Indentured Servitude – that’s very close to what our immigration policy is. You probably know I’ve worked in computer programming, and especially in the last 20 or so years, immigrants are more and more of an influence on wage rates in the United States.
When an immigrant wants to come to the United States (legally), they have to locate a “sponsor” – an employer who wants to employ them and go through the immigration paperwork hassles to obtain an H1(b) visa – a temporary worker visa, which means making a job offer in a field in which the government has decided there is a shortage of qualified workers. The H1(b) is the step leading to getting the Green Card that allows a person to stay in the country indefinitely.
While the person is in the H1(b) period, they are very vulnerable to being abused by employers. If they are fired by the sponsoring employer, they need to find another sponsor or risk losing their visa and having to return home and start the process all over again – so they are typically paid wages way lower than citizens or green card holders – and know they must “do what you’re told”. In many cases, the person was only able to get the Visa by paying someone to handle the process, and if they get sent back home, the loan for the money they used to get here becomes a problem. They are highly compliant as a result.
If they survive until they get the Green Card, then they’re pretty much home free. The Green Card allows them to leave and reenter the country at will, and change employers without risk of losing their ability to stay in the country. Just as an aside, once you get the Green Card as a permanent resident, you ARE allowed to own guns. Permanent residents are required to register with Selective Service.
After you have met the requirements for naturalization (typically 5 years as a permanent resident), you then can become a full citizen.
“…a field in which the government has decided there is a shortage of qualified workers.”
When did the government decide there was a shortage of qualified landscapers?
Tip your servers generously…I’ll be here all week.
This is a description of the legal immigration process for workers – but it is not the only path. There are other programs for political refugees, close relatives of US citizens, temporary worker programs, NAFTA related exceptions, etc
I’m actually of a mixed opinion. The US culture (schools and otherwise) has created a huge deficit in people with a solid background in science. If you waved a Presidential Decree and announced that Microsoft (et al) cannot hire foreign technical workers and import them, they would either implode or move their programming out of the country (a lot of which is probably happening already). While this is partly a wage cost issue, it isn’t really an issue of “jobs Americans won’t do” – it’s jobs Americans can’t do. While American young people are watching TV 8 hours a day and texting friends to arrange “hook up” parties, students in Asia are intensely competitive and focused on learning and developing useful skills. There is no quick fix for this.
It’s not just science that the schools in the US don’t focus on. I’m dumbfounded by the grammatical and spelling errors that my kid’s teachers make. It’s like an inferior copy is now the master, and all future copies will be based on that…except each copy becomes the new master. There is indeed no quick fix. Watered down curricula and instructors of medial intellect do not an educated citizenry make.
One more log on the funeral pyre…
Unfortunately, I don’t think this turns around until people are hungry and scared (if at all)… but that also likely means a wholesale change in our lives, and it’s pretty predictable there will be a hunt for scapegoats. Today’s suspects are the bankers on Wall Street.. I think it would be instructive for people to read up on Mao’s Revolution – particularly the Tea Party folks need to be aware of the Hundred Flowers campaign in 1956-57. Communists don’t play around…
This is part of why I’m pushing so hard lately to get people to think critically about just how much additional power and funding they want to hand to the U.S. military. Just because it hasn’t happened here doesn’t mean it can’t happen.