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 The U.S. has a gap at high-end and low-end jobs. We don't have
enough people willing to
work in low-end jobs such as meatpacking plants or picking crops on
farms. We have
500,000 jobs that fit that category, yet the present law provides
for only 5,000 visas. Nor
do we have enough math and science majors who can fill the demand
for engineering jobs on the high end. Most of our students want to
study business and law. We need about 1.5 million to 1.8 million
folks to fill business needs not being met by our own citizens. This
is the predicament facing Congress.
Since I doubt many Americans are demanding meatpacking or
lettuce-harvesting jobs
that are attracting folks from south of the border, the problem is
how to address the
high-end jobs that cannot be filled by Americans. To grow our own
expertise we need a
'surge' in math and science studies by young Americans -- or our
next engineers and
scientists will have to be either outsourced or filled by foreigners
from places like India
who have that training. Government could help by paying teachers of
math and science
more.
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 The present system is also flawed in that there is no employer
verification system that
would allow employers to check someone's work eligibility against a
computerized database. Presently, employers only look at documents
that can easily be forged -- there is no national verification
system that would allow an employer to check a person's work status
instantly on a computer. Congress needs to pass an effective,
intelligent employer
verification system.
The present system is broken. One garden shop has employed the
same 50 people from
Mexico for years. When they tried to grow and asked for 150 workers,
they were told they could have none. How denying these low-end work
permits helps us as a country is a mystery to me. No Americans have
stepped forward to fill these jobs.
So, we need both more enforcement and more legal immigration to
fill these jobs
without encouraging more illegal immigration. Our future prosperity
and growth depend on it.
[Text from file
sent on behalf of Michael
Fjetland by
Global
American[
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