Mediaboss Marketing

In the aftermath of the deadly Kansas shooting of Indian-born engineer Srinivas Kuchibhotla, an immigration reform advocacy website that features photos and a video of Indian families relaxing in suburban Columbus, Ohio has Indian immigrant communities across the country worried, with some unwilling to travel outside the towns where they live.

The site, SaveAmericanITJobs.org, argues that immigrants in the US on work visas are a threat to US tech jobs. Created and maintained by a 66-year old computer programmer from Virginia named Steve Pushor, it has been circulating on Whatsapp, Twitter, Facebook and email all week.

What were trying to point out is people in Ohio, IT workers and other professional people, have lost their jobs to foreign guest workers. Thats what our point is, Pushor told BuzzFeed News. Pushor, who said saw a spike in web traffic after Kuchibhotlas shooting, says he doesnt want Indians currently living in the United States to leave the country, and doesnt advocate violence.

Bhavin Bavalia, an American-born IT professional and the son of Indian immigrants, said he first came across the site when a friend shared it on Facebook Its very scary for me knowing that I have a lot of family in these small Indian communities, he said. To think that there could be some weirdo filming my cousins kids as theyre playing at the park, and possibly fomenting resentment towards them, is just disturbing.

The content on SaveAmericanIt.org ranges from a post on the real life story of a highly skilled IT professional and his ordeal of job loss at Pacific Gas and Electric Company by an H-1B from India to criticism of Indian companies and an Indian IT mafia that have ignored or shoved aside American IT professionals for years. But its a PDF entitled Ohio - A Journey To Indian Park and an accompanying video that the Indian tech workers with whom BuzzFeed News spoke found most troubling.

In the video, Pushors camera pans over people playing volleyball and children riding bikes, he narrates what he sees: The number of people from foreign countries blows my mind out here. You see this whole area is all Indian, amazing. Its an amazing number of jobs have been taken away from Americans. The Indian crowd has ravished the Midwest. Its crazy.

This is spooking people.

ID: 10640833

Pushor initially posted this video and the accompanying document which decries India as a hell hole and mourns the loss of Normal Rockwell white people in the US in August, when it generated some early discussion on Facebook, Reddit and Youtube. Its surfaced again in recent days, shared in private networks and on social media among Indian immigrants and their families. Kaplesh Kapadia, the Indian-born CEO of a California startup called SelfScore, said Pushors website was the subject of discussion this week in at least five different Whatsapp groups.

This is spooking people, combined with the Kansas murder, he told BuzzFeed News.

Pramod Buravalli, the India-born CEO of a Houston IT firm, hosts a weekly podcast on Indian-American issues; he says his listeners have been asking whether their families are safe in the US, or whether they should go back to India. They think maybe going to local bars is a no-no, Buravalli said.

Many people, including New York-based Indian-American startup founder Anil Dash, said watching Pushors video in light of the Kansas shooting made them worried for safety of their children. Hes like following people who are just at a playground in their neighborhood, and their kids are there. Im a dad. I have a kid. We play in public playgrounds, Dash said. This idea that someones going to surveil you and creepily videotape your family is kind of terrifying.

An Indian-born engineer who lives in Texas, and asked to remain anonymous out of concern that he or his family would be targeted, sounded a similar note of concern. I have a 5 month old, and I definitely would not go around new places with him, he said. We were talking among friends that we shouldnt probably travel outside Austin unless we really need to.

Pushor described the tone of his posts about Ohio as satire and pointed to other documents on the site, including an interview with an anonymous Indian tech worker living in California . To say our video and our document is going to make such an impact on their lives is a big stretch.

This idea that someones going to creepily videotape your family is kind of terrifying.

ID: 10640841

On his website, Pushor lists three organizations The IEEE-USA, NumbersUSA and Protecting US Workers as other advocates in the immigration space. Reached for comment by BuzzFeed News, all three of those organizations said they were unfamiliar with Pushor, and declined to endorse his site.

