Thread: Tech and agriculture industries team up to lobby for immigration reform

The Hill
By Jennifer Martinez - 08/01/13 02:39 PM ET

The California technology and agriculture industries joined forces on Thursday to canvass Capitol Hill and lobby for Congress to pass comprehensive immigration reform.

The Silicon Valley Leadership Group, which represents Facebook, Google, Stanford University and Yahoo, and the California Strawberry Commission held a series of back-to-back meetings with lawmakers on Thursday to hammer home a pro-immigration message before Congress breaks for the August recess. The two groups met with House GOP Whip Kevin McCarthy (R-Calif.) and Republican Study Committee Chairman Steve Scalise (R-La.) on Thursday, as well as lawmakers from the House New Democrat Coalition, according to the Silicon Valley Leadership Group's Twitter account.

The tech industry has long lobbied Congress to revamp the rules for highly skilled and educated foreign workers. Tech companies have pressed lawmakers to increase the annual cap of temporary worker visas for high-skilled workers and to make more green cards available to foreign graduates that receive advanced technical degrees from U.S. universities.

But the rare momentum behind comprehensive immigration reform this year has reverberated with the tech industry. While it has traditionally focused on the high-skilled section of the immigration debate, tech companies and trade groups have joined forces with the agriculture, hospitality, travel and other industries to push for Congress to overhaul the nation's immigration laws.


Even the once politically shy Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg has become actively involved in the debate. Zuckerberg invested some of his personal wealth to help launch FWD.us, a group that's currently lobbying for comprehensive immigration reform; Zuckerberg is set to give an address on immigration next week at the premiere of a documentary directed by immigration rights activist and journalist Jose Antonio Vargas.

In a letter sent to Congress earlier this week, the Silicon Valley Leadership Group, California Strawberry Commission, California Farm Bureau Federation and other agriculture groups stressed that immigration reform is necessary to ensuring the economic success of their disparate industries, which are among the largest in California.

"Our goods touch the lives of every American every day of the year – whether they are reading email, using a cell phone, opening a refrigerator or enjoying a meal. None of this would be possible without the enormous contributions immigrants have made to our respective industries," the letter reads. "They are essential and integral factors to our success."


http://thehill.com/blogs/hillicon-va...gration-reform

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This is from the Bush years when Republicans controlled BOTH the House and Senate, which were the highest rates in sheer numbers for illegal aliens and visa abuses in the history of the US.

Have the GOP elitists changed since then? Are the John Boehners, John McCains, and Marco Rubios of the GOP slow rolling us again, walking amnesty for 20 million (plus) illegal aliens into the House by this October?

Follow the money$.

This is just one example of job loss and illegal job market manipulation allowed by our Congress and Senate to go on during Bush's tenure, which has of course been continued during Obama's.

Immigration attorneys from Cohen & Grigsby explains how they assist employers in running classified ads with the goal of NOT finding any qualified applicants, and the steps they go through to disqualify even the most qualified Americans in order to secure green cards for H-1b workers.

See what Bush and Congress really mean by a "shortage of skilled U.S. workers." Microsoft, Oracle, Hewlett-Packard, and thousands of other companies were running fake ads in Sunday newspapers across the country each week.

Originally Posted by HAPPY2BME

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This is from the Bush years when Republicans controlled BOTH the House and Senate, which were the highest rates in sheer numbers for illegal aliens and visa abuses in the history of the US.

Have the GOP elitists changed since then? Are the John Boehners, John McCains, and Marco Rubios of the GOP slow rolling us again, walking amnesty for 20 million (plus) illegal aliens into the House by this October?

Follow the money$.

This is just one example of job loss and illegal job market manipulation allowed by our Congress and Senate to go on during Bush's tenure, which has of course been continued during Obama's.

Immigration attorneys from Cohen & Grigsby explains how they assist employers in running classified ads with the goal of NOT finding any qualified applicants, and the steps they go through to disqualify even the most qualified Americans in order to secure green cards for H-1b workers.

