Category: Guest Authors

New Batch of H-1B Workers Arriving Soon

By Joe Guzzardi

On April 1, employers will learn which among them will gain access to H-1B visas, and also the total number of visas each will be awarded. Now entering its fourth decade of aggressively displacing qualified U.S. tech workers, and often presenting insurmountable employment roadblocks to recent U.S. college graduates seeking jobs, the H-1B is the meal ticket that enriches corporate America on the backs of cheap foreign-born labor.

Created as part of the Immigration Act of 1990, the visa’s major flaws, among many, are its low-wage component and that the visa holders are powerless to look elsewhere for better, higher paying jobs because their employers control the visas – modern day indentured servitude or a form of 21^st century slavery.

Over a 32-year-long time span, regardless of Republican or Democratic-held White Houses, little has changed in the H-1B dialogue. Employers preposterously claim that without foreign-born tech workers, their solvency would be at risk. In truth, tech companies are flush with cash, and native-born tech workers are readily available for hire. A Census Bureau analysis dated June 2021 found that among the 50 million employed college graduates ages 25 to 64 in 2019, 37 percent reported a bachelor’s degree in science or engineering, but only 14 percent worked in a STEM occupation. Less than one-third of STEM-educated students work in the STEM field. Translation: thousands of U.S. STEM workers are available. What’s missing is employers’ willingness to hire them.

Congresses, year after year, have ignored sound testimony and criticism from credible witnesses, including Democrats, that the H-1B is an American job killer that generously lines the pockets of craven employers. Those employers have adopted the heartless practice of forcing the U.S. employees they fire to first train their H-1B replacements or lose severance benefits.

Examples of on-target critiques from otherwise pro-immigration advocates:

• Ray Marshall, President Jimmy Carter’s labor secretary: “One of the best con jobs ever done on the American public and political systems…If you’ve got H-1B workers, you don’t have to do training or pay good wages.”
   
• 60 Minutes: “…(W)e discovered more and more are taking advantage of loopholes in the law to fire American workers and replace them with younger, cheaper, temporary foreign workers with H-1B visas.”
   
• New York Times: “Former [Disney] employees said many immigrants who arrived were younger technicians with limited data skills who did not speak English fluently and had to be instructed in the basics of the work.”

In their recent article titled “Biden Can Fix the Anti-Worker, H-1B Immigration Visa Scam,” authors Ron Hira, Daniel Costa and Hal Salzman argue that President Joe Biden has “a clear roadmap, the legal authority, and the duty…” to clean up the H-1B program that, the authors correctly emphasize, allows big business to earn billions of dollars by, in part, stealing from employees through wage underpayment.

The H-1B and many other guest worker programs don’t have the necessary safeguards to protect either immigrant or U.S. workers. Some programs, like the H-1B or its cousin the L-1 for international transfers, are designed for the high-skilled worker. Other programs were created for low-skilled workers. That includes the H-2A for agricultural workers or H-2B for seasonal, non-ag workers. All categories of temporary or guest worker programs employ international laborers who are at their new employers’ mercy – an open invitation for abuse should unscrupulous employers choose to take advantage when safeguards are missing.

Protections are paramount since the H-1B is the largest temporary work visa program with nearly 600,000 workers currently employment-authorized in the U.S. and approximately 140,000 new guest workers who will receive visas for fiscal year 2023, and still another 300,000 receiving three-year renewals.

Assuming labor protections and a fair pay scale for the vastly underpaid foreign-born workers were in place, and enforced, hiring H-1Bs would become less appealing to employers who would eventually turn to U.S. tech workers.

Hira, Costa and Salzman make the important observation that in today’s corporate world, labor safeguards are more vital than ever. Since 1990, corporations have moved ruthlessly to slash labor costs, cut pensions, hire short-term contract workers to replace full-time employees and bust unions.

Legislative reform, no matter how desperately needed, is a long-shot. Biden is president in large part because Silicon Valley worked tirelessly on his behalf, and dumped $5 million into his 2020 campaign coffers. On the other hand, protecting American workers and at-risk guest workers is one of the most necessary functions of the Executive Office. Even though taking a pro-America stance on visa reform would give Biden a much-needed bump in his poll ratings, it is improbable that Biden is brave enough to stand up to his advisors and Silicon Valley donors.

Joe Guzzardi writes about immigration issues and impacts. Follow him on joeguzzardi.substack.com.

