and is considered a reliable source. Researchers were able to reach senior executives to determine the backgrounds of key founders for 2,054 of the tech startups.

This study builds on the 1999 research of AnnaLee Saxenian, dean of the School of Information at UC-Berkeley, which focused on the development of Silicon Valley’s regional economy and the role immigrant capital and labor in the process. “Silicon Valley’s New Immigrant Entrepreneurs” found that that Chinese and Indian engineers ran a growing share of Silicon Valley companies and they were at the helm of 24% of the technology businesses started from 1980 to 1998.

The study from NVCA, although obviously from a more partisan source than the other studies, compliments and highlights much of the same ground covered by both Saxenian in 1999 and the current Duke/Berkley study. Using the Thomson Financial database the authors surveyed over 340 privately held venture-backed companies to discern the demographic data on their founders.

Immigrant-Founded Public Venture-Backed Companies

• Over the past 15 years, immigrants have started 25 percent of U.S. public companies that were venture-backed, a high percentage of the most innovative companies in America.



• The current market capitalization of publicly traded immigrant-founded venture-backed companies in the United States exceeds $500 billion, adding significant value to the American economy. This is an example of the enormous wealth-creating abilities of immigrant entrepreneurs.



• Immigrant-founded venture-backed companies are concentrated in cutting edge sectors: high-technology manufacturing; information technology (IT); and life sciences.



• As evidence of how important immigrant entrepreneurs have been to the U.S. technology base, the study found 40 percent of U.S. publicly traded venture-backed companies operating in high-technology manufacturing today were started by immigrants. Moreover, more than half of the employment generated by U.S. public venture-backed high-tech manufacturers has come from immigrant-founded companies.



• The largest U.S. venture-backed public companies started by immigrants include Intel, Solectron, Sanmina-SCI, Sun Microsystems, eBay, Yahoo!, and Google.



• The data shows immigrants possess great entrepreneurial capacity, particularly in technical fields. The proportion of immigrant entrepreneurs among publicly traded venture backed companies is particularly impressive when compared to the relatively small share of legal immigrants in the U.S. population. Today, legal immigrants encompass approximately 8.7 percent of the U.S. population and represented only 6.7 percent of the population in 1990.



• Most venture-backed companies started by immigrant entrepreneurs are technology-related companies that pay high salaries for white collar professional positions but employ fewer people than, for example, venture-backed retail stores such as The Home Depot or Starbucks.



• Immigrant-founded venture-backed public companies today employ an estimated 220,000 people in the United States and over 400,000 people globally.



• While immigrant founders in venture-backed public companies come from across the globe, the leading countries of origin are India, Israel, and Taiwan.



• California is the leading state by headquarters for immigrant-founded venture-backed public companies, followed by Massachusetts, New Jersey, Washington, and Texas.



• A key lesson of the study is the importance of maintaining an open legal immigration system. Few of the immigrant entrepreneurs identified came to America ready to start a company capable of attracting venture capital. As the data, profiles, and interviews revealed, most entered the country either as children, teenagers, or graduate students, or were hired on H-1B visas to begin a first job while in their mid-twenties.

NVCA conducted a survey, with 342 respondents, to gather data on immigrant entrepreneurs at today’s smaller, private venture-backed companies and to gain a wider perspective on company viewpoints on immigration.

• Looking to the future, among today’s cutting edge privately held venture-backed companies, the percentage of immigrant founders remains as high, if not higher than their public counterparts. Of those responding to the NVCA survey, nearly half (47 percent) of the founders of private companies were immigrants.



• In one important indicator of the job creation abilities of immigrants, the NVCA survey found that almost two-thirds (66 percent) of the immigrant founders of privately held venture backed companies have started or intend to start more companies in the United States.



• Immigrant-founded privately held companies in the survey held an average of 14.5 patents, with a median of four. This was slightly higher than the number of patents held by companies responding with exclusively U.S.-born founders.



• Private immigrant-founded venture-backed companies mirror public companies in their location and industry concentration, with 56 percent of the emerging companies headquartered in California.



• The top industry sectors for private immigrant founded venture-backed companies were software, semiconductors, and biotechnology.



• India was the most common place of birth for foreign-born founders in the survey, followed by the United Kingdom, China, Iran, and France.



• Nearly all the immigrant founders in private companies (95 percent) would still start their companies in the United States if given the choice today.

American Made: The Impact of Immigrant Entrepreneurs and Professionals on U.S. Competitiveness

One reason for the disproportionate amount of immigrants leading US tech firms might be found in some data from Saxenian's 1999 study.

Not surprisingly, Silicon Valley's Indian and Chinese workforce is highly educated. In 1990, they earned graduate degrees at significantly greater rates than their white counterparts: 32 percent of the Indian and 23 percent of the Chinese employed in Silicon Valley in 1990 had advanced degrees, compared to only 11 percent for the white population. Their superior educational attainment is even more pronounced in technology industries: 55 percent of Indian and 40 percent of Chinese technology workers held graduate degrees, compared to 18 percent of whites.
Silicon Valley’s New Immigrant Entrepreneurs

This educational gap between US and foreign workers was also noted in testimony before the Senate Judiciary Committee back in September of 2005 when the Subcommittee on Immigration, Border Security, and Claims was investigating the possibility of foreign nationals engaging in economic or military espionage. William A. Wulf, Ph.D., President of the National Academy of Engineering warned of the growing educational gap between US workers and their foreign counterparts.

After WW II, the U.S. forged a mutually reinforcing triad of complementary R&D strengths in industry, academia and government. However, U.S. industrial laboratories have greatly reduced their support for long-term basic research; and many U.S. corporations are shifting research and development to overseas locations—not just because foreign labor is cheaper, as is the common and comfortable myth, but because it is of higher quality! U.S. government laboratories are in various states of disarray, and no longer maintain the stature that they did in 1960’s. Government support for the physical sciences and engineering at universities has declined in real terms, and is suffering further under present budget pressures – clearly, a strong research capability is not a current federal priority. Enrollment in the physical sciences and engineering, as a percentage of undergraduates, is among the lowest in the industrialized world – the U.S. now graduates just 7% of the world’s engineers, for example. Given that our 12th graders score among the lowest in the world in science and mathematics, the ranks of U.S. born scientists and engineers are not likely to expand dramatically anytime soon. Our once strong triad of R&D capabilities is crumbling.

At the same time, science and technology are growing rapidly in other parts of the world. Over 70% of the papers published in the American Physical Society’s world leading journals, The Physical Review and Physical Review Letters, now come from abroad

The Importance of Foreign-born Scientists and Engineers to the Security of The United States

As stated earlier, nothing about immigration and the debate that swirls around it is ever easy to analyze in simple terms of black and white. These entrepreneurs and the businesses and jobs they create are only one small part of the big immigration puzzle. Clearly they have made great contributions to our economy and society, but the H1b story is complex and multifaceted. Next month the anti-immigration advocacy group, Center for Immigration Studies (CIS) will be issuing their own study on H1b visas and their effects on the economy. Their finding…the bulk of H1b visas are issued to low-level workers that receive low wages that undercut US workers.

All I can say is ….you be the judge.

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