Slashdot Mirror

← Back to Stories (view on slashdot.org)

Tech Companies To Lobby For Immigrant 'Dreamers' To Remain In US (reuters.com)

Posted by BeauHD on from the strongly-worded dept.

An anonymous reader quotes a report from Reuters: Nearly two dozen major companies in technology and other industries are planning to launch a coalition to demand legislation that would allow young, illegal immigrants a path to permanent residency, according to documents seen by Reuters. The Coalition for the American Dream intends to ask Congress to pass bipartisan legislation this year that would allow these immigrants, often referred to as "Dreamers," to continue working in the United States, the documents said. Alphabet Inc's Google, Microsoft Corp, Amazon.com Inc, Facebook Inc, Intel Corp, Uber Technologies Inc, IBM Corp, Marriott International Inc and other top U.S. companies are listed as members, one of the documents shows. The push for this legislation comes after President Donald Trump's September decision to allow the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA) program to expire in March. That program, established by former President Barack Obama in 2012, allows approximately 900,000 illegal immigrants to obtain work permits. Some 800 companies signed a letter to Congressional leaders after Trump's decision, calling for legislation protecting Dreamers. That effort was spearheaded by a pro-immigration reform group Facebook Chief Executive Mark Zuckerberg co-founded in 2013 called FWD.us.

21 of 296 comments (clear)

  1. Newspeak by qbast · · Score: 2, Insightful

    âoeDreamersâ , what a stupid name. Deport their sorry asses and let them complain to their criminal parents for dragging them to US.

    1. Re:Newspeak by NettiWelho · · Score: 2, Insightful

      We stole this country from the people that lived here.

      "Native Americans" were not the original population of americas and they genocided the previous occupants.

    2. Re: Newspeak by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1, Insightful

      Yes. We dont need borders, or laws. I mean we are the only country that doesnt let everyone walk right in and take a seat with no paperwork. We ARE terrible.

      Dont lock your front door either. It is racist to keep people from coming inside.

    3. Re:Newspeak by qbast · · Score: 1, Insightful

      Using that logic, shouldn't almost every American get his sorry ass out of the country? We are all illegal. We stole this country from the people that lived here.

      You logic is faulty. Yes, we stole this country and put its previous owners into reservations to waste away. It is ours now until somebody else manage to steal it from us again. Why in the bloody hell would you want to help them?

      When it comes to Trump and a great many of his voters, well, they are just happy they finally found who to blame, since it could never in any small part be themselves. I grow to hate every one of them and their weaselly excuses on why Trump was a good idea. I just talked with one yesterday. He was an intelligent guy, and he told me, as if it was obvious, that all politicians lie, as if the way Trump acts is in no way exceptionally bad and far above all others in the scope of lying, as if the fact that many politicians told some lies justifies Trump telling exponentially more. It doesn't.

      In the end it is all the same. Obama made it. Trump broke it. Trump blamed it someone else, then told people to fix it. Even now they are about to give the really rich a massive boost in income, the rest of us a tiny bit, and toss us massively more into debt.

      Seriously, just months ago they were blaming Obama for inflating the deficit, when much of that was originated in the bush tax cuts that Obama didn't manage to get rid of, and now we are going to double down because why again?

      I just can't see why any rational person would believe in this bullshit, nor why we have to hate on kids.

      Trump, blah, Trump, blah blah, some more Trump.

    4. Re:Newspeak by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1, Insightful

      > ... We are all illegal. We stole this country from the people that lived here ...

      At the time the ship Mayflower arrived, there was NEITHER ANY OFFICIAL DEFINED BORDER NOR ANY OFFICIAL WRITTEN LAW, by the so-called 'natives', which defined the newly arrivals to be illegals

      However, by the time those so-called 'dreamers' illegally crossing our Southern borders, THE LAWS WERE THERE

    5. Re:Newspeak by ChrisMaple · · Score: 2, Insightful

      In many cases, European settlers bought land from the natives. In my hometown of Stamford, Connecticut, the land was purchased three times from the Shippan Indians -- the 2nd and 3rd times, the natives conveniently "forgot" they had already sold it.

      Consider Manhattan Island, a case of Indian duplicity. The Indians who sold the island weren't the actual residents/owners, that was another tribe.

      Many Indian tribes were nomadic. How can you steal the land of someone with "no fixed abode?" By the way, one reason some tribes were nomadic is that they had no proper sanitation systems. If they stayed in one place too long the water became polluted with human waste and deadly to drink.

