In Reality, Both Major Parties are Against Rational, Open, Legal Immigration

As you know, this blog is not against political posts providing they relate closely to issues that impact the region, cultural or urban issues. Few are more important than immigration.

The Democrat party got a lot of traction painting the GOP as a xenophobic, old white, anti immigrant party, since Republicans almost never interacted in urban areas, and created a campaign based mostly on winning rural and exurban votes, they pretty much walked into that stereotype. They seemed to be not just against massive illegal immigration, but against almost all newcomers.

In public discourse the concept of legal immigration has been dropped almost entirely.

The dirty little secret is that Obama's record isn't one of supporting, open, legal immigration, particularly among the highly skilled people every economy desperately needs.

From Forbes:

"The Obama administration has worked to limit H-1B accessibility since the president assumed office. The stimulus package prohibited most major financial firms from participating in the program, and in 2010, the administration increased fees as much as $2,300. Over the same period, USCIS began to deny record numbers of applications—rising from 11 percent in 2007 to between 17 and 29 percent under this administration."
 

How bad is it? America is actually harassing and deporting entrepreneurs that have already created companies and jobs.

From CNN Money:

"Darash, 38, originally came here from Israel for college and returned in 2010 to launch Regpack, a software company in San Francisco. It's growing so fast, the company already needs to add another 10 workers.

But instead of focusing on expanding his company, Darash has been fighting to stay in the country."

  

 A recent study showed that immigrants account for 76% of patents filed at the nations top schools.  You would think we would have a red carpet out for people like this?

From CNN Money

That year, 54% of those patents came from students, postdoctoral fellows or staff researchers. That's an issue, because the United States is losing ground against other nations by pushing out immigrant graduates seeking to launch their own businesses.

Few options exist for those who want to stay in the country legally, and the most common route -- finding another company to sponsor your visa -- goes against the entrepreneur's mission.

 

Honestly, a country has to be pretty arrogant and delusional to think it can get away with treating potential job creators like this.

One can hope that a more rational, adult discussion of the issue develops. This is a short post, I don't mean to imply we should only be open to the super talented, educated or wealthy. We need a top to bottom reform that opens up a clear legal process for a broad group of hard working, striving people.