Thread: Breaking: Congress gets new visa push

computerworld.com
Google loses big in H-1B lottery as Congress gets new visa push
Senate bill would allow advance degree holders to get green cards
By Patrick Thibodeau

June 5, 2008 (Computerworld) WASHINGTON -- The effort in Congress to make it easier for tech companies to hire foreign nationals gained support today from two U.S. senators who are pushing a bill to give foreign nationals who earn advanced degrees in the U.S. permanent residency.

The latest measure comes as one large tech employer, Google Inc., complained, publicly, that 90 of its 300 H-1B applications were rejected in the government lottery for visas. The U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS) held a lottery after receiving 163,000 applications for 85,000 visas (download PDF). That figure includes 20,000 visas set aside for advanced degree holders.

The Senate legislation, unveiled today by Sens. Barbara Boxer (D-Calif.) and Judd Gregg (R-N.H.), will allow foreign national graduates of U.S. universities to receive Green Cards, or permanent resident status -- as long as they have a job offer.

Details about the legislation were not immediately available, but the Senate measure is a companion bill to legislation already introduced in the U.S. House of Representatives (HR 6039 by Rep. Zoe Lofgren, (D-Calif.), a spokesman for Boxer's office said today.

These two bills would exempt STEM (science, technology, engineering and mathematics) advanced degree graduates from the annual 140,000-person limit on permanent residency, employer-based visas.

"Ensuring that the U.S. is competitive in technology means making sure that future innovators are putting their knowledge to work here, not competing against us abroad," said Boxer, in a in a statement. "The best way to do that is to offer Green Cards to those foreign graduates with career opportunities in the U.S."

Although there is bipartisan support for increasing the H-1B visa cap, those efforts have been stymied by the legislative deadlock over broader immigration reform. As a result, supporters are focusing on the Green Card limits and advanced degree holders, where presumably they can make the strongest case for keeping these workers in the U.S.

Keith Wolfe, Google's global mobility manager and Pablo Chavez, its senior policy counsel, provided some insight today on the company's public policy blog about its experiences with the H-1B cap.

Google submitted 300 H-1B applications this year, "and we're sorry to report that 90 hopefuls were denied," they wrote on the blog.

It was unclear whether those workers would be denied any job at Google or just U.S.-based jobs. Ask to clarify that point, a Google spokesperson said in an e-mail: "As a company with a global presence, we're fortunate enough to be able to have employees work for us in other countries if they're not permitted to stay in the U.S. That said, many of our core products are created and improved upon here. We also believe that worker satisfaction is higher when employees can work in the location they prefer."

Wolf and Chavez defended Google's hiring of H-1B workers. "Although we're committed to hiring outstanding American candidates, Google hires employees based on skills and qualifications, not on nationality. Many times our strongest candidates are Americans; in fact, about nine out of 10 of our U.S.-based employees are citizens or permanent residents. But if we're to remain an innovative company -- one that is creating jobs in the U.S. every day -- we also need to hire exceptional candidates who happen to have been born elsewhere."

Google received more than 1 million resumes, Wolfe and Chavez wrote on their blog.

http://tinyurl.com/48lj2e

The Senate legislation, unveiled today by Sens. Barbara Boxer (D-Calif.) and Judd Gregg (R-N.H.), will allow foreign national graduates of U.S. universities to receive Green Cards, or permanent resident status -- as long as they have a job offer.

Well of course they are going to "have a job offer". What traitorous company in their right mind wouldnt make foreigners a job offer if it meant offering them less money than they would normally pay for an American citizen to work the same job?

Keith Wolfe, Google's global mobility manager and Pablo Chavez, its senior policy counsel, provided some insight today on the company's public policy blog about its experiences with the H-1B cap.

Google, just like Microsoft, want to keep foreigners here for less pay. And of course their "senor policy counsel" is non other than Pablo Chavez, a Hispanic who is looking out for the benefit of fellow Hispanics only.

Google received more than 1 million resumes, Wolfe and Chavez wrote on their blog.

I wonder how many of the 1 million resumes were received from Americans, who are for some reason finding it harder and harder to find a job with the same "advanced degrees"?

"Details about the legislation were not immediately available, but the Senate measure is a companion bill to legislation already introduced in the U.S. House of Representatives (HR 6039 by Rep. Zoe Lofgren, (D-Calif.), a spokesman for Boxer's office said today."

