I am pissed off...Can someone point me background info on this?

[Buttercup McToots]

They will try to attach three proposals to the Department of Defense authorization bill: (1) the DREAM Act (amnesty); (2) provisions of the SKIL Act (increases in H-1B visas); and (3) increases in H-2B non-agricultural seasonal workers.

The DREAM Act sounds like an amnesty to provide in-state tuition to illegal aliens who entered the country before they were 16 (millions of illegal aliens would qualify), but in reality would likely grant amnesty to millions more because no documentation is required of an illegal alien applicant to prove that he/she entered the country before he/she was 16. What is required? A sworn statement. Once that illegal alien is approved, he/she is put on the fast track to citizenship and "retroactive benefits," while lawfully present aliens are forced to take the long route.

The SKIL Act provisions would increase the annual cap from 65,000 to 115,000 the first year, and by an additional 20 percent the next. There is a "ceiling" of 180,000 per year, but there are so many exemptions from the cap (currently, approximately two-thirds of H-1B visas have been exempted) that the cap itself is virtually meaningless. Wages the the tech industry have been falling or flat for more than five years now. This increase will make even easier for U.S. employers to import cheap labor rather than hiring American workers. Watch this CNN report to see how it works.

The increase in H-2B visas for non-agricultural, unskilled workers works to deny jobs and decent wages to "unskilled" American workers in the same way that the H-1B does for "skilled" workers. Employers who want to hire H-2B workers must obtain a labor certification from the Department of Labor (DoL) stating that qualified American workers are not available to fill the jobs, but the DoL is not permitted to verify the truthfulness of the information the employers submit on the petitions. According to the Bureau of Labor Statistics, there are 14 million Americans actively seeking employment who cannot find a full-time job in the current economy. Forty percent of the illegal alien population came to the United States on a temporary visa, like the H-2B, and then overstayed after the visa expired. Congress has not implemented an exit system to ensure that visa holders ever leave.

If your interested in speaking up against more amnesties and flooding this country with more labor as we are headed into a recession, www.numbersusa.com, is a website that is free and painless to send faxes to the traitors in congress.

[Buttercup McToots]

1. Sneaking things in again...

:grr:

[VP505]

2. We should

all be pissed off, especially those who are unemployed, those who are working and struggling to make ends meet while watching their pay stagnate.

[Breeze54]

9. But if I do, I'll be accused of being racist even though I am unemployed and I also need a job!!

I'm not allowed to do that, it seems. I don't count anymore. This shit of everyone boo-hooing for
undocumented workers, when we do have unemployed citizens, gets my goat! Even the state of
Massachusetts got busted for hiring undocumented workers on state construction contracts and
there were a bunch of unemployed construction/electrical workers shut out of that opportunity.
Granted, that happened under Romney-R stands for rethug!! (go figure!) But I think that is
totally wrong! I need a fucking job!! I've also been shut out of customer service jobs (which
are being outsourced at a very fast rate) and the jobs that were available required that I speak
Spanish!! :grr:

*shaking head* I feel for the immigrants but I also have to survive!!!

[bbgrunt]

19. I'm steamed too and I speak Spanish. I don't blame

immigrants, but they have been basically brought in as scabs to destroy wages and unions. A classic dirty trick. Open the borders and let them flood the country because NAFTA destroyed their country--then appeal to humanitarian concerns to keep them here and create incentives for more to come. We are only pawns in their game.

[Toots]

22. Are you willing to pick fruit at two dollars a basket?

You can pick a basket in about twenty minutes if you hustle. That relates to about six dollars an hour. You will do that very physical labor for that amount of money. If so I am positive there is a position open for you immediately. Six dollars an hour is the equivalent to eighteen dollars an hour in Mexico. They send half home and pool their resources to survive. You can have that job just as quickly as you can get there. The farmers are in constant need of help. You can easily join the circuit. I am betting that you wouldn't really want to do the job. Most Americans think such hard labor for such poor wages is beneath them. Americans have an extremely high opinion of themselves and I really don't understand why..

[tkmorris]

3. Link?

[VP505]

4. Read about it here:

http://www.numbersusa.com/index

[mmonk]

5. I am for DREAM.

Imagine if your parents brought you to this country at the age of one. You have lived here all your life. All your childhood friends are from here. You attended K-12 here. Here is all you can know or remember. Do you think if you make the grades and go to college, you shouldn't get the right to stay when you finished your degree?

