The Impact of Syrian Refugee Migration on the U.S. Job Market

This Thanksgiving, Obama and the mainstream media outlets that promote his agenda, were working overtime to convince Americans that we should accept thousands, and eventually hundreds of thousands of Syrian refugees, because it is “who we are” as a nation.

I have to ask: who are we as a nation? And does it even matter, now that Obama and Congress are working to dissolve the U.S. into a North American Union through the Trans-Pacific “Partnership” (TPP)?

Forgive me; I know this post is a little long, but I feel compelled to make a few points in support of the working stiffed in this country. And it seems that whenever I express the opinions that follow on Huffington Post or Facebook, they get scrubbed, even though I don’t use profane language or indulge in troll-like behavior. Censorship. Is that “who we are” as a nation? It would seem so.

There’s no question that the refugee crisis is a terrible human tragedy. And there’s also no question that the crisis was created by the criminal neocons in our government who insist on invading and overthrowing governments in the Middle East and Africa on behalf of their transnational bankster benefactors and Saudi Arabia.

But bring these people here? I don’t think so. I think it makes more sense to have the wealthy Middle Eastern countries like Saudi Arabia (the true architects of chaos in the region) resettle these poor people, as Ben Carson says. I don’t care for Carson, but his recommendation in this case makes the most sense.

Even if we can all agree that the majority of those seeking asylum are not ISIS terrorists, allowing hundreds of thousands of them to come here would be an act of economic terrorism against the millions of U.S. laborers and citizens who are struggling to survive in 21st century America.

Let me explain:

  • There are more than 94 million U.S. citizens out of the workforce; most don’t work because they can’t get jobs (people over 50 have it particularly rough)
  • A shocking number of our veterans (a number of whom were forced to do close to a dozen tours of duty), are homeless and/or have no access to health care
  • Our college students are saddled with an astounding amount of college loan debt that they can’t get rid of through bankruptcy—and to make matters worse, they have little hope of finding work to pay off their loans if or when they graduate
  • We are told that we “don’t have the money” to give Social Security recipients a cost of living increase next year (while commodity and food prices continue to soar)
  • We are facing the inevitability of more of our jobs being shipped overseas once our corrupt Congress passes the treasonous, sovereignty-destroying TPP
  • Obamacare penalizes poor people who can’t afford the program’s “affordable” health insurance by levying an unconstitutional tax/fine (taxation by citation)
  • No money is allocated to fix our crumbling infrastructure or to insulate our unprotected power grid (which means we will be knocked back into the Stone Age when, not if, we are hit by an EMP or solar flare)

I can go on. All things considered, should the refugees be our top priority? I don’t think so. Where is the public outrage over the issues I just outlined?

John Oliver recently went on a clever rant on his show about our “irrational fear” of allowing Syrian migrants into our country; he pointed out that they are thoroughly vetted. All I could think of while listening to him go on about the six or seven layers of scrutiny these people face is, why are we spending our money on this? When I think of the needs I list above, it’s downright criminal.

Not too long ago, Alex Nowrasteh, an immigration policy analyst at the (globalist-sponsored) Cato Institute’s Center for Global Liberty and Prosperity, published a piece in the Washington Post that argued for allowing the migration; he said it would even help our country.

He sought to ease the concerns of U.S. taxpayers who don’t support bankrolling the welfare and government programs these migrants will undoubtedly require if they are allowed to come. Nowrasteh proposes that Americans and charities (like the Cato Institute?) sponsor them, and in return, the U.S. government should lift all quotas and restrictions on work permits “without complicating regulations.” Really? Can you guess whose jobs they’ll need to take once their sponsors get them situated?

Even our most socialist-leaning president to date, Franklyn Roosevelt, closed our country’s borders during the Depression. He was focused on restoring the economic health of the country and helping to create jobs for U.S. citizens. It would be nice if Obama dedicated his rhetoric and actions in support of the Americans he was elected to represent, like Roosevelt did. Instead, he lobbies for job-destroying initiatives like the TPP and cheap labor through migration.

We are also repeatedly told the lie that migrants only take manual labor jobs that Americans don’t want. When I was growing up, I could easily get one of “those jobs that Americans don’t want.” They helped me save money for college and taught me how to be a responsible young adult; the crappy work and low pay of these jobs also served as an incentive for me to pursue higher education, so I could get “better” jobs.

These days, kids can’t get so-called “crappy jobs” easily, so they continue to depend on their already financially stressed parents for spending money, or they turn to crime. And now that our government has privatized prisons, kids who get caught committing crimes often find that their lives are essentially over before they’ve even begun.

The lie about the “jobs that Americans don’t want” has a counterpart in “the jobs that Americans can’t do.” Silicon Valley ushered in the era of the H-1B visa under the pretense that there aren’t enough trained U.S. workers to handle the volume of tech jobs they create. This has become an egregious tool of domestic economic cannibalism.

Fortune 500 companies like Disney and AT&T took that loophole and drove a truck through it, by importing low wage foreign workers by the thousands to replace qualified U.S. workers. As I write this, 1,200 displaced U.S. Disney workers are in New York training their foreign replacements.

A bipartisan Senate bill banning the replacement of U.S. workers with H-1B visa holders was just introduced. Hopefully, it will pass.

