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I saw Tom Russell perform this song the other night on Letterman. It has been rattling around in my head every since. I don’t post it because I agree with it. I post it because it can stimulate discussion.

Who’s Gonna Build Your Wall
by Tom Russell

I got 800 miles of open border
Right outside my door
There’s minutemen in little pickup trucks
Who declared their own dang war

Now the government wants to build a barrier
Like old Berlin, 8 feet tall
But if Uncle Sam sends the illegals home
Who’s gonna build the wall

Who’s gonna build your wall, boys
Who’s gonna mow your lawn
Who’s gonna cook your Mexican food
When your Mexican maid is gone

Who’s gonna wax your floors tonight
Down at the local mall
Who’s gonna wash your baby’s face
Who’s gonna build your wall

Now I ain’t got no politics
So don’t lay that rap on me
Left-wing, right-wing, up-wing, down me [?]
I see strip malls from sea to shining sea

It’s the fat cat white developer
Who’s created this whole damn squall
It’s a pyramid scheme of dirty jobs
And who’s gonna build your wall

Who’s gonna build your wall, boys
Who’s gonna mow your lawn
Who’s gonna cook your Mexican food
When your Mexican maid is gone

Who’s gonna wax your floors tonight
Down at the local mall
Who’s gonna wash your baby’s face
Who’s gonna build your wall

We’ve got fundamentalist Muslims
We’ve got fundamentalist Jews
We’ve got fundamentalist Christians
That’ll blow the whole thing up for you

But as I travel around this big old world
There’s one thing that I most fear
It’s a white man in a golf shirt
With a cell phone in his ear

Who’s gonna build your wall, boys
Who’s gonna mow your lawn
Who’s gonna cook your Mexican food
When your Mexican maid is gone

Who’s gonna wax your floors tonight
Down at the local mall
Who’s gonna wash your baby’s face
Who’s gonna build your wall

Another version - Tom in Performance
http://youtube.com/watch?v=-HFhi7RSNm8 

For information on how one Pittsburg law firm helps Corporate America scam the H-1B Visa system to avoid hiring Americans, and hire foreigners instead, see here http://www.myephemerae.com/scamming-the-h-1b-visa-system.

The feds tried it with drivers licenses. The Real ID Act wants to mandate that every state create a driver’s license so complex it would be a nightmare to administer. State after state (16 so far) is saying “no”.

Now they are doing the same thing using immigration as the justification. I mean, you want to be sure that only real Americans get work don’t you? Don’t you? Then you won’t mind if we create a new national ID to be sure. But don’t worry. It can’t hurt you … at least not any more than that old Social Security Number can. It will only be used for this one thing. And I have a bridge I want to sell you.

Check out this analysis from Caroline Fredrickson (director of the American Civil Liberties Union’s Washington Legislative Office):

Immigration is a hot topic these days, and everyone seems to be talking about the many problems with the Senate’s immigration reform bill. Unfortunately, for some reason there has been very little talk about several of the bill’s key provisions that would undermine the civil liberties of all Americans.

For instance, Title III of the bill expands the error-plagued Employment Eligibility Verification System (EEVS), creating a vast federal database to verify the eligibility to work of all job applicants in America — including U.S. citizens. This expansive system would contain extraordinary amounts of personal information on everyone who seeks or holds a job, all of it keyed to a person’s Social Security number. If the immigration bill passes as written, all Americans will need to have their eligibility to work approved by the Department of Homeland Security. Invariably, DHS will confuse the files of people with similar names or use outdated or erroneous information to deny people the right to work, creating a ‘No Work List’ similar to the government’s ‘No Fly List.’ They have testified that they will need to “manually reverify” the work-eligibility of eight percent of all workers.

EEVS itself is based on the abject failure known as the Basic Pilot Verification System, used by only 16,000 of the nation’s 8.4 million employers. Technological snafus, database errors and bureaucratic bungling in that pilot project have caused, and will continue to cause, delays and financial losses to both employers and potential employees. Expanding this program nationwide will only exacerbate these problems.

Bad enough? I don’t think so.

There is another amendment from Senator Chuck Schumer (D-NY). If it passes, it would require every American to carry a “hardened” Social Security card containing the their personal, biometric information like their DNA or fingerprint. With this amendment you could be force to carry not one, but two, national ID cards — a Real ID compliant drivers’ license and the “hardened” Social Security card. As Fredrickson notes:

These IDs would become a key part of a system of identity papers, databases, status and identity checks and access control points — an “internal passport” that would be used to track and control law-abiding Americans’ movements and activities.

If you think it’s a bad idea, you can make a difference. Make a call. See here for info: https://secure.eff.org/site/Advocacy?alertId=303&pg=makeACall 

And don’t say I didn’t warn you.

