Broken And Obsolete Analysis

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“Repaired and Modern” The author of the article “Broken and Obsolete,” Fareed Zakaria, believes that due to the divide in the beliefs of Republicans and Democrats coupled with the poor immigration laws currently in the US, the present immigration status will remain as it is, as he states “broken.” The author gives a few reasons for this belief coupled with examples, like the idea that other countries have been transforming themselves into immigrant societies, adopting many of America's best ideas and even improving on them, and as a result the U.S. is not as exceptional as it once was, and its immigration advantage is lessening. However, overall his claims are wrong because the supporting evidence behind the comparisons that he makes are…show more content…
This is asserted almost immediately after he mentions green cards, which signify permanent residence in a country. However, this is a ludicrous comparison because they are like comparing apples to oranges. While they are similar in their nature, being that they both relate to immigration (as apples and oranges are both fruit), beyond that they have nothing more in common whatsoever. The H-1B visa is non-immigration visa and is strictly used to bring cheaper labor into the country, giving jobs to citizens of foreign countries for a set amount of time. After the job ends, the person quits, or their visa expires they must immediately find new employment in the field in which they are qualified or return to their home country. Zakaria makes the H1-B visa seem like a positive thing to American society as well, but this is also untrue. This visa discourages American citizens from going into fields where people with H1-B visas are commonly employed. Also, money earned by H1-B visa holders is usually sent back to their home countries to support their families there, and once the job ends the skills that they have acquired while working their specific job usually winds up leaving with…show more content…
In fact, while it is not mentioned by Zakaria at all, “the topic of foreign workers has been politically complicated by U.S. concerns about controlling the influx of workers from Mexico. But since the financial crisis, the number of Mexican workers moving to the U.S. has slowed dramatically. Canada, meanwhile, has tended to have higher average unemployment than the U.S., but now the tables have turned. Today unemployment in the U.S. is still high at 8.1 per cent--compared to Canada's 7.3 per cent--but that figure doesn't take into account the millions of Americans not counted in the statistics because they have given up looking for work. In Alberta and Saskatchewan, the unemployment rate is just 4.9 per cent” (Savage 28). The article “Broken and Obsolete” actually makes no attempt to show that Congress is already trying to fix the problems associated with skilled labor immigration either, although “Congress is considering whether to make permanent resident status available to foreign graduates of U.S. universities in science, technology, engineering, and math” (Matloff Flake 18). This should be common knowledge which is easily available to anyone looking, especially someone doing a report

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