Mayor bashes Obama, Congress on immigration
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In a passionate plea for immigration reform, an unplugged Mayor Michael Bloomberg on Tuesday criticized the Obama administration and said politicians don't take the issue seriously.<br />
The mayor made the comments at a panel discussion that also featured Mexican billionaire Ricardo Salinas and at which a report on why the U.S. is failing to attract and retain talent was unveiled.
The report—by the Partnership for New York City, a local group of big businesses; and the Partnership for a New American Economy, a national coalition of mayors and business people—noted that foreign countries are shaping immigration policies to boost their economies, while a broken U.S. immigration system turns away the workers it needs for economic growth.
He criticized the Obama administration for failing to lead on the issue.
"Today, with a liberal Democratic administration on Pennsylvania Avenue, we are deporting more people than the last four or five presidents put together," he said, in an arguably contradictory statement. "Somehow or other, I missed where all of this came from or is going."
The report said that the country faces a projected shortfall of 230,000 qualified workers in the science, technology, engineering and math fields by 2018 and that other countries are outmaneuvering the U.S. for talent with immigration policies that attract and retain skilled workers. Among other recommendations, it suggested granting green cards automatically to university graduates with advanced degrees; awarding more green cards based on employment needs; creating a visa for foreign entrepreneurs to create businesses here; and scrapping limits on skilled visas.
Mr. Bloomberg said the debate on immigration is framed around a "myth of masses of people coming across the border in the middle of the night," pilfering government services, but that the reality is far from that. The mayor credited immigrants with helping New York City's economy rebound faster than the rest of the nation. He said he wasn't "dissing everybody" else, but that immigrants work harder and have helped to revitalize neighborhoods across the city.