Russell Harrison is a spokesperson for the IEEE, an engineering tech trade group that he described as pro-immigrant, but in favor of reforming the work visa program. Theyre going further than they should probably go, Harrison said of Pushors site.. We dont believe the individuals trapped on the H-1B are doing anything wrong.

Harrison said he saw a spike in public concern about work visa fraud following allegations that Disney had fired American workers and replaced them with lower-paid immigrants. It was around the same time that Donald Trump, then a presidential candidate, called the skilled visa program very, very bad for workers and said we shouldnt have it.

Tech companies, many of which rely heavily on the labor of high-skilled immigrants, came out definitively in opposition to President Trumps early attempts to restrict immigration.

Indian immigrants in tech were therefore understandably anxious about Trump. The president has since backtracked on work visas; hes yet to sign an executive order aimed at throttling the skilled visa program, and he met with Indian business leaders in DC earlier this week. But his failure to immediately speak out against Kuchibhotlas killing raised the ire of the Indian immigrant community.

While Trump condemned Kuchibhotlas murder in his Tuesday speech to congress, his five day delay in addressing it frustrated some in the US Indian community. It felt like too little, far too late, remarked Dash, who said hes concerned by the Trump administrations failure to address hate crimes head on. Of particular concern to him, White House Chief Strategist Steve Bannons 2015 comments that seemed to suggest a proliferation of Asian tech CEOs in Silicon Valley is in opposition to a civic society.

I am 100 percent convinced well see more incidents, Dash said, referring to the Kansas shooting. The thing Im hearing from folks across the country is, its a much more hostile environment than even after 9/11.

Kapadia, who has lived in the US for past 18 years, echoed that sentiment, saying xenophobia wasnt much of a concern for him until recently. Hes unsettled by some of the aggressive rhetoric around immigration. He hopes Trump will take a consistent and firm stand against the kind of hate that claimed Kuchibhotlas life and fears that if he doesnt more incidents could follow.

As the leader of the country, you say things, and people take it to the extreme, Kapadia said. People feel that they have the freedom to discriminate.

Link:
An Anti-Immigration Website Posted A Video Of Indian Families Hanging Out In A Park - BuzzFeed News

Labor association leaders from Washington and North Carolina are not optimistic about immigration reform passing in a divided House and getting around Democratic opposition in the Senate.

Dan Wheat/Capital Press

Lee Wicker, deputy director of the North Carolina Growers Association, Feb. 23.

Dan Wheat/Capital Press

Dan Fazio, director of WAFLA, Feb. 23.

YAKIMA, Wash. Chances of immigration reform passing Congress are not good, two farm labor leaders say.

Majority Republicans are divided in the House and Senate Democrats, while in the minority, can prevent nearly any bill from coming to a vote under Senate rules, said Lee Wicker, deputy director of the North Carolina Growers Association, and Dan Fazio, director of WAFLA, formerly the Washington Farm Labor Association.

They spoke at WAFLAs annual labor conference at the Yakima Convention Center on Feb. 23.

Fazio and Wicker said they were recently in Washington, D.C., talking with Trump administration officials. Fifty-eight immigration bills were introduced in the first two weeks and none are going anywhere, Wicker said.

Democrats will run the same game on Trump that Republicans ran on Obama. Slow everything down. Gum everything up. You have to have 60 votes to bring anything to a vote in the Senate and I dont think it will happen, Wicker said.

I would predict that if Republicans dusted off the 2013 Senate bill and passed it now that Democrats (who supported it then) would vote against it because they wouldnt want Republicans and Trump to get credit for passing something that would be helpful, he said.

Fazio said House Republicans are divided between moderate conservatives and Tea Party conservatives and that the only way to bring them together is to pass House Judiciary Chairman Bob Goodlattes bills of the last Congress. HR 1772 for E-verify (electronic verification of employment eligibility) is supported by Tea Party Republicans, and moderate conservatives liked HR 1773, an ag guestworker bill that WAFLA supported.

You need both bills to bring Republicans together, Fazio said.

Chances of getting a bill out of the House are very small and its harder to get a bill through the Senate, he said.

There is no one out here to help you out of this tremendous labor shortage but yourselves. The closer you get to D.C., the more they drink the Kool-Aid and think something will get done, Fazio said.

