Immigration and firm news

Murdoch and Bloomberg Appear Before Congress on Immigration

On September 30, 2010, Rupert Murdoch, Chief Executive of News Corp., which owns Fox News, the Wall Street Journal and many other media outlets, along with New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg testified before the House Judiciary Committee in support for immigration reform. Both recently founded the Partnership for a New American Economy, an organization of mayors and top business leaders who support expanding the types and numbers of visas for qualified workers in the U.S., as well as providing a path to citizenship for the millions of people in the U.S. without proper documents. Mr. Murdoch was questioned why his position on immigration reform is not evident from the anti-immigrant sentiment on Fox News, to which he replied, “we do not take any consistent anti-immigrant line.” Both gentlemen expressed their frustration with Congress for doing nothing to fix the immigration system. As I discussed previously in my post, Comprehensive Immigration Reform Act of 2010 S.3932, Senators Robert Menendez and Patrick Leahy introduced S.3932 yesterday, the first Senate immigration reform proposal since 2007.

Mayor Bloomberg, meanwhile, said earlier that current US immigration policy is “national suicide.” He said we should be stapling green cards to foreign students’ graduation certificates and we should make it easier for immigrants to come here to start businesses.

The Partnership for a New American Economy, www.reneweourconomy.org, “brings together a bipartisan group of mayors from across the country and business leaders from all sectors of the economy to raise awareness of the economic benefits of sensible immigration reform.” The Partnership advocates these essential components of comprehensive immigration reform: secure our borders; create a simple and efficient employment verification system for employers; increase visa opportunities for the best and brightest immigrants to work lawfully in the U.S.; streamline procedures; create a path to citizenship for undocumented immigrants; and strengthen immigrant and citizenship integration programs.