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Immigration is the 3rd rail of politics, especially for Democrats.   One is guaranteed to be name called and attacked if any attempts to have a controlled immigration policy are made.     In the Oregon Senate Democratic Primary, not surprisingly, finding out where the candidates stand is a hard, long dig.   Like stepping through a mine field, one false move is guaranteed to be targeted by some special interest group.    Let’s go past the name calling hype and try to find out where they really stand and why these positions are vital to US workers.

Steve Novick on Immigration:

First,  Novick talks about the small business owner getting wiped out by the competition through use of cheap illegal labor.  Yet in the very next sentence, he endorses the failed Comprehensive Immigration Bills!

The comprehensive immigration bills were opposed by the AFL-CIO because they were loaded with guest worker Visas and were anti-labor.

Jeff Merkley on Immigration:

Now Merkley is mentioning something very real, labor supply and demand. It is well known among labor economists (and corporations) to lower wages, one dramatically increases the domestic labor supply.   These are fundamental economic laws and apply to to any worker in any labor market, from a Post Doctorate to an unskilled laborer.   Merkley is acknowledging these economic laws and truth.

Novick, on the other hand uttered as first words, “some people are bigots who hate brown people”  because they want the laws enforced.    He then begrudgingly acknowledges some labor economics truth.   Yet in the same breath,  Novick turns around and discounts those realities by endorsing bad bills.   The comprehensive immigration reform bills in the Senate were written by the US Chamber of Commerce and other corporate interests, loaded with so many guest worker Visas it would decimate US workers through over supply.   The bill also gives corporations control over those workers.   Most notably, US Professionals, were especially targeted for labor arbitrage in those bills.   There is a reason comprehensive immigration reform closed down the Senate phone and fax lines and it’s because they are corporate written bad bills for working America. 

From the Oregon voter guide:

Jeff Merkley: Gordon Smith and politicians in Washington D.C. have failed miserably to address this issue. We need real leadership and here’s what I will do: First and foremost we must restore the rule of law. We must crackdown on companies that knowingly hire illegal immigrants, and take common sense steps to reinforce the integrity of our borders. The 9/11 Commission recommended doubling guards and using new technology to secure the border and we’ve yet to take those actions. After we have reestablished the rule of law we can work to match labor supply to labor demand and consider appropriate legislation that requires citizenship with strict accountability.

Steve Novick: Immigration is a challenging issue with no easy answers, but something we must work to address. As a former federal law enforcement officer, I sympathize with those who argue that “the law is the law.” But as a practical person, I do not think it is feasible to round up 12 million people living here without documentation and deport them. We need comprehensive immigration reform that includes securing the borders and real penalties for businesses that exploit undocumented workers and drive down wages. At the same time, we should have a path to legal residence for some of those already here who have no other criminal violations if they pay a fine and back taxes. The goal must be to improve wages here and abroad – not reduce them in the pursuit of the biggest profits. With a little common sense and compromise, I believe we can work together to achieve immigration reform that makes sense for America and the world. Read more at: http://www.novickforsenate.com/ challenge_illegal_immigration

Now my question is do you want a Democratic Senator who will caucus with the likes of John McCain,  or do you want someone with a voice of reason, looking to actually solve these issues, who would align with Oregon’s Peter Defazio and Senators Bernie Sanders, Sherrod Brown, Jon Tester, Byron Dorgan, Claire McCaskill and Jim Webb?  Who are the real Progressives in this list?   All of these Senators voted against comprehensive immigration reform because it was anti-worker.

Here are the two comprehensive immigration reform bills Steve Novick think are just fine with the opposition statements from the AFL-CIO, the largest labor organization in the United States.

S.1348 (2007):

AFL-CIO - Immigration Bill Dangerously Flawed:

The current system is unworkable. It has become a blueprint for exploitation of all workers, both U.S. and foreign-born. As long as this broken system persists, all workers will suffer because employers will be able to turn to a ready pool of exploitable workers to drive down wages, benefits, health and safety protections and other workplace standards for all workers.

The bottom line is that this bill is far from the kind of comprehensive immigration reform that would improve the status quo for either U.S.-born or immigrant workers or their families, and, in fact, it is likely to make matters much worse

S.2611 (2006):

The three-tiered approach creates a caste society in which millions of hard-working immigrants are driven further into the shadows of American society, leaving them vulnerable to exploitation.

We are disappointed that the Senate adopted the greedy corporate model of addressing our nations’ future needs for workers–guest worker programs– instead of crafting a mechanism to ensure that future foreign workers come into the US with full rights and as full social partners.

From the AFL-CIO press release in opposition.

Both of these comprehensive immigration reform bills were loaded with unlimited (in effect) guest worker Visas, specifically targeting the best jobs in America.

The last thing Professional workers need is someone more than willing to sell them out on a dime and vote for a bill with massive H-1B guest worker Visas increases in it, yet another corporate controlled F-4 Visa to turn our entire education system into a glorified green card machine, yet more new unskilled guest worker Visa categories and absolutely no reforms, simply because some radical groups try to spin this issue as being about xenophobia.   It is absolutely not about that, it’s about national sovereignty, the ability of a nation-state to control it’s immigration policy, and not allow  corporations, or the WTO (pdf, Public Citizen), to manipulate our labor supply.   Most importantly, it is about US workers and their jobs and wages.

Guess who received the AFL-CIO of Oregon endorsement? Jeff Merkley.

So while corporate cheap labor lobby activists and special interest bloggers try to spin this issue into something it’s not, please read between the lines.   Do your homework and decide, which one is the true Progressive on immigration here?   My conclusion is workers have a much better chance with Jeff.

