Category: Guest Authors

STEM Degrees Not Worth Effort, Expense

By Joe Guzzardi

Little by little, the truth about academic life on university campuses is leaking out. Although not as dramatic or headline-grabbing as the Harvard, Penn, and MIT scandals, the myth that science, technology, engineering and math degrees (STEM) will lead to a well-paid, white-collar job is gradually being debunked.

In his Los Angeles Times opinion commentary, U.C. San Diego sociology professor and author of “Wasted Education: How We Fail Our Graduates in Science, Technology, Engineering and Math”, John D. Skrentny, exposed a STEM degree’s true worth in the employment market—considerably less than advertised, and perhaps not worth the monies spent on exorbitant tuition fees.

Long-hyped as a path to a big-ticket IT job, and with employers and the federal government’s tacit endorsement that helped promote more foreign-born labor to displace U.S. workers, STEM classes’ popularity soared. Another carrot that encouraged young adults to enroll: the Bureau of Labor Statistics projected that STEM jobs would increase 8 percent by 2029 compared with 3.7 for all other occupations. From 2006 to 2015, bachelor’s degrees in the STEM fields rose from 22 percent of the baccalaureate degrees awarded to 30 percent of the total, the highest level since 1987 when detailed national record-keeping began.

But the Census Bureau’s June 2021 report refuted the popular narrative. STEM degrees don’t guarantee a coveted job in the prestigious science, technology, engineering and math fields. Among the 50 million employed college graduates ages 25 to 64 in 2019, 37 percent earned a bachelor’s degree in science or engineering but only 14 percent worked in a STEM occupation. Moreover, the National Center for Science and Engineering Statistics, in its 2023 analysis, found that STEM degrees held by diverse graduates hardly moved the needle. Despite corporations’ vocal commitment to DEI, black, Hispanic, American Indian, and disabled persons remain dramatically under-represented in tech.

Although warnings about pro-STEM fallacies have been reported for at least a decade, they’ve fallen on deaf ears. Forbes journalist and Duke University School of Law J.D. George Leef wrote in 2014:

“Interest groups that want more STEM education, research funding and workers know how to capitalize on that belief to get politicians to enact the policies they want. Even through there is nothing approaching a [labor shortage] crisis, they keep lobbying as if we have a dire one…Strong business and educational groups lobby for nice-sounding policies that benefit themselves, frequently employing dubious arguments and misleading claims. The costs of the resulting pro-STEM policies are dispersed among the public, and fall particularly hard on the unfortunate individuals who invest a lot of money and years of their lives in pursuit of credentials that are apt to become almost worthless.”  (“True Or False: America Desperately Needs More STEM Workers,” by George Leef, Forbes, June 10, 2014)

The year after Forbes published Leef’s critique, Jesse Jackson traveled to Silicon Valley where he found that its overall workforce was only 30 percent female, 3 percent Hispanic, and 2 percent black. Countless studies from respected academics and prominent think tanks came to the same conclusion—U.S. tech workers are effectively shut out. But only a smattering of the published research, including Skrentny’s op-ed, address the most obvious reason that American minorities are consistently kept out of white-collar jobs. Employers prefer to hire younger, less qualified, cheaper foreign nationals, mostly from Pakistan and China, that work on H-1B visas, the so-called guest workers who rarely go home. In the 10 years since Leef, Jackson, and countless other scholars have sounded alarm bells, hundreds of thousands of H-1B visa workers have entered the domestic labor market to take jobs that would otherwise go to U.S. STEM grads.

Year-after-fiscal year, and regardless of economic conditions, the federal government approves 85,000 H-1B visass. In late 2022 and throughout 2023, Google, Amazon, Meta, and other tech giants laid off thousands of workers. And 2024 is off to a similar start as Duolingo, Twitch, and Discord made deep cut while Amazon and Google continued their 2023  significant firings. Despite the layoffs, H-1B approvals continued.

As long as H-1B visa workers are readily available to employers, and as Artificial Intelligence makes a greater, ever-growing societal impact, STEM degrees will become increasingly less valuable on job-seekers’ resumes.

