Article Headline: Billionaire Steve Case Says Immigrants Will Offset Middle Class Job Losses – The Daily Caller, Neil Munro 12/5/13.
Fact Check: This article describes a speech by Steve Case before the business-supported BipartisanPolicyCenter in Washington in which he expressed concern about the job losses suffered by middle class Americans. Chase is the founder of the first successful Internet firm, America Online.
Given that concern, one would think that Case would have opposed the immigration bill passed in the Senate which would bring in large numbers of foreign workers to take high-tech jobs that many Americans are able to do. For example, despite claims that we have a shortage of engineers, the Center for Immigration Studies notes that there are 1.6 million Americans with engineering degrees who are either unemployed or working in other fields.
But unfortunately that’s not what he said. As the article in the Daily Caller notes, “Case is a leading advocate for increased immigration, and he’s got a $200 million investment capital firm that invests in new high tech-companies which hire cheap, immigrant high-skill labor.” So how is displacing Americans from middle-class jobs in tech fields going to help the American middle-class?
Case told his audience that immigrants are such outstanding entrepreneurs that they will end up creating as many or more jobs than they take. This is indeed the standard line of business leaders who want more foreign workers while claiming that they care about unemployed Americans. And just where is the proof that foreigners hired as tech workers are going to be any more entrepreneurial than American tech workers?
As usual with such claims, Case offers none, other than citing to The Daily Caller two examples of “immigrants” starting major U.S. corporations. One of them was Henry Ford, who came to the U.S. from the foreign land of Michigan. Yes, the America Online founder didn’t know that Ford was a native-born American. Such a statement suggests profound ignorance of American history, and perhaps as well, a profound indifference to the future of Americans.
The Daily Caller article observers that Case is one of several billionaires, including outgoing New York Mayor Mike Bloomberg, Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg, and Microsoft founder Bill Gates, who advocate more immigration. As these wealthy men seek more cheap labor, middle-class Americans will pay the price.