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If Immigration Reform Is Dead, So Is Raising the H-1B Cap
dcblogs writes: In a speech Wednesday on the floor of the U.S. House of Representatives, Rep. Luis Gutierrez (D-Ill.) declared immigration reform dead. He chastised and baited Republicans in Congress for blocking reform, and declared that winning the White House without the support of a growing Hispanic population will become mathematically impossible. "The Republican Presidential nominee, whoever he or she may be, will enter the race with an electoral college deficit they cannot make up," said Gutierrez. If he's right, and comprehensive immigration reform is indeed dead, then so too is the tech industry's effort to raise the cap on H-1B visas. Immigration reform advocates have successfully blocked any effort to take up the immigration issue in piecemeal fashion, lest business support for comprehensive reform peel away. Next year may create an entirely new set of problems for tech. If the Republicans take control of the Senate, the tech industry will face this obstacle: Sen. Chuck Grassley (R-Iowa). Grassley, the ranking Republican on the Judiciary Committee could become its next chairman. He has been a consistent critic of the H-1B program through the years. "The H-1B program is so popular that it's now replacing the U.S. labor force," said Grassley, at one point.
Employers: There is a shortage of good tech qorkers. Give us more H1 visas so we can get the work done.
Employees: These darn foreigners are taking our jobs! They work for much less than us people born in Amerika! (studys show about $13,000 less http://www.workpermit.com/news... )
The simplest solution is of course to offer unlimited H1 Visas - at the cost of $15,000, paid by the corporation, before the employee is hired.. (with inflation adjustments so this doesn't become abused).
This solves all real claims of not enough tech workers, it reduces the US budget, and gets rid of the financial incentive to refuse to hire perfectly good American tech workers.
excitingthingstodo.blogspot.com
No, immigrants are replacing native workers.
This is the Lump of Labor Fallacy. There is not a fixed number of jobs in an economy. The number of jobs tends to expand when more workers are available. Liberal immigration policies are correlated with lower unemployment. When Poland joined the EU, most current members blocked immigration. The exceptions were Britain and Sweden, which subsequently had the lowest unemployment rates in Europe as Poles moved in, set up households, paid rent, bought furniture, and created plenty of secondary jobs.
The Center For Immigration Studies just released a report showing that all employment growth since 2000 has gone to immigrants
Just because A=B does not mean that A caused B. The number of jobs created would have almost certainly been even lower without immigration.
There is no general labor shortage.
Who said there was? But there are shortages in many areas. For instance, there is a big shortage of non-immigrant farm labor. Do you really believe that an unemployed white guy is going to pick lettuce?