Drew Wilson
An immigration reform group founded by tech billionaires is launching in Florida to push for common sense economic reform and a pathway to citizenship for people in the United States illegally.
FWD.us, founded by Mark Zuckerburg and Bill Gates among others, is gathering a coalition of business, community and faith leaders to push for immigration reform.
The group favors equipping law enforcement with the tools necessary to stem further illegal immigrants from coming into the US so they can focus on more dangerous criminals and security threats.
The group also wants an overhaul for the legal immigration system so top-flight talent can come to the states and make the country more competitive in the global market.
FWD.us is also looking for lawmakers to create a pathway to citizenship for the millions of illegal immigrants in the country without a criminal history. Their plan would give immigrants who pass a criminal background check, pay fines and go through a probationary period the opportunity to apply for full citizenship years down the line.
About 3.7 million Floridians were born outside the U.S. and the population of foreign-born Floridians shot up nearly 39 percent between 2000 and 2010. FWD.us said immigrant business owners in Florida generated 24% of all net business income and that legal status for immigrant workers could boost the state’s tax rolls by $1.13 billion and add 97,000 new jobs.
Among the announced members of the Florida coalition are Ed Moore, president of the Independent Colleges & Universities of Florida, Julio Fuentes, president & CEO of the Florida State Hispanic Chamber of Commerce, and Wes Lathrop, Executive Director of Faith in Florida.
“As someone who works in higher education, I have the privilege of working firsthand with some of the brightest minds in our state, but, unfortunately, our immigration system is holding back some of the best and brightest from fully contributing to our economy,” said Moore. “Modernizing our high-skilled visa program alone would create an estimated 18,100 new jobs in Florida by 2020, add almost $9 billion in Gross State Product, and could increase personal income by $8.7 million.”
Fuentes added that the current immigration system “has proven to harm rather than help the state of Florida. We need to establish a balance between economic prosperity and border security, which is why it is of utmost importance to pass commonsense immigration reform while maintain our country’s security.”
6 comments
David Farrar
April 4, 2017 at 9:38 am
“All it takes is listening to each other.” Immigration reform will occur when the political establishment listens to the American people. This is something the Left has refused to do on immigration, among other issues. As an example, when have you ever heard an amnesty advocate talk about his/er concerns about having to deal with yet another 20 million aliens living and working here illegally ten years down the road?
Joseph Martinez
April 4, 2017 at 9:48 am
It is now more important than ever to take this thing seriously to save America and make it prosperous again. Immigration reform group is trying hard enough to achieve this. To secure the border is the most important agenda and it must be done with utmost priority and integrity. A national background check system can help a lot in the long term. The numbers should be clear and concise to rebuild the broken system and bring uniformity.
Don Honda
April 4, 2017 at 2:22 pm
There is no STEM crisis. There is in fact a surplus of US workers for STEM:
http://www.forbes.com/sites/georgeleef/2014/06/06/true-or-false-america-desperately-needs-more-stem-workers/
http://thehill.com/blogs/congress-blog/the-administration/257041-obamas-latest-plan-to-rewrite-immigration-law
http://www.thenewamerican.com/usnews/immigration/item/21801-sen-sessions-rep-brat-warn-colleagues-to-curb-immigration
Watch Dan Rather’s Doc: No Thanks For Everything
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OeoBWzIRuic
http://spectrum.ieee.org/static/the-stem-crisis-is-a-myth-an-ongoing-discussion
The STEM Crisis is a Myth: An Ongoing Discussion
Throughout the month of September, we’ll provide continuing coverage and debate
https://gspp.berkeley.edu/assets/uploads/research/pdf/h1b.pdf
The Effects of High-Skilled Immigration Policy on Firms: Evidence from H-1B Visa Lotteries
http://www.epi.org/blog/h-1b-visas-do-not-create-jobs-or-improve-conditions-for-u-s-workers/
H-1B Visas Do Not Create Jobs or Improve Conditions for U.S. Workers
The immigration attorneys from Cohen & Grigsby explain how they assist employers in running classified ads with the goal of NOT finding any qualified applicants, and the steps they go through to disqualify even the most qualified Americans in order to secure green cards for H-1b workers.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TCbFEgFajGU
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Programmers_Guild