Joe Guzzardi is a Project for Immigration Reform analyst who has written about immigration for more than 30 years. Contact him at jguzzardi@ifspp.org

STEM Degrees Not Worth Effort, Expense

Ted Williams Rescues Bush 41 Campaign

By Joe Guzzardi

Baseball fans recognize Ted Williams as one of the sport’s all-time Cooperstown Hall of Fame legends, a fearless pilot who served in the United States Navy and the United States Marine Corps during World War II and in Korea. Less well-known is that Ted is also a Fly Fisherman Hall of Fame inductee.  Williams caught black marlin in New Zealand and tiger fish in the Zambezi River in Mozambique. In Ted’s opinion, only three fish were worthy of true sportsmen— tarpon, bonefish, and Atlantic salmon. Considered by Williams the triple crown of fishing, he had caught and released over 1,000 of each by 1982.

“The Kid’s” inner circle—his family and close friends—knew that Williams had another passion. Williams was a political junkie.  Born in 1918 in San Diego, Williams grew up in conservative California. Beginning in 1890, and lasting for about a 100-year period, Republicans consistently occupied Sacramento’s Governor’s Mansion, and the state’s voters consistently sent Republicans to the U.S. Congress. Williams most admired President Calvin Coolidge, the former Massachusetts governor who favored tax cuts and limited government spending.

No surprise then that when Vice President George H.W. Bush called on Williams to campaign on his behalf in the 1988 New Hampshire primary, Ted accepted, and thereby changed America’s presidential history. Setting the scene, President Ronald Reagan’s two-terms were up, and Bush was part of a crowded GOP primary card. The Iowa caucus’ outcome had been a shock to the Bush campaign. The Vice President finished a distant third to Kansas Senator Bob Dole and televangelist Reverend Pat Robinson, the newly formed Christian Coalition’s favorite. With only a week between Iowa and New Hampshire, Bush was floundering. The Manchester-Union Leader, a powerful conservative New Hampshire voice, labeled Bush “a wimp,” and endorsed Delaware governor Pierre S. du Pont.  Jack Kemp, the Buffalo Bills’ former quarterback, was also vying for the GOP nomination.

Although Bush had done his legwork and visited the Granite State frequently during 1988, when primary week began, he polled five points behind Dole. Another failure would have put Bush permanently out of the running. John Sununu, former New Hampshire governor and Bush’s campaign reached out to Williams. Neither Bush nor Sununu personally knew Williams, but they had heard of his strong political opinions. A liberal on social policy, Williams was a conservative on fiscal and foreign policy. Although he distrusted all politicians, he particularly hated the Kennedys and consistently voted the GOP ticket.

Sununu phoned Williams and persuaded him to fly to New Hampshire from Florida where he had been fishing. Williams’ presence with Bush, who played second fiddle to “The Kid,” changed the game, and helped put Bush in the White House. Voters turned out in droves to get a glance at their beloved Boston Red Sox hero. One gifted Williams an antique bamboo fishing rod. Ted signed autographs, and introduced his new friend, Bush, as “the next president of the U.S.”

In the end, Bush ended up with 59,290 votes; Dole, 44,797; and Kemp, 20,144.  Campaign donations returned, and Bush was on his way to the White House. Bush, a World War II pilot and Yale University baseball standout, and Williams became friendly. Bush kept his old first baseman’s glove at the ready in his desk drawer, a quirk that endeared him to Williams.

Now Bush’s chief of staff, Sununu organized two major events that included Williams. First, a 1991 Rose Garden lunch on the All-Star game’s afternoon with Joe DiMaggio to celebrate the 50^th anniversary of Joe’s 56-game hitting streak and Ted’s .406 average. After lunch, they flew Air Force One to Toronto to watch the game, a 4-2 win for the American League. Second, also in 1991, Bush presented Williams with the Presidential Medal of Freedom, one of the rare times Ted agreed to wear a tie.

Historians acknowledge that Williams was the key factor in putting Bush on the presidency’s path. On November 8, 1988, Bush won a landslide against the Democrat candidate, Massachusetts Governor Michael Dukakis, 426 electoral votes to 111, an impossible outcome without Teddy Ball Game’s intervention.

Joe Guzzardi is a Society for American Baseball Research and Internet Baseball Writers Association member. Contact him at guzzjoe@yahoo.com

Ted Williams Rescues Bush 41 Campaign

Mayorkas Bobs and Weaves Around the Truth

By Joe Guzzardi

In September 2022, weeks before the mid-term election, then-House Speaker Kevin McCarthy announced the GOP’s “Commitment to America,” a promise that a newly elected GOP majority would create an “economy that’s strong,” “a nation that’s safe,” “a future that’s built on freedom” and “a government that’s accountable.” Expanding the safe-nation vow, Republicans pledged to “secure the southern border,” “reduce crime and stop Fentanyl” and “defend our national security.”

