H1B Visas... We should stop them immediately!

[Truth Warrior]

Government "managed" trade CALLED "free trade" is NOT free trade. The WTO and GATT are NOT your friends. They only serve the purposes of TPTB.

 

[therealjjj77]

Even better, we can indeed look at Hong Kong, one of the most densely crowded places on earth. with about 18,000 people per square mile. I do not want to live in a box under a box on top of a box, which is what Hong Kong apartments are like.

Let's not to mention their utter disregard for international copyright laws, and the bilions of dollars that adds to their economy.

It's easy to point at someone else and say how awful they have it. But if they have it so awful, why do so many people CHOOSE to live there? Guess it must not be that awful.

As far as disregard for international copyright laws:

A. There should be no such thing
B. Americans have as much disregard for America copyright laws (ask any teenager you know if they've used youtube or morpheus or bittorrent or the list goes on...)

 

[picaman]

Call on Congress to end H1 visa abuse. Sign the petition at change.org
http://www.change.org/petitions/stop-giving-away-american-jobs

 

[lynnf]

Government "managed" trade CALLED "free trade" is NOT free trade. The WTO and GATT are NOT your friends. They only serve the purposes of TPTB.

you are exactly right. these "free trade" agreements are part of Agenda 21, the economic, or income redistribution, part. it's just pure communism, a sneaky communism. and you are for it if you are a "free traitor".

 

[rockerrockstar]

2 - H1B Visas take away jobs from American Educated workers

3 - H1B Visas are just a PLOY by CORPORATE America to:

a. Hire workers at lower WAGES compared to Americans Workers

I am an engineer and I agree that we need to end the H1B visas. There are plenty of american engineers out of work. The companies use these H1B visas to hire cheaper labor. They are stealing american jobs. The companies lie saying the can't find enough qualified workers for job that is not the case. They just don't want to pay American wages they would rather hire these foreign workers for less wages.

We also need to stop the offshoring/outsourcing of jobs. This is destroying Americans jobs.

 

[ZenBowman]

You're arguing the opposite. You're arguing that our wages should be diluted until they're equal to that of a third world nation, even though we live better far better than that.

No.

He's arguing that companies should be free to hire non-Americans, and government should not interfere.

This is in fact Ron Paul's exact position, watch his appearance at Google, this is exactly what he states.

You see it as an "evil globalist vs patriotic nationalist" thing, apc3161 and Ron Paul see it as a "tyranny vs liberty" thing.

 

[RonRules]

Outsourcing is a worse problem. With outsourcing, ALL the money ends up in the outsourced country. With work visas, the workers come here, spend here, often buy houses and many times start business of their own in the US.

Skilled immigrants are a great deal for us. We don't have to spend money on their first 25 years of their life, education, etc. It's during the first 25 years of their life that highly skilled people are completely useless. They produce nothing for the first 25 years.

We get them at 25 and they can be productive for the next 40 years, spend money in America, pay taxes, etc. It's a great deal for the country and I would increase the H-1 program/green card by 10X.

Outsourcing, on the other hand should be minimized, but I'd rather the gov to stay out of this altogether.

 

[Enforcer]

Ron paul voted yes 9 years ago when there was a massive shortage of HIGHTECH workers... but now, there are so many unemployeed HIGHTECH workers/Engineers/ETC...

I think hording the hightech workers around the world is doubly counter-productive:

1 - H1B Visas takes away any foreign assets to their respective countries workforce

2 - H1B Visas take away jobs from American Educated workers

3 - H1B Visas are just a PLOY by CORPORATE America to:

a. Hire workers at lower WAGES compared to Americans Workers
b. HOLD H1B WORKERS HOSTAGE to working more hours
c. Stay in AMERICA or they can notify INS/ICE to initiate deportation procedures
d. Industrial Relations IR/HR depts to control H1B workers because of NO US Civil rights (FOREIGNERS)

Ron Paul's previous record on H1Bs...

Voted YES on more immigrant visas for skilled workers.
Vote to pass a bill to increase the number of temporary visas granted to highly skilled workers from 65,000 to 115,000 by the year 2000.
Reference: Bill introduced by Smith, R-TX.; Bill HR 3736 ; vote number 1998-460 on Sep 24, 1998

The real problem with the OP in this thread:

IT IS ABOUT SELLING YOU SOCIALISM!!! It is a position antithetical to Liberty; it is indicative of people that do not understand the economics of their own nation. This foolishness goes on around here quite a lot. First, let us get the Ron Paul position on this:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kxzZjmZ-1dc

H1B visas are capped at 85,000 per year. The facts are that an employer creates a job. He does not owe it to single one of you here, regardless of how qualified you think you are. I fought racial quotas, affirmative action, and preferential hiring schemes in the 1970s. Despite the media always calling me a "self proclaimed white supremacist" (in reality, I never referred to myself as a freaking thing, they did)... when I got my fifteen seconds of "fame," all I asked for was that the employer make the decision as to who they wanted to hire.

