The politics of immigration hit the fan in Iowa. Note the bit about the “once relatively homogenous population” in Iowa. When Democrats campaign in Iowa, they’re appealing to voters outside the state, but the GOP candidate will actually need those Iowans to vote for him.

Beyond whatever influence it has as the state whose caucuses kick off the presidential nominating contest, Iowa has become something of a laboratory for the politics of immigration. Not only is it a place where industries like meatpacking rely heavily on immigrant workers and where a once relatively homogenous population is confronting an influx of Hispanic residents, but the presidential candidates who are criss-crossing the state are also providing forums for Iowans to express their views and influence national policy.

On Saturday morning in Des Moines, Brownback stood for 30 minutes at a breakfast with Republicans as question after question — without exception — was directed at an immigration system that Iowans denounced as failing. “These people are stealing from us,” said Larry Smith, a factory owner from Truro and a member of the central committee of the state Republican Party.

Finally, Brownback, with a slight smile, inquired, “Any other topics that people want to talk about?”[McCain and Brownback Discover Immigration is Big Issue For Iowans By Adam Nagourney , New York Times, March 20, 2007

Working for today’s pro-illegal alien MSM that thrives on stifling the critical thinking process so necessary to good journalism must be tough for many reporters and their editors, who know something is dreadfully amiss but remain silent out of fear of losing their jobs. But it must be especially painful for black journalists, already betrayed by their leadership , as they meekly watch illegal immigration ordering many of their people back to the back of the political, economic and social bus.

Take for example, this column by Mary Mitchell that deals with the dismissal of a black high school principal by a Hispanic controlled school board, Curie fiasco reveals growing rift between blacks, Hispanics, Chicago Sun-Times, March 20.

Citing examples of what lies behind this growing tension Mitchell (e-mail her) says, “For instance, a lot of African Americans were disgusted when Elvira Arellano, an illegal immigrant, compared her plight to that of blacks during the civil rights movement.”

Mitchell says she also was disgusted. Swell.

She goes on: “Then there’s the competition for jobs. Although so many blacks have been locked out of the trade unions over the years that the Chicago Urban League now considers it a civil rights issue, Hispanics have had easier access.

“Unemployed black workers aren’t blind. They see who’s on the construction sites. They also understand that while they have been written out of Chicago’s economic picture, skilled Hispanic laborers are welcome.”

So what does Mitchell propose? “Reforming immigration laws so illegals can be put on a path to citizenship.” Does she really believe that citizenship will somehow lessen the competition for many of the jobs already stolen by illegals?

What Mitchell doesn’t understand, or perhaps refuses to acknowledge, is that the politicians that run the city in which she works care nothing about the native-born working poor, and this sentiment was put into full public view on March 15 when the Chicago City Council voted 45-0 in favor of a resolution calling for a moratorium on immigration raids and deportations and also pays tribute to Elvira Arellano These generous and compassionate lawmakers also declared April 29 “Family Unity Day,” pn which residents of the city should “gather peacefully in prayer and petitioning of their congressional representatives.”

The resolution can be seen here–you may have to click on “Show this post.”)

In other words the City Council, with the blessing of Mayor Daley, is asking all Chicagoans to join them in reaffirming the city’s long-standing (and illegal) “sanctuary” policy that allows illegal aliens to go to the front of the job opportunities line ahead of the city’s working poor that includes many blacks.

Ms. Mitchell concludes: “So the longer this [school] matter drags on, the uglier the talk is going to get.”

Memo to Ms. Mitchell: No. What is going to make this situation “uglier” is journalists like you showing up at their desks each day minus their spines and looking the other way as ordinary Americans are sacrificed on the altar of cheap labor and votes.

David Francis writes in another fine report on immigration in the Christian Science Monitor:

The cure for illegal immigration is “not difficult,” says Robert Rector, a senior research fellow at the conservative Heritage Foundation in Washington. The government simply has to sternly enforce the laws against hiring illegals. If jobs for these foreign-born workers dry up, he says, so will their flow into the US.