New Batch of H-1B Workers Arriving Soon

Afghan Evac Flaws Cautionary Lesson For Ukraine

By Joe Guzzardi

More alarming details have come to light about how badly the Biden administration botched the Afghan evacuation. Instead of taking a deep breath, and committing itself to a more prudent – and legal – approach to resettlement and asylum, President Biden is jumping in feet first with the Ukrainians.

First, a review of the failures associated with the Afghan airlift. Last week, the Department of Justice revealed that several Afghans had allegedly bribed a Commander in the U.S. Navy Reserves in order to obtain a coveted Special Immigrant Visa. SIVs help expedite the resettlement process, and remove all possible doubt about the visa holder’s loyalty to America. Federal prosecutors filed visa fraud charges against 53-year-old Navy Reserves Commander Jeromy Pittmann of Pensacola, Fla., who wrote up more than 20 fake SIV recommendations which falsely claimed the Afghans had worked as translators for the U.S. Armed Forces. Pittman also alleged that he supervised the Afghans, a lie, and that unless they were granted SIV visas, they would be Taliban targets, and at risk for their lives. Pittmann now faces 20 years in a federal penitentiary.

Second, since August 2021, about 85,000 Afghans have been resettled in 46 states, many if not most of them improperly vetted against counterterrorism databases, a fact which Department of Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas confirmed. A report released by the Department of Defense Inspector General harshly criticized Biden for his rushed, botched and numerically unlimited resettlement that allowed “significant security concerns” to take up U.S. residency.

DOD cannot locate at least 50 Afghans with possible terrorism ties and worries that “the U.S. government could mistakenly grant ineligible Afghan evacuees with derogatory information from the DOD Automated Biometric Identification System database SIV or parolee status.” Moreover, DOD concluded, Biden’s State Department and the United States Citizenship and Immigration Services also could provide dangerous, unvetted Afghans with visas, Green Cards, and naturalized American citizenship.

Third, violent post-Kabul airlift crimes occurred almost immediately after the August 2021 airlift, proof that vetting was lax. In September 2021, the Western District of Wisconsin federal grand jury returned indictments on two Afghans that included sex acts with minors under age 16, and spousal assault by strangulation and suffocation. The perpetrators had been assigned temporary housing at Ft. McCoy, Wis., a military base that at one time housed nearly 13,000 Afghan evacuees.

The ongoing Afghan resettlement process is about eight months old, and no one can predict whether it will be successful or fraught with social and assimilation challenges much like the Somali refugees struggled with. Whatever the end result may be, Afghan resettlement is a huge, continuous and costly project that will take years to complete.

Nevertheless, the Biden administration is ready to embark on expedited processing of Afghan refugees “with open arms” even though the legal steps are years long, and cumbersome. But since the Biden administration’s indifference to immigration law is well-known internationally, some wealthy Ukrainians have decided to forego refugee status, and instead file asylum claims inside the U.S. after traveling through “safe countries” on route, and then getting past border officials.

Regulations require that asylum seekers must make their claim in the first safe country they reach, Poland, for instance. And Article 31 of the 1951 Convention Relating to the Status of Refugees stated specifically that illegal aliens or migrants cannot be denied the chance to seek asylum as long as they are “coming directly from a territory where their life or freedom was threatened.”

Recently, a group of Ukrainian migrants arrived at San Ysidro, Mexico, an international point of entry. But even though the Mexican government declared that special and immediate treatment will be given to migrants or people arriving from Ukraine for asylum purposes, the migrants’ destination is the U.S. Asylum claims should be denied to petitioners who pass through safe countries to reach the U.S.

Enforcing the safe country concept doesn’t mean that the U.S. will turn its back on migrants in danger. The idea instead is that instead of continuing what might be a perilous journey that covers hundreds of miles, for those truly in peril, the first safe haven may be the best place to begin a new life. Biden’s task is to enforce the safe country concept to ensure that Ukrainian or other asylum seekers don’t take unfair, undeserved advantage of U.S. generosity.

Joe Guzzardi writes about immigration issues and impacts. Contact him at jguzzardi@pfirdc.org

Afghan Evac Flaws Cautionary Lesson For Ukraine

Immigration An Economic Issue

By Joe Guzzardi

For more than 50 years, the roiling immigration debate has been wrongly framed. The arguments for or against immigration increases are seen as liberal versus conservative, Democrat versus Republican or expansionist versus restrictionist. While those labels may be accurate, they distract from a discussion about the core issue of economics.
 
