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Live From D.C., It's High-Skill Immigration Reform!

The recently introduced I-Squared Act of 2013 (comprehensive immigration reform) includes a provision to "staple" a green card to every person who receives a masters degree or higher in a STEM field. This may even include an online degree obtained by a foreigner over the internet. Presumably the State Department would subsequently FedEx their green card to China or Saudi Arabia, no questions asked. Seeing as how the Googles, Pfizers and the Microsofts wrote this bill to depress wages, it got me to thinking: will stapling impact the labs by fast tracking citizenship? Following the quest of big business (Bechtel, Lockheed Martin, etc) to the logical conclusion, why not just staple a US passport to every foreigner earning a MS or higher? Would the labs not rejoice in their new found talent pool? Do the labs really care about US national security, or just hiring the best people at the lowest wage to meet NNSA/DOE/DOD objectives? Anybody with elementary economics knowledge understands the supply and demand curve. By increasing supply, prices (wages) must drop. Despite all of the problems at the labs recently, I would be terrified to work in Silicon Valley if this bill gets through as is expected. The labs will be impacted (wages indexed to external market), but at least citizenship is required for many jobs. AAAS: Live From D.C., It's High-Skill Immigration Reform! http://sciencecareers.sciencemag.org/career_magazine/previous_issues/articles/2013_03_01/caredit.a1300030 On 29 January, another bipartisan group of senators released a framework for comprehensive immigration reform that includes a proposal to "staple a green card" to every STEM graduate degree earned at an American university. In a statement, they explained that "[i]t makes no sense to educate the world's future innovators and entrepreneurs only to ultimately force them to leave our country at the moment they are most able to contribute to our economy."

Comments

Anonymous said…
I think we'll see many more Rosenburg events at the labs and in the private sector until we're all equal. After all isn't it a human right or an entitlement to know everyone's secrets. Socialist Democrats leading the U.S. down the toilet. Got to lve them.
Anonymous said…
After all isn't it a human right or an entitlement to know everyone's secrets.

While distinguishing between national security and economic security, note that U.S. citizens stole business secrets from England. I'm sure they felt justified at the time, nearly two hundred years ago.
Anonymous said…
It appears that America's future bomb designers will be coming from Pakistan and not from US natives.

Anonymous said…
I have a feeling the STAPLE a Green Card to every 1-year STEM online MS degree at Univ. of Phoenix Bill is may not get through now.

This Boston marathon bombing changes everything. Now Senators are going to ask: "Wait, so the State Department is going to FedEx a Green Card to any Habib, Dimitri or Mustafa who completes a Univ. of Phoenix MS in Botony, no questions asked?!" Al Qaeda must be singing in the streets with this loop hole.
Anonymous said…
I think we'll see many more Rosenburg events

So far we never had a Rosenburg event at any of the labs. And the socialist democrats are also hard to find.

Here a few points:
1. It was Ethel and Julius Rosenberg, who you probably meant.
2. Do you even have an idea what socialism is or is it just another word you heard on Fox and are now trying to use?


Anonymous said…
April 20, 2013 at 6:06 PM:

Nice fiction, Anonymous. Please explain how the US discovered that the Chinese acquired detailed plans for much of the US arsenal, including drawings for the physics package of the W88 from LANL? Was it the quantum teleportation work being done at LANL that made this possible?
Anonymous said…
So far we never had a Rosenburg event at any of the labs.

April 20, 2013 at 6:06 PM

The Wen Ho Lee case was exactly that, except that he had no buyer before he was in a position to sell. He was an amateur Rosenberg.
Anonymous said…
The Wen Ho Lee case was exactly that, except that he had no buyer before he was in a position to sell. He was an amateur Rosenberg. (10:29 PM)


If Wen Ho Lee == Rosenbergs, then how come the federal judge apologized to Lee at the end of the trial, lambasted the prosecution and Lee ended up with only 1 charge of mishandling classified data and was ordered to be immediately set free?

You can make all the outrageous claims you like but the US justice system has spoken on this case and you are on the wrong side of the facts. Telling lies repeatedly doesn't make them the truth. The WHL case was an ugly witch hunt that found no "witch".... only an incompetent lab employee.



Anonymous said…
You can make all the outrageous claims you like but the US justice system has spoken on this case and you are on the wrong side of the facts.

April 21, 2013 at 11:10 PM

You only think that because you don't know the facts (and apparently don't care to). Have you read the Bellows Report yet? Nope, didn't think so.
Anonymous said…
Ah, yes, the Bellows Report. Let's review it, shall we?......


Report confirms US government misconduct in Wen Ho Lee spy case

21 August 2001 (WSWS)

Federal authorities had the Taiwanese-American nuclear scientist Wen Ho Lee jailed in solitary confinement for “a crime which was never established to have occurred,” according to excerpts of an internal Justice Department report which were released August 13 in Washington.

