Argues for urgent need for immigration reform.
By Deepak Chitnis
WASHINGTON, DC: NewsCorp’s Rupert Murdoch has urged Congress to continue moving forward with immigration reform, saying that America’s economic future can only be ensured by providing a pathway to citizenship for undocumented immigrants, and by eliminating the annual cap for H-1B visas.
In an Op-Ed piece published by The Wall Street Journal on Thursday, Murdoch implored Congress not to be dismayed by the House Majority Leader Eric Cantor’s (R-VA) stunning primary loss to Tea Party challenger David Brat, saying that although Cantor has been crucial in slowly shepherding immigration reform, his exit should not be taken as an excuse to just give up.
“That would be the wrong lesson and an undesirable national consequence of this single, local election result,” said Murdoch, who called comprehensive immigration reform “an urgent need.”
Murdoch speaks from a perspective of personal understanding, having gone through the immigration process himself in order to become a fully naturalized citizen of the US. Originally from Australia, Murdoch says he came to the US because of its entrepreneurial freedoms, which he still believes make this the most highly sought after destination for foreigners.
“I chose to come to America and become a citizen because America was — and remains — the most free and entrepreneurial nation in the world,” says Murdoch, in the piece. “Our history is defined by people whose character and culture have been shaped by ambition, imagination and hard work, bound together by a dream of a better life.”
To that end, Murdoch – a self-admitted Republican, which he says in the Journal piece – supports providing a path to citizenship for the more than 11 million undocumented immigrants already in the US. Murdoch cautions that it’s important to screen these immigrants for criminal records, but as long as they are committed to being a productive part of the US economy, they should be allowed to stay.
Additionally, and perhaps most provocatively, Murdoch argues that the cap on H-1B visas should be removed, allowing more high-skilled workers to come to the US and eventually gain citizenship. Murdoch called the H-1B cap “arbitrary,” saying that it “results in U.S. companies struggling to find the high-skill workers they need to continue growing” and that increasing the cap will solve the problem of “[the] shortage of qualified American candidates.”
That statement, however, has been heavily disputed by those who point to statistics that say the US has twice has many STEM-field graduates than it does jobs available to them, and that the H-1B program is merely being exploited by tech firms and interest groups to keep salaries low and productivity high.
Murdoch praised President Barack Obama for seeking a bipartisan solution to immigration reform, lauding the fact that the President has not yet resorted to signing executive orders regarding certain provisions he feels are most important in this multi-faceted debate. But he urged Congress – specifically, Congressional Republicans in the House of Representatives – to move quickly on finding that bipartisan solution before Obama gets restless.
Murdoch has long been a mouthpiece for immigration reform; he is currently a ranking member of an immigration reform advocacy group known as the Partnership for a New American Economy (PNAE), which is comprised of more than 500 Republican, Democratic, and Independent politicians and business leaders.
PNAE members are “united in making the economic case for streamlining, modernizing, and rationalizing our immigration system.†Its key members include former Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer, former New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg, San Antonio Mayor Julian Castro, and Disney President Bob Iger.
Last week, the group released the results of a study which said that denying visa extensions for high-skilled workers has an overall negative impact on the domestic economy, and has been a major reason why the US recovery from the 2008 economic recession is so slow.
7 Comments
screw you, murdoch
Murdoch is married to an Asian. I think she was a beauty queen in Thailand. Of course he is pro Asian, that is all that would marry him. He wont be impacted by their scams, pencil pushing, easy billet seeking lifestyle. As the middle classes how they feel about losing their jobs to Asians. I have worked with Indians for many years and yet to find one who could do their job without excuses, who could meet a deadline or understood the word quality, well when it applied to their work.
When it comes to H-1B visas, Murdoch doesn’t know what he’s talking about. He states that “we already know” that there is a “shortage of qualified American candidates” but the articles linked to at http://econdataus.com/skillsgap.html (including a recent one by Paul Krugman) suggest that the so-called “skills gap” is greatly overstated if not an outright myth. The H-1B visa program is supposed to be designed to bring in the “best and the brightest”. Yet the 2012 Census numbers at http://econdataus.com/svworkers.html show that nearly half of the software developers in Silicon Valley are non-citizens. Hence, the H-1B visa program is being used to fill mid-level software jobs, not just jobs with unique skills that cannot be filled by American candidates.