Lastly, there is the “we are all children of immigrants” argument. While that’s true, let’s take a closer look at that. When my grandparents legally migrated to this country after World War II, it was long before the banksters took over our republic and made it a plutocracy; the U.S. was truly a land of growth and opportunity. They wanted to come here sooner, but Roosevelt had closed the doors during the Depression, as I mentioned earlier; too many Americans were out of work….like now.

My grandparents came here to assimilate: they learned English, they pledged allegiance to the American flag and they built their businesses without imposing on American taxpayers. Now, in these times of PC psychosis, we must accommodate every culture to the point that we have become the national equivalent of the tower of babble.

As for those who support leaving our borders wide open by using the example of the Pilgrims coming to America, has anyone asked the Native Americans how that migration worked out for them? I didn’t think so.

Opposition to Syrian refugee migration is not about racism or hatred; it’s about economic feasibility. And, yes, there is some fear involved. After all, we just witnessed a handful of ISIS terrorists kill or injure close to 500 Parisians in less than an hour. It doesn’t take an army of people to take a country hostage.

Our focus needs to be on fixing our country and restoring our middle class. We can no longer afford to turn our backs on struggling U.S. citizens or to overlook the fact that we no longer manufacture anything. We also can’t continue to allow transnational companies incorporated here to ship U.S. jobs overseas at will or to import “migrants” who will work for much less.

Trying to distract us from our very real problems by promoting  cost-prohibitive, altruistic global outreach doesn’t help anyone. We are not the prosperous country we were 50 years ago; we are a nation in rapid decline. That, Mr. Obama, is unfortunately “who we are” now as a nation. Charity begins at home, Chief, so do us all a favor and re-prioritize and get busy before it’s too late.

 

Big Brother and the BYOD Privacy Holding Company

I have a friend who works for CSX, one of the nation’s largest rail and transport companies. Like a lot of companies today, CSX won’t provide most of their employees with company cell phones, but it still expects workers to have access to their work email at all times; in the spirit of “BYOB” (bring your own booze), this cost-effective trend is called “bring your own device” (BYOD).

You might be saying, “What’s wrong with that? We’ve had our work email on our cell phones for years.” Well, in their zeal to keep employees tethered to the job around the clock without incurring the cost of providing them with a company cell phone, CSX, like many companies,  want their employees to add a mobile device management (MDM) platform to their personal devices that  violates their right to privacy….all for the sake of protecting their corporate data.

Yes, CSX is considering having their employees sign on to an Orwellian corporate mobility policy that gives their IT department explicit consent to potentially install apps, monitor usage, track, wipe data, oh…and collect personal information from their phones or tablets.

So…that Tinder app…those embarrassing Pinterest or Facebook pictures you posted when you were drunk? Guess what CSX’s (or your company’s) HR department may be perusing when they’re bored?

Having access to your personal information could be helpful when a mass layoff is necessary. Was your inclusion in the culled herd really nothing personal, or did an offensive app on your phone do you in? You’ll never know.

Your phone, your data? Not necessarily

Privacy is only one consideration when it comes to BYOD; there’s always the potential for data wipes. A man in Texas is currently suing his former employer for doing just that. Saman Rajaee had registered his iPhone with his employer’s Microsoft Exchange server.

A few days after giving two weeks’ notice, the company, Design Tech, wiped out all of the business and personal data on his phone…without warning, he lost more than 600 business and personal contacts, family photos, business records, and passwords. How’s that for a sendoff?

The U.S. District Court for the Southern District of Texas dismissed the federal charges brought by Rajaee, saying that Design Tech had not violated the Electronic Communications Privacy Act (ECPA) and Computer Fraud and Abuse Act (CFAA) when they nuked all of the data on his phone. The state charges of misappropriation of confidential information, violation of the Texas Theft Liability Act, negligence, and conversion, are still pending.

MDM software development companies like MobileIron are holding this case up as a warning to companies that they better CYA on the BYOD by getting their employees to sign ironclad BYOD consent forms….oh, and to promote the fact that their software helps companies delete only business data on employee  devices.

Employee apathy vs. convenience

Why do so many of us willingly embrace BYOD programs, despite the risks involved, especially when it’s common knowledge that most MDM platforms can access personal information from a user’s device? Is convenience that important?

According to a 2013 Harris Interactive survey, only 15 percent of those surveyed were concerned about privacy issues, although, four out of five respondents were concerned that MDM software would be used to track them.

We’ve been so systematically conditioned to having our privacy violated routinely, Snowden be damned, that we don’t even blink when CSX and other companies disregard our most precious right in order to protect their data.

Look at the permissions that most mobile apps request now. They want access to your microphone, your camera, your Bluetooth connection information, your device & app history, your location, SMS, photos/media/files, and your Wi-Fi connection…even when the app in question has no need for any of these functions.

Many of us just blindly accept these terms, because we have to have Instagram, Snapchat, or Tinder on our phones or tablets. Don’t even get me started on the privacy sins of Google+ and Facebook.

How many well-publicized, massive security breaches will it take before we realize that granting intrusive (and often unnecessary) permissions without giving it a second thought may not be such a good idea?  Are we ever going to wake up and draw a line in the sand?  We better.

It’s bad enough to make your phone or tablet vulnerable to some criminal app developer or offshore hacker, but when your privacy is violated by your employer, the pee isn’t coming out of that swimming pool, so BYOD at your own risk.