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Immigration News Blog

Thursday, November 29, 2007

Czech labour shortage forces Skoda to recruit workers from Vietnam

Czech labour shortage forces Skoda to recruit workers from Vietnam
Times Online
Skoda has begun to recruit workers from Vietnam for its factories in the Czech Republic as it struggles with a labour shortage. The Czech carmaker is having ...

 

Senator questions hiring of H-1B workers by two federal entities

Senator questions hiring of H-1B workers by two federal entities
Computerworld
The National Institutes of Health employed more than 300 H-1B workers during the federal government's 2006 fiscal year, ...

 

Legal Arizona Workers Act 101

Legal Arizona Workers Act 101
Arizona Republic
The sanctions law, known as the Legal Arizona Workers Act, is intended to ensure that no businesses in Arizona knowingly or intentionally hire or employ ...

 

Tuesday, November 27, 2007

Florida employer scam involving illegal workers

Florida employer scam involving illegal workers
By Peter Rousmaniere
Workcompcentral, a subscription based news service, reported today on a conviction of a $17 million payroll scam by a Florida construction contractor. It paid its workers in cash to avoid paying federal taxes. Besides this scam, it appears to have cheated on its workers compensation insurance. We see here again the toxic cocktail of employers using undocumented workers and cheating on tax and insurance obligations. Florida’s Department of Financial Services and California’s Insurance Commission Fraud Assessment Commission have both focused in a serious way to uncover these abuses.

 

Monday, November 26, 2007

Arkansas businesses such as Tyson Foods, ministers and others have founded The Arkansas Friendship Coalition to promote the role of 100,000 immigrants

Arkansas businesses such as Tyson Foods, ministers and others have founded The Arkansas Friendship Coalition to promote the role of 100,000 immigrants in the state’s economy and offset anti-immigration initiatives. For Arkansas there is an in-depth analysis of the immigrant population, prepared by in-state and national specialists in immigration studies. Among the findings: (1) Arkansas experienced the greatest growth (48%) in Hispanic immigration of any state during 2000-2005. (2) One quarter of immigrants are engaged in food processing (beef and poultry), and (3) in 2004-5, half of the 100,000 immigrants were undocumented.

 

Searching for farm labor in California

Searching for farm labor in California
By Peter Rousmaniere
The agricultural industry is heavily dependent on immigrant labor, and it is widely accepted that many – perhaps most – of their immigrant workers are here illegally (I have seen estimates of up to 70%). Western Growers Association has been way out in front of the political effort to ensure an ample supply of labor during the critical few weeks of harvest time.

 

Immigrants Pull Weight in Economy, Study Finds

Immigrants Pull Weight in Economy, Study Finds
New York Times
Immigrants contribute nearly one-fourth of the economic output of New York State, and outside of New York City, they are overrepresented ...

 

Immigrant Workers Caught in Net Cast for Gangs

Immigrant Workers Caught in Net Cast for Gangs
New York Times
Instead, they were known as good workers and family men. When they suddenly vanished into the far-flung immigration detention system, six of their employers ...

 

A grudging extra penny for farm workers

A grudging extra penny for farm workers
Salt Lake Tribune
Would you pay an extra penny per pound of tomatoes if you knew it meant farm workers who make an average $10000 to $12500 a year would ...

 

Report: NY immigrants doctors as well as low-wage workers

Report: NY immigrants doctors as well as low-wage workers
Newsday
Researchers said that 80 percent of seasonal farm workers are immigrants, not all of them documented. Tompkins County, home to Cornell University, ...

 

Migrant workers endure hardships abroad for chance at better life

Migrant workers endure hardships abroad for chance at better life
Daily Star - Lebanon
The study also found that last year, overseas Filipino workers sent home $14.6 billion. Filipinos working overseas represent nearly 23 percent of the ...

 

Illegal immigrants not US health care burden -study

Illegal immigrants not US health care burden -study
Reuters
Illegal Latino immigrants do not cause a drag on the US health care system as some critics have contended and in fact get less ...

 

Friday, November 16, 2007

New Zealand - Skilled worker fails the fat test for immigration

Skilled worker fails the fat test for immigration
National Business Review, New Zealand -
A submarine cable specialist headhunted for a job in New Zealand was forced to slim down before this country's immigration service would let ...

 

Wednesday, November 14, 2007

N.Y. gov. abandons plan for illegal immigrantsN.Y. gov. abandons plan for illegal immigrants

N.Y. gov. abandons plan for illegal immigrants
New York Gov. Eliot Spitzer will withdraw a controversial plan that would have allowed undocumented immigrants to obtain driver's licenses, a spokeswoman told CNN Tuesday night. New York Gov. Eliot Spitzer's plan for driver's licenses

 

Employer-sanctions law faces federal test today

Employer-sanctions law faces federal test today
Arizona Republic
As Arizona's employer-sanctions law goes under the legal microscope today, it is attracting a national spotlight for its potential effects on jobs, ...

 

Tuesday, November 13, 2007

Illegal immigrants’ Emergency Care Is Limited by U.S. Rule

Illegal immigrants’ Emergency Care Is Limited by U.S. Rule
By Peter Rousmaniere
Per the NY Times, under a limited provision of Medicaid, the national health program for the poor, the federal government permits emergency coverage for illegal immigrants and other noncitizens. But the Bush administration has been more closely scrutinizing and increasingly denying state claims for federal payment for some emergency services, Medicaid experts said.

 

Thursday, November 08, 2007

Business down for those with Hispanic clientele

Business down for those with Hispanic clientele
Chris Campos sells machines that count dollar bills. Hispanic businesses that deal with cash customers are good prospects for Campos, but he's had to change his business model as a result of the state's crackdown on illegal immigration. "The market is in a state of flux," Campos said. "We focus on grocery stores. They wonder, 'Am I going to be in business next year, because all my customers are gone?' They don't want to invest in new technology."

 

Tuesday, November 06, 2007

Analysis of farm labor economics in California

Analysis of farm labor economics in California
By Peter Rousmaniere
Philip Martin of UC Davis prepared a fresh analysis of labor economics in California’s produce growing industry. He challenges the assertion that there is a labor shortage, which assertion in behind the move to get AgJobs passed by Congress. I have cited Martin’s work in the past. Below is a summary of his new study from the Center for Immigration Studies, which is opposed to granting rights to illegal immigrants.

 

Monday, November 05, 2007

The immigration debate: 70 percent of Mexicans in California are U.S. citizens

The immigration debate: 70 percent of Mexicans in California are U.S. citizens
For the first time in the most current wave of immigration, U.S. Census Bureau figures show that 70 percent of California's Mexican population are U.S. citizens, blunting widespread belief the state is overrun by illegal immigrants.

 

Case study of work injured immigrant who was deported

Case study of work injured immigrant who was deported
By Peter Rousmaniere
File a Claim, Get Deported? A new U.S. Census report says that almost one in five people living in the United States speaks a language at home other than English. For a while, Edgar Velazquez was one of them. But that was before the native of Chiapas, Mexico, was deported to his home country.

 

Friday, November 02, 2007

In the debate over immigration, they are virtually unheard, unseen: the hundreds of thousands of foreign-born women

In the debate over immigration, they are virtually unheard, unseen: the hundreds of thousands of foreign-born women,
...many of them in the U.S. illegally, who toil in America's homes as nannies, cooks and housekeepers, changing diapers and scrubbing floors.