October 15, 2003
Tamar Jacoby’s Latest Amnesty
Plea; etc.
Tamar Jacoby of the Manhattan Institute has a new
op-ed in the Los Angeles Times, advocating an
alliance between the
Stupid Party and the Evil Party on immigration.
These two parties, with the concurrence of
labor unions and
big business, plan to legalize some illegal
immigrants, while importing some
guest workers, while also ensuring, by some as yet
unspecified means, “that the initiative did not
undercut U.S. workers.” [“Lift
Shadow From Illegal Immigrants: Observers on the
right and left agree the migration status quo isn't
working,” By Tamar Jacoby, LA Times, October 15, 2003.]
Yawn. There’s no argument in this piece that we
haven’t answered previously. See
A Reply to Tamar Jacoby’s Pro-Immigration Essay in
Commentary by me and
Peter Brimelow, or
Tamar Jacoby Does 9/11 Damage Control At Reader’s
Digest, by Sam Francis for details.
Reference the above piece using this permanent URL:
http://www.vdare.com/fulford/amnesty_plea.htm#jacoby
You Don’t Need To Be
Einstein…
Einstein is one of the “arguments”
used by
immigration enthusiasts for mass immigration. He was
an immigrant, wasn’t he? Another such argument: we need
foreign tech workers to do jobs that Americans are
“too stupid to do.” Or, as Norm Matloff
points out, jobs that software companies don’t want
to pay
American salaries for.
But, obviously, any rational
immigration policy can make exceptions for a known
genius. (Einstein was
world famous long before he came to
Princeton). And, equally obviously, the average
Hispanic
busboy is unlikely to discover a Unified Field
theory.
In the latest issue of The
Public Interest, demographer
Michael S. Teitelbaum asks if the US is in need of
the scientists who are being allowed to immigrate now.
[Do
we need more scientists?
By Michael S.
Teitelbaum, Fall 2003] Under the subhead, The
politics of shortages he has this to say, with
VDARE.COM emphasis added:
“Whether or not such motivations underlay that episode,
we can certainly appreciate the various incentives that
may currently spur some to endorse such claims
[of shortage]. Universities
want to fill their classrooms with undergraduates who
pay their fees and finance their research with external
funding, and to do so recruit graduate students and
postdoctoral fellows to teach undergraduates and to
staff their research laboratories. Government
science-funding agencies may find rising wages
problematic insofar as they result in increased costs
for research. Meanwhile, companies want to hire
employees with appropriate skills and backgrounds at
remuneration rates that allow them to compete
with other firms that recruit lower-wage employees from
less affluent countries. If company recruiters find
large numbers of foreign students in U.S.
graduate science and engineering programs, they feel
they should be able to hire such noncitizens without
large costs or lengthy delays. Finally,
immigration lawyers want to increase demand for
their billable services, and especially demand from the
more lucrative clients such as would-be
employers of skilled foreign workers.
“None
of these groups is seeking to do harm to anyone. Each
finds itself operating in response to incentives that
are not entirely of its own making. But a broad
commonality of interests exists among these disparate
groups in propagating the idea of a ‘shortage’ of
native-born scientists and
engineers. Moreover, claims of shortages in these
fields are attractive because they have proven to be
effective tools to gain support from American
politicians and corporate leaders, few of whom would
claim to be experts on labor markets. As noted earlier,
the
dubious reports from the ITAA were used successfully
to convince the Congress to triple the size of the H-1B
visa program in 2000. In late 2002, a leading lobbyist
for the National Association of Manufacturers,
responding to criticism that shortage claims cannot be
supported by credible evidence, put the matter
succinctly: ‘We can’t drop our best selling point to
corporations,’ he explained.
You don’t need to be Einstein to
see that there is something wrong with today’s
immigration laws.
Reference the above piece using this permanent URL:
http://www.vdare.com/fulford/amnesty_plea.htm#einstein
Chicago, Chicago, That
Mexican Town
Herbert London of the
Hudson Institute has a must-read piece about trying
to ask for directions to Midway Airport in Chicago,
Illinois. [Looking
for America in Chicago, Townhall.com October 14, 2003] It
wasn’t easy.
You see, Mr. London doesn’t really
speak Spanish, and there was no one for miles and miles
of Illinois highway who could communicate with him in
English.
“After traveling in the
wrong direction for about five miles I decided to ask
for help at a gas station. As soon as I started to
speak, I realized the attendant did not speak English.
I went on to another gas station where I encountered the
same problem, then another and another. After seven
stops, I finally relented. In pidgin Spanish, I pleaded
for assistance…. All through this experience I kept
asking myself in what nation was I traveling. I am
persuaded I was actually in Little Mexico, a colony of
Big Mexico.”
This is an experience many people have had, (Janice
Barton of Michigan was
sent to jail for
complaining about it) but Herbert London, because
he’s a professional social critic, can back it up with
figures.
“Although proponents of
immigration contend diversity is a healthy consequence
of the new immigration, it really doesn’t exist.
Diversity has dramatically declined among new
immigrants. During the last decade – as my experience
indicates – immigrants from Mexico account for more than
30 percent of the foreign born in the United States.
Moreover, Mexicans accounted for about 43 percent of the
growth in the nation’s foreign born population.
“In Illinois, for example,
the Mexican population increased from roughly 275,000 in
1990 to 680,000 in 2003, almost all of these Mexicans
are in the Chicago area.”
Read the whole thing, as they say.
Reference the above piece using this permanent URL:
http://www.vdare.com/fulford/amnesty_plea.htm#chicago
