[Moose4]

I'm not buying this. My wife used to work as secretary to an immigration lawyer. Supposedly, companies applying for an H-1B had to "make every effort" to fill the job with an American citizen before they went and got the visa candidate.

Guess what? All they did was pick out the visa candidate first, then write the job description to fit that person's skills and experience EXACTLY. Most of the time, the companies NEVER bothered to do any significant searching for an American citizen to fill the position. They decided on the visa candidate they wanted ahead of time.

I have no more faith in this guest worker program than I do in the H-1B and L-1 programs, which are abused to the detriment of both the American worker, and the foreign workers in the programs. Let's get real, if Juan and Juanita snuck across the border and have been working here for four years under the radar, are they really going to apply for a "blue card" when (a) they have to pay for it, and (b) they'll have to leave the country after three years? Suuuuure, they will. And even if they do, suuuuuure, they'll leave.

How do you deport them when we can't deport the ones already here? What do you do if Juanita's had a couple of kids--kids that, due to their birthplace, ARE legal American citizens? Do you send the whole family back to Juarez even though the tots are citizens?

I have no problem with legal immigration. I would love to see a program where thousands of Mexican immigrants could come here legally, work toward becoming citizens, get jobs, pay taxes, and become productive members of AMERICAN society (note the emphasis there). But I'm dead-set against any program that rewards people for sneaking across the damn border.

Set up a guest-worker program, OK, fine. But only do it AFTER massive sweeps to deport illegal immigrants, and AFTER sealing the border. And Vincente Fox can choke on it if he doesn't like it.

}:-)4

[Shermy]

I'm not buying this. My wife used to work as secretary to an immigration lawyer. Supposedly, companies applying for an H-1B had to "make every effort" to fill the job with an American citizen before they went and got the visa candidate.

It was a meaningless procedure, caluculated to fail while giving the semblance of power.

The planned failure was successful, so naturally Bush is employing it again.