A Multitude of Harm: Zig Zagging on Immigration Reform
by Glenn R. Jackson
Recently in announcing new student-visa rules, INS Commissioner James Ziglar was quoted in the Washington Times, "While we recognize the overwhelming majority who come to us as visitors are honest and law-abiding, the events of September 11th remind us there will always be those who seek to cause us harm." Such statements by Commissioner Ziglar have by now become an INS tradition to soften any impact that reform may have on U.S. immigration "service” for foreign nationals.
Ignoring for the moment that rule changes are only cosmetic and will not change anything without enforcement. And ignoring that Ziglar’s INS enforcement leaks like a sieve with continuing reports of foreign nationals jumping ship in U.S. harbors, migrants crossing U.S. borders, and foreign nationals violating U.S. visa expirations even as the rules supposedly “toughen.”
The question that needs to be answered by Ziglar, the INS, and Congress, what are the definitions of “harm” that they seek to protect the American nation and the American people from in their current efforts in the immigration arena.
Clearly the INS Commissioner and Congress would claim an upper limit of harm at allowing visa-holders and illegal immigrants to crash airliners loaded with innocents into skyscrapers full of more innocents. Yet in a world where a student-visa and a little pilot training can be used to turn a plane into a cruise missile, and anyone willing to strap on high explosives into a bomb, rule changes from 6 months to 30 days for a “visit” seems to lack a proper appreciation of the situation’s gravity.
And let’s not even mention 245(i) extensions and other illegal immigration “amnesty” proposals.
Instead, let’s try to determine the extent of protection, the lowest level of “harm” from which Ziglar and Congress will seek to protect U.S. citizens.
According to Richard Armstrong of the organization Hire American Citizens, there have been a little more than 605,000 high tech job cuts during 2002 due to the recession. In that same period the economy generated 80,000 new high tech jobs, and 160,000 new college graduates with high tech degrees. Clearly the math does not look good.
Yet the H-1B visa program is still in full swing, with 382,200 new H-1B visas granted so far in 2002. The high tech industry is facing a worker glut of over one million workers.
Going from bad to worse, the H-1B visa flow is not being stopped. “The numbers are staggering”, Richard Armstrong reports that “by the end of this year, employers will have been approved to import over One Million foreign high tech workers under the H-1B visa program.”
If you thought it was a priority to get Americans back to work you may have been mistaken. In fact you may have discovered the unpleasant truth about the full extent of harms befalling the U.S. under our current immigration system. That truth according to James Ziglar is that if you come here to “cause us harm” then we will make it tough on you by only allowing 30-days to act. However, if you are one of the “vast majority” (by the way how vast is vast), including the projected one million plus H-1B visa holders, welcome come in and grab a job.
The time for real action is long overdue. Suspend the current U.S. visa program. Put a stop to an immigration program that is incompetent to protect Americans from harm, physical or financial.
No immigration without immigration reform.
Glenn R. Jackson is Chairman of the American Reformation Project, former State Chairman for Buchanan Reform and former state Chairman of the Georgia Freedom Party. Glenn also served on the Executive Committee of the Reform Party USA. Glenn holds an MA in Philosophy from Georgia State University in Atlanta.
© Glenn R. Jackson