      Many areas were actually unpopulated. The Indian civilization (such as it was) reached a population peak about 3000 BC, and had been in decline for 4500 years when Columbus arrived. (This is best estimate based on scanty evidence.) Filling an empty land is not theft.

      There were many cases hideous behavior by the arriving Europeans, and many by the natives.

      --
      Contribute to civilization: ari.aynrand.org/donate
  2. Because they hate America by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0, Insightful

    Makes sense you would just wait around a country you dont have legal PERMANENT status in and then hold out your hand for someone to fix it. Definitely the kind of people tech leaders need working for then..

  3. Illegals are illegal by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 3, Insightful

    Illegal aliens are illegals, because they have broken the laws

    Those who have broken the laws are criminals

    We should not allow a group of criminals off the hook, just because they belong to a certain ethnicity

    Because if we do that, it would be unfair to people of other ethnicities

    1. Re:Illegals are illegal by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 3, Insightful

      He's saying that people from south of the US border, which tend to be a specific ethnicity, get to play by a completely different set of rules than immigrants who come from the eastern, northern, and western borders.

      The way the US handles illegal immigration today is very racist because it benefits Latinos while ignoring others, but most don't seem to complain when other leading countries (Germany, France, Japan, Belgium, Spain, Canada, etc..) follow their immigration & deportation laws.

      If you call Trump's travel ban a "Muslim ban" because the countries targeted are mostly made up of that demographic, then the way illegal immigration is handled in this country is racist b/c of who it mostly benefits. 87% of the illegal immigrants in the US are latino/hispanic.

    2. Re:Illegals are illegal by Frank+Burly · · Score: 5, Insightful

      People who break criminal laws are criminals. Dreamers, almost by definition, have not broken any criminal laws—which is how they were allowed to become Dreamers to begin with.

      Your ethnic argument is telling, but not persuasive. In the first place, these are not criminal proceedings, in the second place, it is not their ethnicity that would allow them to stay, but rather that they came here at a young age, have obeyed the criminal laws of this country, and are not high school drop outs.

      These people are culturally American, and there is nothing unfair to Americans in letting them stay.

  4. Sure by Kohath · · Score: 1, Insightful

    Just endorse and enact an effective solution to prevent others following them here illegally and then Dreamers can stay.

  5. Enforce the law or change it. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1, Insightful

    So far all trump has done is said that âoewe will follow and enforce the law as writtenâ. Even the wall was already gefislated, but in the mid 2000s it was called a fence.

    IF the liberals feel so strongly that the immegration laws as they stand are terrible, why did they not change things when they had a president for 8 years and a hold on the senate for much of that time, including 2 years where they owned the house too!

  6. Yes they are. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 4, Insightful

    That's where I get into arguments with my Berkeley, CA family members.

    To work in companies, the illegals use other people's Social Security numbers, they will then files taxes to get their refunds, Child Tax credit, Earned Income Credit, Additional Child Tax Credit, and education credits, and what have you.

    The poor bastard whose Social Security they used gets a letter stating that "they have already filed taxes" and we get that mess.

    But wait! There's more!

    See, since the illegal alien is running around with that person's SSN - even if they DON'T get credit - there are many other businesses that use it for background checks, governments who use it, and so forth.

    So, when the American goes for a mortgage or student loan or whatever, their identity is flagged. Uh, you're here in Virginia but there's all this activity in California. This doesn't look right. DECLINED.

    And it's up to the American to sort it out - including all the costs.

    Solution? Immigration reform.

    1. Re:Yes they are. by Chas · · Score: 4, Insightful

      Immigration reform is NOT "open borders".
      That's uncontrolled immigration. And that's what's being fought right now.

      People point to 100+ years ago. Forgetting that "free country" also meant you were FREE TO STARVE.
      Nowadays, there's a massive, EXPENSIVE social infrastructure. And that infrastructure simply CANNOT withstand uncontrolled immigration.

      The US does NOT owe the rest of the world a living, or even a better lifestyle.

      If people want to immigrate here, DO IT THE RIGHT WAY OR STAY HOME!

      --


      Chas - The one, the only.
      THANK GOD!!!
    2. Re:Yes they are. by ChatHuant · · Score: 5, Insightful

      Very, very difficult in the US. The process takes years, and acceptance is unlikely even then. That's why there are illegal immigrants.