Furthermore, Labor Condition Applications (LCAs) which are required with each H-1B visa are supposed to protect H-1B and American workers. However, I recently looked at the LCAs disclosed online and posted the results at http://econdataus.com/lcainfo.htm . As you can see, very few are denied and many of those that are certified are rife with errors. For example, there were a number of certified applications that did not appear to contain enough information to determine the workplace location, a critical piece of information for evaluating the requests. Then, I noticed that nearly every application that proposed to pay a salary significantly below the prevailing wage was denied. However, many that proposed to pay a salary many multiples the prevailing wage, suggesting bad salary data, were certified. For example, a request to pay a product consultant $11.4 million a year and a staff dentist $15.5 million a year were certified! That’s despite the fact that they listed the prevailing wages as $84,344 and $136,864, respectively. It appears that someone is just applying a set of filters to the data and “rubber stamping” everything else. This seems to agree with a 1996 OIG audit which stated that the Department of Labor’s role amounted to little more than a “rubber stamping” for LCA program applications (see http://www.oig.dol.gov/public/reports/oa/pre_1998/06-96-002-03-321s.htm ).
For a further response to Murdoch’s editorial, see http://www.reddit.com/r/immigration/comments/28k3a4/rupert_murdoch_immigration_reform_cant_wait_if_we/
Most H-1b visas are used by Offshore Outsourcing companies.
If you add in companies with huge offshore divisions (ex. Microsoft), you come to about 75% of H-1b visas, being used to facilitate the removal of jobs from the United States.
How on Earth, can you, with a straight face support such an idiotic job-destroying program?
No country on Earth, except for a bought-off U.S. Congress, would allow such a program to continue to destroy jobs in their home country.
Just read Patrick Thibodeau’s recent article on regarding several hundred workers having to educate and train their H-1b replacements.
Rupert, every time someone such as yourself, who has an ulterior motive (other than helping the American middle class) puts up their shill comments, it is an opportunity for the millions of us who already know the truth to make sure the truth continues to be spread.
And that every lie is pointed out with the truth about the H-1b Federal Government progtram. That the H-1b program created the Offshore Outsourcing industry, and has destroyed tens of millions of jobs in the United States.
Get on the right side of history Rupert. H-1b is a government program, that creates and indentured class of worker. Such a worker is ideal for outsourcing companies, that do not want to actually allow U.S. citizens to compete for work. Outsourcing companies have, as their entire business model, the complete replacement of the entire U.S. workforce with workers overseas in the home country. As such, the H-1b program is a perfect match for their business model.
Most H-1b visas are used by Offshore Outsourcing companies.
If you add in companies with huge offshore divisions (ex. Microsoft), you come to about 75% of H-1b visas, being used to facilitate the removal of jobs from the United States.
How on Earth, can you, with a straight face support such an idiotic job-destroying program?
No country on Earth, except for a bought-off U.S. Congress, would allow such a program to continue to destroy jobs in their home country.
Just read Patrick Thibodeau’s recent article on regarding several hundred workers having to educate and train their H-1b replacements.
Rupert, every time someone such as yourself, who has an ulterior motive (other than helping the American middle class) puts up their shill comments, it is an opportunity for the millions of us who already know the truth to make sure the truth continues to be spread.
And that every lie is pointed out with the truth about the H-1b Federal Government progtram. That the H-1b program created the Offshore Outsourcing industry, and has destroyed tens of millions of jobs in the United States.
Get on the right side of history Rupert. H-1b is a government program, that creates and indentured class of worker. Such a worker is ideal for outsourcing companies, that do not want to actually allow U.S. citizens to compete for work. Outsourcing companies have, as their entire business model, the complete replacement of the entire U.S. workforce with workers overseas in the home country. As such, the H-1b program is a perfect match for their business model.
The H1B Visa Program is destroying the American middle class.
Been to Edison, NJ lately?