On May 2, 2008 a civil court judge sided with the Programmers Guild in their complaint against a Pittsburgh computer consulting company and ordered it to pay $45,000 in penalties for discriminating against legal US residents by advertising only for developers on H-1B visas. The case was brought against iGate Mastech for placing an advertisement for thirty computer programmers in 2006 “that expressly favored H-1B visa holders to the exclusion of US citizens, lawful permanent citizens and other legal US workers” according to the US Department of Justice.[8]
http://www.washingtonexaminer.com/did-you-know-obama-just-took-new-executive-action-on-immigration/article/2562053
http://www.breitbart.com/big-government/2015/09/28/obama-prepares-give-away-white-collar-jobs-citizenship-foreign-graduates/
Obama Prepares Give-Away of White-Collar Jobs And Citizenship To Foreign Graduates
http://thehill.com/blogs/pundits-blog/international/238574-trade-agreement-is-a-trojan-horse-for-obamas-immigration
Obama just expanded definitions of “specialized knowledge” and no rule to hire US workers first leads to even more abuse of the L1-B Visas
Here’s where Job Brokers abuse the H1B Visas, provide fake job histories and resumes, provide bogus training:
http://www.revealnews.org/article/job-brokers-steal-wages-entrap-indian-tech-workers-in-us/
http://www.wowt.com/home/headlines/Grassley-Statement-Concerning-Immigration-Reforms-296630751.html
Don Honda
April 4, 2017 at 2:22 pm
The Government Accountability Office put out a report on the H-1B visa that discusses at some length the fact that the vast majority of H-1B workers are hired into entry-level positions. In fact, most are at “Level I”, which is officially defined by the Dept. of Labor as those who have a “basic understanding of duties and perform routine tasks requiring limited judgment”. Moreover, the GAO found that a mere 6% of H-1B workers are at “Level IV”, which is officially defined by the US Dept. of Labor as those who are “fully competent” [1]. This belies the industry lobbyists’ claims that H-1B workers are hired because they’re experts that can’t be found among the U.S. workforce.
So this means one of two things: either companies are looking for entry-level workers (in which case, their rhetoric about needing “the best and brightest” is meaningless), or they’re looking for more experienced workers but only paying them at the Level I, entry-level pay scale. In my opinion, companies are using the H-1B visa to engage in legalized age discrimination, as the vast majority of H-1B workers are under the age of 35 [2], especially those at the Level I and Level II
categories.
Any way you slice it, it amounts to H-1B visa abuse, all facilitated and with the blessings of the US government.
The National Association of Colleges and Employers (NACE) has never shown a sharp upward trend of Computer Science graduate starting salaries, which would indicate a labor shortage (remember – the vast majority of H-1B visas are granted for computer-related positions). In fact, according to their survey for Fall 2015, starting salaries for CS grads went down by 4% from the prior year. This is particularly interesting in that salaries overall rose 5.2% [3][4].
References:
[1] http://www.gao.gov/new.items/d1126.pdf
GAO-11-26: H-1B VISA PROGRAM – Reforms Are Needed to Minimize the Risks and Costs of Current Program
[2] https://www.uscis.gov/sites/default/files/USCIS/Resources/Reports%20and%20Studies/H-1B/h-1B-characteristics-report-14.pdf
Characteristics of H-1B Specialty Occupation Workers Fiscal Year 2014 Annual Report to Congress October 1, 2013 – September 30, 2014
[3] https://web.wpi.edu/Images/CMS/CDC/2015-fall-salary-survey_(1).pdf
NACE Fall 2015 Salary Survey
[4] http://career.sa.ucsb.edu/files/docs/handouts/2014-september-salary-survey-executive-summary.pdf
NACE Salary Survey – September 2014 Executive Summary
Don Honda
April 4, 2017 at 2:24 pm
“No, Our Immigration System Is Not Broken”
http://www.washingtonexaminer.com/no-our-immigration-system-is-not-broken/article/2552534
Baba
April 5, 2017 at 10:49 am
There are some H1b abuse and that should be addressed but lot of them are really good and help start companies.
Please read:
http://www.nature.com/news/boost-visas-for-foreign-entrepreneurs-1.21544
Another reason Indian H1b workers are hired:
There is currently a decade-long backlog of Indian green card applicants. Given the tremendous delay, companies have an incentive to hire workers from India, who critics say end up in a system of de facto “indentured servitude.” If an employee is not going anywhere, the employer will not give salary increases,” As a result, “American workers are discriminated against in the job market and immigrant workers are exploited.”
Because of the fear of losing legal status, employees stick around with the employer and cannot start their own companies. Even if a few percentage of these workers would start companies would translate into tons of jobs. e.g. AppDynamics (Founded by an Indian)
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