Mountain Views News, Pasadena Edition [Sierra Madre] Saturday, August 25, 2018

OPINION

B3

 Mountain Views News Saturday, August 25, 2018 


JOE GUZZARDI

Mountain Views

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VISA OVERSTAYS 
PROBLEMATIC FOR U.S. TECH 
WORKERS

The Department of Homeland Security’s recently released 
Entry/Exit Overstay Report on visa overstays found that more 
than 700,000 foreign nationals didn’t honor the terms of their 
temporary authorization to work or visit in the United States. Analyzed in depth, 
DHS found that among the overstays, India had 21,000, the largest number. Some of 
the 21,000 eventually returned home, but after their assigned departure date.

 In 2017, DHS said 127,435 Indian students and researchers entered the U.S. on F, J 
and M visas. Of these, 4,400 Indians overstayed. Figures indicated that 1,567 Indians 
left the U.S. later on, while 2,833 remain in the U.S.

 For nonimmigrants who entered on a student or exchange visitor visa, DHS 
determined that there were 1,662,369 total F, J or M visa holders scheduled to complete 
their U.S. study programs. However, 4.15 percent stayed beyond the authorized 
departure date when their program ended. For India, the rate was 3.4 percent, below 
the national average.

 The DHS data raises troubling questions about the number of student visas issued 
and the disregard some have for adhering to their visas’ terms. Visas routinely morph 
into jobs, specifically in the tech industry, that often displace American workers. 
Foreign nationals currently enrolled in U.S. higher education institutions with F or M 
visas total more than 1 million. India ranks second behind China in enrollment from 
overseas, 211,703 versus 377,070.

 Significantly, 48 percent of international students were in science, technology, 
engineering and math, the STEM fields, and eligible for the Optional Practical 
Training after their graduation. Now available for STEM graduates for up to 36 
months, OPT originally had timeframes of 12, and then 17, months.

 Employers use the F-1/OPT program to circumvent the congressionally established 
85,000 H-1B visa cap. The Pew Research Center confirms that OPT is an employer 
bonanza. Between 2008 and 2016, OPT grew 400 percent, and either displaced 
American workers or forced them to compete for new jobs with overseas workers.

 Little wonder that OPT is so popular with overseas students and domestic 
employers. Students look for an employer willing to offer an OPT job, gain a STEM 
extension, then an H-1B sponsorship which in turn creates a green card opportunity, 
and ultimately U.S. citizenship. Citizenship is a long way from the original temporary 
F visa with the understanding that students will return home upon coursework 
completion, and apply what was learned in the U.S. to improve their native countries. 
Employers, for their part, benefit from cheaper labor.

 H-1B, M and F visas are harmful to U.S. students, workers and prospective 
employees. Overseas students compete with Americans for a fixed number of 
college enrollment slots; the employment-based H-1B visa creates head-to-head job 
competition of foreign nationals versus Americans, and OPT, never congressionally 
approved, extends visa holders’ work permission stays in the U.S.

 Congress should view tech issues through the American workers’ eyes. The annual 
inflow of guest workers is equal to about half of all tech hires each year at a time when 
U.S. colleges are graduating plenty of STEM workers.

 In his congressional testimony, Rutgers University Professor Hal Salzman summed 
up the reality. Said Salzman: “The U.S. supply of top performing graduates is large 
and far exceeds the hiring needs of the STEM industries, with only half of new STEM 
graduates finding jobs in a STEM occupation, and only a third of all STEM graduates 
in the workforce holding a STEM job.”

 Congress must protect Americans against job loss and displacement that 
unnecessary visas and irresponsible immigration programs like OPT create.

-Joe Guzzardi is a Progressives for Immigration Reform analyst who has written about 
immigration for more than 30 years. Contact him at jguzzardi@pfirdc.org.


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LEFT TURN/RIGHT TURN

MAKING SENSE

by MICHAEL REAGAN

TYRADES!

by DANNY TYREE

 
PURGING THE CHURCH’S 
PREDATORY PRIESTS

 Am I the only Catholic who thinks the church needs to consider getting 
rid of the old guard – all the way up to the Pope?

 That may be the only way to finally purge the predatory priests who have 
been allowed to exist within the bowels of the Catholic Church for so long.

 The church has been rocked in recent years by sexual abuse scandals in Ireland, Australia, Chile, 
Boston, LA …

 Then two weeks ago we got the shocking results of the country’s largest investigation ever into the 
sex crimes of Catholic priests.

 A grand jury in Pennsylvania identified more than 300 “predator priests” in six dioceses who 
over the course of 70 years had molested and raped nearly 1,000 children, mostly boys.

 The bombshell report named the priests who had been caught abusing kids, and in graphic and 
sordid detail it described what they did – again and again, even after their superiors learned of their 
molesting.

 According to the grand jury report, the priests’ serial sexual abuse was only possible because of a 
church-wide cover up that reached all the way to the Vatican.

 The scandal in Pennsylvania is the familiar horror story: The children who were victimized were 
not believed while the pedophile priests were protected by the church.

 The priests were not defrocked, not reported to police and were often moved to other parishes 
where their history of abuse was kept quiet and they were able to prey on more children.

 As usual, the Vatican’s PR machine said all the right things.

 A spokesman expressed “shame and sorrow” and decried the pattern of abuse and coverup in 
Pennsylvania as “criminally and morally reprehensible.” He said the abuse “robbed survivors of 
their dignity and their faith.

 Earlier this week Pope Francis himself issued a letter in seven languages admitting the church had 
shamefully failed to protect or care for “the little ones,” whose pain “was long ignored, kept quiet or 
silenced.”

