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Bloggings: August 30, 2007by Greg SiskindEditor's note: Here are the latest entries from Greg Siskind's blog. August 29, 2007 US CHAMBER SAID TO BE OPTIMISTIC ON CHANCES FOR H-1B CAP HIKE, PESSIMISTIC ON BROADER REFORMThe Austin American-Statesman is reporting on remarks made yesterday by US Chamber Vice President for labor, immigration and employee benefits Randel Johnson. The comments section below the story, however, is pretty interesting. Looks like the NumbersUSA folks are hard at work getting the antis riled up over the story. If you are pro-immigration, remember to weigh in as well when you see these stories to let the public know that there are other viewpoints.
August 28, 2007
OUTRAGE OF THE DAY: PARENTS OF SOLDIERS IN IRAQ BEING DEPORTED
Sorry, but the soldiers fighting for our freedom deserve special treatment. Soldiers like Luis Estrada whose mother is being deported after 20 years in the US. I love the quote from FAIR on this. It really shows what that organization is all about:
Have you no shame Mr. Dane? Well, I guess not or you would not have said something so callous. Another case that shocks the senses is that of Pfc. Armando Soriano who died three years ago in a roadside bomb in Iraq and whose father now faces deportation because of an illegal entry to the US. Nearly 70,000 immigrants are in our armed forces. While the FAIR crowd would like you to believe that all immigrants are coming to leach off our welfare system and commit crimes, these 70,000 are willing to put their lives on the line for a country they love despite the vitriol many in the anti-immigrant community show them. Isn't it about time that Congress passed legislation creating a waiver and green card route for parents of soldiers who serve in wartime? Families that make this sacrifice have certainly demonstrated to me that they are serious about their commitment to this land.
HOW TO MAKE THE HEAD OF AN ANTI-IMMIGRANT EXPLODE
Wipro, the king of the Indian IT outsourcing companies, is opening a job center in the US targeted toward hiring US workers. Somehow I doubt Lou Dobbs will forget to cover this story from his company's backyard. Thanks to reader guyfromsg for sending this link.
IMMIGRANT OF THE DAY: WAYNE GRETZKY - THE GREAT ONE
He's been retired as a player for almost a decade, but it seems like just yesterday that Canadian-born Wayne Gretzky was without a doubt the most famous hockey player in the world. He was a star player for the Los Angeles Express and the New York Rangers after many successful years playing in Edmonton. He's the only hockey player ever to host Saturday Night Live. Gretzky has become a US citizen and is a coach of the NHL's Phoenix Coyotes.
WHITE HOUSE STARVATION CAMPAIGN CONTINUES
Another major raid on a food processing plant, this time in Fairfield, Ohio. 100 workers were arrested at a chicken processing plant. A few days ago, a major raid at a pork processing plant. And I have been posting the stories on the desperate conditions at farms around the US as immigrant laborers have fled and there are not enough workers to harvest the crops. One can speculate whether this is all a coincidence. But perhaps the White House is on to something. What's the fastest and most direct way to show Americans just how important immigrant labor is to this country? Make people realize that the most basic item in all our lives - food - doesn't magically end up on our plates. We will very soon start to see dramatic inflation in the price of food or a dramatic increase in food imports (which will also result in an increase in prices, though less dramatic). And for those who think importing all our food is no big deal, think about how fun it is to depend on oil imports. Sadly, the country's poor and working class families will pay the price for this. Ironically, they are the ones supposedly being protected by the expulsion of the migrant workers. By the way, I think it is interesting that the raid today took place in the district of House Republican Leader John Boehner, a very, very vocal opponent of legalizing undocumented immigrants.
August 27, 2007
IMMIGRANT OF THE DAY: DANIEL TSUI - NOBEL PRIZE WINNER IN PHYSICS
Daniel Tsui is certainly a success story for the foreign student visa system in this country. He came from his native China in the late 50s to pursue a degree, spent some time in the private sector working at Bell Labs and then became a physics professor at Princeton. He won the Nobel Prize in 1998 for his work in subjects like the properties of semiconductors.
