As the Congressional Clock Winds Down on Immigration Reform, Deceptions Increase

By Joe Guzzardi
November 6, 2013

Earlier this week, the White House hosted a group of influential business leaders including chief executive officers from McDonalds, Marriott and State Farm. President Obama used the event as an opportunity to emphasize his enthusiasm for comprehensive immigration reform. White House spokesman Jay Carney confirmed that the president’s short, medium and long term objectives are to lean on Congress to pass immigration legislation, ideally this year.

The Chamber of Commerce and business tycoons, philosophically aligned with the president, rely on brazen lies disguised as talking points to dupe the skeptical public. After the meeting Carney, parroting what the Chamber recommended he say, told easily persuaded reporters that immigration reform is “good for the economy” and would reduce the U.S. deficit by $850 billion within the first two decades.

As it always is in the immigration debate, the truth is far different. The Congressional Budget Office, more credible than the Chamber and its greedy membership, predicted that S. 744, the bill which passed the Senate in June and provisions of which are under House consideration, would swell the deficit, increase unemployment, and further depress American workers’ stagnant wages. In this period of sustained high unemployment, the immigration triple-whammy would deliver a devastating blow to American workers, especially the lesser skilled who have only a high school diploma and toil at minimum wage jobs.

Corporate America, powerful and well-heeled, has abused legal immigration for years. The new bill it hopes for would allow further exploitation. Never content and always insisting that a non-existent high-skilled worker shortage will cripple its business, this year the technology industry successfully lobbied the Senate for a 100 percent increase in the current 65,000 annual H-1B visa allotment. Worse, it torpedoed existing S. 744 language which insisted that companies hire American workers before recruiting overseas.

Yet plenty of qualified American workers are routinely rejected. Last year a study prepared by statistical analysts at the San Francisco-based Bright.com found that within the top 10 tech job categories, there are 1.34 qualified domestic “good fit” candidates for every H-1B position requested. During its research Bright, which also places employment prospects, studied more than 3 million resumes.

Bright president Steve Goodman, commenting on results he called “surprising,” said: “We’re Silicon Valley people; we just assumed the [rumored] shortage was true.” Goodman’s statement sums up in a nutshell how immigration reform is treated: if corporations, growers, educators, ethnic identity politicians and lobbyists say there’s a worker shortage or a specific need to fill, Congress accepts their word as gospel, no matter how obviously liberalized immigration would profit them individually.

Opening the door to more H-1B visa employees, as the adroitly presented, well-funded advocacy narrative goes, is essential because jobs would be added to a struggling U.S. economy. But the existing laws’ loopholes make it easier to import overseas workers with average skills which in turn lead to American worker displacement.

In 1990 when the H-1B originally became law, it was intended as a temporary visa that would alleviate short-term industry needs. But the H-1B has instead evolved into a permanent employment layer that’s put over one million of American engineers on the sidelines.

With the 2013 legislative calendar running out of days, immigration reform may be doomed this time around. But I expect at least one more round of heavy corporate lobbying complete with the predictable deceptions.

Joe Guzzardi is a Californians for Population Stabilization Senior Writing Fellow whose columns have been syndicated since 1986. Contact him at [email protected]