Life's breath

I listened to the crazy press conference on Thursday and was scratching my head wondering how we had gotten ourselves into this mess.Apart from the totally surreal tone and attitude exhibited in the conference, a few scary issues came up.He is apparently working on more immigration executive orders.The conference coincided with the the day that was being considered the "day of no immigrants" all over the US and this deranged press conference took away any exposure that the event would have had.I am not sure how it turned out.The press didn't cover it much, considering the freak show on display that day.

It struck me that that day was pretty much exclusively observed in the commercial world-more like restaurants and stores. I was wondering about the effect it would have if every immigrant had walked off the job for the day at say, Intel. I know the fab isn't overwhelmingly non-citizen, but pretty much the rest of Intel is. Even naturalized citizens who basically started off on a H1B visa need to walk off!! Intel would be ,I think, 70% empty. And ICE cannot step in because everyone there is there legally.Now multiply that by all the tech companies you could think of and can you imagine the economic impact of that?

Imagine doctors and others in the medical field deciding to observe such a day.Or immigrants employed in the educational field or in the world of finance doing it.The impact would be mind boggling. Catastrophic actually.

As much as illegal immigration is a drain on the economy, legal immigration even from supposedly unfriendly countries counterbalances that effectively.The net result will still be overwhelmingly positive.Even illegal immigrants contribute economically to society and as much the criminal element is part of the immigrant issue, the reality is that the net contribution, like I mentioned before, is still positive.That we need to staunch the flow of illegal immigrants is a no-brainer but we need a slow , well thought out set of legally binding laws that can be executed without any challenges being posed and with minimal disruption to our economy and its effective functioning.

But that is far too much to expect from this administration.Sane, logical and well thought out don't seem to be words they comprehend.Every press release, every statement coming out of the people there makes us wince and roll our eyes. This is not about Democrats and Republicans or the rich and the poor or blue collar and white collar.This is about the country as a whole and the direction we are headed in.And any amount of protests is not going to budge the present administration.

But I still think my idea would atleast make them take notice! Unless someone decides to hold yet another press conference -heaven forbid!!