I'M NOT AGAINST IMMIGRATION, JUST ILLEGAL IMMIGRATION
I always love that one. You usually hear it discussed by the virulently anti-immigrant members of Congress when they want to convince the typical American who understands the need for foreign workers, but is concerned about having control over the border. But make no mistake about it. The anti-illegal immigration crowd wants to kill legal immigration with just as much passion. For those of my readers who are patiently trying to work your way legally through the immigration system and somehow think the unlawfully present immigrants are the ones standing in your way, this ad from NumbersUSA (the ones who flooded the Capitol switchboard during the immigration reform debate earlier in the summer) should be a wake up call.
WHEN ONE OCCUPATION HOLDS THE ENTIRE COUNTRY HOSTAGE
If you talk to the average Programmers Guild member, they're properly utterly clueless that there is a world beyond IT. Despite the fact that most H-1B visa holders are NOT in IT fields, a relatively small group of workers in that field have not only prevented international workers to come in for their employers, but also for every other sector of the economy even when shortages are acute and well-documented. And even when its the neediest of Americans who pay the price for this form of protectionism. Two examples that come to mind are teaching and health care. Just this morning, the NY Times reported on the shortage of teachers around the US as hundreds of thousands of baby boomers are retiring. And folks who read this blog know about my extensive writing on the very real, very scary shortage of doctors in the US. A lot of hospitals didn't get their doctors and a lot of schools are using substitute teachers (anyone remember tormenting your subs back in the day?) simply to protect workers in a single occupation which, by the way, has an unemployment rate less than 3%. And there are little known fields across the US economy that are being decimated by the lack of visas. This morning's Wall Street Journal has an extensive report on this issue. Here's a little taste (the WSJ is a subscription site so unfortunately you can't read the whole thing:
There are some who argue that we should be emphasizing green cards over H-1Bs. And I don't necessarily take issue with the logic that green cards empower workers more (though H-1B portability largely does the same thing). But it's a cop out to say this and then sit on your hands as companies move operations overseas and abandon the US labor market all together. Or Americans needing services in fields that cannot be as easily outsourced (such as health care and education) suffer needlessly. I say if you can get Congress to increase the green card numbers as needed, more power to you. But note that many workers are NOT interested in permanent residency and even if you wanted to make green cards available for all who wanted them, it takes a year to two years typically to get through green card processing with or without quotas. Employers shouldn't have to wait that long to fill a job sitting vacant. OK, programmers - go to town on me and pass this post around the blogosphere. I'm sure I'll be hearing from you in the comments.
HOW DID AMERICA BENEFIT FROM DEPORTING THIS PERSON?
QUOTETH HOMER
I saw a Simpsons episode last night with an immigration reference that made me laugh. Homer has become addicted to a certain not-so-immigrant-friendly right wing "news" channel (hint - the Simpsons' writers apparently are not entirely comfortable with some of the folks in their corporate family). He starts to become a bit too "programmed" and starts cursing liberals under his breath. He also offers the funny observation "Did you know every day Mexican gays sneak into our country and unplug our braindead old ladies?" If Homer hadn't used that line, I'm sure we would have heard it by now from the NumbersUSA folks.
August 26, 2007
IMMIGRANT OF THE DAY: BRANKA KATIC - ACTRESS
OK, so I've had actresses on two days in a row. Apologies for the lack of variety, but I happened to be watching the very good series Big Love on HBO this evening and the Serbian actress Branka Katic was again on the show. She's playing the Salt Lake City waitress Ana who is a candidate to be the fourth wife in the polygamous family at the center of the show. The true testimony of how diverse America has really become is the fact that probably know one thought there was anything unusual about having a Serbian waitress in the middle of a city once thought of has being pretty bland in its ethnic makeup. I've had a couple of opportunities to visit Salt Lake City in recent years, however, and it has taken on a more cosmopolitan flair in no small measure because of its growing immigrant population. Anyway, back to Ms. Katic. She's only been in the US a few years, but it looks like her career is taking off. And if you're a fan of Big Love, tonight's season finale makes it seem like Branka will be getting a lot of screen time next season.
