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Obama's Immigration Order To Give Tech Industry Some, Leave 'Em Wanting More
theodp writes: "The high-tech industry," reports the Washington Post's Nancy Scola, "will have at least two things to be happy about in President Obama's speech outlining executive actions he'll take on immigration. The president plans to grant the tech industry some, but not nearly all, of what it has been after in the immigration debate. The first is aimed at increasing the opportunity for foreign students and recent graduates from U.S. schools to work in high-tech jobs in the United States. And the second is aimed at making it easier for foreign-born entrepreneurs to set up shop in the United States. According to the White House, Obama will direct the Department of Homeland Security to help students in the so-called STEM fields — science, technology, engineering and mathematics — by proposing, per a White House fact sheet released Thursday night, to "expand and extend" the controversial Optional Practical Training program that now allows foreign-born STEM students and recent graduates remain in the United States for up to 29 months. The exact details of that expansion will be worked out by the Department of Homeland Security as it goes through a rulemaking process."
Seriously - the two biggest (ab)users of the H1B system are Tata and Infosys... and they're both Indian corporations.
{rant}I guess in fairness to Obama, he managed to screw both blue and white-collar workers in one fell swoop...{/rant}
Anyone know the lobbyist money trail for this bit of it, or can I safely guess Microsoft, Apple, Google, Intel, etc... ?
Hard time following this. The potential 4.7 million people contribute billions to the economy and without them we'd tank again. I heard the same screwing the american worker and milking entitlements myths repeatedly. It puts me in mind of what one commentator once referred to as "Factoids", arguments which have no truth at all, but people repeat over and over in hopes they will become true. Well, some of that is working, because some people are believing these tales as truths and would happily cut their own throats (mustard and onion extra) to act on these fantasies.
Tech, agriculture, service industries, foot services, etc. all benefit from the well behaved illegals. And we, the people who buy goods or services from these people benefit, as well. It's a mystery to me that so much untruth is accepted these days. I figure it began with Rush Limbaugh and is now carried out by hundreds of others since, who wind up people for profit. Nothing seems to sell like telling people what they need to fear and whom they need to loath.
A feeling of having made the same mistake before: Deja Foobar
he managed to screw both blue and white-collar workers in one fell swoop
Only if you believe the Lump of Labor Fallacy. Real economies are not zero sum, and there is not a fixed number of jobs to be had. History has shown that countries with permissive immigration policies tend to have lower unemployment than more restrictive neighboring countries.
What Obama did is not only more humane for the families directly affected, it is also good for the American economy, and good for American workers.
They are being given 3 year work-papers they are not being given legal-immigrant status or even a path to that. Work papers simply allow you to work in the country legally. Of course fact don't work well with the Conservative mindset that the working poor whether U.S citizens or not, simply want to live on government handouts. It does make the injustice of wage disparity much more palatable I guess.