He believes immigration is a very good thing - and not just because so many of his most talented engineers hail from foreign lands. Rodgers was one of high-tech's loudest voices speaking out against curbing legal immigration during this year's debate on Capitol Hill. But when it came to illegal immigration, Rodgers said nothing remotely resembling what he told me. In fact, he said nothing at all.
Illegal immigrants are a pariah, politically.
So if you want to maintain legal immigration, then you always do your little 'of course we're not talking about illegal immigration, but' - you just have to throw those things in. Rodgers's statement captures, in a nutshell, the high-tech industry's strategy in the immigration debate. Politically, the rationale was also crystal. Conversely, therefore, the best way to defeat cutbacks in legal immigration is to keep them from piggybacking on a measure dealing with illegals. But the nasty flip side of this strategy is that it basically guaranteed that a hard-hitting illegal immigration bill would be passed this year.