The Truth about H-1B Visas

Definitely worth your reading. Apparently Michelle Malkin (who alerted me to this as an issue on the podcast) has a book coming out about this later this year.

Great post.

This brings up a Donald Trump story from yesterday. Trump's immigration principles, released over the weekend, made a big splash and may have changed the national debate.

But have they changed Trump's mind?

CNN catches him in a real -- not made up, real -- contradiction between his just-announced determination to crack down on H-1B visa abuse and his apparent current (on Tuesday) enthusiasm for H-1B's.

"When foreigners attend our great colleges & want to stay in the U.S., they should not be thrown out of our country," Trump tweeted on Tuesday. "I want talented people to come into this country -- to work hard and become citizens. Silicon Valley needs engineers, etc."

But in a section of his immigration proposal entitled "Put American Workers First," Trump blames "the influx of foreign workers" for keeping salaries from growing, keeping unemployment high and making it difficult for "poor and working class Americans ... to earn a middle class wage."

CNN reached out to Trump's campaign to explain the discrepancy, but the they have yet to respond.

Now, in fairness, Trump did not call for an end to H-1Bs, as no one would, anywhere; he sounded notes about their abuse and the depressive effect on US wages (an intended depressive effect -- cheap foreign workers aren't being recruited to increase wages, after all).

But it is strange to hear him go off on a seeming contradiction, at least in spirit, of the principles he just announced.

Many people suspect that people like Jeff Sessions and his folks put together those principles for Trump. I don't mind that; candidates get ideas from all sorts of places, and there's no requirement a candidate invent every plank of his agenda.

But on Tuesday, he's immediately repeating the corporate/WSJ/Establishment talking points used in support of the the Moar H-1Bs corporate contingent -- that we "need" engineers and cannot get them at home, etc.

Did Trump even read this document?

I'm not asking for consistency with his previous statements from Trump at this point -- but can I at least demand a little familiarity?

This rankles me particularly, because I was giving Trump a Second Look based on the document released over the weekend. All right, I conceded, on this issue, I guess he's serious about it.

But now he starts talking about the wonders of foreign workers again, and I have to take a Second Look at my Second Look.

Does he bother reading the documents drafted in his name, or what? Is this all just "What's in Trump's gut at any particular moment"?

posted by Ace at 01:12 PM

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