COMMENTARY

Shooting first, fact-checking later

CORRECTION: Mary Sanchez's Feb. 24 column in the Opinion pages misstated some of the processes involved when businesses want to hire foreign workers. To apply for temporary H-1B visas, employers must prove to the U.S. Labor Department that they will pay a prevailing wage. But they do not have to prove they could not find U.S. citizens who were qualified or available for positions.

When hard times hit the economy, people tend to look for someone to blame, and all too often that someone is a foreigner. Fear and distrust, sometimes justified and sometimes fueled by ignorance, can easily turn into rabid xenophobia. I remember well a demonstration in Kansas City in 1991 when people turned out with sledgehammers and crow bars to bash a red Toyota Tercel to smithereens. It was ugly.

That scene came to mind as I considered the rising furor that arose in response to some overheated reporting by The Associated Press.

American banks that had accepted federal bailout money, the AP reported, had tried to hire thousands of workers from overseas, at a time when they were cutting U.S. workers. The story was waved about like a bloody shirt by groups with names such as the Coalition for the Future American Worker, and then by congressional members hoping to pump up their "pro-American" bona fides. Too bad the story was based on incomplete reporting. The banks sought the foreigners through the government’s H-1B visa program, which is intended to allow companies to hire highly skilled foreign talent when U.S. workers can’t fill the bill. The reporters counted up visa applications from a dozen U.S. banks -- more than 21,800 during six years -- but didn’t find out how many of the visas were approved, much less how many workers were ever hired.

No matter, newspapers around the country, including my own, placed the story on the front page. Without more information, people were understandably outraged.

Only later did further tracking down of details find that in 2007 -- the latest year for which statistics were available -- none of the 12 largest banks who started receiving TARP bailout funds in 2008 had actually hired substantial numbers of foreign workers to work in the U.S. Bank of America, for example, had hired 66 such workers, or 0.03 percent of its workforce of 210,000. And 51 of those hires were for its global equities arm. Hardly a foreign worker takeover.

Nonetheless, folks like Sen. Chuck Grassley of Iowa lost no time in exploiting the story, sponsoring an amendment to the $787 billion stimulus plan that made it more difficult for TARP recipients to hire foreign workers on H-1B visas. The wording basically mimicked existing regulations, but it made good theater for Grassley.

Clearly, we need to put as many Americans back to work as possible. But that shouldn’t include a misapplied zeal based on a fundamental misunderstanding of how our economy relates to the rest of the world.

There have been abuses of visa programs intended to hire workers not available in the U.S. market, such as employers’ hiding their job postings so U.S. job seekers don’t apply, or writing a job description so narrowly that a pre-selected immigrant was the only person "qualified."

Yet the general public should also bear in mind that foreign workers often are credited with sparking business and technological innovations, which in turn lead to more hiring. Some studies of technology firms have shown that for every foreigner brought into a firm on an H-1B visa, 7.5 U.S. workers find employment as a result.

Those bent on fuming and stewing about "foreigners" might wind up scuttling the very sort of innovation that leads to more business formation, profitability and growth. As with those folks in Kansas City who so furiously attacked that Toyota, the truth often gets missed when sentiments are inflamed.

And that could result in fewer and smaller paychecks all around.

Distributed by Tribune Media Services

To reach Mary Sanchez, call 816-234-4752 or send e-mail to msanchez@kcstar.com.

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