kdawson at slashdot.org quotes The Narrative Fallacy:

“With about 4,200 people participating in a US National Security Agency-supported international competition on everything from writing algorithms to designing components, 20 of the 70 finalists were from China, 10 from Russia, and 2 from the US. China’s showing in the finals was helped by its large number of entrants, 894. India followed at 705, but none of its programmers was a finalist. Russia had 380 participants; the United States, 234;
[China Dominates In NSA-Backed Coding Contest, 6/9/2009]

There is a lot more to producing real technological products than the types of things a programming test can measure.

Still, there is a question of why, with these kinds of results around, we see ads like this:

On a project for our direct client we are looking for Sr. Engineer/ Engineer PERL/ SQL/ Java coders . Candidate should have 6+ years experience . Need either US citizens or Indian H1 resources based in NJ/ NY on contract .

I’ve heard from reliable sources about managers at major formerly US corporations telling folks that they would only receive funding for a project if they agreed to limit their hiring to specific employment agencies from India. One man literally had to threaten to walk of a job to hire a Ph.D. from Harvard. I guess at this point, some of these companies are getting PC and hiring US citizens for window dressing.

The H-1b program has strongly discouraged US workers from entering technological professions because the program offers foreign workers US immigration rights as an unpaid form of corporate welfare. Even when that program does attract talented workers, those workers often have little loyalty to the US or identification with it people, create security problems because they come from countries where background checks can’t even be done-and bring with them practices like extreme ethnic nepotism that is in now way meritocratic.

Ricardo Alonso-Zaldivar writes at AP:

Illegal immigrants won’t be entitled to medical insurance under the health legislation Congress is working on, a leading lawmaker said Thursday.

Sen. Max Baucus, D-Mont., said the health overhaul would cover nearly everyone — 94 percent to 96 percent of the population — but not undocumented workers. Baucus is chairman of the Finance Committee, which has taken the lead in drafting the sweeping legislation.

“We aren’t going to cover undocumented workers because that’s too politically explosive,” Baucus said during a session with reporters, in which he previewed legislation he expects to introduce by mid-June.[Senator: No health insurance for illegal migrants, May 22, 2009]

I would suggest immigration patriots counter with an amendment that would put this issue in the proper framework. Illegal aliens-and for that matter visitors to the US could all be covered by Universal Health Care. The issue is how this is paid for. The insurance of illegal workers should be paid 100% by illegal employers since so much of the wages of illegal workers are paid “under the table”. This could be done by raising fines on immigration violations to whatever level is necessary to pay for this health care.

Yes, having true universal health care would be a draw to illegal immigration–but passing the long term health costs of illegal workers onto illegal employers would drive many of those businesses under. The net effect would be fewer illegal workers because there would be fewer jobs drawing them.

What immigration patriots need to make sure:if the US is destined for universal health care, there is absolutely no tendency of US citizens to subsidize non-citizens as part of the deal. Real universal health care in the US would remove much of the financial problems faced today in areas like emergency care.

I believe in being tough on illegal immigration. However, I don’t think that when dragging someone of a car wreck or delivering medical care for a gunshot wound, is the time to be checking ID’s. If we have a major pandemic in the US, it will not respect immigration status–and having any uncovered population is dangerous to the rest of us. We need to make sure is that all those present in the US are covered in some fashion by a self-funding policy. Legal visitors might be covered with a policy that is reciprocal to what US citizens receive in those countries. There are US citizens covered by French and British health care right now–it would only be reciprocal for the US to do something similar for French and British visitors to the US. However, health care for visitors to the US from countries that provide no health care to US citizens could be paid for by mandatory short-term insurance obtained by those getting a visa.

What Baucus is effectively proposing by avoiding the issue of health care for illegal workers is that American workers continue to indirectly subsidize much of the health care of illegal workers and visitors from countries without universal health care. Immigration patriots need to attack that issue head on.

Byron Harris at WFAA-TV writes:

There is also evidence that hundreds of mechanics with questionable licenses are working on aircraft in Texas.

Now there is evidence of repair facilities hiring low-wage mechanics who can’t read English.

