Thread: Visa Versa: Why Do Illegals Outnumber H1-Bs?

http://www.investors.com/editorial/IBDA ... e=20060315

Visa Versa: Why Do Illegals Outnumber H1-Bs?
Posted 3/15/2006


Immigration: Some 100,000 demonstrators marched through Chicago last week to oppose a tightening of immigration laws. We're a nation of immigrants, they noted. But will it be a nation of busboys or physicists?

T hose who crowded the streets of Chicago's Near West Side and Loop did so in protest of H.R.4437, a bill passed by the House of Representatives in December and sent to the Senate. It would enlist military and local law enforcement in stopping illegal entrants, extend a fence along the Mexican border and provide for criminal penalties for employers of illegal entrants.

A bevy of local politicians attended the march, including Illinois Gov. Rod Blagojevich, who addressed the crowd in Spanish. Noting that he was the son of immigrants, Blagojevich proclaimed to loud cheers: "Ustedes no son criminales. Ustedes son trabajadores." ("You are not criminals. You are workers.")

Granted, illegal immigrants are often hard workers. And agreed, they are seeking a better life. But while we are a nation of immigrants, we are also a nation of laws. Millions of American citizens, including 17 million who don't have a high school degree, are also seeking a better life and are willing to work hard — just not at Third World wages. And they must compete with noncitizens who are.

Contrary to the notion that Americans won't do certain jobs, Americans mow lawns, wait tables and perform other low-skilled tasks every day. According to the Center for Immigration Studies, illegal immigrants make up only 17% of workers in building and maintenance, 14% in private households, 13% in the hospitality industry and 11% in food preparation and serving.

Others wish to come to America to seek a better life. As noted on our front page March 9, they are the foreign professionals - from engineers to mathematicians to computer programmers — who hope to get one of the precious few H-1B visas. That would let them come and work at U.S. technology companies such as Hotmail and Intel, themselves founded by immigrants — legal immigrants.

The annual cap on H-1B visas has fallen from 195,000 in 2003 to the current 65,000, fewer than the number of illegals in a good month. So great is the demand, the number of visas available for fiscal 2006 beginning in October were gobbled up by last August, two months before the fiscal year began.

Leslie Nicolett, staff manager in immigration policy at Hewlett-Packard Americas, observed, "The way our immigration system is acting, it's almost becoming a disincentive for these best and brightest to come to the U.S." So why are we welcoming illegal dishwashers, gardeners and nannies while blocking legal engineers?

A Senate bill proposes increasing the number of H-1B visas to 115,000 and exempting entirely those with advanced degrees in science, tech or engineering. A good start.

There's nothing anti-immigrant about insisting that border security and a guest worker program are not mutually exclusive. If there is to be a guest worker program, we should be the ones sending out the invitations.

Which begs the question: Do we want to let in those who will do the jobs Americans allegedly won't do, or do we want to invite in those who will do the jobs America needs to have done to remain competitive in the world economy?

Which begs the question: Do we want to let in those who will do the jobs Americans allegedly won't do, or do we want to invite in those who will do the jobs America needs to have done to remain competitive in the world economy?

Well, I for one don't want to invite them in to support the globalist conservative agenda or the apologist liberal agenda. For that matter, when we have hordes upon hordes of these illegals lurking about on street corners and day laborer centers day after day--not actually employed doing anything but an occasional odd job, maybe--I fail to see how anyone could argue with a straight face that we need more poor, low-skilled immigrants in this country--period!! Inviting more in (Senators!!!) and failing to reinforce our border can lead to nothing but disaster. It's so "Grapes of Wrath"/race-to-the-bottom that it makes my stomach turn.