Re: National Sign-On Letter to House on H-1Bs, U.S. Immigration

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From: Joachim Feise (jfeise@ics.uci.edu)
Date: Thu Jun 08 2000 - 12:49:53 PDT


"Eric D. Sherman" wrote:
>
> I have over 25 years' perience in the IT field, both in the U.S. and abroad.
> In my personal experience, every word Norman Matloff has ever written has
> been deadly accurate.

Hardly scientifically valid.
My own experience in the IT field, both in the US and abroad, is quite different.
And although I do not have 25 years experience, but "just" 15, it is not less
valid.

>
> Moreover, Norm's positions have the overwhelming support of over 80% of the
> American population. Even legislators have admitted that the reasons they're
> taking their anti-American positions on H1B/immigration are because industry
> is PAYING them to do so.

I do not know where you get this number from. Any sources? Or is this
another biased poll? As every statistics researcher knows, it is very easy
to pose questions on these polls in a way that the answers are invariably biased.
The same argumentative flaw shows up in your assertion that legislators can
not think for themselves. Everybody can make such a statement, but you
paraphrasing it is quite useless. You make the same mistake as Mr. Matloff
by essentially offering your head on a platter:
You assert that the position of legislators is anti-American. I see your
bias right there, and this again shows that you have no interest in the
truth, but are part of a lobbying effort against immigration that embraces
Mr. Matloff's paper, because it fits nicely in your lobbying efforts.
The lack of sound evidence apparently does not deter you, since it
never deterred any lobby organization.

It is interesting that there is a group of migration researchers at
Mr. Matloff's university that does not quite agree with him. Unlike Mr. Matloff,
these people are really researching the topic.
Take a look at http://migration.ucdavis.edu/
But you will see that they disagree with you, like every reasonable person
would do. The world is not painted black-and-white.

My main point as far as Mr. Matloff's paper is concerned is that this is
a biased lobbying paper, nothing that can stand scientific scrutiny.
I have no problem with his paper per se, I only have a problem with the fact that
he tries to pass it as describing the truth. It is a lobbying paper and
should be considered as such.

-Joe


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