Forbes once again is singing the tune of money-grubbing
corporations in regard to the allocation of H-1B visas, this time claiming that
100—count-them-100—may have been mistakenly denied approval by the USCIS,
likely due to name similarities. Yet in a story from the Bay-area Mercury News, we learn the fact that while
10 million workers were laid off in the past two weeks, and many millions more
to come, companies applied for 275,000 H-1B visas in a new “streamlined” system
that makes it much easier to process these applications. 68 percent of the
applicants are from India, 13 percent from China. Although the claim is that a
great many of them have “advanced degrees,” the reality is closer to what I
have observed in the office building I work in: one floor is for the customer
service phone operators for a major national corporation’s health insurance
program; the manager is Indian, and about 80 percent of the phone operators are
also Indian. I once encountered him while I was working; he asked me if I had access
to the floor outside of business hours, which I took to mean he was “concerned”
about me stealing things off people’s desks, because, you know, that’s what
people who look “Mexican” do.
According to a Quora question
answered by someone who is Indian, it seems perfectly “reasonable” for Indian
managers working in American companies to forgo seeking native-born workers and
hire through the H-1B program with the blessings of the corporate office. Not
necessarily because they are “smarter” or even “cheaper,” but because they
prefer to work with other Indians, because of “temperament,” shared cultural
and cuisine considerations, and the fact they just prefer each other’s company.
There are native-born citizens who are more than eager to fill such jobs, but as
someone at the Indian-owned Infosys was quoted as saying back in 2013, why
should they hire “stupid Americans”? In response to a forum question about
Amazon’s usually unhelpful “customer service,” Indians on the chat lines say
they dislike fielding calls from American customers because of their tendency
to get angry when they are provided no more information than what they could
read themselves on the order page. The truth of the matter is that American
customers are much more willing to believe the stories they are told by
American-based customer service representatives, but unfortunately they “cost”
too much.
And as talked about before, it is
not that there isn’t enough American
workers for even “high-tech” jobs, but rather many companies choose to discard older (and
higher-paid) workers with “out-of-date” skills in favor of cheaper workers with
supposedly “up-to-date” skills. This wouldn’t have happened in the “old days”;
such workers would have been retrained, just as military personnel are
retrained on the latest weapon systems or procedures. Can you imagine the U.S.
Army just “firing” half its force or denying reenlistment to experienced
soldiers due to “out-of-date skills”? That’s crazy.
Politico,
meanwhile, tells us that the Trump administration is under fire not for
restricting access to H-2B visas, but for “easing requirements for immigrants to get jobs as farm
workers, landscapers and crab pickers, aware that industries, including those that
fill grocery store shelves, could be hurt if they couldn’t hire foreign
employees.” The administration had sought an increase of 35,000 in seasonal
workers to help a “cratering” economy, but “activists” who are irate at the
prospect have apparently put a “hold” on the increase. Who are these
“activists”? Mainly organizations that the Southern Poverty Law Center
identifies as anti-Hispanic immigrant hate groups, like FAIR, NumbersUSA and the Center
for Immigration Studies.
Like,
it’s impossible to understand why people who Stephen Miller and Ken Cuccinelli
just don’t like seeing around just want to live? The Guardian reports on the recent ambush of police outside the
village of El Aguaje in Mexico, in which at least 13 were killed and
nine wounded by a local drug cartel. It was implied that these “low-level” officers,
poorly paid and forced to buy their own bullets, were the “price” a corrupt
police chief had to pay for offending the cartel. The current president of
Mexico (popularly referred to by his acronym, Amlo), has instituted a “hugs not
bullets” policy which has clearly not stemmed the flow of cartel-related
murders, which may be getting worse because of competition due to price
collapses of marijuana and natural opium-based “product” due to either
legalization or the growing popularity of synthetic drugs in the U.S. Meanwhile,
the U.S.’ thirst for illegal drugs still continues to fuel the drug trade, the
flow of automatic weapons from the U.S. into the hands of cartels leading to
more bloodshed, and the fact that Mexico’s militarized national guard is more
busy doing Trump’s extortionist bidding—preventing migrants from Central America from
traveling to the U.S., rather than enforcing order in cartel-controlled
territory—and people here wonder why anyone would want to escape that. Trump is
now using the coronavirus situation to seal off the southern border, and yet it
continues to allow H-1B visa holders to enter from a country whose
underreporting of the virus certainly dwarfs that of China.
Why
H-2B visas for temporary seasonal work (normally capped at 66,000—less than the
current 85,000 additional to the H-1B
visa holders already here) excites so much more “outrage” is clear enough, and
but the justification for that outrage is even more ignorant. Yes, many people
are out-of-work, but that doesn’t mean that they are all willing to take the
long drive out on the other side of the mountains to work in the fields and
orchards in the mostly arid and treeless climes of Yakima Valley, living in
accommodations that most would find beneath their “dignity.” I remember reading
a story a while back in the Seattle
Weekly, about how immigration authorities were making it more difficult to
bring in the seasonal workers from Mexico that the horse race track in Auburn
had been employing for years, and all the trouble the track was having finding
“natives” to do jobs like taking care of the horses even with the offer of
higher wages. Prospects would come, then say they didn’t want to do things like
cleaning stalls, or someone would work a few days and never be seen again.
There
is a reason why immigrant labor is required to fill certain jobs, and that
hasn’t changed even since the Bracero program ended in the 1960s. “Americans”
don’t want to do certain jobs regardless of what they pay, and as the Politico story notes, most unemployed
Americans would prefer to get a free check than do seasonal work in the fields
or do messy food processing work. In fact most Americans think of such jobs as
“Mexican” work, and usually in a derogatory fashion. Further, most people would
even refuse to do what I always do rather than wait for a government handout
until a job “magically” appears—sign-up at a temp agency for work; not much in
the way of benefits, but some people just can’t imagine sitting around not
working for their money. People who come to this country looking for work also
have that mindset, and being attacked for it can only be regarded as
hypocritical at best.
As mentioned, racism is a
significant part of all of this. The other day a white woman got on the bus
hauling her “luggage”—apparently homeless, or more accurately, a vagrant—and
started chattering non-stop, complaining about anything and everything. Her
principle target of complaint, however, was of course anything that had to do with
those “Mexicans,” including the Taco Bell the bus passed by. This person was probably
on the cusp of dementia, if not already there, and she probably could have
benefited from medication—the more powerful the better. Yet on the other hand,
it is always useful to know that many people think this way, only not
expressing themselves out loud, save in response to social media posts that
call into question the general state of ignorance and bigotry.
But to be honest, ignorance and
bigotry is an equal opportunity employer: a black woman got on the bus, and she
proceeded to cover her seat with plastic, and wiping down the back of the seat
in front her, which I found to be just a tad excessive concern about her fellow
riders. However, she wasn’t wearing a face protector or gloves, and I
observed that she had a bad case of the "sniffles." I
wondered aloud if she was trying to protect “us,” and she responded in a violence-laden
harangue, as well as vehemently denying that she was “sick.” After the driver
asked her to tone it down, she pulled out the current edition of the Seattle Times and eagerly digested the
latest front page story on the coronavirus situation. All the while she kept
sniffling, sneezed once without covering, and then coughed—and was late in covering
her mouth in the incorrect manner, almost forgetting that I was still there to recall her violent denial
that she was “sick.” She turned her head towards me, perhaps “daring” me to offer
comment, but I obviously didn’t need to.
I’ll be on an involuntary “vacation”
next week, so I’m taking a week off from this as well; it seems that we keep
repeating the same things over and over again—and need to, because nothing ever
changes no matter how bad things get, does it?
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