Rick Santorum accuses Ted Cruz of supporting �amnesty� for illegal immigrants

washington times ^ | 9/25/2015 | Seth McLaughlin

[BlackFemaleArmyColonel]

Former Pennsylvania Sen. Rick Santorum vowed Friday to pursue immigration policies that protect American workers, while warning voters that some of his GOP rivals have embraced a much softer approach to the issue. Mr. Santorum, the runner-up in the 2012 Republican nomination battle, urged the crowd that converged on a hotel in Washington, D.C., for the annual Values Voter Summit to recognize that a couple of the speakers before him — Sens. Marco Rubio and Ted Cruz — have previously supported “amnesty” for illegal immigrants. “You have a lot of people that come up here and talk about how tough they are, but they actually support amnesty. The speaker just before me running for president, he will tell you how tough he is,” Mr. Santorum said, alluding to Mr. Cruz. “He offered an amendment to allow people to stay in this country indefinitely. To me, that is amnesty.” Mr. Santorum has struggled to gain a foothold in national polling and is running near the back of the pack. With that as a backdrop, the 57-year-old has staked a lot in the immigration debate. He also has touted the conservative record he compiled in Congress, including authoring legislation aimed at changing the leadership of the Iranian government. Mr. Santorum served in the House from 1991 to 1995 and in the Senate from 1995 to 2007 when he lost his re-election bid to Democrat Bob Casey Jr. by a 59 percent to 41 percent margin.

[central_va]

There are a lot of Free Traitor™ Freepers that cannot tolerate ANY restrictions at all across the border. They are gloBULLists and anti American bigots.

[central_va]

Well, I hate to differ with you, but H1B people are not CHEAP LABOR. They are advanced degree people; engineers, managers, project managers, etc.

They undercut the domestic wages by 20-30% on average. They are here because they are cheaper.

H-1B is an evil program, kill it.

[CyberAnt]

Well, some of them may stay, because they become vital to the business. In the company I worked for, only 2 out of 17 were allowed to stay.

And .. if they vote DemocRAT .. why are the unions so upset ..??

[central_va]

The H1B Visa is simply for use by a company to import people with advanced degrees, in order to help a company enhance its productivity and earning power.

Enhanced earning power = paying below the prevailing wage.

[central_va]

Liar.

[bert]

damn!....... is rick still pretending to be a candidate for president?

[central_va]

He is/was in favor of increasing the quota on H1B visas, but a few thousand more IT techs on work visas from India are the least of our immigration worries

What utter bull crap.

[ConservingFreedom]

They are advanced degree people; engineers, managers, project managers, etc.

Those people make really good money

They generally make considerably less money than Americans with the same qualifications. Read my links and educate yourself.

[CyberAnt]

An H1B Visa person does not get paid below the prevailing wage.

And .. does anybody realize these are not HOURLY WORKERS - They are salaried people. They probably work twice as many hours as hourly people.

You guys have been fed a lot of baloney.

If your unions are telling you that the company is hiring H1B people to replace HOURLY people .. that’s a lie. The H1B Visa is for advanced degree people - never hourly.

[jpsb]

Rich is right. Cruz is for amnesty.

[central_va]

F U. My whole department was laid off and replaced by an Indian outsourcing firm. All of them made a hell of a lot less tha we did. See you are spreading lies and BS all over the place about H-1B.

[CyberAnt]

Go back and read all the things I’ve posted regarding H1B Visas.

I’m telling you the truth. I processed those Visa’s .. sent all the paperwork to San Francisco, waited for the Visa to be returned, and then the salaried person could be hired.

There is no such thing as an HOURLY H1B person. That is a grandiose LIE.

[jpsb]

if illegals are deported, that is not amnesty, that is rule of law.

[ConservingFreedom]

http://www.cis.org/LowSalariesforLowSkills-H1B

• Very few H-1B workers are "highly-skilled." Employers who used the Department of Labor’s skill-based prevailing wage system classified most workers (56 percent) as being at the lowest skill level (Level I) as did most State Employment Security Agency (SESA) wage determinations (57 percent). This suggests that most H-1B computer workers are low-skilled workers who make no special contribution to the American economy, or that employers are deliberately understating workers’ skills in order to justify paying them lower salaries.
• According to the applications filed in 2005, it appears that employers may be significantly understating what U.S. computer workers are earning in order to justify paying low wages to H-1B guestworkers in those occupations. In FY 2005, H-1B employer prevailing wage claims averaged $16,000 below the median wage for U.S. computer workers in the same location and occupation.
• 90 percent of H-1B employer prevailing wage claims for programming occupations were below the median U.S. wage for the same occupation and location, with 62 percent of the wage claims in the bottom 25th percentile of U.S. wages.
• While higher than the prevailing wage claims, the actual wages reported for H-1B workers were significantly less than those of their American counterparts. Wages for H-1B workers averaged $12,000 below the median wage for U.S. workers in the same occupation and location.
• The reported wages for 84 percent of H-1B workers were below the median U.S. wage; 51 percent were in the bottom 25th percentile of U.S. wages.
• Many employers make prevailing wage claims using wage sources that are not valid under the law. The Department of Labor routinely approves prevailing wage claims based on these invalid sources.

[ek_hornbeck]

What utter bull crap.

Which part is "utter bull crap"? The part about Cruz supporting increased quotas for H1B visas, or the part about H1B's not being the immigration problem?

The former is a statement of fact corroborated by various news sources. The latter is a matter of common sense - a few thousand more Hindu IT guest workers aren't going to turn the US into a replica of a Mumbai slum. Tens of millions of Mexican and Central American illegals (almost all of them unskilled and uneducated) will turn our cities into replicas of Mexico City slums.

[sitetest]

I’ll take an extra 260000 educated workers if he gets rid of 11 million illegals.

[ConservingFreedom]

I’ll take an extra 260000 educated workers if he gets rid of 11 million illegals.

I'll take the clap if my cancer can be cured - but I'd most of all like to have neither.

[ek_hornbeck]

I’ll take an extra 260000 educated workers if he gets rid of 11 million illegals

It's more like 20 million by now, and growing by the day.

People who think that the H1B program is the heart and source of America's immigration problem are like the guy who's busy replacing the gasket of a dripping bathroom faucet while floodwaters are carrying his entire house downstream.

[sitetest]

I’m not crazy about the increase in H1Bs. But 11 million illegals is orers omagitude worse. If he gets rid of the illegals, I’ll take trade.

[FreeReign]

if illegals are deported, that is not amnesty, that is rule of law.

And then if the same illegals are expedited back in without going to the back of the quota line, that's amnesty.