THE HOARDES
Here is some cool 1906 Ellis Island footage of those dirty, uneducated, job stealing, non-English speaking masses that were flooding in to the US exactly a century ago. And if you think the anti-immigrant sentiment we see today is strong, it was nothing compared to back then. Images like these fueled a xenophobia that eventually resulted in harsh immigration laws that effectively shut the US to immigration for a generation (and probably cost hundreds of thousands - if not millions - of Jews their lives when the US refused to accept those fleeing Hitler). By the way, 1/2 of all Americans have relatives that went through Ellis Island. For all those who love to think their relatives went through a vigorous process before being admitted, pretty much the only way you were barred from being admitted would have been if you carried a communicable disease. And even many of those were able to enter after spending time in the Ellis Island hospital. The tough part of getting to the US was the journey here and then surviving after arrival. The actual immigration process was the easy part. I'm in the camp that thinks America turned out pretty well anyway. Just like we'll turn out just fine with the latest wave of immigrants.
August 25, 2007
OUTRAGE OF THE DAY: DETAINEE WHISTLEBLOWERS TRANSFERRED HALF WAY ACROSS THE COUNTRY
Supposedly immigration detainees are not criminals and as civil detainees are supposed to be treated better. But what does it mean to send folks two thousand miles from their families (and their legal counsel)? Sounds pretty harsh to me. Bender's Immigration Bulletin is carrying a story that two detainees at the San Pedro ICE detention center who spoke to a reporter for the Los Angeles Daily Journal about ICE's failure to provide medical care to an HIV positive patient that recently died have suddenly been transferred to a Texas facility. I wrote about tis case a couple of weeks back. This sure sounds like retaliation. Where is the national media on this one, folks?
A WALKING BILLBOARD AD FOR THE DREAM ACT
Every American with an open mind on the DREAM Act should read Alfredo Quiñones-Hinojosa's story. It's time to stop making kids and young adults pawns in the immigration debate.
GERMANY REVERSES COURSE ON IMMIGRATION
The worker shortages in that country have finally made its leaders decide to take more immigrants.
August 25, 2007
CITY OF HAZLETON APPEALS
IMMIGRANT OF THE DAY: CHARLIZE THERON - ACTRESS AND SEXIEST WOMAN ALIVE
Most Americans have no clue that South African Charlize Theron is an immigrant. And she's not an immigrant who came as a little kid. She came to the US as a young adult to study at the Joffrey Ballet in New York and after a knee injury, left for Hollywood and has had a sensational film career in the years since. She's now received two Academy Award nominations (for Monster and North Country) both for playing hardly glamorous characters (a serial killer and a miner). Despite taking these controversial roles, she is apparently about to be named Esquire Magazine's 2007 Sexiest Woman Alive.
A DAY WITHOUT A MEXICAN
My friend Tamar Jacoby, who is probably the foremost authority in the US on the impact of immigration policy on the American economy, has an opinion piece in today's Los Angeles Times that will hopefully wake some people up. Tamar's prediction that the new no-match rule could cripple the California economy should wake up some of the Republicans out there who somehow reconcile being anti-immigration with their purported pro-immigration views. Wanna make your head explode? Go to the typical anti-immigrant Republican's web site and go to the issues section. Click on issues relating to business and you will see these folks touting their high ratings by pro-business organizations, bills they've sponsored to help small business, attacks on "big labor", etc. And then they'll take the most anti-business positions in Congress on immigration. Either they don't understand the connection between their immigration positions and the ability of American businesses to prosper and be competitive or, to be cynical, they've judged they have more to gain politically by chucking those pro-business principles. They'll tout wanting to be law-and-order focused, but they also are not willing to create a system that allows employers to legally bring in adequate numbers of workers.
August 24, 2007
BECAUSE AMERICANS ARE LINED UP TO DO THIS KIND OF WORK
Did anyone read Upton Sinclair's THE JUNGLE in high school? The book has made many a vegetarian over the generations. Working in meat processing ain't pretty. I think of THE JUNGLE because the book is about immigrants in meat processing 100 years ago and today immigrants still do that work, albeit ones from Central America rather than Eastern Europe. The AP reports on an ICE raid at one of the nation's largest meat processing plants. I guess every time one of these raids happens, the folks in places like Argentina - a major meat producing country - smile really wide.
MENENDEZ TO CHERTOFF: DO YOU HAVE A PLAN?
