IDIOTORIAL: LA Times

Date: Tuesday, July 25, 2006 10:53 AM

<<<<< JOB DESTRUCTION NEWSLETTER No. 1526 -- 07/xx/2006 >>>>>

An idiotorial in the Los Angeles Times masquerades as an editorial but it's
actually a plant by the special interest lobby group CompeteAmerica.
Predictably the idiotorial warns of the vast shortage of technically
educated Americans and the impending doom to our economic system if we
don't allow more H-1Bs into our country to take the jobs Americans can't
do.

The LA Times is guilty of a gross violation of journalistic ethics because
they intentionally called it an editorial instead of an op-ed. Readers of
the newspaper have no way of knowing that the editorial was a shill plant
by CompeteAmerica.

CompeteAmerica calls their propaganda campaign "editorial support". They
aren't shy about listing their newspaper plants on the following webpage.
Respectable newspapers would want to avoid being on this list of
CompeteAmerica toadies - but of course the LA Times probably considers it
some kind of badge of honor:
http://www.competeamerica.org/editorials/index.html

To fully understand the breech of ethics the LA Times has made, read this
excerpt about the difference between editorials and op-eds.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Editorial

Editorials are (usually short) opinion pieces, written by members
of the editorial board of the paper. They reflect the stance of
the paper and do not have bylines.

The opinions expressed on op-ed pages reflect those of the
individual authors, not the paper. The articles have bylines and
are usually written by individual free-lance writers or syndicated
columnists. Sometimes editorial writers write signed columns for
the op-ed page.

Many of the recent CompeteAmerica idiotorials don't mention the Skil bill
by name and this LA Times article is no exception. They make some vague
references to S. 2611 that also contains the H-1B increase. I'm not sure
why CompeteAmerica feels it's better to not actually name the bills but
that is obviously part of their propaganda strategy.

The Skil bill was sponsored in the Senate by George Allen (R-VA) and in the
House by John Shadegg (R-AZ).

+++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++

http://www.latimes.com/news/printedition/opinion/la-ed-visa24jul24,1,413063.story

or

http://www.competeamerica.org/editorials/index.html

High Skill, Low Priority
Though it's making fewer headlines, reform of high-skilled immigration is
also urgently needed.

July 24, 2006

ONE OF THE UNITED STATES' greatest economic assets is its ability to
attract and stimulate the world's most innovative minds. High-skilled
immigrants have long played a key role in the country's technological
prowess. But that magnetism is being threatened by inadequate visa policies
and this year's volatile immigration debate.

The H-1B visa, good for six years, is the main legal means for employers to
bring skilled and specialized workers from abroad. College grads make up
98% of H-1B recipients; 48% hold advanced degrees; and a large portion work
in technological R&D. They supplement a native-born workforce that earns an
inadequate number of science degrees (one-third of all doctorates in
science and engineering awarded in the U.S. go to foreign-born students).

At the height of the dot-com boom, Congress raised the cap for H-1Bs to
195,000 per year, though that quota was never reached. Since then, the cap
has fallen to 65,000. Next year's limit was filled within the first two
months of eligibility, far earlier than ever before. Because the 2006
fiscal year begins in October, that leaves a gaping 16-month hole during
which no business can hire skilled foreigners.

This policy discourages talented international students from staying in the
U.S. after graduation. Besides the 65,000 H-1Bs, those with recent advanced
degrees from U.S. institutions can compete for an additional 20,000 visas.
That's only a tiny percentage welcomed from one of the most dynamic
segments of society. And those who apply typically have to leave the
country one year after graduating, because that often comes before the next
H-1B batch is doled out.

H-1B opponents argue that the visas are abused by the tech sector to
suppress labor costs, thereby displacing American jobs. But both Silicon
Valley and the Southern California aerospace industry complain of labor
shortages, while a national unemployment rate persistently under 5%
suggests the economy needs all the brains it can get. Today's H-1B engineer
is tomorrow's green-card-holding entrepreneur, creating jobs that might
otherwise be shipped overseas. And though enforcement is less than perfect,
H-1Bs do mandate that immigrants receive the same wage as qualified
Americans.

The Senate has been considering a bill, both as part of comprehensive
immigration reform and separately, that would increase the H-1B quota to
115,000, extend the grace period at the end of a student visa from one year
to two and more than double the annual quota for high-skilled green cards
(permanent residency for workers and their families) from 140,000 to
290,000. This would drastically reduce the multiyear bottleneck facing many
desirable immigrants.

Congress should decouple this sensible bill from the looming train wreck of
immigration reform. The next generation of tech innovation could depend on
it.

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