One of the great hallmarks of a constitutional Republic is that we have a Right to own property. That property can be real estate or it might be intellectual property (such as a songwriter owning the song he / she wrote.) The Right extends to own the product of our creation be it a product or the job that was created in the private sector.

Whether or not there is a shortage of American workers or a shortage of jobs, nobody owes any of you a freaking living. Say what you want, but I've been out of work this round for ten days now. Four months ago I had been out for several months. In the last two years, I've worked a total of eight months. Since I am an independent contractor, I don't get unemployment or welfare. I don't work, I don't eat. Nobody owes me a job and nobody owes any of you a job either.

The reality is, in a free market, the presence of foreign labor tells us that the economy is thriving. Their presence means that other jobs are being created. Many of you live in homes that were built with foreign labor. Your equity went into YOUR pocket, not the unions. Did you bitch and complain when houses were appreciating in value?

Today, with each foreigner that is shipped out of the U.S. due to these xenophobic laws, a home is foreclosed on. Once that home is foreclosed on, the surrounding homes LOSE value. There is now an overabundance of homes in the U.S..... probably enough to last another twenty years! So, while some of you chose the wrong profession and cannot live on what you make, you want the government to feed you like an infant by guaranteeing you a job at the expense of someone else.

What you need are lessons in economics. The anti - immigrant lobby has forced Congress to pass the so - called "Patriot Act," the REAL ID Act, National Defense Authorization Act; an end to innocent until proven guilty; the proliferation of warrant less searches, etc., etc. In short, the anti - immigrant lobby spent TRILLIONS in the creation of government agencies and they lost most of their fundamental God given unalienable Rights on the flimsy pretext that it would "save" a couple hundred Billion dollars. Blow TRILLIONS to "save" billions. That's the spirit. Of course, it's the real reason that jobs cannot be created and you probably don't have one, but we can always scapegoat some minority for our fundamental deficiencies in our understanding of basic economics.

 

[rpwi]

I know plenty of IT workers who are struggling to find work...complete myth that there is a labor shortage of IT workers. If these whiny companies (like Microsoft) actually advertised properly for these positions and paid competitive wages they would be swamped with applications...guaranteed. What M$ wants is not more IT workers...but cheaper IT workers. BIG difference.

The H1B Visas should really be for unique and highly technical fields. No longer the case in IT...everybody and their cousin is specializing IT now thx to the media hype creating a grapes of wrath situation. I mean where do you draw the line... do we need H1 visas for roofing because you have to have 'technical expertise' to know how to work on a roof? Would much prefer, immigrants come through the normal channels instead of the "lower labor cost for industry X" channel.

The other problem with H1's...is that they are very abusive to employees. The employer can yank the H1...so employees are constantly terrified that this will happen and this creates an abuse of power and an inability of employees to make long term decisions (like start family, buy house, etc..).

Now there should be easier (but fairer) ways for immigrants to enter the economy...but without merely importing over-population issues. My solution is to let immigrants buy their citizenship for 100k. Only serious immigrants (and not casual get-quick-rich immigrants) would be interested. Take 5% of 100k and that's 5 thousand a year for a loan...most immigrants should easily be able to pay these interest payments...even low skilled ones. Then if companies are serious about wanting workers, they can loan the money to the immigrants to buy their citizenship. If companies and immigrants want to lower wages and create overpopulation issues in the US which taxes our infrastructure and creates inflation...it only makes sense they that contribute to their cost in a manner like this.

 

[ZenBowman]

Whether or not there is a shortage of American workers or a shortage of jobs, nobody owes any of you a freaking living. Say what you want, but I've been out of work this round for ten days now. Four months ago I had been out for several months. In the last two years, I've worked a total of eight months. Since I am an independent contractor, I don't get unemployment or welfare. I don't work, I don't eat. Nobody owes me a job and nobody owes any of you a job either.

Exactly, many people don't get this, they think that forcing employers to hire Americans at higher wages is liberty.

 

[Brian4Liberty]

Yeah, we get it. Many of you don't believe in nations. One borderless world, where human nature has been replaced by a Utopian social and economic Darwinism where every decision is made based on a perfect knowledge of value, and the losers somehow disappear. "Evolve or die", and evolution is now something that takes place in months, not millions of years.