But while Fazio believes nothing will happen legislatively to grant illegal immigrants worker status or improve the H-2A-visa guestworker program, he said E-verify will happen and will devastate many people (growers) in this room.

The best hope for anything helping growers is Trump administration reform of H-2A, he said. The Bush administration improved H-2A right before President George W. Bush left office and the Obama administration quickly reversed the reforms, he said. The Bush reforms, among other things, allowed small farms to get certification for H-2A workers, Fazio has said.

Trump could improve the program by lessening regulations, allowing it to work more smoothly, lowering the wage threshold and allowing growers to charge a reasonable rate for housing they have to provide, he said.

Stay on topic - This helps keep the thread focused on the discussion at hand. If you would like to discuss another topic, look for a relevant article.

Share with Us - We'd love to hear eyewitness accounts, the history behind an article, and smart, constructive criticism.

Be Civil - It's OK to have a difference in opinion but there's no need to be a jerk. We reserve the right to delete any comments that we feel are spammy, off-topic, or reckless to the community.

Be proactive - Use the 'Flag as Inappropriate' link at the upper right corner of each comment to let us know of abusive posts.

See the article here:
Pessimism on immigration reform - Capital Press

President Donald Trump walked across the tarmac at Langley Air Force Base on Thursday.

Remarks that the president made to a gathering of TV anchors this week briefly gave cautious hope to immigrants and their advocates that Donald Trump could support a path to citizenship for thousands of immigrants now in the country illegally, a stark departure from his previous stances.

But hours later, those hopes were dashed when Trump made no mention of that sentiment in his first address to Congress.

Advertisement

It was the latest twist in an evolving discussion of immigration that has kept policy watchers guessing.

Trump has been kind of all over the map on legal immigration, said Jessica Vaughan, director of policy studies for the Center for Immigration Studies, a research group that favors limits on immigration. But Trump has remained consistent in his focus on immigrants who have committed crimes, she said.

Get Fast Forward in your inbox:

Forget yesterday's news. Get what you need today in this early-morning email.

Hes gone from they all have to go to were going to focus on the people causing problems, she said. I dont think hes lost the part that this needs to serve our national interest.

Yet another version of a piece of Trumps immigration crackdown is expected any day, when he releases a revised executive order designed to hold up in court.

It would revise one of the three executive orders on immigration he signed in January. The first two called for stepped up border security and enforcement of immigration laws, and broadened the pool of immigrants to target for deportation, leading to more arrests and detentions. The third order temporarily barred people from seven Muslim-majority countries from entering the United States. The White House promised to replace that order after it was halted by a federal court, but the replacement has not yet been introduced.

Advertisement

In his speech before Congress Tuesday, Trump said the time may be ripe for immigration reform, and suggested that the country should have a merit-based immigration system, which would prioritize the admission of immigrants with specific skills.

Steve Kropper, cochair of the Massachusetts Citizens for Immigration Reform, said Trump has so far introduced only attention-grabbing proposals, rather than initiatives that could lead to lasting change in the immigration system. It wont be long, he said, until Trump gives up, and perhaps even offers amnesty to those in the country illegally.

I doubt that Trump has the stamina for the long slog that is meaningful changes in immigration, Kropper said.

Advocates for immigrants say that the arrests of immigrants happening across the country, including two separate arrests of young people who were previously protected under Barack Obamas program for immigrants brought to the United States as children, have many people fearful, no matter what Trump may say now.

Its hard to tell whether the public backlash has actually had an effect on the administrations policy, or if theyre trying to create more confusion and chaos, said Laura Rotolo, a lawyer with the American Civil Liberties Union of Massachusetts who focuses on immigration. Whats happening on the ground is, there continues to be a true sense of confusion of what the policies are.

ERIK S. LESSER/EPA

President Donald J. Trump returned to the White House on Thursday.

For example, said Zoila Gomez, an immigration lawyer, a lawful permanent resident from the Dominican Republic whom federal officials want to deport was arrested at his home this week and is being detained while he awaits deportation proceedings, even though he had been allowed to remain free since 2014 as his case moved through the process.

