Political correctness is the guiding force in most of the mainstream media's coverage of immigration issues. Very often the media's hunger for political correctness goes from out of touch with reality into the truly bizarre.
A September 5 editorial from the Metrowest Daily News in Massachusetts starts off like this:
In a rare show of bipartisanship last month, Congress approved a $600 million border-security bill to help cut off the flow of illegal immigrants.
The bill is to be financed in part by doubling the cost of an H-1B visa. This is the category that allows foreigners with the technological, scientific and medical skills our economy needs into the country for up to six years, during which time they can apply for permanent residency.
That's how badly skewed politics has made our immigration policy: We are keeping the people we don't want out at the expense of the people we do want. Congress regularly adjusts the number of H-1B visas to placate employers who want the quotas increased or to mollify groups who say foreign technical workers are taking jobs from American workers.
A September 9 editorial from the Knoxville News Sentinel reads:
In a rare show of bipartisanship last month, Congress approved a $600 million border-security bill to help cut off the flow of illegal immigrants.
The bill is to be financed in part by doubling the cost of an H-1B visa. This is the category that allows foreigners with technological, scientific and medical skills into the country for up to six years, during which time they can apply for permanent residency.
That's how badly skewed politics has made our immigration policy: We are keeping out the people we don't want at the expense of the people we do want.
These are the very skills that can jump-start our struggling economy.
Playing politics with visas is nothing new, unfortunately. Congress regularly adjusts the number of H-1B visas to mollify groups who say foreign technical workers are taking jobs from American workers.
Besides the similarity (the editorial was distributed by the Scripps Howard News Service), the editorials simply parrot other articles with no fact checking.
They are attacking a recent statute that increases the fees on H-1B visas for companies with more than 50 percent of their workers on those visas. This measure is designed to distract from the widespread abuse in the H-1B program by focusing on those companies whose entire business is H-1B visas.
The number of factual errors both of these editorials crammed into a short space is rather staggering. Both say:
Congress regularly adjusts the number of H-1B visas to mollify groups who say foreign technical workers are taking jobs from American workers
. . . something that has never happened.
They go on to assert that it is "very doubtful" that H-1B workers are taking jobs from Americans. To illustrate this, both editorials use the example of Cognizant Technology Solutions, an Indian outsourcing firm which, according to the Financial Times, complains that it can't find enough American engineers to fill the jobs it has available in the U.S. The company is being forced to import Indian engineers from its Indian operations on work visas to fill its U.S. vacancies.
Cognizant is one of the companies that specialize in moving jobs from the U.S. to India. It describes its business model this way:
Our unique onsite / offshore global delivery model is guided by dedication to client satisfaction.
With a Two-in-a-Box client engagement model, you're assured the onsite attention of a Client Manager, experienced in your industry, working on site with you. Paired with the Client Manager is a dedicated Delivery Manager, who may be located at any of our global, nearshore or local delivery centers. One team is assigned to work on your project from start to finish, becoming an extension of your staff.
Cognizant is one of the prime examples of how the H-1B program is a job destroyer. They hire from India because that is where they are moving the jobs. For these newspapers to spin this type of H-1B usage as resulting from a shortage of U.S. workers shows how removed from reality they are and how little research they put into their product.