Anti-Immigrant Bills, Film Gives Honest Look at Immigration, and Bill Gates Warns Congress
âºAnti-Immigrant Bills Update
Indiana senators killed a bill that would have punished businesses that hired undocumented workers on Thursday, March 13. Lawmakers could not agree on the bill in a legislative conference committee. The bill passed the state of Indiana house and had it passed could have resulted negatively for some in Latino community. Mary Jane Gonzalez, president of the Indiana State Hispanic Chamber of Commerce told the Indianapolis Star that the community will be better prepared next time. “These things are going to keep coming up year after year.”
Utah’s Governor Jon Huntsman Jr. signed SB81, a bill that would allow local police to enforce immigration law and force some employers to verify legal status on their workers. The law would also make it a Class A misdemeanor for anyone who conceals, transports, harbors or shelters the undocumented. Church, charities, and humanitarian groups are exempt from this law.
In congress, Republicans are trying a petition to force a vote on the SAVE Act, which would add 8,000 border patrol agents and increase deportations. The petition would require a simple majority of 218 signatures for a vote to happen in the House of Representatives. Presently, the bill has 163 signatures including the bill’s sponsor, Rep. Heath Schuler (D-N.C.). Republicans are hoping that Democrats in the center of their political views, will sign the petition.
âºWatch for Columbian Film, Paraiso Travel
Paraiso Travel, a film that Time Magazine called “an honest look at illegal immigration” is setting box office records in Columbia. The director, Simon Brand told TIME magazine that he wanted to make a film that makes people from Latin American to think twice about coming to the United States illegally but also a film that made Americans think twice about how they treat the undocumented when they get to the U.S.
The main story is on the tale of two youngsters Reina (Angelica Blandon) and Marlon (Aldemar Correa) who pay a Medellin travel agency $3,000 to take a flight from Columbia to Panama, then a bus, and eventually walk to the U.S. The goal of the young couple is to find a fortune in the United States that unfortunately for them becomes a nightmare. The film premieres at New York’s Tribeca film festival in April.
âºBill Gates Wants More Foreign Born Scientists and Engineers
The world’s third richest man and chairman for Microsoft, Bill Gates warned Congress on Wednesday, March 12 that the United States needs to improve its education system and that the country needs to allow entry for more scientists and engineers from foreign born nations. In the House of Representatives’ Science and Technology Committee, he warned, “if we don’t do both, U.S. companies simply will not have the talent they need to innovate and compete.”
Gates was advocating for more H-1B visas for skilled foreign nationals. He was quoted by Forbes magazine as saying, “The fact that their smartest people want to come here has been a huge advantage for us and in a sense we’re throwing that away.”
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