Immigrants Working While Others Are On Welfare

For John, BLUF:  We can't get out of our own way.  Nothing to see here; just move along.

---

From Channel 10 in Sacramento we have a news report on how the California Unemployment Office provides employment to immigrants to it can process unemployment checks.

It's nearly 8 p.m., and inside a state office building two dozen computer experts design and troubleshoot a system that will take and process millions of unemployment claims each year.

It's a $200 million Employment Development Department project, but with the exception of two managers, everyone inside the office is from outside of the U.S.  They are employed by Deloitte, a major U.S. IT company hired by the state to create and manage its Unemployment Insurance Modernization project.  The mostly Indian nationals are allowed to work here under a visa program called H-1B.

Tech companies like Microsoft, Intel, Google and Facebook say they need hundreds of thousands of foreign workers to fill jobs here because American colleges can't crank out computer science grads fast enough.  In 2013, the industry lobbied Congress on the issue to the tune of almost $14 million.

At least they aren't illegals.

Maybe within those billions of dollars the Federal Government spends there could be found a small amount to create a "National Defense Cyber Education Fund" to provide tuition to men and women who wish to get a BS or an MS in certain realms of Computer Science.  The rationale would be that we need a large pool of cyber-experts from which DoD can draw to provide the cyber-force of the future.♠

Hat tip to the Instapundit.

Regards  —  Cliff

♠  Of course there is the underlying question of if the issue is education or if it is work ethic.  Is it a case that the Indians just want it more?