Congress, the media and employers argue passionately for higher immigration levels – an annual 1 million-plus or higher. Restrictionists maintain with equal vigor that immigration should be reset from today’s record highs back to its historical 250,000 total, the intake for the nation’s first 200 years, 1776-1976.
 
Congress’ obligation, which it ignores, is to determine what amount of immigration is best for American workers, and to protect the nation’s wage earners. Vernon Briggs, Emeritus Cornell University professor and labor economist, broke down America’s immigration history as it affected the U.S. labor force into eras: Continental Expansion, 1820-1879, immigration average, 162,000 per year; Industrial Revolution, 1880-1924, 584,000 immigrants; Rise of Middle Class, 1925-1965, 178,000 immigrants. Briggs found that during a high immigration period – the Industrial Revolution – wages for American workers were suppressed. But during tight immigration, the Rise of the Middle Class period is recognized as four decades of upward mobility, accompanied by increased productivity and innovation.

Since the Immigration and Nationality Act (INA) of 1965, the U.S. has experienced significant legal and illegal immigration growth. Since the INA, about 60 million immigrants, exclusive of illegal aliens, have entered the U.S. Most have lawful permanent resident status that includes among its affirmation benefits a lifetime valid work permit.
 
Employment-authorized lawful residents plus nonimmigrant employment-based temporary workers can add up to more than 125,000 immigrants monthly, again, exclusive of illegal immigrants who enter the labor market and compete for jobs with unemployed Americans and recent high school graduates. Since the 1965 Civil Rights movement, the income gap between blacks and whites has remained largely unchanged. Black households’ net worth is about 10 percent of white households, a statistic that’s held steady for nearly six decades. Significantly expanding the labor pool year after year through immigration has depressed wages – labor excesses help employers and harm job seekers.
 
In his book, “Back of the Hiring Line,” Roy Beck detailed the 200-year history of immigration surges, reductions, employer bias and black wealth depression. For black Americans, immigration surges translate into stagnation or repression in their quest for the middle class. On the other hand, moderate immigration, the Rise of the Middle Class decades, helped blacks get pay raises, better jobs and buy new homes.
 
Previous White Houses, Congress, the media, independent academics, Goldman Sachs and the Congressional Budget Office know the adverse impact immigration has on U.S. workers, and have spoken or written about its negative effect, especially on black Americans with less than a college education.
 
In his 2006 autobiography, “The Audacity of Hope: Thoughts on Reclaiming the American Dream,” then-Sen. Barack Obama wrote, “There’s no denying that many blacks share the same anxieties as many whites about the wave of illegal immigration flooding our Southern border – a sense that what’s happening now is fundamentally different from what has gone on before,” a reference to previous tight immigration eras. Yet Obama bitterly disappointed blacks on immigration. As his second term drew to a close in 2015, information gathered from U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services, acquired through a Freedom of Information request, and published by the Center for Immigration Studies, found that the Obama administration had issued approximately 7.4 million more work permits than congressionally set limits allowed.
 
During his presidential campaign, Biden introduced “Lift Every Voice,” his plan to give black Americans a “fair shot.” He promised to “advance the economic mobility of African Americans and close the racial wealth and income gaps.” But by immediately opening the border during his first year in office to 2 million low-skilled, undereducated aliens, many of whom will be looking for jobs that will displace blacks, Biden is dooming African Americans to more of the same – dead-end jobs, stagnant wages and lost hope.
 
 
PFIR analyst Joe Guzzardi writes about immigration issues and impacts. Contact him at jguzzardi@pfirdc.org and joeguzzardi.substack.com.

Immigration An Economic Issue Immigration An Economic Issue

 

Best Irish Baseball Players, Happy St. Patrick’s Day

By Joe Guzzardi

In honor of St. Patrick’s Day, I set out to determine the best-ever Irish baseball players. The task was more challenging than I imagined, but also more rewarding. Reviewing the Irish baseball greats and their stellar diamond accomplishments was a welcome diversion from the troubled world around us.