 

[ZenBowman]

Yeah, we get it. Many of you don't believe in nations. One borderless world, where human nature has been replaced by a Utopian social and economic Darwinism where every decision is made based on a perfect knowledge of value, and the losers somehow disappear. "Evolve or die", and evolution is now something that takes place in months, not millions of years.

We believe in freedom. We don't believe in forcing companies to hire one person over another.

You apparently do, and that's fine, just stop pretending that it is the pro-liberty position.

There's a reason Paul has consistently supported more open immigration, especially skilled immigration. Start at 4:10

 

[RickyJ]

I am an american tech worker and I support allowing skilled people to work in the country unhindered.

They generally speak good english, are good citizens, and are the kind of people most likely to start businesses.

It's silly to invite people here as PhD students and then kick them out once they are educated.

They then just go and hire all the other foreign skilled workers we kept out, and undercut american businesses.

People complain about foreign workers, then turn around and complain about outsourcing.

The problem is, you can't just shoot these foreigners. They are going to find tech work somewhere, often at lower wages, and they are going to compete with american tech workers one way or the other.

If more workers really caused mass unemployment, then the US would be a nation of unemployed, as our population has doubled many times over.

The reality is these foreign tech workers become customers too, so unemployment is not increased. This is "Say's Law", the fact that supply creates it's own demand.

Is that why I can't tell if they are speaking English or Hindi half the time? Please, most speak English so badly that only other Indians can understand them. The reason for this is because they don't speak American English, they speak Indian English.

 

[ZenBowman]

Is that why I can't tell if they are speaking English or Hindi half the time? Please, most speak English so badly that only other Indians can understand them. The reason for this is because they don't speak American English, they speak Indian English.

Which is why you are not FORCED to hire them.

However, what you propose is that government FORCES companies to hire Americans instead of nonAmericans.

If you resent government force to be used against yourself, how can you advocate it being used against others.

Q: What do you think of the H1-B program?

Ron Paul: I’ve supported that because it’s legal. I know some people say they don’t follow the law….

Q: The argument is that it’s a form of corporate subsidy—powerful interest groups have arranged to break down their workers’ wages by bringing in temporary workers.

Ron Paul: the market always works to put pressure on the businessman to spend the least amount of money to provide product. So what some may call a corporate subsidy is also a subsidy to the consumer. The consumer is the one protected in the free market. The object of labor is to push wages up as high as possible. The object of business is to get the most efficient labor at the best price. In the free market, that works out. But the problem is we have too much welfare and we have a currency that’s losing value.

Q: If you’re President, various interest groups are going to come to you and say, there’s a shortage of nurses or teachers or (goodness!) possibly journalists; therefore we have to have these temporary work programs to bring in labor in this area. If the labor is organized, it’s going to say to you, look, the problem isn’t that there’s a shortage, the problem is business doesn’t want to pay higher wages. What will you do?

Ron Paul: Well, whatever we do will be legal. Congress has to have a say, they have to pass a law, and the President has to decide to sign it or not. And I would lean in the direction of saying, if there is indeed a shortage, and this is a legal process, this shouldn’t be threatening to us.

Q: How would you determine that there was a shortage?

Ron Paul: Well, I don’t think it would be easy but if there’s a need and immigrants can get a job, that means there’s a shortage. If there was no shortage, they wouldn’t have jobs. Obviously the companies can’t fill some of these jobs and they’re looking for people to fill them.

Q: Well, the counter-argument is that they can’t fill them at the price that they’re offering.

Ron Paul: That’s right, but the market has to set the price. Set the product and set the price of labor.

Q: But the argument of the displaced software engineers is that the government is colluding with the business owners to break down the price by importing temporary workers.

Ron Paul: I don’t think we should have minimum wages to protect the price of labor. I want the market to determine this. At the upper level as well.

Q: It’s really a question of defining the rules, isn’t it? Is it fair for corporations to increase supply by bringing in temporary workers?

Ron Paul: Which, means they’re going to fill a need for a certain time at a certain price, by people who have come here voluntarily. Otherwise, you have to be anti-immigrant and I don’t think our country is anti-immigrant. I think its anti-illegal immigrant. I think the problem you identify is occurring because we don’t have a healthy free market economy and we reward people for not getting training and becoming the type of individual who might get a job in a software company.

 

[Brian4Liberty]

We believe in freedom. We don't believe in forcing companies to hire one person over another.

You apparently do, and that's fine, just stop pretending that it is the pro-liberty position.

There's a reason Paul has consistently supported more open immigration, especially skilled immigration. Start at 4:10

Define "pro-Liberty". Ron Paul is not an anarchist.

