Thanks Moderator;

Good no-nonsense page of info. Will pass link on. Happy Holidays!

Most of high tech firms are now using H-1B workers as hiring managers or technical managers. Politically, these H-1B managers are maily utilizing for downgrading or laying off US skilled workers. At the same time they are utilizing for importing more cheap foreign workers from the oversea.

Now we are in recession and high unemployment rate. We need to stop depolying these H-1B guest workers for the time being. In fact, we are not shorting any skilled workers in this high unemployment rate.
We really need to protect US high tech industry. Otherwise, we will have more jobless in 2009.
Please urge our congress for taking a deep consideration about H-1B guest workers.

The USA problems are trying to be solved by an inept organization, our government. To make matter worst our elected officials have and continue making our government bigger and more intrusive for their own self-interest not the country. Once the government starts an action the government can not stop, alter, or revise the action, unless by court action. One of these actions happen to be immigration.

Most of the comments on the article are just good old common sense. We can see the problems but our government can not. People like us make up the government. Congress needs to allow lower level personnel to stop curtain actions when the problems arise and allow time to evaluate and solve the problem. The people running the government know too many immigrants (legal or illegal) is not good for our country in so many ways. Congress needs to empower the lower level management to control immigration and other areas of government.

Thanks Oklahoma for being a leading state on illegal immigration. But the down side is that Kansas is getting many of your illegal outcasts but Kansas has morons for a governor and other state officials that will not follow your lead. Though, Kansas voters have been trying for years.

Last thought, What would a private sector company do when they had too many employees? Reduce the employee numbers and other costs or go bankrupt, right. The past administration and our upcoming administration only want to increase immigration, so does that mean the country is heading for bankruptcy? I have lost to much of my investment and income money in the past year, have you? Placing more labor into the equation does not lead to economic recovery or putting people who lost job back to work.

Until the employers are penalized for hiring illegals, the problem will continue.

You must impose jail time, and make it mandatory that the employer check the social security numbers with the E-Verify. The majority of illegals, particularly from Mexico have forged documents to comply with I-9 with the knowledge of the employer, particularly small manufacturing and recycling business with hard repetitive labor.

People must begin to Vote the Congress out of office, that allows for the continued flow of illegal immigration. The idea, that the government would issue visas for work in this economy is a total lack of concern for American People.

The borders of Mexico are not safe for Americans due to the drug traffic and has extended to twenty plus cities. We should have Our National Guard on the border, instead of building the fence. The fence should be build with contractors to create jobs. Bush has pushed and gotten billions for Mexico and Latin American countries for the drug war. $20 million in the previous six months without any accountability or monitoring, but the drug war has gotten worse than anytime in our history. The National Guard should be on the border with machine guns with a shot to kill policy:inspecting every vehicle. Amazing, Bush refuses to pardon the two Border Agents in a federal pen in Texas, that were doing their job. Bush needs to pardon these agents and stop playing footsie with the President of Mexico. Bush only pardons his buddies and the people that can pay for high power lawyers.

... 140,000 new work permits and green cards to foreign workers.

In these figures how many Resident Alien cards were given out to immigrants that came to the US originally though K1 or CR1 visas? I agree the government really could care less about us they have shown it in multiple ways, but if that number does contain K! and CR1 people, than I feel it is flawed.

Imagine if you will.... The United States is a general store. The clerks in that store are Congress. These clerks have been selling practically everything in the back of the store to foreign customers (foreign countries, special interest groups, lobbyists, etc.)

Now the town folks living in this town (U.S. Citizens) enter the store as usual, but this time the only items on the shelves are some meager crumbs. The clerks who were hired to manage the store have sold everything in the back store room. With this they lined their own pockets with their greed.

While this is a stretch of immagination, it also shows what is and has been happening in this country for some time.

Our own elected officials, the same ones who were elected to represent the citizens of the U.S., have put their own political agendas before the citizens of the U.S. Allowing any form of amnesty is yet another example of the greed, and beningn way Washington exists.

We have become a nation on the chasm of chaos. It is becoming a country of Haves and Have Nots. The only thing keeping peace in all of this is that we still have merchandise (products, jobs, etc.) on the shelves.

This country was founded on Judeo-Christian beliefs, but it seems we have become a nation of being "politically correct", while loosing out our own freedoms established by our fore-fathers who fought for our freedoms and the right to pursue equality. Any form of Amnesty is wrong. Companies have to be held accountable for outsourcing jobs overseas. Foreign companies coming to the U.S. to setup shop, only to apply for working visas or sending outsourcing jobs overseas as well.

