One of the main arguments for allowing illegal immigration to become legalized is because they will do jobs that Americans refuse to do.  Well, here’s a woman trying to find employment to help her family out, and she’s mislead and turned down.

Sabrina Steele applied for a farming job in Tennessee, and the owner told her it would be a bad idea to apply because she would have to work 80 hours, she’d be one of the very few women, and she’d be one of the few who spoke English.  The problem is Mike Pope, of Pope’s Plant Farm was basically lying to her because these jobs were H-2A visa jobs that he applied for in Nov. 2007.  In his application, these jobs were for 40 hours a week at $8.65 per hour.

Steele filed a lawsuit with the help of a migrant worker organization.  Kudos go to this organization, Southern Migrant Legal Services, for being even-handed on this.  She was considered a potential migrant worker because the nature of the job, not her status.  And the organization is going to fight for her because they want the visa program to continue, but its purpose is to supplement US workers, not replace them.

I have no problem with supplementing our workforce with migrant / foreign workers when necessary.  But we can’t have companies using illegal labor.  And, we can’t have them bringing in foreign workers to replace US workers.  Don’t think this only happens on farms — I’ve seen it in the high tech industry as well.  High tech companies can bring in highly skilled, highly educated, and very diligent workers from overseas and pay them about 10%-20% less than an American worker.  Plus, foreign workers tend not to leave the company or cause too much trouble for fear of losing their visas and being sent home.   I saw Michael Dell asking for more visas from Congress arguing a lack of qualified American workers while several local companies were laying off workers with the desired skillset.

Visas are just the new outsourcing.  We have to watch how they are used.