The 800-page report on the investigation of alleged Chinese nuclear weapons espionage, prepared last year by Assistant US Attorney Randy Bellows, remains classified, but heavily censored excerpts were released in conjunction with a civil suit filed by one of the federal officials implicated in the witch-hunt.

....On August 24, 2000, Federal District Court Judge James A. Parker ordered Lee released to house arrest after he concluded that federal officials had lied at the initial bail hearing, where they described the scientist as a threat to US national survival. Parker declared that Lee’s jailing “embarrassed our entire nation and each of us who is a citizen of it.” The judge issued a public apology.

A few weeks later, its case in ruins, the government dropped 58 of its 59 charges against Lee and the scientist pleaded guilty to a single count of mishandling nuclear information. He was sentenced to time served.

The Bellows report found that virtually every element of the Department of Energy and FBI investigation into the possibility of Chinese nuclear espionage was defective. These probes “contained very serious deficiencies, including numerous inconsistent and contradictory statements as well as unsubstantiated assertions. Other deficiencies lay just beneath the surface; even a cursory investigation—had it been done by the FBI—would have revealed them.”

http://www.wsws.org/en/articles/2001/08/lee-a21.html

Anonymous said…
The Bellows report hit (for good reason) the US case against WHL as it was built by the FBI and DOJ. However, the clear evidence against WHL and his activities remains. As one involved in the forensics and in the follow-on activities, I can assure you that the evidence was overwhelming. Espionage? Doubtful without further investigation. Willful theft of classified data? Absolutely. Much of the evidence was never heard in court due to (IMO) stupid government decisions, and as you have pointed out, piss-poor case development. That does not mean the evidence doesn't exist.
Anonymous said…
"Much of the evidence was never heard in court due to (IMO) stupid government decisions, and as you have pointed out, piss-poor case development. That does not mean the evidence doesn't exist.

April 23, 2013 at 7:19 PM"

Look the justice system spoke. All your have is hearsay. Maybe the case was pis-poor because you did not have one. You can say the government was stupid, that so and so screwed up, that the judge was wrong, that the people and the case where bad...and so on. It sure seems like a lot of things had to go wrong in your mind. Perhaps an easier explanation was that that there really was no case or evidence and it was all a bunch of baloney and you are delusional.
You say read the Bellows report and it will show you are right, someone reads it shows your are wrong. Maybe it is time for you to face reality in the case.
Anonymous said…
All your have is hearsay.

April 24, 2013 at 6:26 AM

Wrong. I have first-hand knowledge. Under DOE rules, much is still classified about the WHL case. If you doubt that, just ask your friendly classification person. You won't find out what is classified even if you have a TS clearance (no need to know) but the fact of existence of the classification guidance is unclassified.
Anonymous said…
If YOU knew what I know, YOU would surely agree with ME. But unfortunately, what I know is classified, so YOU will just have to take MY word for it.

BS!
Anonymous said…
If you are not part of the DOE/NNSA community, then you regrettably have no avenue to satisfy your desire for knowledge about the issue. I sympathize with you if that is the case. However, if you ARE within that community, you have learned that there are circumstances where classified information, regardless of your clearance level, will not be available to you. But even so, you do have access to those who can at least confirm that there is much more information about the subject than has been made public. Given that, there are obviously people who know more than you do. Simple logic, not BS.
Anonymous said…
Access to false or erroneous information is not knowledge.
Anonymous said…
Access to false or erroneous information is not knowledge.

April 25, 2013 at 8:25 PM

A true statement. Your point? What information do you believe to be erroneous? Based on what? Or do you simply believe that whatever information you lack must be erroneous since you obviously know everything? Or just that any information that does not agree with your previously held beliefs must be erroneous? They call that "confirmation bias."
Anonymous said…
More BS.
Anonymous said…

"Wrong. I have first-hand knowledge. Under DOE rules, much is still classified about the WHL case. If you doubt that, just ask your friendly classification person. You won't find out what is classified even if you have a TS clearance (no need to know) but the fact of existence of the classification guidance is unclassified.

April 24, 2013 at 8:30 AM"

First we have to believe you have first hand knowledge. You could simply be making that up. (2) Even if you did have first hand knowledge you may notbe capable of understanding it or correctly interpreting it. (3) You could have the knowledge but be saying the opposite to cover for some mistake you made. (4) You could have some first hand knowledge which you are capable of understanding but you do not have all the knowledge some of which may invalidate your overall thinking. (5) You do have knowledge but are so biased or corrupted that you simply refuse to see it any other way.

That fact that no "spy" type charges where sought it would suggest that at least one of the above points is true.
Anonymous said…
April 27, 2013 at 5:39 PM

Talk about BS...Nice debating points, for a high school senior.

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