I apply supply and demand to the issue of importing workers. A healthy economy has a shortage of workers, and that shortage of workers is mandatory for all other liberty to come about. A labor excess destroys liberty. A vibrant, expanding economy can take on more workers, a recessing economy can not.

And in the video you just posted, here is a quote from Ron himself:

"In a healthy economy, there is a shortage of workers".

I am consistent with Ron Paul, if you do not want to call it "pro-Liberty", so be it.

More from Ron:

What is your view on legal immigration?

I think it depends on our economy. If we have a healthy economy, I think we could be very generous on work programs. People come in, fulfill their role and go back home.

I'm not worried about legal immigration. I think we would even have more if we had a healthy economy.

But in the meantime, we want to stop the illegals. And that's why I don't think our border guards should be sent to Iraq, like we've done. I think we need more border guards. But to have the money and the personnel, we have to bring our troops home from Iraq.

Is the economy healthy enough right now?

No. I don't think so. I think the economy is going downhill. People are feeling pinched—in the middle, much more pinched than the government is willing to admit. Their standard of living is going down. I saw a clip on TV the other day about somebody who was about to lose their house, they couldn't pay their mortgage. There're millions of people involved, people are very uncertain about this housing market. That can't be separated from concern about illegals.

 

[ZenBowman]

Define "pro-Liberty". Ron Paul is not an anarchist.

Does the government have the right to impede corporations from hiring whomsoever they want? Ron Paul says no. I say no. You say yes.

I apply supply and demand to the issue of importing workers. A healthy economy has a shortage of workers, and that shortage of workers is mandatory for all other liberty to come about. A labor excess destroys liberty. A vibrant, expanding economy can take on more workers, a recessing economy can not.

I think you are manipulating his words to try and make them mean what you want them to mean.

He's been pretty consistent on the issue, both with regards to his voting record, and whenever he's been asked to directly address it.

http://www.zdnet.com/news/technology-voters-guide-ron-paul/181741

Do you support enacting federal laws providing for any or all of the following: a) a permanent research-and-development tax credit, b) a permanent moratorium on Internet access taxes, and c) an increase in the current limits on H-1B visas?

Paul: I support either abolishing or greatly reducing as many taxes as possible, and placing money back into the hands of individuals and businesses. Therefore, I would support a permanent research-and-development tax credit, as well as a permanent moratorium on Internet access taxes.

I support immediately getting rid of the corruption in the H-1B visa program. This program allows for immigrants to legally and legitimately come to work here for a set time. I would support expanding it to decrease the incentive to come here illegally.

He acknowledges that the corruption in the H-1 program is caused by the artificial cap itself, and that he would expand it. This is from the 2008 campaign, and the economy wasn't exactly charging along at that point.

 

[jmdrake]

I'm no longer sure it's a good idea for the government to be able to tell me who I can and cannot hire.

 

[Brian4Liberty]

I'm no longer sure it's a good idea for the government to be able to tell me who I can and cannot hire.

Interesting. I have gone the other direction. I was once a young, idealistic, open-borders person. It is a much more complex issue than that, and the situation we have now is a product of the corporatocracy, not any "liberty" movement.

 

[RickyJ]

Interesting. I have gone the other direction. I was once a young, idealistic, open-borders person. It is a much more complex issue than that, and the situation we have now is a product of the corporatocracy, not any "liberty" movement.

Right, this is the USA, not the one world empire. Most foreigners that come here on visas to work are still very much loyal to their homeland and have no affinity to America or its values. We build up a huge defense to protect America and spend insane amounts on it just to let foreigners take over America without a shot being fired? How smart is that? Does patriotism only apply to 18 year olds that recruitment officers can convince to join the military, or should it apply to every citizen, especially the corporations receiving government contracts like Accenture.

 

[Brian4Liberty]

I think you are manipulating his words to try and make them mean what you want them to mean.

I support immediately getting rid of the corruption in the H-1B visa program. This program allows for immigrants to legally and legitimately come to work here for a set time. I would support expanding it to decrease the incentive to come here illegally.

He acknowledges that the corruption in the H-1 program is caused by the artificial cap itself, and that he would expand it. This is from the 2008 campaign, and the economy wasn't exactly charging along at that point.

And I think you are seeing what you want to see in his words.

He acknowledges that the corruption in the H-1 program is caused by the artificial cap itself

I don't get that from what he said at all. The known corruption in the H1-B system is where employers engage in fraud and say that they can not find Americans for jobs. After fixing that, then he would increase the cap.

And you also glossed over where he said "work here for a set time".