Jeff Sessions criticizes Bill Gates's call for STEM worker visas amid Microsoft layoffs

The Hill ^ | 07/21/2014 | Ramsey Cox

[SeekAndFind]

Sen. Jeff Sessions (R-Ala.) criticized Microsoft founder Bill Gates for calling on Congress to increase STEM worker visas while the company plans to cut 18,000 jobs next year.

“Super billionaires aren’t happy apparently. … They declare we need to import more foreign workers,” Sessions said on the Senate floor Thursday. “Mr. Gates says we need to let more and more people into our country to take those kinds of jobs.”

Sessions was referring to an op-ed in which Gates called on the House to pass the bipartisan Senate immigration reform bill. That legislation would increase the number of worker visas for immigrants in science, technology, engineering and math (STEM) fields.

Sessions pointed out that Microsoft announced Thursday that it plans to layoff nearly 20,000 workers in an effort to streamline. He said those workers should take priority over immigrants.

[Vigilanteman]

Bill Gates is no different than the slave owners of two centuries ago who wanted to keep importing other people to work their fields.

Just as he justifies it by saying it improves the lives and gives opportunities to the people of the third world, the slave traders of two centuries earlier claimed also that their dirty business spared the lives of their captive slaves from the violence in their countries of origin.

[Blood of Tyrants]

What a putz. Gates lays off American workers and replaces them with immigrants. What’s the matter Bill, aren’t all your billions enough for you?

[alloysteel]

If these people were being admitted to the EXCLUSION of poorly educated, low-potential future Democrat low-information voters, then I would say, I am all for it.

But what we are doing, with this importation of the best and brightest from foreign sources, we are starving these other countries, essentially subjecting them to a “brain drain”. While there may be greater economic opportunities in the US, or at least in the past there used to be, the free market exchange of ideas and technology benefits everybody, no matter where it evolves in the world.

[blam]

Jeff Sessions is my #1 choice for president.

[the OlLine Rebel]

Hold the phone.

I do not know the.particulars here.

But what jobs in the US are being lost? I seriously doubt 18k ENGINEERS are losing jobs. If so, calling out about STEM is moot.

If Americans cannot or will not take these jobs, then so be it. The companies are looking for some design talent.

Again, we’re not talking about assembly workers.

[FlingWingFlyer]

Gates is a lying hypocrite. Lay off Americans and demand that the Kenyan import more foreign workers. I don’t get it. OR MAYBE I DO.

[BlatherNaut]

Bill Gates is no different than the slave owners of two centuries ago who wanted to keep importing other people to work their fields.

Well said.

[MHGinTN]

A better man you will not discover in this age ... but he is too smart to even want to do that to himself and his family.

[indthkr]

Jeff Sessions - one of the few leaders on Capital Hill
(either party).

[Alas Babylon!]

Well, Bill, I’m proud he’s our senator! I wish he would run for President, too.

[centurion316]

Bill Gates is the founder of Microsoft, but he no longer runs the company. This is like blaming George Bush for all of the problems that the Administration is having.

[Himyar]

Absolutely! Sessions is the best there is.

[SeekAndFind]

RE: Bill Gates is the founder of Microsoft, but he no longer runs the company

I think the title of the thread is : "Jeff Sessions criticizes Bill Gates's call for STEM worker visas amid Microsoft layoffs"

Even if Bill Gates does not run the company, he still is a Technology Adviser of Microsoft, which has the ear of the CEO, and has a huge stake in the company (due to his stock ownership ). The fact that he is PUBLICLY CALLING for Congress to increase STEM worker visa is relevant regardless of whether or not he runs the company.

[Zathras]

Its actually worse.
MS is going to lay off 18k Americans, then hire 18k in India to replace them.

USA won’t even get income taxes or trickle down jobs out of it.
MS will get a jump in stock price and internal bonus $$$

[Vigilanteman]

But what we are doing, with this importation of the best and brightest from foreign sources, we are starving these other countries, essentially subjecting them to a “brain drain”.

Exactly the point to these 'open border' types and especially the politicians who make dumb-assed statements like "We should staple a green card to the diploma of every foreigner who graduates from an American University". Yes, a prominent GOP Senator actually said this. I won't name the Senator because all but a relative handful of them agree with the statement.

It is a stupid idea for at least three reasons:

1. Not every college degree is identical. We may have a shortage of nurses (and even that's arguable), but we certainly have a surplus of activist lawyers.
   
2. Many of these foreign students were financed by their own governments or other such entities with the express understanding that they would come home and utilize their education to develop their own country. While the temptation of continuing life in America is strong, we should not be encouraging them to abrogate their original agreement and purpose they were given the opportunity to study here.
   
3. Immigration policy should be based, first and foremost, on what type of people America needs; not on what would be desirable to a particular individual. Roughly 80% of the world's population would like to come here if they could. We have only 4% of the world's land area and 4% of the world's population. The problem is best solved by inspiring individuals to create a traditional American economic opportunity model in the home countries. Such model has been wildly successful everywhere it has been tried-- Japan, Korea, Taiwan, Singapore, Chile, Panama, Columbia and, more recently, even some of the countries in the former Soviet satellite states.

[centurion316]

Senator Sessions is implying that Gates support for STEM visas is connected to Microsoft’s plan to lay off a significant chunk of their workforce. I am asserting that there is no connection.

The wisdom of increased STEM visas is an entirely different issue. I have no problem hiring engineers and scientists, and in our case, they must have U.S. citizenship and a valid security clearance. More applicants than there are jobs. Lots of the software sweat shops like to hire aliens because they are cheaper and put up with more nonsense from their employer because of their native culture and their fear of losing their visa. That’s the problem that Sessions ought to be advancing.

[danamco]

Bill-front & back-Gates can afford to educating those workers himself from bottom up!!!

[AU72]

Steve Balmer is running Microsoft and he has 2 billion dollars of walking around money he’s willing to pay the Sterlings for the LA Clippers.

[indthkr]

"More applicants than there are jobs"

Pure BS.

If that was true, there would be a spike in the wage rates for engineers, scientists, and other STEM workers.

The truth is that those wage rates have been flat for well over a decade according to the majority of reputable studies of the subject, including organizations such as the IEEE.