What is the point of picking him up, and putting him in jail, when he is already in the system and complying? Gomez said.

In trying to understand the seeming mixed messages from the White House, policy observers said that its possible that the president is now listening to Cabinet members and other members of his administration and immigration advocates on the issue.

I do think his position has evolved, and I definitely see the influence of people now in his Cabinet in refining what his agenda is on immigration, Vaughan said.

She and others added, though, that such proposals are nothing more than proposals.

He wants to indicate hes open to something, but being open to talk to someone is different than having a plan, she said. If he were to embark on a big legalization program at this point in time, he would really upset a lot of his supporters.

Vaughan said the president has authority to enforce existing immigration laws in a way that protects the country, for instance by ordering the deportations of criminals, but she said that any true reform will need congressional action, something that hasnt happened since 1990.

In his speech Tuesday, Trump called on Congress to come to a compromise and take action.

I believe that real and positive immigration reform is possible, as long as we focus on the following goals: to improve jobs and wages for Americans, to strengthen our nations security, and to restore respect for our laws, Trump said.

Congressional Democrats and immigration advocates were not swayed. One group, the National Immigration Law Center, released a statement saying that Trump has already spread fear among immigrant communities.

Actions speak louder than words, Kamal Essaheb, policy and advocacy director, said in the statement.

Ira Mehlman, of the Federation for American Immigration Reform, said in an interview that he does not believe the president has wavered or changed course, even after Tuesdays speech, but instead has followed through on the campaign promises he made, to target criminals and create a merit-based immigration system. There really shouldnt be any confusion, he said.

You have to listen to what the president said, and until you hear otherwise, thats the presidents position, he said. It all seems to indicate he believes our immigration laws need to be enforced, and our legal immigration system needs to be overhauled.

As far as were concerned, thats the policy of the administration, he said.

See the article here:
Mixed messages from Trump on immigration - The Boston Globe

SAM LUKES 12:01 a.m. PT March 5, 2017

The First Amendment, contained within the Bill of Rights, was initiated on Dec. 15, 1791 and states: Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances.

For far too long now, these noble tenets have steadily undergone a massive, full scale assault by insolent judges/lawmakers who insist upon delegating their own preconceived, egregious opinions and indecorous ideologies which they unashamedly dictate from the bench.

Contrary to popular opinion, the Founding Fathers of our Judeo-Christian influenced republic, never intended a separation of church and state. They simply wanted to make sure that government would not compel or infringe upon its citizenry to adhere to a federally imposed, national religion. Hence, believers in God could choose to follow their religious beliefs without being forced to submit to biased governmental regulations. Atheists, agnostics, etc., are granted freedom to decide otherwise.

George Washington transcribed in his Rules of Civility and Decent Behavior in Company and Conversation: Use no Reproachful Language against any one neither Curse nor Revile. Remarkably, at the time, he was not yet 16 years old! Years later, as acting general of the Continental Army, on Aug. 3, 1776, he imposed a written order to his troops for them to refrain from using profanity.

Today, misguided attorneys and judges have soundly disregarded and rejected President Washingtons advice, deceitfully interpreting that the First Amendment protects all manner of profanity, including any number of vile idiosyncrasies, perverted sexual innuendos, and so forth.

The filthiest, most prurient books, songs, movies, plays, documentaries, television shows, internet sites, i.e., are all protected under the deceptive guise of freedom of speech. Jesus Christ condemns all such provocative behavior, labeling those misdirected individuals as poisonous snakes who bringeth forth evil things (Matthew 12:34-36). He warns that every idle word (which anyone speaks), if not repented of, will be brought into full judgmental account in HIS future courtroom. He further admonishes: For by thy words thou shalt be justified, and by thy words thou shalt be condemned (Matthew 12:37).

Those rappers whose songs contain unbridled profanity and certain sexually charged wording in the lyrics, beware. Miscreants who advocate filthy, degenerative speech, whose conversations are laced with flippant cursing, have been deceived into believing that they have a right to disregard common decency and to irresponsibly throw all caution to the winds. To reiterate ... beware.