 No kidding.

 The pope also vowed to prevent further cover-ups of what he correctly called “crimes” and 
promised accountability for the abusers -- and those above them who permitted the abuse to 
continue or covered it up.

 That sounded good, but at least one Cardinal, Sergio Obeso Rivera of Mexico, didn’t get the 
message.

 Obeso Rivera said this week that victims of priestly sexual abuse – i.e., children – should be 
“ashamed” to accuse “men of the church.”

 Maybe something the cardinal said was lost in translation, but if Pope Francis is serious about 
cleaning up the church it has to get rid of men like Obeso Rivera.

 It’s his generation that has been protecting pedophile priests for decades.

 It’s because of old men like him that the people in the pews don’t believe the church is ever going 
to do what it should to solve its predatory priest problem.

 It’s because of old men like the Mexican cardinal that the church is fighting for a statute of 
limitations on filing child sexual abuse charges instead of fighting to have no statute of limitations 
on sex abuse at all.

 There’s no statute of limitations for murder and there shouldn’t be one for child molesting.

 The molesting of a child is the murdering of a soul. I know from experience that when a young 
boy is molested, as I was by a camp counselor in 1953, it is something that affects you for the rest of 
your life.

 Maybe the Catholic Church needs to start with a clean slate.

It does no good for the pope to meet with kids who’ve been sexually abused and tell them how sorry 
he is when he has old cardinals in power like Obeso Rivera who believe it’s the child’s fault.

If the pope doesn’t have the guts to take away the red cap, the miter, from a Mexican cardinal who 
makes that kind of idiotic statement, then maybe the pope needs to be replaced also.

-

 Copyright 2018 Michael Reagan. Michael Reagan is the son of President Ronald Reagan, a 
political consultant, and the author of “Lessons My Father Taught Me: The Strength, Integrity, and 
Faith of Ronald Reagan.” He is the founder of the email service reagan.com and president of The 
Reagan Legacy Foundation. Visit his websites at www.reagan.com and www.michaelereagan.com. 
Send comments to Reagan@caglecartoons.com. Follow @reaganworld on Twitter. 

 Mike’s column is distributed exclusively by Cagle Cartoons newspaper syndicate. For info on using 
columns contact Sales at sales@cagle.com.


WOULD YOU MOVE FOR A 
BETTER JOB? REALLY?

When I was in school, many of my classmates were 
probably descended from settlers who built the town’s first 
log courthouse.

Others, however, stood out as the proverbial new kid In 
town. 

 Most likely, these students were surrounded by strangers because of the 
postwar model of the American dream: dad excels at work and gets offered 
a juicy promotion if he will simply load up the station wagon and drag his 
dutiful wife, their two-point-five kids and the family dog halfway across the 
country so he can work his magic as a plant manager, efficiency expert or 
chemical engineer.

 Let’s not dwell on a corporation’s arrogance in dispatching an ambitious 
“yes man” (who can’t make his own coffee!) to straighten out the yokels at the 
company operation in Podunk. (“You still haven’t got the coffee quite right, 
Miss Samuelson. Maybe if you wore pearls while making it, like my wife 
does. No, no, THAT’S the hand for holding the toilet brush while wearing 
pearls...”)

 But I digress. According to the Wall Street Journal, job relocations are 
becoming an increasingly harder sell for businesses. In the late 80s, one-third 
of workers moved to seek new opportunities elsewhere; but now the hassle 
of selling a home (a well as many other factors) causes the once-coveted 
career advancements to be turned down flat.

 Today’s workers have more options than the parents of the Baby Boomers 
did. The miraculous internet makes it easier to track down jobs closer to 
home, or even WORK from home - assuming you haven’t signed over your 
home to a Nigerian widow.

 With the increase of two-income families, it’s difficult to get an employee 
to relocate unless their spouse also has a high-paying new job waiting. 
(“Benefits? Sure, the Lions Auxiliary will throw you a benefit CARWASH 
when you see your first paycheck.”)

 Complex divorces and joint custody make relocations impractical. 
(“Honest, I thought the drone could get Junior back to Jersey without 
running afoul of duck hunters.”)

 Modern parents consider how a move would disrupt the friendships and 
academic continuity of their children. A far cry from the old days of “Don’t 
worry if the local girls won’t invite you to their slumber party, Princess. The 
products we manufacture will probably make them sterile and unable to host 
slumber parties when they grow up, anyway. *Chuckle*” 

 More and more workers are tending to the needs of aging parents and would 
feel guilty traveling thousands of miles away just for a little more prestige. 
(“Yes, Mom, I know you fed me with those breasts. But the other retirement 
home residents don’t need VISUAL AIDS when you reminisce about it. And 
assure Dad I’ll get the Forestry Service to trim his toenails again.”)

 Finally, Americans are no longer as skilled at conning themselves. 
(“C’mon, this move is a chance to grow and learn new things. And as soon 
as we get settled, I’m running for the school board and city council and 
Rotary Club presidency, so we can remake this town JUST LIKE HOME. 
Bwahahahaha…”)

 I still live about 15 minutes from the former site of the hospital where I 
was born. I don’t regret not climbing corporate ladders.

 Chasing the Almighty Dollar isn’t worth hauling two-point-five children 
across the country. Especially the point-five child. (“Yeah, I’ve needed 326 
bathroom breaks, but I have only point-five of a bladder!”) 

-

Copyright 2018 Danny Tyree. Danny welcomes email responses at tyreetyrades@
aol.com and visits to his Facebook fan page “Tyree’s Tyrades.” Danny’s weekly 
column is distributed exclusively by Cagle Cartoons Inc. newspaper syndicate. 

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