This is really very hopeful-especially coming from a key Republican think tank. Now, the big thing that Rector will need to understand, is just what “sternly” means when the potential benefits of illegal immigration are so huge to employers. The current market value of an immigration slot is $100,000. When there is such a low chance of getting caught, fines would have to be substantially higher to be an effective deterrent.

law wasn’t enforced, Rector says, because of a “bizarre coalition” of Democrats, who hoped to “import” future Democratic voters, and business and industrial groups who wanted cheap, flexible employees.

It takes a “bizarre coalition” to get anything done in the US political system. Opposition to immigration is spread among less well to do Americans–and those folks are enormously politically divided. The only way effective immigration reform will come is through and effective bipartisan effort.

Rector calculates that the average household of a high school dropout pays about $9,600 in taxes, including payroll, sales, excise, possibly income (often offset by the Earned Income Tax Credit), property, etc. That same household receives about $32,000 a year in government services. These include Social Security, Medicare, education, welfare, highways, police and fire protection, etc.

The US should select its immigrants, preferably from among the well-educated who pay more in taxes than they receive in government benefits, Rector says. Neither he nor Krikorian says it’s necessary to expand guest-worker programs to provide employers with more employees.

The question here is whether ability to pay taxes is necessarily an accurate measure of contribution to the society. I’d tend to look at the overall increases in overall taxes paid plus increases in property values on a per capital basis to measure the success of immigration policy. However, that is a global measure-not an individual one. An immigrant being able to get a job means little if it simply means some existing American is working in a worse job-or edged out of the job market altogether. We need to look at maintaining-or increasing value per American over time.

Ideally, I would like to focus much more taxation on the very rich-and less on working people, which would help get us away from the idea that taxes paid or income represent a measure of individual contribution. For example, the great Kary Mullis created a patent sold for $300 Million-but got only $10,000 in a bonus(plus some contractor compensation). Mullis created an entire industry with his invention. America needs more people like Mullis in the US-and fewer people like the wealthy executives running his former employer Cetus.

A lot of the benefits and costs of immigration are externalities completely unrelated to individual compensation. You simply can’t assess the contribution of a genius like Steinmetz or Tesla by their compensation.

Perhaps we ought to have futures markets in immigration rights-so the folks capable of accurately identifying immigrants capable of making a contribution that might not be appreciated for years could have an incentive to do so-but such a market would also have to accurately assess all costs to operate effectively.

Recently I sent out a newsletter about a lawsuit that Charleston County filed against the Indian owned bodyshop and outsourcer, Tata Consultancy (TCS). Charleston ’s lawsuit alleges that Tata bungled a huge software contract. That’s not Tata’s only legal problem however — a class-action lawsuit pending against Tata could be far bigger and more damaging.

The story begins with an Indian named Gopi Vedachalam who agreed to work for Tata on an indentured contract in 1997 for Rs 50,000 (rupees). Tata was paid the money as a condition for employment so Vedachalam was made liable for failure to fulfill the contract.

Indentured contracts of this type are quite common in India . The 50,000 rupees was paid by Vedachalam’s father as a condition for his son to work a 2-3 year labor contract in India .

After about 3 years in India , in the year 2000 Vedachalam came to the United States on an L-1 visa. In addition to the Rs 50,000, Vedachalam was subject to a $30,000 charge for liquidated damages if he was charged with breach of contract while in the U.S. He would also be responsible to repay Tata’s litigation and attorney fees if there was a legal disagreement.

“Liquidated damages” are used in the U.S. in much the same way as an indentured contract in India — large monetary penalties are used to shackle foreigners to an employer by making him liable for unsatisfactory work.

Vedachalam signed a document that said he agreed to work long hours without compensation in the U.S. If Vedachalam didn’t meet expectations he would be subject to all penalties mentioned above. The agreement also states that legal disputes will be settled by the Indian court system.

By the time Vedachalam arrived in the U.S. he was yoked to the grinding stone.