Not surprising that the "companion" bill was from Lofgren who happens to be an Immigration Lawyer, suppose the Rep. has an AGENDA!

newsblaze.com
Published: June 05, 2008
SIIA Endorses New Legislation to Retain Foreign-Born Graduates with Critical Expertise as Boost to American Innovation and Competitiveness

Organization supports actions of Senators Barbara Boxer and Judd Gregg

WASHINGTON, June 5 /PRNewswire-USNewswire/ -- Today the Software & Information Industry Association (SIIA) praised Senators Barbara Boxer (D-CA) and Judd Gregg (R-NH) for introducing legislation exempting highly educated, foreign-born students earning an advanced degree in science, technology, engineering or mathematics from a U.S. university from the annual employment-based (EB) green card limit.

"The bill introduced by Senators Boxer and Gregg will help stop the exporting of America's intellectual seed corn," said SIIA President Ken Wasch. "These are some of the best and brightest young minds in the world, and they are being educated here in America. They want to work here and have a critical role to play in ensuring the continued growth and strength of American businesses."

"In the global economy, we simply can't afford to continue educating students in the U.S. and then sending them home to become our competitors," Wasch noted.

U.S. employers, particularly highly-innovative software and digital content companies, rely on EB green cards to keep much-needed and sought-after highly educated professionals working and innovating in America. Backlogs in the EB green card system are well documented, with some foreign-born highly educated professionals waiting more than 10 years to receive a permanent resident visa.

"There will be more than two million job openings in the software and information occupations between 2006 and 2016, according to a report SIIA issued this year," Wasch continued. "It is expected that there will be almost 450,000 openings for computer software engineers alone. Exporting highly educated students in the face of such demand is devastating for high tech innovation in the U.S. and undercuts America's economic standing in the world. We applaud Senators Boxer and Gregg for their legislation aimed addressing this situation and boosting American competitiveness."

This legislation is a companion to a bipartisan bill (H.R. 6039) that was introduced last month in the House of Representatives by Representatives Zoe Lofgren (D-CA) and Chris Cannon (R-UT).

For more information regarding SIIA's report on the economic impact of the software and information industries as referenced above, please visit: www.siia.net/govt.


About SIIA

The Software & Information Industry Association (SIIA) is the principal trade association for the software and digital content industry. SIIA provides global services in government relations, business development, corporate education and intellectual property protection for more than 550 leading software and information companies. For further information, visit www.siia.net.

SOURCE Software & Information Industry Association

http://newsblaze.com/story/200806051403 ... story.html

Here's relevant research from the CIS for review:

H-1Bs: Still Not the Best and the Brightest
May 2008
By Norman Matloff

Excerpt:

[i]In pressuring Congress to expand the H-1B work visa and employment-based green card programs, industry lobbyists have recently adopted a new tack. Seeing that their past cries of a tech labor shortage are contradicted by stagnant or declining wages, their new buzzword is innovation. [b]Building on their perennial assertion that the foreign workers are “the best and the brightest,â€

"In the global economy, we simply can't afford to continue educating students in the U.S. and then sending them home to become our competitors," Wasch noted.

Well, perhaps we should stop educating them here! Let India (example) educate it's own and we'll educate Americans for American jobs. If Microsoft, Google, etc. have offices in India, than staff those offices with folks who have benefited from the India educational system. Doing this would end the risk of educating future competitors. There is more than one way to skin a cat!

Further related info on the VISA push by Google and other companies (see CIS report above about the supposed "innovative" and the "best and brightest" students from other countries):

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New US Visa Could End H-1B Visa Woes
06/06/2008 by Bryan Palmer

The cap on H-1B visas in the US has been widely controversial, particularly by companies like Google who seek talented foreigners - a new bill in Congress could however be a saving grave.

The most common way for people to come to the US is via the H-1B temporary US visa. This visa allows a foreigner to work in the US, provided they have a job offer. However there is an 85 000 people quota each year and visas are given via a lottery.

This year Google applied for 300 H-1B visas, however they only received 90; it is because of this that that they have become strong supporters on an initiative that will provide Green Cards to foreign nationals with advanced degrees.

This would allow foreigner graduates from US universities to receive permanent residency status on the basis of a job offer.

It has often been said that if America want to remain innovators, particularly in the technological sector they must attain the best and brightest talent but current laws hamper this - this new bill may be the solution.

http://www.globalvisas.com/news/new_us_ ... es196.html