Is there any connection between Obama wooing big businesses to get on board with his threat to go-it-alone on immigration and the spate of stories we are seeing about how much businesses love their refugee labor force?  I wonder.

First we note this must-read article at Politico about the Obama Administration working to expand its plans for an executive branch-driven immigration overhaul by sweetening the pot for big businesses looking for tech labor and cheap labor (in the case of refugees it is cheap and captive labor!).

 

Public opposition has been building against more immigration generally as the 2014 election season advances in light of the illegal alien invasion on the southern border this summer.  However, if Obama can get big business on board, and thus blunt any establishment Republican opposition to changes in immigration policy (law!), it could be a winner for the Dems and for big business this fall.

Politico:

Representatives from Oracle, Cisco, Fwd.US, Microsoft, Accenture, Compete America and the U.S. Chamber of Commerce were among those present at a wide-ranging Aug. 1 session…

Later in the story we hear from Tamar Jacoby that she doesn’t want the needs of employers who want low-skilled laborers left out of the discussion.  See also Jacoby with Grover Norquist in 2009 NumbersUSA expose’.

Why so many stories lately about the refugee resettlement contractors*** serving as employment services for businesses?

The contractors previously kept a pretty low profile about their services to businesses large and small (they especially like meatpacking companies and the hotel/service sector).

Just last week the Washington Post wrote glowingly about the role resettlement contractor Church World Service is playing in bringing refugee laborers to North Carolina, here.   I wonder do the businesses give CWS a finders-fee for bringing them laborers?

Now here is the Winston-Salem Journal telling us how much another contractor, World Relief (National Association of Evangelicals)  is doing for North Carolina businesses.  It is a win-win—contractors get to wear the white hat of humanitarianism while making money!   Is World Relief in competition for refugee bodies with CWS?

 

KERNERSVILLE — The work here at EFI, which makes architectural glass and aluminum, takes strength and skill. Glass sheets can weigh as much as 155 pounds and the measurements must be exact. On a summer morning, the plant floor is noisy and hot.

In the company’s early years, it had trouble finding and keeping reliable employees. But these days, when Jeanne Clary, the company’s human resources director, has a vacancy she calls the World Relief office in High Point, a local refugee resettlement agency.

“I will almost always call World Relief first,” said Clary.

[….]

Andrew Timbie, the director of the High Point office of World Relief, has spent the summer making a pitch to his national office to send refugees this way. He expects to resettle 450 refugees in the next year, with a handful from Syria. “Generally speaking it’s a very good area for refugee resettlement,” he said. “The weather’s good. It’s warm. There’s a newcomer’s school. There are clinics here. There are lots of jobs for refugees.”

With the federal and state welfare goodies coming their way, businesses don’t have to feel bad about the low wages that are discouraging American workers.

The federal government provides refugees with a stipend that lasts for three months and extended federal benefits for six more months. They are also eligible for state aid, such as food stamps and Medicaid. But Timbie’s first goal is to help refugees find a job. In spite of North Carolina’s unemployment rate of 6.4 percent, Timbie said he can count on a handful of employers other than EFI that are eager to hire refugees, among them Ralph Lauren Corp. and Tyson Foods Inc..

LOL!  Tyson Foods is no surprise, they hire refugees and change American small towns throughout the mid West and South.  But, see Ralph Lauren goes to North Carolina, here—  says they will bring high-skilled jobs.  So how do the third-world refugees fit in?  Are they going to clean the offices at night?

There is much more in the W-S Journal, so please read it.

We have many posts here on North Carolina.  You might wish to review several from 2010 in which contractors (the Lutherans at that time) in North Carolina came under fire for overloading some locations and then not taking proper care of the refugees they resettled.

***The federal refugee resettlement contractors (I suspect grant recipient big dogs Baptist Child and Family Services and Southwest Key Programs  are now devouring all the federal cash):