The United States was once that "beacon on a hill", but our light is slowly being extinguished by amensty and the outsourcing of american jobs to foreign countries. Some of which do not have the best interest of America.

Why isn't the government forced to get real time figures on unemployed and under employed citizens? Freedom of Information should be enough to demand this accounting so it can be made public. I guarantee the figures will be closer to thirty million than to ten million.

If these ego driven jerks on the hill don't read bills before they sign them, how do we know they are aware of the unemployment situation. Once the numbers are available, all on Capitol Hill need to be forced to sign receipt and acknowledgment of what the numbers represent.

This is terrible that so many Americans are losing their jobs now! How absurd to now let immigrants, both legal & illegal, pour into our country?!!! Our elected officials need to come down out of their ivory tower and wake up to the reality of the average American worker.

Friends, I've had this battle cry now for years. I work in the IT industry and we've been losing our jobs to both immigrants coming here to the U.S. and to the offshoring industry. I've been writing to my senators & congressman for years regarding this issue, all to no avail. They don't care. I am fortunate that I'm employeed now and probably will be into next year, but I'm very anxious about a year or so down the road. Bill Gates and all the other corporate liars screaming that there isn't enough American talent are selling us out. They, along with our Congress, don't care.

Our leaders need to watch out, as they will see a new revolution from the American people that will make the first one look like nothing. Join with me. We don't have to take it!

Ted9104 of GA

We all know this. The reality, however, is that the federal government seems to dismiss any information that may be contrary to common sense. MN paid an estimated $350 million in aid to illegal immigrants last year. The churches keep helping them get here and the Federal Government does nothing to stem the tide. Part of this is corporate greed. Before the economic meltdown, government and corporations were thick as flies in their enthusiasm to lower wage/benefit liabilities on corporate balance sheets by using illegal labor. This greed spills over into politics cause that's where the politicians get their electioneering money and backing...corporations.

It makes no difference what is right or wrong. Fair or unfair. It is the system, and you can not argue rational positions (the cost of illegal immigration) with a system whose motivation is power instead of being rational. Power does not give a damn about costs and if the politicians believe it to their political advantage to "IMPORT" people to pay for a retiring population...then that's exactly what will happen and you can argue right/wrong, fair/unfair, or the negative cost consequences to you are dead! It will not change a thing. The people have lost control of their government and now the government controls the people.

The only way to change any of this is to help the politicians understand that their political life may hang in the balance. The trouble is, with an increasing minority population, that will become increasingly difficult to accomplish. The only chance there is, is with organizations such as NumbersUSA and its ability to organize large numbers to try and influence decisions before the point is mute.

This just proves how out of touch the people in DC are, and Obama will prove himself to be no different. Almost NONE of those in congress are working class people, middle class people, they are mostly super rich, live in gated communities and don't worry about their jobs, in fact, their tenure in the Senate or House is just more of a hobby to them rather than a "job providing bill paying income".
Everyone one of you be sure to contact the Speaker of the House's office (along with your Senate and House members) with this fact about foreign workers still being imported while more and more Americans are losing their jobs, and don't forget Reid's office either, altho he makes it VERY hard to contact him if you don't live in Nevada! The coward! DO NOT let up for even one day! Heck, go to Obama's transition website and tell him daily too, he SAYS he is looking for ideas, lets give him a few!

Ted, they, the ILLEGALS are costing the taxpayers approximately 338 BILLION PER YEAR! The Dems are complaining that the war is costing 12 billion per year. You don't hear the Dems complaining when they give 85 billion of taxpayers dollars to AIG and a week and a half later another 40 billion. They give Paulson, a Democrat a blank check and let him dole out the bailouts as he sees fit. Paulson's first bailout was to Goldman Sachs, his former employer before being chosen as the Secretary of the Treasury. The American taxpayers are nothing but a huge piggy bank and the government is the hammer that broke it open.

It seems our corrupt anti-American politicans don't realize that if we the American people lose are jobs and don't make money....THEY (the politicans) will not get paid either!

Here is reality:

On January 1, 2000 at 12:00:01 am, MILLIONS of "high tech" workers became unneccessary.

The fall out was just starting to be felt when 9-11 occurred and then cheap credit kicked in.

Once the veil of housing & cheap credit evaporated, the pain was felt.

