Sue Kwon writes at CBS:

A video posted on YouTube is stirring anger and debate in Silicon Valley. It shows attorneys with Cohen & Grigsby telling their corporate clients how to get around Federal rules around hiring foreign workers.

(We wrote about this video on June 17–CBS is just catching up.)Another damning quote from the folks at Cohen and Grigsby:

“If necessary, you (companies) have to schedule an interview to find a legal basis to disqualify them (US applicants) for this position. In most cases this doesn’t seem to be a problem.”

Basically this is part of why companies develop the reputations that they are highly biased against US workers and US workers are reluctant to work with them except at fairly high contractor rates.

Cohen & Grigsby would not allow CBS5 to view the session in its entirety and issued a statement.

“We regret the choice of words that was used during a small segment of the seminar,” the statement said. “It is unfortunate that these statements have been commandeered and misused, which runs contrary to our intent.”

I wonder if a class action lawsuit would be warranted here? I know I found it rather annoying having my time as a job hunter wasted by folks that didn’t even have the courtesy of a “No Americans Need Apply” sign-just lots of ads posted with the real goal of paying a foreign worker with a green card.

Folks might also write the members of the Pennsylvania State legislature on the Judiciary and Law and Justice Committees asking them why there is such a low level of legal ethics in Pennsylvania(where Cohen & Grisby are based).

It isn’t like there is any shortage of lawyers. Even if these folks at Cohen and Grisby are disbarred, there will be plenty of others willing to take their place.

Events like this make it pretty clear the legal profession is incapable of self-regulation–particularly in the area of ethics. We need increased legislative and citizen oversight of the legal profession-particularly in the area of immigration law.

This story is being discussed on Slashdot. Computerworld has also picked up the story.

This San Francisco Chronicle piece talks about why Latinos aren’t going to college in large numbers even if they’re American citizens and are legally entitled to the money the American taxpayer pays to send people to college.

Two of the reasons are

• They don’t speak English very well, in spite of being native-born, probably because not only were they raised by Spanish-speakers at home, but went to majority Hispanic schools, in majority Hispanic neighborhoods. That’s not only not a recipe for assimilation, it’s not even a recipe for learning English.
• Their parents aren’t that interested in their schooling, using them as child labor. A teacher is quoted as saying “I ask why they’ve been absent and they say, ‘I’ve been helping my dad with work. I’ve been too tired for homework.’”

I’ve italicized a couple of the points that struck me, below.

Attending college sets Veronica and her 20-year-old sister apart from most of the state’s Latinos, who are expected to become a majority of California’s population in another generation, according to state estimates, but who currently have the lowest levels of education of any racial or ethnic group in California.

Veronica is among just 1 in 7 California Latinos who graduated from high school after four years and completed the courses required to enroll in a four-year college, according to the California Department of Education. If she completes college, she will be among only 13 percent of U.S.-born Latinos in California with a bachelor’s degree, the nonpartisan Public Policy Institute of California found.

The statistics for African Americans are similar to those of Latino students, but the societal impact is less broad. Blacks make up 8 percent of the state’s public school students, while Latinos represent 48 percent. [College seems out of reach to most Latinos,By Tyche Hendricks, June 24, 2007]

The part about Latinos being expected to “become a majority of California’s population in another generation” assumes, of course, both that mass immigration continues, and that none of the several million illegals in California is deported.Of course, these trends will only get worse with amnesty.

The New York Times has gritted its teeth and published a piece of pro-President Bush puffery: Texas Town Forged Bush’s Firm Stand on Immigration By Jim Rutenberg June 24 2007. The thrust of this is that Bush’s fanatical support for an immigration Surge is rooted in a Gone with the Wind type nostalgia for the golden days of 1950s Midland Texas, complete with happy Hispanics all over the cotton fields and a Hattie McDaniel figure as housekeeper and “second mother”.

The reality of course is that Bush probably felt no threat from deferential poor Hispanics, crippled by language deficiencies and living under the shadow of the Eisenhower Operation Wetback policy. What probably did threaten him were undeferential anglophone Texans with their own political traditions and no doubt lack of appropriate respect for transplanted Wall Street New Englanders.

Besides which there was the enticing example of the life style of the Mexican oligarchs with whom his father did business. Could 21st Century American immigration policies be dictated by boyhood ambitions forged back then?

The interesting aspect of the article, however, is that modern Midland does not agree. An old-established restaurant, said to be Bush’s favorite, faced a boycott last year because the owner supported pro-illegal rallies. (Needless to say, this effort was undercut by Bush’s particular cronies.) The local Congressman, a former Bush employee, despite only having a “B” from Americans for Better Immigration, is willing to be candid:

“There’s just a real disconnect between the folks of West Texas and the president right now,” said Mike Conaway, who was the chief financial officer for Mr. Bush’s oil exploration company here in the 1980s and now represents the area as a Republican in Congress…breaking with Mr. Bush on immigration in recent months after having followed his lead with Rolex reliability for most of his term.

The Chairwoman of the Midland Republican party, Sue Brannon, was courageously very outspoken:

Ms. Brannon, the local party chairwoman who has known Mr. Bush for decades, said Mr. Bush did not understand the new realities of illegal immigration. She said the friends he made in the Hispanic community when he lived in Midland were “not here illegally and taking freebies.”
“I love George and Laura dearly, and I respect him,” she said, “but this immigration thing is going to ruin our country”
In the 1990s…Texans felt as if the immigration problem was relatively under control — an assessment of that time that even Ms. Brannon shared. But now, she said, “there’s just more and more coming in.”

Is the Bush White House in the same galaxy as Midland, Texas?

Applaud Sue Brannon

Hispanic family values file: Readers send us a lot of these pitiful stories. They don’t make the national media, but they’re worth posting because they illustratrate the unreported toll that immigration policy is exacting on ordinary American:

Authorities say Hector Lara was enraged by a perceived insult early Saturday when he jumped out of his car, waved around two handguns and fatally shot a Fort Worth man in the parking lot of a northwest Dallas gas station…

Confronted by Mr. Lara, [25-year-old Terrance] Frazier denied they were talking about his girlfriend, witnesses told police. He then went in the store.

When Mr. Frazier came back outside, Mr. Lara again confronted him and got out of the vehicle, waving the two .45-caliber handguns around, authorities said. Mr. Frazier backed away but was shot once in the chest.

With Mr. Lara’s girlfriend behind the wheel, police said, the couple fled the parking lot with Mr. Lara firing into the air.

Man shot to death outside northwest Dallas gas station:Gunman upset about perceived insult of girlfriend, police say, by Tanya Eiserer, The Dallas Morning News, June 23 2006

Note that the victim “backed away”.

“We’re hearing that when he’s drinking, he’s just uncontrollable,” said Sgt. Raymond Beaudreault, a homicide unit supervisor”…

“We can’t make any sense of it at all,” Sgt. Beaudreault said. “The fortunate thing is that he’s off the streets.”

Reporter Eiserer does not mention Lara’s immigration status. (Ask her why not). It is a safe bet, however, that his people did not come over on the Mayflower.

It may be fortunate that Lara is off the streets. But it’s extremely unfortunate, in fact treason, that he’s in the U.S. at all.