Society has regressed to such a mindless low that naked entertainers(?), who shamelessly perform in nightclubs/strip clubs, bars and like venues, are given a free pass for displaying their blatant nudity (shades of artful freedom of expression?). Whereas, astonishingly, a construction worker on a hot summer day, who can no longer wait in a long line to access a lone Porta Potty, can be arrested for indecent exposure when seen urinating behind a shed, tree or lumber pile!

In certain states, such offenders can be charged with lewd and lascivious behavior, and their names even added to a sex offender registry for relieving themselves. Give me a break! These judges would do well to realize that God Himself, became humanities permanent clothier, regardless of mans inane societal laws that grant immunity to wanton nude exposure (Genesis 3:21).

It is becoming alarmingly clear that we are witnessing a seemingly dishonest press/media, who, all too often, deliberately lie or decide to omit or misconstrue ones words or actions out of context. Such shameful conduct is hardly what freedom of the press was meant to represent. Likewise, those clueless mobs who destructively demonstrate, loot or engage in violent, angry protests and assaults, are not assembling peaceably under the true intent and meaning of the First Amendment.

One of the reasons America has gotten itself into such a spiteful, demeaning state of circumstances, is that it has foolishly allowed the American Civil Liberties Union to dictate to the courts, their atheistic, humanist agenda, directed against decent values which were once nobly instilled in traditional families, and likewise included in churches, schools, government, and even in the military. The ACLU (Arrogantly Championing Lucifer's Underground) MY personal acronym has haughtily, godlessly, erroneously determined: The First Amendment is based upon the belief that in a free and democratic society, individual adults must be free to decide for themselves what to read, write, paint, draw, see and hear.

Compare this insipid, flawed ideology with Proverbs 14:12: There is a way which seems right to a man, but in the end it leads to death (eternally). That is precisely why Jesus instructed his true followers to live their lives in accordance to Gods Living Word (Matthew 4:4), and the reason why the Apostle Paul refers to the worldly proud who profess to be wise, as becoming mere fools (Romans 1:22).

Seemingly, worldwide events are rapidly beginning to occur which reveal our present generation might very well be the one wherein the minute hand of the noted doomsday clock, is inching closer and closer to the midnight hour with each notorious, infamous tick. Unfortunately, prophetic perilous times await (2 Timothy 3:1-5) as the entire globe may be witnessing, with careless disregard and abandon, the infant stages of reaping what they have brazenly sown towards their Creator.

Sam Lukes is a resident of Visalia

Read or Share this story: http://vtd-tar.co/2ls2Npf

Read more:
ACLU, courts' ungodly interpretation of First Amendment - Visalia Times-Delta

Former presidential candidate Hillary Clinton left Kirkland House at Harvard on Friday.

The Internet sure loves moments of political pathos, and it got what it was looking for Friday thanks to Hillary Clinton and a newspaper headline.

It was revealed earlier this week that Vice President Mike Pence had used an AOL e-mail account to conduct official government business. That account was hacked sometime early in 2016.

Advertisement

During last years presidential campaign, Pence lambasted Clinton, then the Democratic nominee for the White House, for her use of a private e-mail server during her time as secretary of state, an issue that dogged her throughout the election season.

So when Clinton was photographed aboard a Boston-to-New York flight considering a USA Today headline that read Pence used personal email in office, the online masses acted accordingly. Which is to say, they ate it up.

Get Political Happy Hour in your inbox:

Your afternoon shot of politics, sent straight from the desk of Joshua Miller.

One tweet of the photo had 16,000 retweets as of Saturday night.

Clinton was in town Friday for a private event at Harvard University, where she spoke about her time as secretary of state.

On Thursday, she appeared at a private event at Wellesley College, her alma mater.

Advertisement

Pence, for his part, has said that there is no comparison whatsoever between his use of a private e-mail and Clintons use of a private e-mail server, according to CNN.

More here:
A viral moment on Hillary Clinton's Boston-to-NYC flight - The Boston Globe