The New Jersey Star-Ledger reports that four have pleaded guilty to illegally obtaining visas and green cards.
Four men from India pleaded guilty in federal court yesterday to participating in an immigration scam that authorities say was run by an Edison businessman.
The defendants said they paid the man, Nilesh Dasondi, thousands of dollars in exchange for his help to illegally secure work visas and green cards. Dasondi, a former Edison zoning official, was charged in June with conspiracy and is free on bail.
They all face up to five years in prison and a $250,000 fine when they are sentenced in May.
This is the yield after 19 years of the H-1B and other employer visa programs. The purpose of employer visas, categorized as non immigrant, is ostensibly to provide needed skills and to stimulate the US economy. Conventional wisdom in the pro-visa camp would have it that one visa will provide enough economic growth to create four to five additional jobs in the US. Bill Gates has testified to that effect before Congressional subcommittees at least twice. Ironically, the converse seems to be the case. Since the visa program began in 1990, the US tech sector has undergone considerable change. Most notably, up to 2 million US STEM workers have been laid off and replaced with workers who were brought in on visas.
And the jobs created by the favored economic theory of the free traders? Which jobs will the free traders have Americans performing after their handiwork is complete? The exact nature of these jobs is, of course, never brought under any meaningful scrutiny. The theory probably alludes to part time jobs at Starbucks or Walmart. They would apparently prefer to draw comparisons between survival jobs providing scant income and no benefits to high paying software development careers. The high tech careers would enable US citizens and green card holders to continue to make their mortgage payments. If only the free traders would let us keep the jobs!
I noticed an interesting diary on DKos the other day. The diarist asks for a re-evaluation of the prevailing economic school of thought. Perhaps the neoclassical school of economics needs to be swapped out in favor of a more workable approach to defining economic success. Let's consider, for example, a school of economic thought that has been successful in the past, instead of one that has landed us squarely in the midst of another Great Depression. After three decades of nonstop free trade, it looks as if a re-evaluation of some type would be in order!
Speaking of the Depression, where is the economy today, exactly? Market Watch published the following:
There is a risk here of a panic sell-off in stock markets and the next leg down in the stock bear market looks imminent, as the ills of the global financial system virulently infect the global economy,
said Mark O'Byrne, executive director at Gold and Silver Investments Limited, in a research note.