Friday, May 25, 2007

The Immigration Bill & Its Threat to White Collar Workers

My first post was on the newly proposed Immigration Reform bill and the possible detriment to the Black community. My second was on the threat to our national security.

But, there are other reasons for opposing this bill.

The previous post spoke about how those on the lower end of the socioeconomic scale would get the shaft.

Yet, they are not the only ones who should be afraid of the impact of this bill. If you have a white collar job, you should be as afraid as your brethren in the blue-collar field.

There is a provision in this bill to give preference to those with higher levels of education. On the surface, it looks innocent enough. As I said in my previous post, we already have enough uneducated poor people in this country, and shouldn't look to get anymore.

But, this is not the answer. This is the end run around the many challenges that have been given to the HB-1 visa program. The HB-1 visa program is the high end scam by Corporate America to flood the white collar sector with cheap labor. Not as cheap as the illegals on the lower end of the socioeconomic scale, but comparable by their standards.

If you don't think that HB-1 visas are a threat, why don't you ask some of our fellow unemployed citizens in the IT and science sectors around the country. How the levels of unemployment in these areas aren't at record lows.

I'm not going to 'pick on' the illegal worker at the low end of the socio-economic scale alone; I don't want his highly educated brethren from overseas either.

One sentence that won't move me one iota is the ' We're a country of immigrants' one.

My response to that is, ' So what?'

That applied maybe 50 years ago, but now, unfettered immigration threatens to tear at the very fabric of the country.

The HB-1 is as every bit a hustle for employers as the illegal immigrant is on the other end of the scale. The employer is able to pimp the underpayed immigrant employee, keeping them on the hook for a certain amount of time, endlessly holding out the carrot of the employer POSSIBLY sponsoring said immigrant for citizenship, all the while, guess what, it hardly ever happens, because the employer knows that if the immigrant becomes a citizen, he'll want to be paid what other American citizens doing the same job are being paid.

The theory about the lower end of the economic scale, is that those illegals are doing jobs that ' Americans won't do.' But, with the HB-1 hustle, these are jobs that Americans are more than willing to do, but like their compatriots at the opposite end of the economic scale, they want to be paid what the job is worth and not undermined by cheap, foreign labor- no matter the education level.

Senator Bernie Sanders (VT) recognizes how much a threat the proposed increase in HB-1 visas (from 65,000 to 115,000 with the option of increasing it again to 180,000) is a threat to our well-educated worker, and it's the reason why he's proposed an amendment to help those workers hurt by the proposed increase in HB-1 visas.

This Immigration Bill is nothing but a give away to Corporate America, and the American worker, no matter their place on the socioeconomic spectrum, is threatened by it. Make no mistake, the Middle-Class worker is not helped by this bill.

2 comments:

redante said...

Hello there

I'm a big fan of Bernard Sanders and am also an immigrant who is a US citizen by naturalization. I am concerned about the erosion of middle- and working-class rights and socioeconomic status in the US in the name of corporate profits and outsourcing. I'm with Senator Sanders and his bill in standing up for the ordinary worker. More than ever we need class solidarity in the US to be able to stand up to the corporate assault on the middle and working classes. Unfortunately for class-conscious folks, the Democrats seem to be more than willing to roll over and follow the corporate line no matter what consequences it has for us. I write about class issues in my blog if you are interested in reading more.

Anonymous said...

It is just really sad when black folks throw their hats in the ring with racist nativists. First of all there is no clear data that immigration has hurt wages or unemployment for blacks. Second, if it has the problem is discrimination by WHITE employers AND a lack of unionization and human rights. Fewer human rights for immigrants means they are more exploitable.

Further, shame on you for playing the national security, terrorist card. This is the same kind of fear mongering the Bush administration uses. Black folk are smarter than that, don't fall for it. We need to stand on moral grounds and support "human rights". Not rights for people we like or those who are on one side of some imaginary border created by the white man.