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For years and years, those of us in Corporate IT have known that there is not a shortage of skilled, capable technology workers, despite the lamentations of the business lobby. The claims of a shortage is a sham designed to allow more H-1B visas.

The business lobby has countered that there are “rules” designed to protect the American worker and that H-1B visas are only granted with an American worker cannot be found.

About 2 months ago I found the website of Professor Norm Matloff. Long a critic of the H-1B system, Dr. Matloff has documented the system abuses at some length. His lengthy report (entitled On the Need for Reform of the H-1B Non-Immigrant Work Visa in Computer-Related Occupations and written at the request of the University of Michigan Journal of Law Reform) provides extensive documentation of the lack of a shortage and the abuses of the system to just hire cheap labor and discriminate against older American workers.  

[If you or someone in your family is directly affected by this, I strongly encourage you to at least skim the report and check out his website. It is an eye-opener. In my view, Dr. Matloff's data shows that contrary to claims, it isn't America's decline in technology which requires us to use these visas. Rather, it is the prevalent use of these visas which is, in part, responsible for the decline!]

His various reports and documents have confirmed what I have known for some time.

Now, a YouTube video has done even more. This video provides excerpts from a law firm’s seminar in which a panel explains how to technically comply with the law all the while skirting the intention of the law. In particular, they explain how to advertise for Americans but ensure that they will never find one.

Take the 5-minutes to watch this to learn how the system really works.

As you listen to the debate on immigration reform, and as you listen to the business lobby cry in their soup about the lack of qualified Americans, remember this video. There are plenty of qualified Americans. Business just doesn’t want to hire them and is scamming the system, the government and the American public.

As I read Sunday’s Washington Post there was an article that caught my eye: The War Inside.

(For the one page version click http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/06/16/AR2007061600866_pf.html)

This story is about the men we have sent to fight for us, to risk their lives, in many, many cases to return missing arms, legs, eyes, disfigured for the remainder of their lives, and even to return dead in a flag draped coffin we are not allowed to see.

These men have returned with severe mental challenges.

And, as this story documents, the system can’t even keep their records straight.

Ignore the military big shots who think that real men don’t have mental problems.

Ignore the bureaucrats who want to control costs by denying diagnosis.

The system you and I spend billions for can’t even keep their records straight.

This story is part of a series the Washington Post is doing.

As I read it I realize that things are this way, in part, because of me. Because I didn’t help hard enough to elect other people. Because I didn’t write and call often enough those we did elect. I can blame the government, but I elect the government.

This story is a story of the embarrassingly shameful way you and I are treating these men.

How did I let this happen?

A story in the Providence Journal (also accessible from this site) tells the story of Edgar Velázquez. An illegal immigrant, he was apparently employed by a tree care service. The owner reportedly knew he was illegal and paid him in cash, under the table. When he was working, without the protective headgear required for such work, a chainsaw blade “kicked back and sliced through his nose, left eyelid and forehead”.

The story indicates that his employer then arranged for immigration to deport him to avoid the issues of this accident.

One year ago, Edgar Velázquez slashed his face open with a chainsaw while working for a Warwick tree service company. The saw blade struck a fence, kicked back and sliced through his nose, left eyelid and forehead, leaving a flayed crimson channel and nearly exposed bone. Though a surgeon repaired his face, his wounds reopen and ooze, he said, and his pain lingers.

At the time, Velázquez was in the country illegally from Mexico, working for William J. Gorman Jr., owner of Billy G’s Tree Care. Velázquez said Gorman hired him despite knowing of his undocumented status.

Soon after his injury, Velázquez learned that he was entitled to seek compensation from his employer for his medical bills, permanent disfigurement and weekly benefits.

But Velázquez never had his day in court.

State law entitles undocumented workers to workers’ compensation benefits — as is true in many other states — but on the day of Velázquez’s scheduled hearing, on Aug. 2, immigration agents arrested him outside the J. Joseph Garrahy Judicial Complex in Providence. Less than one month later, the 20-year-old was sent back to Mexico.

“I was about to get into the courthouse when Mr. Gorman said my name. He speaks a little Spanish. He says, ‘Edgar, Edgar, stop!’ So I turned around and Immigration was there. And then he [Gorman] laughed, and he said, ‘Now Edgar, I’m sending you back to Mexico — I have no use for you now,’ ” Velázquez said in a phone interview from Mexico. “He said, ‘Edgar, adiós.’ ”

more here …

I found this story at WorkingImmigrants.com which has much more information as background.

As that site notes, “There is quite a lot of passion around the issue of ‘illegal immigrants,’ but far too little passion around the issue of ‘illegal employers.’”