      I don't think that is relevant or should be brought in this discussion. It just confuses the issue.

      If the law doesn't allow something, or makes it difficult, it's because that's how the people of the land have decided things should be. Of course, some laws may be unreasonable or should be changed (and, FWIW, I do believe immigration law is really in need of an overhaul), but that's another discussion - there are mechanisms in place to change laws people don't like. They may be slow, but that's also intentional - and a good thing, IMO.
       
      In the meantime, the law is what it is, and whether it's inconvenient, or whether somebody really really doesn't want/doesn't feel like following the law doesn't make breaking the law acceptable. Yes, illegal immigrants really really want to stay in the USA. Yes, getting a visa legally is difficult, and probably many of them wouldn't qualify anyway. Neither of those things should matter; and I think somebody who has already demonstrated disregard for American law shouldn't get an easy path to citizenship.

      Many people advocate breaking laws, with the best of intentions. For example, all the cities declaring themselves sanctuaries; that's driven by an admirable sentiment, but is in my opinion deeply flawed. Even though we all have seen exceptions, and complain about this daily, respect of laws in America is still much more prevalent than in places like Mexico. People who just go and break laws they consider unacceptable, or obsolete, or even unjust, instead of working to change those laws via existing constitutional mechanisms undermine this respect; that, I believe, creates a very dangerous precedent.

  7. We want your dreams to come true... by zifn4b · · Score: 4, Insightful

    Translation: We want labor savings and couldn't care less about your dreams

    --
    We'll make great pets
  8. A Distraction from H1-B by PeteJanda · · Score: 5, Insightful

    My cynicism meter went to 11 when I saw a headline about large tech companies banding together ostensibly for the benefit of illeg... errr, "Dreamers".

    My first reaction was, "How do they benefit financially with the status quo?" But then I realized this question is of secondary significance. The primary question is, "How does this help distract from the importing of illegal labor via H1-B's?" And then pieces fell into place.

  9. Re:Gosh, the cockroaches really are out in full fo by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 3, Insightful

    You call people scum just because they want to uphold the law?

    >> some day, good, decent, caring human beings will have had enough of you...where cockroaches like you belong

    Newsflash: Good, decent caring human beings neither condone breaking the law or personally insult others just for their opinions.

    Your attitude of encouraging people to become illegals, to repeatedly and systematically break the law as a lifestyle, then expect to be rewarded for it is wrong and bad for society on multiple levels, as is your whole "self-appointed moral highground" tactic.

  10. Re:If they are illegal, they need to go by JustNiz · · Score: 1, Insightful

    Illegal immigrants were and still are having anchor babies just as a tactical strategy. There needs to be a clear deterrent to that.

  11. Supply and demand by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Insightful

    Off the top of my head tech companies have supported H1B's, illegal immigrants, mass migration, code camps, public education training and significant efforts to inspire girls to become women who code for decades.

    These efforts have nothing to do with altruism, in fact they are driven entirely by self centered greed. The more they can increase the labor supply the lower the cost for their primary expense - labor. These companies should start being called out for their charades and their greedy ways exposed for what they are.

    Wages in tech have been stagnant or declining for many years due to these efforts. It's time to tie H1B visas to sustained wage increases. If there truly is a shortage of workers than wages will rise accordingly. Keep it simple, in order for an H1B visa to be issued for a job in a region, that region must show an increase in wages of at least 10% over the course of a year.

    Posted anonymously so I don't get blacklisted in the industry

  12. USA has an employer problem not immigration by FeelGood314 · · Score: 5, Insightful

    90% of the illegals crossing into the USA are doing so because it is so easy to get a job in the USA. In the Bay area, every morning at 4am you will see school buses (likely the same ones that take your kids to school 2 hours later), busing in workers to do yard work, cleaning and other manual labor. They aren't getting paid minimum wage, they all seem to look a bit Latino and aren't speaking English. hmm. The USA's laws about illegal migrants are not about keeping them out, it is about keeping their wages down and making sure they don't use any government services. If the USA wanted to end 90% of the illegal migrants they could just grant the migrants the right to a $30/hr wage and then enforce it by going after the employers. It would solve the illegal migrant problem over night. It would be total chaos for months as businesses that relied on $2/hr wages collapsed but most of those companies are total leaches anyway (I'm talking about the high water usage farming in the California in particular).