[VP505]

6. If that were the

only issue in this legislation then I think most people could agree with working toward solving THAT problem. Unfortunately that is only one small part of what this bill will do, here are some of the rest.

• Increase the annual cap for "temporary" nonimmigrant visas from 65,000 to 115,000. But that's just the first year (after that, if the cap is met in any year, it can be further increased by 20 percent for the next year with a ceiling of 180,000 per year)
  
  
  
• Establishes more exemptions from the cap, thus rendering the cap virtually meaningless (as it is, approximately two-thirds of all current H-1Bs have been exempted)
  
  
  
• Instead of capturing "unused" EB visas (as claimed by proponents) from previous years, adds new EB visas by an amount coinciding with the number not issued in those years
  
  
  
• As with the H-1B provisions described above, establishes additional exemptions to the annual EB visa cap that do nothing but make it easier for U.S. employers to import cheap labor rather than hiring American workers.
  
  
  
• "Expedites" and "streamlines" the processing of millions of new applications (and requisite background checks) for "temporary" workers and for LPR status, which, to an agency (U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services
  
  
• Authorizes employers to propose a prevailing wage of their own choosing if the Labor Department is too swamped with labor certification applications to respond within 20 calendar days, thus allowing existing wage stagnation in high-tech fields to become further entrenched
  
  
  
• Allows greater abuse of the L-1 “intracompany transferee/specialized knowledge” visa, which, unlike the H-1B, may be issued without numerical limitation and without the employer being required to pay the alien employee the prevailing wage, or meet other labor condition requirements, and they are valid for longer periods of time
  
  
  
• Puts L-1 nonimmigrants in line for lawful permanent resident (LPR) status, which, for all intents and purposes, would make their employment permanent and would take yet more jobs away from U.S. workers
  
  
  
• Expands eligibility for F student visas – shown to be an effective method for terrorist elements to lawfully enter, and then remain in, the United States – to aliens wanting to study in high-tech fields and, in concert with other high-tech-related provisions, affords them the opportunity to be "fast-tracked" toward LPR status and permanent placement in the job market as more cheap, foreign labor

[mmonk]

7. I am still for DREAM.

It's not about cheap labor. It's about higher paying jobs that give back to the economy. It's about people where through no fault of their own have a home here and are making something of themselves and can contribute to the strength of this nation.

[L. Coyote]

11. If you did all that, you can document it!

[mmonk]

16. Sorry, I don't follow you.

Document what? Thousands of kids like I just described are graduating from schools across this country.

[LearnedHand]

8. Well, maybe I'm missing something here,

but immigration problems just don't scare me. I'm sorry. I just can't figure out what I'm supposed to be afraid of.

[L. Coyote]

12. Yes, wage suppression.

[Nevernose]

10. A human note for the DREAM act

I'm a schoolteacher in the most multicultural school in one of the largest districts in the nation.

One of my kids told me when this whole immigrant thing started blowing up two years ago, "They arrested my dad yesterday. Mister, I haven't lived in Mexico since I was two years old. I speak Spanish, yeah, but not SPANISH spanish. When I go back to Mexico, they make fun of me. Am I gonna have to go back there? I can't go there! I don't care what some paper says, I'm an American!"

And no matter how they might march for "Mexican" rights, and no matter how much they wave the Mexican flag, these are still children who had nothing to do with where they are born.

Also, from a more pragmatic approach: what better way to ensure that naturalized US citizens are qualified than to make sure they have gone through the American education system, which is, despite the occasional righteous criticism, the best in the world?

[Ghost in the Machine]

14. Your kid was wrong, and as a teacher, you should have corrected him.

"One of my kids told me when this whole immigrant thing started blowing up two years ago, "They arrested my dad yesterday. Mister, I haven't lived in Mexico since I was two years old. I speak Spanish, yeah, but not SPANISH spanish. When I go back to Mexico, they make fun of me. Am I gonna have to go back there? I can't go there! I don't care what some paper says, I'm an American!"

Just because the kid "doesn't care what some paper says" doesn't make him an American (but *may* qualify him for the republican party) any more than it makes my niece, who was born here but raised in Germany on a military base, a German.

Ooh! I ate at Taco Bell last night, I must be Mexican!