See what Bush and Congress really mean by a "shortage of skilled U.S. workers." Microsoft, Oracle, Hewlett-Packard, and thousands of other companies were running fake ads in Sunday newspapers across the country each week.

I remember when this video came out. My husband was in IT and was having a horrible time trying to get a job in his field. In my mind, I guess I had been blaming him, and then I saw this video. I cried for having thought it was him. Of course, I now know that his brain tumor was regrowing as well and that probably had an effect too. He never worked in IT again, and is now disabled. This video still makes me so mad I could just shake someone! How could they not care what this was doing to educated Americans?! My husband and many IT people he knew would have gladly taken jobs for what they were paying the H1Bs just to have a job!

I guess this is still happening as I don't recall hearing that our wonderful nanny state has done anything to stop it!

Related ..

Silicon Valley leader confident GOP will act on immigration

Zuckerberg's FWD.us blankets country with immigration reform ad

By Jennifer Martinez - 08/08/13 11:35 AM ET

The political advocacy group cofounded by Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg is blanketing the country with a new pro-immigration reform ad that features an illegal immigrant who wants to serve in the military.

The ad will run on cable outlets, the Web and in 13 major TV broadcast markets across the country.

The spot from FWD.us features Alejandro Morales, who came to the United States illegally with his parents when he was seven months old and settled in Chicago. Morales served in the Reserve Officers' Training Corps, or ROTC, in high school and earned the high ranking of Cadet Brigadier General during his senior year.

He cannot serve in the military, however, because of his immigration status. Morales is an example of what immigration reformers call a "Dreamer," or a young immigrant who moved to the U.S. illegally with their family as a child.

"I do want to give back. I believe 100 percent in what this country stands for," Morales says in the ad. "Let me earn it. Let me serve."

It's the first ad from the tech industry-backed FWD.us that focuses on the fight waged by "Dreamers" for immigration reform.

"We are running this ad to put a very human face on our broken immigration system," said FWD.us President Joe Green, who co-founded FWD.us with Zuckerberg, in a statement. "We hope that by showing Americans the cost of this broken system and the contributions people like Alejandro are already making, they will join with us in supporting real reform."

The ad will run in TV broadcast markets in border states and large cities, such as Phoenix; Tucson, Ariz.; Tampa-St. Petersburg, Fla.; Chicago; Albuquerque, N.M.; San Antonio, Chicago and Washington, D.C.

The TV ad with Morales strikes a notably different tone from other ads backed by FWD.us. The political advocacy group was embroiled in controversy earlier this year when it funded ads that touted the conservative bona fides of senators that support immigration reform, including Sens. Lindsey Graham (R-S.C.), Mark Begich (D-Alaska) and Marco Rubio (R-Fla.).

The ad for Graham lauded his support of the Keystone XL pipeline, while the ad for Begich highlighted his support for drilling in the Arctic National Wildlife Reserve.

The controversial ads prompted protests from environmentalists and progressive groups, who temporarily boycotted purchasing ads on Facebook. Elon Musk, CEO of electric carmaker Tesla, publicly quit FWD.us after the ads ran.

FWD.us, which has an A-list of tech donors, including Yahoo CEO Marissa Mayer and Google Executive Chairman Eric Schmidt, has recently expanded its push for immigration reform beyond the tech industry's fight for more high-skilled visas and green cards for foreign graduates of American universities.

Earlier this week, FWD.us teamed up with journalist Jose Antonio Vargas's immigrant rights group Define American to cohost the premiere of "Documented," a film directed by Vargas that tells the stories of "Dreamers" like him who are fighting to gain U.S. citizenship.

Zuckerberg gave remarks at the film's premiere in San Francisco, which drew a crowd of tech executives, like Facebook Chief Operating Officer Sheryl Sandberg and Groupon founder Andrew Mason.

FWD.us also hosted a roundtable discussion on immigration reform this week with Rep. Jeff Denham (R-Calif.).

http://thehill.com/blogs/hillicon-va...mmigration-ad-

ZUCKERBERG SPENDS $350K TOUTING IMMIGRATION REFORM IN PAUL RYAN'S DISTRICT


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