New Jersey Senator Robert Menendez has fired off a letter to DHS Secretary Chertoff asking whether the agency actually has its act together on the announced plan to replace old green cards (as I blogged about yesterday) or whether this is the usual seat of the pants operation from the agency. Guess which camp I'm in?
August 23, 2007
IMMIGRANTS OF THE DAY - LOU DOBBS' COLLEAGUES - JOURNALISTS
Tonight I was working out and my gym was showing CNN on a monitor. Lou Dobbs' nightly rant was showing and I didn't need to actually hear the first story to be appalled. Just the title was enough. I could tell from the video that the story was on Elvira Arellano and her speaking out to the Mexican parliament regarding the US government's deportation of her. Dobb's title for the story - "Mexico's Chutzpah." Chutzpah is a Yiddish term and there's a bit of irony in the xenophobic Dobbs show using the term. First, it means audacity, gumption, nerve, etc. It often refers to someone who does something wrong and is non-apologetic about it. Which described Dobbs to a tee. Here was a guy who built his career as a business reporter, but then was washed up in the ratings. So he re-invented himself as a populist to get ratings and acts every night like he's had these beliefs all his life. There is also irony in choosing a Yiddish word at all. Yiddish is a language created by Jewish immigrants in central and eastern Europe and is a mixture of German, Hebrew and other languages. It was the first language of millions of Jewish immigrants to the United States at the turn of the last century. And the people who used the language were constantly attacked for their failure to learn English and speak it as their primary language. If you could transport yourself to the Lower East Side in New York 100 years ago, you would have seen Yiddish signs everywhere and heard Yiddish all around you. It was the Spanish of its day. My other favorite thing about tonight's broadcast, by the way, was the poll at the end. Dobbs usually runs an unscientific viewer poll that is ridiculously biased in the way it is worded. And the people who are in to this show enough to bother to respond are the hardcore anti-immigrants. So the polls usually reflect results that would have made Saddam Hussein blush. Tonight's question: "Are you outraged that the Mexican Senate supports Elvira Arellano's claim that the United States is to blame for her deportation?" The response: 94% yes, 6% no. And the results are like this every night. It's embarrassing. CNN used to be all about being the leading broadcast journalism organization in the country. And then it started to get whooped in the ratings by Fox and it's opinion shows. So CNN decided to blur all the lines of what is journalism and run Dobbs' nightly propaganda show. Any CNN reporter who appears on this show should really be ashamed of themselves. Anyway, a few weeks back I started paying attention to who I was seeing on CNN everyday and started to notice a lot of folks that appeared to be immigrants. And I thought - "How ironic?" CNN runs the most anti-immigrant news show on television, hosted by Mr. Dobbs. If Mr. Dobbs really kept to his rhetoric, why is he not railing against these immigrant job stealers?. Based on his views, shouldn't CNN insist on hiring only American-born journalists? I feel bad for these journalists. They probably have to be very careful about criticizing Dobbs lest they risk the wrath of the big CNN ratings leader. So I've decided to honor 14 CNN reporters who are part of CNN's American network and have to put up with Mr. Dobbs. There may be more, but here are folks that I've confirmed were born in other countries. They need our pity - Christiane Amanpour - British/Iranian Guillermo Arduino - Argentina Matthew Chance - England Kiran Chetry - Nepal Michael Holmes - Australia Lola Martinez - Spain Octavia Nasr - Lebanon Paula Newton - Canada Betty Nguyen - Vietnam Atika Shubert - Indonesia Abbi Tatton - England Ali Velshi - Canada Zain Verjee - Kenya/India Michael Ware - Australia Harris Whitbeck - Guatemala Rick Sanchez - Cuba
OUTRAGE OF THE DAY: AUSTRIAN INTERNS AT US HOLOCAUST MUSEUMS DENIED VISAS
It seems like it usally only takes me just five minutes or so to find a new daily outrage. Today was no different. The NY Times is reporting on how the Department of State is protecting us from a truly threatening group:
Ooh, watch out. These young people on a mission to learn about tolerance and end genocide MUST be stopped. According to the Times, several museums around the US have had problems getting cultural exchange visas for their interns because DOS does not consider these cultural exchanges to be "legitimate." Yeah, the Austrian Government, which underwrites this program and provides the stipends that ensure that the interns don't have to burden US taxpayers, is pretty shady and is really just a quasi-smuggling operation. And to add icing to the cake, when the Austrian government sought help from the US when designing the program, they were advised to pursue this cultural exchange visa strategy. Gimme a break!!
