Legal vs. Illegal Immigration in the USA

Everyone's against things that are illegal, but are in favor of things that are legal. Right?

Not me!

Why I am in favor of our "Illegal Immigration" and opposed to our "Legal Immigration" to the US.

For years we've heard how bad our illegal immigration problem is. The immigrants, primarily from Mexico, come to the US to get entry-level jobs. They work hard at them and use very few of our services. Many pay taxes. The jobs they take are clearly jobs that are difficult to fill, require little English language skills and generally mind their business.

However, our "Legal Immigration" -- particularly the H1B Visas have inflicted many problems on the US.

Take for example the recent article about th exploitation of Filipino teachers in Louisiana. They were brought in to LA in a form of "indentured servitude" to work for the school system very cheaply -- but provide the company who brought them in handsome profits. H1B Visas are supposed to be permitted to allow immigration of people with skills that are unavailable within the US. The US has hundreds of thousands of teachers who are currently out of work, or have stopped looking for work. Why would the US allow teachers to be brought in from the Philippines? The Philippine Government has invested resources to train teachers who are badly needed within their country, and we exploit their country by promising to pay them more to come to the US. The only reason we do that is because the Louisiana school districts want to pay teachers less than the going market rate for their skills.

The same thing happens for medical professionals (doctors, nurses) and engineers. The H1B visa is issued to huge companies who want to hire engineers, information technology specialists, etc for less than the going hourly wage.

One specific example of abuse of the temporary visa system is the hospitality industry, particularly in the US National Parks. For decades, the concessionaires in the parks have imported workers from Europe and Asia to work as "indentured servants" for the summers. Most of these workers are students who do gain an opportunity to work on their English language skills while enjoying a resort environment. However these employees are taking jobs that could just as easily go to American students. When our children tried to apply for positions at these concessionaires, they were either turned away, or strongly discouraged either by words, or by the minimal wages offered. It's clear that the H1B Visa arrangement that these students are brought in with provides the companies with the benefit of lower wages, relaxation of labor laws, and a solid guarantee that the employee won't leave the job until the scheduled flight home. If they hired an American student, they would have to pay a market wage, follow all labor laws, and the student could quit at any time to go home, leaving them short of labor at times.

This system would make sense if there was a reciprocity arrangement. For example, if for every student we bring in from Germany, we could send a US student to a German resort area to work under a similar arrangement. However all of these agreements are "one sided"--unilateral to the benefit of the concessionaire.