I recently tweeted out an anecdotal experience of meeting a Venezuelan immigrant on my last gig for a college ERP software company back in 2008. This was not a conventional gig; I had run into office political issues including but not restricted to setup issues with my newly mastered company laptop and my higher-level supervisor had sided with the incompetent desktop support group manager (without my input). I had resolved the issue on my own {through an alternate VPN mode), but the desktop support group was in a state of denial and demanded to remaster the PC, escalating the issue with management. (The original issue had to do with registering my PC's version of MS Office over the company VPN.) I needed the laptop for other work-related software and worked remotely or at the client site, living about 100 miles from the company site.
The business unit I worked for was supporting the operation data store functionality of our data warehousing solution for our core signature production ERP database. ODS was basically an intermediary stage to EDW, a user-friendly copy of the production database typically updated overnight within an hour My typical responsibilities included setting up ODS and its intranet web-based management portal and/or training clients in the use of the portal. If the client agreed to give us access to their servers, we could work remotely, and they would save the costs of travel expenses. Of course, if we did work on-site, we had to comply with certain policies. For example, at one client in the LA area (not the one I will describe later), I had to eat at the college dining hall. On Long Island, I was constrained by NY state per diem allowances.
I noted with concern towards the end of my job, they had started to assign me to problem clients. such as a Kansas university where my supervisor had done the original install. Loyola Marymount (LA, CA) was a particularly unconventional gig. They had been having a support issue unresolved over the past 6 months. They argued that the overnight ODS refresh job that should have taken an hour was taking 24 hours or more. So I was being sent in, with zero support exposure or any briefing on the specifics on the issue. I'm sure the client had unrealistic expectations of what I could do
So I showed up. My point of contact, the DBA manager, was a friendly naturalized Venezuelan immigrant. I spent much of my first day,trying to research the problem and replicate it. I had maybe one senior support analyst I could contact back at company headquarters. At some point (the first or second day), the analyst mentioned there had been a known performance issue with the "old" code but the client had reported applying the patch. This would turn out to be the key to the problem and solution. But the bottom line was at the end of the first day, there was no resolution of the problem, and I met the impatient Asian-American IT manager, absolutely furious I hadn't resolved it already. He attacked me personally as incompetent and basically wanted me walked off the engagement. I know he escalated it to my high-level manager, and I was good as fired as soon as I left the client. But I had been booked all week, and my company wasn't going to replace me on the engagement.
On the second day, I made an unexpected discovery: some key dll files had been replaced by older ones, with newer versions archived. Effectively, the client had caused their own problem by manually or otherwise uninstalling the performance patch. The obvious solution was to revert to the updated files. My manual changes did the trick, with the new refresh job now occurring within the usual hour-long duration. The client wasn't ready to let me go until they replicated the refresh the next day. After that I took a red-eye back to the East Coast, got a message to call my high-level manager, and was fired. Life isn't fair.
But the DBA manager and I have remained friends to this day. He knows I resolved the long-standing issue and was happy to serve as a professional reference. As I tweeted, he had introduced me to chili dark chocolate. I don't recall how politics had surfaced in the conversation; I generally avoid talking politics at work. It was probably just small talk of a personal nature. (It wasn't obvious to me that he was an immigrant, either. Same thing with my Indian friend in Santa Clara, RN, initially working towards his green card. I quickly heard long rants on nefarious Pakistani leaders and the status of Kashmir, 101 Hindu gods and goddesses (he had gadgets in his car), and charming celebrations like Rakshabandhan (I have 4 little sisters).) I seem to recall it was more of his extended family back in Venezuela. We have had multiple exchanges since then over the disastrous Chavez and Maduro regimes. At last contact, his relatives were surviving; I think family in the states were trying to help out financially.
It should be no surprise to any familiar reader of my blog that I am pro-immigration. I don't believe in our protectionist quota system; I believe in the natural right to travel. It's something I've enjoyed my whole life in the states living and/or working in several states: TX, MA, FL, SC, KS, WI, IL, MO, CA, MD, WV, and AZ. Oh, there's some paperwork; I have to register my car title, transfer my drivers license, register to vote. But nothing like having to go to the Brazilian consulate in downtown Chicago to arrange a work visa for 2 business trips to São Paulo in 1995. The GOP, which promoted immigration reform from Reagan to George W. Bush's administration, has been hardline against immigration {while paying lip service to the long queues and legal immigrants). Both parties are exploiting labor protectionist fears of wage competition from immigrants. The right wing in particular talks up the moral hazard of the social welfare net, while many programs impose a waiting period for legal immigrants. In the meanwhile, particularly in a tight labor market of the recent post-pandemic economy, employers aren't able to hire the foreign workers they need, seasonally or on a permanent basis. It also seems heartless to deny entry for family members (say, aging parents) with sponsoring American residents.
There can be little doubt that the southern border situation is a mess with an estimate of up to 5 million unauthorized entries (some recurring) since Biden took office. There are policy nuances between Trump and Biden.
First of all, let's address at least 3 structural problems neither POTUS has addressed:
- an infrastructure based an an obsolete immigration pattern of primarily unaccompanied Mexican males looking for work. In the second wave starting around the 2010's, we saw a greater proportion from Central America, especially migrants from Guatemala, Honduras and El Salvador, in particular more families with children and unaccompanied minors. The pandemic temporarily reverted the trend to single adult males, but over Biden's tenure, the mix has reversed again to families/unaccompanied minors, with a growing share beyond the above sources, including Cubans, Venezuelans, Nicaraguans, Colombians, Haitians and others. With this, we've seen an increasing share of refugees, seeking asylum from repressive and/or socialist regimes.
- inadequate resources to provide basic migrant expenses, government/judicial resources during legal processing of refugee/other status
- backlogs in migrant processing.
Trump's nativist policies have been largely punitive in nature, focused on his infamous Southern wall, family separation, and Migration Protection Protocols (MPP) (i.e., remain in Mexico). Cato Institute, however, argues that Trump's promise to remove illegal immigrants was a failure, in part due to a lack of cooperation from local communities, e.g., sanctuary cities. What Trump succeeded into doing was basically crippling LEGAL immigration, which he sought to reduce by 2/3: "By November 2020, the Trump administration reduced the number of green cards issued to people abroad by at least 418,453 and the number of non‐immigrant visas by at least 11,178,668 during his first term through November 2020."
There were other ethically repulsive aspects to Trump's immigration policies including his caps on refugees: "Since taking office, President Trump’s administration has rained a hailstorm of policy actions on refugees and asylees. A newly published analysis identifies three types of policies: those that abandon longstanding U.S. legal principles and policies, most notably non-refoulement and due process; those that block the entry of refugees and asylees; and those that criminalize foreign nationals who attempt to seek asylum in the United States. Simply put, these are the As (abandoning), Bs (blocking) and Cs (criminalizing) of the Trump administration policies on refugees and asylees."
Although Biden has improved some qualitative aspects of migration, including family separation and MPP; he has also raised (in my view, inadequately) the refugee cap. I feel strongly that the US needs to step up on the refugee issue, in part because the US has meddled in the affairs of Cuba, Venezuela, and other Latin American nations and we bear some moral responsibility.
I think both Dems and Republicans are motivated by labor protectionism and there's little appetite on the Dem side beyond a resolution of the long-standing objective of DACA (legalizing undocumented former juvenile migrants). Political stunts like governors transporting migrants to northern sanctuary areas need to stop; they don't address the underlying problems. We need to radically reform the 3 problem areas highlighted above. I'm not sure how that's going to be achieved in the current bipartisan divide. It requires leadership, which I don't see coming from Trump or Biden.
