Thread: aftermath of H-1B rally in DC

This just in from JobDestruction.org (formerly zazona.com)

<<<<< JOB DESTRUCTION NEWSLETTER No. 1760 -- 9/19/2007 >>>>>

Immigration Voice (IV) staged their rally for green cards in Washington DC on September 18th. It was somewhat of a bust as the huge crowds they had predicted didn't materialize. Even partnering with some Chinese activists and a scattering of other foreign radicals didn't bolster their numbers enough to get above the usual noise level in DC.

To view the websites of the two organizations that were most involved click
these:

Indians: http://immigrationvoice.org

Chinese: http://www.legalimmigrant.org/

Last week Himanshu Bhardwaj, vice-president of IV, said that 5,000 to 10,000 people are expected to attend the rally. They didn't get nearly as many participants as they had hoped for. The New York Times reported that 1,000 people attended but my guess is that the number is probably closer to 100. Use these links to look at pictures of the event and judge for yourself how many were there.

http://dcrally.blogspot.com/

http://www.ilw.com/immigdaily/digest/2007,0919.shtm

http://immigrationvoice.org/index.php?o ... d=19&Itemi
d=27

There are plenty of short video clips of the rally on youtube and google.
The most significant one I have watched so far is this one because it has some of McDermott's pandering.

http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid ... 8557731555

A speaker from the UK has a very annoying sense of humor. I didn't hear too much laughter in the background. Harumph!

Immigration Voice got a cool reception in DC as evidenced by the fact that the only Congressman they managed to snare to address them was Rep. Jim McDermott (D-WA). It's worth noting that even though Barack Obama says he supports unlimited green cards and H-1B visas he avoided IV like the plague. Obama had a big rally in DC the same day so he could have easily dropped by if he cared to emancipate our modern day slaves.

For sure the best picture of the rally is this one of McDermott picking his
nose:

http://www.ilw.com/immigdaily/news/2007,0919-rally1.jpg

About the only other speakers that IV managed to get to address their rally were the immigration attorneys Sheela Murthy and Greg Siskind. No surprise that they showed up because every time Congress hands out more Green Cards it's money in the bank for immigration lawyers.

IV had a "lobby day" on September 17th. They recruited three congressmen to
attend: Allen Boyd (D-FL), Joe Wilson (R-SC), and Keith Ellison (D-MN).
Wilson and Ellison are both members of the India Caucus but they are not high profile players on the H-1B issue. It appears that IV's lobby efforts fizzled.

Somehow the New York Times dug up Paul Donnelly out of the grave for commentary on the rally, although it doesn't sound like he actually attended it. Donnelly, if you recall, is one of the original architects of H-1B -- he worked as a spin doctor for Rep. Bruce Morrison. Donnelly was also responsible for turning the engineers at IEEE into a bunch of zombies that want unlimited numbers of instant green cards. Donnelly made a statement about IV that is quite disingenuous:

Paul Donnelly, a consultant to American Families United, a legal
immigrant advocacy group, who said he had been working on
immigration policy in Washington for more than 25 years, called
the rally "a genuinely new phenomenon." "It is a significant
thing to have foreign-born people, who are notoriously hard to
organize, organizing themselves," Mr. Donnelly said.

There have been several groups that have tried to get green cards for immigrants and Donnelly has probably worked with or supported most of them.
Donnelly is after all a well-heeled lobbyist that has worked the halls of Congress for over 25 years. These are two examples proving that Donnelly hoodwinked the NYT:

1) In 2000 the Immigrant Support Network (ISN) was involved in politics in much they same way as Immigration Voice. They eventually bit the dust when their leaders got Green Cards and then decided to let the other members of the organization fend for themselves.

2) Independent Federation of Chinese Students and Scholars (IFCSS) engaged in active lobbying as early as 1988 and is still around to this day. They lost most of their vigor for the same reason the ISN did -- once their leaders got their green cards they walked away from the organization and disappeared from sight.


***** CONCLUSION *****

In conclusion the rally was probably a success in terms of publicity.
Considering the low turnout they got more news coverage than they deserved.
The articles I included below are about all that has been published following the protest -- a rather dismal showing to say the least. Much larger protests, (why are they called rallies now?) are routinely ignored by the media so IV has every reason to be happy about the amount of media coverage they got considering the small size of their rally. It's worth noting that at the time of this writing the rally hasn't received any TV coverage that I'm aware of.

On a slightly humorous note -- there were drive-by hecklers that mistook the participants for illegal aliens. That definitely hampered the protestors from getting their message out. Perhaps even more frustrating to the small assemblage was the speech by McDermott because he reportedly confused legal and illegal immigration. American tech workers were nowhere to be found but that's more pathetic than funny.

So the bottom line: will IV achieve their goal of getting more green cards and H-1B visas? Judging by the lack of politicians who sucked up to them in the rally and lobby campaigns my guess is that they will be no more successful than we have been in abolishing H-1B or limiting green cards. Of course they can't vote so their outlook is even more hopeless than ours -- although in the end we may all end up living in the same global shanty towns!

Give IV and their Chinese buddies time and their organizations will probably implode just like the ISN and the IFCSS did. Hopefully they will crash and burn before they are able to bribe our Congress into doing their bidding.


******************
Aritcles Included
******************

http://www.nytimes.com/2007/09/19/us/19 ... tml?ref=us
Legal Immigrants Rally at Capitol to Protest Backlog


http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/south_asia/7002296.stm
Skilled immigrants suffer US limbo


http://www.mercurynews.com/search/ci_69 ... ercurynews.
com-www.mercurynews.com&nclick_check=1
Chung: Piecemeal immigration reform a start


http://www.thnt.com/apps/pbcs.dll/artic ... 09190383/1
001





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Re:

"I like the freedom and the safety in this country.

He makes it sound almost like choosing a flavor at Baskin-Robbins.

That's good, you hit it on the head.

The arrogance of these H-1B job-thieves is outrageous!
How dare they demand green card entitlements on American soil!

Too bad that they are emboldened by the support of businesses, the cheap labor lobby, and immigration lawyers.