MEDICAL TOURISM ASSOCIATION FORMED
A new Medical Tourism Association has been formed to credential foreign hospitals in order for American patients to be able to make informed choices on the quality of overseas hospitals. As I've reported, the health care crisis in the US - sky high insurance premiums and a lack of insurance all together coupled with nurse and physician shortages - has led many Americans to consider going abroad for treatment. The MTA could be an important step in making medical tourism more realistic for many. Presumably, foreign hospitals interested in American patients will want to seek credentialing in order to demonstrate that they are on a par with American facilities. The outsourcing of health care services is just one more consequence of our ridiculously gridlocked US immigration policies. But expect this to continue as long as we lack enough doctors and nurses to treat America's patients.
USCIS WANTS TO GET OLD GREEN CARDS OFF THE STREETS
Various news media outlets like the Miami Herald are reporting that an announcement yesterday by USCIS of a proposed rule to require persons with old green cards lacking expiration dates to replace those cards means that there is some kind of crack down going on to deport wanted criminal criminals. But I really think something less dramatic is going on. A number of years ago, USCIS started issuing green cards with ten year expiration dates. At that time, many people were required to replace old cards. The new cards have more sophisticated security features and are tougher to counterfeit. But for some reason, many of the oldest cards were not included and I have never understood why they were allowed to remain out there. States don't allow drivers licenses to remain unexpired and we would be shocked if passports were issued without expiration dates. So I can't fault USCIS with finally finishing up this project. There are legitimate public policy reasons why you would want to require old cards to be turned in and replaced periodically. From a national security perspective, the biometric data on the new cards is much more useful to law enforcement than what was available decades ago. And ten years is not an unreasonable period of time for a document to remain valid. Some people mistakenly think that the process to get a replacement card is similar to initially qualifying for a green card, but the I-90 is a very basic application that really asks for simple biographic information. It's pretty tough to mess up an application and definitely is not one requiring an immigration lawyer in most cases. If I have any complaint, it is that the fee is excessive - $370. That is much more than what is reasonable and given how little adjudication time is required in these cases, it is, to be blunt, a ripoff. Given that there will likely be a rush when the final rule is published, folks might want to look at filing now to replace their cards. I can already predict that USCIS will not devote adequate resources to handle the demand and processing times will drag out beyond the reasonable. Just look at how good a job the State Department has done with the new passport requirements.
MORE ON HOW IMMIGRATION GRIDLOCK WILL IMPACT INFLATION IN THE US
A nice opinion piece from Rowland Nethaway.
August 22, 2007
IMMIGRANT OF THE DAY: SIDNEY POITIER - ACTOR
If you make a short list of the greatest living actors in America, you're likely to include Sir Sidney Poitier. Poitier is officially listed as being born in Miami, but his immigration story is a little more complicated. He was actually born on a ship heading from the Bahamas to Florida and his parents were Bahamian and Haitian. As a citizen of the Bahamas, a Commonwealth nation, Poitier qualified for full knighthood. He's also served as Bahamian Ambassador to China. If you're at all a student of US film history, you'll likely have seen some of Poitier's films. Lilies in the Field and Look Whose Coming to Dinner are two that immediately come to mind. He won the Academy Award in 1964 for the former, becoming the first actor of color ever to take home the Oscar Statue. He also won the Academy Award for lifetime achievement in 2002. You may also be familiar with films like To Sir With Love, A Raisin in the Sun and In the Heat of the Night.
US IMMIGRATION GRIDLOCK THREATENS US COMPETITIVE ADVANTAGE
The Kauffman Foundation, one of the largest foundations in the United States, released a major study today showing that the US technological edge in the world is largely due to the contributions of immigrants. Among the findings:
But here's the scary conclusion reached by the study's authors:
I'm surprised that things have gotten this bad this fast.
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