Lawyer games

June 16, 2007 8:34 AM

"Our goal is clearly not to find a qualified and interested U.S. worker" (youtube, 7:55) In the wake of the Senate immigration bill being revived, here's an interesting look at how US immigration lawyers use loopholes in the laws to exclude US workers from jobs, along withhow they help employers keep wages for visa holders below the DOL's prevailing wage. Don't miss the lawyers pretending to be geeks.
posted by gminks (12 comments total)

I don't have time to watch a 10 minute YouTube video on this, but there's another side to this story. I work for a large company that hires a lot of smart people. We're always eager to hire domestically or not, hiring immigrants definitely does not displace Americans -- yet, we have ridiculous problems getting visas for our foreign hires and it's unclear what the criteria that the INS applies, my ultra-brilliant intern has to work from Zürich because of this.

America has historically profited immensely from taking the best immigrants from other countries. Cutting this off is insanity -- of course, these days I only expect insanity from the government.
posted by lupus_yonderboy at 8:47 AM on June 16, 2007 [1 favorite]

Seems like this is a political statement designed to look like a non political post.
posted by Ironmouth at 9:02 AM on June 16, 2007

Of course, there's good news for gminks and everyone else who wants to make it more difficult for skilled workers to get legal jobs in the United States: the rate hike.
posted by Faint of Butt at 9:10 AM on June 16, 2007

This is out-of-context bull. The present H1-B visa application process requires applicants to go through these contortions. These lawyers are learning how to help their clients through an irrational legal maze -- so, yes, they're going to rehearse the steps it takes to slap down an immigration examiner's argument that certain steps weren't taken to find an equally qualified citizen applicant.

If you're relying on half an hour of YouTube videos to kinda sorta make your argument, instead of making your argument, then maybe you have no argument.
posted by gum at 9:32 AM on June 16, 2007 [2 favorites]

Oh cool. It looks like OP hoped that enough people would groove on the anti-lawyer stuff that they would ignore the fact that the post is slanted like five o'clock sunlight.

I actually watched the You Tube links. That's right. About half an hour's worth of uncredited and not-all-that-engaging CLE on a freaking Saturday morning. And wrote about two paragraphs about what a crock this is, but I decided not to post them, because they too sounded like some thing you might hear or read at a CLE, and I didn't want to pass my suffering on to others.

But the executive summary is: As an attorney, you have a duty to your clients. You have a duty to the judicial system. You also probably have a duty to children that you know or suspect to be being abused. You do not have a duty to go beyond the letter and spirit of the law to protect the interests of big, fat, nebulous class of U.S. job applicants, even when those applicants are citizens.

I saw nothing in the above links that was about evading the law. It was about complying with the law. It was about navigating the process.

Bfft.
posted by palmcorder_yajna at 9:53 AM on June 16, 2007 [2 favorites]

Human Trafficking in Iraq: Exploiting People to Supply Our Soldiers
posted by homunculus at 9:58 AM on June 16, 2007

I adopt, approve, ratify, and confirm what palmcorder_yajna said.
posted by psmith at 10:03 AM on June 16, 2007

Also, if you think lawyers have to pretend to be geeks, perhaps you should conduct more study of the subject in the field, preferably in their native habitats. I think you'll find them quite a different species than those portrayed on television.
posted by Dr. Zira at 10:14 AM on June 16, 2007

"Our goal is clearly not to find a qualified and interested U.S. worker" (youtube, 7:55)

Well, yeah. That's why they're called "immigration lawyers", and not "being-a-US-citizen lawyers". And a VCR repairman's job is not to save the lives of people having heart attacks. So?
posted by Bugbread at 10:19 AM on June 16, 2007 [1 favorite]

I will say, though, that I had always assumed lawyers were somewhat better actors than the travesty of acting that was the geek link. I guess trial lawyers have coloured my view of lawyers in general.
posted by Bugbread at 10:30 AM on June 16, 2007

Yeah, I'd be pretty pissed off if my attorney started representing somebody else's interests in opposition to mine.

I don't think foreign workers brought here for their skills are the ones we need to worry about anyway (if we need to worry at all, which I'm still not convinced of, despite the GOP's best efforts). The downward pressure on wages is interesting, though, and I would be interested to hear how significant that really is. I'd also like to hear how that affects the price to consumers (is healthcare, for example, any cheaper because of foreign-born medical workers).
posted by joannemerriam at 10:34 AM on June 16, 2007

Not geeks? One fo the best Dungeon Master's I've ever played with was a lawyer. So, stick that in your briefs and file it.
posted by oddman at 11:18 AM on June 16, 2007