Thread: "Cut the (H-1B) Cap" -- suggested in a blog in CIO

American students are discouraged from entering computer science and other tech fields, because the importation of foreign visa workers sends a message that you will never be able to make a good living. Why would American parents spend thousands on for their children to get degrees in fields where they cannot earn a living?

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Here's the blog article:

http://advice.cio.com/gary_beach/memo_t ... page=0%2C0


Posted: Tue, Jul 3, 2007 15:54 EDT
Memo to Congress:Cut H1B Visas by 50%
Written by: Gary Beach in Rants
Topic: IT Organization Management

Blog: The Math/Science Imperative
Comments: 11

There is much debate about the H1B visa program, a non-immigrant visa category created by the Immunization and Nationality Act that allows employers to "seek temporary help (up to six years) from skilled foreigners who have the equivalent of a U.S. Bachelor's Degree education".

The program is currently capped at 65,000 visas per year and the U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services agency has already received over 130,000 appliications for those 65,000 visas slated to be filled in the fed fiscal beginning on October 1, 2007.

Those wishing to keep the cap at 65,000 say increasing it would cost jobs for American workers. A recent video posted on YouTube by a Pittsburgh law firm provides vivid documentation of that "here's how not to hire Americans" strategy in action.

The camp vying to raise the cap are largely U.S. based tech firms - and Indian outsourcers - who claim hundreds of thousands of tech jobs go unfilled in America because of the tech skills shortage. Aside: a recent CIO Magazine Tech Poll study reports almost 40% of CIOs claim IT labor is "hard to find and keep".

The "raise the cap" group puts pressure on Congress to do so or face the prospect of job losses in their districts, something no elected official wants to face.

Both sides are dead wrong in this debate.

My solution: starting with this upcoming fiscal Congress should CUT the H1B visa cap by 50% to 32,500 and then sunset the entire misguided program by fiscal year 2014.

Here's my reasoning.

Look at the big picture. The People's Republic of China, with 1.2 billion people, produces about 370,000 science/math/engineering degrees each year. Put another way, about .00032% of its population.

Go west to India, a nation of 900 million residents, and they produce about 317,000 such degrees...or about exactly the same percentage as the PRC.

Go further west to the United States. Out of a population of 300 million we annually produce about 58,000 science/math/engineering degrees.

Forget about the raw numbers....we will never catch China or India.

Look at the percentages. Our 58,000 degrees is about .00019% of our population. That's a loooooooong way - 70% - behind China and India.

As a starting point for America we need to put in place a national technology/education policy that aims to match that .00032 percent withina decade.

Not quite the let's put a man on the moon and bring him home in a decade challenge issued by President Kennedy, but at least it's a start.

To match China and India we need to produce about 40,000 additional science/math/engineering degrees a year.

The 57,000 homegrown degrees plus the 32,500 H1B visa's almost gets us there.

The key component of my idea, however, is not cutting the cap in half. Nope, that's the easy part.

The real teeth of the idea is sunsetting it within six years. Facing that reality, I do believe firms in America would be more open to hiring skilled, experienced - and yes - more expensive tech talent in America....and possibly most important is this.....it says to all those young Americans in middle school, high school and college "study math/engineering/science...when you graduate there will be jobs for you in America"

Nothing good happens without pain. I am the first to admit this radical idea would cause initial pain....probably for four+ years.

But the upside is this: H1B visas are poorly constructed band aids when the solution is screaming for a systemic tourniquet change.

We need to ween our country off the addiction of H1B visas...and we need to do it now.

Write your Congressional representative. Tell him/her you want Congress to cut the cap in half and then phase the whole thing out by 2014.

Post this blog anywhere you can.

Let "Cut the Cap" be our rallying cry!!!!!

More dirty linen keeps popping out of the closet on this issue every day. This article is especially enlightening for those who imagine that because the H-1B is a legal thing, that it does not belong in a discussion group that focuses on illegal immigration. But now we are finding more and more skirting and even breaking of the law to bring large numbers of people people here on this and other guestworker visas.

Hyderabad, Bangalore: India's H-1B visa fraud hubs

The elusive H-1B visa, for which young software professionals yearn, has been severely compromised. Middlemen are exploiting the system by creating fake IT companies in the United States and obtaining these visas for a hefty sum without even a job.