Twenty-one people were killed when U.S. Airways Express Flight 5481 crashed in Charlotte, North Carolina in 2003. The plane went wildly out of control on takeoff.

One reason for the crash, investigators found, was that mechanics incorrectly connected the cables to some of the plane’s control surfaces in the repair shop. The FAA was cited for improper oversight of the repair process.

Repairing airplanes is a complicated business. Airplanes have many manuals. Typically, when mechanics repair a part, they open the manual, consult the book, and make the repair step-by-step, as if it were a recipe book.

They make a list of every action they take, so the next person to fix the plane (as well as the people who fly it) will know exactly what has been done.

If mechanics don’t speak English, the international language of aviation, they can’t read the manual and they can’t record their activities.[News 8 Investigates: Airline mechanics who can't read English, May 16, 2009]

One fundamental question:why should immigrants from countries in which a background check cannot reliably be done be involved managing critical infrastructure in the US? US job growth has not be keeping up with natural increase of our population in recent years. If skilled jobs can’t be filled reliably, this suggests a structural problem that should be addressed, not brushed under the carpet by opening the floodgates.

A reader sent this to me:

Rolleiv Solholm writes in the Norway Post:

The Oslo Police have over the past three years investigated 41 cases of aggravated sexual assault, which resulted in rape. All of them were carried out by non-western immigrants to Norway.
……….
Most of the rapists have a Kurdish or African background, NRK reports.

[Immigrants behind most cases of aggravated sexual assault , Apr. 17, 2009]

It would clearly make sense for all immigrants to developed countries to be required to to purchase bonds that would indemnify victims of their criminal activities. I suspect the reported rapes are only the tip of a rather large iceberg.

Rape is not the act of an immigrant that loves their new homeland-but someone who simply doesn’t belong there in the first place. Norway is a wealthy country and could easily afford to generous settlements to resettle those who want to leave for any reason before tragedies like this happen.

Carrie’s Nation has a rather decent blog on a recent employers’ infomercial coming out of the Heritage Foundation.

“One need only look at the authoritative sources at the end of the article (Melinda Gates’ newspaper The Washington Post, Stuart Anderson aka National Foundation for American Policy, and another Heritage Foundation study) to see how much work was put into this “web memo”.[(yawn) Another "Study" Concludes We Need Higher H-1B Visa Limits , April 9, 2009]

The “study” is called “Help the Economy and Federal Deficit by Raising H-1B Caps.” Some Republicans like Grassley are trying address the H-1b issue-and face uphill re-election battles. Heritage seems intent on helping Grassley lose that fight.

Warren Gunnels(Senior Aide to Sen. Sanders) asks:

“Why would the supporters of increasing H-1B visas be so concerned about our amendment? At a time when the unemployment rate is soaring, do you really think there aren’t enough intelligent Americans to fill these jobs?” [Work-Visa Numbers Get Squishy -- and Get Played, March 31, 2009]

US immigration policies often had very different effects than advocates promised.

Theoretically, we could look at the effects of corporate sponsored immigration on companies. Advocates of corporate sponsored immigration constructed policies with such poor reporting that isn’t possible. We just don’t know precisely how many guest worker visas are in use in many companies–or the cumulative impact of related chain migration. Corporate immigration advocates want investors and customers to have the illusion they are the same companies they always were-even when they replace their American workforce.

Guest worker visas aren’t just cheaper. Corporate management perceives guest workers as far more easily controlled than Americans. Criminal corporations like Enron prefer guest workers. Heavy guest worker use is sometimes motivated by ethnic nepotism in companies managed by co-nationals of guest workers.

Guest worker use can be very addictive. Although guest workers may be a small portion of overall employment, they are often used in for jobs utterly essential for day to day operations–and security. Many companies have lost the trust of US tech workers–and even their foreign workers with an option to work elsewhere.

They depend utterly on a constant flow of indentured workers. These guest workers actually have a knife at the throat of their supposed corporate masters. America can clearly thrive without guest worker visas, but many managers and major companies cannot. America may well be far better off without those companies and managers.

