Former NM Gov. Bill Richardson on Immigration

[twins.fan]

Governor Richardson supports increasing the quota for H1B visas.

http://www.businessweek.com/videos/2012-09-04/bill-richardson-on-immigration-overhaul#r=lr-fst

[twins.fan]

1. The H1B visa is being used to import REPLACEMENT workers.

My comments:

I am NOT a Tea Party person. I am a LIFELONG Democrat. I am a US STEM worker. I personally know disenfranchised US STEM workers who have lost their jobs to cheap, entry level, third world workers, primarily from India and Communist China.

Governor Richardson is passing along the corporate narrative.

The fact of the matter is that the H1B visa is not being used to import "highly skilled" workers; the H1B visa is being used to import REPLACEMENT workers. US STEM workers are often training their replacements.

The GAO completed a report for Congress in 2011 and concluded that only 6% of H1B visa recipients are "Fully Competent." In fact the GAO concluded that a staggering 54% of the H1B visas are granted to "Entry Level" workers.

The fact is that corporate America is training these H1B workers. Instead of training immigrant workers, corporations could be training US workers, young and old. Young college grads could be trained, and experienced workers could have their skills updated.

Governor Richardson should be ashamed of himself for betraying US STEM workers.

[tblue]

2. What's a STEM worker? nt

[twins.fan]

4. (S)cience (T)echnology (E)ngineering (M)athematics

The US STEM workers are the greatest scientist, engineers, and mathematicians that the world has ever seen.

[tblue]

5. Ahhh...right. Okay. Thank you! nt

[HopeHoops]

3. It's worse than that. H1B workers are indentured servants.

They can only stay here if they have a corporate sponsor (as in "a job&quot . At one place I worked, one guy spent six months living in a small apartment to save money to bring his wife and infant daughter to the states from I think Croatia. It might have been the Czech Republic, forget which. I know from personal discussions that he made about half of what the rest of us did and yet he was one of the more talented programmers. Two months after his family arrived, the company laid him off. No sponsor. No income. No anything. I don't know what became of him and his family, but he got royally shafted.

H1B is bad for American workers, but it's also bad for those who come here on that visa. The entire program should be eliminated. I don't know of a single case where it was justified. We've got hundreds of thousands of skilled workers looking for jobs and all companies want to do is find the cheapest labor they can. We can't fully recover until wages allow everyone to buy products made right here in the USA. That's the only way to get the economy moving again.