Administration Acknowledges "NON-AMNESTY" WILL COMPLETELY ABOLISH IMMIGRATION RESTRICTIONS

I'm told that Margaret Spellings from the White House spoke today at a forum on the president's immigration plan at the CATO Institute. She made it clear that the plan would definitely include high-skilled workers. In other words, it would make H-1B obsolete.

(Among other things, it would mean no cap and no prevailing-wage requirement, though as I've often said, neither the cap nor the prevailing-wage requirement afford any real protection to U.S. workers anyway.)

Spellings' remarks should not come as a surprise to anyone who reads this e-newsletter. As I said in my posting here last week (enclosed below), what people (including many immigration experts) don't understand is that BUSH'S PLAN IS NOT ABOUT ILLEGAL IMMIGRATION. For the reasons I gave in my earlier posting (i.e. the employers of illegals today would not want to pay health insurance, Soc. Security, workman's comp etc.), most jobs done by illegals now would CONTINUE to be done by illegals. It wouldn't make even a small dent in illegal immigration.

Instead, the real effect (and likely, the real intention) of the Bush plan would be to open virtually all jobs in the U.S. to the lowest bidder--and, given the disparities in standards of living, the lowest bids will be very low indeed. In terms of tech jobs, I said last week that even if there were a stipulation that jobs covered by the Bush program not normally require a Bachelor's degree, employers would find loopholes around such a stipulation. But that was merely a "what if" statement on my part, certainly no based on any reports that Bush had been considering such a stipulation, and now Spellings has stated explicitly that that is all it was; i.e. she has confirmed that Bush has no intention of imposing such a stipulation.

If Bush does try to get Congress to draft legislation for his proposal, I guarantee you that virtually everything you see in the press (including from "talking head" economists) will focus on the proposal's relation to illegal immigration. But remember, it is NOT about illegal immigration, and would in fact have almost no effect on illegal immigration.

We are all waiting to see what the details of the Bush guest worker plan will be. But based on the broad outlines we've been told so far, it appears to me that this legislation, if passed, would produce a sea change in American society. Allow me to make a few predictions:

1. The jobs currently being done by "undocumented" workers will CONINUE to be done by them. They are hired today because they are cheap labor. The notion implicitly put forth by the Bush administration that the employers in the agricultural, restaurant, construction etc. industries will want to hire Bush's guest workers, complete with medical benefits, Social Security taxes, Workman's Comp etc. is absolutely absurd. In other words, the bill would not even make a dent on the main problem it's supposed to address.

2. The visa program will not say "Only current or former illegal aliens need apply, and only low-skilled jobs may be filled under this program." Most of the people who use the program will be filling positions in the mainstream job market. As long as the foreign workers have good English--and there are tons of people around the world with fluent enough English--there is no reason they couldn't be hired as clerical workers, insurance claims adjusters, airline ticket agents, teachers, you name it. The hotel industry, for instance, makes it sound like it would use the program to hire maids, but there really isn't any job in the whole damn hotel that couldn't be filled with a guest worker. They'd love to come and work for wages at the entry level or below entry-level for those occupations.

And even the programmer and engineer jobs would be vulnerable. Sure, the program structure could include a provision saying something like, "Not for jobs normally requiring a Bachelor's degree," but so what? The employers would suddenly decide that many programming and engineering jobs don't need a Bachelor's. If it weren't so sad, it would be comical to watch, say, Sun Microsystems, use this new program to hire sub-Bachelor's workers for the same jobs that Sun is now insisting require a Bachelor's degree (the requirement for H-1B).

3. Last year I myself proposed the idea of a jobs database, at which Americans would get first crack with guest workers being eligible for whatever can't be filled by Americans, in my H-1B reform proposal (see http://heather.cs.ucdavis.edu/Summary.pdf). But my proposal is constructed as an integrated package in which all the parts depend on each other. Bush's guest worker program undoubtedly won't be like this. It will simply say that if the employer can't fill the job with an American, then he can hire a guest worker. Well, all the employer will have to do is set the wage low (even entry level would probably be sufficiently low, especially since the large influx of workers would have the effect of making the entry-level wage lower and lower), and bingo!, there will be a "shortage" of American applicants. And that isn't even mentioning all the other tricks employers use today in defining a position in such a manner that only a foreign worker would qualify.

4. Fortunately for the tech industry, most programmers and engineers are wimps who won't fight the outrages going on with H-1B, but if as I predicted above this program hits the general middle in a big way (note that no one has mentioned a cap for the program), I can picture the populace in a very ugly, riotous mood.

"That would be Stalin..."

Thank you, I should've recalled that one.
You've the eyes of an eagle & memory of an elephant.

"Shall we leave this thorny issue for some other generation to resolve?"

Well what's the alternative, pal?
Make a stupid decision now -- such as this amnesty atrocity -- & saddle future generations [read: your kids] with a genuine "Frankenstein monster" running amok because the present generation [read: US] didn't have the sense God gave rabbits for self preservation?

Tell me, I'm all (rabbit) ears.

What is so damned hard to understand, accept & then support our enforcing existing law governing immigration?

Care to take a *guess* what'd happen to YOUR azz if you were in England, France, Germany, Spain, Poland, Russia, Sweden, Austria, Italy, Israel, Japan, China, Malaysia, South Africa, Mozambique, Brasil, Venezuala, Mexico -- or Togo Togo for that matter -- without [that] country's permission?!

