Morocco Time

This is one of the top stories here this morning. As someone who works in IT, I’ve seen many jobs lost this way. It also really pisses me off that Hamou and I have had to spend hundreds of dollars following USCIS guidelines to get him a green card, and these other people are willfully and blatantly abusing the system.

Law Firm’s Video a ‘Blatant Disregard for American Workers’

In the video, however, an individual identified as Lawrence Lebowitz, vice president and director of marketing for Cohen & Grigsby, explains how employers can hire foreign workers under the PERM (Program Electronic Review Management) process, which stipulates requirements for placing job ads to fill vacancies by either hiring U.S. workers or evidencing that no qualified ones are available.

“Our goal here, of course, is to meet the requirements No. 1, but also do so as inexpensively as possible … and our goal is clearly not to find a qualified and interested U.S. worker,” explains Lebowitz to seminar attendees.

“We’re complying with the law fully, but our objective is to get this person a green card, and to get through the labor certification process, so certainly we are not going to try to find the place where the applicants are going to be the most numerous; we’re going to try to find a place where, again, we’re complying with the law and hoping and likely not to find a qualified or interested worker applicant,” continues Lebowitz.

In an update to the story posted by Morocco Report:

Associated Press - June 14, 2007 5:25 PM ET

WASHINGTON (AP) - After two years of inaction, US immigration authorities have approved a request for the 3-year-old son of a US citizen to emigrate from Morocco and join his family in Virginia.

yada yada yada….

The decision to approve the application came a day after the Associated Press and other media detailed the Boujrads’ plight.

Jill’s going to love this story:

A millionaire couple accused of keeping two Indonesian women as slaves in their luxurious Long Island home and abusing them for years have been indicted on federal slavery charges…The women legally arrived in the United States on B-1 visas in 2002; the Sabhnanis then confiscated their passports and refused to let them leave their home, authorities said. Identified in court papers as Samirah and Nona, the women said they were promised payments of $200 and $100 a month, but federal prosecutors said they were never given money directly.

So B-1 (business) visas are being used to bring in slaves? Great. Just a little reminder of what B-1 visas are for:

The definition of “business” under immigration law is limited, and does not generally allow for gainful employment, labor for hire or productive activity such as operating a business or consultancy work. Specifically, in the applicable U.S. law the term “business” is limited to the negotiation of contracts, consultation with business associates, litigation, and participation in scientific, educational, professional or business conventions, conferences or seminars and other legitimate activities of a commercial or professional nature.