Tata prefers Indian courts to handle their lawsuits because India condones indentured servitude and would be very unlikely to help Vedachalam in any kind of labor dispute. There is one major catch — newer documents were found that said legal disputes will be settled in the U.S. — not India . When Vedachalam tired of being ripped off by Tata and decided that being a “slave boy” wasn’t in his best interests, he took the dispute to the U.S. courts instead of India .

Vedachalam was supposed to be paid a salary of $74,000 a year, but he alleges that in 2004-2005 he didn’t receive that much. In addition to being ripped off on his wages, he said that Tata pocketed about $25,000 of state and local taxes that belonged to him.

Vedachalam’s complaint against Tata boils down to two major items:

1) Breach of contract because Tata didn’t pay what it promised.

2) Thievery because Tata pocketed tax refunds that were due to him. In all likelihood Vedachalam didn’t actually owe taxes because international “living allowance” trade rules allow L-1 visa holders to avoid taxes. Tata was simply pocketing the cash at Vedachalam’s expense.

Not surprisingly Tata refused to pay back the Rs 50,000 indenture fee. That didn’t go over too well with the Federal District Court in California who determined that Vedachalam served his 2 year indentured labor contract, and was therefore not liable to the fee. It appears that unless Tata can somehow reverse this decision they will have to pay Vedachalam’s father the money back. This court decision could have have international law and trade implications over jurisdiction which are interesting to ponder.

Just in case you are wondering how much Rs 50,000 is in U.S. currency, it is about $1,100. Go here for conversions:

Just recently the U.S. Federal Court in California gave Tata some major bad news — they ruled that the arbitration case with Vedachalam is subject to U.S. law so the lawsuit will take place in the U.S. not in India .

The bad news for Tata doesn’t stop there!

Vedachalam’s initial complaint has morphed into a huge class action lawsuit against Tata. H-1B and L-1 visa holders are filing lawsuits to get tax money that they claimed was ripped off by Tata. Tata tried to head this lawsuit off by asking for a motion to dismiss the case. U.S. District Court Judge Vaughn Walker refused to let Tata get away with this transparent effort at moving the case to India . Big bummer for Tata! U.S. courts aren’t nearly as friendly to tax fraud and indentured slavery as the Indian courts. Tata’s odds of winning just went down a notch!

To find out more about the Vedachalam case see this copy of a court order in PDF.

If you ever wondered how indentured servitude works in the context of L-1 visas, that court document will give you a very good glimpse inside India ’s dark secrets. Don’t let its antiseptic legal language fog your thoughts — read it carefully and closely and you will see for yourself just how bad things are for workers in India , and just how close we are to adopting India ’s labor standards as our own.

To find out more about the class action lawsuit, be sure to read this newsletter in the archives:

2006-02-15 Class action lawsuit against Tata

Be sure to read these FAQS for further background:

Do nonimmigrants pay FICA and taxes?

Why are H-1Bs called indentured workers? Info on liquidated damages:

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Additional materials

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Gopi Vedachalam and Kangana Beri vs. Tata Consultancy [PDF]

Class Action Lawsuit Against Tata America International Corporation

Class Actions - Federal Court Denies Effort by Tata America International to Dismiss Class Action Lawsuit against Tata for Requiring Workers to Hand over Federal and State Tax Refunds, Lawfuel.com

Federal Court Denies Effort by Tata America International to Dismiss Class Action Lawsuit against Tata for Requiring Workers to Hand over Federal and State Tax Refunds

INTERESTING COINCIDENCE: There will be a California Federal Court hearing on the Vedachalam case on 3/27/2007. Almost at the same time, an H-1B fraud case in California will get a court hearing in United States District Court in Los Angeles on March 29. I hope to have an article about this case published on VDARE.com soon. Keep tuned for more! For a sneak preview read this:2 attorneys charged with work visa fraud |The immigration lawyers allegedly filed false applications for foreign nationals employed at their firm, and perhaps for others. By Anna Gorman, Los Angeles Times March 2, 2007

It’s interesting to note that the LA Times has a retraction in a small blurb called “For the Record”. They relented on the factual error after some relentless complaints by Kim Berry of the Programmer’s Guild. Perhaps in the future the LA Times will be more factual about H-1B visas.