Immigration?

And who would that be? I don't recall seeing anyone post about not allowing legal immigrants - when needed.

And where we came from is irrelevant. This is 2013. Every person on the planet is descended from people from somewhere else...

I hope so. We needed immigrants in 1900. We do not need immigrants today in the middle of a poor economy and high unemployment - except for in some job categories with critical shortages...

Given that to qualify to begin the immigration process you have to have a job here that the company has proven that no american can be found to fill it surprises me that anyone is currently coming into the country at all with unemployment figures as high as they are.

Not if you go through Category 1 or as NIW. People in high education come this way all the time. USCIS - Green Card Through Self-Petition

I can see these being people who are going to be considered as high value - they must have to show means of being able to support themselves though mustn't they as you have to pay Social security contributions to be eligible for benefits?
I looked at some history - as the OP was asking for that sort of info and its quite interesting to see how the changes affected the figures
The first immigrants were mostly British and for obvious reasons the numbers coming in were low. The laws were introduced when 'people of colour' began to flood in. In the 1790 Act only 'Free White People' were allowed into the country - they did bring in indentured servants (slaves black or white) as presumably they were considered to be possessions and not people
In the 1860's Blacks were allowed entry but it wasnt until the 1950's that Asians were allowed following the Page Act of 1875 that prevented Asians entry to 'prevent cheap forced labour, prostitution and people fleeing from criminal acts'
In 1924 a Law was passed to restrict the entry of southern & eastern europeans - mostly aimed at Jews, Italians and Slavs
After WW2 Most refugees were barred from entry
In the 1930 depression era more people left the US than entered
After the ethnic quota rule was removed in 1965 the numbers of immigrants quadrupled - 9.6m in 1970 to 38m in 2007
The highest numbers of immigrations now come from Mexico, India, China & Phillipines
Two thirds of immigrants (legal) are now family members of the original immigrant - and this is where you can see the problem spiralling exactly as it has in the UK - because in 2009 66% of immigrants came in this way against only 13% who came in through employment skills.

I know this is the law but companies can and do find loop holes in the law. Several semi conductors companies do this on a regular company (industry I'm familiar with). They bring in a ton of foreign engineers every year claiming they can't fill the positions with american engineers. Problem is I know for a fact that american engineers, who fit the bill, have applied and don't get a job.

Why? Mostly because they abuse the engineers pretty bad and foreign engineer are more willing to take that abuse than american ones just to be here. I'm talking making 40k-60k/yr starting salary, working 80-100hr weeks(including weekends and salary so no OT), rarely getting a day off and willing to take a lot of crap from their bosses. Due to this there is a pretty darn high burnout rate so they need a constant supply of newly minted, compliant engineers.

I think if you looked at my previous post you will see that on research I found that only 13% of the immigrants for that period were actually employment related. If a company relocates someone they have to pay all the costs of the move and the Green card/visa applications which is pretty expensive - I suppose if they were bringing in cheap labour from Mexico etc it might work for them but no skilled engineer from any of the developed European countries would come here for those conditions as wages are much higher there as are the employment regulations by the sound of it. I'm amazed that Health & Safety/ workplace regs in the US would allow for it either - isnt that why so much manufacturing and production is now being located in countries like India & China where they have 'slave labour' readily available?

Still a lot of Semi Conductor manufacturing going on in the US. Mostly because that cheap slave labor can't be trusted to make good chips. They are getting better at it though so it is slowly shifting that way.

I don't think you can get any benefits legally (at least federal ones) till you become a citizen (which takes several years). And from what I know you have to work for at least 10 years to get SS and medicare. I think you can still get medicare if you are disabled, but I never dealt with it, so not sure really.

Actually, legal immigrants (non citizens) are eligible for lots of benefits, totalling billions of dollars. The link below, from the AFL-CIO hilights some of them, but there are others...

http://www.workingforamerica.org/doc.../checklist.asp

Personally, I have nothing against legal immigrants receiving essentially the same benefits as anyone else, with the exception of voting, of course, and holding public office. I do of course disagree with the specifics of many of the programs themselves, which are far too liberal and are partially responsible for society's entitlement attitude...