Manufacturing & high tech have been off shored, or imported, and the wages driven into the basement. Yet the tech companies continue to scream "worker shortage" while throwing away tens of thousands of American applications.

The Democrats are getting ready to sell America on the fact we have to have foreigners to solve the housing crisis (no bad credit, no credit--you watch and see).

Scary things are going on and the majority of the population is clueless--until after they are unemployed for a couple years, then they may be catching on.

Illegal immigration is going to destroy this great nation due to the fiscal cost; it must be stopped before we go bankrupt. How much of a bigger financial hole would we now be in if the “comprehensive immigration” bill had passed when it was first proposed?

I am asking everyone’s help to force our federal government to initiate a study into the overall cost illegal immigration to taxpayers at the federal, state, and local levels since 1965.

I have sent Sen. Burr, R, NC a request for a GAO or CRS report however, each and ever American interested in fiscal spending, fiscal debt and illegal immigration must take the time to write a short request to each of their two senators along with their congressperson asking for such a study. Ask for a copy of all written correspondence they initiate on your request.

After writing them, call them.

I call 1965 the beginning of illegal immigration. What has been the cost to American taxpayers from 1965 to the present? Why no study? We study everything in the federal government, why not this? Is it because this nation has been on a course to establish a North American Union, much like the European Union and then combine it all into a new world order.

I have long been concerned with our fiscal spending and fiscal debt even before the big spending days of George Bush. Our federal debt limit has been raised six times since Gorge Bush took office in 2001. The "official" debt of the United States is over $10 trillion dollars as of August 6, 2008. This is bad but our children and grandchildren could pay it off in a few decades if we quit buying luxuries like food and clothing.
As you know, the "$10 trillion" figure is a government accounting illusion, which among other things allows one to ignore Social Security, Medicare, and the new prescription drug benefit. This is the same as a family ignoring rent, utilities, food and the entire household budget. Our real debt is ten times higher when you figure in all of the promises made to taxpayers.

The President of the Dallas Federal Reserve, Richard W. Fisher in a May speech at the Commonwealth Club of California, stated the United States real national debt is close to $100 trillion. You can read his whole speech at the Federal Reserve web site. http://www.dallasfed.org/news/speeches/fisher/index.cfm.

I had the pleasure of viewing a documentary film, I.O.U.S.A. and found our government asleep at the wheel, again! I suggest you go to this website and watch the 30-minute trailer. I have also visited Ross Perot Charts website, along with viewing the fiscal clock at
Truth in 2008. Pete G. Peterson Foundation is focusing on our debt issue with former Comptroller General, David Walker taking the lead. These three sites are quite sobering to say the least.

As I mentioned at the beginning of this blog, we have no idea the cost of illegal immigration. What is it? How much American has been forced to pay into this social experiment since 1965 when Sen. Kennedy led the charge in expanding legal immigration? This in turn has prompted illegal immigration. What has been the cost of the Supreme Court ruling in 1982 forcing American to funding K-12 education of illegal aliens? What has been the cost to American’s to provide free medical care for illegal aliens was passed in 1985 to do so?

NumbersUSA Moderator: The Center for Immigration Studies (CIS) has done extensive research into the cost of immigration (both legal and illegal). Click here.

Roy, you are making some good points that need to be repeated across the land. The economy will get worse before it gets better, and we need to take care of those American who are here first.

In response to all the political comments here, I voted for Obama in spite of his immigration position. McCain was no better on this point, and worse on many other issues, IMHO. I think the only way we can slow the immigration boosters now is to pressure Obama and the Congress with exactly the point made above: with the current recession/depression, we don't need many more people becoming citizens.

I'd also like to know how, if there is an amnesty, the goverment is going to prevent the flood of new illegal immigrants that would likely follow. That's what happened after the 1986 amnesty: more came, not fewer.

Amen to that!!!!

Big corporations own our government. They want slave labor here in America and what better way to get it is with illegal aliens competing for our jobs they can tell us to take slave wages or starve.

In support of Doris 2419 of NJ and others, get off the high horse McCain supporters; McCain was pro-amnesty just like the Dems. I expect it from the tree-hugging Dems, but what was McCain’s excuse? He was indifferent to illegal immigration for some unknown reason.

