Immigration Smoke Screen

 

As Angelenos in California deal with the smoke from wildfires, all of America must deal with the smoke from the dumpster fire sourced in Washington, DC. One of the many things now burning in that political dumpster is immigration.

An unsecured border that allows tens of thousands of immigrants to cross our borders without proper processing is certainly an issue worth solving. The influx of migrants has strained our resources to the breaking point. This complex issue needs to be addressed in a sane and reasoned manner. We need to accept the fact that we need immigrants. They have been our strength for centuries. We can secure our borders much better than they are. We can provide a better system for legally processing a controlled number of immigrants.

Elon Musk, an Immigrant from South Africa
is upset about Immigration

What we don’t need is to demonize those seeking a better life. Doing so is just another form of racism and xenophobia. Why is it ok for someone with technical skills to get a free pass to come into our country to work for Elon Musk under an H-1B visa? They take away skilled jobs from Americans because they work cheaper. Why is this readily accepted by MAGA Republican philosophy while immigrant labor for agriculture, construction, and other jobs not regularly sought by Americans off limits?

Melania Knauss Trump

Why is it ok for a Slovenian model like Melania Knauss to come to this country to work under an EB-1 visa? Those visas, also called Einstein visas, are reserved for those with “extraordinary ability” or “sustained national and international acclaim. Unlike the H-1B, this latter visa has the added advantage of including a path to citizenship. Ms. Knauss had not won a Pulitzer. She had no Olympic medal. She was not an internationally acclaimed researcher. We can only guess at her “extraordinary ability.” Before she got this coveted free pass, she had posed nude for British GQ on Trump’s jet. She was dating Donald Trump when she submitted her paperwork. That certainly couldn’t have had any influence.

From British GQ 8 November 2016:

"She's popular, she's brilliant, she's a wonderful woman," says Trump with uncharacteristic understatement. And who are we to disagree? Not only does she manage to keep a man fabled for his erections (the latest is the Trump World Tower on New York's First Avenue) on the right flight path, but she's also fluent in four languages. Very handy for those summit meetings.”

Neither Musk’s use of the H-1B to get cheap technical labor, nor Melania’s questionable acquisition of an Einstein visa, matter here beyond the blatant display of hypocrisy. Likewise, Donald Trump’s regular use of a roving crew of undocumented workers for decades is not the problem.

Terrorizing an entire immigrant community on the pretext of “solving” a problem is like fixing a Rolex with a ball-peen hammer. It may have some impact, but at what cost.