This leaves thousands of deserving candidates in the lurch since there are only 65,000 such visas issued every year.

For most people, a stamp on the passport is the last hurdle crossed to launch their careers in the US. But for many getting this H-1B visa stamp is just the beginning of a painful journey of exploitation, underpayment, and unemployment.

This is the world of H-1B visa fraud, a well-oiled nexus of fake employers, job counsellors and immigration experts. Newspapers and cyberspace are filled with luring advertisements that claim to get you an H-1B for a price tag. So, can they?

Apparently they can. In a busy suburb of Mumbai, one such H-1B consultant is busy carrying out business. We approached them as H-1B aspirants eager to fly to the US. The range of services on offer was shocking. Here is the conversation we had with this agent:

Agent: We will get you a fake employer. He'll file for your H-1B. He will have a proper company and will be a US citizen.

Us: So what happens once we get there?

Agent: The fake employer who files for your H-1B will give you a work permit and will get away and once you get there, this fake employer will give you a no-objection certificate (NOC), saying you can work with any employer.

Us: Will you find me a job there?

Agent: Once you are there, we have people who will help you with contacts. We can only assist you.

Us: How much will it cost?

Agent: $2,250 will be the immigration fee, $2,250 will be lawyers charges.

Us: Do many people go to the US using this route?

Agent: People who know and who have relatives ask for fake employers. They want to go there on real jobs. . . Because here you won't get a job as good as the one you can get when you are in the US.

Us: How long it'll take to find a real job?

Agent: Jobs in the US are tremendous. The problem is not getting a job but getting a visa. We will have all the interviews lined up for you and once you get there, you will attend those and find a job.

********************

Using this route, these so-called counsellors send professionals to the US practically without a job. The search for jobs begins only after applicants land in the US. Individuals cannot apply for an H-1B visa on their own. Their employer must petition for them. Petitions for this visa begin on April 1 every year.

Once the petitions get approved, the employer sends the approved form to the employee who then appears for the visa interview in his home country. This visa is issued for a particular job but most of the times the so-called visa counsellors help candidates bypass this requirement. They take them to the US on fake job letters.

But sometimes touts go wrong too and that leaves many holding on to their H-1B visas endlessly waiting to get to the US.

Ramesh was one such victim. This 27-year-old engineer (whose real name has been withheld) narrated his plight from California. He told CNBC-TV18, "I was in India when I found a desi consultant. I got the reference from a friend. This company was basically into IT consulting. . . they took $3,000 from me and told me they'll give me a good job opportunity because they had clients and stuff."

"Till the time I gave them money, they were very courteous and told me that they'll give me a lot of salary and a lot of incentive and bonus. So, I was thinking it was a good company to start with. When my petition got approved and I told them I want to get to the US as soon as possible, their behaviour changed. They said we don't have any clients as of now and we don't have much knowledge about your field."

He finally succeeded in getting to the US, although he is still struggling to get his original documents from his counsellor.

But everyone doesn't get as lucky as Ramesh. Manoj, an H-1B visa holder is still waiting for the past one year to fly to the US. This 28-year-old was happy working in a leading multinational firm in Hyderabad, till he decided to head to the land of opportunities.

Like thousands of others like him, he too approached a consultant to help him realise his dream to work in the US. His H-1B petition got approved in October 2006 but it was then that his ordeal started. Instead of taking him to the US, his broker took away his visa documents needed for him to take off.

He then asked Manoj to buy an IP phone with a US number and start looking for a job. Manoj spent many sleepless nights talking to his prospective employers in the US, all the time telling them that he was in the US. Most of the time, the job offers fell through when the employers, thinking Manoj was in the US, wanted him to join at a very short notice.

US authorities admit H-1B visa frauds are rampant. Last year alone, they found 2,000 H-1B applications suspicious. These applications were returned to the US Department of Homeland Security for reconsideration. The Consular Section Chief, US Consulate, Mumbai, Glen Keiser, says, "We also see people who are going to jobs that we suspect do not exist. These people are unable to describe their projects to us. When we do even a cursory examination, we may find that the company in the US is simply nothing more than just a shell. Neither are they in a position to offer work themselves nor do they have a client base, where they can send a qualified worker."

