News

Two enterprising Reuters reporters tracked down a few of the recently-fired illegal Chipotle restaurant workers who admitted that they committed identity theft and/or fraud to land a job at the fast-food chain. Since illegal employment and identity theft have been linked before, these confessions aren't surprising. What the fired workers told reporters next, however, is more newsworthy.

According to Nobel Prize winning economist Paul Krugman, immigration policy reduces American employment opportunities and lowers existing workers' wages. Following the April jobs report, major newspapers assured us that the economy is improving. The devil, however, is in the details.

The NBC Nightly News' segment, "Can America Keep Best, Brightest Immigrants?" asks a seemingly-straightforward question: "Many foreigners come here, get educated, and want to stay, but can’t. How can the U.S. take advantage of their potential?" The report takes a look at the H-1B (non-immigrant) visa program, which was created in 1993 to allow skilled workers - particularly in the science, technology, engineering, and math (STEM) fields - to enter the U.S. on a temporary basis. The "temporary" part of the visa has NBC and the featured personalities in this story concerned. Their thesis is simple: "America's visa restrictions lead to reverse brain drain," depriving the U.S. economy of the job creators it desperately needs.

U.S. citizens comprise 25 percent of all domestic crop laborers. Another 21 percent are legal immigrants. Together, they make up nearly half of the agricultural workers that provide the nation's food supply. Yet the media is conspicuously silent on these legal farm workers, while devoting copious copy to the interests of their illegal competitors and their employers.