Outsource Issue 22 - (Page 14)
wish they weren’t here?
UsA IMMIGRATION The anti-immigration lobby in the US is growing in strength and prominence. But what does this have to do with outsourcing? We take a look…
any of the voters who turned out in November’s mid-term elections to deliver the Democrats a bloody nose – and President Obama what he later described as a “shellacking” – did so because of their dissatisfaction with the country’s policy on immigration. Always a controversial topic in a country receiving more legal immigrants per year than the rest of the world put together, the spectre of immigration loomed especially ominously over these elections in particular due to the ongoing employment crisis in the US and continued fears amongst the electorate regarding the country’s economic health. The United States were built on the backs of millions of immigrants, but increasingly many of the descendants of those millions of free and brave are asking whether, at a time of uncertain economic prospects, enough might be enough. Of course, immigration was by no means voters’ only grievance in November – but concerns over the sanity of America’s immigration policy have become woven increasingly tightly into the overarching (if inchoate) manifesto of the Tea Party movement which has so successfully seized the political agenda in recent months and which contributed so forcefully to the Republicans’ resurgence.
Newly confirmed American citizens celebrate taking the oath of allegiance following their induction ceremony
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It is, to a great extent, the conflation of immigration with other issues of sensitivity to the American right which has led the outsourcing space to be tangled up in the debate. The cry of “American jobs for American workers” is aimed not just at the stereotypical Latino migrant sloshing across the Rio Grande: it covers too a more recent immigrant type, in the form of a highly skilled hi-tech worker coming in from overseas markets to occupy a high-value role which, say the Tea Partiers, could and should be occupied by home-grown talent. “The debate actually involves four separate topics,” says Stan Lepeak, MD at EquaTerra (and an Outsource Editorial Board member): “illegal immigration of un/ lower skilled labour; legal immigration/ retention of skilled labour already in the market; outsourcing in general, a business practice; and offshore outsourcing, a business practice and trade policy. Each is being conflated by all sides in the argument but the drivers, impacts, benefits and means to promote or limit each is different. For example, lumping illiterate and illegal immigrants hopping the border fence with highly educated visa-holders looking to launch companies and create jobs is simplistic at best and dangerous at worst. To the extent possible (not highly so in the near term) each topic needs to be
“As Congress continues to debate ways to address illegal immigration, we must remember the many hard-working legal immigrants that contribute so much to our nation’s economy and culture.” – Bob Filner
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Table of Contents for the Digital Edition of Outsource Issue 22
Outsource Issue 22
Table of Contents
Shutting the Door?
Q&A: Deborah Kops
Colombia
LPO
Editorial Board Roundtable
Head-to-Head
HR Trends
Long Live AMS!
The Provider Perspective
Platforms Make Sense in the Cloud!
NOA Pathway
Case Study: Kingâs College Hospital
Egypt
Silver Lining
Roundtable Write-Up
Case Study: Nokia & Hyphen
Alan Leaman
Leah Cooper
Kay Formanek
Paul Awcock
News & Comment
The Legal View
NOA Roundup
Online Roundup
Letter to the CEO
Letters to the Editor
Sourcebites
Inside Source
The Last Word
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