This year, 150,000 people applied for the quota of 65,000 H-1B visas. More than 40% of these petitions were made by Indians and the US consulate says a large number of applications that come to them are suspect.

Keiser explains: "We have found to our regret that Hyderabad and Bangalore are centres of H-1B visa fraud and that it is not difficult to walk into an operation and someone rather forthrightly tells you that they can produce anything to appear to qualify for an H-1B visa. And, in fact, we have had our employees conduct such operations and walking into such agents' office and ask questions."

The US consulate in India is increasing manpower in its fraud investigation team. They are also taking a tough stand against such fraudsters. As Keiser says, "We take such cases very seriously. If we can verify that you are presenting a fraudulent case to us, we will bar you for the rest of your life to enter the US. If we find out that you as an agent are assisting someone to illegally enter the US, we can even bar you from getting any kind of US visa."

But while the US government toughens its stands against such fraudsters in India, these consultants continue their business in broad daylight. A few consultants told us that, they can illegally get us smaller jobs in the US, till the time they find work for us that is suited to our qualifications.

One consultant told us, "You can work as a waiter or in a convenience store till you find a job. A lot of people do that. After all, you would have spent so much money in getting the H-1B visa."

Keiser says, "This is not legal. We are not taking in people to pump gas or to bake donuts. This visa is to bring in specialised knowledge workers to the United States and make them work for jobs they are qualified to do. That is to say, if I am a computer programmer, I am going to do computer programming and not pump gas till the time someone finds me a job of a computer programmer."

It's a vicious circle -- scamsters eat up the H-1B quota and force genuine Indian companies to depend on them for their manpower requirement. Valid for six years, H-1B visas allow highly skilled foreign workers to work in the US in specialised fields like IT, computing, accounting and finance.

Last year, out of the top 10 companies that received H-1B visas, 7 were Indian firms.

Pradeep Udhas, global head, sourcing advisory, KPMG, says, "Today, India's software companies are booming. They depend a lot on H-1B visas because their business models are such that they need people to be onsite. Their business models won't work if the H-1B visas are not given."

Last year, nine Indian IT companies bagged about 20,000 of the 65,000 H-1B visas issued. Seven Indian companies including Infosys [Get Quote], Satyam [Get Quote], Wipro [Get Quote] and Tata Consultancy [Get Quote] figured in the top 10 receivers of H-1B visas globally. Yet, Wipro got only 24%, while Infosys managed to get only 20% of what they petitioned for. Both the companies petitioned for 20,000 H-1B visas each. Wipro got 4,908, while infosys got 4,002 H-1B visas.

Immigration lawyer, Poorvi Chothani explains, "We represent a lot of IT companies who petition for their H-1B visas. This year, with a lot of petitions and the lottery system, we fear we will not be able to get them even half of their requirement."

The H-1B visa crunch forces these companies to hire from the H-1B workers' pool of these scamsters. . . and that too at a premium. Udhas says, "A lot of these IT companies are then forced to talk to these 'onesy-twosy' consultants and say, 'Okay, you give me your people.' These consultants take a huge cut for providing the services of these H-1B workers, without adding any value." [“BODYSHOPSâ€

I'm also seeing more and more negative comments by Indians concerning the visa abuse. This seems driven by the realization that even if they can afford to send their kids to prestigious American universities, the kids can't stay and work in the US because the [mostly Indian] bodyshops are hogging all the visas.

CUT THE CAP!!!!

Sounds good to me! H1B may be "legal" but there's nothing ethical about it and it's costing American citizens their jobs! Check out the YouTube link below!!

Just read the new signature line (below):

that's right, they want to discourage American students to go into these fields.
It helps them prove that we need to bring in more tech workers.

Just read the new signature line (below):
_________________
"Our goal is clearly NOT to find a qualified and interested US worker"
Larry Lebowitz, VP Marketing and Immigration Attorney, Cohen & Grigsby 5-15-07

Love that new sig line--wish we could put that on billboards so citizens would understand what's happening. I know life isn't fair, but we don't need our government making it even less so.