This article embodies a sleight of hand: it assumes that the jobs the companies want to hire immigrants to fill are the same ones they've laid people off from. Is there any evidence that is the case?
But in fairness, Cisco layoffs are not uncommon. One former employee likened them to a humpback whale, feeding on 'krill headcount' from acquired companies while squeezing the excess out through their baleen filters. Looking at their history suggests that this has some truth to it.
However none of that is happening. Companies do not want to do that of course, and why would they? The government subsidizes the training through college. The loans are unaffordable, and the returns are not even there for anyone other than the brightest/most capable (however that's scored) 20%. Companies don't care, they aren't on the hook for those costs. Now that that pool is nearly exhausted, companies are lobbying Congress for immigration reform that will bring cheaper younger talent over. Companies assume minimal risk in the current format. And by forcing the # of the visas up, they can suppress wages, there was an article even on IT wages last week about that. This current format is bad for US Citizens, Green Card Holders, and a substantial set of Visa Holders as well.
This is a link to a case of first impression (lawsuit) for this kind of discriminant practice, firing Americans for foreign workers, showing American's were kept on board to train their foreign replacements, then fired without cause. http://www.dailykos.com/story/2012/01/16/1055249/-Discrimina...
Ironically, the discovery in the lawsuit tends to show that the foreign workers were more expensive, because more had to be hired to replicate the productivity of the "skilled American workers".
More evidence, but a stretch, is the Immigration reform proposed by "the gang of 8" which allowed for the corporate demanded H1-B's but created strict regulations (protections for the American workers before allowing the foreign candidate to be hired; for example the H1-B employee would have to be paid more than their American counter-part), which was opposed by these very same corporations. http://blog.heritage.org/2013/05/20/immigration-gang-of-eigh...
It's in the best interest of the person who has to compete with the immigrant, but it's not in the best interest of anyone else - citizen or otherwise. Immigration benefits other citizens in the form of cheaper products and services. Immigration also benefits the immigrant (if it didn't, they wouldn't be trying to get in).
This issue is somewhat personal for me because I have foreign friends who are good engineers and would like to work here, but can't because of the regulations.
> It is not protectionism at all to level the playing field
This isn't leveling the playing field, this is refusing to let other (potentially better) players on the field because we have less capable players (who happened to be here first).
The only purpose of H1B the legal construct is to erode workers rights.
I'm acquainted with a state Senator. He's a well meaning guy, but he acknowledges just what a corrupting effect the truckloads of money has on national politics.
I've read that there are over 10,000 pages to Obamacare. Who wrote all that? How much insight into the health care field does it take to put in so much detail? Who else could have possibly written it other than the health care field itself?
We talk about regulatory capture like it's some horrific thing akin to Stalinism. But it's reality, today, in every single economic field that's more complex than hairdressing. How could we possibly provide meaningful oversight over the passing of a bill that fills a shelf? The only thing we can do is debate meaningless talking points that don't address the critical reality. Industries are regulating themselves, and we're just letting them frame the discussion while they sell out the public under our very noses.
The widely-available bill[1], which takes all of five seconds to find with Google, is 906 pages with legislative (huge margins) formatting. Consider not getting your "facts" from people with an axe to grind.
http://www.gpo.gov/fdsys/pkg/BILLS-111hr3590enr/pdf/BILLS-11...
Immigrants send money home (out of our economy). Companies may produce more/cheaper, resulting in possibly lower prices. But maybe they just spend the extra revenue lobbying Congress for preferential treatment. Maybe it results in more money shipped offshore to tax havens.
And if indeed immigrants are just cheaper replacements for their American counterparts, it takes away money (which, remember, is equivalent to speech) from citizens of this country.
The thing is, you cannot wish or legislate away the existence of skilled labor from outside the country.
If this worked, then we wouldn't be having this visa discussion.
The same can be said of building anything. Towns wither, companies close, empires collapse, etc. "Delaying the inevitable" is what a society is all about.
But more importantly, thinking of societal issues as "inevitable" is a regression to the magical pre-political thinking of societies before democracy.
There's nothing "inevitable" about how the world works: people, and their actions, make stuff happen or not happen.
As for competition becoming "increasingly globalized" is a bad thing, because it is a race to the bottom. It's not even good for countries at the bottom, because it makes their position transient and will turn around to destroy them as soon as they start to rise.
What we need to do is build a global middle class and protect middle class where it exists, so that more people can afford products and the economy marches on for more companies and larger endeavours, instead of letting an even smaller number of companies and people profit enormously short term by destroying their future customer base. After all their owners and managers won't be around in 30-50 years, be societies affected by their actions will be.
So is maximizing profit by replacing expensive workers with less expensive ones from abroad. At some moment the situation becomes untenable, causing a social rupture and eventual reorganization, sometimes very painfully.
Experience has probably shown employers that its cheaper in the long term to just lobby for an immigration-centered subsidy, so they prefer that option.