The GOP squeezed out a narrow House majority, and could do no better than a 50-50 Senate tie leaving deciding votes to Vice-President Kamala Harris. During the ensuing 15 months, month-over-month border conditions consistently worsened. When McCarthy made his announcement, just before fiscal year 2022 ended, 2.8 illegal aliens had crossed the border, a then-record. The following year, a House Committee on Homeland Security released its report titled “Startling Stats” which found that in FY 2023, CBP arrested 35,433 aliens with criminal convictions or outstanding warrants, including 598 known gang members, 178 of those being MS-13 members. CBP, including its Air and Marine Operations, seized 27,293 pounds of fentanyl coming across the Southwest border, an 88% increase over FY 2022, and  enough to kill, the committee estimated, about 6 billion people. So much for the “Commitment to America” and its promise to secure the southern border, stop Fentanyl, and defend national security.

For months, congressional Republicans have made rumblings about impeaching Mayorkas, but their words were empty. The low point came when, in November 2022, California’s Tom McLintock, the House Judiciary’s Chairman of the Subcommittee on Immigration Integrity, Security, and Enforcement, joined with Democrats and seven other Republicans to vote against a resolution to impeach Mayorkas. When, two years into the invasion, a leading Republican who oversees “immigration integrity” teamed up with committed open borders Democrats like House Speaker Joaquim Jeffries and former Speaker Nancy Pelosi, enforcement is a pipe dream.

From the instant Biden signed his Day One Executive Orders that undid  former President Donald Trump’s actions to restore prudent immigration, migrant caravans moved north. Interviewed along the way, the illegal aliens, also encouraged by Biden’s campaign promise to welcome asylum seekers and to end deportations, expressed confidence that work authorization and employment awaited them. Within a few weeks, the migrants’ predictions came true. At that relatively early juncture in what was Mayorkas’ clearly brazen and treasonous disregard for federal immigration law, the House should have impeached the DHS Secretary. In the end, the motion would have failed. But an early House effort might have moved the border chaos higher up on the public’s radar. Instead, unchecked, Mayorkas’ unconstitutional dismantling of established immigration law at the border and the interior accelerated.

After months of back and forth, the House appears ready to begin the impeachment process against Mayorkas. On their trip to Eagle Pass, the 600+ House delegation that included House Homeland Security Committee Chairman Mark Green, R-Tenn., said that his panel will officially begin an effort this month to impeach Mayorkas, an indefatigable witness. In his multiple appearances before the House and national television audiences, Mayorkas has proven adept at giving vague answers to specific questions or avoiding any response.

Most recent example: During a January 4 nationally televised interview, Mayorkas refused to state exactly how many illegal aliens immigration officials apprehended crossing the US-Mexico border between ports of entry have been released into the interior under the Biden administration. Although Mayorkas admitted he knew the answer, he refused to share the data. Little wonder that Mayorkas was tight-lipped. The House Judiciary Committee knows the answer that Mayorkas dutifully concealed. Since Biden took office Jan. 20, 2021, at least 3.8 million illegal aliens either have been released into the nation’s interior or successfully evaded Customs and Border Protection agents to enter the country, a population that exceeds that of 22 states and the District of Columbia.

When pressed to provide a solution, Mayorkas invariably points to Congress to fix the nation’s “broken immigration system,” three words that translate to amnesty. But if existing immigration laws had been enforced for the last five decades rather than disregarded in varying degrees by eight consecutive Republican and Democratic administrations—Carter, Reagan, Bush 41, Clinton, Bush 43, Obama, Trump, and most catastrophically, Biden—sovereign America wouldn’t be in its current dire straits. Secure borders aren’t a Republican or Democratic issue, but a national U.S. priority.

Cato the Elder, a Roman Senator at the time of the Punic Wars between Rome and Carthage is said to have used the phrase, “Ceterum (autem) censeo Carthaginem esse delendam” (“Furthermore, I consider that Carthage must be destroyed”) as the conclusion to all his speeches, to push for the war with their long time enemy and rival.

It would be great if every congressman would in a similar vein state, “Mayorkas impediendus est!” or Mayorkas must be impeached!