To get started, I read the Society for American Baseball Research’s player biographies and then referred to Baseball-Almanac’s statistical records. Early on, I realized that identifying a single best-ever Irish player is impossible. I broke the Irish greats into four groups: best hitter, best pitcher, best manager and most influential – the player responsible for creating a baseball buzz that brought droves of new, but still curious, late 19^th century fans to the ballpark.

Irish players, mostly Irish-Americans, have been an integral part of the American baseball scene since the post-Civil War era when the sport enjoyed its first popularity surge. By the mid-1880s, just after the National League of Professional Baseball Clubs was formed, players could earn $10,000 a year at a time when the average annual income was $800. Understandably, good athletes were drawn to baseball. Like Italian and Eastern European immigrants, the Irish knew that when they played baseball, they were taking steps toward becoming full-fledged Americans.

Best Irish batsman is Cleveland-born “Big” Ed Delahanty. The eldest of five MLB brothers, Big Ed played most of his career, 1888-1903, with the Philadelphia Quakers, the Phillies, the Cleveland Infants and the Washington Senators. During his 16-year career, Big Ed hit .400 or better three times, and ended up with a .346 career average, the fifth best in baseball history, a .411 on-base percentage, and a .505 slugging average. Delahanty was an excellent right fielder with a rifle arm.

Toward his career’s end, Delahanty’s wife became gravely ill; he lost money at the race track, and he went on extended drinking binges. On July 2, 1903, riding a train across the International Railway Bridge over the Niagara River, Delahanty abruptly left the train, stumbled onto the bridge, fell into the river and drowned. Some speculate that Big Ed committed suicide, others claim he was pushed by an irate night watchman with whom he’d scuffled. The circumstances surrounding Big Ed’s death have never been resolved.

Best Irish mounds man is Tony “the Count” Mullane. The affable, County Cork-born pitcher was a well-known rake and a skilled boxer, as well as a competitive ice and roller skater. During his 13-year career from 1881-1894, mostly with the Cincinnati Red Stockings, Mullane won 30 or more games in five consecutive seasons. In 1884, the height of his career, the Boston Herald wrote about Mullane that he’s “a most effective pitcher; his delivery is low and his command of the ball wonderful. He pitches with left or right arm equally well.” The ambidextrous Mullane racked up 284 career wins.

Best Irish Manager: No list of Irish greats is complete without Troy, NY’s John J. McGraw. McGraw could have appeared as a player with his .344 career batting average and .466 on base percentage. But McGraw is most often remembered as the New York Giants manager who, during his 30 years at the helm, led his team to three World Series crowns.

“In Tales from the Deadball Era,” Mark Halfon wrote that McGraw was an argumentative, profane, belligerent manager who “took no prisoners in a battle for baseball supremacy. Opposing clubs had to prepare for any eventuality when they faced him. The Reds, for example, worried that he [McGraw] contaminated their drinking water. McGraw may not have tainted the water, but it was not beneath him,” Halfon concluded.

As outstanding as Delahanty, Mullane and McGraw’s contributions were, they pale compared to another Troy-native, Mike “King” Kelly. King was baseball’s first 15-year-old player, first matinee idol, first $10,000 earner, first to write his own autobiography – “Play Ball, Stories from the Ball Field” – first to have a song written about him – “Slide Kelly Slide” – and the first catcher to wear a glove and chest protector. Kelly, because of his ability and charisma, changed baseball from a simple, pastoral game into America’s most popular sport.

In his biography about Kelly, “Slide Kelly Slide,” Marty Appel wrote, “There was never a better or more brilliant player. Colorful beyond description, he was the light and the life of the game. … He was one of the quickest thinkers that ever took a signal. He originated more trick plays than all players put together.… As a drawing card, he was the greatest of his time. Fandom around the circuit always welcomed the Chicago White Stockings, with the great [Cap] Anson and his lieutenant, King Kelly.”

Between 1878 and 1891, Kelly played with eight teams, six of which won National League titles. During that period, Kelly won two batting titles and led the league in runs scored three times. Like Delahanty, however, Kelly loved to gamble, spent money recklessly and couldn’t stay out of saloons. King Kelly, sometimes called, “The Only Kelly” died at age 36 of pneumonia.

Delahanty, Mullane, McGraw and Kelly, great Irish players all, revered by a growing legion of early 20^th century baseball bugs, but whose names time has obscured, deserve recognition on St. Patrick’s Day, 2022.
 

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

Best Irish Baseball Players, Happy St. Patrick’s Day