Other positions:   Jeff Merkley believes obtaining a U.S.  driver’s license implies one has not entered the country unauthorized.   Requiring proof of legal presence is one of the 9/11 commission recommendations and also assists in stopping the underground criminal identity theft ring.

If you can find high-quality talent at a third of the price, it’s not too hard to see why you’d do this

says EDS chairman Ron Rittenmeyer.

So much for the talk of domestic shortages of engineers. EDS has shifted literally tens of thousands of jobs overseas.

EDS owns the India-based offshore outsourcing firm, MPhasis, which uses the H-1B & L-1 visa programs to facilitate this transfer.

WashTech, a local of the CWA (AFL-CIO) has an action item to demand the extension of student worker Visas be set back to it’s original.

If you are a Professional worker and have your own personal horror story on wage arbitrage, displacement through insourcing and/or offshore outsourcing, may we request you join Hire Americans First and add your story so the facts of how guest worker Visas are used to displace US Professionals cannot be dismissed.

For your viewing pleasure, another group has made a series of you tube videos worth watching:

Finally Ex-startup CEO turned Academic Vivek Wadhwa also agrees we should get rid of the lottery on the H-1B Visa program. But we should not allow any increases in H-1B or the creation of an F-4 Visa and instead pass S.1035.

Per my last blog post, DHS Illegally Changes Rule to Increase Foreign Guest Workers, please leave a comment to tell DHS how illegal, inaccurate and wrong the OPT extension is.

Michael Chertoff, per Bill Gates and George Bush’s demands, bypassed Congress and increased foreign guest workers through a ruling and executive order.   No input from US workers, no votes, nothing.   Even worse, Bill Gates claims a weakened America is a good thing!

DHS Changes Rule

The U.S. Department of Homeland Security released today an interim final rule extending the period of Optional Practical Training (OPT) from 12 to 29 months for qualified F-1 non-immigrant students. The extension will be available to F-1 students with a degree in science, technology, engineering, or mathematics who are employed by businesses enrolled in the E-Verify program

One small problem. Students graduating in Science, Technology, Engineering and Mathematics majors are about three times the total number of new jobs created in the United States for these majors.   So now, to make matters worse, DHS increases the ability to hire foreigners, insuring more Americans cannot get a job! ^UI

PAUL ALAMEDA, President AFL-CIO, DPE

The projection is the growth in this industry is about 120,000 jobs per year and this is in the high tech meaning math and science degrees. And we’re graduating in excess of 300,000 with bachelors, masters and PhD’s from United States universities

The below Lou Dobbs segment goes into more detail:

There are a series of action items you need to do:

1. Click here to express your outrage on this ruling.  This link will create an email for you to send a comment to DHS.  This is the official comment period for the interim ruling. The email format has to be exact and has been formatted for you in this link.
2. Call your Congressional representatives and express outrage over this bypass of Congressional oversight by DHS, Michael Chertoff and the Bush administration to increase foreign guest workers and thus deny American graduates those jobs.
3. Comment in every news story you see which has a comment section and express your outrage.  Here are some comment areas for you:
   • CNET blog comment area
   • Networked World blog article
4. Blog about this and post links to this story or any information that is for US workers and American students.
5. Join a group!  Email us to further organize!  US working Professionals are under attack by special interests. Multinational corporations are hell bent on destroying the United States middle class and their career opportunities.  Stand up for your career and economic interests and get active!

To read the actual ruling, DHS F-1 ruling (pdf).

From page 23 of the ruling:

III. REGULATORY REQUIREMENTS
A. Administrative Procedure Act
To avoid a loss of skilled students through the next round of H-1B filings in April 2008, DHS is implementing this initiative as an interim final rule without first providing notice and the opportunity for public comment under the “good cause” exception found under the Administrative Procedure Act (APA) at 5 U.S.C. 553@). The APA provides that an agency may dispense with notice and comment rulemaking procedures when an agency, for “good cause,” finds that those procedures are “impracticable, unnecessary, or contrary to the public interest.” See 5 U.S.C. 553(b)(B). The exception excuses notice and comment, however, in emergency situations, or where “the delay created by the notice and comment requirements would result in serious damage to important interests.” Woods Psychiatric Institute v. United States, 20 C1. Ct. 324,333 (1990), &9&25 F.2Id 1454 (Fed. Cir. 1991); see also National Fed’n of Fed. Employees v . National Treasury Employees Union, 671 F.2d 607, 611 D.C. Cir. 1982).

Currently, DHS estimates, through data collected by SEVP’s Student and Visitor Exchange Information System (SEVIS), that there are approximately 70,000 F-1 students on OPT in the United States. About one-third have earned a degree in a STEM field. Many of these students currently are in the United States under a valid post-completion OPT period that was granted immediately prim to the conclusion of their studies last year. Those students soon will be concluding the end of their post-completion OPT and will need to leave the United States

There is no STEM worker shortage and therefore this ruling change is probably illegal.   This ruling can be claimed to damage the national interest, working America’s interests, so this action is opposite what the legal requirement is to bypass Congressional authority.  There is no emergency in the United States under which this rule could be changed.

Obviously STEM professionals are being targeted for wage arbitrage. Those jobs should be going to American graduates, US citizens. When there is absolutely no worker shortage and entry level positions are hard to come by, why would any US citizen tolerate denying those opportunities to Americans for jobs in their own country!

The telephone number for DHS is (202) 514-8693. Many thanks to Lou Dobbs for their investigative journalism and staying on this story. Their website has the above information on how to submit a comment to DHS as well.