[Nevernose]

15. A "her," actually

And the difference between her and you niece? My student speaks little to no Spanish, has only been to Mexico twice in her life, has lived in the US for 15 out of 17 years, only lived in a foreign country during infancy, doesn't live in the relatively closed environment of a military base, and barely even speaks SPANISH. She's about as Mexican as you or me or your German-esque niece is, especially since "Taco Bell" is virtually all she knows of Mexico.

Hell, I've spent more time in Mexico than she has, and I don't even particularly LIKE Mexico.

Maybe we could institute some kind of Biblical law? You know, "sins of the fathers to the seventh generation" and all of that?

And lest anyone on either side of this debate doesn't get where I'm coming from: hell, deport her parents for all I care. They knew what they were getting into. We could definitely stand to tighten up the borders and really crack down on illegal immigrants and their employers while we're at it. But justice should be tempered with mercy. When it isn't, we've got totalitarianism. These are human beings, and there's a lot more to them than their immigration status.

[Ghost in the Machine]

20. Bottom Line: If The Girl Was *Born* In Mexico, She's A Mexican, *Not* An American

as she proclaimed and backed up with "I don't care what some piece of paper says". That's the problem with illegal immigration today, the illegals didn't care what a piece of paper (immigration laws) said. They broke the law and did whatever the hell they wanted to do and crossed our border illegally.

True enough, a child shouldn't have to pay for the sins of their parents, but that wasn't my point. My point was that she was wrong, and that you, as her teacher, should have pointed out her error to her and explained the little things called 'facts' and 'laws' to her.

Yeah, it might be heartbreaking for her, and yeah, I may sound like a prick right now, but hey, I'm a stickler for facts and (especially) the truth. What if she grew up unchallenged in her delusions? She might turn out like GWB, who thinks the Constitution is "just a goddamned piece of paper", or like Alberto Gonzales, who thinks the Geneva Convention is "quaint".

Where you grew up and how you talk doesn't mean a thing. Hey, I grew up in the Deep South and when I go up North, they make fun of me. Does that mean I'm not an American because I don't speak the same English someone else?

[DemReadingDU]

21. Several years ago, on TV, there was a white lady, middle age

Her parents were white and both born in America, so were citizens of America. But the parents moved to Africa, and this lady was born in Africa, and she spent her entire life in Africa, over 40 years. She considers herself an African first. Not American-African, not African-American. But African with dual citizenship of America.

[Ghost in the Machine]

25. The *key words* to this story, again, is "she considers herself..."

Just because someone chooses to live in their own created reality doesn't excuse them from the facts of the reality based real world.

Bottom line, what does her *birth certificate* say, and what do the *laws* say??

George W Bush "considers himself" a man of GAWD and a great president. Reality says otherwise...

just sayin'...

[Ghost in the Machine]

26. **crickets**

[lumberjack_jeff]

24. To presume that a Mexican citizen has a civil right to permanent residence here...

... must be predicated on the idea that living in Mexico is inhumane. Yet, Americans vacation there. Go figure.

[Buttercup McToots]

13. Bump...up

:donut:

[OzarkDem]

17. I'll call my Congresscritters

These policies are simply not sustainable.

[bbgrunt]

18. so this is what is so important that they can't address impeachment--

their position on immigration and visas is a disgraceful effort to appease corporations. Here we go again.

[treestar]

23. So you don't like them furriners

People who were under 16 when they came aren't guilty of anything. There's never been an immigration law that didn't require proof - their school records will be very good proof they were here.

Any alien that comes here, even illegally, is helping the economy, or they wouldn't have come.

Go to http://www.dol.gov/dol/allcfr/Title_20/Part_655/toc.htm and read up on what it takes to get an alien here legally. If you look at what the employer has to go through to get them here, you'll see that no one is going to hire an alien when there is a U.S. citizen nearby who can be hired, MUCH more easily.

People who fill jobs that would otherwise go unfilled provide the market for whatever Americans are doing. Someone else getting a job never hurts you. They have $$ and become a potential customer of yours.

Start a company to teach people English. That's only the tip of the iceberg of the opportunity open to those who get over the fear of foreigners. We could all be getting rich and yet we sit here because we're so spoiled at not having to make our own market and drum up customers, that we think it's impossible and start feeling victimized - when feeling victimized isn't necessary.

What a waste of time to spend hours trying to halt economic development and making no $$ doing so. Start selling these people something if you think there are so many of them.