My heart goes out to the all families affected by the recent shooting. James Fulford has pointed out, the shooter was an East Asian male. Mass immigration and the accompanying financial crisis have created an inherently volatile situation in the US. Expansion of H-1b and related visas has greatly affected East Asian males in the US–literally cutting off the one major legitimate route to upward mobility many see followed by others they can identify with. I have known many East Asian co-workers in Silicon Valley. The pressures many of them are under in the US are unbearable. For both their sake and ours the US should be far more selective accepting immigrants, more careful in assuring immigrants legally admitted can expect a decent life and provide greater aid for those who find they really aren’t cut out for life in the US and need to return home. Welcoming someone into a life that drives them to suicide and murder is not doing anyone any favor.

Carl Bialik writes in the Wall Street Journal:

The recipients of U.S. visas for specialized job functions are a small blip in the overall employment market. But they’ve taken on great symbolic importance in the past year.

With the filing period for employers beginning April 1, immigration advocates argue that granting more H-1B visas to foreign nationals creates jobs for Americans. Critics dispute that notion and say that financial firms receiving bailout funds have been hiring foreign workers while laying off tens of thousands of Americans. Both sides are playing fast and loose with the numbers.[Work Visa Numbers Get Squishy-and Get Played, March 31, 2009]

The advocates of H-1b expansion have enormous resources to analyze every aspect of skilled labor immigration and include some of the wealthiest people in the world, the most powerful CEO’s, the Federal Reserve and leaders of major foundations and research institutions that are heavy direct and indirect users of H-1b and related visas. H-1b skeptics have virtually no such resources. Why did guest worker expansion advocates create a set of policies with such poor tracking and reporting in place?

“H-1b” has become a popular “generic” label for skilled guest worker visas. There is a complex alphabet soup of related visas including L-1 visas. Both sides are flying blind because of the policies H-1b advocates cavalierly instituted. We just don’t know things like just how many H-1b and related visas are used in each publicly traded company and how this relates to their financial performance, hiring and criminal convictions in those companies. You will find far more support for honest and expanded reporting among H-1b skeptics than H-1b advocates.

There has been no lasting improvement in the US stock market or the employment situation of Americans since H-1b expansion. Skilled guest worker expansion is far more than a blip in the most impacted industries.

Katie Fairbank writes in the The Dallas Morning News:

DISD had the most filings of any North Texas entity, with 380 requests for H-1B visas and five for permanent visas.

“We’re obviously trying to find more bilingual teachers to help us with our population,” said school district spokesman Jon Dahlander. Students with limited English proficiency now number 53,785 in DISD, or 34 percent of total enrollment.

Dahlander added that despite job cuts of about 1,000 positions this school year, “we will be making new requests in April.” He said he didn’t know how many.[Dallas ISD, area firms sought hundreds of worker visas amid job losses, March 30, 2009]

Some analysis suggests there has been a recent reduction in illegal immigration. Are we seeing an influx of immigrants from other parts of the country into Dallas or is this evidence of a policy change in the DISD? I wonder how many of these “students with limited English proficiency” are US citizens (i.e. anchor babies)?

London is giving a warm, multicultural welcome to the G20 leaders assembling there.

Interestingly, overt Marxism is largely absent from the symbols of protest-which seems centered around environmental and anarchist sympathies.

Since the Great Depression, there was largely an identification of Marxism with the left. That originated when restriction of immigration was fact in most developed countries. Key elements of the Social Democratic Marxist tradition are now part of the Global elite when something has gone deeply wrong.

The face of the “Establishment” is rather cosmopolitan.

We are seeing crowds thresh about, unconsciously seeking some package of policies that will address essential issues. These intellectual and cultural gyrations accelerate until a real solution is found for the world economy and the major developed countries. Until immigration restriction is in place, issues essential to leftists simply cannot be addressed in developed countries-and that creates a huge quandary for the left aspect of global leadership because they are so identified with multiculturalism they can’t think straight about immigration issues. When street leftists move into corridors of power, they create a niche for new and different varieties of street leftists-and that will continue until somebody who moves into power delivers something real.

Anti-immigration groups like the BNP aren’t part of the G20 Protests–but that could change if the global economy and leftist orthodoxy continues to unravel.

More photos of the London G2 Protests are here.