For chrissakes gimme a break, get'cher head outa your poop chute.

...use your head.

Think of the academics & *how* they've featherbedded themselves & their careers on the back of the American taxpayer.

Not only did they convince Americans, enmasse, their kid(s) stood absolutely "No chance whatsoever for success or happiness in American life" if they did not acquire a college level eduation, but then that scare tactic morphed into "Every kid should have a college education, (remember, "No child left behind" buttressed with "inclusion" which served to justify "Women's Studies" & "French Ceramics" prOOOOgrams? :o) ) & that soon became "Every kid has a right to a university education."

Well of course it wasn't just the academics that found the line that "we all need more education" useful. The businessmen such as the ITAA found this nosrum very useful as well. I.e "the basic reason we need more H1-B's is the failures in our education system. Our universities just don't churn out enough Math Ph.D's, which obviously means Aericans are stupid and we need more punch code jockies from hyperdad."

In the long run, education (said with pious tones) is the answer, which means we need to spend more mony in this area (amens, amens from all the education lobbyists) but in the short term (i.e. the next campaign funding cycles, for as long as you're in office) you'll just have to give us what we want.

(Education Crowd "OK, just as long as we remember the long term solution - giving us more money - we can always tolerate the short term solution - screwing our graduates")

"Well of course it wasn't just the academics that found the line that "we all need more education" useful."

True, but they sure hit the *jackpot* when everyone jumped on the bandwagon, didn't they?
Who stood most to gain?

Look techie, I'm not opposed to education & realize we're a better nation if we're better educated.

But if you're old enough (45+) then you can also remember the nation has underwent many "crisis" through the past 3 decades over a shortage of skilled workers.
The most popular "shortage" started first with the lack of "quality teachers". Seemed teachers possessing 4 year degrees were making a fraction of what they could earn in any factory in any major manufacturing city in America; and, *that's* precisely what many did too, dumped teaching & went for the $$.

Then the recession of the late 70s hit & sure enough we're being told there's not enough quality teachers to lead & pass on excellence to the new generations which naturally resulted in an explosion of teacher candidates from amoung the graduating HS seniors.

Next it was Registered Nurses & Physicians & that's all we heard about day & night. "Who" was going to tend to the sick yadayadayada.
I know, my bride was then a BSN & her salary skyrocketed due to the nursing "shortage"; which, I might add has come around, yet again.

Then it was engineers (in all diciplines) when Ronald Reagan cranked up the shuttle program & we were getting our lunch handed to us by the Japanese automitive industry who were tearing us new bung wholes in the 80s.
Remember, have to have "quality engineers" to build "quality automobiles" & machine tools & robotics & on and on.

But now, how much of those things are done here, anymore?
What happens when the rules [read: prerequisites] are drastically changed for the available jobs due to competition from foreign labor?
Finally what's the impact on the institutions who used to be responsible for preparing the workers who were to staff the jobs that've now left & no longer exist?

In as much as the universities boomed when "education" became the "must have" thing from HS, it's likely to bust; and, for reason(s) very few could have possibly foreseen.
But that (inevitable?) bust will not go down without a bloody fight from the world of acadamia, either.

"The businessmen such as the ITAA found this nosrum very useful as well. I.e 'the basic reason we need more H1-B's is the failures in our education system. Our universities just don't churn out enough Math Ph.D's, which obviously means Aericans are stupid and we need more punch code jockies from hyperdad.'"

Can't argue with a word you've said, except to say there was time when the nation manufactured an overwhelming amount of our own goods; so, industry had a motive for demanding better educated workers from the education system; but, that's all changed whatwith China & the rest of the pacific ring emerging industrail countrys.
Where's the *demand*?
It's gone & in it's wake not much more than a lot of "Blue Sky" from hucksters.

And a lot sooner than later to make matters even more interesting, they're going to want to get *Africa* into the deal; because, if ya think the Asians work cheap, wait until Africa's stabalized enough for venture capitalists to begin seriously looking at nations on the dark continent for their future operations.

My bad for laying the whole sordid mess at the feet of acadamia, for they're merely opportunists making the best of a "good thing".
Thing is, look at what our universities -- for the most part -- have become.
There aren't many who can argue the present day American university has become a virtual cess pool of Liberal-Socialist indoctrination with copious amounts of goobledegook for almost all; except, those who're [here] from Red China et al studying the (heavy) sciences & engineering disciplines.
The irony's almost too much.

"In the long run, education (said with pious tones) is the answer, which means we need to spend more mony in this area (amens, amens from all the education lobbyists) but in the short term (i.e. the next campaign funding cycles, for as long as you're in office) you'll just have to give us what we want."

Well that's the way it used to be; but, methinks things may be changing some.
Now the POTUS has proposed the moon/Mars thing & there's a very good possibility he's been motivated into doing so because of the horrible state of education in America, top to bottom & a lofty goal might just work to change things just as the man to the moon projects had 40 years, prior.
At least I'm hoping that's what the man's thinking.

Bottom line, acadamia's going to be under the most intense scrutiny they've could've possibly ever imagined; and, in a weird twist of fate it just might be the acadamic who may have to immigrate to find work IF the grads they're producing cannot find employment equal to the education they've been given that said grads will be paying for for.

...for years & years to come.

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