Few Republicans stood with Bush or with McCain on immigration or how to deal with current illegal aliens. We had few options since when we held primaries, moderates & cross-over Democrats allowed to vote in Republican primaries in some states, decided for us who our national candidate would be.
If we had our way, Duncan Hunter, Tom Tancredo, or Mitt Romney would have received our nod. Each of them were for attrition & enforcement. They knew we could not glut our labor pool with illegal aliens and with legal alien workers, and still have a viable economy.
We know Republicans (in name only ) failed. We also know many Democrats are for amnesty right out of the gate because they see new Democrat voters for the future.
In the end, a bad economy might stem some of the tide. But legal alien workers will only exacerbate the problems. We need to seal our borders properly, controlling not just illegal alien entries, but also illegal drugs, stolen property, criminal movements, human trafficking, gang movements, & possible terrorist movements. Savings on the illegal drug trade alone would pay for much of our enforcement efforts.
In the end, its time we got realistic about how many we can take in & still operate as a nation. We are out of money. The gravy train is about to go broke & once that happens, there will be NO entries as citizens rise up & demand the borders be closed. If they are not, citizens will do the job themselves.

You mentioned Bill Richardson's Spanish speech. Do not be surprised if Obama gives part of his inagural address in Spanish or has a Spanish translator present to translate his English. You mentioned the number of legally admitted people. What about the illegals? Their number has gone down but they are still coming in.

NumbersUSA Moderator: Illegal immigration is still a very big problem, which is why every fax and phone call should end with a request to make E-Verify mandatory for all businesses.

In terms of total numbers, legal immigration has a greater impact on foreign labor competition and tax-payer burden, which is why every fax and phone call should also end with a request to end chain migration in order to give our workers tax payers a break.

This is typical of the mental disconnect polititions have that is killing our country. I propose that we start a new movement. This movement should be called the UN Movement. (UN might be a poor choice because it is already being used for a useless orgnization). My Idea for this mevement is that we would vote against ALL incombent politicians for as many elections as it takes to break up all the chrony relationships which continue to promote these insane policies.

Hello Roy,
Thank you for the clarification on the nature of the numbers, and the different phenomenon, or behaviors of legal vs illegal immigrants. It makes your initial argument much stronger in my eyes.
I look forward to reading your blog in the future, and participating in your forum here.

The initial point of the e-mail I received on this issue is that we should want the media to include the facts about the number of foreign workers allowed into our labor market legally. I whole heartedly agree, it is very worthwhile to keep the issue of foreign vs domestic labor in the public dialog. Of course the left will say the foreign labor force picks cotton and lettuce while the domestic labor force is unwilling to do this work. I have a laissez faire attitude toward markets, particularly labor markets. The numbers in the BLOG are for different years and from different bureaus. I imagine current numbers could be lower, as the INS reports on illegal border activity indicate, and that there is considerable overlap in the two numbers reported. But why worry about protecting our domestic labor? We have strong unions! Oh yeah, I remember, the unions now represent: Government employees, all Doctors Graduate student Instructors Public school teachers Police and Fire Nurses Prison Guards I see bigger problems than an increasing population that equals an expanded market. I welcome the new folks, and am pleased that they are hear legally. Any thoughts?

FROM ROY: Actually, there isn't overlap. The green cards go to permanent immigrants who don't get work permits because they don't need them.  The work permits go to non-immigrants who come as temporary workers, students and family members of people allowed into the country for various reasons.

There is no reason to believe that the numbers are going down at all this year.  I just dealt with this in an interview with the Congressional Quarterly.  It is true that fewer illegal aliens are entering the country because of the bad job situation.  But past experience shows that legal immigration doesn't slow down during recessions.  The reason is that there are probably 2 BILLION people in other countries who would like to work here.  Even if half of those people were discouraged by our bad economy, 1 BILLION interested people are still plenty to fill 1.6 MILLION legal slots each year.

Bill Richardson tossed out one of the "changes" when he addressed this great nation in a foreign language. I guess the change is from the melting pot to multiculturism. Forget United We Stand, Ellis Island, and all that. Bill Richardson, in his greedy grab for power, betrayed his country.

Hey all you Obama nuts, now's your chance. Get your boy to do something for Americans. He-he not to funny, huh? I wasted my vote for McCain. What's yall's excuse?

NumbersUSA Moderator: As you all know, NumbersUSA is strictly non-partisan and we respect the fact that our users come from across the political spectrum and that there are many reasons to vote for or against a candidate. That said, we should avoid comments like this, that are disparaging toward each other. Our strength is in working together for our common goals. If we start fighting among ourselves, we will all fail together.

Please try to keep your posts civil and constructive.