Joe Guzzardi is an Institute for Sound Public Policy analyst who has been writing about immigration for more than 30 years. Contact him at jguzzardi@ifspp.org.

Mayorkas Bobs and Weaves Around The Truth

Mayorkas Bobs and Weaves Around The Truth

Border Crisis To Accelerate or Come Under Control?

By Joe Guzzardi

Around financial markets, the conventional wisdom is to “let the trend be your friend.” What happens in the market on one day will also likely occur on the following. Investors, the theory goes, should ride the “trend” until it “bends,” then bail out.

The phrase sums up the southwest border crisis. The invasion continues seamlessly one day after another, and during 2023 has steadily ramped up to a record number of migrant crossings with a December seven-day average of more than 9,600, a Homeland Security official told CNN. The record-smashing figure represents the average across the nation’s entire southern border. In November, total encounters stood at 6,800, meaning that the southern border has seen a month-over-month influx of 3,000 more daily arrivals as migrants continue to pour through the border.

In FY23, Customs and Border Protection recorded more than 2.4 million encounters at the southwest border and more than 3.2 million encounters nationwide. During the current fiscal year, 169 individuals on the terrorist watchlist were apprehended attempting to enter the country illegally, and at least 1.7 million known gotaways have evaded apprehension since FY2021. Since President Biden took office, there have been 7.5 million encounters nationwide and 6.2 million encounters at the southwest border, in addition to 1.7 million known gotaways. 

Also in FY 2023, CBP arrested 35,433 aliens with criminal convictions or outstanding warrants, including 598 known gang members, 178 of those being MS-13 members, and CBP, including its Air and Marine Operations, seized enough fentanyl coming across the Southwest border to kill, the House Homeland Security Committee estimates, about 6 billion people.

The data are included in the committee’s fiscal year-end report titled “Startling Stats,” but it’s findings did nothing to influence the administration to end the invasion. Not only did the illegal alien influx remain steady, it accelerated unabated. If the House’s year-end summary had no effect on the Biden administration’s mismanagement of the border disaster, nothing will. Proof that the border crisis will continue unchecked: in December, CBP processed and released 302,000 aliens. Since the start of FY 2024 which began on October 1, 20023, CBP has encountered more than 785,000 aliens at the southern border alone.

As alarming as the raw CBP statistics that related to the multimillions of border encounters are, they understate the invasion’s inevitable consequences. Factor in chain migration and the certainty that arriving aliens will either start new families or grow their existing ones, and population growth will continue upward. Citizens who live in high density cities should brace for more overcrowding driven by Biden and Department of Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas’ criminal disregard of federal immigration laws. 

A Center for Immigration Studies analysis detailed that the Census Bureau’s Current Population Survey (CPS) showed that the total foreign-born or immigrant population, both legal and illegal, was 49.5 million in October 2023 — a 4.5 million increase since Biden’s inauguration and a new record high. At 15 percent, the foreign-born share of the U.S. population is the highest percentage recorded in U.S. history. Since Biden took office, the foreign-born population has grown on average by 137,000 a month, compared to 42,000 a month during Trump’s presidency, and 68,000 a month during President Obama’s two terms. These unsustainable population increases generate urban sprawl and drain already diminishing natural resources like water and farm acreage.

Creating an equitable immigration system under Biden that benefits citizens and migrants alike is a long shot, but still possible. Congress returns from its winter recess on January 8, and will resume discussions over numerous thorny issues. At the top of the House GOP’s to-do list is, before authorizing funding for Ukraine and Israel wars, to demand that the immigration provisions encompassed in HR-2, which it passed in May, must be included. Key among those provisions is mandatory E-Verify which would end the jobs magnet that lures thousands of foreign nationals to the U.S. with employment expectations and to curb the administration’s parole abuse. Parole is intended for extraordinary circumstances, usually granted to one individual, and not intended to be given out en masse. 

HR-2 represents the best chance that legislators have to restore operational control of the border. Otherwise, the invasion will continue until at least January 2025. Based on the latest CBP monthly statistics, without HR-2 another 3 million illegal aliens will cross during the 2025 calendar year.

Joe Guzzardi is a Project for Immigration Reform analyst who has written about immigration for more than 30 years. Contact him at jguzzardi@ifspp.org

Border Crisis To Accelerate or Come Under Control?